Mark Reynolds > Recent Status Updates

Rereading after many years

I found that I just didn't have it in me to continue. It's a well written book, but not speaking to me at this moment. I'll come back to it.

The chapter on Compassion has a nice exercise in visualization - visualize both your friends and enemies in their totality, from birth through death, and see them as people just like yourself.

Great start! Hugely helpful to describe to my students *how* they need to work when they're learning math and physics.

So far so good.

Possibly because I'm a physicist, but the chapters on science and the scientific revolution are fairly standard and not earth-shattering. However, the first 1/3 of the book, where he covers the "Cognitive Revolution" is definitely thought-provoking. Even though it's controversial, as evidences by some book reviews, I'm still enjoying it immensely.

My first, short weekend read. We'll see if I can get 174 pages (with lots of diagrams) done in two days.

So far so good. Although the author is clearly opinionated, it's an educated opinion. And while he might stretch his inferences too far, there are too many interesting facts to ignore. For example, who knew that chimpanzees spend 5 hours per day chewing their food? And humans, because we cook, spend only an hour?

Funny, irreverent, with some excellent history of the Czech Republic. I like the writing style.