Re: Recent Readings of List Members

Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
30 Dec 1998 13:35:49 +0100

The Baileys <nanotech@cwix.com> writes:

> Septhakas wrote:
>
> > I'd like to know what some of the recent books you've read in the past
> year.
>
> Most of the interesting stuff out there is contained in papers. A lovely
> thing would be an annual version of Ander's "This week's finds in science
> journals".

Nice idea. I have to think a bit about that. It is definitely true that the most amazing reading can be found in papers, but here is a preliminary list of good books read the last year:

Diaspora and Luminious by Greg Egan. A posthuman novel and several though-provoking stories.

The Cell by Watson et al. Standard textbook in cell biology, very readable and covers much interesting stuff.

Imagined Worlds by Freeman Dyson. Dyson is wise. He might not be right about everything (I disagree with him in a lot of places), but he is certainly worth reading and enjoying.

Introduction to Artificial life by Adami. Nice introduction to the theory of artificial evolutionary processes.

Zen and the Brain by James H. Austin. I have been referring to it so many times that I must promise you a review at length to explain what is good (and bad) about it.

More to come...

-- 
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Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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