Just before the book week: these are the hot recommendations for reading enthusiasts

by time news

Lawrence Krauss is a bit of a controversial character, but he has an interesting podcast. He grew up in a Jewish family in Toronto, became a physicist, became an anti-atheist, that is, one who not only does not believe but is an active opponent of the faith. He befriended Jeffrey Epstein, the businessman and sexual abuser, a little too much, accused himself of sexual harassment and quit his job, and authored a best-selling book on “Physics of the Star Trek” series. He is a public intellectual, who some have decided to ignore because of the accusations against him, and some who have decided that the accusations are exaggerated or simply inaccurate, and that he can be tolerated to gain what he has to offer.

Krauss recently spoke on his podcast with Alan Goth. He is also of Jewish descent, he is also a physicist by profession, more important than Krauss. On his name is recorded one of the most fascinating theories of recent decades: inflation. Not that of the economy and the Bank of Israel, but that of the universe after the big bang. This is a theory that states that a very short time after the Big Bang (how short? 10 – 36 seconds), the universe expanded at once. Which helps explain why it is uniform, as evidenced by the cosmic background radiation.

Either way, Krauss and Goth talked about, among other things, a book that had a dramatic effect on both of them: “Grow, Asher, Bach,” Douglas Hofstetter’s book. There is almost no dispute that this is an important, glorious work. It has an effect, but what exactly and how does a book affect someone?

“Growing Up, Asher, Bach” won the Pulitzer Prize in 1980, when it was published. It is not easy to describe its contents in a row, but if necessary, it can be said that it describes how simple systems are made into complex systems. This is basically a question that is at the heart of scientific inquiry, for example, in relation to human consciousness. How is it possible that a cluster of simple particles, the building blocks of matter, joins an intricate and creative assembly as has been said, Michelangelo’s feverish mind. In the days when the assumption was that man was a compound of “matter” and of “spirit,” the question was not so difficult.

The 17th-century French philosopher Rene Descartes argued that the mind is a layer to itself, not part of matter. This is the belief known as dualism or in polished Hebrew: secondness. In modern science it is not acceptable, certainly not among those who converge under the anti-atheist umbrella. In modern science it is more common to assume that everything stems from matter, including the mind, including Michelangelo’s feverish and creative mind. There are no muses – there are only neurons that are shot quickly and absorbed at synapses in the brain.

“Growing Up, Asher, Bach” is the book that gives a fascinating artistic expression to the processes that make the simple complex. It has an essay by three creators: the mathematician Kurt Gedel, who formulated the equations that state that there are mathematical statements that we can never prove; The cool painter Maurice Cornelis Asher, who marveled at optical illusions; Composer Johann Sebastian Bach, who sketched moves with precision, well, mathematically. And why did he affect Krauss and Goth so deeply? This is how author Lev Grossman phrased the book’s impact on his own life: ‘I would have gone so far as to presume – how can such a thing be proved? “That GEB has reshaped the minds of an entire generation of nerds, who have grown up and are now doing interesting things … this is the secret nerd bible of my generation.”

Did you read? A Hebrew translation came out a little over a decade ago. Tal Cohen and Jordan Nir-Buchbinder worked on it for about a decade and a half. The author assisted them in his enigmatic way. There is a kind of guide he has written that allows the translators of the book to identify all the puns, wit and eccentric jumps that characterize the book. A joke that starts on one page and ends a few hundred pages later. A quote that half appears in one chapter, and the other half hides in another chapter. In a slightly more cultured country, they would receive a great reward for their enterprise.

Growing up, Asher, Bach (Photo: screenshot)

In Israel, they will have to make do with the eternal admiration of some nerds. By the way, more nerds than you think. Since I was involved in publishing the book (when I was the editor of the non-fiction books of Kinneret Zmora Dvir), I know how to tell that the sales were a pleasant surprise. This is not a thin book, nor an easy book nor a book for everyone. Still, there were those who knew how to recognize its quality. So when he left America, so when he left Israel, 30 years later.

Long-term impact

Here, an important feature of a book that has an impact. Resistance to the ravages of time. This durability can be identified in lists of influential books that are published from time to time, by individuals or groups. Another physicist who has a successful podcast, Sean Carroll, tried a decade and a half ago to create a list of the 100 most important popular science books. “Guns, Bacteria and Steel” by Jared Diamond was first on his list (published in Israel by Am Oved). Not necessarily the most important, but the first one Carol remembers. “Growing up, which, Bach” was the second. Carol did not put himself on the list. He has written several successful books. His important book, called “The Big Picture” in English, will be published later this year (as part of a series of books I am editing: The Hedgehog and the Fox). An earlier book, “Never and Until Now,” which deals with the question of what time is, was published in Israel nearly a decade ago (published by Matar).

Cover of the vertical garden (Photo: screenshot)Cover of the vertical garden (Photo: screenshot)

By the way, if time interests you, there is a newer book, by Carlo Rubley (published by Keter). His name is “Order of Time.” Rubley also wrote “Seven Short Physics Lessons,” which was published five years ago. And in general he is a physicist who knows how to write. His latest book, Legoland, tells the story of Warner Heisenberg’s lonely days on the rocky island of Legoland, and how he developed his version of quantum theory (which became a bit obscure later because of the discoveries of Erwin Schrödinger – the one from the dead cat).

Popular science books have a greater impact than you might first think. Stephen Hawking’s Short History of Time has affected a generation, much like Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park movie. The first urged boys and girls to take an interest in the mysteries of the universe, the second urged girls and boys to take an interest in the antiquities of the earth. Richard Dawkins’ “Selfish Garden” made the author a star and his views prevalent. He got a big megaphone and used it to tell humans about the genetic code, and no less so to convince them that there is no God. Here’s how Lawrence Krauss connects from the beginning of the article and Carol and Dawkins from the middle. All three are honorary members of the anti-atheist order. All three are determined – some would say too determined – in the “There is no God and stop talking nonsense” movement. Carol has a beautiful sentence that he repeats in this context: “God is not a good theory.”

Stephen Hawking (Photo: Reuters)Stephen Hawking (Photo: Reuters)

What is the place of all these reflections on a calm weekend of early summer? They came up because of Book Week (and Book Month) which is coming, and which creates an opportunity to talk about books and offer books, they also came up because I read the translation of Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman’s book, which is not only Kahneman’s book, but Olivia Siboni’s. And Cass Sunstein.

Shortening the history of time (Photo: screenshot)Shortening the history of time (Photo: screenshot)
Richard Dawkins (Photo: Reuters)Richard Dawkins (Photo: Reuters)

Kahneman’s really popular book, “Think Fast and Think Little” is a life-changing book. At least, for those who read it seriously, and digest what is written in it. A book that forces its readers to slow down the course of their thinking so as not to fall into the multitude of pitfalls that reality holds for them, and which Kahneman skillfully locates for them. This is what made Kahneman and Tversky’s Linda problem so famous. A brilliant young woman named Linda, who in her days as a smart and extroverted student was very interested in social justice and equality. What do you think Linda is doing today, as an older woman? There are two options to choose from: 1. Linda is a librarian at a bank. Linda is a librarian at the bank and active in the feminist movement.

Daniel Kahnemi (Photo: Andreas Rentz.GettyImages)Daniel Kahnemi (Photo: Andreas Rentz.GettyImages)

If you are familiar with the test, it is not wisdom. If you do not know – you probably chose, as the majority do, the second option. The one that sounds more appropriate. Of course, this is the wrong option. There are far more in the world as libraries (or at least there were, when banks were still banks, and when Kahneman and Tversky conducted their research) than as feminist libraries. This humorous test reveals what is almost self-evident, and yet deceives us: our instinctive thinking is not adapted to the world in which statistical thinking is required. Those who want to make less mistakes should slow down and think in numbers.

Think fast, think slow (Photo: Screenshot)Think fast, think slow (Photo: Screenshot)

Read in the noise

Noise, the new book, has already changed my life, or at least some of the professional practices I use. It is a book that has shaky, very disturbing insights, concerning key systems in our lives. It is difficult to read it and look at the justice system in the same way. Because it turns out that punishment in the courts is inconsistent in a way that is almost monstrous. It’s hard to read it and not wonder about how workplaces value their employees ’achievements. Because it turns out that in employee evaluation there is much more “noise”, that is, an irrelevant difference between different assessments, than an assessment that actually has it.

Quite a bit of what is in this book will make it difficult for you to read it. In this sense, “noise” requires concentration, the kind that anyone who wants to run their business with a little less “noise” needs. Some of the issues that appear in it are repetition, including development, of ideas from the previous book. Instead of “Linda” there is this time “Bill”, who could be someone who “plays jazz as a hobby” or “an accountant who plays jazz as a hobby”. If you were again tempted by the second answer, you probably did not understand Linda’s lesson. If you did not understand Linda’s lesson, Kahneman, Siboni and Sunstein will be happy to explain to you why it is so difficult to understand – and internalize – Linda’s lesson.

We, it turns out, use a simple question to answer a more difficult question. Think of “Bill,” whose description is “intelligent but unimaginative, compulsive, and for the most part his life is pretty boring.” In school he was quite strong in mathematics, but weak in the social sciences and humanities. ‘ Hence the “similarity and probability” test. Simply put, it is much easier for us to identify what is similar to what, than to do the statistical calculation. So when we think of Bill, trying to say which image Bill is better suited to, we tend to say that “Bill has more in common with an accountant who plays jazz as a hobby than with a person who plays jazz as a hobby.” In our head, Bill is an accountant, and if we have to choose whether he is an accountant who plays jazz or just a person who plays jazz, we choose the first option, even though statistically the correct option is the second (because if Bill plays jazz, then he can To also be an accountant who plays jazz).

And all this is very interesting, even if here and there requires a slow and concentrated reading. The question is whether it will also change your life. Here is an example of how he is already changing my life. As part of the index website, I conduct surveys (with my colleagues, Prof. Camille Fox and Noah Selpkov). In the book Noise, I recognized how problematic the questions that ask us to give a numerical, or even a literal, grade to a particular policy are. Suppose: How important it is in your eyes to deal with the cost of living, give a score from 1 (not important) to 5 (very important). This is an accepted question in many polls. This is a question that “noise” meticulously describes in an operating room how problematic it is. What do you mean when you say “3”? What do you mean when you say “4”? And tomorrow, if we ask you again, will you say “3”, or maybe you’ll be in the mood for “three and a half”? A little precision, a lot of noise.

In the book there is a distinction between different types of noises, which we will not go into here. And there are also practical suggestions on how to reduce the amount of noise. In the case of a question about the cost of living, for example, the numerical ranking – from 1 to 5 – can be converted into a hierarchical ranking. Take the cost of living, the peace process, the congestion on the roads, the Iranian threat – and rank them in order of importance. This way we will know what you mean when you put the cost of living first. He is more important to you than anyone else. This way we will know what you mean when you place the cost of living in third place – it is more important to you than the Iranian threat, but less important to you than the congestion on the roads. If you jump to visit the index site, you will see that the lesson has been applied. At least in some of the questions.

We will leave “noise”, which of course has a lot more, both to learn and to apply. We are in the business of books and their impact. Karl Marx’s “Capital” was an influential book. He formulated an idea that generated movement. Not every movement is born a number, but more than it seems. Here is a reason to stick to books that are commonly complained about that are already being read less. And it’s true, read them less. Still, there are those who read, and there are those who read and influence those who do not read. Marx’s socialism could not be formulated without writing a book. It could not have been proposed as an idea that made sense to try and implement without spreading it across many pages of arguments and explanations. Of course, most books do not have the same effect, and it is good that they do. But even today – the days of Twitter and Netflix – there are books that generate ideas and movements and trends.

It seems to me, and in this matter too I am a little biased, that Micha Goodman’s ‘Attention Revolution’ is a book that generates movement. How big? How much will it affect? These are things that are hard to gauge, and that are examined over time, and join others as they become dripping into the river. Here, we are back to the noise, only in a slightly different sense. The noise of Kahneman and his friends refers to gaps in judgment that are expressed in outcome gaps (two essays at the same level get different scores, two criminals who committed the same offense get different punishments). Goodman’s noise refers to the difficulty of maintaining a life of soul and society in a world flooded with tweets and distractions. Hopefully this is a book that can help subsequent books. If we just use it to disengage from the harmful effects of the manipulative and junk food flow of information, we may gain some silence, in which we can quietly read “Noise.”

Noise cover (Photo: screenshot)Noise cover (Photo: screenshot)

Proper and detailed disclosure: The article you have read requires exposure to a variety of conflicts of interest or at least a semblance of conflicts of interest. For more than a decade I was the editor of the non-fiction books of Kinneret Zmora Dvir. I was therefore involved in the publication of “Growing Up, Asher, Bach” and of the two books by Kahneman mentioned here. I also edited Micha Goodman’s books, one of which is mentioned here. I am also editing the book series The Hedgehog and the Fox, one of the books that will be published later this year is mentioned here. On the other hand, I have nothing to do with Carl Marx’s “Capital” (nor with the books on spending with an employee, a crown and a meter mentioned here). 

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