Reddit mentions of The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

Read all of his books.

The Demon Haunted World

Cosmos

Varieties of the Scientific Experience

Pale Blue Dot

The Dragons of Eden

Billions and Billions

His novel:
Contact

Dragons of Eden, by Carl Sagan, is a FASCINATING look at the evolution of the brain over the past ~billion years. By the end of the book, my mind had been completely blown more times than I dare count.

http://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Eden-Speculations-Evolution-Intelligence/dp/0345346297

The book is probably about 25 years old by now, but Sagan's insights are so far ahead of his time that we are still far from catching up.

I'll recommend some books that I'm reading right now

Thinking, fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman

Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan

Broca's Brain by Carl Sagan

Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman by Richard Feynman

Why Nations Fail by Robinson and Acemoglu

In Afghanistan's Shadow: Baluch Nationalism and Soviet Temptations

The Terrorist Prince: The Life and Death of Murtaza Bhutto

Dragons of Eden was a real eye opener for me.

Try The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan. It doesn't touch much on your specific question but it talks about how the mind works. I'm currently reading it and highly recommend it.

Don't trust everything you read online, either. Books are still generally your best bet, because people who might not know what they're talking about can't edit them while you're reading them.

Obviously I'm not saying all books are better than all internets, but find some credible ones and you're much better off.

I'm not a scientist by training, but I can suggest a few books that will provide a pretty good counterbalance to what your mom will be teaching you. (A few of them have quasi-religious-sounding titles, too, so if she happened to find them lying around she might not get too angry.)

The Chosen Species: The Long March of Human Evolution

The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

A Brief History of Time

I can recommend more if you'd like. These ones are pretty broad surveys of the topics of (in order) evolution, more evolution, the role of science in society, and the physical nature of the universe. If you're homeschooled, I'm assuming high school-level? None of these books is technical - they're all 'popular science', intended to explain broad concepts to non-scientists. They're very, highly interesting, though, and it's easy to find recommended reading lists once you discover some specific topics that interest you. The Chosen Species itself has a lengthy and detailed bibliography and recommended reading section at the end.

I hope I've been able to help! Good luck!

i recommend THIS book. Very interesting stuff about the reptile brain.

Beautiful.

If you don't understand this...

> ...cognitively a prefrontal human brain growing over the mammal brain, over the lizard brain, over the autonomous functions.

...then I highly recommend reading Carl Sagan's The Dragons of Eden. Sagan discusses the anatomy and evolution of the human brain in some detail, and it's a very, very accessible book for anyone interested in the physical sciences.

If you don't understand this...

> ...physiologically more bacteria than human...

...I'm afraid I don't have a book recommendation right now, but I highly recommend this podcast: Astronomy 141: Life in the Universe. Specifically, unit 3 (Life on Earth) contains a great distillation of what we know about the origins of life on earth and our own relation to bacteria, the most successful form of life on earth. If you don't want to listen to the whole unit (or the whole series), lectures 18, 19, and 20 are the most relevant (if I'm recalling their content correctly).

Anybody else wanna chime in with recommended videos, reading, etc.?

No particular order:

Blind Descent by James M. Tabor. It is a great book about cave exploration and the race to discover the worlds deepest supercave.

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. Are you interested in the universe and how it all happened? This gives some pretty insightful answers.

From Eternity To Here by Sean Carrol. A really interesting view on the nature and concept of time and how it relates to the us and the universe. It can get a bit deep from time to time, but I found it fascinating.

Adventures Among Ants by Mark W. Moffet. It's about ants. Seriously. Ants.

The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard. A first hand account of the ill-fated Scott expedition to the south pole in 1911-1912. Even after reading the book I cannot imagine what those men went through.

Bonus book: The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan. Human intelligence and how it evolved. Some really interesting stuff about the brain and how it works. A very enjoyable read.

My 2nd favotite book next to God Delusion: (http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Consciousness-Breakdown-Bicameral-Mind/dp/0618057072) It explains organically why we are cursed with a cocept of god in the first place. Dawkins makes mention of Jaynes' theory, and gives a nod to my other 2nd favorite related book by Carl Sagan (http://www.amazon.com/The-Dragons-Eden-Speculations-Intelligence/dp/0345346297)

Dragons of Eden by Sagan, as well

This is the theory about sleep anyway. Lots more science to be done. But this is what I have always heard, remember first reading about the questions of sleep and neural pathways in

http://www.amazon.com/The-Dragons-Eden-Speculations-Intelligence/dp/0345346297

>'Characteristics of our evolutionary ability to survive are suppressed' - this sounds like you've read Nietzsche recently.

I find Nietzsche incredibly boring. Carl Sagan wrote a book describing what I said in the context of the evolution of the human brain.

The short version is the neo-cortex(the one biological difference between us and all other animals) evolved over a reptilian brain, which evolved over a fish brain. We have logic, but we have uncontrollable emotional impulses as well. We have a biological imperative which drives us to survive, and in spite of our "humanity," it is impossible to rid ourselves of this evolutionary trait.

>In fact - human cooperation and altruism are probably some of our traits that have let us survive to our time.

Nearly all animals cooperate on an immediately obvious scale. If you account for the food chain/cycle of life, then every single organism on the planet coorperates with every other organism. Cooperation is not at all unique to humans. In fact, it could be argued human cooperation is deeply flawed, seeing as how we are capable of duplicity and betrayal, whereas other animals on the planet do not express these traits and instead work in harmony.

The idea of altruism as a survival characteristic is absurd. Any species not acting selfishly will become extinct very quickly. The idea of altruism is itself a design of society. Look at any ethics debate on it and you'll find the end result is the question of whether true altruism even exists.

>I do believe that people would try to work together as much as possible for as long as possible.

I agree, but the scale you seem to imply is simply not sustainable without the current infrastructure, and our infrastructure would disappear within a few weeks. I believe society would disintegrate into family units which can support themselves through force and/or agriculture. Perhaps once they are well established in the new environment they will seek other survivors and begin to establish a new society within the changed environment.

>'Killing other people for your own sake becomes a necessary normality', well there's another strange assumption.

This is a perfectly rational assumption. I think this idea is brilliantly addressed in The Walking Dead graphic novels. You might kill to defend yourself. You might kill to reap someone else's home or supplies. You might be a sociopath. You might even send someone away at gunpoint, condemning them to an equal fate. You might kill someone to protect the secret of your location. Either they die, or you do, and unless you are insane or a samurai you will probably choose them.