Month: January 2010

Before I review reading the content of Brian Boyd On the Origin Of Stories, a few words on the style and structure of the book itself.

There are 540 pages of which 130 are notes, bibliography and index. The 410 pages of text contain only index numbers for the notes, individual references to some of the source names, but almost no discussion of those or their arguments. The notes themselves refer to the specific sources by author surname and date and you need to further cross refer to the bibliography to see exactly who and which published work.

The consequence is that the style of the book itself is a narrative of statements / assertions, with explanatory hows, whys and wherefores simply stated without discussion – references in the text being simply the index of end notes.  This means it is very dense – packed with “factual” information on its subject matter, the evolution of cognition, art, narrative and fiction.

The opposite feature is that if you want to study and analyse the arguments and orginal sources, it is meticulously referenced, but it requires equally pains-taking effort to follow-up. It does therefore make it near impossible to both read it and study it at the same time.

So, I am reading it, after browsing the references for a general picture … all the expected bio, mind & lingustic evolutionary writers E.O.Wilson, D.S.Wilson, Dennett, Pinker, Dawkins, Gould, Lewontin, Chomsky, Baron-Cohen, Barthes, as well as many more in the spheres of art and literature. Fascinating.

[Incidentally, Denis Dutton The Art Instinct – which I also have to read – refers and is referred to and shares a great number of the same references.]

A lot of reading recently.

I finished and blogged some views of Chris Hitchens – God Is Not Great.
[Here][Here][Here]

I’m currently very much enjoying Brian Boyd – On the Origin Of Stories.
Will blog some initial review in a moment.

I also have to read ….

Denis Dutton – The Art Instinct, wich refers to the above and has a lot of common references, including Steven Pinker who provides cover notes too.

Steven Toulmin – Cosmopolis, The Hidden Agenda Of Modernity (1990).
Steven Toulmin – Return to Reason (2001)
Paul Feyerabend – Against Method.
Levitt &  Dubner – Superfreakonomics
Roger Griffin – Modernism And Fascism.

And whilst I’m at it, a few catch-ups. I blogged about Hitchens’ GING, Lawson’s Closure and about Diamond’s Collapse. Did I mention Le Carre’s Most Wanted Man, Dostoyevski’s Notes From The Underground, between Lewycka’ History of Tractors in Ukrainian and  Hosseini’s Kite Runner and Thousand Splendid Suns … oh and Dante’s Divine Comedy after all that Salman Rushdie too ? Funny about two years ago I told myself I had to stop reading and concentrate on writing. Weird.

Good to see the restoration of balance of Muslim history in the evolution of ideas has reached even The Science Museum.

Well I never knew that (that such inscribed biblical references existed on US weapons). Talk about onward christian soldiers ! Good news that the management spotted it and has taken the small action needed.

Another collection of stunning “nature” photographs – all subject to much artistic treatment, but nevertheless …. stunning and creative.

I’ve posted a few of these before – I guess they are attractive – but the reason I posted this one is that I had just noticed this news story today. (Can’t find the post where I linked to this competition originally …. but I will.)

No idea of the provenance of this stuff, but looks like a useful summary of cognitive defects.

“Escalation of Commitment” is one I recognize 😉 Knowing when to give up.

Seeing the world as symbolic representations of objects doesn’t always work.