Conversations with God (Books 2 and 3)

Conversations With God (Books 2 and 3) Neale Donald Walsch 8.5/10

It’s so hard to give these books a high score. It was difficult to get through them: they both significantly slowed down my reading schedule as I could only handle so much of them at a time. I reviewed the first book earlier: 2 and 3 didn’t stray too far away from the path laid out in book 1. Personally I found book 2 much more agreeable than book 3: book 3 was a bit of an idealistic mess, constantly re-treading on to cover material from the first two books when it wasn’t making absurd claims about the ideal society.

I could complain and complain about these books, but the fact is that much of the truths in the book resonate well with my own moral standpoint. I have the good fortune of being able to dismiss the arguably preposterous theme of the book: that the author has a direct connection with God, and can freely ask and receive answers to questions he asks. God has a suspicious tendency to never mention anything out of the realm of the author’s experience, leading the astute reader to question whether Walsch is, at the core, “making it all up”. My personal opinion: he is making it all up. I just don’t care about the source – if there is valuable knowledge or wisdom, I’ll listen.

The primary truth that I finish the series with was never specifically stated: “we have the best answers to our own questions”. We know how to solve our problems, we just need to learn to listen. If I’m ever giving advice, that’s the path I try to take: I listen to find out what the advice-asker really thinks he or she should do, and then advise that path of action. In my personal experience, if someone is asking for advice, what they are often looking for is actually affirmation or justification of the choice they know they should make.

This is rarely a conscious process. If it were a conscious process, I think pride (or shame) would be likely to get in the way. It’s rather ironic that pride might keep us from living life as we’d like to – it makes that pride seem rather misplaced.

Either way, back to the book. I love affirming that we make our own truth, that we are the ones who control who, what, and where we are. It’s humbling, especially when it’s so tempting to place the blame for our misfortunes and faults outside our area of control. It’s a big step in life to realize that we are fully and wholly responsible for our position and station in life, and that we have the capacity and the potential to make the life we want as long as we’re willing to do what’s necessary. I’m sure some who are reading this will wonder at my youthful ignorance – how I’ve managed to believe in this ideal society where we’re all created equal and everyone is blind to race, color, sex, or whatever discrimination we claim.

The fact is, I can only speak from my own experience. I know that I can’t have everything I want now – but if I choose to keep wanting something and do everything I can to have it, I will have it. I’ve yet to meet someone who I felt had any more or less potential.

Prep

Prep Curtis Sittenfeld 8/10

Prep is an impressive novel. Much like Catcher in the Rye, it doesn't feel like a work of fiction. It's another book providing insight into the real world, allowing me to remember what those high-school years were like. Sittenfeld is an amazing author in her ability to present situations that beg for some kind of moral judgment with a kind of distinct objectiveness. You want to know what's right, you want to know what is to be learned from a situation, but you're forced to make your own decision.

In a certain way, the novel is depressing in that way. Not because we can't come to our own decisions about what's right, but that the protagonist can't. We're forced to live through years of poor decisions, and as such it becomes a very difficult read. It's so easy, from an older age, to look back at some of the problems and insecurities of youth dismissively...but we get no such satisfaction from our protagonist in Prep. Late into her junior year, one of her classmates attempts to come up with a particularly cutting insult. "Lee," she says, "you haven't changed at all since freshman year." The classmate is correct, and reading Prep puts you through all those years with Lee while you agonize over the poor decisions she makes over and over again.

I don't mean to focus on the poor aspects of the book. I highly recommend Prep if you enjoy books that spur thought, self-evaluation, and remind us of our not-so-perfect past. Just don't expect you'll read it and be cheered right up.

Freedom Evolves

Freedom Evolves Daniel Dennett 8/10

This was a difficult book to evaluate. It's a philosophical exercise by Dennett - an attempt to point out the inadequacies in a number of commonly held philosophical perspectives, and a best-guess amalgamation philosophy given the body of scientific knowledge at the time of the writing. I separate the book as such because I believe Dennett's goals were only half-met. He faltered a bit in his explanation of the shortcomings of common perspectives while he very reliably and intelligently presented his own view.

Two-thirds of Dennett's book was convincing, fairly clear, and for the most part sensible and comprehensible. Unfortunately (for him) it's the latter two-thirds of the book. Getting through the initial couple chapters proved to be particularly difficult for me...quite simply, Dennett spent a lot of time trying to support determinism by using examples that were completely inadequate. In attempting to provide simple examples to prove his point he lost some of the inherent complexity that is human life. For example, Dennett uses a "game" called Conway's game of life (link). Conway's game of life shows us that in a limited plane patterns of amazing complexity can arise. Conceivably, notes Dennett, given a large enough plane we could mimic the functionality of any computer system. Naturally, this is the case: despite their apparent complexity, computer processors are simple extremely fast at processing 1s and 0s: that is, on and off. A processor simply reacts to strings of electrical current that is either on or off. The data on your hard drive is stored similarly: a byte (1/1024 of a kilobyte, which is 1/1024 of a megabyte, to gigabyte, etc) is 8 bits, and a bit is just a 0 or 1 value.

Anyway, the fact that a simple system can reach extraordinary levels of complexity does not mean it can be used comparatively with the "real-life" system. Dennett's argument is that in a fixed system everything behaves in a predictable and unchanging manner: this is a solid argument. The disconnect takes place when you try to prove that our universe is a fixed system.

Despite all my argumentation on the matter, my real opinion is that the discussion is a waste of time. Whether or not life is deterministic or indeterministic is truly unimportant, and should not have a real bearing on how we live our lives. This is Dennett's conclusion and while I don't agree entirely with the means, it is an end I can fully support.

Utopia

Utopia Thomar More 8/10

Thomas More's Utopia is a well-known work describing a communist utopia. More lived in the Middle Ages (17th century, I believe) and was executed in his thirties for refusing to bless the king's divorce and subsequent remarriage (he was an adviser of some sort for the king). I think knowing a little about More can help one understand the book - More loved humor. He joked about everything, and was even accused by a friend of putting forth everything he said in a joking manner...as a sort of safety net so that he could always retract the statement, saying it was merely made in jest. Utopia itself seems to be an example of this practice - the book seems to purvey itself as serious, but upon closer inspection might just be mocking anyone who could believe in a successful communist society. His Utopia is anything but.

Conversations With God (Book 1)

Conversations with God Neale Donald Walsch 8/10

Considering how highly I've rated this book, it was startlingly difficult to start. Reading through the first 40-50 pages without just throwing the book down in disgust took a strange kind of persistence. You see, the basis of the book is that the author is having a direct conversation with God (who seems most similar to a Christian God). It's not supposed to be fictional, and I'm confident the author would argue that the experience was "real". I find it much more likely that the author tapped into part of the vast internal knowledge we all have...because, whether or not he spoke with God, the book is impressive. Walsch (the author) puts forth a reasonable and insightful world-view.

Incidentally, I've heard from multiple sources that the book is commonly recommended by Buddhists despite what I see as a fairly Christian basis.