Books 2006
Here are my book reviews from 2006, with no dates:
The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace
I kept thinking Kurt Vonnegut while reading this. For the farcical element,
which kept me from thinking Pynchon instead. Coming at this, his first book,
after having read most of his other stuff, it does seem like a freshman effort.
I think I liked it least of everything so far. And still, it’s better
than so many other books . . .
Dennett and His Critics edited by Bo Dahlbom
Some tough going here, but some enjoyable reading as well. Reading DD’s closing essay makes clear (once again) how much more clearly he states and explains things than most others. Here’s a good description of Dennett’s thinking, however:
“Daniel Dennett, for example, is a kind of instrumental logicist: the “intentional stance” is logic applied, its norms employed to generate predictions of thought and action on the basis of an assumption of rationality. The mind is construed as a logical engine; or at least, according to Dennett, that is the most useful way to construe it. Donald Davidson’s emphasis on the “constitutive role” of rationality, taken as irreducibly normative, also involves regarding logic as definitive of mentality: there can be no (interpretable) mind without general conformity to logical norms. John McDowell, following Davidson, is quite explicit about how logical norms shape the very conception we have of the mental. And computationalists are swimming in the same waters, though the conflation with causal-role functionalism sometimes obscures this fact. What is common to these positions is the idea that there is no notion of thought prior to, and independent of, the imposition of logical concepts and rules onto a thinking creature. To have propositional attitudes is to be mappable onto a normative structure in such a way as to respect consistency and consequence, a structure essentially characterized by such notions as quantification and truth-functional composition. To believe that p is to be disposed to track the logical consequences of the proposition that p. So if it isn’t logical, it isn’t mental either.” (Colin McGinn, Logic, Mind, and Mathematics)
Another chunk of interest:
“Society is used as a metaphor to describe the mind. We begin to despair: is this kind of theorizing only a fashionable play with metaphors without empirical substance? We then see that if such theories do not teach us anything much about our minds, they at least teach us things about our society. Suddenly we remember that we, and our minds, are very much part of that society, and we begin to view these theories as culturally relative expressions of our attempts at self-understanding rather than as natural science theories. If mind is a social phenomenon rather than a brain process, then the use of social concepts in a theory of mind may not be metaphorical after all.” (Bo Dahlbom, Mind is Artificial)
Genome by Matt Ridley
It’s always good for me to cover ground that I’ve read about many times before, in science, as elsewhere. There is still a lot of basic knowledge in genetics that I need to firm up, and I always learn new things as well, from writers like Ridley.
“Some time in the 1970s, as happened in physics half a century before, the old world of certainty, stability and determinism in biology fell. In its place we must build a world of fluctuation, change and unpredictability. The genome that we decipher in this generation is but a snapshot of an ever-changing document. There is no definitive edition.”
He touches on all the hot issues (hot when he wrote this in ’99, and in many cases still or more so. On the possibility of discrimination based on one’s genetic profile:
“Meanwhile, there is a danger that the hobgoblin of genetic insurance tests and genetic employment tests will scare us away from using genetic tests in the interests of good medicine. There is, however, another hobgoblin that scares me more: the spectre of government telling me what I may do with my genes. I am keen not to share my genetic code with my insurer, I am keen that my doctor should know it and use it, abut I am adamant to the point of fanaticism that it is my decision. My genome is my property and not the state’s. It is not for the government to decide with whom I may share the contents of my genes. It is not for the government to decide whether I may have the test done. It is for me. There i s a terrible, paternalist tendency to think that ’we’ must have one policy on this matter, and that government must lay down rules about how much of your own genetic code you may see and whom you may show it to. It is yours, not the government’s, and you should always remember that.”
On eugenics:
“What is wrong with eugenics is not the science, but the coercion. Eugenics is like any other programme that puts the social benefit before the individual’s rights. It is a humanitarian, not a scientific crime. There is little doubt that eugenic breeding would ‘work’ for human beings just as it works for dogs and dairy cattle. It would be possible to reduce the incidence of many mental disorders and improve the health of the population by selective breeding. But there is also little doubt that it could only be done very slowly at a gigantic cost in cruelty, injustice and oppression. Karl Pearson once said, in answer to Wedgwood: ‘What is social is right, and there is no definition of right beyond that.’ That dreadful statement should be the epitaph of eugenics.”
American Modernism by R. Roger Remington
A nice survey of design in the USA in the twentieth century, focusing on origins - especially the influx of Europeans, specifically from the Bauhaus, as a result of WWII. Despite the title, there is a section 1900-1919, and also 1960-1999, and the origins point back to 1850, and the industrial revolution, and the pendulum swinging away from the Victorian era. But the bulk of the book covers the major names from the middle, and great examples of their work.
The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda
Nice and simple. Here are the laws:
1. REDUCE - The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.
2. ORGANIZE - Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.
3. TIME - Savings in time feel like simplicity.
4. LEARN - Knowledge makes everything simpler.
5. DIFFERENCES - Simplicity and complexity need each other.
6. CONTEXT - What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral.
7. EMOTION - More emotions are better than less.
8. TRUST - In simplicity we trust.
9. FAILURE - Some things can never be made simple.
10. THE ONE - Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the
meaningful.
and Three Keys:
1. AWAY - More appears like less by simply moving it far, far away.
2. OPEN - Openness simplifies complexity.
3. POWER - Use less, gain more.
At the Edge of the Light by David Travis
Another one of those thoughtful lookers, careful thinkers, patient explainers. Good stuff.
How Images Think by Ron Burnett
I have some trepidation as I begin this book, which dives right into how all images are “mediated” by (fill in the blank here). It seems that that is the buzzword of the left-leaning social critic, wherever I turn. And I immediately recoil. Only 30 pages in, and already there have been multiple references to Deleuze, Baudrillard, and Barthes. But I’m only 30 pages in, so let’s give it a fair shake, right? And also cited already are Eco, and Chomsky, Dennett, John Searle and John Berger, so that seems like a fair counterbalance.
Now how could I not read a book about this:
“How Images Think explores the rich intersections of image creation, production, and communication within this context of debate about the mind and human consciousness. In addition, the book examines cultural discourses about images and the impact of the digital revolution on the use of images in the communications process.”
So that sounds very promising, but, from the outset, the writing is . . . less than clear:
“I use the term image to refer to the complex set of interactions that constitute everyday life within image-worlds . . . Images are points of mediation that allow access to a variety of different experiences . . . Images are the interfaces that structure interaction, people, and the environments they share.”
Are you following this? More:
“To varying degrees, I believe that images are not just products, representations, or copies of reality. Images are not the by-product of cultural activity. They are the way in which humans visualize themselves and how they communicate the results. They are at the very center of any coherent and historically informed definition that can be made of human nature and the cultural and social configurations that humans create. The construction, use, and distribution of images are fundamental to every culture. Furthermore, just as the human mind is wired for language, it is also wired for images. In fact, language, images, and sounds are inherent arts of human thought and the human body, as well as generative sites for the thinking, feeling process.”
“. . . but it should now be clear that my concerns for the many ways in which images contribute to the creation of meaning requires a redefinition of the subject-object distinction as it has been applied to visualization.”
“My use of the term ’image’ is centered on the performative relationship among viewers, sight, and comprehension. When I speak of pictures or photographs, I see them as parts of this continuum, not as separate empirical entities.
Depiction is therefore less important than interaction, process, and the interpretive judgments brought to the scene of images. The beauty to me of this argument is that it values discourse about images as much as the images themselves. In this context of relations of interaction, it becomes very difficult to talk about images as if they were objects and therefore outside of the continuum of experiences that link seeing and understanding.”
“I would like to conclude this chapter by returning to a central concept in this book – images are never representations in the sense exemplified by that term, nor do they simply represent the intentions of their creators. The minute an image finds a spectator (i.e., from the moment its creator casts a wary eye upon his or her creation), the ’object’ is no longer the main focus. As a consequence, viewers are in a middle zone between seeing, materiality, understanding, and feeling.”
The book interestingly takes an extended turn toward technology, and its relationship to human evolution, and several times Burnett referenced Katherine Hayles.
“Technology is not just about using and developing new tools. Technology also enable humans to model their environments in new ways and create the foundations for different ways of thinking. Technology is as much about cognitive change as it is about invention and the creation of physical devices. This is perhaps one of the most important lessons of the digital age. The merging of humans with their computers and the augmentation of human abilities are not about the construction of cyborgs, a metaphor that suggests a dystopic rather than utopian outcome to human evolution. It will take years of collaboration and intermingling for a radically new vision to emerge from the very early stages of interdependence that are presently being built in the relationship humans have to digital technologies.”
Later:
“Technologies are born out of needs, amplify and extend those needs, and then help in the redefinition of what it means to be human.”
And:
“A central theme of this book has been the relationship between machines and human beings. I have also been exploring an intuition that digital technologies are contributing to the reinvention of human identity and the meaning of human subjectivity. I have made the claim that digital technologies are pointing toward a lengthy process of fundamental cultural and social transformation.”
Interesting thought attributed to Edward Tufte:
“Visualization is not just about the creation of artifacts, but it is also an essential internal characteristic of human thought processes and an important way to picture human experience.”
In the final paragraph of the book, when he asks, “So, do images think?” his answer is thus: “It is not so much the case that images per se are thinking as it is the case that intelligence is no longer solely the domain of sentient beings . . . Computers and humans are cooperating and producing outcomes that are not in one part or another of the exchange. This book has explored that middle ground or mediated space where images become more than just vehicles of communication: Images turn into intelligent arbiters of the relationships humans have with their mechanical creations and with each other.”
Altogether too many uses of “mediated,” “trope,” and “discourse.” And although the book was not what I expected, even a little misleading, I managed to enjoy it on some levels.
How To See by George Nelson
Now I see where thoughtless acts? originated . . . and a lot of other books too. Nelson had his eyes open. Good stuff.
Before the Dawn by Nicholas Wade
Ah, nice to be back in the realm of reason, and fact, and some hard evidence fossilized in stone.
I’m always surprised when people don’t realize that evolution is not something that happened, and is over and done with. That humans today are the peak. We have a long, long way to go:
“The nature of this interaction between culture and evolution is not yet clear, because it has only just come to light. It has long been assumed by historians, archaeologists and social scientists that human evolution was completed in the distant past, probably before any kind of culture had begun, and that there has been no evolutionary change, or only a negligible amount, within the last 50,000 years or so. Even evolutionary psychologists, who are committed to explaining the mind in terms of what evolution shaped it to do, assume that evolution’s work was completed in a preagricultural past more than 10,000 years ago.
But the evidence now accumulating from the genome establishes that human evolution has continued throughout the last 50,000 years, The recent past, especially since the first settlements 15,000 years ago, is a time when human society has undergone extraordinary developments in complexity, creating many new environments and evolutionary pressures. Hitherto it has been assumed the human genome was fixed and could not respond to those pressures. It now appears the opposite is the case. The human genome has been in full flux all the time. Therefore it could and doubtless did adapt to changes in human society. And this may mean that people have adapted in various ways, both good and bad, to the kinds of society they lived in.”
Also surprising to me is how much behavior is not understood by means of our animal past (something evolutionary psychology tries to rectify). Clearly some people are further along than others.
“In the emergence of these early human states, two strong forces were at work, and still shape relations between states in the contemporary world. One is the need for defense, the other the dependence on trade. Both of these state behaviors spring from the deepest wells of human nature, the contrary instincts for aggression and reciprocity. Though war gets more space in the history books, in is the conciliatory arts of trade and exchange that have prevailed in the long run. According to the World Health Organization, only 0.3% of deaths in 2002 were caused by war.”
The Secret Life of Puppets by Victoria Nelson
A bit too soft for me, in the sense of being about the supernatural and the religious in a non-critical way. Certainly she is well-read, and the book appears scholarly in terms of her unceasing references to works that very few readers are likely to have perused themselves, as well as old favorites such as Freud and Borges.
“We are in a better position than our ancestors to integrate the wisdom of the transcendental if we make use of the profound wisdom of the psychological, and the constantly shifting interface between these two realms is the major focus of this book.”
Some really interesting stuff though, interspersed with the soft and fuzzy:
“These simulacra we would now classify as ‘organic’ in contrast to the mechanical or ‘inorganic’ automata, but such a distinction did not exist in our culture until after the seventeenth century. Up to that time, metals were thought to change, grow old, and die just like the bodies of humans and animals, with the consequence that early machines were perceived in continuum with, not opposition to, fleshly bodies.
Alchemy reinforced the belief that matter not only was alive but had a soul as well, and that what was being transformed in the imprisoned matter of the alchemical crucible during the Work, as it was called, was also being transformed in the person of the alchemist/theurgist/magus.”
[In the 17th century the] “elevation of human reason as the ultimate arbiter of reality by philosophers such as Bacon and then Descartes laid the groundwork for the exploration of empirical reality unfettered by gnosis dogma that produced the scientific revolution and its technological consequence, the industrial revolution . . . In that critical century, battlefield for the clash of what Keith Thomas aptly described as the ‘Neoplatonic versus Aristotelian views of the properties of matter,’ the Aristotelian view won, effectively removing gnosis belief in a supernatural world with causal and moral links to the material world – a cornerstone of Western intellectual culture.”
Later, some admissions:
“ . . . those huge territories of knowledge where the Neoplatonic perspective cannot, and should never, replace the Aristotelian.”
Bauhaus by Xavier Girard
This was a nice little introduction to the Bauhaus, telling about the history, the founders, the leaders, the personalities, the locations, and the thinking.
Wrong About Japan by Peter Carey
Nice little refresher on what it’s like in Tokyo. Interesting quote from the creator of Gundam, Yoshikuki Tomino:
“‘Charley and I were always interested in watching Mobile Suit Gundam. However, we continually wondered what we were missing. What might be obvious to a Japanese viewer but inaccessible to us?’”
Mr. Tomino closed his eyes and made a long mmmmmmm sound before he answered.
“‘There is nothing you are missing,’ Paul translated, ‘and the reason is that Mr. Tomino made sure there wouldn’t be anything like that at all. For instance, he tried to avoid having ethnicity, and so he replaced common sense, which is based on culture, with general sense, which is a kind of universal sense that all human beings have.’”
Huh?
“Mr. Tomino tried to remove all cultural elements.”
The Ecstasy of Things edited by Thomas Seelig and Urs Stahel
Now how could I NOT read a book about . . . things? And how their representation in photographs has changed in the last century. I would like to know what Ron Burnett (see How Images Think, above) thinks about this book.
Design Yourself by Karim Rashid
“We will always need objects, but everything in our lives should offer us an experience (hopefully heightened), touch our emotions, give us pleasure, increase our aesthetic landscape, and make us feel alive and excited to be alive.”
The Cult of Mac by Leander Kahney
A nice compilation of Mac-zealousness. But I thought the writing was pretty atrocious.
Stiff by Mary Roach
I read this on the recommendation of my sister. And while it’s probably not something I would have picked up on my own (though it did catch my eye in the bookstores a couple of years ago), it was actually right down my alley. I guess everyone is intrigued, if even in secret and morbid ways, with dead human bodies. And this book talks about just about every aspect of the corpse, and what happens to it and with it, with and without our knowledge. Fast and fascinating. And yes, disturbing and disgusting in many sections. But, like going to horror movies or riding roller coasters, isn’t that why we read this kind of stuff? To experience something from a safe distance?
Shaping Things by Bruce Sterling
Sterling gets it, of course. And he is not content to just think about the future, he wants to shape it. Of course he has already done a lot of that with his previous writing, both fiction and non. But this is a little manifesto, a little call-to-arms, directed at . . . designers. Because he believes that the future lies in the hands, largely, of creatives with enough vision to make the world a better place.
The jargon didn’t sit too well with me (“spimes?”), and the design of the book, surprisingly, as he collaborated with a designer who in her own words “was most anxious to shape this book in a way that would enlarge his already expansive view of the promise of design and the future, so that it can be seen in more ways than one.” Well, I don’t think that book design, or readability, or charts, or font and color choice, was much enhanced by this effort.
But I did like Sterling’s underlying ideas. Can I contribute? I’m probably too selfish . . .
An Alchemy of Mind by Diane Ackerman
I didn’t enjoy this as much as A Natural History of the Senses. It wasn’t too bad an introduction to mind science, covering a lot of bases. And the reader does get that sense of wonder that she can convey, and the kind of lyricism that one expects from her. But there was also a pretty strong egotistical streak running through the book, as again and again she came back to talk about herself, and experiences that she had gone through in her life. And I found it interesting that although she of course referenced many writers and researchers in the field of mind science and consciousness, there was not a single reference to Daniel Dennett. I find it very difficult to believe that she would not have read anything at all by him, so it seems obvious that his omission is a slight to a writer whose views she finds unpalatable . . . This was kind of the final nail in the coffin: I am sure that I would not get along with Diane Ackerman if we were ever to meet.
thoughtless acts? by Jane Fulton
A reminder to keep one’s eyes open. I seem to be doing more and more reading in the direction of industrial design, product design, environmental design, universal design . . . This is a book about observing how people use the things and spaces and objects around them as they go about their ordinary everyday lives. How and where we sit, walk, carry objects, place objects, use things in ways they were never intended to be used, but which happen to be useful or convenient. All of which open avenues of exploration for designers.
By Design by Ralph Caplan
At first I thought this was a little bit sprawling, despite its diminutive size. Some early chapters felt like they were more about marketing, or culture, or something else. But I guess by the end of the book, you realize that that is sort of his point. That we design more than just layouts and objects and buildings. We design situations. He gives, as one of many examples, a protest against racial segregation in a midwest movie theater. And Starbucks. And modern offices. And many, many more.
Quote from Steve Jobs:
“Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. That’s not what we think design is . . . Design is how it works.”
Sweet Dreams by Daniel Dennett
It’s good to have review, and consolidation, when the ideas are fairly dense. So there is not so much here that is new.
Move Closer by John Armstrong
This confirms that I really like Armstrong. He is so lucid, so well-thought-out. Plain-spoken and gentle. He looks carefully, and shows you what he sees, what it is possible to see, how we might best see. I don’t always agree with his assessments of particular pieces, but I often see something I didn’t notice before. I’m going to give this one to Sal and Michelle.
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
This started out really well, and kind of deteriorated in the last quarter, as events became more sensational, and too dependent on incredible coincidence, and, in a fight scene, the same suspension of disbelief that most kung-fu films require when the combatants batter each other with blows that would absolutely shatter bones, cause loss of consciousness, or death, yet keep getting back up for more.
However it did paint a vivid picture of a country I know almost nothing about, except for recent news stories, and, to use a hackneyed phrase, opened a window to a new world for me.
A Smile in the Mind by Beryl McAlhone & David Stuart
On the use of wit in graphic design.
Religion Explained by Pascal Boyer
Ah, good old Evolutionary Psychology, getting more play here.
I really liked this bit, when he’s talking about external representations, and their relationship to decoupled cognition (when we think about something without the actual input or output that would cause and result from the “real” thing that we are thinking about happening):
“Decoupling is also necessary to produce external representations, another universal capacity in humans. Toys, statues, rock paintings and finger drawings in the sand are not the same as what they represent. To make sense of them, our inference systems must block certain inferences–the path through the forest is one inch wide on the drawing but it is not that narrow in actual fact–and maintain others–that the path in the sand turns left means that the actual one turns left too. So the interpretation of external representations can be subtle. Indeed, in many cases we intuitively consider that what external representations stand for depends much more on their creators’ intentions than on what they look like. Psychologist Paul Bloom showed that very young children share this subtle assumption. For them two strictly identical drawings are in actual fact representations of different objects (e.g., a lollipop and a balloon) if that is what the creators intended.”
On how concepts take hold:
“We like to think that we have certain concepts or hold certain beliefs because it is in our interest, because they seem rational, because they provide a sound explanation of what happens around us, because they create a coherent worldview, and so on. But none of these views explains what we actually find in human cultures. It seems more plausible that cultural transmission is relevance-driven. That is, concepts that “excite” more inference systems, fit more easily into their expectations, and trigger richer inferences (or all of these) are more likely to be acquired and transmitted than material that less easily corresponds to expectation formats or does not generate inferences. We do not have the cultural concepts we have because they make sense or are useful but because the way our brains are put together makes it very difficult not to build them.”
On how certain human capacities get recruited to support religious beliefs:
“As I have pointed out repeatedly the building of religious concepts requires mental systems and capacities that are there anyway, religious concepts or not. Religious morality uses moral intuitions, religious notions of supernatural agents recruit our intuitions about agency in general, and so on. This is why I said that religious concepts are parasitic upon other mental capacities. Our capacities to play music, paint pictures or even make sense of printed ink-patterns on a page are also parasitic in this sense. This means that we can explain how people play music, paint pictures and learn to read by examining how mental capacities are recruited by these activities. The same goes for religion. Because the concepts require all sorts of specific human capacities (an intuitive psychology, a tendency to attend to some counterintuitive concepts, as well as various social mind adaptations), we can explain religion by describing how these various capacities get recruited, how they contribute to the features of religion that we find in so many different cultures. We do not need to assume that there is a special way of functioning that occurs only when processing religious thoughts.”
The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier
I hate a lot of Marketing Speak, and so a book about Brand or Branding could be a dangerous read for me. But as it is very much a part of what I do in my work, as well as an area of personal interest (why am I so brand loyal: Nike, Sidi, Shimano, Audi, etc.?), and intertwined with much design work, I thought it would be worthwhile. Plus, I was drawn by the cover design! And the interior design as well. Very much driven by sound bites and visuals.
The major takeaway:
A brand is not a logo, a corporate identity system, or a product. “A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service or company.”
Future Face by Sandra Kemp
This wasn’t really such a futurist book.
“Thinking about faces through making and representing them has been at the heart of my project.”
It didn’t really go into how the human face may change in the future so much as discuss the face through various lenses:
“Throughout Future Face I have also supplemented my own expertise in literature and the visual arts with material from the fields of physiognomy, psychology, anatomy, medicine and advanced imaging and digital technologies.”
There are sections on historical representations of faces, physical structure and functions of the face, surgical repair and cosmetic surgery, monstrosity, and facial recognition technology. The discussion of the most interesting aspect of all of this, the relationship between face and identity, was not compelling enough for me.