CHAPTER 3

Markets

Exchanges Unique to Homo sapiens

Our own evolved human sensorium provides us with all the basic inputs we have about the world around us. Our sizable aggregation of sensory channels has been slowly amalgamated from disparate evolutionary resources beginning as early as 1.5 billion years ago. This sensorial toolset has channels of considerable power (e.g., sight) over our overt sentient activity, as well as channels that operate quite far below the threshold of our consciousness,1 those serving the autonomic nervous system.

Our sensorium also creates the illusion that we enjoy a smooth, uninterrupted panorama of our world, giving us uninterrupted data about phenomena as small as individual ants in their nests, and reaching out ...

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