extraodinary range, intellectual but in laymans terms - wonderful
936721
I have really enjoyed Stephen Jay Gould. His range of essays and the scope of topics he discusses has always interested me, as has in ability to draw from what is clearly a profoundly wide range of material which covers literature, history, religion as well as natural history. This is I think the thing that most interests me and it is something which we don't often find in intellectual writing now, that ability to draw parallels, or discuss in depth issues outside of a certain subject matter. It reminds me a bit of the late Alistair Cook and his letters from America and these essays are mostly of about the same length.

This collection is 35 essays and collected into 10 loose sections. These include some interesting groupings which you would normally not expect from a natural scientist including Intellectual biography. His biography of Antoine Lavoisier is a case in point. Lavoissier, a renowned scientist of his time, was condemned to death at the guillotine during the French Revolution, and indeed was beheaded. Gould's biography manages to touch on the aspects of his life and death including the myths which remain on his last words and days, the attempted scientific restructuring of France by the revolutionaries (including new measurements and renaming of the months etc) and the revolution's final downfall, it turned out the revolution did need scientists after all.

There are essays on "kiwi eggs and the liberty Bell" or one of my favourites on Glow worms which uses the life of this insect to discuss our understanding of life processes of all insects - is the adult form the ultimate, or, like glowworms which are pupa, should we be reconsidering our adult-centric view of the natural world?

I really enjoy Gould's style, it is easy flowing prose and fairly straightforward to understand. There are a few concepts which I have to re-read to get the actual meaning as some of these issues are complex - the issue of probability in evolution vs creation for instance is complex and takes a bit of consideration from a non-mathematician.

I would certainly recommend this book for those who hold a creationist or intelligent design belief. This provides some fascinating points of discussion which may provide some counterpoint to the Intelligent Design assertions. Gould's letter to President Jimmy Carter and Carter's own respect for Gould would be of interest if nothing else.

This is not an easy thing to sit down and read at once, but it is wonderful to browse in and out of and skip back and forth through.
3777310
Like Dr Johnson's dictionary, David Salo's book is a magnificent but curious and occasionally idiosyncratic achievement. It has the delicious feel of a slightly old-fashioned grammar, and it is most beautifully bound and presented.

Salo takes an interesting approach: he decides in the main body of the text to enter into the fictional world completely, so explanations for puzzling phenomena or inconsistencies in the texts and etymologies must be given in terms bounded by Tolkien's fictional forms. So for example the superseded 'Noldorin' which Tolkien renamed 'Sindarin' after certain regular sound changes is explained as a Noldor-influence *dialect* perhaps spoken in Gondolin. He reaches into Tolkien's world to find a suitable explanation for what was just an authorial change of mind. Well - er, maybe! Another equally interesting approach would have been to have looked at the development of the language in real-world terms, from the point of view of Tolkien's linguistic aesthetics. *Why* is 'aew' more lovely that 'oew'?!

Much of the book is very good simply by virtue of collecting a lot of information in one place in an elegant format. The sections on names and compounds are especially good, as it the dictionary - a great boon to anyone trying to compose texts in a language which is missing a significant number of ordinary words.

Salo's reconstructions are (usually) marked as such, but in the effort to present an overall description of the language, he (in my opinion) does not flag up where alternative explanations are available quite enough.  The verb section and the bit on pronouns are probably in the long run going to prove the least reliable, through little fault of Salo's, except perhaps too great a desire for coherence.

I would, slightly guiltily, like to have seen a detailed explanation of his reasoning for the Sindarin dialogues he composed for the film trilogy: this is, as he fully admits, reconstructed Sindarin, but it was a lovely idea and had most beautiful effect. Perhaps the admirable conservatism he shows in 'A Gateway' prevented that. (For example he remains largely silent on the topic of 2nd person verb endings, which he reconstucted as *-ch in the films. This suggestion is modestly tucked away in brackets in 'A Gateway' and two alternatives, *-dh and *-l are also presented.)  People seem to get very precious about Tolkien's languages, and there have been some quite aggressive reviews of this book on the net which, frankly, smack of jealousy. No doubt in the future more of Tolkien's writings will be published and parts of the book will be superseded, but for now: what a beautiful, fascinating read. A true tribute to a man who wrote that for him languages had a distinct 'taste'. This is very much to mine.
4107050
Excellent, readable, highly informative, appropriate for a layman.
1598317
I'm all too ready to be open-minded regarding matters of conciousness - it is absolutely fascinating. In fact, I found many (not all) of the authors' insights regarding our human propensity to proclaim we know more scientifically about the universe than may be humanly possible. However, in the last 3-4 chapters of the book, I had a strange case of deja vu. Many of the central themes (minus the death defying, immortality claim) were outlined more than 45-60 years ago by eastern/western philosopher Alan W. Watts (who died in 1973). There is a treasure trove of Watt's lectures available free on youtube. Go see for yourself. E.g., Watts often spoke of the human nature to be "prickly" (analytical, fact-oriented, hardcore material rationalists) or "goo" types (flexible, open-minded, out-of-the-box albeit skeptical thinkers). In the biocentrism theory work-up, the authors use the terms "rough" and "smooth" for these same personality types (lol). There are numerous, uncanny similarities like this example among the themes explored by both parties. I have no problem with authors invoking the ideas of earlier thinkers (Aristotle anybody) as long as credit is given where credit is due. It's amazing how many contemporarty philosophers pilfer Watt's ideas without mentioning his name. It was also strange that the authors chastise the scientific community (particularly physicists) for making grandiose, unsupported truth claims while themselves making a similarly unfounded, grandiose, truth claim (biocentrism - idea that the act of concious observation creates our subjective reality - whereas in the absense of concious observation, reality as we understand it does not exist). This is probably the most significant departure between Watts and the authors.  Watts, I believe, envisioned a natural reality beyond concious observation. However, like the present authors, Watts viewed all material things rather as transient forms which are forever changing and interacting transactionally with everything else. That is to say, it is the universal transformation of material and energy operating at a grand scale of informational evolution. Consequently, Universe is all and all is Universe - one in the same.
I did feel the book was well-written. Certainly some of the better expository writing I have seen in a while. The book is a good read and I would recommend it for the "goo" or "smooth" types while perhaps a little out there for the "prickles" (aka "rough") types.
4673993
I knew almost nothing about PKD last year, unusual since I have been reading and writing for fifty years, but science fiction I had avoided. Then I encountered Valis and other books and read them with great interest, some reservation because I was a stuffy English major in college. Mr. Dick was not on our reading lists in college. But I became intrigued by Mr. Dick, and ventured to purchase Exegesis--first reading excerpts on his websight. At first it seemed overwhelming, if not over the top, the product of a deranged mind. However, that cliche, genius, soon became apparent. Slowly--the only way, I think--I read the massive book, so brilliantly (and respectfully) put together by a team of devoted writers and editors.
  After reading many of the great books of history, from the East and West, I have come to the conclusion that Philip K.Dick's Exegesis is not only unique but it is one of the best--in the field of philosophy and theology. I stand by that astounding estimate with great confidence. The book's wisdom, searching questions, and convoluted thinking--based not on nonsense or "clever ideas" but Reality--is profoundly impressive. Mr. Dick thought and studied for many years, delved deeply into the Greeks, mysticism, early Christianity, German philosophy, Hindu thinking and much much more. The depth and brilliance of his thinking, also the compassion, is astouding--and very alive, not like some of the PHD philosophers. The book is not disciplined, it is not neat and tidy: it is rambling and challenging--but deeply rewarding. PKD, in my mind, was not loopy or deranged: he had tapped into essential truths about reality, himself and life. And, incredibly enough,he touched the source which Plotinus called the One, and this experience fueled the sincerity and depth of the great Exegesis. In his own inimitable way he explored  the same truth of all the great thinkers and wise men: from Heraclitus to Lao Tzu, to St. Paul and Christ, to Boehme and Blake in the late Middle Ages, to the modern era with such stellar minds as Simone Weil and Franklin Merril. Strange, but really not so strange, that America, and California, would produce one of the lights of deep philosophy, and that this person would have a relatively humble background as a writer of pulp science fiction-- in his early days. One caveat: as said by others, read Valis, Ubik and others first. Exegesis is a product of Mr. Dick's whole life and career, the magnificent culmination of a remarkable career.

A brief addition: since writing this review I have gone back to Exegesis many times and have still not finished it. It does take time. But there are some real holes in the book that I now see better: Dick repeats himself extensively, he gets into ruts, and veers into pages of what I think is nonsense. He is extremely clever,he is a philosopher right on the edge of the abyss, and he had some powerful revelation, an enlightenment experience, but lacked an inner discipline, not something rigid or formal, but a sense of Self with a capital S. Other luminous genius' of great distinction like William Blake and Boehme still had their feet on the ground. I cannot quite explain my reservations, but they remain. The book is still, I said it before, unique in the annals of Western civilization and that is a remarkable accomplishment.
3200224
Firstly I believe in recieving thoughts, suggestions and arguments from all quadrants and compulsions, for this encourages me to think beyond my comfort zone, prejudices or dogma and remain democratic and curious. On that principle, the author is welcome and intellectually refreshing.

I found the suggestions and argument from Thomas Picketty provocatively compelling and no-less robust in it's presentation of data, analysis and most importantly, the inferences. Over the period, I have come to believe that, acute and unaccomodating allegiance to any belief could eventually lead one to a corner of paranoia and sap one's ability to receive alternatives without fear of rejection.

Most of the isms, theories, philosophies, paths or guidance, most likely emanate from good will and intentions. However, taken to extreme without plural accommodation, any good could could eventually land in unilateral self-righteous zone, I believe, Capitalism in it's puritan form is no exception.

To ascertain that the market place is the ultimate arbiter and guarantor of most-optimal outcome, is NOT proven or given, based on my on-the-ground experience of life. All my life I have witnessed mixed anomalies out of bestowed or preserved advantages, alignment of self-interest in the asynchronous world and the lazy gated-thinking of privileged few. Volumes can be written on the consequences of self-preservation drives and the abhorrent methods and means employed by the cabalistic.

Human being is naturally NOT wired to be a just, fair or a caring being beyond self, interested and connected. More the distance between self and the next, more the opportunity to be disconnected and / or irrelevance. If it were not, one would find it hard to live in a billion dollar bliss, next to a suffering shanty-town of hopelessness. Ask me, I come from a developing sea of humans, where the Genie coefficient is forever climbing, despite the preferred slogans and desirous beliefs.

I also read the critic of this book, the eminent author I respect, George Reisman with equal interest. I must say, the critic reads very jaded, stereo-typical and almost like paid work or obsessive belief devoid of intellectual curiosity. To argue that, those who did not make it are the ones who are likely to be jealous (referred to as professional intellectuals by Mr. Reisman) and are the source of argument against the "Blissful and Blessed Capitalism" is unfair, unintuitive and perhaps sheer observation laziness.

I am for meritocracy, do find the Democracy and Capitalism to be amongst the least destructive isms amongst many, however, they do come with flaws due to the participants and operation, which need periodic introspection, course-correction and most importantly, inclusive debate on improvement potential, just like anything in life.

For me. Capital in the Twenty-First Century is a rewarding study....
1077484
While I apparently don't have depth of some of the other reviewers, I got a tremendous amount out of this book. While hardly an easy read, Nozick is thoughtful and accessible, something that is all too rare in contemporary philosophy. To those who say this is pablum, and a disapointment, I would  say go back to your ivory tower. The rest of us who live in the real world  appreciate having a conversation with someone who 'gets it' where so many  contemporary philosophers fail either to expound a theory that is coherent,  or end up with something like the Men are From Mars, et al garbage that can  best be filed next to the National Enquirer.  This is an excellent book and  highly recommended if you want to have a catalyst for thinking about what  matters to you.
526347
Mr Emmons clearly loves his subject, and sharing it.  The book is high science, yet accessible and enjoyable , even to this recently retired layman.  I think its readership should extend beyond the classroom, to those who simply want  to better understand and appreciate their surroundings.

One of the two 1 star ratings is inappropriate (book not yet received), and the book does need an update.  I'll recommend this one in the meantime.
2734829
I found this book remarkably readable - whether from impressive writing skills of the author or the skill of a brilliant editor, it flowed beautifully, coherent and well organized. The content itself provides an interesting, high-level overview of the topic, comprising many philosophical questions, concepts, and speculation.  There's not much hard science here, a few tidbits (though there are plenty of references cataloged for follow-up). If you're interested in philosophical/moral questions and speculation about rather unbounded future possibilities you may well enjoy this. It's not really a summary of current and near-future technology or development trends. Chace's "Surviving AI" is a good alternative or complementary summary, and the 1200-page textbook "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd. ed.)" also has extensive introductory, overview and summary material - it's brilliantly written, very readable, and very firmly grounded.
3403607
Autistic, savant, synesthesia, gay, self-written.  Wow, what a unique mix.
I'm a bit of a nerd (although after calculus, I was lost).  I enjoy memoirs that offer a glimpse into a different world - without being too self-absorbed (this leaves most of Hollywood out!).  This was a delightful read.
The first-person approach helped a lot - it made much of the technical information much more approachable.  I especially enjoyed the description of how Daniel associates shapes, colors, patterns, movement with numbers.

I think many of us do this in ways we aren't aware of.  There's one Bach ditty that always makes me feel like I'm running down an open, grassy hill.  I think dimes are comforting - they're compact, simple - and a gallon jug of them is probably worth more than another gallon of quarters.  What's UP with this?  BOABD provides a glimpse of how these crazy associations........... well, they're not so crazy.  It's the brain at work.

He has had a remarkable life - and is just getting started! He's been very gracious in working with researchers who seek to learn more about the human brain by studying his!  He tells us what it's like in an easy conversation - you don't have to have a PhD in brain research to understand it.
2207407
This is an excellent, very readable collection of conversations with leading "constructivist" thinkers. A plus of this book is that it goes beyond the usual suspects such as Varela, Maturana and Von Foerster and introduces less familiar scholars and practitioners - such as Siegried Schmidt and Helm Stierlin - to English-reading audiences.

The intellectual horizon covered by this book is actually wider than constructivism, adding an interesting blend of systems thinking (with a waft of complexity science), philosophical pragmatism and phenomenology to the mix.

The philosophical thrust of most of these conversations is epistemological and ethical (i.e. the focus is on answering the questions "what is true?" and "what is good?"). However, the constructivist-pragmatist ethos that is represented in various hues by these thinkers shies away from any ontology, any reliance on an objective, external reality. The resulting worldview is very dynamic, acknowledging a mutual dependence between world and observer. Self and world are then conceptualised as emergent properties, recursively created through incessant interactions embedded in language. There is no Truth, but only many truths that perish and make way for other truths along this co-evolutionary path.

The acknowledgment of mutual dependence leads naturally to an ethos of communality and unescapable responsibility for each and every of one's actions. This modesty is very characteristic for (almost all of) the thinkers represented in this book. For example, Varela tells us that an intellectual stance defined by pragmatism ("truth is what works") and a mitigated constructivism ("the world is a (contingent) set of stable patterns emerging from interactions between subjects and objects") spontaneously leads to "a panorama of coexistence, a dialogical space". Maturana talks about "a space of common reflection, a sphere of co-operation."

Poerksen - a still young German academic researcher - conducts the interviews with great gusto and expertise. It seems he is not at all intimidated by the reputations and intellectual stature of his interlocutors. Poerksen prods, tickles, plays the devil's advocate and on occasion squarely and stridently disagrees with his counterparts. But his positions are always well researched and articulated. All this makes for engaging reading and leads the conversation into many fascinating themes.

This book is definitely recommended to anyone seeking an entertaining but serious introduction the fascinating, honest and humane intellectual space that emerges from the interaction between constructivism, pragmatism and systems science.
3726831
Not a scientist, but an unending curiosity about paleoanthro and also the nature of being, The Upright Thinkers is sophisticated
enough to be interesting, yet readable.  Mlodinow is clear, sufficiently scientific, and a great writer, or perhaps a great "relator."
As I have often said of Ian Tattersall in anthropology--Mlodinow has the ability to make the complex--understandable.
3619413
What most recommends this volume to the casual reader with an interest in physics is the fact that the author is *not* a professional physicist, but instead a brilliant autodidact who just happens incidentally also to have designed the very renowned grand organ at the Sydney Opera House. So he certainly does understand acoustic (and other) wave forms, as well as all the ordinary rudiments of classical physics.

The book is the product of literally 74 years of independent cogitations (the author is now 86, and became deeply intrigued with the problem of gravity and its relation to time at the age of twelve). For those who don't read (or want to read) equations in tensor calculus, but might still want to follow the approach to solving a profound mystery of someone with a relentlessly logical mind not influenced by prevailing theoretical paradigms, this is an enjoyable read.

The fascination lies not so much in his conclusions (though recent work on superfluidity* would seem potentially to subsume and validate Cahill's work on inhomogeneous quantum foam inflow, which in turn resembles Sharp's ideas in many respects)... but in the Holmesian pursuit of a solution from first principles. In other words, read the book to enjoy Sharp's reasoning and not to pursue a Ph. D. in physics. Professional string theorists may not have much interest in the ideas of an amateur, but as Smolin remarks, string theory (the prevailing "gold standard") has 10^500 different versions and is utterly unfalsifiable... so you might find it more fun just to play along with the accessible Gedankenexperiments of a tinkerer in gravity and time. Sharp may or may not be correct in his conjectures, but they're certainly interesting, and as I've mentioned, they do seem to converge on something akin to Reginald Cahill's published and peer-reviewed work on gravity quantum foam inflow (2003), and his (Sharp's) analogy invoking the wave inertial-resistance of a "banana pudding" quantum foam is metaphorically creative.

In any case, Sharp is indisputably right about at least one thing, which is that mathematical models are only symbolic constructs predictively isomorphic to observed reality, and are *not* equivalent to the reality, itself. His book is in English, and it's a quick read (in reality!).

(In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that I am not a physicist, either, but was given a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.)

*There's actually an interesting article about this in the June, 2014 issue of Scientific American. Though perhaps unlikely to be embraced very quickly, a "superfluid" model of reality would actually reconcile quantum mechanics and relativity
479745
This is such a wonderful book that I completely understand why the New York Times Book Review chose it as a "Notable Book" of the year. This is science woven into life and reflections on life, and written with a poet's enjoyment of language and using language to evoke an experience.

Air was simply a delight to read. I also learned things I hadn't known (like the origin of the phrase "beeline" - bees are determined and focussed flyers) and had some of my assumptions shaken up a bit. I love when a book can do that.

Part of what made the book so accessible was William Logan's use of his personal experiences. Then he'd reflect on them, and on occasion, widen them out to philosophical musing.

"Active, responsive, not reactive. These are the qualities of a good pilot. You must give up assumptions and live alert to the slightest nuance that comes into the five senses, responding not as your supposed self, but as your wings. It doesn't sound like a bad way to live: without complaint, fantasy, or demands, but in conversation with the moment." pp. 190-91

"A person wears so many grooves (habits) during a long life that eventually the deep-worn grooves begin to dig a grave." p. 216

Overall, the "Air" read to me like an appreciation of life and a challenge to adventure. Pretty good for a science book.
50764
This book was recommended to me by a friend, a retired lawyer, just a few years before he died. He was very well-read, moreso than you'd imagine a lawyer to be, and he used to rave about what an incredible book this had been. He was very much an intellectual, and this had been perhaps the most influential book in his intellectual life's journey.

When I finally sat down with it, I understood why. Forgive me for using the word so often, but Kaplan, too, is (was?) an intellectual, and of the very first rank. In this book, he dissects the scientific process, with his focus being on the social sciences. His discussion is general enough that pretty much everything he says applies just as well to the hard sciences, too. The ideas he puts forward can be mind-blowing if you haven't encountered them before; facts do not relate to real quantities because our metrics are all made up, and theories are valued for being useful, not for being true. There is more that he says as well, but it has been some years since I've read the book, and I don't have it available to me right now. (When I saw Amazon had no review for this book, I decided I'd ought to weigh in anyway.)

This book is not light reading. Kaplan is an old master, sharing the wisdom that comes only after a lifetime of work in one's field. Also, he has a vocabulary that could be described as "Buckleyesque", and he doesn't hold back with it. You will want to have a dictionary handy when you read this book. (You're laughing at me now, but wait until you start Chapter 1.)

Did I mention this is an excellent book? It has become one of the most influential works in my own intellectual journey (Up there with Hofstader's "Godel, Escher, Bach" and Miles's "GOD; A Biography"), and I rather wish I could talk with my old friend again, to tell him how much I appreciated his recommendation.

(I'm giving it a star rating only because Amazon requires me to; if you don't want to read something heavy and thoughtful, then you should avoid this book. But for that matter, if you want what's in this book, then you should avoid Shakespeare. Should I give Shakespeare two stars?)
1035026
I have reasonable knowledge of a number of the subject areas that Peter Watson covers and in-depth knowledge of perhaps two or three. I find his summaries of areas I know well extraordinarily balanced and thoughtful. The areas which are less familiar are clearly summarised and a great motivation for further exploration. Above all else the intense curiosity underlying his huge effort is both obvious and infectious. I have sensed an almost organic or perhaps oceanic quality to the century he describes with its moods and tidal shifts. He is almost the biographer of the century's consciousness. The shock with which the old certainties have died away initially seems so vertigo inducing, and you want to shout to the despairing first generation of the century..get over it, but then you realise the seriousness of where we are headed....so most of all , a book to make you think that doesn't try to do your thinking for you. Excellent. No doubt to be endlessly reconsulted.
1844833
This is not a "review" - I'm only about one quarter of the way through, and a proper review would require a classicist who could also range over the incredible breadth of source content Mr. Rawles has evidently spent every waking moment dipping into.
Yet there should also be an Amazon "endorsement" fucntion - the book is a wonder, very accessible in its writing and in its organization,  a popular work of scientific synthesis and rational exploration.  Atheists seem to make great late-in-life diletanntes, and this book is a classic of this kind- a entire education in a few bites. As a nihilist, I doubt that the five "solutions" promised at the end of the book are going to do much to arrest our looming future, but that is de rigeur.