I finished reading Freakonomics over the weekend. The ending was slow for me. As I’ve mentioned already, the book stole its own thunder in the intro as a way of luring you it. And so I kept on wanting more thunder and wasn’t getting it. It ended with a fizzle for me. And it won’t change the way I think of the world – it just reinforces the idea that statistics can be used to support any lie.? We knew that already.
And so, I’ve been a little disappointed because it didn’t make me think much. It didn’t challenge ideas, it didn’t encourage me to go out and do my own research. I’ve tried to use some of the points and broader concepts to stir things up with some more traditional thinkers…but my heart wasn’t in it. I’d rather mimic chimps killing each other than talk about how people choose to name their children and what that means for their children (though it is a neat little story about how one guy named one kid Winner and another kid Loser…and Loser is a police chief or something – who goes by the abbreviation “Lou”…and Winner has spent some time behind bars…but the story doesn’t carry the ending of the book enough for me).
Anyway – perhaps I went into the book with too high expectations. Timp raved about it – and since he’s been good for some interesting debates, I had high expecations for the book.? And so while I’m? wondering why I didn’t like the book enough – I had to wonder about how I measure books. Turns out – I think I want them to plant seeds in my head. Seeds I’ll spend time nuturing. Maybe it is because I’m not an economist or a sociologist by trade, but this book didn’t do it for me. What was the last book that did? Inmates running the asylumn certainly is up there – it is the rare book I like giving as a gift.? But then I went back a little further and hit on my turning point book…
Vehicles – a real easy read…yet one that is stuck in my head for good. A turning point in my education…and how I view the world.? Which is what Freakonomics is touted to do. And probably does for people more into people than I am. For me, Vehicles did it. The ideas it conveys are expressed elsewhere too in my readings, but none so efficiently and clearly and enjoyably.? Basically – it says complex behavior arises from interactions between simple elements – my main theme in studies and life. [Now, dedicated biographers of me might argue that GEB was really my turning point book – it was the inspiration of my first tattoo after all. But recently, while cleaning up – I found a copy of GEB and showed it to my father, letting him in on the history that me and this book share – read it on plane to hong kong, first tattoo, scientific writing doesn’t have to be cold, etc and he started to flip through it but never got through it. Vehicles on the other hand I think is a book that is more accessible and can touch a wider audience and in fact, I was pleased to find that we have multiple copies of it at home in our “library” and so for that reason I’ve put Vehicles as my turning point book. If Vehicles touches you, you’ll pursue other readings and GEB will be among them I’m sure. And vice versa. Just that it is probably a whole lot easier to be touched by Vehicles than by GEB. And Feynman‘s book wasn’t so much a turning point either – but instead, it was solidly supporting my idea that quality academic work can be done in strip clubs.? He wasn’t joking about that point…]
Yeah – no brainer. But still, no one wants to believe that in their core…we want complex solutions to complex answers – to justify all our hard work and all the effort it takes for us to figure it out.? To have a simple answer just wouldn’t be as “cool”. And it is not how we’re used to thinking – it doesn’t follow our socially formed collective wisdom (a phrase Freakonomics has got me on). We want our solutions to be complex, to demand a human intelligence to understand, to making being human more unique and precious.
We look at the world biased, through these eyes attached to amazingly powerful computers. We don’t know how to look at the world through a simpler mechanism. To be simply reactive. So when we create models of things, we build them with intent, knowledge, reasoning. We don’t want to build stupid things, we want to build grand, brilliant things.? And that’s what leads plenty of people to ask the wrong questions.? It was how I got frustrated with say 95% of the AI research being done.? And how I irked my mother.
My mother is offended by the idea of evolution – and was even more offended when I described evolution as my favorite romantic notion. I’m all about stupid things building upon stupid things and using a little chance and getting some luck here and there and presto – you’ve got an eyeball. (Presto usually takes several generations).? She prefers the master planner charting out our design. (cite – the blind watchmaker)? She doesn’t want to be related to monkeys.? She wants a purpose to her being to be more than living out some biology experiment (cite – 2001 – book much more digestible than the movie for me). I love being just part of the experiment.
Vehicles helped me see through the mask of “intelligent behavior”. How simple things put into a complex world become complex (that phrasing comes from inmates – where he discusses how
That turned me on.
In the end, yeah – both books are about finding the salient factors for phenomena in our world. Ask the right questions to find the right answers, which are often, simpler than we expect and come from unexpected directions…so – Vehicles touched me big time and Freakonomics grazed me.? No big deal. Maybe that says something about me.? Maybe it’ll take time to simmer. Maybe I’ll get into a few good arguements while I misquote stats from Freakonomics. Maybe that’ll change my mind about the book.
Maybe the next book Timp recommends will touch me. I just hope that where ever he ends up, he’s still gonna recommend a book every now and then. Because I think? the people we surround ourselves with and the debates we’re able to engage in wtih them, make us “redefine the way we view the modern world” much more often than books do…
Oh – and how’s them capital letters?
Can I borrow a copy of Vehicles?
it’s funny how you talk about dedicated biographers of you. on the one hand i want to make fun of you for your egomaniacal suppositions – on the other hand – i find i try to study you and would have thought you’d say GEB. i wouldn’t have made vehicle jump of simple in complex world becoming complex to computer + something = computer – vehicle book to ant analogy from GEB maybe. easier jump – for me. and i still think that computer phrase was from don norman.
the ideas are stolen and repeated often. norman might have made the phrase.
the analogy i was trying to say is this:
simple element + complex environment = complex behavior
simple object (camera) + complex computer = complex object (hard to use camera)
And that simple element + complex environment idea is illustrated by several different authors as well – Herb Simon’s artificial life describes an ant on a beach. The ant is a simple creature, reacting to its environment. The beach is a complicated environment – lots of dunes for the ant to navigate and other hazzards. Plotting the course of the ant on the beach is really difficult, in hind site – many equations would be necessary – but to create the path – just needed a simple little ant reacting to its environment.