Category: Books

  • The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

    Rachel Joyce

    The book that I read just prior to this one was “Who’s in charge? Free Will & the Science of the Brain”. The author of that book summed it all up in the end when he said that beyond the machinations of the body and the brain that science has, or has the potential to explain fully, there lies an abstraction that we call mind or consciousness. The recognition of that is what makes us human. When Harold Fry went out to post a letter and unwittingly begins an absolutely unplanned walk from one end of the country to another, I thought the coincidence was fantastic.

    With no preparation – maps, travel gear, phone, or even proper shoes – Harold decides to walk to save a life. The life of a friend he feels he has wronged. The book itself is not just the interesting details of Harold’s travels and how various people and circumstances shape it, or his character and how it evolved our time, or even the events of his life that have led to the why and how of this journey. It is also about his wife Maureen, her perspective of the events that transpired in her life and their impact on her relationship with Harold.  (more…)

  • Who’s in charge?

    Michael S. Gazzaniga

    Our notion of the mind is a single “me” that consciously acts and reacts on/to stimuli. But a more accurate description would be several modules that work in tandem to define and dictate what we could call the mind/consciousness. A lot of this mind’s activities is dictated by factors that have been built into us by evolution and environment. I had just about been converted to biological determinism and started disbelieving the notion of free will! I think I’ll have to change my mind again!

    While the blurb might seem like a case for determinism, (and thus against ‘free will’) I thought the actual content of the book, especially towards the last third, swing more towards a “we don’t know yet”. The idea of it, though, starts earlier in the book – “Just as traffic emerges from cars, traffic does ultimately constrain cars, so doesn’t the mind constrain the brain that generated it?” (more…)

  • A Working Theory of Love

    Scott Hutchins

    As a character in the book asks, “What is love?” He proceeds to provide at least three alternatives to his own question – a biochemical emergent property of evolution? A social construct? Or just acquisition and deal making involving assets two people have?

    In ‘A Working Theory of Love’, Scott Hutchins takes a stab at it through its characters in ways real and artificial. At the centre of it all is Neill Bassett, a resident of San Francisco in his mid-thirties, working at Amiante Systems with two others to build an artificial intelligence that will pass the Turing test. He is not a programmer/technologist – his essential connection with the project is that the machine’s “character” has been built using his father’s personality as manifested through the journals he (the father) had kept. He serves as the interlocutor for the machine as its creators try to make it a sentient, ‘lifelike’ phenomenon.  (more…)

  • Dark Matter

    Blake Crouch

    (only broad level spoilers)
    Of all the known and unknown phenomena in science, the multiverse theory is probably one that lends itself most easily to fiction. And yet, this is the first time I am encountering it. Largely, a pleasant experience.
    From a science perspective, I like how the author connects it to the brain and consciousness. Seems to lend it more credibility and therefore make it more believable. It isn’t really elaborated on, but I found it good enough for the purpose of the book. A 100 pages away from the end, I wondered how the author could possibly finish it without sacrificing logic. But he did find a way, even if it leaves things a little open ended.
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  • The Gene : An Intimate History

    Siddhartha Mukherjee

    “As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.” probably best describes this book for me. My understanding of the subject grew manifold after reading this book, but I also realised how little we know!

    Perhaps the one question we all seek an answer to is “Why are we here?”. There probably is no universal answer to that question, as science and religion like to approach it in different ways. Personally, I think that purpose is either just a narrative in hindsight, or a story we build to create meaning in our lives.

    Meanwhile, science has raced ahead of religion in explaining “how are we here?” In terms of the two building blocks that have existed before us – atoms and genes – as well as the influence of the one we created – byte. This book is the story of what the author describes as “one of the most powerful and dangerous ideas in the history of science: the gene, the fundamental unit of heredity, and the basic unit of all biological information.” Indeed, it is the history of this unit – from its presence in a human’s mind as an abstract idea to the human attempts to write and rewrite it – that makes up this book. (more…)