Articles liés à The Adventures of Percival: A phylogenetic tale

The Adventures of Percival: A phylogenetic tale - Couverture souple

Senges, Pierre

 
9782914563475: The Adventures of Percival: A phylogenetic tale
Couverture souple
ISBN 10 : 2914563477 ISBN 13 : 9782914563475
Editeur : Dis Voir, 2009

Synopsis

We all know the tale of the ape sitting for all eternity at the typewriter hoping to compose, through sheer chance, a comedy by Shakespeare. This fable is used tu give the idea of the improbabilily of things, like the emergence of intelligence in primates. But there's a slight hitch:to accept that story assumes one imagines the ape as a pure immortal mechanism coupled to another machine made out of keys and an ink ribbon.That amounts to denying him any intelligence, any artistic sensitivity, or even the slightest embryonic common sense. What would happen if, instead of an imaginary chimpanzee, one invited a real chimpanzee, equipped with a real cortex and a no less authentic conscience, to sit at the tvpewriter ? That's the experiment undertaken by Samuel Mclntosh, gardener, nrathematician, Doctor in Probability and Animal Behaviour. Will Percival, formerly the typist ape end by writing Shakespeare's Works ? Will he type away blindly, or will he pervert chance by letting his genius express itself ? Will he obey his destiny as metaphorical animal or will he take a malicious pleasure in deceiving the prédictions of the ethologists ? Will Samuel Mclntosh successfully complete his experiment ? Reading these pages should help yon answer those questions. However, nothing is less certain: several versions of the same fable exist, and they don't always agree. This book draws inspiration front the works of Dominique Lestel, a philosopher-ethologist, and Alain Richert, a landscaper-botanist. It takes into account (as it pleases) the most récent speculations as far as ethology is concerned, and twists the use of ethograms (description of behaviours) in order to find other ways of telling fables. Nicolas de Crécy's drawings are there to bring a bit of scientific rigour to the fantasy, and vice-versa.

Les informations fournies dans la section « Synopsis » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Présentation de l'éditeur

We all know the tale of the ape sitting for all eternity at the typewriter hoping to compose, through sheer chance, a comedy by Shakespeare. This fable is used tu give the idea of the improbabilily of things, like the emergence of intelligence in primates. But there's a slight hitch:to accept that story assumes one imagines the ape as a pure immortal mechanism coupled to another machine made out of keys and an ink ribbon.That amounts to denying him any intelligence, any artistic sensitivity, or even the slightest embryonic common sense. What would happen if, instead of an imaginary chimpanzee, one invited a real chimpanzee, equipped with a real cortex and a no less authentic conscience, to sit at the tvpewriter ? That's the experiment undertaken by Samuel Mclntosh, gardener, nrathematician, Doctor in Probability and Animal Behaviour. Will Percival, formerly the typist ape end by writing Shakespeare's Works ? Will he type away blindly, or will he pervert chance by letting his genius express itself ? Will he obey his destiny as metaphorical animal or will he take a malicious pleasure in deceiving the prédictions of the ethologists ? Will Samuel Mclntosh successfully complete his experiment ? Reading these pages should help yon answer those questions. However, nothing is less certain: several versions of the same fable exist, and they don't always agree. This book draws inspiration front the works of Dominique Lestel, a philosopher-ethologist, and Alain Richert, a landscaper-botanist. It takes into account (as it pleases) the most récent speculations as far as ethology is concerned, and twists the use of ethograms (description of behaviours) in order to find other ways of telling fables. Nicolas de Crécy's drawings are there to bring a bit of scientific rigour to the fantasy, and vice-versa.

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Éditeur
Dis Voir
Date d'édition
2009
Langue
anglais
ISBN 10 
2914563477
ISBN 13 
9782914563475
Reliure
Broché
Illustrateur
Crécy Nicolas De
Nombre de pages
128
Coordonnées du fabricant
non disponible
Personne responsable
non disponible