Literate Scientist

This book I bought in a local Costa bookshop and found it was written by an Irish sociologist Kieran Allen. Shortly before my interest in Marxism was inspired by seeing a link to Irish communist party website and socialist bookshop in a booklet for Dublin Culture nights festival. It was a bit funny to see communists as part of Irish culture festival especially for me from former Soviet Union. Anyway, later I saw on streets that Marxist festivals are popular in Ireland nowadays. So let’s go back to the book. I found it very good and even lucid in explaining various Marxist ideas and vocabulary. A good start for more advance reading such as “Capital” (I have all 3 hardcover volumes from an Indian publisher and plan to have leather bound edition from Russia if I have enough surplus and MEW German edition) or specialized books such as “A Dictionary of Marxist Thought”. What I also tend to agree with the author is that Stalinism is a mirror of Capitalism (there is also a book “Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization” that I’m reading). I leave an application of a dialectical method of double negation to a reader here. Now the weak points of the book: 1) it doesn’t cover post-Stalinist era; 2) subsequent analysis of alternatives sounds a bit naive for me who really lived in socialism and can compare it to capitalism both in post-socialist country and now living in real capitalist country. The book also has a good reading suggestion list and I even thinking now on reading Voloshinov book “Marxism and the Philosophy of Language” (in Russian, although there is an English edition). Anyway, I would recommend Kieran’s book with reservations (about alternatives) as a first introduction to Marxist thought.

Marx and the Alternative to Capitalism

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

This is a little book that I bought in local bookshop adjacent to Costa and quickly read from cover to cover while commuting. I was interested in this title because my relative studies kindness (and benevolence) as a topic in Russian literature so I thought by reading that book I could better discuss it. Approx. one third of the book narrates the evolution of the meaning of kindness from Classical Greece and Rome to earlier Christianity, Augustine, then to Hobbes (Leviathan), Enlightenment, and finally, Rousseau (Émile).  The second third is a lengthy treatise on the interpretation of kindness from psychoanalytical perspective (Freud, Winnicott). The final third is about the role of kindness in the modern Western society. Interesting read (although a bit repetitive sometimes) that prompted me to buy Leviathan: With Selected Variants from the Latin Edition of 1668 and to reconsider the role kindness in a modern corporation workplace.

On Kindness

This is a cover of the book that I bought (published by Penguin):

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This is a book I bought a few years ago and started reading immediately but put aside and only this summer read it fully from cover to cover. In order to appreciate its content you need some degree of mathematical and computer science maturity. For example, if you have never heard of his theorems and only read Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godel or similar popular book then you would have difficulty going through the book and it would appear boring. It is not an entertaining or bedside reading. This is why I put it aside on the first reading although I knew about this theorem since I read “Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty” more than 25 years ago being a schoolboy (in Russian translation). Just before writing this review I ordered “There’s Something About Godel: The Complete Guide to the Incompleteness Theorem” and the latter looks like less heavy reading judged from excerpts from its publisher website. Putting all these reminiscences aside I really enjoyed second reading of “Godel’s Theorem”. It really clarified some points from ¬B->¬A or PA & ¬Con(PA) perspectives and made me curious about fixpoints. I even borrowed the latter term and introduced them for crash dump analysis and debugging: “a dereference fixpoint”. I also liked chapters 4 and 6 about using Godel’s theorems outside mathematics and clarifying misconceptions in Rucker’s and Penrose’s books. However, after a few months I cannot recall anything definite what I read from that book although I felt good that I understood everything while reading so perhaps the book requires the 3rd reading for me I’m going to give it another try after “There’s Something About Godel” and update this review.

Godel’s Theorem: An Incomplete Guide to Its Use and Abuse

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This is an encyclopedic work I bought in a local book shop and finally finished reading today. It took me a year to read from cover to cover and pages were falling out of the glue but I continued to read. Highly recommended for education and another view on human history. The review of Freud was enlightening to me because I didn’t know about the recent scholarship criticizing his work. In fact, I so liked this book that just bought it again in a hardcover version from Folio Society and start rereading it again soon.

Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud

The second encyclopedic book seems was written before the previous one but looks like the logical sequel to it. I’m starting reading it next week.

The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century

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I read this book from cover to cover while flying on a plane from Dublin to St. Petersburg and back. That was so wonderful reading experience - I couldn’t put the book down during those flights. I recall that I visited the Department of Mathematics a few times when I studied Chemistry in Moscow State University although at that time I knew next to nothing about Russian mathematicians. The book touched me so deeply that I bought the main work of Florensky: The Pillar and Ground of the Truth, the history of Russian philosophy and several books explaining Orthodox Church. This is the best mathematics history book I have ever read, my feelings perhaps comparable to those that I experienced when I finished reading Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty by Morris Kline but that was more than 20 years ago.

Naming Infinity: A True Story of Religious Mysticism and Mathematical Creativity

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After I finished A Brief History of Theology I wanted to read more about Religion in general, not from an evolutionary point of view like in Breaking the Spell but more from the cultural perspective. So I bought this book in a local bookshop and read from cover to cover. I like the book, in fact some ideas I encountered there are similar to my own philosophy of Memoidealism and Memorianity (Memory religion) and now I understand better even my own private religion. Recommended for scientists with reductionist background or having narrow views about religion like I had before reading this book.

Religion: The Basics

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I bought this book in Eason book shop in Dublin city center a month ago when I had a large break while waiting for my ticket number in the Visa office. I finished Homework for Grown-ups in that queue and needed to buy something to read next. Now I finished this book and I can say that I like all chapters, especially about politics, ethics, mind and art because these areas of philosophy were missing in my education. Today I was again in Eason book shop in Dublin city center when I had a large break while waiting for my ticket number in the Visa office. And guess what? I bought Religion: The Basics book…

Philosophy: The Basics

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I’m in love with QFT. I noticed this planned monumental 6-volume work some time ago but I bought this book from Amazon UK (I give the link to Amazon US here) after reading Quantum Field Theory Demystified and looking for more thorough ab initio treatment of QFT. Upon its arrival I immersed myself into it and in my opinion the first volume is like The Road to Reality but more mathematically oriented with proofs, numerous examples, historical notes, generous citations and references.

Quantum Field Theory I: Basics in Mathematics and Physics: A Bridge between Mathematicians and Physicists (v. 1)

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It is interesting to compare core school subjects in 70-80s USSR with those in UK and Ireland. I certainly missed any religious education and many art-isms. Physical education (games) was also different except football and climbing a rope. So I bought this book in a local bookshop a few months ago to align my basic school education and finished reading yesterday while waiting in a queue in Irish visa office near Dublin O’Connell Bridge:

Homework for Grown-ups: Everything You Learnt at School…and Promptly Forgot

It was also useful for me to learn some English words from basic biology, classics and geography.

- Dmitry Vostokov @ LiterateScientist.com -

I bought this book in a local bookshop yesterday and just started reading it, considering it as a structured idea-centered overview compliment to a history-centered idea development book I’m finishing soon: Ideas and Modern Mind (Modern Mind is still on my reading list):

Ideas That Matter: A Personal Guide for the 21st Century

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