Oxygen is an intriguing evolutionary journey, examining how the rise of oxygen shaped the course of life as we know it. The book - spanning geology, bOxygen is an intriguing evolutionary journey, examining how the rise of oxygen shaped the course of life as we know it. The book - spanning geology, biology, genetics, and biochemistry - provides a different perspective on how complex life may have emerged. The unique lens allows the author to explain periods of evolutionary stagnation and explosive evolutionary events like the Cambrian explosion. Oxygen is not only essential for life as we know it, but has also played a major role in shaping the course of evolution.
As this reader understood it, in Earth's largely anoxic (oxygen-poor) environment three billion years ago, the primordial soup gave rise to prokaryotic organisms, such as bacteria and archaea. When cyanobacteria evolved the ability to photosynthesize, the atmosphere reduced to an oxidizing one loaded with oxygen. The Great Oxidation Event 2.4 billion years ago wreaked havoc on anaerobic life, leading to the first mass extinction. But the abundance of oxygen also opened new possibilities, setting the stage for eukaryotic cells to evolve around 2.7 and 2.2 billion years ago through endosymbiosis. From this, through eukaryogenesis to mitochondrial evolution, one goes through many unique details (not all easily understandable) to appreciate the role played by oxygen.
In between, the author connects oxygen to aging and disease susceptibility. The author hypothesizes that mitochondria play a direct role in regulating the pace of aging due to chronic oxidative stress. Manipulating mitochondria and free radical generation remains an active area of aging research even twenty years hence, though the relationships are proving more nuanced than once assumed. The notion that impaired mitochondrial function can accelerate aging remains convincing, though anti-oxidant vitamins have not panned out as hoped.
The true gem is the final chapter. This concluding section masterfully synthesizes the various threads of the narrative, bringing together the diverse elements of the story into a cohesive whole. This chapter should have been at the start, setting the stage for the detailed exploration that follows. The book's main flaw is excessive detail, which, while informative, overwhelms anyone unfamiliar with biochemistry's intricacies. The details often take the book far away from the central themes....more
Before the review, it is important to mention that this reviewer has rarely agreed with any books more than this one on almost any topic. I have writtBefore the review, it is important to mention that this reviewer has rarely agreed with any books more than this one on almost any topic. I have written on at least a dozen topics covered in the book in various past reviews and my LinkedIn posts with almost identical conclusions on AI's impact. Now on to the long review:
Mustafa Suleyman's The Coming Wave offers a compelling narrative of the promises and perils of artificial intelligence, emphasizing the urgency of collective action to mitigate its risks before they spiral out of control. The book excels in illustrating the far-reaching impacts of AI, although these sections are short and sporadic. It falls short in its central theme of potential solutions.
As the founder of DeepMind, Suleyman provides an insider's, authoritative perspective on the recent advances. While AI optimism pervades the book, with the topic being its risks, these sections' message on transformative power is often too hurried.
That said, the book convincingly argues that we have moved beyond the rudimentary applications of AI, such as chatbots and photo editing tools, to a new era where machines can think on their own. Techniques like deep learning and transformers have enabled AI to tackle complex real-world tasks like protein folding, autonomous driving, and understanding of human languages that were far beyond their capabilities until now. The author effectively argues these are not incremental advances but a paradigm shift – AI can now learn and reason independently in ways that were unimaginable even a few years or even quarters ago. Many who feel AI has been around for years completely miss this point: various giant thresholds have been crossed, and we all need to think about AI anew to appreciate its impact from hereon truly.
The main positive effect of AI is how it has begun to turbocharge innovation across sectors globally. It can deal with the complexity of orders higher than ours and exponentially rising. In this reviewer's language, we have been tackling all the life's NP-hard problems at a particular level defined by the limitations of our 100W-powered biological neural networks, aka brains. Our solutions have been the best so far, as nothing in our toolkit could process the most elementary of our level complexity issues, let alone anything higher. This last fact is no longer true.
In other words, machines of higher capabilities will have repeated relooks at the complicated problems of all life's domains, with the promises of solutions that will revolutionize fields as far away as synthetic biology and robotics to drug discovery and new chemicals and everything in between including quantum computing, battery alternatives, superconducting candidates, etc. Whether linked to machine vision or solving micro-scale climate tech issues, supply chains, policy regulations, and finance - none of our domains will likely remain untouched. More importantly, the changes will be hyper-paced, with the risks of better technologies around the corner forever even before any new solution settles, all accentuated by these technologies building on each other, with quantum computing plus AI an obvious hyperscaling candidate.
This ability to acquire and deploy knowledge at a more complex level makes AI a universally applicable technology. Suleyman illustrates this through examples like AlphaFold cracking protein folding, then showing how the same system can learn physics or math.
On the one side, The Coming Wave refreshingly looks beyond common Silicon Valley chat/edit examples of AI's emerging impact. On the other, the book's focus is squarely on risks. The author balances every positive prognostication with a historian's lens, cautioning against blind techno-optimism. He convincingly argues against optimists who ignore logical risks through the simplistic interpretation of history based on a small number of data points, most famously those who love to site a Malthus or a Ludd.
The author's starting point is simple: AI should not be contained, given the positives, but it cannot be contained given the distance we have already covered in our world of competitive nations, corporates, and ego-driven people. Paradoxically, his eventual suggested solutions are too idealistic and rhetorical to have any chance of succeeding in a world where no two central authorities have the same moral, ethical, political, or legal framework, not just across nations but even within the same nation between rival parties.
To this reviewer, the author should have focussed on the best defensive strategies given his technological skillsets and understanding. Good, conscientious folks should continuously work on mitigating risks by building rival technologies - like anti-virus or anti-missile technologies - that perpetually monitor early signs of malfeasance. Yes, policymakers, too, must come together to do their best on global guardrails, but it is unlikely high-level global agreements can prevent much of anything the author warns about through the book.
Other societal risks, like technological unemployment, are more important, but they do not get the same treatment as risks of malintent or machine errors. Most discussions on these topics, including issues like bias, transparency, and privacy invasions, have little freshness.
In fairness, few books could offer definitive solutions to challenges this enormous and complex. If anything, this ambiguity leaves readers recognizing their own role and agency in shaping the AI future. The book succeeds most in giving readers a conceptual foundation to wrestle with the coming wave.
The book dwells heavily on historical examples to frame AI. While partly instructive for context, extended discussions about innovations like electricity feel dated and distracting compared to the remarkable technological forces described elsewhere. More perspective from the bleeding edge of research could have reinforced the book's vital message around AI's transformational potential.
The discussions on the complexity above are my own, although they mirror those of the author's. Before leaving the review, let me add some more personal views on the same topic, although this has no connections with anything in the book. The book does not recognize that we have likely built a completely different form of intelligence using the latest neural network methods, one that is likely far superior to human intelligence and constantly improving. This new intelligence may or may not beat The Turing Test. We may constantly encounter examples where humans do things better or differently, but this will not contradict our machines' new ability to deal with higher forms of complexity.
It is the machines' ability to deal with a higher level of complexity that is revolutionary and transformative. Ever since Turing, the arguments that machines would need to mimic human behavior to be considered intelligent have been fundamentally flawed and, at times, regressive. We don't need to understand a dolphin's language to know that we are more intelligent, and similarly, machines don't need to mimic us to surpass us in intelligence.
Lastly, through unsupervised learning, machines create their own languages, classifications, tags, etc., to analyze structures like genes, proteins, vision, and everything else. This allows them to approach various scientific queries in ways our languages, including coding languages, were incapable of. For example, deciphering a gene would never be possible using our language dictionaries and any human-driven categorization. The same happens in LLMs through machines' indecipherable ways of dealing with tokens and converting them into usable symbols. This is another new methodical change with far-reaching implications everywhere....more
The Self-Assembling Brain is a fascinating examination of the intersection between neurobiology and artificial intelligence. As the title suggests, thThe Self-Assembling Brain is a fascinating examination of the intersection between neurobiology and artificial intelligence. As the title suggests, the author Jonas Hielsinger posits that the brain - let's call it BNN or biological neural network for this review - is a self-assembling system with simple low-level rules resulting in incredibly complex high-level behaviors and cognition. Through dense yet lucid descriptions of cutting-edge research in neuroscience, the author makes the case that understanding how the brain wires itself may hold the key to advancing AI or artificial neural networks, henceforth called ANNs - again for this review.
The core argument underpinning the book is that neurobiology and AI are deeply intertwined fields with much to learn from each other. It emphasizes the need for collaboration between experts across disciplines to unlock the secrets of ANNs and BNNs. In some ways, the author's views are too biased toward the potential payoff of connections between the fields. The book could have benefited from more focus on the enormous divergence that has grown between these fields by now, but it still does not take away anything from the enormous value it provides, regardless.
The book truly shines while discussing the details of neuroscience. A particular highlight is the in-depth discussions of how simple local learning rules, evolved over millions of years, lead to the complex phenomena we associate with cognition and consciousness. Take language acquisition as an example – babies are not explicitly programmed with grammatical rules but rather absorb the statistical regularities in the speech patterns around them. The brain, a BNN, is wired to detect and internalize these regularities through brute repetition, unlike how we train ANNs these days.
The book illustrates this and other similar concepts through clever hypothetical dialogues between experts at the start of each chapter. In one exchange, an AI researcher presses a neuroscientist on how children acquire language without direct instruction. The neuroscientist explains how the rapid formation and pruning of neural connections allow the BNN to build statistical models reflecting the environment. While fictional, these dialogues neatly encapsulate the core themes around self-assembly and help make the later technical sections more intuitive.
An early section analyzes systems like our BNNs that are fundamentally unpredictable despite relying on simple deterministic rules. And, then, there is the reverse. Networks of neurons in lower-level areas operate largely randomly at an individual level yet produce reliable signals when aggregated. Out of disorder emerges order. The book covers the opposite phenomenons exceptionally to describe various aspects of both neural networks' complexity.
The book argues that grappling with these chaotic systems holds lessons for AI researchers seeking to build adaptable, resilient models. The brain achieves robustness despite – or perhaps because of – underlying chaos and randomness percolating through its networks.
While the author makes a strong case for collaboration between neuroscience and AI, the rapid progress of artificial intelligence over the past decade suggests the arrow of learning between the two fields has reversed in crucial ways. This reviewer feels that back when ANNs were in their infancy, AI researchers had much to gain from understanding the workings of organic BNNs. Insights into biological neural architecture and plasticity accelerated early ANN development. However, ANNs today operate unconstrained by the limitations of their organic counterparts - they do not have to be energy efficient or constructible from genetic code. They are not survival maximizers without a goal. The environments and design parameters for ANNs are now so distinct that neuroscience, for all its intricacies, likely has more to learn from AI than vice versa moving forward. While exceptions exist, the utility of modeling AI systems on detailed neurobiology has also diminished because of the incompleteness of our understanding of low-level brain function.
In summary, while conceptual inspiration clearly flowed from neuroscience to AI originally, ANNs have evolved so dramatically in recent years that they operate under very different principles and design constraints compared to BNNs. While fascinating, the complex mechanics of actual brain processes seem unlikely to offer meaningful shortcuts for today's leading AI techniques.
Such disagreements aside, here is a book where one learns in every para. The details are exhaustive but also fascinating when one begins to think how evolution has produced a gadget of such intricacy. The book not only succeeds at conveying the awe-inspiring complexity and magic of the BNNs but also throws light on how we will struggle to truly understand and master ANNs despite being their creators. ...more
Mr. Hoel is an expert on neural networks and has solid and unique views on consciousness. These views are more robust in refuting past theories, as is
Mr. Hoel is an expert on neural networks and has solid and unique views on consciousness. These views are more robust in refuting past theories, as is generally true with most experts on such subjects. In his own views, the author has surprisingly many concrete arguments in support owing to his theoretical and computational background. Unfortunately, the debut book for general audiences lacks the lucidity its topic deserves for lay readers.
The book ambitiously tackles the nature of consciousness through theories of emergence, information, and causality. The core argument that consciousness emerges from recursive information processing achieving a certain level of complexity in neural networks is interesting but not extraordinarily new. However, the author's examinations of integrated information theory, causal emergence across scales, and scientific incompleteness contain superb insights.
The main weakness is the writing itself. The writer tends to get lost in convoluted historic arguments and theoretical mathematics. The book would benefit greatly from more practical examples and analogies to supplement esoteric theories. Without this, the book often comes across as more textbook than popular science.
For example, Mr HoelMr Hoel makes a superb point early in the book, supporting the emergent nature of consciousness on the back of evolutionary science. The book analyzes it through the lens of information theory. If we accept consciousness emerged via evolution, as most scientists do, then it cannot be anything but an emergent phenomenon arising from a more complex organization of matter. Since primitive organisms early in evolution lacked the rich inner experience of modern humans, our consciousness must have emerged gradually from more complex neural information processing. This simple yet profound point uses basic evolutionary assumptions to elegantly frame consciousness as an emergent property requiring no exotic new physics, just increasing biological complexity and causal information integration.
Unfortunately, the author undercuts his own compelling point by miring it in excessive historic speculation. He tries to judge when humans reached modern "thoughtfulness" by controversially analyzing early literature's self-reflective content. But this literary navel-gazing only muddles the crisp clarity of his evolutionary insight. As the book quips, "Homer's Iliad, for example, demonstrates little introspective capabilities," unlike modern authors. Such arbitrary comparisons only distract without strengthening his scientific case for consciousness as an emergent phenomenon. This tendency towards irrelevant historic detours plagues the stronger scientific arguments in later chapters as well. For example, his fascinating analysis of causal emergence across scales is obscured by digressions into abstract mathematics that is unlikely to engage general readers. The book fails to provide almost any concrete examples on the fascinating subjects of scale and causal emergence, scientific incompleteness, computational irreducibility, etc.
The standout chapter explores how causal emergence produces new layers of complexity. For readers fascinated by emergence, this chapter provides a mesmerizing scale-jumping journey from quanta to qualia. It represents the book's most thrilling glimpse into the writer's unconventional insights on consciousness. Using math, he proves the emergence of different types of causality at a higher level compared to the interplay at the constituent levels. This is subsequently used to argue that consciousness represents another level of emergent causation arising from billions of neurons integrating into the recursive information processing of a brain. When these neural networks achieve sufficiently complex, interdependent architecture, self-awareness emerges from their dynamic information flows.
Mr Hoel's formidable intellect and visionary insights are evident throughout the book. However, truly transformational ideas require articulate expression to ignite their potential fully. "The World Behind the World" smothers too many of its insights in dreary abstraction for the average reader. Though the uneven prose hampers this book's impact, the originality of its core ideas still shines through. The author needs to be followed as his ideas and eloquence mature in tandem in the coming years....more
Picking up a Smil book is always intimidating. His books are veritable encyclopedias - dense forests teeming with data and details. A book titled "SizPicking up a Smil book is always intimidating. His books are veritable encyclopedias - dense forests teeming with data and details. A book titled "Size" scared me more. Now, one was facing more than exhaustive research and voluminous content: there was an enormous, all-encompassing topic, too. Still, I was curious to see how Smil would weave together the vast tapestry of how size matters across different disciplines.
True to his reputation, Smil unleashes a flood of facts and measurements about size and scale in the natural and man-made worlds. Smil covers size extremes across physics, biology, engineering, and more, from tiny quarks to blue whales, bacteria to skyscrapers. The breadth leaves the reader gasping at the richness of information.
Given the sprawl of information, seeing the author developing compelling themes throughout the book is heartening. He develops compelling themes and threads, tying together the gargantuan and the minuscule, the living and the inanimate, into a coherent, captivating narrative, particularly in allometric and metabolic scaling topics. One learns about fundamental models like Kleiber's Law and the Square-Cube Law to explain growth patterns and limitations across size scales from cells to cities.
The book is at its best when it goes about dismantling our preconceived notions and debunking widely accepted principles. The Golden Ratio, apparently, does not exist anywhere. Even the laws we learn from the book turn out to be barely useable approximations, roiled often by the small, like Barro Colorado Island ants that break the Square-Cube Law, as much as by the large, like larger plants who do not have higher metabolic rates per unit mass compared to smaller plants. The author loves to reinforce how in nature, the devil is in the details - and in those wonderful, never-ending exceptions that make life so fascinatingly diverse and intricate, and his books full of surprises.
Later sections teach us about the modern implications of size - technologies, cities, and the author's favorite topic, energy use. He brings his engineering perspective to analyze trends and challenges related to humanity's increasing scale.
Despite the theme focus, there is no running away from the flood of information. The academic tone of the prose is not light. In the end, "Size" lives up to Smil's reputation with an exhaustive and enlightening look at a topic of importance. Persistent readers will be rewarded with insights into the principles of biology, engineering, and more. ...more
Few books are ever as well-timed as The Heat Will Kill You First in this sweltering, record-breaking summer of 2023. As cities across the globe face iFew books are ever as well-timed as The Heat Will Kill You First in this sweltering, record-breaking summer of 2023. As cities across the globe face intense heat waves, wildfires, droughts, floods, and other extreme weather, this book provides a sobering look at the devastating impacts of climate change. If any book hopes to convert a climate-change denier, it may be this one, primarily because of its perfect timing.
Intense heat waves are one of the most obvious and less discussed outcomes of global warming. They get more attention as the driver behind impacts such as wildfires, hurricanes, and droughts. The book shows how heat is an invisible, stealthy, and also direct force that can kill in various ways, such as hyperthermia, dehydration, and carbon monoxide poisoning. Worse, it disproportionately affects the underprivileged, which is also why it gets less attention amongst the most influential.
Rather than inundating the reader with statistics on rising temperatures and anthropogenic global warming, the book takes a more intimate, human-centered approach. Through a series of essays and reported stories, the author puts readers on the ground in communities battling the consequences of extreme heat. From a hospital in Phoenix struggling to treat growing numbers of patients with heat stroke, to a village in India running out of water, to polar bears feeling lost in their changed environment or the trekkers losing lives midway because of the scorching heat, the stories excel at driving home the severity of the climate crisis in the here and now.
All that said, for those already attuned to the realities of climate change, there is little new information or arguments. Much of the on-the-ground reporting might feel like familiar territory to those who regularly read climate journalism. Furthermore, the book's impressionistic approach, while impactful in conveying personal narratives, may not provide the explanatory depth sought by those already convinced of the urgency of the climate crisis. This is by design, but limits the value for the believers. For readers looking to spread awareness and spur action among doubters, the biggest utility is in the book's gift or recommendation value!, particularly given the headlines these days!...more
Starry Messenger is an intellectual roller coaster, replete with thrilling peaks of insight and, equally also, with monotonous plains of the mundane. Starry Messenger is an intellectual roller coaster, replete with thrilling peaks of insight and, equally also, with monotonous plains of the mundane. There are many notable pit-stops at various intellectual junctions, from science to sociology, but it is also a ride that struggles to maintain a clear route.
Tyson is the maestro in this symphony of thoughts, adeptly wielding the baton of his keen intellect and crisp prose. His knack for making complex subjects palatable to the layman shines through in every chapter. These chapters are an assorted platter of opinion essays. It educates the reader about various topics, dotted with bite-sized wisdom encapsulated in Tyson's characteristic punchlines.
The essays are like meandering stargazing sessions, covering everything from race and democracy to gambling and vegetarianism. While the topic of diversity is commendable, it results in an inconsistent rhythm. Tyson sometimes veers towards the preachy, turning an otherwise enjoyable discussion into a sermon. The tone is jarring sometimes to even this reviewer, who agrees with the author on most of his writing.
In conclusion, the breezy, informative book is Tyson's trademark work, except that not on topics one associates him with. ...more
Wanting is a thought-provoking book in parts, but its most significant utility is its knack for compelling introspection. That our desires are not as Wanting is a thought-provoking book in parts, but its most significant utility is its knack for compelling introspection. That our desires are not as original as we credit them with is not a massively original message by itself. Introducing mimetic desire as a revolutionary idea feels like a rebranded take on what we've long intuited. One is still forced to think about which of one's yearnings result from others' influences, and in those self-reflections, many readers could find their joys or utility.
Mimetic desires are a social phenomenon. In its simplest form, it means we often want what others want. In cruder terms, we're prone to coveting what our neighbors prize. As parents have lectured children from time immemorial across cultures, these things lead to an insidious cycle of competition and rivalry, which can spiral into conflict, violence, and even war at the darkest depths. More common manifestations are self-destructive behaviors, addiction, and consumerism. Of course, at times, they can also be a force of good.
This reader found the section on scapegoating particularly striking - not for its originality, but for its resonant echoes of memories past, casting them in a new light. For other readers, different chapters may stir their depths; the book's breezy narrative is sure to inspire a reflective pause. ...more
Rules of Law is an ambitious project zipping through the fragmented history of law globally. It oscillates between covering too much ground in too litRules of Law is an ambitious project zipping through the fragmented history of law globally. It oscillates between covering too much ground in too little time and then, paradoxically, too little in too much. The author's exhaustive approach creates a desultory journey through minutiae or loosely related facts with little purpose other than to present the material the author collected.
Despite the division into twelve chapters covering different aspects of history, most of the book feels like a whirlwind tour, darting from one tiny aspect of a societal structure to another, spanning time and space with little to no transition. This abrupt shifting of focus can leave the reader disoriented and struggling to follow the narrative thread. While ostensibly dedicated to exploring the specific legal codes of different cultures, the chapters often deviate into discussions on a wide array of topics ranging from formal rules to guidelines, from religious edicts and proclamations to societal norms and community guidelines.
'Rule of Laws' is teeming with anecdotes and details, which, while intriguing in their own right, often feel disjointed and tangential to the broader themes. The narrative frequently jumps from one era to another within the span of a few paragraphs. And still, across chapters, the book appears repetitive, with many themes or even societies/eras revisited multiple times. There is a wealth of information in every part, but with few, that would make a reader pause.
In conclusion, the ambitious book falls short of delivering a cohesive and enlightening narrative.
Entangled Life is a must-read. For most readers like this reviewer, fungi will be a new topic, rarely discussed at length in any exciting way in populEntangled Life is a must-read. For most readers like this reviewer, fungi will be a new topic, rarely discussed at length in any exciting way in popular books. The author simply hits it out of the park, again and again, all through in the most engaging ways. Each part makes you wonder how most of us have been so ignorant about critical aspects of such a vital life form.
Fungi are not just passive organisms. They are capable of complex behaviors, including communication, decision-making, and even learning. Their methods have so much to teach us about the complexities of natural life and our networks, including the web and the neural varieties.
One starts with the journey of these 1.5m or so species with the giant mycelial networks. If the reader is not spooked enough by the nature of their growth, there is more to follow in symbiotic relationships between fungi and algae and, later, fungi and plants. In between, readers are introduced to mycoremediation, the process by which fungi can help clean polluted soil or mycorrhizal networks, where fungi exchange nutrients with plants.
The Wood Wide Web is perhaps the most shocking, with its network of mycelia linking plant roots, facilitating communication and nutrient exchange. Or maybe, this should be reserved for psilocybin mushrooms (magic mushrooms) and the impact of their usage in various cultures. These are tricky waters; the author does well discussing psychedelics with depth, understanding, and respect, setting a foundation for their therapeutic uses.
In between molds and lichens, one comes across the familiar yeasts and popular poisonous mushrooms. Some fungi play a role in industrial processes for the chemicals they produce, and others preserve our nature by helping wood decay. The author has amusing anecdotes that link the disparate topics seamlessly without burdening readers with excessive theory (this is despite frequent discussions on topics like fungi cell structure, reproduction, and metabolism).
The subject's importance is matched by the author's extraordinary ability to explain, which makes it a compulsive and not just a compulsory read....more
Imagine a philosopher from a century ago who encounters the first motion pictures. Overwhelmed and captivated by this groundbreaking technology, the p Imagine a philosopher from a century ago who encounters the first motion pictures. Overwhelmed and captivated by this groundbreaking technology, the philosopher posited that we could be only three- or four-dimensional projections created by advanced beings from higher dimensions. "Reality+" can be seen as a contemporary parallel to this hypothetical philosopher's musings, where Chalmers replaces the concept of motion pictures with the more contemporary idea of virtual reality.
The book presents many innovative concepts and thought-provoking ideas, but its conclusions ultimately appear speculative and unsubstantiated hypotheses. These theories seem to emerge from the author's conviction that the primary task is to reframe our worldview in light of the most recent technological advancements without considering the potential for future refinements or modifications.
In concepts like "virtual could be unrecognizable from real" or "physical is different from digital," the book moves around in circles on axiomatic propositions seemingly conjured out of thin air, like Pascal's wager. We will use only one example - the utterly needless distinction in the book between physical and digital because of the author's preoccupation with it-from-bit-type concepts - to illuminate the limits imposed by extrapolating a set of latest technologies.
Arguably, as long as we are in a digital, rule-based world, the author's distinction between physical and digital becomes redundant, at the very least. Let's say our world comprises basic constituents - particles or forces - that come in n distinct forms, where n could be any number from 1. Each of these building blocks B1...Bn can be represented in a Cartesian form with quantum values (q1...qn) and multiple positions in an m-dimensional space-time, defining our world's entire existence. In some ways, this is nothing but an information string in a higher dimension, the same as those of the author's digital world except of higher complexity. In other words, even a purely physical world of the author, encompassing quarks, proteins, matter, life forms, or black holes, could be an information form as is or in some machine's image.
The crucial point is that for an advanced civilization, the resources required to construct our type of world - physically, as the author prefers to differentiate using building blocks - may not be resource-intensive at all. For the creationist theories that the book wishes to speculate on, most of its simulation-focused sections may prove to be unnecessary.
The author's creationist ideas rely on the same arguments made since time immemorial but in different garbs. Something from nothing is difficult for any one of us to accept. Creationist theories appear far more sound in our world of exquisitely finely tuned parameters as they provide a more straightforward point to stop questioning. The only thing we are asked to do in such cases is not to concern ourselves too much with these creators' identities, logic, or intentions and go on our merry ways!
By evoking the possibility of us being a simulation on an advanced society's computer, the book wonders if we could be a creation of a higher life or non-life form. The speculation is used to explain concepts as broad as the imperfections of our "gods" to free will, all non-provable and as whimsical as any wonderland of an Alice in any realm.
The author is the first to acknowledge that most of his theories are unverifiable if we live in a perfect simulation. He tries to make a virtue of the unverifiability by hypothesizing on the post-human reality of upcoming centuries. The discussions are often fascinating but still never far from fanciful....more
In "The Age of the Strongman," Rachman attempts to shed light on the rise of strongman leaders in the modern world. It spends excessive effort describIn "The Age of the Strongman," Rachman attempts to shed light on the rise of strongman leaders in the modern world. It spends excessive effort describing leaders while failing to analyse the phenomenon sufficiently. Most of the book consists of brief histories and actions of various contemporary strongman leaders, offering little new information or insights.
The book would have benefited from a more in-depth exploration of the causes and effects of this rise in strongman politics as against readily-available and well-known descriptions of these leaders. The sections on leaders read like short encyclopedia entries with little depth or nuance.
The book makes some, but inadequate, mention that strongman leaders are a function of the tide against liberalism. They often appeal to majoritarianism and nationalism while implicitly or explicitly suppressing the rights of disliked minorities. To exploit majoritarian sentiment, they suppress the rights of marginalized minorities, which could be migrant workers, outsiders, or other nationals based on ethnicity, religion, race, or sexual orientation. They perforce reject equalitarian or humanitarian principles and exhibit intolerance toward those who preach tolerance. This reasoning cycle - not discussed in the book - warranted more focus, as it is a crucial aspect of understanding the phenomenon of strongman politics.
Another important factor the book overlooks is the role of direct communication between leaders and their base. In the age of social media and instant connectivity, strongmen bypass traditional media and speak directly to their supporters. The method necessitates more authoritative communication for effect and without the need for compromise or debate with intermediaries like traditional media. Analyzing how this shift in communication has contributed to the rise of strongman leaders would have added depth to the book.
Rachman fails to adequately address the differences between today's strongman leaders and the authoritarians who wreaked havoc in the middle of the last century. Modern strongmen have less military control and fewer freedoms to suppress dissent than their predecessors (this is not true in every individual case, but evident on average).
There are other undiscussed implications of the rise of strongman politics. Positively, these leaders are decisive. They cut through the bureaucratic jangles and rarely tolerate petty fights among their minions coming in the way of decision-making. Of course, their decisions are often wrong, but these days they are rarely wishy-washy.
Negatively, the rise of strongmen is likely to increase tensions and conflicts, both within nations and on the international stage. The book would have been more insightful had it delved into these broader consequences.
Overall, the strongmen prove that there is no end of history in sight. And that's bad!...more
Future generations must have a full understanding of how wars-that-nobody-wanted happen. Max Hastings' Vietnam covers all the relevant bases of the trFuture generations must have a full understanding of how wars-that-nobody-wanted happen. Max Hastings' Vietnam covers all the relevant bases of the tragedy perfectly, with empathy, without bias, focusing equally on the broad trends and battles on the ground, with adequate preambles and postambles to describe causes and effects - a perfect book for those interested in the history of the era.
The war that left indelible scars on hundreds of millions of present and future Vietnamese needed a moving, rather than a merely informative, account. One fears a more Western viewpoint picking up a book on the subject for the trauma it caused in American society and its impact on US politics for a decade, let alone its consequences on the Cold War. The book is most aware of the disproportionate sufferings. It is never too far away from more criticisms on how the locals, apart from exceptionally young, barely-adult soldiers, kept on suffering because of high politics elsewhere. The book excels in stories of soldiers, civilians, and families on all sides, keeping the human face of the conflict at the center of all its descriptions.
The book is well-researched and carefully crafted to cover political, social, and military aspects of events spanning three decades. One of the book's greatest strengths is its ability to recount history as it happened and stay in the present rather than be affected by the knowledge of events that come later. As a result, one learns that everything was already a mess in real-time and not just through the lenses of colossal, cumulative losses that are only known after everything is over.
Equally importantly, the book stays focussed on the subject. It does not have any space for other momentous events that were happening globally during these decades. The French colonization and departure, Viet Minh insurgences, Ho Chi Minh's rise, North Korean communist government evolutions, Chinese involvements, and Cambodia/other Indo China fallouts are discussed to the extent to provide a deeper understanding of the subject matter, just like the political ups and downs in the US.
Hastings is not afraid to critique the actions of both the US and the North Vietnamese forces, providing a nuanced and multifaceted perspective on the war. The book provides adequate descriptions of the wars' brutality to make one aware of the savagery.
There are many personalities and events in a war spanning a decade. The book is a cohesive narrative that brings the war to life rather than a collection of segments. The book covers the momentous events in detail, including the assassination of South Vietnamese Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem, the Tet Offensive, and the fall of Saigon. Descriptions of these events are vivid and powerful, enabling their separation in significance from other continuous battles. On-the-ground military encounters had their own notable events, including the battle of Khe Sanh, the My Lai massacre, and the Easter Offensive. The book provides great descriptions of soldiers' actions and sufferings that somehow keep them always individualistic, specific, and different, even if they were more the same at the broad level.
The war resulted from US politicians' political agendas and its cold war struggles rather than anything to do with the welfare of the Vietnamese people. The South Vietnamese government was more liberal than the North's, but it was also far less capable, committed to any causes, and organized. The profligate wastefulness of the war is most reflected in the fact that it continued for almost seven years despite the US deciding the first pull-outs as early as 1968.
In conclusion, this is an exceptionally well-written account of the Vietnam War. ...more
Subliminal attempts to shed light on the workings of the human mind, especially the part our conscious mind is unaware of. That our brain has hidden pSubliminal attempts to shed light on the workings of the human mind, especially the part our conscious mind is unaware of. That our brain has hidden processes, methods, biases, decisions, etc., governing our behavior is well known for decades. The book's efforts to introduce them as something new will appeal only to those new to the subject.
As discussed best by Kahneman best, the human mind has a part that acts quickly without apparent awareness or step-by-step deliberation involvement and another part that reaches conclusions slowly after a lot of contemplation and analysis. The second part, however, is also influenced by abstruse environmental and internal factors that the author makes a part of his "subliminal" genre. Unfortunately, the idea is old and has been explored well in numerous bestselling behavioral science books.
The author presents several examples to illustrate his points. Some hidden influencers are in how our receptors/perceivers take in information, a few lurk in the imperfections of our memories and remembrances, and many are in our inscrutable processors. Ultimately, our actions as individuals and groups are frequently baffling and difficult to replicate even by our own selves in a different context. We give our idiosyncrasies terms like biases and blind spots in common languages. At the same time, behavioral fields have a more defined and refined long list to categorize them better for analytical purposes. The book is somewhere in between, more interested in unearthing non-rational behavior in broad strokes, which, as said before, will have utility for neophytes only.
As the book says, the field of neuroscience is a more exact science for understanding all this. Neuroscientists are making rapid progress in discovering the drivers of our quirks in the way our brains are wired and their intricate entanglements. However, the book's limited terminology related to a handful of parts of the brain does not do justice to the complexity of the human brain. The book simplifies neuroscience and presents it in a way that is easy to understand, but it does not add anything new.
One of the book's most significant shortcomings is its failure to discuss what laypeople can do to change our mind's strange ways. This is a missed opportunity, as practical advice here could have been beneficial....more
Tracers in the dark is a fascinating and thrilling work of non-fiction that offers a detailed analysis of some of the most notorious cyber crimes righTracers in the dark is a fascinating and thrilling work of non-fiction that offers a detailed analysis of some of the most notorious cyber crimes right from its inception. From the Bridges/Force case and Mt. Gox to Silk Road, Alpha Bay, Hansa, Welcome to Video, BTC-e, and recent ransomware attacks, each story is told in a captivating and informative way. The author's ability to weave together a coherent narrative that provides a behind-the-scenes look at the intricate operations of these criminal networks and the methods law enforcement agencies use to track them down is truly remarkable.
What sets this book apart is the author's clear and concise writing style, which makes even the most technical aspects of cybercrime accessible to readers. The book provides a rare glimpse into how investigators broke a supposedly unbreakable blockchain, a testament to the author's knowledge and expertise. Additionally, the book effectively debunks the myth that cryptocurrencies provide privacy. Instead, it shows how law enforcement agencies can use blockchain to trace and track cryptocurrency transactions, thereby identifying criminals and bringing them to justice.
Tracers in the dark is a must-read for anyone interested in cybercrime, law enforcement, or technology. It is a captivating and informative work of non-fiction that is sure to keep readers on the edge of their seats. With its detailed analysis of each case, clear and concise writing style, and insightful commentary on the world of cybercrime, this book would make an excellent source for a multi-season TV series....more
It is not often that this reviewer picks up a collection of essays. The exception for David Sedaris's "When You Are Engulfed in Flames" proved more thIt is not often that this reviewer picks up a collection of essays. The exception for David Sedaris's "When You Are Engulfed in Flames" proved more than worthwhile.
Its entertaining and engaging collection of essays had frequent laughing-out-loud moments. The essayist's wry humor and sharp observations about everyday life mix with his incisive writing skills, resulting in unexpected statements that make you pause. This is due, in part, to the ability to find the absurd in the mundane.
The satirist is not afraid to bare inner fears and vulnerabilities. He feasts on them while sharing highly personal stories. The level of honesty makes the exposition of many age-old themes, like love or addiction, fresh and charming.
It also helps that the author has traveled extensively, lived in so many varied societies, and has been able to sprinkle stories from so many parts of the world. Still, he cannot avoid some of the essays turning repetitive or their topics appearing stale—a minor flaw in an otherwise highly engaging collection. ...more
Economic historians talk a lot about bubbles and busts, more so about the greatest of them all, the great depression. As they describe events, they poEconomic historians talk a lot about bubbles and busts, more so about the greatest of them all, the great depression. As they describe events, they ponder the causes and effects using various economic, social, behavioral, political, and other theories with cursory references to the personalities.
This book approaches the historic bust from the opposite angle: despite momentous events that preceded the collapse in the previous decades, the author lays the blame squarely on the misguided actions of four gents heading the central banks of the US, UK, France, and Germany.
The approach provides a unique perspective. The policy missteps were not a result of beliefs in wrong economic theories. The author proves that these gents were wrong because of a combination of instinctive steps without thinking about consequences, too much power that others could not check, stubbornness, inexperience, rudimentary institutional structures of the early days, etc.
The claims are somewhat extreme, as are others that deify Keynes or indirectly glorify the current economic management. A lot of sections are full of irrelevant details. At the same time, the author misses out on discussing whether all other crises before or after were also because of incompetent men (it has been chiefly men so far in economic spheres ahead of significant boom-bust episodes) or if 1929 was unique.
Taking a narrow view to make a broad point, one can always debate whether the crash was more intense because the gold standard framework was a wrong monetary framework or whether it was because of the decision-makers who believed in it for whatever human reasons. It is equivalent to asking whether the collapse of the Soviet Union was because of the leaders who ruined the union in the preceding decades or because of the tenets of communism. It is always a combination of both, of course, but few would lay such little importance on beliefs compared to their personalities. ...more
An easy way to write a bestseller in recent years is to attack algorithms that drive our lives through the largest tech companies' apps, products, andAn easy way to write a bestseller in recent years is to attack algorithms that drive our lives through the largest tech companies' apps, products, and associated ads. It did not matter if all the suggestions of such books were utterly impractical as long as they succeeded in arousing the hackles by invoking the loss of privacy and choice.
Josh Simons' book is exactly the opposite and hence is unlikely to be a bestseller! The author approaches the topic pedantically with the writing style also of a career academician. The analysis is scholarly, nuanced, and result driven. The technical details, discussions of obscure philosophical points, and a tendency towards accepting the powers of some new-age forces cause the book challenging to accept for anyone looking for quick fixes or points for dinner party conversations. If one throws in some of the conclusions that argue against needless political and other interventions, the practicality and sagacity make it perfectly serious but so unsalacious that it is not a surprise this review is the first on the book's page weeks after its publication.
The following are reviewers' notes based on some of the lessons from the book and others completely independent. Technology continues to increase its influence on how we live. As much as it works in most cases, no amount of customization will make it work perfectly for all in all cases. Many commentators love imposing arbitrary limits on the workings of technology based on these negative outcomes regardless of the substantial cumulative benefits.
The critics' most strident issues are with the biases; the author mostly keeps the discussions to those more relevant in the US, but the arguments are universally applicable in different forms. Models trained on past patterns, the argument goes, are unlikely to help us move away from the plagues of race, religion, gender, wealth, and countless similar bigotries of our past.
The calls to eliminate the biases invariably turn to suggestions that the book shows will do more harm than good. Any forced removal of certain information from the models is unlikely to change the conclusions in a world where machine learning algorithms no longer work on human-created parameters or classifications. The results from algorithms may not be any different (or even worse) if the methods used are so simplistic.
The solutions are partly in assertive, outside-the-model actions that improve the prospects of the disadvantaged. The solutions are partly in the continuous monitoring of the end results by all concerned in critical life areas to permit suitable feedback loops. The solutions are in competition, and more use of technologies for higher granularity, fewer regulations on processes, judicious use of fines, simultaneous human monitoring, etc.
This is a serious book for those interested in the topic. The conclusions are not all I summarise here. They are granular and arrived at with many weighty arguments of all kinds. ...more
As a course, The Big Questions of Philosophy is well-designed, effectively presented, and immensely thought-provoking. For some, this is another kind As a course, The Big Questions of Philosophy is well-designed, effectively presented, and immensely thought-provoking. For some, this is another kind of introduction to the major areas of philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy. However, it is more than a course because the big questions are spot on. Their sequencing makes sense as they do not appear like excuses to introduce any set of philosophers or their theories in any particular order. More importantly, the attempts to answer are genuine, with every chapter razor focussed on the issues at hand without any needless digressions. It is almost like whatever philosophical theories one learns are just a side-effect.
While the Professor does not equivocate, he is far more persuasive while denying or destroying proposed answers than in providing assertive, constructive resolutions to any topic. His unequivocal refutations of many cherished beliefs mean the course will have a pleasant and palatable appeal to those who already share the author’s perspective. There is likely to be a self-selection in those who pick the course; it is an echo chamber of sorts.
The biggest question for this reviewer, because of the book and not addressed in it, is why it is so easy in Philosophy to refute than to construct. This question is not as superfluous as it sounds. In a way, it is the mother of all questions that provide a context to why most philosophical arguments cannot but lead nowhere once done with criticizing others.
Conventional languages are grossly inadequate in the attempts to tackle myriads of real-life issues they try to address. History of how these languages evolved, on the one hand, and the ever-rising complexities of life as humanity progresses, on the other, make the inadequacies exponentially more flagrant over time. Philosophers' habitual efforts to arrive at one-size-fits-all generalized proclamations work until the next one sits down to rip them apart.
Imagine if the world had stuck with only Pythagorean-era Math and Newton or Bohr were needed to compose their theories in them. Conventional languages have not evolved at all compared to real life. This was when they were inadequate to address the life that was right from the start.
Philosophers' artificial constraints – imposed to arrive at universal or generalizable conclusions – make their quests doomed before they begin. Let's use another example: we know that languages do not have sufficient words to describe billions of viruses and bacteria that exist out there. Simply asserting that some virus or a bacterium causes Covid is no more helpful than ascribing it to a demon. Suppose the statement “virus causes Covid” must have a strict truth value of 0 or 1. In that case, you could almost expect a horde of intellectuals going back and forth for centuries arguing how most "viruses" do not cause this or how this statement might conflict with another one that says a virus is a cause of something non- Covid or it is not just a particular type of virus that is a cause always but only within a context.
Let's use this ridiculous example to see how similar philosophical wrangles on finding universal moral or even legal principles from conventional language are. A principal “Lying is bad” by one philosopher would evoke nothing but above virus-like, must-have wide range of exceptions to highlight the inadequacy of the dictum. This is even before the smarter ones begin debating the definition of a “Lie” or what is “Bad” in the same vein as trying to arrive at the meaning of what is meant by “conscience,” “soul,” “free will,” or “God.”
Machine Learning tools are the latest scientific/technological set proving how we cannot achieve much in a structured quest using words or categories invented by ancestors eons ago. The best philosophers spent ages trying to fine-tune the meanings of the words to make them usable, only to be summarily dismissed by the next generations.
As the professor concludes, this does not make philosophical quests, courses, or arguments unnecessary. We are wired such that many of us will want to seek the answers to the kind of big questions posed in the book, fully knowing the futility. Still, somebody should attempt a course on what could happen to a being who refuses to think about existential issues and universal principles while focusing on broad guidelines and creating room for addressing specific situations as they arise rather than looking for perpetual hypothetical answers.
Elusive comes in two parts: it is a book about a man, and it is also a book about his discovery. It works more as a book on Higgs boson than on Peter Elusive comes in two parts: it is a book about a man, and it is also a book about his discovery. It works more as a book on Higgs boson than on Peter Higgs.
The book's primary objective is to look into the famous scientist's life. The author repeatedly highlights Higgs' shy and unassuming personality and how he goes to great lengths to deflect attention from himself. It is almost like the most interesting stories in the life of the celebrated scientist are all about how he makes himself uninteresting! Clearly, he does not make a good subject for a biography.
His discovery is a different matter. A part of the tale of his boson is about the particles' validation journey from around the mid-1990s until recently. A handful of books have come out on the LHC in the last few years. This book does not have much new to add to this part of the boson's rise to preeminence.
The author shines in his explanations of the discovery itself. Particle physics is a challenging topic for a popular science book, and the Higgs boson, with its intricate conceptualization, is worse. However, the author does an exceptional job of tackling the subject head-on, providing a detailed and comprehensive explanation of the relevant concepts without wasting space on more basic discussions on forces and fields commonly found in other popular books.
The author uses clear language and interesting analogies to make the topics more accessible. For example, when the author discusses why certain bosons are massless while others have mass, he explains utilizing the effect of plasma in the ionosphere. A plasma structure causes the reflection of waves below a certain frequency, causing an illusion of mass. Another good analogy is that of flat galaxy structures (and not spherical): this is an understandable example of how unstable symmetries break to create stable asymmetries. Once explained so clearly, it becomes easier for an average reader to understand the breaking of the electroweak force.
With additional arguments adopted from gauge theory (equations that remain invariant under certain transformations), the arguments move to non-zero vacuum expectation value and with associated Goldstone bosons that have mass.
Higgs' Boson story is incomplete. One knows extremely little about the underlying field and its mechanism. Those interested in the subject are assured of enhancing their understanding of what is achieved and what is pending....more
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