A new author for me, but it is clear from the recent books on this list that there is a bit of a theme going on.
Complexity
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
I read this very quickly – and it was both thought provoking and slightly disappointing! The central thesis resonates strongly with my own outlook which can be found throughout the blog entries that there are lots of interconnections in our lives that we know little about – I could link to some of the specific entries that explore this but it permeates so much – whether it is external events that impact on our lives or ourselves unwittingly causing a change for someone else there are lots of “unknowns”.
Clueless
Normally I put the entire title in the subject line – including any subtitle – but this time the subtitle is just a tad long
New research uncovers the story of two extraordinary financial mysteries, massive investor losses, and a brilliantly straightforward blueprint to achieve huge profits from investment funds
What Are Spiders For?
Can I just start this by saying that nowhere in this post will you find a definitive and precise answer to the question posed in the title. The poor spiders are chosen for investigation not because they are particularly relevant, nor because they have a great and mysterious purpose, but rather because there is one that has been web building outside our kitchen window for weeks and every time I do the washing up I am staring at it!!
The Long Cosmos
The next (and last) step (so to speak) in this rambling exploration of parallel worlds. Plenty of food for thought in the whole series – as long as you don’t require ‘answers’. Not that the reading date of this is approximate as I can’t remember precisely when I read it.
Everyone Knows
I’ve said it before – and I will probably say it again – it is really good when you get unexpected confirmation of things that you have written. In my recent post Tell Me About It I tackled the ever more prevalent problem of what is known as the “illusion of explanatory depth” with regard to our knowledge.
All In The Presentation
“Its all just ones and zeroes” – not sure whether that quote comes from a single identifiable source, but it is often used as a way of breaking down the complexities of most computer systems to something “understandable”. The problem is that although we understand “ones and zeroes” in their own right it requires rather more to interpret the meaning of all those “ones and zeroes”.
Tell Me About It
One thing that has informed my worldview over recent years was the discovery that there exist a whole host of cognitive biases that cause us to mis-perceive everything we see, hear and think. In a previous post I linked to an article that listed no less than 58 of these – and I have a poster on my desk which lists 20. (note that these both originate from the same website)
The Long Utopia
The next step (so to speak) in this rambling exploration of parallel worlds. Hope it is as interesting as the previous volumes.
Faking It
There is a bit of a furore about the perceived influence of so called fake news on the result of the US election. On the one hand this strikes me as extremely funny – on the other it is rather worrying (on a number of levels).