Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker ****

This is how I imagine the creation of this book:

Random MIT professor (RP): What do you think of Trump?

MIT professor Steven Pinker (SP): Hate him.

RP: You should write a book.

SP: What kind of book.

RP: I like books with lots of complex analysis and numbers.

SP: Me too! I’ll write a book like that. That’ll show Trump!

They walk off laughing.

Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker is in three phases. First Pinker extols the benefits of the obvious progress over the recent couple of centuries. This phase covers improvements to public health, medicine, manufacturing, and technology. People are healthier, live longer, and have many helpful things not even imagined a short while ago.

The second phase attempted to show similar progress in the areas of psychology, terrorism, and climate change. These arguments are presented with the same confidence as those in the first phase, but the assumptions, data, and logic are not as convincing.

 Finally, Pinker outlines a program to combat Trump. I found this barely readable.

The first two parts of the book are packed with interesting data and observations. Some include:

One of the themes in the book is religion vs. humanism. Religion values souls, while humanism values lives.

Pinker makes a point by asserting that there are 3x as many words with k as the third letter compared to words starting with k. The scrabble Internet reports about 1,500 in the first set (awkward) and 3,000 in the second set (king), reversing Pinker’s claim of 3:1 to be 1:2. This feels like a trend as Pinker makes more tenuous assertions with shaky arguments.

Poverty is the natural state of humanity and has been for millennia. “Poverty has no causes. Wealth has causes.”

Often inequality brings hope to the poor, not jealousy.

The average family in a small town saves $2,300 per annum when Walmart arrives. I noticed this when driving across the country and saw many Walmarts in isolated locations.

Technology is not abandoned when resources are depleted (the predicted end of oil), but when the technology is replaced by better technology. Laugh line: the stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones.

Technology is dematerializing many consumer goods. No videotapes, or CDs, or books, or photographic film, or alarm clocks, or Day-Timers®, or newspapers, etc.

Progress is to be retired at 62 instead dead at 51.

An important research result which has been shown over and over in many different situations: money buys happiness!

Returning to our two MIT professors and their vendetta against Trump. Pinker asserts and proves with this book: “I claim no competence in the dark arts of mass persuasion.”

If you would like to read a comprehensive analysis of the progress over the last two centuries, this is a great book with lots of research and graphs. You can stop reading about 2/3 of the way through this 400+ page book.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline *****

It is 2044 and VR has come to MMORPGs. The richest person in the world, James Halliday, owns the dominant video game: OASIS – Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation. He has just died and willed his empire to whoever finds the hidden Easter egg. Halliday loves the 1980s, so coin-op video games, John Hughes films, Commodore-64, TRS-80, and all 1980s music is important. Parzival is a teenage boy set on winning the prize.

The good players are Parzival, his friend Aech, Art3mis who he believes he is in love with, and two Japanese brothers. Of course, these people only know each other through their online avatars. Things like appearance, age, gender, race, etc. are unknown and unknowable. The bad players represent IOI – Innovative Online Industries. They are well funded, well connected, and, of course, evil.

The book is full of trivia from the 1980s, real-world computing, and MMOPRG gaming.

For example, IOI and other well-funded players on the quest for the Easter egg are located in Ohio where the OASIS servers are located. This is done to minimize the network latency. This is a real-world issue. Big electronic trading operations co-located with the stock exchange servers for the same reason.

Within the game, the jargon matches that of role-playing games probably starting back with Dungeons and Dragons. Buffs, hit points, paper dolls, inventory, spells, levels… Many of the plot problems hinge on familiar game dynamics. Is this a PvP area? Is my best weapon on cooldown? When will the quest reset?

The book falls into two roughly-equal parts. The first part is the preliminary quests. This part is very heavy on 1980s popular culture with long lists of films, songs, video games, personal computers, etc. I found this became boring and eventually I skipped over these.

The second part is the final battle, good versus evil. This was well done and continually surprising… until the expected ending.

If you are interested in history, specifically the history of computers, video games, or 1980s popular culture... If you play MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft or Everquest… you’ll enjoy Ready Player One by Ernest Cline for the extensive trivia and the excitement of the quest.

The Book of Joy by Douglas Abrams ***

The Book of Joy by Douglas Abrams chronicles a week Abrams spent with Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama. The book is a mixture of anecdotes and adulations with a smattering of science. This a wide-ranging and thought-provoking book on the topics of spirituality and happiness.

I found several threads strangely off-putting.

Women

“Think of a mother who is going to give birth. Almost all of us want to escape pain. And mothers know that they are going to have pain… But they accept it.”

Here we have old men discussing women’s pain and presuming to understand the thoughts and feelings of these women. Their presumptions are the old male stereotypes of selfless acceptance.

Empathy

“The Dalai Lama and the Archbishop were uninterested in status and superiority.”

Throughout the book, both men profess humility and modesty. However, they always use their titles and are living lives of privilege and luxury. For example, Desmond Tutu suffered the hardship of being separated from his children when they attended boarding school for their safety, which he compares to the suffering of others under apartheid.

Self-obsession

“Then, instead of inner values, we become self-centered—always thinking: I, I, I.”

Both men and the author, constantly use themselves as examples of right behavior. I is one of the most popular words in the book. As with many celebrities, self-obsession comes with the territory. The author especially interjects himself into the proceedings assuming the reader is as interested in his thoughts as the other two.

Bullies

The Archbishop and the Dalai Lama disparage bullies, while simultaneously teasing and judging others from their positions of power. This is one of the several cases where they fault behavior in others that they accept in themselves.

Charity

“Charity is prescribed by almost every religious tradition… Islam… Judaism… Hinduism… Buddhism… Christianity.”

I wondered about charity in smaller religions, religions of smaller groups, smaller organization, religions with central hierarchies. Is charity something invented to balance centralized authority and privileged leadership?

If you are familiar with self-help books that combine spirituality and science, you might not find anything new or interesting here. I found the author to be a self-obsessed fanboy (to spite the realization that that label should be an oxymoron).

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle ***

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle is a combination of Flatland and Narnia. Opening with the infamous “It was a dark and stormy night,” L’Engle considers the mysteries of time-space and the human psyche, from the science to religion.

The book was generous with profound advice.

 “I don’t understand it any more than you do, but one thing I’ve learned is that you don’t have to understand things for them to be.”

“What were her greatest faults? Anger, impatience, stubbornness. Yet, it was her faults that she turned to saved herself now.”

“But we know that just because we want something does not mean that we will get what we want, …”

As Meg, together with her genius, otherworldly brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin search for her father, they meet a variety of aliens: Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, Mrs. Which, The Black Thing, The Happy Medium, The Man with Red Eyes, IT, and Aunt Beast.

“If it was impossible to describe sight to Aunt Beast to Aunt Beas, it would be even more impossible to describe the singing of Aunt Beast to a human being.”

As with other fantasy quests, like Lord of the Ring, Wizard of Oz, or Alice in Wonderland, these encounters did not especially move the narrative forward. Also, like other fantasy quests, in the end the quests were unnecessary for the resolution.

“Love.
That is what she had that IT did not have.
…
‘I love you!” she cried. ‘I love you Charles! I love you!’
The suddenly...he was in her arms…”

Along the way, I was as confused as the characters and unfortunately, I couldn’t accept the neat conclusion. I like Wizard or Oz and Alice in Wonderland better.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations.

Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts by Christopher de Hamel ****

Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts by Christopher de Hamel is a massive tome of over 600 pages, 200 color illustrations, and weighing more than two pounds (1 kg). It is part memoir, travelogue, history, and mystery. It chronicles European illuminated manuscripts from the earliest (6th century) to end (16th century) caused by Gutenberg’s invention in the mid-15th century.

While not a history of everyday life (https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/15826.Everyday_Life_in_History), this European medieval history, pays minimal attention to wars or politics. If you are interested in Medieval history or art, this is a unique opportunity to visit the period from a different point of view.

England
For one reason or another England figures prominently in these histories, even if we ignore the inclusion of the Canterbury Tales. For example, the oldest complete Latin Bible (The Codex Amiatinus, circa 700, Florence) was created in England. This is doubly surprising because England was not a center of Christian literature. For much of the period of this book, Europe was intellectually monolingual (Latin).

The Copenhagen Psalter (12th century) was also created in England.

Detective work – frustration expressed with a joke
Paleographer gets to heaven after a lifetime of matching hands (handwriting) to scribes, meets a famous scribe, and eagerly asks, “Was I right? Was it you?”

The scribe replies, “Do you know, it was a long time ago and I really can’t remember.”

A military manuscript refers to tormentis, fundibulis, and scorpiis, but the Latin dictionary simply says catapult for each word.

One Book of Hours (daily devotion prayer book) included names of both Spanish and German saints, so the paleographer concludes this was consistent with “a daughter of a Holy Roman Emperor and widow of the heir of Spain. Every little detail is considered to solve the source and ownership of these manuscripts.

Archeology
In recent times, archeologists have decided that restorations should be obviously different from the original. Whereas in earlier centuries, restorations blended in, now they stand out as obvious modern additions. The same is now true for manuscript restorations. Old parchment pages are now repaired with “very visible” white thread and parchment to differentiate modern restorations from historical repairs.

Just as some ruins have ancient graffiti and I-was-here markings, the same is true for manuscripts. The book of Kells is signed by 19th-century royal visitors. The political implication of British royalty signing (defacing) a treasured Irish manuscript is certainly fraught.

Science
“Ours is probably the first generation for tens of thousands of years not to recognize the constellations.”

The Leiden Aratea (9th century) shows a geocentric model of the solar system, as might be expected so many years before Copernicus (1473-1543) and Galileo (1564-1642). However, the diagram clearly shows Mercury and Venus orbiting the Sun, even though the Sun is shown orbiting the Earth.

Our paper sizes come from parchment sizes. Papyrus is necessarily square as the reeds are layered horizontally and vertically. Parchment is trimmed from animal skins which produces a rectangular shape.

A medieval naval weapon was asps in glass jars which are thrown onto enemy ships where the jars break and the snakes attack.

Hey, diddle, diddle, The cat and the fiddle
“As he began to play the [rebec, medieval stringed instrument] after supper, our cat rushed in at the sound, as if drawn by a magnet, rolling on the floor in ecstasy, eyes rolling, feet in the air, mouth open, as punch drunk as a dervish, and hilarious to witness. Doubtless, medieval cats responded the same way…and the comic association stuck”

Auctions
“When the high price for a manuscript was £90,000, The Spinola Hours (16th century) went up for auction, H. P. Kraus “sat glumly, raised his hand in a desultory way to about £60,000, and then very visibly shook his head. Somehow, the bidding went on climbing up and up… At £370,00 the hammer fell. H. P. Kraus… He had arranged with the auctioneer that, no matter what he said or did…he was nevertheless still bidding on the manuscript as long as he was wearing his glasses.”

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations.

Contents
Gospels of Saint Augustine (6th) 10
The Codex Amiatinus 54 (~700) 54
The Book of Kells (8th) 96
*The Leiden Aratea (9th) Astronomy 140
The Morgan Beatus (10th) Apocalypse 188
Hugo Pictor (11th) 232
The Copenhagen Psalter (12th) 280
*The Carmina Burana (13th) Poems and songs (some ribald) 330
The Hours of Jeanne de Navarre (14th) 376
*The Hengwrt Chaucer (~1400) Chaucer 426
*The Visconti Semideus (15th) Military 466
The Spinola Hours (16th) 508

* Not religious