A little bit about what I have been reading recently
On constructive dissatisfaction; thinking about computers, the brain, mind and fate.
I have been reading a few books relatively intensively in the past month and I want to write a little bit about what I found about them.
A Mind at Play (2017)
How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age
I encountered “information theory” a while ago. Fascinated by the idea of how any information can be mathematically quantified, I went to read about the theory and became curious about the mastermind behind it.
The book covered the life of Claude E. Shannon and briefly explained some of his scientific works, and how they have transformed the field of cryptography, computer science, communication engineering, artificial intelligence and everything else.
I found one of the ideas that he came up with — “constructive dissatisfaction,” which he claimed to be necessary for anyone’s scientific endeavour — inspiring.
…Then there’s the idea of dissatisfaction. By this I don’t mean a pessimistic dissatisfaction of the world — we don’t like the way things are — I mean a constructive dissatisfaction. The idea could be expressed in the words, this is OK, but I think things could be done better. I think there is a neater way to do this. I think things could be improved a little. In other words, there is continually a slight irritation when things don’t look quite right; and I think that dissatisfaction in present days is a key driving force in good scientists… (C. E. Shannon on Creative Thinking)
I believe this does not only apply to a scientific career but also to anything in life, in general. If you are not happy with your circumstances, you don’t have to force yourself to be satisfied, as some might advise. Keep yourself dissatisfied, and make it a source of motivation.
I recently observed a similar mentality in the autobiography of Stefan Hell, who found his thesis, which is microscopy, boring, yet still tried to find what might be interesting to him and ended up discovering a way to break the diffraction limit of light.
Other than his scientific achievements, I was also interested in his relationship with women. Most of the personal facts about Shannon that show the “more human side” of him were given by his girlfriends/wife. Having a girlfriend at the moment myself, I am sometimes curious about how those highly productive scientists manage their relationships, as that forms another big part of life, other than their careers (for which Shannon might call them “hobbies”).
But How Do It Know? (2009)
The Basic Principles of Computers for Everyone
Bought this book in 2017. I did not finish it that time but gave it to my brother, thinking it would be more useful to him. A month ago I rescued the book from being recycled and now the book is with me again. I had some time off so I decided to read it again, but this time from cover to cover.
It is a book about the structure of a computer, and how it works the way it is. The author did a very good job explaining how individual gates are connected together so the computer “knows” what it is doing, for example, from simple addition to memory storage. If you are curious about how a computer works and you love logical thinking, you will find this very intellectually satisfying.
I found the last part of the book, titled “Philosophy” particularly interesting. After seeing how gates and wires are connected to have a computer perform what we want, questions were raised: what is the relationship between the computer and our brain? And “are the brain and the mind one and the same thing?” Brains are similar to computers in many ways. It has its fundamental unit as a neuron, just like those gates in a computer, and they are connected, just like the wires that connect gates. The brain is in some way an information processing machine. If one day we are able to understand our brain (nearly) completely, would we be able to publish a book with the same title, but this time we are building a brain from individual neurons? Does that mean that we can manufacture the human brain, and therefore manufacture the “Mind”? Before we get there, other interesting, yet more fundamental questions were asked: Does two bytes going into ALU (The Arithmetic and Logic Unit) and summed to a byte the same thing as “Thinking”? Does the process of saving a byte to a RAM (Random Access Memory)/hard disc the same thing as “Remembering”? How about “Recalling”, how is it similar to the way a byte is called from the RAM to TMP (TeMPorary Memory register) or another register? Most would agree that they are different and they are just analogies for comparison, but it would be interesting to see how much of the similarities are actually valid.
P.S. There is a book called The Computer and The Brain (1958) by John von Neumann that discusses similar topics. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about it.
The Science of Fate (2019)
Why your Future is More Predictable than you Think
I found this book in the bookshop while I was visiting Japan. After going through a mild depression (or burnout?) I sometimes wondered if my tendencies to overthink things come together in a package with my intellectual ability. I wanted to know why I think in a certain way and I was curious how much of it comes from my genetics and how much is due to the environment. These thoughts subconsciously brought me to pick up this book.
The book started with how our behaviours are controlled by how our brains are wired, and how much the wiring of the brain, that is, the connectome, is determined by the genome and the environment. Then it went through how our genome, environment and therefore our connectome affect various aspects of our behaviours. From our eating habits, how we choose our friends and sexual partners, how we know how to nurture our offspring and then to more general decisions about life. The last few chapters touched upon the ethical issues — when someone commits a crime, how much could we blame it on his or her genetics? And by knowing that information, shall we change the way we deal with criminals? Nowadays it has become much cheaper and easier than before to read anyone’s full genome. Would knowing that you have a higher tendency to develop cancers, depression or dementia be helpful? And by how knowing our “fates” will change our behaviours?
A thought-provoking book I would recommend to any general readers.
Follow me on goodreads and see what other books I am reading!