How to Understand Everything

Consilience: A New Way to See the World

By: Tom Beakbane

Narrated by: Philip Battley

Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

Are you sometimes puzzled by how people behave?

Powerful new technologies enable us to see the details of how our neural systems work. We no longer need to speculate about how genes are expressed or the nature of consciousness. Now, we can understand how the brain functions from the bottom up, how we communicate, form ideas, and behave accordingly.

This book takes you on a mind-altering journey that will help you understand the interconnections between different domains of human life: health, family, business, technology, politics, and spirituality.

Consilience is a new way to understand human beings - and everything else. Join Tom Beakbane, president of Beakbane: Brand Strategies & Communications Inc., who has helped generate over $5 billion in brand value for his clients, and discover a new way to see the world.

©2021 Beakbane Publishing (P)2021 Beakbane Publishing

Great listen and very insightful

loved it, couldn't wait to continue listening every day. will re listen soon for sure

Props for taking on this challenge in a novel way

The tl;dr summary: If you’re into business, marketing, leadership; and the sciences, particularly biology (or at least not afraid of it); and you’re on the journey of “how to become” rather than “how to do”, then this book could be just what you’re looking for. It is not a self-help nor “rake it in” book; it is a reflection of Tom Beakbane’s openness, curiosity, and relentless wondering, “How could this be what it appears to be?”

I came across the book by chance, and am listening to the audio version for the third time as I write this review. Kudos also go to the narrator, Philip Battley, who, like Tom Beakbane, is British. This adds value, as Mr. Battley reads the book with the intonation, nuance, and irony which appears to be part of Mr. Beakbane’s style as a branding and marketing professional.

My enthusiasm for and interest in the author’s thesis is enhanced by my prior study of the work of neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, particularly in her book “How Emotions Are Made” (a work where the title might better be, “Why We Make Emotions”).

What caused me to ultimately choose this book is the inclusion of “consilience“ in the title. Beakbane takes some pains to define and offer scenarios of “consilience”. In fact, it is essentially the first idea in the text. Quoting the top of the Introduction: “Consilience is a paradigm that opens up liberating new ways to think about everything relating to science and the natural world, including human behavior. It is more challenging to undergo than other paradigm shifts because it concerns the human brain, which we use to understand[… well… ]everything.”

Given his premise, I offer this feedback: The book might be better titled, “How We Understand Everything and Why It Matters”.

In summary, Beakbane assists us to comprehend some of the essential distinctions between interpreting and verifying reality (looking from the top-down, as by reductionism); and exploring and understanding reality (looking from the bottom-up, as by synthesis). With this book, the author inspires me by the way he has, over many decades as an aficionado of the natural sciences (educationally), plus as an observer of people (professionally), developed a seemingly telephoto-to-fisheye-to-macro mental lens regarding biology, evolution, complexity, and sociology, and their inescapable interrelations.

Another layer of perspicacity

I read a lot of works about how we know things, make choices, persuasion, language, etc.
This is a fine addition to the quiver, another layer of reasoning. I’m greatful the author has done a considerable amount of research to offer broad considerations to the geopolitical conversation of humans on the planet, or fearful monkeys, as I like to think of them.
Particularly like the the three tribes silos, and wonder if a new tribe is now in the offing to attract the next level of evolving monkeys.
Also, enjoyed the narrator slipping in the occasional brief vocal impersonations.

Lots of very interesting topics covered

This book touches upon a wide range of topics and ideas, many of which are fascinating and thought provoking. Very good read. Would recommend for anyone that enjoys their world view being challenged - seeing the same thing but in a different light.