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1 #+TITLE: Good readables
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2 #+AUTHOR: Dylan Holmes
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3 #+EMAIL: rlm@mit.edu
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4 #+SETUPFILE: ../../aurellem/org/setup.org
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5 #+INCLUDE: ../../aurellem/org/level-0.org
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6 #+MATHJAX: align:"left" mathml:t path:"http://www.aurellem.org/MathJax/MathJax.js"
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7 #+
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8
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9 * Non-narrative books
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10 | Title | Author | About |
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11 |----------------------------------------------------------------+-----------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
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12 | Formal Theories of the Commonsense World | Hobbs \amp{} Moore | Essays about the rules of intuitive physics---how we naturally reason about the physical world before we learn about (for example) molecules, inverse square laws, and quantum mechanics. |
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13 | Vision | Marr | Describes successes in computer vision, and outlines effective policies for thinking about and researching intelligence. |
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14 | The Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics (SICM) | Sussman \amp{} Wisdom | This book uses programming as a tool for analysing otherwise-intractable physical systems, and as a medium for explicit, unambiguous expression of ideas\mdash{}as an alternative to mathematical notation, the meanings of which often depend on implicit conventions. |
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15 | The Computer Revolution in Philosophy | Sloman | Elucidates the essential role of philosophy in science, and the newfound revolutionary role of computers and computational language in philosophy (especially in philosophy of mind). |
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16 | Freedom Evolves | Dennett | An eminently readable book on how free will can develop within a deterministic universe in general, and in mechanistic robots in particular. |
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17 | Philosophical Investigations | Wittgenstein | A seminal, if disconnected, philosophical treatise which describes how meanings of sentences arise through learned, lazily-evaluated \ldquo{}choreographies\rdquo{}. |
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18 | The Emotion Machine | Minsky | A wonderful compendium of ideas about the construction of intelligence, presented in clever, non-technical language. |
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19 | The Myth of Mental Illness | Szasz | A thought-provoking look at mental illness/treatment as a form of social control. |
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20 | BUGS in Writing | Dupre | A whimsical and erudite handbook for writing clearly, with an emphasis on writing for science/technology. |
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21 | The Visual Display of Quantitative Information | Tufte | A learned tour of good practices for organizing information and communicating large amounts of it with minimal clutter. |
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22 | The Algebra of Programming | Odgen \amp{} de Moor | An abstract but deep textbook which describes how programs can be described, combined, optimized, and analyzed using a new kind of algebra. |
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23 | Probability Theory: The logic of science | Jaynes | A heterodoxical textbook which presents probability theory as a kind of logical inference. |
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24 | Category Theory | Awodey | Friendly and thorough introduction to the ideas of category theory \mdash{} less imposing than (but a good companion to) MacLane's /Categories for the Working Mathematician/. |
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25 | Algebra: Chapter 0 | Aluffi | Friendly and thorough introduction to the ideas of abstract algebra\mdash{} less imposing than MacLane \amp{} Birkhoff's /Algebra/. |
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26 | Principles of Quantum Mechanics | Shankar | A careful, solid introduction to quantum mechanics. Less chatty than Griffith's /Introduction to Quantum Mechanics/. |
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27
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28
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29 * COMMENT Articles, etc.
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30
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31 | Title | Author | About |
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32 |---------------------------------------+----------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
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33 | A Computer Model of Skill Acquisition | Sussman | Sussman explores learning how to do things as the process of developing and debugging programs to do them. He finds that this paradigm is an effective way to think about learning; for example, with each lesson, his program learns something new. He incidentally also concludes that automatic program-writers are impracticible, because ideas are often developed in a /cycle/ of suggesting/coding/debugging. |
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34 | A Universal Banach Space | Leinster | Very brief, but neat: integration is a \ldquo{}universal object\rdquo{} (in the terminology of Category Theory.) |
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35 | | | |
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36
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37
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38 * Narratives
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39 | Title | Author | About |
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40 |--------------------------------------+---------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
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41 | The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | Doyle, Arthur Conan | An austere and brilliant detective who possesses razor-sharp skills in observation, analysis of character, and collecting mundane facts. I particularly like the Sherlock Holmes novels because Holmes's talents are apparently attainable through practice. |
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42 | The Lives of Christopher Chant | Jones, Diana Wynne | An excellent story, with wonderously fun magic and enjoyable characters. Part of the /Chrestomanci/ series. |
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43 | The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | Adams, Douglas | A subtly hilarous existentialist novel about how bureaucratic incompetence leads to the destruction of planet Earth, and about the lone unfortunate British man who survives. |
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44 | Matter | Banks, Iain | An epic science fiction novel. As with all novels in the /Culture/ series, /Matter/ is remarkable for the following: (1) Tangibly portraying the vastness of space and the incomprehensibility of advanced intelligence, (2) Artful diction, (3) Fearless use of unorthodox narrative structure. |
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45 | The Magicians | Grossman, Lev | An approximate analogy: \ldquo{}The Magicians\rdquo{} is to \ldquo{}Narnia\rdquo{} as \ldquo{}Wicked\rdquo{} is to \ldquo{}Oz\rdquo{}. A gritty realistic book about a perennially morose overachiever and his adventures in relentlessly unsentimental places. |
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46
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47 # Aaron Sloman
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48 # Dennet's humor book
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49 # Hofstadter's I Am a Strange Loop
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50
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51 # Woolf's The Waves
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52
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53
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54
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55
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56 # * Books Relating to Artificial Intelligence
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57
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58 # ** The Emotion Machine, by Marvin Minsky
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59 # ** Formal Theories of the Commmonsense World, by Hobbs and Moore
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60 # ([[http://books.google.com/books/about/Formal_Theories_of_the_Commonsense_World.html?id=aUO2PCw-vdgC][link to Formal Theories]])
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61
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62 # ** Vision, by David Marr
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63
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64 # ** Philosophical Investigations, by Ludwig Wittgenstein
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65
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66 # ** Probability Theory: The Logic of Science, by Edwin Jaynes
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67
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68 # ** The Algebra of Programming, by Odgen and de Moor
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69
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70
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71 # * Other Exemplary Books
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72
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73 # ** Real and Complex Analysis, by Walter Rudin
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74 # This book is a model of terseness in exposition --- it's theoretically
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75 # elegant, though pedagogically impenetrable.
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76
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77 # ** Category Theory, by Steve Awodey
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78 # This book is a friendly and exciting introduction to category theory.
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79
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80 # ** Principles of Quantum Mechanics, by Ramamurti Shankar
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81 # Rigorous yet engaging.
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82
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83 # ** Algebra: Chapter 0, by Aluffi
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84
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85 # ** BUGS in Writing, by Lynn Dupr\eacute{}
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86
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87 # ** The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, by Edward Tufte
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88
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89 # # Piaget
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90 # # Hans Freudenthal
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91 # ** How to Solve It, by Polya
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92
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93
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94 # #* Interesting Papers
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95
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96 # #** A Universal Banach Space, by Tom Leinster
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97 # A short paper in which the set of Lebesgue-measureable functions on
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98 # [0,1] emerges as the initial object in a category of Banach
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99 # spaces, and in which integration is a catamorphism.
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100
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101 # #** The Eudoxus Real numbers, by R. Arthan
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102 # This paper constructs the real numbers in terms of
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103 # proportionalities.
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104
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105
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106 # http://arxiv.org/abs/math/0405454
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107
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108 # #** Tolerance Space Theory and Some Applications, by Sossinsky
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109
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110 # #Tolerance spaces
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111 # #The Eudoxus real numbers
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112
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113
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114 # # AARON SLOMAN
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