A difficult subject lucidly illuminated, if not fully explained.
A journey into the concept of the mind, mixing neurology, philosophy, technology, and other disciplines.
Although everyone has a mind, few experts agree on its makeup. Ball, longtime editor at scientific journal Nature and author of Patterns in Nature and other books, delivers a fine investigation of the possibilities. He points out that early cultures awarded “mind and motive” to everything: rivers, rocks, trees, weather, gods. Regarding modern conceptions of “minds” in nature, the author writes, “our habit of treating animals as though they are dim-witted humans explains a great deal about our disregard for their well-being; giving them fully fledged, Disneyfied human minds is only the flipside of the same coin.” We use our minds to experience the world, but we can only understand the mind by using the mind. Yes, it’s tautological, but few readers will object to Ball’s efforts. Traveling the world and talking to experts, the author has learned that the mind is not the same thing as consciousness. The mind has been called the software of the brain, but that brings up artificial intelligence, a sore subject with computer scientists, many of whom have discarded the notion that brain function can inform AI developers. Despite impressive advances in neurophysiology, “we can examine the brain as a biological organ all we like, but we still can’t get inside the mind it helps create, and see what is going on.” On the positive side, he adds, consciousness is intimately involved, perhaps even synonymous. The mind maintains consciousness as “a uniquely human ability to build and sustain a picture of ourselves as autonomous entities with a history and identity.” By the halfway point, it’s clear that Ball is writing a book as much about consciousness as the mind. Many of his topics are among the hottest in neuroscience today, explored by scores of academics and popularizers such as Oliver Sacks, Antonio Damasio, and Daniel Dennett. Building on their theories and others, Ball makes a useful addition to the literature.
A difficult subject lucidly illuminated, if not fully explained.Pub Date: July 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-226-79587-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Univ. of Chicago
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
An important dialogue at a fraught time, emphasizing mutual candor, curiosity, and respect.
Two bestselling authors engage in an enlightening back-and-forth about Jewishness and antisemitism.
Acho, author of Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, and Tishby, author of Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth, discuss many of the searing issues for Jews today, delving into whether Jewishness is a religion, culture, ethnicity, or community—or all of the above. As Tishby points out, unlike in Christianity, one can be comfortably atheist and still be considered a Jew. She defines Judaism as a “big tent” religion with four main elements: religion, peoplehood, nationhood, and the idea of tikkun olam (“repairing the world through our actions”). She addresses candidly the hurtful stereotypes about Jews (that they are rich and powerful) that Acho grew up with in Dallas and how Jews internalize these antisemitic judgments. Moreover, Tishby notes, “it is literally impossible to be Jewish and not have any connection with Israel, and I’m not talking about borders or a dot on the map. Judaism…is an indigenous religion.” Acho wonders if one can legitimately criticize “Jewish people and their ideologies” without being antisemitic, and Tishby offers ways to check whether one’s criticism of Jews or Zionism is antisemitic or factually straightforward. The authors also touch on the deteriorating relationship between Black and Jewish Americans, despite their historically close alliance during the civil rights era. “As long as Jewish people get to benefit from appearing white while Black people have to suffer for being Black, there will always be resentment,” notes Acho. “Because the same thing that grants you all access—your skin color—is what grants us pain and punishment in perpetuity.” Finally, the authors underscore the importance of being mutual allies, and they conclude with helpful indexes on vernacular terms and customs.
An important dialogue at a fraught time, emphasizing mutual candor, curiosity, and respect.Pub Date: April 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781668057858
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon Element
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
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BOOK REVIEW
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