An Immense World
Ratings32
Average rating4.5
15
Ratings32
Average rating4.5
Enter a new dimension—the world as it is truly perceived by other animals—from the Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times bestselling author of I Contain Multitudes. “A stunning achievement, steeped in science but suffused with magic.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Gene The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every kind of animal, including humans, is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of our immense world. In An Immense World, author and Pulitzer Prize–winning science journalist Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth’s magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and even humans who wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile’s scaly face is as sensitive as a lover’s fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries that remain unsolved. Funny, rigorous, and suffused with the joy of discovery, An Immense World takes us on what Marcel Proust called “the only true voyage . . . not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes.”
Reviews with the most likes.
An accessible and engaging dive into the sensory world of the creatures around us. Backed up by great research and the author does a great job at using our own sensory universe as a comparison against the animals around us.
I'm finding this way less interesting than I expected so it's going back to the library half-read.
Fascinating! This book makes you realise that what we take for granted as perception of “reality” is only one version. We're such an arrogant species. We think that our view on the world is the world itself. For instance humans see the world through 3 types of photoreceptor cells. We couldn't even imagine what the world looks like to a Mantis shrimp which has between 12 and 16 types of photoreceptor cells! What I appreciated most about this book is the wakeup reminder that perception is not reality by a long shot, and combined with the insights from people like Donald Hoffman that objective truth is a very naive concept.
“Five senses,” they told me. How chauvinistic that seems now. Understandably so, but still.Remember [b:Flatland 433567 Flatland A Romance of Many Dimensions Edwin A. Abbott https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1435435775l/433567.SY75.jpg 4243538]? (I like to think everyone read that in grade school but am now wondering if it was only us math geeks?) Anyhow, Immense World brought back those feelings of wonder; of imagining what we know is out there but can never, ever fully understand. A dog navigating the world through smell. The countless ways of arranging color receptors, giving some animals a visual experience we can barely even describe. Touch. Vibration, through air (sound) and through ground. Sensing electrical fields. Magnetic fields! How little we know! And of course, [b:bats 197189543 What Is It Like to Be a Bat? Thomas Nagel https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png 40899183]. All creatures taking their senses for granted, just like we do, but we have that amazing ability to study and learn and devise instruments that help us see-hear-sense farther. And to imagine.“[...] we can try to step into their worlds. We must choose to do so, and to have that choice is a gift. It is not a blessing we have earned, but it is one we must cherish.” Yong, more than anyone else I've ever encountered or heard of, has made me recognize that gift. Has let me glimpse those worlds of sensation. He does so with compassion and humility.
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