Alan Kay’s reading list • Hacker News Board

Re: Alan Kay’s reading list

#41

Post by electromagnetic » Fri, Jun 19, 2009, 5:16 PM UTC

frossie wrote: post #11

jodrellblank wrote: post #5

One thing I've been pondering lately, is the more general purpose of reading books. I used to read quite a lot of books, library books and personal books. Mostly fiction and popular science, I hesitate to admit (not hesitate to read them, just hesitate to admit because they are 'lesser' books). There are a lot of things that I couldn't tell you whether I have read or not, let alone what the main points were. Now I mo…

Am I really a better person for having read more books? For having been exposed to certain ideas? Yes. Even if you can't directly recall what you have read, if you understood it while you were reading it you would have internalised some of the world view, if not the blow-by-blow account. As somebody else replied, discussing it with your friends (or, making friends of the people who would discuss such books with you)…

This is very true, the important thing about reading is in actually doing it. It is probably more helpful if you can remember a fair amount of detail on the book, but the act of reading will certainly improve not only your understanding of ideas but your ability to read and write too.

I remember reading a psychological study on musicians and that they can selectively hear their favourite instruments in a piece. Personally as a bass guitarist I can relate, in fact I have a problem listening to music without good bass playing.

I believe this will happen with all artistic talents including reading and writing. The more you read, the more it will increase all of you abilities related to it. I can barely remember any songs on bass because I haven't played since before I moved country, but I'm still highly proficient at playing.

Stephen King once stated that there is no point in writing if you don't read and from my understanding, virtually all writers are well read and it largely doesn't matter what you read, just that you read. Hopefully scientists will come along and prove this sentiment some day as it's almost universally held in writing circles.

So I would say with a certainty to the OP that with a margin of doubt so small that it would be too big to write out here, that you truly are a better person for having read more books. Not only have you likely enlightened yourself to a broader world view, but you have likely also distanced yourself further from the unpunctuated and grammarless masses. Also, this maybe because of the reading, but you seem quite adept at philosophising so kudos.

Re: Alan Kay’s reading list

#42

Post by bitwize » Fri, Jun 19, 2009, 6:27 PM UTC

absconditus wrote: post #12

jodrellblank wrote: post #5

One thing I've been pondering lately, is the more general purpose of reading books. I used to read quite a lot of books, library books and personal books. Mostly fiction and popular science, I hesitate to admit (not hesitate to read them, just hesitate to admit because they are 'lesser' books). There are a lot of things that I couldn't tell you whether I have read or not, let alone what the main points were. Now I mo…

You may want to read How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren. http://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Book-Touchstone-book/dp/06712...

The best part of How to Read a Book is that when you buy it you get a free book to practice with!

Re: Alan Kay’s reading list

#43

Post by bitwize » Fri, Jun 19, 2009, 6:29 PM UTC

radu_floricica wrote: post #39

Alex3917 wrote: post #10

Has anyone here actually read Piaget? I've heard that he was such a bad writer that even his closest disciples often had no idea what he was talking about. I'm tempted to read these books, but on the other hand I'm worried it will make it even harder to understand his ideas.

I raised an eyebrow at Piaget too, but mostly because he's been described as on the same level with Freud: he created the field, but that was a long time ago. I haven't read him though, I admit.

I suspect Kay got into Piaget because he was a fan of Papert.

Re: Alan Kay’s reading list

#44

Post by jballanc » Mon, Jun 22, 2009, 5:17 AM UTC

10ren wrote: post #31

jballanc wrote: post #27

Oh man...I was totally with him until I saw "Selfish Gene". Please, speaking as an evolutionary biologist, don't read that book. Dawkins oversimplifies the important and complicates the obvious. If you want a good book on an analytical approach to evolution, might I recommend "Evolutionary Dynamics" by Nowak in its place.

The "Selfish Gene" seemed well-written to me, though I'm not an evolutionary biologist. I would appreciate it if you could note down a couple of things he oversimplified or complicated, please.

Heh... unfortunately, I've been very busy, and a thorough look into everything that's wrong with "Selfish Gene" would require more time than I have. It is well written, and that's one of the problems with the book, and Dawkins in general. That is, many people are willing to accept his views because they are well written and do not take the time (or have the background) to question their scientific validity.

For starters, very early on Dawkins acknowledges the current lack of consensus as to the exact definition of a "gene" (i.e. does it include promoter/enhancer/other regulatory sequences? should each polymorphism count as one gene? or do we group them together? and if so where, in the continuum of small differences between "genes" do we draw the line?). His proposed solution is to take as a gene any combination of genetic elements which gives rise to an expressed trait.

He then expands on this basic definition to describe how it leads to genes which are "selfish". That is, they are interested only in their own continuance, and so the traits they code for will be optimized around this goal. Unfortunately, this is dangerously close to circular logic. You see, the physical traits that appear in organisms rarely have a simple one-to-one correspondence with a particular subset of the genome. Effects such as epistasis, where the action of one gene masks the effect of another, nullify Dawkins' simplistic definition.

Or, if you would have it another way, genes which have epistatic effects would need to be included in with the original "gene" according to Dawkins' definition. Unfortunately, the network effects that give rise to higher plants and animals would eventually necessitate including the entire genome of an organism in one "Dawkins gene", making the unit of selection not the gene, as Dawkins would have it, but the individual.

As for topics which he over-complicates, the first that comes to mind is kin selection. Admittedly, I don't think his over-complication is intentional, but rather his exploration of the topic is hindered by his presumption that genes are selfish. In fact, kin selection can arise in evolving individuals without the need for the concept of a "gene" at all! Rather, any evolving individual which evolves in a mixed population will eventually acquire various kin selection traits.

As I said at the start, I'm not surprised that Dawkins' ideas are so commonly held as true. He is well written, and most of the work that would refute his claims is usually presented in language inaccessible to most laypeople.