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A History of the World in Six Glasses - Tom Standage | Book Review

11/15/2022

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                This was an excellent example of what we call 'Historical Lensing', the process of intentionally and proactively reading History from a particular and unique angle.
           The way that Standage explores the development of the Western World from the roots of civilization all the way to our current Capitalist hellscape is elegant and fascinating. It uncovers the unique ways in which what we drink truly does have an affect on Society and therefore on History. His accounting is detailed and well-researched and eloquent enough to open plenty of minds to the way in which seemingly little things often have some of the largest impacts.
                 It does have its problems, however. While this book intentionally lenses through specific drink histories, it is also (seemingly unintentionally) lenses all of world history through the West's rise to domination. It briefly comments on how non-western cultures affected the rise of each drink, and then comments again even more briefly on how the West aggressively screwed over the rest of the world repeatedly in various ways.
         I will say that it doesn't flinch away from saying that the outright Imperialist activities of America in the 1940's~80's are objectively Imperialist, but it does brush over the horrors of those consequences in a similar way to how it brushes over the fact that Britain is basically the Evil Empire.

         ​I do highly recommend this book for anyone at all curious about History, even the layest of lay-persons could find it entertaining and informative.
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From Eternity to Here - Sean Carroll

7/28/2021

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                This is another investigation into the realm of Quantum Mechanics, but unlike the Amazing Story of Quantum Mechanics, this one requires a bit of familiarity with the topic before a reader can effectively delve into the material's summary / arguments.
Date Read: ​July 5th, 2021
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​Final Score: 7 / 10 !
           Now, I did this one as an Audiobook, and I regret that decision. It's not in any way that Erik Synnestvedt failed to do a good job with reading it, quite the opposite (he was rather remarkably successful). My problem was that there were a great many moments in this where a diagram would've been really nice to look at and we've not yet managed tech were one such image can be beamed into my brain during the smooth narration around when it could be beneficial.
               (Note, since I didn't
read the physical copy, I have no way to guarantee that said diagrams will actually be present, but if they are NOT there, I would have to be very disappointed in Carroll's otherwise very detailed and patiently laborious effort to communicate these tricky concepts.)
              That was the primary drawback I noticed. Otherwise, this was a very well done overview of our current theories about why the 'Arrow of Time' apparently exists when just about everything in classical mechanics says it shouldn't.
                    The bulk of this book is not about time.
                  Because Time is a concept that has proven to be entangled in two dozen other physics debates that are still raging in the Science World. I knew that this would not be
about Time, exactly, but even so I was surprised by how much not-Time stuff needed to be covered to get the reader to a point of understanding what the debates on Time are actually about. While I would've liked a little more of the narrative focused on Time, I perfectly understand WHY so little was devoted to it, and I appreciated the carefully rigorous stage-setting of the background physics discussion.
          (I recall the laws of Thermodynamics, but even with an interest in physics I still get them mixed up rather easily.)
         Thermodynamics, Entropy, and Gravity all get discussed in excellent detail (with both sides of the current relevant debates being given equal examination) and then all related back to our observable conception of Time and the perception of our tangible Universe.
          This narrative doesn't come to any truly solid conclusions about what Time is, exactly, or why it only seems to flow in one direction, but that's largely because Physics CAN'T explain it wholly. And nether Physics nor Neuroscience is quite at the point of being able to work effectively together on a cohesive unified theory to explain it, but that door is starting to more effectively open.
           I definitely enjoyed this one, but it is NOT a starting-point stepping-stone for anyone just getting interested in the governing mechanics of reality.
          Still, I highly recommend it (in physical book form) to anyone who really would like to sit down and investigate one of the biggest mysteries of our day to day lives within this fantastical universe we call home!
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How We Learn - Benedict Carey (Book Review)

6/6/2021

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Date Read: May 12, 2021
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​ Final Score: 7 / 10 !

         This is another book I picked up for Class and it's a fantastic start-point for anyone interested in the finer points of psycho-social neurology. It addresses the physical aspects of how the brain functions, the psychological elements of how it processes information, and the social influences that nudge both of the above to work effectively.
           
A lot of what my current research is focused on is not just the hyper-academic psychology journals or neuro-medical experiments, it's on what is accessible to the average, open public. Because the Ivory Tower of academia is like the number 1 thing that modern society is absolutely bonkers about (seriously, the WHOLE POINT of the development of libraries and public education was to make learning accessible and incentivized for the sum total of the entire population... locking shit behind paywalls that even big institutions can barely afford is just asinine). This is one of the best, ease your way in sorts of overviews that I've found. A key factor of that is in how it's accurate science and not full of gimmicky give yourself an edge lies on how to be the smartest person ever.
          It touches on the neurology, cites plenty of legitimate and historic studies in both medical neurology and psychology, and explains the conclusions in down to earth, easy to understand language that is congenial while still being accurate.
         The look at Perceptual Learning Modules is my favorite, simply because what I look at while nose-deep in the journal side of academia are the ways in which Intuition is trained, measured, and utilized in practical settings, so the PLMs are kinda my wheelhouse.
         The other great thing it mentions is called Interleaving, which I don't think Carey spent nearly enough time on. While paywalls are the biggest thing that America and upper level academia is doing wrong, the idea of disciplinary studies is the thing that education as a concept is doing wrong. Subjects are not separate. They only ever developed into separate departments because they had to argue for funding from school boards and when a department got funding, it was spent at the discretion of the department head. If the Dean of Science decided that music was lame, even though music was definitively considered a hard science for most of history, all the Science money was spent elsewhere (like alchemy or astrology...), so Music petitioned to be considered an entirely separate discipline with its own discretionary budget and such.
         I may have to write up a Culture Crit essay on the topic, because the manner in which we teach 'subjects' in school is just something that makes me want to claw people's eyes out. In short, if you're not teaching music with your math and history with your science and poetry with your politics, you're doing everyone in the universe a lasting disservice. Anyway, I really liked how Carey addressed the fact that true learning, not just memorizing for the test, is learning how to manipulate the variable rather than how to achieve an end result. It's a principle that works in math just as well as in sports, and that idea is addressed by Carey quite well.
       I also liked Carey's quote of the Henk Arts Group at Leiden University regarding their study on perception motivations with Bisaldrops (ie, if you're thirsty and stuck in a room, you notice things that relate to water / liquids more easily and remember them better than if you were locked in the same room while not thirsty). They address the idea of motivation directly and excessively affecting the ability of the brain to perceive the factors of its environment and how the idea of the "body's basic needs" includes the things needed by the mind.(There's probably another Culture Crit piece in there about Mazlo's Pyramid of Needs being outdated bullshit, but that's a rant for another day.)
         In short, I liked this book. It's a good survey of the scientific state of learning psychology and a great toe-dipping start point with accessible, accurate prose.

I definitely recommend it for anyone even a little curious about how our brains actually manage to work their magic!
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