Category: Writing

Anything on the process or results of writing as an activity and a passion

Frogs don’t let themselves get boiled

Apparently, the oft-repeated ‘fact’ that a frog placed in a pot of slowly-warming water will eventually let itself be cooked is entirely false. A frog dropped straight into boiling water will probably be horribly injured before it can get out (if it ever manages to); one put into a slowly warming pot will leave when the water gets uncomfortable. So says Professor Doug Melton, of the Harvard University Biology Department, among others.

It is easy to understand why this ‘fact’ has become so commonly cited: it seems like a pat little bit of wisdom from the animal world. Its falsehood provides a more important lesson about verifying whether convenient seeming stories are actually correct, even when they seem useful for livening up your argument.

Slaughterhouse-Five

Rusty lock

Kurt Vonnegut‘s Slaughterhouse-Five is a refreshing and enjoyable book, despite the often macabre subject matter. It reminds me strongly of both The Life of Pi, insofar as it refrains from interrogating its own fantasies, and Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, due to the style of language and presentation of characters.

The book is mostly about an American named Billy Pilgrim who participates in the Second World War (though he never fights), witnesses the firebombing of Dresden, and subsequently becomes an optometrist. He either goes mad or genuinely begins to travel through time, experiencing his own life in a random series of vignettes. The story’s narration is unobtrusive, though it sometimes has a self-referential feeling. The language is clear, simple, and poignant.

Free will is a major topic of concern in the book. The aliens who Billy Pilgrim thinks he encounters are able to see back and forth through time, and believe that all actions necessarily unfold in a certain way. This leads to a kind of fatalism where the inevitability of war and death is somewhat tempered by the ability to experience the better periods prior to those things at will. Arguably, Pilgrim created this idea in his madness after being broken by war (or brain damaged in a plane crash). Possibly, Vonnegut is trying to satirize the idea that wars and actions are inevitable; that is certainly suggested by the way in which the end of the universe is described, as the inevitable result of a rocket fuel testing experiment conducted by Pilgrim’s aliens. Pilgrim’s overall haplessness – as well as the thoroughly unheroic portrayal of other soldiers – certainly counter some of the more common war myths of valour and meaningful sacrifice. The refrain of the whole book, usually following a brief description of some incident of death or cruelty, is simply: “So it goes.”

Appropriately enough, given how the narrative jumps around in time, my first experiences of the book came in the form of reading random bits and pieces every once in a while. It’s not an approach that I generally adopt with books, but it worked uniquely well with this one. Reading it straight through definitely gave more of an overall picture, but the book couple be chopped up and re-ordered in any number of ways without a new reader finding it at all suspicious.

Overall, I really appreciated Vonnegut’s style and language. It shares many similarities with the early science fiction of Heinlein and Asimov: a crispness of language and compassionate voice. It makes me want to read more of his work.

A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines

Branches over Dow\'s Lake, Ottawa

Janna Levin’s book is an odd one: written about two mathematicians, focused on mathematical ideas, but with virtually no specific mathematical discussion. The book dances elegantly around the real meat of the lives of Alan Turing and Kurt Godel, but shows it all from the perspective of an outsider focused on emotions. This is freely admitted in the concluding notes:

The depth and magnitude of both Turing and Godel’s ideas are only barely touched upon here.

While this is a novel and not a reference work, one nonetheless feels that Godel and Turing would think it captures mostly what was not essential about their lives.

Putting words and thoughts into fictitious forms of historical figures is always a dangerous business, because it carries with it the false precision of reasoned invention. The danger that the speculation could be wrong is constant, so the book takes on the feeling of a friend-of-a-friend story, while maintaining the trappings of an omniscient direct account. The book also fixates far too much on apples, in an attempt to set up the story of Turing’s suicide.

The book’s strength lies in conveying the tragedy and isolation that seems to be the burden of most of the greatest mathematicians. The contrast between being able to perform mental feats beyond the capacity of almost everyone, while being largely unable to perform the basic actions of a normal life, has long been rich material for writers. In this sense, Turing comes off much stronger; by the end, the account of Godel’s life is both pathetic and pitiable. At least Turing is driven to suicide by the homophobic cruelty of others – Godel just stumbles into it through deepening paranoia.

While the book made for satisfying reading, I much prefer the math-related non-fiction works of Simon Singh. His Code Book includes an admirable description of the breaking of Enigma. In Fermat’s Last Theorem Singh also does a good job of telling about the lives of mathematicians, without ignoring the math. Something comparable on Godel’s incompleteness theorem would make more satisfying reading than this novel.

Translation

Random literary insight of the day:

Trying to evaluate the authenticity of several versions of a text in a language you do not speak is much like being called upon to judge a drag queen contest when you have never seen a woman, and only ever had them described to you by others who may have done so.

I have had this experience in relation to texts originally in Greek, Latin, and Russian, and Old-Babylonian.

The Tetherballs of Bougainville

Air conditioner fan

Virtually every page of Mark Leyner‘s book made me want to reach out and strangle the insufferably pretentious protagonist: a compulsion that sat awkwardly beside the way in which the author of the book has intentionally conflated himself with the central character (nested several times), even imbuing him with his own name. The Tetherballs of Bougainville is an absurdist collection of miscellanea. It cannot really be called satire because it doesn’t have enough direction to constitute a criticism. If anything, it both glorifies and mildly rebukes the emotional shallowness and obsessive character of society, as perceived by Leyner himself. The book can be funny, when one is in the right frame of mind, but it most frequently struck me in the way Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas did the few times when it came across as crass and monstrous, rather than comic and off-the-wall.

The self-referential plot betrays the abject narcissism of the protagonist. In the opening section, a straightforward narrative of his father’s unsuccessful execution is presented. The second section consists of a screenplay written for a contest mentioned in the first. Again, author/protagonist Leyner is at the centre of the narrative. The same is true for the extended review of a fictional movie read by the Leyner character in the screenplay. The non-existent film is described at great detail, and also features Leyner as the protagonist. Screenplay Leyner, reviewing the non-existing Leyner-starring film judges it as “a movie that consistently subordinates meaning to titillation. And it is a movie that perpetually teeters between puerile perversity and puerile sentimentality.” It seems that author Leyner was hoping to achieve something similar with the book as a whole.

In the end, this book feels like the product of a high school student trying way too hard to be clever: writing impossibly detailed (though not error-free) dialogue as a kind of intellectual fantasy fulfillment. Nobody has the real-life inability to expound upon minutiae so extravagantly and tirelessly. In that sense, the book reminded me of The Gilmore Girls: it had the same tendency to replicate the idealized conversations of ex-Ivy League screenwriters. Leyner’s work is dramatically more explicit and tries to be more disturbing – the most successful attempt being an anatomically ludicrous by nonetheless revulsion-producing scene involving a woman without a cranium – but it has that same feeling of over-eager whiz-kiddery behind it.

Climate blogs

For those wanting more information on climate science and policy than they are getting from here, these are some blogs to consider:

  • Gristmill: Diverse, accessible, and very frequently updated
  • R-Squared Energy Blog: Written by an oil expert, mostly about petroleum and biofuels
  • RealClimate: Usually very detailed and quite technical, raw climatic science
  • ClimateEthics: Infrequent posts, but long and complex ones
  • DeSmogBlog: Fairly similar to Gristmill. Sometimes has very interesting information
  • The Oil Drum: More than you will ever want to know about hydrocarbons

No matter what your appetite for climate information in blog form, those should satisfy it.

Are there any others that people read and would recommend?

A thought experiment on free will

Rusty fence and snow

Consider the following: what we know about physics and chemistry suggests that matter and energy interact on the basis of two things – physical laws and random chance. The fact that iron oxidizes is the result of physical characteristics of energy and matter that we understand well. Similarly, our understanding of the random elements in quantum mechanics is critical to a number of optical and electronic technologies. Acknowledging that we don’t fully understand either the laws of physics or the processes of randomness, it seems plausible to say that those two factors account for all the physical interactions in the universe.

If this is true, we can imagine a hypothetical computer with the capacity to store information on the nature, position, and trajectory of every particle in a human body, as well as all the types of energy acting on them. This model would allow us to project the behaviour of that collection of molecules in the face of any stimulus, at least on the basis of a range of outcomes as determined by the random elements in physical laws. Our model human could thus be exposed to any kind of prompt – from being attacked by another simulated human to being tempted by some unguarded treasure to being betrayed by a loved one – and a range of responses could be projected, with probabilities attributed.

Now, if human beings really do consist of particles and energy governed in the manner described, the behaviour of the computer model would be in no sense different from that of an actual person. The trouble here, of course, is that the model person cannot be said to have any free will. It is just a complex machine that responds to inputs in relatively predictable ways. Where outputs are not predictable, it is because of random chance. Our model person is like a computer game where the enemy you encounter is determined by a random number generator; while the outcome for any input is not entirely predictable, the system is nonetheless completely devoid of ‘will’ in the sense that we generally understand it.

How can free will be fit into a materialist model? Is free will something that exists outside of the laws of physics? Or is there some mechanism through which a macro-level entity like a person can be said to affect the particle level interactions that define them fundamentally?

Regardless of the answer, the thought experiment raises serious questions about whether we are responsible for our actions.

[Update: 2:06pm] Tristan wrote a post in response to this.

In Defense of Food

No parking sign

Having recently read and enjoyed Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, his newer book caught my eye this morning. I had seen a review contrasting it negatively with his prior work, but decided to take the plunge anyhow. I am glad I did. While there is less value added in terms of general knowledge, it is a much more practical guide to how the realities of contemporary food production affect the choices of conscientious modern omnivores.

The book does an excellent job of combining a good breadth of consideration with the production of manageable advice. Opening with “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants,” it elaborates those simple sentiments into a pretty good set of suggestions. Critically, ‘food’ refers only to things that would be recognized as such by people from a few hundred years ago. After going through the decidedly unnatural list of ingredients for a loaf of bread, Pollan declares that:

Sorry, Sara Lee, but your Soft & Smooth Whole Grain White Bread is not food and if not for the indulgence of the FDA [in not longer requiring the use of the word ‘imitation’] could not even be labelled “bread.”

Pollan does an excellent job of critiquing food science and the ‘nutritionism’ that reduces the complex chemistry of food and eating to simple affirmation or condemnation of individual chemicals and chemical classes, such as saturated fats. He provides a compelling description of the nature and evolution of the Western Diet, as well as the societal and economic reasons for its emergence and the health consequences that emerge from it.

In addition to discussing what to eat, Pollan provides some good tips on how. Basically, he suggests that people return to forms of eating more rooted in culture. Constant snacking, eating alone, and consuming massive portions are problematic even if the foodstuffs in question are relatively good. He also endorses gardening and cooking from scratch as ways of weeding out non-foods while also gaining more appreciation for the relationships involved in growth and eating.

Pollan provides a list of 24 bits of concise (and sometimes counterintuitive) advice. He provides some good tips on where and how to shop (avoid the centre of supermarkets – stick to the unprocessed foods at the edges). I was particularly delighted to learn about the strong case for how a glass of wine with dinner can do a fair bit to promote cardiovascular health. Since reading his previous book, I had already made some pretty significant dietary changes. Barring the occasional pot of Knorr soup, I have eaten virtually nothing that wasn’t “food” as he defines it. I have also been thinking a lot more about what I eat, where it comes from, how I prepare it, and so forth. Overall, the process has been meaningful and enjoyable.

It is pretty rare for me to buy a book and read it though in a day. The fact that I did with this one demonstrates both how engaging and accessible it is. For those wanting some sound dietary advice, rather than a more extensive discussion of the nature of various food systems, this book is well worth examining. I am planning to foist my copy onto as many people as possible.

Sensitivity versus throughput in reading

Ice and sky, Ottawa

At some point in the past five or six years, skimming became my default form of reading. Depending on the material, as little as a few seconds per page might be devoted to initial assessment. While this does allow for a person to process much more information, there is an extent to which it forces the atrophy of close reading ability. It seems as though the skills for processing an 80 page document in and hour and the skills for engaging with a dense poem are not only different, but may actually exclude one another.

There is no question about which of the two skill-sets is most useful in academia or information-focused work environments. At the same time, it is always somewhat tragic to lose a skill – especially when it is easy to recall a time when densely packed writing was often an intriguing mystery to explore, rather than a nuisance to be untangled.

Do other people feel the same way about the relationship between the volume processing of information and the precise examination of small samples? If so, is there anything that can or should be done?