Current reading/research list

Current reading/research list

I am currently, concurrently, reading about 10 books.

It is not unusual for me to have several books going at once; I'll be reading something then not be able to locate it right off, or be in a different mood and start something else. So there will be 2 or 3 books about the house waiting for me to return to them. (I maintain that this is not poor focus, but rather an ability to multi-track.) The fact that of those 2-3 books I have typically already read at least one of them reduces the need to return to them all.

However, I am at present set on absorb. My mind is already awhirl with new input, new data, new information heading toward being knowledge. And I'm packing more in, and not excluding anything from possibly being drawn into the mix - magazine article, fiction, scholarly work, kid's book, everything may be grist for the writer's mill.

And it is not exactly accurate to say that I am 'reading' the books listed below, as that implies a cover-to-cover approach. I am rather, not-quite-randomly but trusting in Serendip to guide me, picking the books up and reading passages wherever my gaze may fall, then on to the next to do the same thing. (I am also following this with books and magazines I encounter at work.)

This approach has much to be said for it in my present mindstate. Each of the authors has of course worked hard to lay out their premises in orderly fashion. But order is not necessarily what I am seeking just now, so I must creatively disorder their works so that I might better get a feel for their intersections and incongruencies. By almost-randomly finding extracts from the works and considering them all simultaneously, I find that I am forced to think holographically, visualizing connections between the points of information in a model very similar to the way the brain itself works. Very appropriate, considering the subject material.

Each of these books has something to recommend it; there are some older books I know of which shall be revisited later for fresh insight in relation to the information in these books, but I have been limiting myself to newer works for now. For, in these fields, books even a few years old sometimes seem quite antiquated.

In no particular order:

Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution (2002) by Francis Fukuyama

A member of the President's Council on Bio-Ethics, Fukuyama is not wholly opposed to biotechnological manipulation of our human future, but calls for very specific controls on experimentation and application. As one might expect from his position, he is anti-cloning and very much for heavy government regulation of research. Some interesting discussions on ethics, rights, and the need for caution.

The Spike: How Our Lives Are Being Transformed by Rapidly Advancing Technologies (2001) by Damien Broderick

Broderick lays out an easier-to-understand version of Kurzweil's projections, even suggesting a new name, "The Spike", as being a more accurately descriptive term for what is occurring than "The Singularity". Interesting, plain-language discussions of possibilities, with a significant amount of focus upon how changes will be financed, and how the changes once occurred will affect finance itself.

(NOTE: Please reference the Comments for a revision to this entry.)

Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unitended Consequences (1996) by Edward Tenner

What, a technology book ten years old? Surely, it is valueless! Far from it - Tenner's book should be required reading for anyone blithely talking about throwing changes into biological systems. In straightforward and relentless fashion, he shows how time and again humans have cleverly technofixed around some catastrophic threat, only to enable smaller cumulative chronic problems (which may in the long run have a worse impact than the avoided catastrophic problem), which he terms "revenge effects". This is a very sobering reminder that no matter how clever we are (and we are clever, just short-sighted) natural systems are huge and remorseless and respond in ways we could not have predicted. Cause and effect, and chains of cause of effect, do not disappear merely because we slap a big fancy bandaid on something. Again, required reading for anyone considering altering existing natural systems; any time you hear someone talking about "improving upon nature" you should consider their claims in light of the lessons learned from this book.

More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement (2005) by Ramez Naam

Reasonably balanced examination of the possibilities for augmenting human physiology, heavy on the gene-therapy angle.

The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (2005) by Ray Kurzweil

This book is taken as Gospel by so many that I am reflexively skeptical of it, and continually compare its claims and projections against other works. The future will of course not play out exactly as Kurzweil paints it, but he does seem to have a good handle on trends and he has certainly gotten people talking. Still, there is no Bible for the future, we will write that ourselves, and if people proceed based only upon this book I feel they are limiting themselves - ironic, since Kurzweil's book discusses a time when we shall be limitless.

The World of 2044: Technological Development and the Future of Society (1994) edited by Charles Sheffield, Marcelo Alonso, and Morton A. Kaplan

An older book, with some nonetheless interesting discussions of how we proceed into the future as a culture. Older books are also interesting to read, since so many of the predictions are flatout wrong - another reminder that many current thinkers are likely to also be wrong. One thing which is clear about the future: it never turns out exactly the way you think it will.

Moths to the Flame: The Seductions of Computer Technology (1996) by Gregory J. E. Rawlins

This books is almost more philosophical than technological. Though ten years old, the points it makes are still valid since it discusses how and why humans interact with and through electronic machines, rather than a discussion of any specific technology. (Discussions of specific technologies being already old information by the time the book is printed.) Rawlins also almost-indirectly discusses the economics of change, by examining how technological change affects workforces.

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BTW: I found these books using a combination of searching by call number in the library database, and the "People Who Bought This Title Also Bought..." feature on Amazon.com. So, old techniques and new combined. And yes, all of these books were available through the public library.

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Newly thrown into the mix:

Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace (1997) by Janet H. Murray

Interesting discussion of how storytelling may change with the medium of computer communications and virtual realities. As the title suggests, modeled after Star Trek's holodeck - what happens when anyone can live any story, or any fantasy for that matter? (Star Trek touched upon this with "holodiction", but I think a culture which had such technology would be fundamentally different from what they showed us.)

And another book has arrived:

Digital Mosaics: The Aesthetics of Cyberspace (1997) by Steven Holtzman

Making the transition from static text to dynamic digital environments, and how our presumptions of interactions with visual input will be challenged. "Digital art is infinitely reproducible, yet ephemeral." It is the ephemeral quality which is most fascinating, since rather than gazing upon a fixed work we may be entering into a piece and moving with it as it evolves. At what point is it 'done' and needs to be captured? Or is the true role of art to change, as life changes? Heady questions.

And yet another new arrival:

Revolutionary Wealth: How it will be created and how it will change our lives (2006) by Alvin and Heidi Toffler

A new book from the man who gave us Future Shock and The Third Wave, and the folks who coined the term "prosumer". More projections on how all of the sexy technological changes a-comin' will be financed. Also has what promises to be a very interesting discussion of how we will handle the ever-increasing volume of information, how quickly knowledge becomes obsolete (in their fondness for coining terms, the Tofflers have given us another new word: obsolete knowledge = "obsoledge"; a bit awkward off the tongue, I don't think it will catch on), and what we will do with it once it is obsolete.

And another ingredient thrown into the soup:

A History of Knowledge; Past , Present and Future (1991) by Charles van Doren

Another older book with interesting insights. If this is "The Information Age", we are best served by understanding how humans interact with information, how they gain it, how we got to this particular age, and if the patterns of information-handling we have extablished will carry by momentum or if we are seeing entirely new forms. Discussions of McLuhan's concepts of media and the role of literacy are especially valuable.
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More more more - my filing cabinet, use it if you will:

The Future of Man (1959) by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Oft-quoted classic - I've run across many references and decided to go to the source. de Chardin gave us the "Teilhardian" ("de Chardinian" was just too big a mouthful) concept that consciousness and matter are aspects of the same reality, definitely a big influence on the singularitarian crowd. Teilhard also gave use the evolutionary progression from Geosphere (the physical earth), Biosphere (life), Noosphere (mind), to the "Omega Point", a blending of all intelligence in a communion of thought. The more I encounter Teilhardian visions of the world, the more I think the singularitarians aren't suggesting anything new, just putting a more technological spin on a metaphysical concept...

The Dance of Molecules: How Nanotechnology is Changing Our Lives (2006) by Ted Sargent

The latest poop on that thrilling gray goop. The author's interest in the field comes from a very understandable motive: a desire to resurrect his own personal Greta Garbo! Tuck away all of your high-falutin' talk about the good of humanity, there's an incentive I can get behind!

Future Imperfect: The Mixed Blessings of Technology in America (1994) by Howard P. Segal

Utopia, dystopia, and critical examinations of what progress really means to real people.

Waking Up in Time: Finding Inner Peace in Times of Accelerating Change (1998) by Peter Russell

"We are not slouching toward Bethlehem, as Yeats concludes in his poem The Second Coming. We are being catapulted there." Great stuff. It is too easy to focus on daydreams of what-ifs -- change still has to be dealt with on a day-to-day basis by real people. And people are not just mute pawns tosssed about by change - how people respond to change affects the rate of change.

Voyeur Nation: Media, Privacy, and Peering in Modern Culture (2000) by Clay Calvert

Privacy as we knew it is dead, and the media is rapidly morphing into something not envisioned a few years ago. Who are we in relation to one another, as viewed through and over electronic media?

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And another new arrival, one for which I have been waiting rather eagerly:

Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies - and What it Means to be Human (2005) by Joel Garreau

This one promises to be very enlightening. Rather than focusing on just the technologies likely to come along - and remember, most predictions about technologies prove out wrong - Garreau discusses the human side of the equation. An editor with the Washington Post, Garreau has very carefully referenced the work, which should make it a useful resource for leads to other research.