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Artist, technologist, and philosopher James Bridle tells us about his book, Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for A Planetary Intelligence.
Then we talk with Sy Montgomery (Soul of the Octopus) about her new book, a memoir of falconry, The Hawk’s Way.
Writers Voice— in depth conversation with writers of all genres, on the air since 2004.
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James Bridle
What does it mean to be intelligent? Is it something unique to humans or shared with other beings— beings of flesh, wood, stone, and silicon?
Artist, technologist, and philosopher James Bridle seeks the answer in his book, Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for A Planetary Intelligence. He explores the different kinds of intelligences that we have lived among since time immemorial — as well as the new intelligences we are creating through technology.
What can we learn from them, and how can we change ourselves, our technologies, our societies, and our politics to live better and more equitably with one another and the nonhuman world?
James Bridle draws on biology and physics, computation, literature, art, and philosophy to explore these questions.
Listen to an excerpt from Ways of Being
Sy Montgomery
Sy Montgomery is noted for her friendships with animals. There are the octopuses she wrote about in her bestseller The Soul of An Octopus. The pig, Christopher Hogwood. And the myriad animals she lived with during both childhood and adulthood, whom she wrote about in How To Be A Good Creature.
But her latest relationship can’t really be called a friendship—more like a vassalship to a noble being: a hawk.
Montgomery writes about learning to be a hawk’s junior hunting partner in her new book The Hawk’s Way — and what that taught her about the heart of wildness.
Next Week on Writer’s Voice
We talk with Mary Pipher about her new book, A LIFE IN LIGHT. Then Anita Barrows tells us about her novel, THE LANGUAGE OF BIRDS.