2022 Update: I enjoyed this book much more the second time around compared to my first reading. It’s smarter, more coherent, and more interesting than I remember. I think I understood it better, both because I’m more familiar with some of the ideas Watts was working with, and also because I’m less allergic to the […]
This is the kind of book I long to be intelligent enough to fully comprehend, although to purport having done so would be to ignore Blindsight‘s unnerving central message. Blindsight is an incredibly dark, thought-provoking tale that is equal parts science fiction, horror, and psychological thriller. Relying on a one-two punch that alternates between a heady […]
James Barrat’s Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era is a disturbing, plangent response to the rosy-minded, “rapture of the nerds” mentality that has recently swept across the futurist landscape. Toeing the line between rational prudence and alarmist hand-wringing, Barrat makes the case not only that advanced artificial intelligence is […]
Throughout his distinguished career, Edward O. Wilson has brought a vast wealth of interdisciplinary knowledge to bear on some of humanity’s most complex and pressing questions. The Meaning of Human Existence is his most philosophical work, and contains many worthwhile insights about humanity’s origins and possible futures. Wilson’s method, best characterized as a kind of […]