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
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
An unflinching self-portrait.
The tumultuous life of a bisexual, autistic comic.
In her debut memoir, Scottish comedian Brady recounts the emotional turmoil of living with undiagnosed autism. “The public perception of autistics is so heavily based on the stereotype of men who love trains or science,” she writes, “that many women miss out on diagnosis and are thought of as studious instead.” She was nothing if not studious, obsessively focused on foreign languages, but she found it difficult to converse in her own language. From novels, she tried to gain “knowledge about people, about how they spoke to each other, learning turns of phrase and metaphor” that others found so familiar. Often frustrated and overwhelmed by sensory overload, she erupted in violent meltdowns. Her parents, dealing with behavior they didn’t understand—including self-cutting—sent her to “a high-security mental hospital” as a day patient. Even there, a diagnosis eluded her; she was not accurately diagnosed until she was 34. Although intimate friendships were difficult, she depicts her uninhibited sexuality and sometimes raucous affairs with both men and women. “I grew up confident about my queerness,” she writes, partly because of “autism’s lack of regard for social norms.” While at the University of Edinburgh, she supported herself as a stripper. “I liked that in a strip club men’s contempt of you was out in the open,” she admits. “In the outside world, misogyny was always hovering in your peripheral vision.” When she worked as a reporter for the university newspaper, she was assigned to try a stint as a stand-up comic and write about it; she found it was work she loved. After “about a thousand gigs in grim little pubs across England,” she landed an agent and embarked on a successful career. Although Brady hopes her memoir will “make things feel better for the next autistic or misfit girl,” her anger is as evident as her compassion.
An unflinching self-portrait.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9780593582503
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harmony
Review Posted Online: March 10, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
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