Wildly Implausible, Wildly Entertaining: A Review of The Future of the Mind by Michio Kaku

The portions of Michio Kaku's The Future of the Mind which I found to be most helpful were the brief summaries of current progress scientists and engineers have been making in understanding the brain, robotics, artificial intelligence, latest scientific efforts toward discovering alien life, etc. I found these to be by far the most interesting parts of the book. Unfortunately, they comprised 10% or less of the book's total content (I listened to the audio book so it's difficult to estimate accurately).

Juxtaposed between these helpful tidbits were: 1. Highly entertaining but only marginally relevant references to dozens of science fiction stories, TV shows, and movies: While I appreciated the author's obvious passion for science fiction and enjoyed the story summaries, they did little to substantiate the points he was trying to make or anchor his arguments in reality. 2. Page-after-page of highly entertaining but highly questionable speculation: These too I found to be engaging (helped keep me from nodding off in my daily commute anyway!) but not exactly what I was hoping to learn when I began listening to the audio book.

Time and again I noticed this repeating pattern: 1. Introduction of New Topic: "In the future it may be possible...." 2. page after page of rampant, highly implausible speculation... 3. Section Conclusion: "Of course, at the present time, none of this is possible."

With regard to all the rampant, groundless (to me anyway) speculation, at the time of this review I have also been reading "What If: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions" by Randall Munroe. "What If", like "The Future of the Mind," is highly entertaining. However, the two books may serve as bookends in that while Munroe starts with absurd questions and applies scientific thinking, Kaku, in contrast, begins with a supposedly legitimate topic and launches off to produce mounds of barely supportable, ungrounded speculation. At least nobody is taking Munroe's book seriously! I couldn't always tell how seriously Kaku expects us to take the stuff he is dishing out.

Near the end of the book, in a section entitled "The Miracle of Science", Kaku says: "There is the criticism of science that says to understand something is to remove its mystery and magic. Science, by lifting the veil concealing the secrets of the mind, is also making it more ordinary and mundane. However, the more I learn about the sheer complexity of the brain, the more amazed I am that something that sits on our shoulders is the most sophisticated object we know about in the universe." Yet earlier in the book Kaku himself often seems guilty of this removal of mystery. For example, on the one hand Kaku's materialistic world-view leaves little room for spirituality in general or for the existence of specific gods or God. In fact, he implies the reason people believe in God or gods goes back to how their brains are "hard-wired" (hardly a fact!). Later, he also makes a disdainful reference to "religious hysteria". And in a highly irrelevant appendix to the book (see next paragraph), he makes another negative reference to "God" in reference to the former Catholic practice of selling indulgences. Yet Kaku's materialistic world-view still has room for the possibility that in the future humankind will use laser beams to stream individual consciousnesses to surrogate computers or robots stretched across the universe on other planets, or better yet, do away with the surrogates all together! We will exist as "floating beings of energy". Immaterial consciousness in pure energy form is not impossible according to physics.

Fortunately, either Kaku or more likely his publisher, quarantined additional material off into its own little appendix. The purpose of the appendix appears mostly to give Kaku additional time and space to prattle on about whatever he wants to talk about, no matter how remotely connected it is to the subject of the book. Here he deals largely with multi-universes (how is this supposed to be linked to the human mind?) and whether or not humans have free will.

I want the next serious book about the mind or brain I pick up to read to be written by someone uniquely qualified in the fields of cognitive psychology, molecular biology, and especially neural science (perhaps someone like Eric R. Kandel, whose "In Search of Memory" I recall having liked quite a bit), not some quack physicist way out of his sphere of expertise. I have heard Kaku's other books related to physics are good, but this book makes me feel highly suspicious. It also leaves me wondering how trustworthy and/or based in reality his work and that of other contemporary quantum physicists really has been in recent years. In conclusion, I'm so glad I didn't waste any money purchasing this book... Thank heavens for library audio book loans!

Buddy’s Annoying New Trick

African Greys are highly intelligent, although I wonder about the things Buddy (below) chooses to do.

About six months ago, several days I would  take him out of his cage to discover that the light chain around his foot would be looped into a knot. This happened not once or twice, but four or five times in a week. What a pain to undo!

Buddy recently learned a new “trick”.  Several mornings I pulled off the cloth  we cover the parrots’ cages with at night to discover that Buddy had chewed out a small hole and inserted the chain into the hole. But not only had he inserted it, he expertly weaved the cloth in and out of the last loop on the chain—not an easy feat to accomplish.

Because the only way to get the chain out is often to take a pair of scissors to the cloth cover, I quit covering the cage. However, twice this week he has nevertheless still managed to pull over the cloth from the neighboring parrot’s cage into his cage to continue practicing his trick. Arggh!

 

2014 Reading

Last year my reading broke down into the following categories: 15 audiobooks (5 from Audible and the rest from the Maryland digital and public libraries), 9 kindlebooks (including 5 free loans from the Maryland digital library), and only 8 real books (only one of which wasn't read during our August USA vacation).I'm thankful for all the free ebooks and audiobooks since English books here in Taiwan tend to be expensive. But as I'm getting older I sure have gotten away from conventional reading!

Of these, 10 books were fictional novels, 6 were devotional/theological Christian books, 5 were biographies,  5 were other history-related books, 5 related to science, and one was poetry. Three or four others didn’t make the list… Some great reads. Now on to 2015!

The Islamic State and Spreading Ebola Virus Crises: Natural Outcomes of our Insistence on Multi-Culturalism and Drive Toward Globalism?

During our vacation I have been reading the classic The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton. Although I cannot agree with everything he says, Merton writes marvelously. Practically every word explodes with meaning. Although portions of this book are dated, the timeliness of other sections invite one to reflect on their relevancy for today.

With regard to the paragraphs I have copied below, for example, I wonder how Merton would feel about the Islamic State and Ebola Virus epidemic crises (as well as Russia/Ukraine, Israel/Gaza and other current hot spots in the world). Specifically, would he feel that they are logical consequences of our post-modern ways of thinking?

“For that was to be 1939, the year when the war that everybody had been fearing finally began to teach us with its inexorable logic that the dread of war is not enough. If you don’t want the effect, do something to remove the causes. There is no use loving the cause and fearing the effect and being surprised when the effect inevitably follows the cause…” (p. 256)

“There was something else in my own mind—the recognition: “I myself am responsible for this. My sins have done this. Hitler is not the only one who has started this war: I have my share in it too… It was a very sobering thought, and yet its deep and probing light by its very truth eased my soul a little…" (p. 272)

What do you think he would say? And would you agree or disagree?

Andy Stanley on Leading a Team Meeting

I’m not in any sort of leadership capacity at present, but I still enjoy reading and listening to leadership-related materials. Last night I was catching up with an Andy Stanley Leadership podcast from last April 4. Here are two nuggets I took from his discussion:

1. “When we get together (in our leadership team meeting to discuss the future and progress)... It's great to have a number two person, it's even better to have five number 2 people, or ten number 2 people... To find that man or woman who can carry an enormous amount of responsiblity--they don't feel the need to be #1, but they want to influence their own destiny. And most of us in leadership, especially when you get past 40-- I don't have to be #1, but I want to be in the meeting that determines my destiny in this organization. And so the leadership team allows me to have a large group of extraordinary people anyone of which can be #2 in this organization...”

2. “The leader isn't so much leading the meeting as he is excavating... getting it all out.... There are going to be conflicting opinions (but they all need to be heard)... Why is it so important that everyone be heard? Everyone listening to this podcast, me included, can probably think back to decisions that were made with which we didn't agree with, and it was difficult for us to fully engage. Because first of all we didn't think it was the right decision. But most leaders can move beyond that. What's really difficult is to ask me to engage with something that I don't agree with when I never feel like my opinion was heard. Most mature people if they feel like OK, I've  been heard, their opinion was factored it in, they just didn't agree. Mature people can move past that. The idea that a decsion was made  and my opinion was not even factored in, now a mature leader can move past that as well, but if I've got everyone in the room and I've got the right people in the room there's no reason for everyone not to be heard.... “

Looking forward to some of his more recent podcasts (and maybe start listening to his weekly message?). The leadership podcasts seem more substantial than some of other podcasts I’ve been listening to recently.