Packed with insight and astonishing in scope, this book offers an original perspective on thinking and consciousness.
Two computational neuroscientists make a fascinating argument for a “hidden connectedness of all minds,” from primitive bacteria to AI–enhanced human intelligence.
What is “the mind,” and how does it enable consciousness, language, and self-awareness? In carefully constructed chapters that build toward a unified theory of mind—a concept that scientists only recently developed the mathematical tools to explore—Ogas and Gaddam introduce 17 increasingly intelligent entities to demonstrate the incremental and awe-inspiring emergence of awareness and consciousness. For each of these “minds,” the authors devise mental challenges and explain how the mind overcame them, a clever setup that draws readers into the surprisingly relatable drama of each scenario and enhances the authors’ conversational (and equation-free) writing style. Their descriptive language is sharp and engaging, and the easy-to-understand illustrations demonstrate the concepts underpinning evolving conscious experience, such as a bacteria’s interaction with the environment, the amoeba mind becoming aware of itself, and birdsong demonstrating culture. “Birdsong can…fuse the dynamics of two minds,” write the authors, “empowering a couple to focus on joint purposes and enabling them to share similar perceptions of important situations.” In later chapters, the authors explore “superminds,” which gave rise to language, civilization, and the concept of the “self,” and which continue to evolve as technology increases in sophistication and scope. Each of these examples bolsters their argument that “consciousness is a specific mental innovation that arose to solve specific mental challenges.” Though the authors don’t skimp on their analysis, that demystification may leave some readers wanting. Nonetheless, Ogas and Gaddam imbue every detail with awe and enthusiasm, a reminder to readers that the very science underpinning their theories is only possible because of the wondrous machinations of the human mind itself, a mind that likely has not reached its apotheosis.
Packed with insight and astonishing in scope, this book offers an original perspective on thinking and consciousness.Pub Date: March 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-324-00657-2
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
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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Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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