2012 Reading 3: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Did I miss the point? Knowing only that Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick was a relatively early book on artificial intelligence, I expected a thoughtful exploration of what it means to be human. Here's what I got: The main character Deckard, an android bounty hunter, starts out believing that the ability to empathize is what separates humans from androids. After conversations, confrontations, and even sex with androids he eventually concludes that... yep, the ability to empathize is what separates humans from androids. Seriously... that's it?

For background, Dick's androids are nearly indistinguishable from humans. They are made of flesh and blood like humans, speak and move like humans, die like humans. The only way distinguish them while alive is to test their reactions to emotional stimuli. Since they lack the ability to empathize, their emotional responses are faked and slightly slower than a human's. The only way to distinguish them when dead is to test their bone marrow.

Dick touches on but doesn't explore a number of interesting issues:

1. The morality of slavery: is an androids in any way justified in killing their master in order to escape to freedom? What if there is no way for them to gain freedom without killing?

2. Mood control: if you could dial up any possible mood on a machine, would you? Joy, rapture, perfect contentment, at the touch of a button. Would you ever, like Deckard's wife, dial up depression?

3. Empathy: Is the lack of an ability to empathize automatically make a person dangerous? Can it be expected that since androids can't empathize they will eventually do harm?

Any thoughts?

Reading List 2: Dune

WARNING! This review is meant for folks who have already read Dune and thus is replete with spoilers. Since the book gives its own spoilers as part of the literary style, this is less of an issue than you might think, but you should probably still avoid reading if you plan to read Dune in the future.

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While I very much enjoyed Dune by Frank Herbert, most of the parts of the story-universe that I found most interesting were the parts he alludes to and never explores. He implies a massive plot by the Bene Gesserit to seed "prophesies" on various worlds for later use. Are these prophesies "real" - some kind of non-human source, or "fake" - fabricated by the Bene Gesserit entirely for their own purposes? He mentions that before "the Great Revolt" there were machines that mimicked human minds but never brings up the topic again. The reader glimpses the results of "Imperial conditioning" and "Bene Gesserit training", but next to nothing of the methods. He suggests that there might be two kinds of human-shaped creatures - a human variety and an animal variety, but only deals with the concept in one scene. The story he does tell is reasonably interesting, but it almost disappoints in contrast with the promise of the stories he doesn't tell. I can only hope that more is illuminated in the sequels.

Herbert has what I consider to be a very annoying habit of telling the reader what is going to happen in the story. It puts me in mind of the titles of books chapters in older books, things like "Chapter Three In Which Pooh and Piglet Go Hunting and Nearly Catch a Woozle". You know before you start the chapter that no woozle will be caught. Herbert does this in the form of prophesies made early on by characters and by chapter-beginning excerpts from the history books of the story's future. The Reverend Mother foretold that Paul's father would die soon, and I was unable to connect to the character as I anticipated his imminent demise. She foretold that Paul would be the Kwisatz Haderach, and I waited bored as he grew into that role. In my opinion, clear/obvious prophesies as a literary device are to be avoided. I enjoy a good cryptic prophesy. I enjoy a prophesy that the hero manages to subvert through clever means. I do not enjoy being told what unfortunate event will occur and then waiting for the shoe to drop.

Flaws aside, the book contained a number of beautiful and interesting ideas. I was fascinated by the concept of terra-forming a desert planet through a generations-long process of collecting water and gradually introducing plant life, starting with the hardiest desert scrub, that would slowly enable more and more varieties of plant and animal life. I enjoyed the idea of a group rides on the massive sandworms and loved the rational behind how they are controlled.

I was impressed by the eloquence of a number of ideas about leadership, individuality, and religion. I particularly enjoyed "A leader, you see, is one of the things that distinguishes a mob from a people. He maintains the level of individuals. Too few individuals, and a people reverts to a mob." and "Give as few orders as possible...Once you've given an order on a subject, you must always give orders on that subject." and "When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual."

Naturally I can't neglect to mention the famous "Fear is the mind-killer." (This was intoned to me in a deep, serious voice by a complete stranger who saw me reading the book at work). It resonated with "Fear cuts deeper than swords", a line from A Game of Thrones which I keep on my wall at work. But the greatest impact for me came from "You cannot back into the future." The future must be dreamt of, planned for, and faced head-on, whether you can see into it like Paul or not.

Reading List 1: The Swerve - How the World Became Modern

(Originally posted to Google+)

As a part of my reading list project, I’ve decided to write a bit about each of the books I read this year. Below is my attempt for the first book “The Swerve – How the World Became Modern”, by Stephen Greenblatt. This was the ideal book to begin my reading with, but part of me wishes that I’d read it later, once I’d had a chance to refresh my writing skills. What I’ve written below doesn't begin to do it justice.

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It seems I could not have picked a better book with which to start my 2012 reading list project. The Swerve - How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt was not only a riveting and informative read, it inflamed my interest in Ancient Rome and Greece, the Enlightenment, and the sources of the ideas that define “modern” life. It is non-fiction, but told in a story style with noted liberties taken to embellish and provide context where the facts fail to provide the whole story.

The “hero” of the story is Poggio Bracciolini, a humanist of the 1400s: a man obsessed with rediscovering and reviving the literature and the learning of Ancient Rome. Being as it was around 1000 years after the fall of Rome, this was an exceptionally challenging task. Poggio was in a unique position among his contemporaries. Access to monastery libraries, the main repository for ancient learning, was severely restricted, but as a high-level servant of the Pope, Poggio was able to obtain it. Even when granted access, the seeker of ancient literature required the patience to page through archives of un-indexed texts, a talent for deciphering the often terrible handwriting of monks, an ability to differentiate between Ancient Latin and the Latin of the day, and a particular familiarity with the writing styles of the authors sought. Poggio was adept at all these things.

It is an historical irony that monasteries were the main preservers of ancient learning. Monasteries did not encourage inquiry or discussion; in fact, these were forbidden. Monks read and recopied books by rote. They were not to ponder or discuss, merely to preserve, spending painful hours deciphering and recopying ancient texts by hand so that all trace of them might not rot away. The most valuable of Poggio’s discoveries came in 1417: an epic poem written around 50BCE called “De rerum natura” or “On the Nature of Things”. Its author was Titus Lucretius Carus, a Roman philosopher, writer and disciple of the Ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, whose ideas centered on the pursuit of pleasure and tranquility and the avoidance of pain.

This poem laid out a number of astonishingly “modern” ideas (Keep in mind that it was written 50 years before the birth of Christ.) It describes a creator-less universe that consists entirely of eternal, invisible particles in constant motion in an infinite void. It states that this universe was not created for humans, nor are humans unique in it. It denies the existence of an afterlife, and claims that the highest goal of human life is the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. It states that the greatest obstacle to pleasure is not pain, but delusion: superstitious fear and misguided ideas about what can and should be obtained.

The rediscovery of this poem and its ideas had a profound effect on human history. It directly influenced the works of Thomas More, Machiavelli,Galileo, Thomas Jefferson, Freud, Darwin, Einstein and untold others. It helped to shape the Renaissance and thereby the world today.

2012 Reading List

(Originally posted to Google+) 

I was recently delighted to realize that finishing college means I now have time to indulge all the academic interests that I have been neglected for the past four years. This coincides nicely with my goal of developing a robust library, so I’ve been seeking suggestions for a 2012 reading list.

Here is my reading list as it stands today:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ao_aanlnxR-0dDZFWDBCYXQza0pBWVh2aWtXb3RlMkE
(The next tab in the googledoc lists all the books I’ve read since August, 2008)

The areas I’m most interested in exploring are historical analysis, social/political commentary, and classic science fiction. I’ve recently (over the past year or so) become very interested in global politics and current events and, to a lesser extent, American politics. As I listen to NPR and read the BBC, however, I’ve started to realize how much background I’m missing. Consequently, I’m looking for broad historical analysis of motivations, turning points, and trends, as well as predictions for the future, in order to build a context for the news I follow today.

I am currently seeking recommendations for books on:
- The (preferably reasonably neutral and balanced) history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict (or else 2 books, one from an Israeli point of view and one from a Palestinian)
- The cultural legacy of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome
- The rise and fall of the Soviet Union
- The rise and fall of European colonialism, particularly the rise of Asia after colonialism

In addition, I realize that I have, so far, missed out on many of the classic science fiction and fantasy books and authors, so I would also like recommendations for the best sci-fi/fantasy.

My plan is to have one fiction and one non-fiction book in progress at all times throughout the year. So far, I've finished reading "The Swerve" on the non-fiction side (amazing book; review to come), and am half-way through "Dune" on the fiction side. "A Concise History of the Middle East, 9th Edition" is next for the non-fiction.

Finally, I have notions about trying to establish a reading group, so if that idea and any of my reading list sounds interesting, do let me know. I have a rather cozy little library, and I’m nurturing a growing fantasy of having tea and book discussions there, perhaps once a month. I think it would be a particularly nice way of spending time with my close friends and perhaps developing some new friendships.