Smarter Than You Think

There's been a lot of hand-wringing lately about the damage technology could be doing to our brains.  As someone who spends nearly every waking hour tied to technology, the concern has preoccupied me. In some ways, I feel it. I panic when grappling for words I should know or having to revert to Google to blindly keyword around for the the name of a celebrity. So I understand the surge we've seen in books and speakers that chicken-little the demise of independent thought at the hands of the Internet, but it also doesn't feel entirely right to me. I'll readily admit that I'm over-reliant on Google and my unaided memory on many things may be worsening, but it's hard to argue that technology hasn't enriched my life and my intellect far more than it has caused it to shallow. All of which is why I was so impressed this month by Clive Thompson's book Smarter Than You Think. 

This year, for the first time in five years, I've taken a break from teaching.  The added free time opens me up for a few things, including what I'm hoping will be at least a couple of books a month.  In the interest of not compartmentalizing, one of the books each month will likely focus on an area of business or tech that I need to learn and the other will be something wholly different. I like to read with a pen in hand. Whether it's fiction or tech-related, taking notes has always meant that a book will stay with me longer - that I'll remember more. These are the books and notes from January.

Waking Up

Written by Sam Harris, this book aims to take a scientific look at spirituality and consciousness. For the first third of the book, I think he achieves that. There are some studies and concepts from the first 100 pages that are really remarkable. It's worth reading just for those. He loses his footing when he gets into the latter half of the book. He doesn't seem to take the same deductive approach to the sections on meditation and psychedelics and is a bit too swept away by them to take seriously. Still, I'm glad I read it and it's worthwhile.

Lines Loved

"Wisdom is nothing more profound than an ability to follow ones own advice."

"We seem to do little more than lurch between wanting and not wanting."

"My mind begins to seem like a video game: I can either play it intelligently, learning more in each round, or I can be killed in the same spot by the same monster, again and again."