Do you see shapes in the clouds, or a face formed by the bathtub valves and spout? Our brains just see patterns, it helps us navigate the world.
But the KINDS of patterns we detect are shaped by culture, and those perceptions help shape our history. That's the road on which Jeremy Lent takes us in his book The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning.
The author calls his approach "cognitive history," and takes in points of history like the European view of the conquest of nature... which led to Europe conquering much of the world. Jeremy Lent visits to unpack his book and his thinking.
