{"id":100,"date":"2007-12-16T16:39:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-16T16:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/2007\/12\/16\/100\/"},"modified":"2015-05-25T15:33:10","modified_gmt":"2015-05-25T20:33:10","slug":"100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=100","title":{"rendered":"Books Waiting to be Read (despite Jericho’s return)"},"content":{"rendered":"
 
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Here\u2019s the stack of books that I bought in 2007. It looks as though I\u2019m going to need 2008, and maybe part of 2009, to read them all. Some of them were real bargains; maybe $5 or $6 with shipping. Many hearken back to the 1980s and 90s, but they still say things that are relevant. I look forward to whatever insights about our wide and wonderful world they may give me. So here they are, from bottom up:<\/p>\n

The Society of Mind<\/span>, by Marvin Minsky; how brains and minds operate \u2013 perhaps.<\/span><\/p>\n

How the Mind Works<\/span>, by Steven Pinker; ditto.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Creative Mind<\/span>, by Margaret A. Boden; ditto again, with a computational twist based on neural networks.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Physics of Immortality<\/span>, by Frank J. Tipler; his plan for a \u2018resurrection of the dead machine\u2019 has already been vetoed by developments in cosmic physics; but the idea is so audacious that it still deserves attention. There\u2019s still time to find another way to do it!<\/span><\/p>\n

The Wonder of Being Human<\/span>, by Sir John Eccles and Daniel N. Robinson; why consciousness \u2013 and our selves — may really be exist and be important after all.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Undiscovered Mind<\/span>, by John Horgan; why we may never really know if consciousness is real after all.<\/span><\/p>\n

Off The Books<\/span>, by Sudhir A. Venkatesh; how the poor get by, in Chicago at least.<\/span><\/p>\n

No God But God<\/span>, by Reza Aslan; the case for Islam.<\/span><\/p>\n

Microcognition<\/span>, by Andy Clark; a philosopher of mind ponders neural networks and parallel distributed processing models.<\/span><\/p>\n

Decoding the Universe<\/span>, by Charles Seife; the new science of information, and the universe as a big computer.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Bit and the Pendulum<\/span>, by Tom Siegfried; pretty much ditto.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Historical Figure of Jesus<\/span>, by E.P. Sanders; I thought I had my fill of historical Jesus books, but E.P. Sanders is the dean of such studies.<\/span><\/p>\n

Consciousness and Mental Life<\/span>, by Daniel N. Robinson; Professor Robinson has the credentials to make some sense out of the current trends in cognitive science and the consciousness debate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Programming the Universe<\/span>, by Seth Lloyd; one more book on information and the universe as a big computer.<\/span><\/p>\n

P.S. — My chances of getting thru all these books within the next year just went down, as I just found out that CBS is going to give Jericho<\/span> another chance! How about that, the fan protest and all the packages of nuts that they sent to CBS actually worked! At least it was good for another seven episodes. Jericho is a show that shows just how creepy the world could actually get, given the right mixture of greed, terror and technology. And it makes you wonder what can be done to not let it get so creepy. One suggestion — cut back on the greed, terror — and technology. Before we lose it all and have to go back to living like they do in the mythical town of Jericho.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Here\u2019s the stack of books that I bought in 2007. It looks as though I\u2019m going to need 2008, and maybe part of 2009, to read them all. Some of them were real bargains; maybe $5 or $6 with shipping. Many hearken back to the 1980s and 90s, but they still say things that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5435,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions\/5435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}