Siddhartha

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

Coming Soon

Disgrace

Disgrace J.M. Coetzee 9.5/10

Disgrace is a masterpiece. The 200 pages are sparsely written, terse and trying. One can hardly muster sympathy for the apathetic and unprincipled protagonist (Lurie) as his distanced, uninvolved life is slowly stripped from him. Disgrace is the story of a man who had almost nothing, and loses that.

Lurie lives a solitary, passionless life as a professor of communications at a Cape Town, South Africa university. "Because he has no respect for the material he teaches, he makes no impression on his students...Their indifference galls him more than he will admit." Lurie merely goes through the motions of life, living without purpose and only moderated joy.

Characters in disgrace are believable and complex - from his lesbian daughter living alone in the countryside to Bev Shaw, the animal lover whose veterinary clinics primary responsibility is the disposal of unwanted animals. The irritatingly indifferent Lurie changes only in miniscule measures - measures unknown and unnoticed by the stalwart professor who repeatedly claims that at his age, it's too late for change, too late for growth.

Lurie loses everything and rebuilds himself in the African countryside, but it's clear that nothing has really changed. Lurie is different now, but the world is the same and the political environment that has brought about the society he's a part of doesn't change simply because we grow. Even his relationships are established - the roles each member plays are established and too firm-set to change. Disgrace is not an uplifting book, but is excellently written and intriguing...and that's what I look for in a book.

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.

Conversations on Consciousness

Conversations on Consciousness Susan Blackmore 9/10

I was very tempted to give this book a 10/10, but I just couldn't. It was a great book and perfect for me (I would say it's perfect for anyone starting out exploring popular theories on the basis of consciousness and free will) but the book had it's problems.

Conversations on Consciousness details a series of interviews between psychologist and hard determinist Susan Blackmore and a smattering of well-known experts in the fields of philosophy and neuroscience. She does well at finding a variety of scientific viewpoints: you won't find any faith-based supporters in the book, only those who attempt to use our current scientific knowledge and theories as a base from which to make their speculations.

The interviews tended to center around four questions:

1) What is consciousness? Why is it so difficult to define and to study?
2) Do you believe we have free will?
3) Do you think that the Philopher's Zombie is an actual possibility?
4) This question varied, but was related to their specific field of expertise or their most well-known theory.

I didn't understand why Blackmore felt the thought experiment of the Philosopher's Zombie was so important. The question she was trying to ask was: "Do you think conciousness arises merely because of our capacity to behave the way we do?" but using the Philosopher's Zombie thought experiment to ask this question led to more problems than it solved. Too often, the answer was a criticism of the thought experiment rather than an answer to the real question. I agree with those who criticize the experiment: I don't see a lot of value in pure speculation that, at some level, has to be scientifically ungrounded. Of course, the way we live our life is partially through pure speculation, but that is through necessity.

The best thing I got from the book was an understanding of the controversy in the fields of consciousness. Dennett, author of Freedom Evolves, somewhat represents one side of the argument. He's certainly well-known - half of those interviewed used Dennett's views as a way to state their own through contrast. Dennett does not cohesively meld his viewpoint in a way that it represents "the determinists", but his viewpoint is well-known and clearly stated, which at least gives others in the field a way to contrast, a reference point from which to deviate.

Conversations on Consciousness fostered more questions than it answered. It's a book that I've read that's only shown me that I need to read more books. It has moved some authors to near the top of the list though. David Chalmers, Roger Penrose, and Daniel Wegner (well, he was already near the top) all piqued my interest enough that I will certainly read their books to better understand their viewpoint. I identified with Penrose more than any other philosopher, and I'm interested to read more about why he believes what he does.

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.

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.

Sophie's World

Sophie's World Jostein Gardner 9/10

A very enjoyable work of fiction intertwined with a very educational review of philosophy, starting with the first known Greek philosophers and ending with more modern theories like existentialism and logical empiricism. I don't know if it's more enjoyable for the fictional part of the story or the thoroughly entertaining non-fiction/educational part.