Boy, what a book ! I hadn't gotten this much pleasure from science since James Gleick's book on Chaos in 1988. Bloom's God Problem is today's ultimate thinking thrill. This is the first time I've understood the meaning of transcendance in a concrete, almost physical manner. I used to hear the word but it had no perceptual background. Now it has one. The universe is naturally creative and it transcends you and me in a very natural and comprehensible way. Bloom's tale is that of the ongoing movement of one trying to become many and many trying to become one. I love it. It is Bloom's best book. Bloom has always written courageous books, deep books, original books, erudite books and fun books. But The God Problem surpasses all the others (I've read all four) in all five categories !
Bloom's writing transcends the modern divorce between knowledge (based on proof and theories) and gnosis (based on insight and experience).
I love the idea of self creation at every level in the universe, from the quark level to the inter-civilisational level, and including the basic interpersonal level. Bloom writes:
Remember, there are millions of ideas floated by the sea of human beings. Trillions. And only a few stick. To get ideas to last, you have to build a termite column, a ziggurat, a monument that will have attentional magnetism. One way to do it? The name game.
This paragraph alone justifies reading the whole book. Because it is extremely dense and powerful, and because it connects instantly to many other brilliant parts of the book. At last, memes are viewed as attractors and not invaders. As recruitment patterns and not as viruses.
Euclid used Aristotle's new ideas to build a template and a temptation. He used Aristotle's ideas to build a lure that would seduce, kidnap, and recruit the minds of greats far, far beyond his time. Seduction, kidnap, and recruitment are the claws of recruitment strategies. And seduction, kidnap, and recruitment are at the heart of cosmic creativity.
This is huuuuge ! I love it ! Template and temptation: attraction and transmission. This is memetics all the way!
My only question is: Minds of greats ? What is greatness ? I long (all throughout the book) for an explanation of how great becomes great... or is made so by history. For example, why does Bloom dignify Shannon, name Von Neumann only in passing, and discard Turing in the creation of the computing machine. Aren't they all equally great seen from here? The God Problem said earlier 'from the pettiness of egos massive leaps are sometimes made'. This is an important point that would, if discussed, reduce the disturbing feeling that Bloom's vision of society is reduced to superstars and supercrowds, with no ordinary social in-between. Of course I exaggerate because the socially 'average' people are present for instance with the Babylon grain cultivator and the scribe.
Clearly to me a great man is just another social 'termite dung ziggurat'.
The God Problem says some things about teaching and it could probably say a bit more: for teaching is how old schemes meet new settings and new media. Teaching is social. It is based on repetition in new media. Teaching is an arch-situation where lots of solutions gather. You will find numbers, grades, comparison, competiton, reward, attention, fuel for brain power and repetition.
The idea that massive repetition produces massive innovation : man, that is something radical.
And so is everything The God Problem explains about translation (peano, etc.)
I think my favorite phrase in the book is : iteration is translation.
Art as muscular metaphor! Huuuge again, one of my favorite parts.
There is more than one book in The God Problem. Of course there is the inquiry about the 'Problem', all leading to simple rules and axioms and unpacking corollaries and 'time the translator' (I love it).
But there is also some kind of 'Requiem for math'. The subtitle could be 'the rise and fall of (western) mathematics'.
It begins with the babylonian grain counting math and ends with Wolfram's declaration that math as we know it is no longer needed.
How long do you think it will take `til computer science, modelling and programming replace traditional math at school ?
And beyond that, The God Problem could also be a complete history of what Clare W. Graves called the 'Rationalist level of existence'. Some collective world view (or V-meme) that started very, very discretely 2,300 years ago with extraordinary people - while the dominant system was about multiple gods and mighty warriors, and later a single god and solid institutions - a system that became the leading edge of rebellious intellect, industry and military might, gave the world speed and comfort, knew an apex of victory and horror at Hiroshima and then progressively lost its grip on the real world, while emotions, networks and communities prevailed.
Man, I enjoyed all the chapters on emergence so much !
The cosmos is doing its thing and it is doing it with us. Through us. Using our bodies, our brain cells, our imaginations, our muscles. How could you not believe in something like "a god" when you are the instrument of creation of something so huge it encompasses all and uses you and all living things simply because it is one big (and only) living thing itself ?
I owe one big light to Howard Bloom.
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