Book Review: The Emperor's New Mind, by Roger Penrose

The Emperor's New Mind is ostensibly a response to proponents of strong AI and a vehicle for eminent mathematical physicist Roger Penrose to lay out his perspective on the physics underlying consciousness. While that part of the tome is interesting, what is most valuable is the first three quarters of the book, in which Penrose explains key issues in theoretical computer science, the philosophy of mathematics, logic, and a great deal of physics. Curious minds looking for clear introductions to subjects such as the Church-Turing thesis and computability, Mathematical Platonism, Godel's incompleteness theorems, classical or modern physics, and basic neurobiology would be hard pressed to find better reading than the relevant chapters contained in this book.

Penrose does return, in the last chapter or so, to the question of whether machines can think, or dually, whether our minds operate algorithmically. He answers this question negatively, using fairly plausible arguments incorporating computability theory and Godel's incompleteness theorem. He then proceeds to lay out very speculative ideas concerning the nature of consciousness and how we might eventually come to understand the phenomenon physically. Penrose believes that the a more complete explanation of consciousness will only come with a theory he calls "Correct Quantum Gravity". True to his scientific training, Penrose very clearly states when he is speculating, but the conclusion of the book is nevertheless weakened by such whimsical trains of thought. One almost gets the impression that Penrose is simply smart enough to draw whatever conclusions he desires. But that keen intellect is exactly what saves the last chapter, as even the less organized thoughts make for thought-provoking fare, and illustrate how relatively the relatively disparate fields covered in earlier chapters can be brought to bear in novel ways. While the reader will likely remain skeptical of his conclusions, the journey through Penrose's ideas is the true genius of this book.

The Drone War

Death from above, prosecuted by a technologically advanced and foreign civilization, is a standard science fiction trope. The hero typically must execute some ingenious plot to exploit a flaw in the foreign tech to save the human race (or our equivalent in the fictional universe in which the story is set). Self-sacrifice is a common theme, and indeed in more than a few storylines, the human capacity for compassion and self-sacrifice is the secret weapon which ultimately saves the day.

It is astounding, then, that we see fit to hand such a similar recruitment story to terrorist organizations in the Middle East. American drones have been waging a now well-covered, but still mostly supported, war that has been vastly expanded under Obama. We fail to understand how individuals in the countries we bomb perceive us. If they know us only through the bombs we drop, or possibly the polemics made by our political leaders and broadcast throughout the world, they will not hesitate to take extreme measures to protect themselves from what they cannot possibly recognize as another part of humanity.

Obama has been particularly active in pursuing this war. The bar for how important a target must be to warrant a drone strike has been lowered, and collateral damage has been high. And this, so far, is to say nothing of the claim made by the administration that it has the right to kill American citizens. This question is important not because the president should be more morally hesitant to kill American citizens than other individuals, but because the Constitution is supposed to protect citizens from this sort of thing, and ceding this power to the president, or for that matter any part of the government, sets a scary precedent. I don't believe either Obama or Romney will begin assassinating Americans without grave reason or within our borders, but once the conversation shifts to asking who rather than whether we should kill, the precedent has already been set.

We send machines to drop bombs in communities who have either limited contact with the west, or none at all. In doing so, we mask our humanity and push people toward the extremists. We cannot possibly expect individuals in communities we bomb to extend compassion to the builders of the killer drones any more than we can expect them to extend compassion to the drones themselves.

Book Review: Founding Brothers, by Joseph J. Ellis

In "Founding Brothers", Joseph J. Ellis sheds light upon the creative moments of the United States, and indeed was awarded for his effort a Pulitzer. Ellis is a noted scholar on the Revolution and ensuing decades, haven written biographies of Jefferson and Washington, as well as other works on the subject. In this work, Ellis structures his story around six key events in the first few decades following the writing of the Constitution, and in explaining how the various founders react and interact at these crucial moments, Ellis reveals their preferences, strengths, weaknesses, and contributions in those formative years.

Several questions the founders faced will sound familiar to the modern reader. Perhaps the foremost question upon which many heated words were exchanged was the question of what powers ought to reside with the federal government, and what powers ought to be left to the states. While the United States seems to have answered that question (in favor of the federal government), debates over the European Union have a similar character. In fact, one option proposed to address the eurozone debt crisis is the consolidation of debt using eurobonds, which is exactly what happened in late-eighteenth-century United States. Hamilton pushed through a consolidation of state debt accrued over the Revolutionary War, turning a liability into a stronger federal government with better credit than any of the states. Many modern domestic issues also echo questions the founders faced. Altogether, "Founding Brothers" is a fascinating and instructive examination of issues which are still surprisingly relevant.

Reviving!

I'm going to try reviving this blog.  I intend to post primarily essays and book reports, rather than random stuff from the internet, so while I might not update too often, hopefully when I do, it will be interesting.