The Human Operating Manual

The HOM letters intertwined to form a human
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The Road to Sapiens

The Road to Sapiens Contents I. The Vertebrate March II. Becoming Primate III. Becoming Ape. Becoming Hominin IV. The Metabolic Revolution V. Fire: The First External Engine VI. Becoming Sapiens VII. Human Universals VIII. What We Do Not Know IX. The Takeaway X. Cross-Links What makes a human what it is, and the important factors […]

The Earth

The Earth Contents I. The Shield That Made the Surface Safe II. The Great Cycles III. The Web of Life IV. The River Theory V. The Role We Have in the System VI. Cross-Links Our home, and how the elements tie together into one living system.   The four pages before this one pulled the […]

The Sun

The Sun Contents I. The Furnace and the Gradient II. The Gateway: Photosynthesis III. Captured Sunlight, Flowing and Fading IV. Light as Information V. Holding it Together: Gravity VI. You Are Running on Sunlight VII. Cross-Links The accelerant of entropy for everything that lives here.   Nearly everything alive on this planet is running on […]

The Ground

The Ground Contents I. Soil Is Alive II. The Underground Trade Network III. Where Rock Becomes Life and Life Becomes Rock IV. The Ground Beneath Civilisation V. The Sacred Earth VI. Cross-Links Soil, carbon, and the slow stone engine: the living skin of the planet.   We treat the ground as the definition of dead, […]

The Ocean

The Ocean Contents I. The Sea We Came From II. The Great Reservoir III. The Water Cycle Runs Through You IV. The Largest Habitat on Earth V. The Body and the Sea VI. Cross-Links The medium that all life on the planet came from, and still depends on.   We named the planet wrong. Seen […]

The Air

The Air Contents I. The Air is Made of Life II. What the Air Is Now III. The Ocean of Air, and Its Weight IV. The Great Heat Engine V. The Air and You VI. Cross-Links Temperature, weather, air currents, and pressure, and how the atmosphere itself was made by life.   Of all the […]

LUCA & the Energy Bubbles

LUCA & the Energy Bubbles Contents I. What Life Is II. The Ingredients III. The Competing Hypotheses IV. The Alkaline Hydrothermal Vent Theory V. Replication First, or Metabolism First? VI. LUCA: The Last Universal Common Ancestor VII. The First Glimmer of Sensing VIII. What We Do Not Know IX. The Impartial Observer’s Takeaway X. Cross-Links […]

Emergence & Complexity

Emergence & Complexity Contents I. What Emergence Is II. Simple Rules, Staggering Complexity III. Self-Organisation IV. The Levels of Reality V. Weak and Strong Emergence VI. Complexity Theory and Feedback VII. Tensegrity: The Body as Emergent Structure VIII. The Free Energy Principle IX. Emergence and You X. What We Do Not Know XI. The Impartial […]

Entropy

Entropy Contents I. What Is Entropy? II. The Second Law and the Arrow of Time III. The Part Almost Everyone Gets Backwards IV. Life as a Dissipative Structure V. The Entropy Accelerator VI. The Dissipation-Driven Adaptation VII. The Micro Example: Your Metabolism VIII. Why Growth and Decay Are the Same Process IX. The Arrow of […]