Complexification: Explaining a Paradoxical World through the Science of Surprise

A mathematician explores how complexity arises, showing how the universe consists of unpredictable "dynamical systems" so subtle that human logic cannot fathom them and laying the groundwork for a "Science of Surprise." 30,000 first printing. $30,000 ad/promo. Tour.

Complexification: Explaining a Paradoxical World Through the Science of Surprise

Science & Math

Casti, John L.

Physics

HarperCol

A renowned mathematician shows how the "science of surprise" can help explain some of the most inexplicable phenomena in science, nature, the arts, the economy, and more.

Harper-perennial

“I am an assiduous reader of John Casti’s books. He is a real scientific intellectual.” —Nassim Nicholas Taleb, New York Times bestselling author of Fooled by Randomness
“Casti is at his best in presenting difficult philosophical ideas enthusiastically and lucidly, and in presenting everyday examples to illustrate them.” —New York Times Book Review
In his highly provocative and grippingly readable book, X-Events, author John Casti brilliantly argues that today’s advanced, overly complex societies have grown highly vulnerable to extreme events that will ultimately topple civilization like a house of cards. Like Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan meets Jared Diamond’s Collapse, Casti’s book provides a much-needed wake-up call—sounding a fascinating and frightening warning about civilized society’s inability to recover from a global catastrophe— demonstrating how humankind could be blasted back into the Stone Age by a meteor strike, nuclear apocalypse, worldwide contagion, or any number of unforeseeable X-Events.

X-Events: The Collapse of Everything

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

William Morrow

X-Events: Complexity Overload and the Collapse of Everything

Reference

William Morrow Paperbacks

In this brilliant account of mathematicians in action, Casti invites readers to scale mathematical peaks as he recreates solutions to the five greatest mathematical problems of all time.

Mathematical Mountaintops: The Five Most Famous Problems of All Time

Mathematics

Oxford Univeristy Press

In this narrative tour de force, gifted scientist and author John L. Casti contemplates an imaginary evening of intellectual inquirya sort of My Dinner with” not Andre, but five of the most brilliant thinkers of the twentieth century.Imagine, if you will, one stormy summer evening in 1949, as novelist and scientist C. P. Snow, Britain's distinguished wartime science advisor and author of The Two Cultures, invites four singular guests to a sumptuous seven-course dinner at his alma mater, Christ's College, Cambridge, to discuss one of the emerging scientific issues of the day: Can we build a machine that could duplicate human cognitive processes? The distinguished guest list for Snow's dinner consists of physicist Erwin Schrodinger, inventor of wave mechanics; Ludwig Wittgenstein, the famous twentieth-century philosopher of language, who posited two completely contradictory theories of human thought in his lifetime; population geneticist/science popularizer J.B.S. Haldane; and Alan Turing, the mathematician/codebreaker who formulated the computing scheme that foreshadowed the logical structure of all modern computers. Capturing not only their unique personalities but also their particular stands on this fascinating issue, Casti dramatically shows what each of these great men might have argued about artificial intelligence, had they actually gathered for dinner that midsummer evening.With Snow acting as referee, a lively intellectual debate unfolds. Philosopher Wittgenstein argues that in order to become conscious, a machine would have to have life experiences similar to those of human beingssuch as pain, joy, grief, or pleasure. Biologist Haldane offers the idea that mind is a separate entity from matter, so that regardless of how sophisticated the machine, only flesh can bond with that mysterious force called intelligence. Both physicist Schrodinger and, of course, computer pioneer Turing maintain that it is not the substance, but rather the organization of that substance, that makes a mind conscious.With great verve and skill, Casti recreates a unique and thrilling moment of time in the grand history of scientific ideas. Even readers who have already formed an opinion on artificial intelligence will be forced to reopen their minds on the subject upon reading this absorbing narrative. After almost four decades, the solutions to the epic scientific and philosophical problems posed over this meal in C. P. Snow's old rooms at Christ's College remains tantalizingly just out of reach, making this adventure into scientific speculation as valid today as it was in 1949.

The Cambridge Quintet: A Work Of Scientific Speculation

Computers & Technology

Computer Science

Helix Books/Addison Wesley

Are there scientific problems that cannot be solved? Mathematics is riddled with such problems, but can we pose analogous questions outside of mathematics? Does nature itself impose fundamental limits on our knowledge of the universe? Despite the work of some of the greatest minds of the twentieth century, no one really knows.In May 1995 this profound and far-reaching concern brought together a small but select group of scientists in a remote scientific outpost in Abisko, Sweden, a village far north of the Arctic Circle. Boundaries and Barriers captures the spiritand the contentof the talks given at the meeting. Included are contributions by John Barrow on the limits of science, John Casti on the search for the unknowable” in science, James Hartle on quantum cosmology, Harold Morowitz on complexity and epistemology, and six more fascinating chapters that illuminate the possible limits to what we can know by using the tools of science. The issues discussed here challenge the very foundations of science, but the conclusions are optimistic. When the dust clears, science remains standing-our best bet for understanding the way the world works.

Boundaries And Barriers: On The Limits To Scientific Knowledge

Karlqvist, Anders

History & Philosophy

Basic Books

The One True Platonic Heaven: A Scientific Fiction on the Limits of Knowledge

By the author of The Cambridge Quintet, John L. Castiâ€™s new book continues the tradition of combining science fact with just the right dose of fiction. Part novel, part science â€" wholly informative and entertaining. In the fall of 1933 the newly founded Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, welcomed its first faculty member, Albert Einstein. With this superstar on the roster, the Institute was able to attract many more of the greatest scholars, scientists, and poets from around the world. It was to be an intellectual haven, a place where the most brilliant minds on the planet, sheltered from the outside worldâ€™s cares and calamities, could study and collaborate and devote their time to the pure and exclusive pursuit of knowledge. For many of them, it was the â€œone, true, platonic heaven.â€ Over the years, key figures at the Institute began to question the limits to what science could tell us about the world, pondering the universal secrets it might unlock. Could science be the ultimate source of truth; or are there intrinsic limits, built into the very fabric of the universe, to what we can learn? In the late 1940â€™s and early 1950â€™s, this important question was being asked and pondered upon by some of the Instituteâ€™s deepest thinkers. Enter the dramatis personae to illuminate the science and the philosophy of the time. Mathematical logician Kurt Godel was the unacknowledged Grant Exalted Ruler of this platonic estate â€" but he was a ruler without a scepter as he awaited the inexplicably indefinite postponement of his promotion to full, tenured professor. Also in residence was his colleague, the Hungarian-American polymath, John van Neumann, developer of game theory, the axiomatic foundations of quantum mechanics, and the digital computer â€" stymied by the Instituteâ€™s refusal to sanction his bold proposal to actually build a computer. One of Godelâ€™s closest friends figures large in this story: Albert Einstein, by common consensus the greatest physicist the 20th century had ever known. And, of course, the director the Institute, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, must by necessity be key to any story that focuses in on this time and place. Author Casti elegantly sets the stage and then masterfully directs this impressive cast of charactersâ€"with able assists by many â€œminor-characterâ€ icons like T. S. Eliot, Wolfgang Pauli, Freeman Dyson, and David Bohm, to tell a story of science, history, and ideas. As we watch events unfold (some of which are documented fact while others are creatively imagined fiction), we are witness to the discussions and deliberations of this august groupâ€¦ privy to wide-ranging conversations on thinking machines, quantum logic, biology as physics, weather forecasting, the structure of economic systems, the distinction between mathematics and natural science, the structure of the universe, and the powers of the human mind â€" all centered around the question of the limits to scientific knowledge. Imaginatively conceived and artfully executed, The One True Platonic Heaven is an accessible and intriguing presentation of some of the deepest scientific and philosophical ideas of the 20th century. Table of Contents <ul>
<li>Front Matter</li>
<li>Prologue</li>
<li>Chapter One: A Walk Down Mercer Street</li>
<li>Chapter Two: Teatime at the IAS</li>
<li>Chapter Three: Goodtime Johnny</li>
<li>Chapter Four: Gödel at the Blackboard</li>
<li>Chapter Five: The Boardroom</li>
<li>Chapter Six: Late-Night Thoughts of the Greatest Physicist</li>
<li>Chapter Seven: An Evening at Olden Manor</li>
<li>Chapter Eight: The Verdicts</li>
<li>Epilogue</li>
</ul>

Philosophy

Joseph Henry Press

Paradigms Regained

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