Sigmund delves into fascinating philosophical areas but delivers an overwhelming amount of information.
Philosophers and mathematicians don’t have much in common, right? A mathematician disagrees.
Sigmund, professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of Vienna and author of Exact Thinking in Demented Times, makes his case in nearly 400 pages of lucid prose. The author is a fine writer, but this is not Mathematics and Philosophy for Dummies; readers without a background in both may struggle. The first section “traces the evolution of the self-image of mathematics.” Evidence alone supports scientific laws; they can never be proven beyond a doubt. Not so with mathematics, but Sigmund’s explanations of mathematical proofs—dense with equations and diagrams—are not for the faint of heart. Surprisingly, proving that 1 + 1 = 2 is a complex operation. In the second section of the book, the author deals with chance, the continuum, and infinity, which goes beyond common sense and often vexes philosophers with problems such as “how an infinitesimal could be smaller than anything and yet not zero.” Beginning with the Enlightenment, mathematicians began stepping on philosophical toes by examining human behavior and institutions with often intriguing results. These occupy the book’s third and fourth sections and are more accessible. In the digital age, computers are the rage even for deep thinkers, and it’s become so difficult to maintain that computers are not intelligent that experts have moved the goalposts to maintain that they are not conscious. It turns out that humans are “utterly inept” at estimating probabilities, risks, and even fairness. Many Americans have no doubt that our winner-take-all voting system is superior, but it’s proven that all voting systems are unfair. Sigmund also examines irresistible areas such as game theory, probability, decisions, and the social contract, as well as parables such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
Sigmund delves into fascinating philosophical areas but delivers an overwhelming amount of information.Pub Date: Dec. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781541602694
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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