I’m unsure of what to think about “Who’s Afraid of Schrodinger’s Cat: An A-to-Z Guide to All the New Science Ideas You Need to Keep Up With the New Thinking.” The book consists of for four overview essays, and roughly 200 entries on 20th century science. The overall topics discussed are Quantum Physics, Relativity, Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence, and Chaos/Complexity theory.

Authors Ian Marshall and Danah Zohar do a decent job covering the topic of these three that I know the most about, Artificial Intelligence and the Cognitive Science. They cover the basics well, touching on Neural Networks, Formal Computing, Godel’s Theorm, The Turing Test, Searle’s Chinese Room response and more succinctly and without misrepresenting the field’s possibilities or making any glaring errors. Were these entries to stand alone, a wouldn’t have a problem recommending them to someone with no background in cognitive science who wanted an overview of the field.

On the entries covering the ideas of Complexity, Chaos and Emergence, the authors seem to stand pretty well. I’ve done very little reading on this subject, so it was valuable to get an idea of what these topics are all about. Although some of the entries could have gone more in depth, they did probably as good a job as one could do covering such deep topics in only 1/2-2 pages. In these areas I didn’t run into many red flags that got my skeptical radar firing.

The entries on Modern Physics, however, are of lower quality. A few were difficult to understand here, when reading of the same topics from other sources was clear. Some of this may be due to the book’s format. Quantum Physics seems to lend itself better to a narrative where complex topics can be solidified before being built upon be ever more complex and unintuitive subjects. Even given this though, I still have my misgivings about the book’s coverage of the topic. Heisenburg’s Uncertainty principal, that states that one cannot know both the position and momentum of a given particle at any one time, is brought to bear several times out of context, pointing the reader to lines of thought for which there seems to be little evidence for. That said, some entries such as those on Lasers, Superconductors and Bose-Einstein Condensation were complete, interesting and completely scientific.

The most worrisome aspect of the book is it’s complete lack of ANY sign of skepticism. The spiritualism of Yoga, Buddhism and Taoism is are discussed in sevreal places as almost being its own form of science. The existence of God and/or a spiritual realm is almost taken as given in many spots.

The most glaring problem the book suffers from is the complete lack of any citation of any kind. There are no footnotes, bibliography or even a recommmended reading section. In an encyclopedic book like this, sources for further information are often the most valuable part of the book, yet they are completely lacking here.

Also, I could not find any significant information anywhere on the background of the authors. The back cover mentions they teach at Oxford Brookes University, but doesn’t mention what they teach, what they studied, or where they went to school. There is a part of me that wonders whether

the authors might teach philosophy rather than science. The writing often begins with the philosophical beginnings of a topic, discusses the current scientific idea, then the philosophical implications of that idea, with most of the text focusing on there philisophical bookends.

Overall, the book is not bad. The books New Age tint is very light, and the majority of the time it sticks to science and respectable philosophy and only rarely resorts to spiritual questions. The writing is not excellent, but it isn’t bad either, and most of the entries were very readable, and I don’t regret reading the book. Perhaps my criticisms come from my own skeptical, atheistic-agnostic bias, but when one writes a book on science one has a responsibility to be secular, and on topics where secularism isn’t entirely called for (such as consciousness) a heavy dose of skepticism is needed to keep things grounded here in the real world.

Borrowed season 1 from a friend, but he needed it back before I could watch season 2. Lame. I guess I’ll have to buy my own copy

Learning Buddhist Beliefs – An Elegant Introduction

In The Heart of Buddha’s Teaching, Thich Naht Hanh introduces us to the core teachings of the Buddha. Namely, he outlines The Four Noble Truths, The Noble Eight-fold Path and several other basic buddhist teachings. Hanh also works into the text well translated ancient buddhist texts as well as several parables from the Buddha himself as well as general buddhist tradition. Hanh references his own life as a monk in Vietnam on occasion, both in times of war and peace.

This is the first book I’ve read on Buddhism, and Hanh, with elegant prose opened my eyes to a new world of spiritual belief. I’ve read quite a bit of Western Philosophy and although I’ve found it both interesting and well grounded, there has always been something of a lack of passion to it. Not so here. Hanh’s writing reminds my old boss, for a job I had a few years ago as a web developer. He managed to inspire my co-workers and I to create great software, with great care and efficiency. No one else since has been able to create that kind of profession motivation in me. Like my old boss’s kind and soft words, Hanh’s prose inspires. The Buddhist ideas he teaches regarding ending suffering, mindfullness and right action are as logical as any philosophy of the time, but they also invoke some kind of true inspiration.

Unfortunately, no book is perfect and this is not without its shortcomings. Primarily, the book is filled with lists of interconnected ideas that are often difficult to keep straight. At points the book mentions something such as the Third Noble Truth while explaining one of the Twelve Links, and how that relates to the second noble truth. After a while, all of these enumerations, some with 40-50 entries can make ones head spin.

Also, the book does seem to assume some prior knowledge of some Buddhist or Hindu culture and beliefs. A few eastern terms we unfamiliar to me and not fully explained. While this was somewhat frustrating, I could figure meaning from context and it didn’t really negatively effect my experience with the book a great deal.

Overall, I would recommend reading this work.

I’ll leave you with the following small sampling of some of the interesting ideas I took from the book and facts about buddhist beliefs:

• Buddhism isn’t in conflict with most other religions. In fact, some of the Buddha’s own students were monks of other “faiths”
• Some beliefs in buddhism relate directly to the symbols of chinese writing
• After years of only oral tradition keeping Buddhism alive, two different groups decided to write down the Buddha’s teaching. Thus, what is known of Buddhism today comes from two sources which can be compared and scrutinized against one another for accuracy.

This review is also available here: Learning Buddhist Beliefs – An Elegant Introduction