Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

The book is a beautiful philosophical introduction to planetary astronomy. I like the way in which Sagan presents the arguments for the necessity of exploring the space. We  live in a limited environment. Our confined planet is a pale blue dot in space. This is all that we have and all that we are accustomed to. It gives you a perspective on our struggles as a species in the vast incommensurable Universe.

Humans have come a long way since believing that the Universe was all that we saw and it was created to suit our purposes. Science provided us an objective way of seeing ourselves for who we are: an intelligent life form that is evolving. Our evolution was formerly confined to the exploration of our planet, but as we grow in numbers we are jeopardizing our future. We must find new ways to colonize the space if we are to evolve.

Before reading the book I was aware of the limited resources that we have on the planet. I was also aware of the struggles that scientists had to overcome in order to broadcast their findings and the negative role that religious institutions had on stopping the progress of science and technology. After reading it, I feel like we [the human species] are foolishly thinking that we could circumnavigate the problems that we have created: global warming, the thinning of ozone layer, the overpopulation and the modification of life-threatening viruses. These problems are already taking a toll on how we live. We are more prone to climatic changes and the scarce food resources already determine a struggle for survival. These are important points to consider and problems that Sagan has foreseen more than 20 years ago.

For me, it is  refreshingly encouraging when I see the human species for what it is. It is a species with vast potential for evolution, creation and destruction. The perspective given by the planetary exploration probes Cassini, Voyager I and II, and the Apollo missions, are crude, objective status of what we are. We are a fragile species. We have evolved more in the last 100.000 years than before, and our evolution has pushed other species into extinction.

The search to find new inhabitable places brings hope and sense of purpose into our evolution. Scientists are finding new planets, satellites, asteroids with a chemical composition that would put our ingenuity to the test if we want to make them inhabitable. The terraforming, as Sagan calls it, would create suitable living condition and creation of human outposts on the Moon, large asteroids, and Mars. It would be a new kind of migration and would need the concerted support and involvement of all the nations. We must find solutions and find them fast if we want to secure our place in the universe.

I am optimistic about the future when I see the progress made with colonizing Mars and also the research into safely landing and taking off from asteroids. Maybe there is hope for the human species. Maybe I will see it in my lifetime. Carl Sagan’s book is a beautiful exposition of the reasons which motivate the search for intelligent life and also for places were humans could continue living after Earth has exhausted it resources and the environment in no longer suited for life. 

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Ever wonder how great scientific minds had their insights? How history was shaped by events ignited by great ideas? Have you ever wonder how we, as human tend to still be here, on the planet? Or how the planet in itself exists? This and many other questions are the foundation for one of the most enjoyable popular science books out there.

Bill Bryson gives you a tour of the most fundamental ideas, which change our thinking and understanding of life, evolution and our place in all this. Due to his meticulously combination of scientific facts with murky historical events it is a great pleasure to read the book. Although at some point you might feel overwhelm by all the facts presented you begin to see science at what it is, a build-up of knowledge, with credit for discoveries, being most often given to the few who were lucky enough to speak and international language (read as English), lucky to have the material means to pursue their interest in their own time, and lucky to have the connections that could help popularize their findings. All of these are extremely similar to how science is made today. Wherever  the money goes, some discoveries in that field are bound to take place. This is not to say that great minds are not born every decade and are not capable of great insights, merely the fact that most often being a genius and not having the right connections or luck, means that your genius might be acknowledge well past your lifetime.

One of my personal favorite past time book, I enjoyed taking the tour through the history of many great discoveries, and must confess that at the end of it I was left with a taste of wanting to find out more about scientific discoveries in all fields of knowledge. As it turns out, this is the effect of great books and wonderful writers, they keep you hooked, wanting and longing for more.

Why Kids Lie: How Parents Can Encourage Truthfulness

As a school counselor I work with children, their parents and teachers. It is important to see how the relationships develop and are maintained, mainly because almost any major event in the life of a student will be reflected in her/his academics.

I hoped to find more insights into this matter, and my hopes were partially fulfilled, because I expected somehow a more theoretical approach to this issue, and that was a mistake from my part, due to the fact that the book was written for the lay public. With this reference in mind, I changed my expectations and I began to take a new approach to the information presented. I could appreciate its usefulness its depth of insight and how to transpose it into my work.

I would warmly recommend it to anyone who is thinking about why some relationship work, and why others don't, the starting point being the building block that is trust. Of course when we think more about it we realize that it was something we knew in the back of our minds, but it needs researchers and methods to actually make it meaningful to a world that is bigger than one's own view. 

Working with Dreams, Understand your dreams and use them for personal and creative development

Some books come into your life drawn by the desire to understand yourself or to understand others. For e it was the former path by which this book entered in my lecturing interests. Everyone dreams and sometimes the dreams are so beautiful, so much as you want your life to be, that you want to linger in their company even after you wake up.

The desire to understand why some things appear in my dreams led to read the book and it helped me realize what I forgot: to pay more attention to what I want and the obstacles in my life. After reading it and through some discussions with a close friend I started to relax and just take things as they go. The book offers an insight into the most common symbols for dreams and is an instrument that can be used to create and develop your own dream notebook.  Due to these helpful and easy guidance tips it becomes ease to be more aware of what you want, what are the influences of events in your life and on your general well-being. This was for me one the perfect thing in a tumultuous time, and helped me take a break from it all and enjoy my life as it is. 

Truth be told, this book alone would have been useless without the aid of the conversation had with my best-friend.

The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making

When I received the book (that came among a collection of great books) I thought it will help me get a few research ideas stick and take me to another level. It has helped me in that sense. :)

Scott Plous’s account of some of the most intriguing and striking cognitive biases and implications of decision heuristics on everyday life has helped me rethink all the classes on Social Psychology.  From a hindsight bias “it was clear” that all the information is context dependent, that I have an attribution error, that memories are reconstructed and above all that I make prediction based on facts scrambled together by my mind in search of meaning, not taking into account some actuarial evidence, therefore setting and actuarial prediction regarding future events.

It was an informative book, and although it was written in 1993 it felt very up to date. This feeling might be due to the fact that I feel that I need to read more about decision making process and partly because I strive to make the basic ideas of research more clear and relevant to research laboratories. The fact that each chapter finishes with a set of conclusion that offer some guidance in how to avoid the negative outcome of some biases is of great help. For instance, concerning representativeness heuristic, I have to take into account the tips offered (Plous, 1993, pag. 119):

•  don’t be misled by highly detailed scenarios;
•  whenever possible pay attention to base rates;
• remember that chance is not self-correcting; and
• Don’t misinterpret regression toward the mean (especially useful when considering that we all would like to have an exceptional performance all the time).

Another set of useful suggestion is that offered in relation to probability and risk. I must remember to: - always think back at the actual probability that something I envision in my future is only a desirable event and it is no more probable than un undesirable but unforeseen event; and most importantly perhaps to break compound events into small events in order to see that is something has a small rate of probability or risk than an accumulation of small events with their respective small risks might lead to catastrophes (pag. 143-144).

The most relevant information to remember is that concerning correlation, causation and control, and to remember to take into account the illusory correlations and the invisible ones, after all, Holmes was very keen on addressing things which ought to happen and failed to be seen, not just sticking to the obvious events that might validate hypotheses.

There are many biases which seem to help or hinder us when trying to go through this motion we call life. We may be entrapped in different situations and fail to see the reward of exiting the situation just because we have invested so much that we feel as we stand to lose too much. Many times the decisions we take are not the most accurate by mathematical standards or prove to be economical correct, yet they help us in everyday tasks and therefore prove to be useful. After all, we have limited resources, cognitive and otherwise, to make the best decisions we can make.

If a Lion Could Talk - How Animals Think

In my pursuit to understand how cognition appears it seems natural that I would be inclined to read about how animals process the information around them. It was indeed necessary to take into consideration the idea that all the research and study into animal intelligence carries a powerful bias, that of anthropocentrism. The fact that we as humans are bound to our own experience of consciousness, of how we perceive the world around us, limits the understanding of other experiences, namely of that which other animals might have. 

Budiansky’s account of cleverly designed experiments is a proof that we need to take into consideration a lot of factors and conditions before we can state something about the way in which a different species reacts based on the stimuli it receives. The very nature of our sensory organs bounds us “to see” only a part of the environment, the one that is the most important to our own survival. Because we are social specie we put emphasis on the accurate perception of those signals that can offer information about other members of our specie (the social position, symbols of power or wealth, relations amongst ourselves) much like other social species: monkeys, chimpanzees, dogs, horses etc. We tend to consider these signs as those of greater intelligence, just because we are used to intelligence being expressed in this manner. 

Every organism learns through associations during its lifetime. Animals do that all the time and it’s a big advantage to their survival to do so. Learning and responding appropriately to the environment guarantees a better chance at transmitting the genes, and continue the legacy of every species. Only those organisms that adapt can maintain a competitive edge against other members of their species. Associations between stimulus and a response from environment (reward: food, water, sex, inclusion in the social environment etc., or punishment: food deprivation, injuries etc) are a powerful tools in learning. Dogs and other social animals exhibit this feat mostly because we know how to perceive it, but other animals do to. Budiansky offers a great amount of evidence to support this.

Some remarks are so true that I feel compelled to mention them. For instance: “Many animal researchers are fairly confident that more-sensitive experiments will show that apes, at least, do possess some ability to attribute mental states. But the entire search has been a vivid reminder of the dangers of anthropocentrism. The things that apes are good at are the things they evolved to do to survive in their particular ecological niche. And the things an animal is good at generally do not require three decades of ambiguous experiments to discover.”(p. 188) This particular point made me think of all the implications in every aspect of scientific research, mainly the idea that when we set ourselves to test a hypothesis we limit the perceived reality to only a narrow bit, the one that fits into our experimental instruments.

The final passage of the book is another idea that made me think, mainly because it manages to sum up different ideas about evolution. “It is always dangerous to draw moral lessons from the blindly amoral process of evolution. But if there is a lesson here, it is that all of the creatures that evolution has fashion are remarkable in their own right. All have hit upon unique ways to make a living against all probability. And that is something to respect, and to treasure.”(p. 194)

River Out of Eden

I’m always interested in how things are created and how they strive to survive. The idea behind this book is to explain how life generates itself and how certain environmental forces pressure all organisms into finding ways to survive. Reading it was like taking into account that all the information that makes us who we are, is sealed in tiny part of our every cell. All humans, animals, plants evolved from this eukaryotic cell which set itself on a path to replicate itself and every successive mutation that has given it an edge over other cells has brought us here. I hope to make myself clear… or at least I try.

I understood the analogy between a river and the river of DNA which all organism posses. I found the examples in the book to be convincing, maybe because I’m well accustomed with Dawkins writings and with the Natural Selection Theory/ Darwinism. I liked it and it gave me once more a clear understanding of our motivations and aspirations in life. Because we are living creatures we must accomplish many tasks to survive and what is important for that survival is mediated, at least, by the environment in which we live, although the forces of the social environment sometimes work in pushing ourselves into wanting more and achieving more than our mere survival. Our own individual survival might seem of great importance to us, and for me certainly is, to think that we are here only in order for the genes to pass on to the next generation might seem cruel, but in light of the evidence presented seems more real that believing a fairytale heaven awaits you at the end of your life journey. (I don’t want to be misunderstood here. I think being aware and respectful towards other people is crucial for our better existence and it gives us a sense of belonging and caring that no other promise might give us- I’m thinking of the promise of heaven if we’re good.)

The more I think that I am here as a creature that can pass information received from parents, the more I find myself involved in my family’s life, my community and the world. This idea has given me the huge responsibility of being aware of myself and the messages that I transmit in a conscious way. Maybe I’m giving myself too much credit, after all, the genes might be passed on, and only if I can fundamentally make a difference maybe I can pass a meme. It seems so grandiose but in the end it’s just my brain trying to put a meaning to all the information that reaches me.

Fire in the Mind- Science, Faith and the Search for Order

George Johnson provides a stimulating book that has given me some stimulating ideas to think of. A complex and intelligible way in which theories from physics, computational theory, biology and evolution are mixed together to form a part of something that is a trademark for the scientist working in the 90's.

It was a great way for me to finally get a hold of some concepts from string theory in physics and quantum mechanics. Hoping that my understanding got deeper than before it did shift my perception of what I knew about the world around me. Theories evolve and develop themselves through the work of scientist, and scientist are in a way form by the theories they work with so it might seem hard to try to shift the view the theory gives you just to try to make better sense of things using a different "looking glass". But this is exactly what the book is all about(as it seemed to my Iguse- information gatherer and using system).

The try to make sense and predict the events happening is a endeavor that has kept our human minds busy since the dawn of consciousness. Maybe it's only an artifact of human culture and the anthropic environment in which humans engulf themselves, but it's obvious from the work in fields like anthropology,history and psychology, that the drive for knowledge and a sense of meaning to the world is what defines our species. In order to make sense we construct laws which help explain most of the events, and we try to make predictions using the knowledge we gain through using these laws. But events often seem random and sense if given to subjective state, or random condition so the meaning is in a way superstitious, attributed to things or behaviors particular to every individual.

What happens when somebody doesn't seem to see through this intricate web of everyday events? An answer is that that certain person might choose to use system of navigating through the mesh of events designed by other. Some of the most basic forms of ensuring an order is by using superstitious rituals, and afterwards using some more elaborate rituals, like those performed at religious gatherings. But whatever the form in which these systems are used they too represent compressions of the knowledge of the world.

And so it appears that there are more ways in which compressions about the world can be made and the understanding of the events can be achieved. The part in which science as a system of beliefs is superior to religion is that it always try to improve it's theories, testing them using instruments, whereas religion, as a system of beliefs works more on personal revelations alongside with those of other more illustrious people.

My favorite quote of the book is actually an reiteration of Murray Gell-Mann's words about compressions of the world around us: "when you don't see compressions that are there, that is denial; when you see compressions that don't exist, that is superstition." I strive to achieve understanding of the theories regarding life so that my personal area of compression that don't exist and are perceived by me is narrowed.

Then again, who knows what is the definition of existence? It's up to the community of scientists to define a standard of what can be seen as a part of the realm of existence and what is not.

Let's hope that we don't just invent machines that measure what are intent to measure and we will be able to shift the perspective every so often as it is needed to expand the knowledge and not to disregard things and events which might actually be happening but outside the reach of our designed instruments of perception and recording.