Charles Siegel
Autor von Teach Yourself C.
Über den Autor
Charles Siegel is a computer consultant specializing in custom database programming. He also trains users of IBM PCs and compatibles in the use of their applications software. He is the author of a bestselling book on C programming.
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This book takes a clear, concise look at the issues surrounding global warming: the science, the potentials for disaster, and suggested solutions. Seriously jeopardized by greenhouse gases, Planet Earth’s future lies in the actions of its inhabitants.
Despite deniers, the growing body of evidence, complete with statistics, tables, and charts, is difficult to ignore. The dire evidence: heat waves, destructive storms, flooding and drought, wildfires, melting ice and rising sea levels, acid oceans, and extinctions all testify to the danger of climate change. The cost comes in poverty, food and water shortages, the creation of climate refugees, and ever-more-dangerous risk.
Planet Earth needs her inhabitants to address the issues before it’s too late. Clearly explaining the research, the cause and effect, and the resulting dangers, the author makes a solid argument for immediate action. One possibility suggested for alleviating global warming is the use of pricing emissions. This idea, along with the background and consequences of global warming is thoughtful and compelling, marred only by the author’s brief foray into political commentary.
An extensive reference section is included.
Recommended.
I received a free copy of this eBook from Omo Press and NetGalley
#ABCsGlobalWarming #NetGalley… (mehr)
This book takes a clear, concise look at the issues surrounding global warming: the science, the potentials for disaster, and suggested solutions. Seriously jeopardized by greenhouse gases, Planet Earth’s future lies in the actions of its inhabitants.
Despite deniers, the growing body of evidence, complete with statistics, tables, and charts, is difficult to ignore. The dire evidence: heat waves, destructive storms, flooding and drought, wildfires, melting ice and rising sea levels, acid oceans, and extinctions all testify to the danger of climate change. The cost comes in poverty, food and water shortages, the creation of climate refugees, and ever-more-dangerous risk.
Planet Earth needs her inhabitants to address the issues before it’s too late. Clearly explaining the research, the cause and effect, and the resulting dangers, the author makes a solid argument for immediate action. One possibility suggested for alleviating global warming is the use of pricing emissions. This idea, along with the background and consequences of global warming is thoughtful and compelling, marred only by the author’s brief foray into political commentary.
An extensive reference section is included.
Recommended.
I received a free copy of this eBook from Omo Press and NetGalley
#ABCsGlobalWarming #NetGalley… (mehr)
For me, this book is preaching to the choir. But if you need convincing and geek an overload of statistics you will be thrilled to death. My only concern is that the Head In The Sand Skeptics will be too turned off by facts to comprehend that they are prolonging the problem and any chance for recovery. For the rest of us, KEEP TRYING.
I requested and received a free temporary ebook from Omo Press via NetGalley. Thank you!
I requested and received a free temporary ebook from Omo Press via NetGalley. Thank you!
THIS IS RON'S REVIEW, I HAVEN'T READ IT YET.
The last paragraph of the book is an excellent summary of Siegel's position:
The calls for more planning assume that centralized organizations staffed by experts should provide us with goods and services, and ordinary people are nothing more than consumers. This view made some sense one hundred years ago, when scarcity was the key economic problem, but it makes no sense now that over-consumption is the key economic problem in the United States and the other developed nations. Today, we need to invert this technocratic view, so we can change from clients who expect the planners to solve our problems into citizens who deal with these problems ourselves by putting direct political limits on destructive technologies and on growth.
This small book parallels many of my own thoughts, although it does not explicitly call for extensive redevelopment of our cities as pedestrian areas. Siegel's "Pedestrian-Oriented City" is not actually carfree but is certainly walkable and would be much more habitable than any arrangement short of the pure carfree model.
Siegel comes loaded for bear when it comes to planners. He identifies two principal schools of top-down urban planning, the Garden-City people like Ebenezer Howard and the Modernists as exemplified by Corbusier. He sees both planning approaches as highly flawed and as having led us into an untenable situation during the 20th century.
The planners were "technocrats" and knew too much for us to understand. We had to trust them. It was not until the resistance to freeway construction began to arise in the 1960s that there was any resistance to what was, in practice, an authoritarian model. Yes, the planners were appointed by elected officials, but any attempt to influence their plans for roads, roads, and more roads was largely futile, at least in the beginning.
He devotes about half of the book to the well-known failures of centralized planning. He does concede, as do I, that for some tasks, there is no apparent substitute for centralized planning. The provision of drinking water to a metropolitan region or the arrangement of its public transport route network are both examples of tasks that can really only be conducted for the region as a whole.
Siegel argues that at a smaller scale, such as a small city or a city district, we shouldn't plan at all. We should set some minimum standards appropriate to the kind of area that is foreseen to develop at the location there and let the market do its thing. All areas would be mixed use, excepting noxious uses. By raising the cost of driving to reflect externalities, the big-box model that dominates the US retail scene today would naturally come to be replaced by more local stores within walking distance of many and short driving distance of everyone else. This is certainly a more workable model than any attempt to sustain the current drive-everywhere-now model that is contemporary America.
Siegel thinks that individual demand for various kinds of housing at various densities can yield a balanced supply of housing once the centrally-planned sprawl developments have been basically killed off by internalizing the external costs of the auto-centric model. I go somewhat further in my proposals to let citizens design their neighborhoods directly, working in the field. Siegel stresses the importance of letting people see what plans would look like once built; textual descriptions are inadequate. People will accept much higher densities once they understand what it will look like, and that it does not lead to still more driving.
I was interested to note how strongly Siegel deals with the noise question. It is one of my own pet peeves about living just about anywhere, even in rural areas if you consider the noise of overflying jets. This is one of the least-considered issues in modern life, yet there is increasing evidence that noise really does kill.
For me, the interesting part of the book is Chapter 5 to the end. The initial discussion of the history of centralized planning is quite well known to me. Others may find it more useful.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in an alternative view of the future. It does not achieve all of the benefits of true carfree urbanism, but it may be more realistically attainable in the USA.
Thanks to CarFree Times for this.
http://www.carfree.com/cft/i058.html
Ron Richings
Vancouver, BC
Canada… (mehr)
The last paragraph of the book is an excellent summary of Siegel's position:
The calls for more planning assume that centralized organizations staffed by experts should provide us with goods and services, and ordinary people are nothing more than consumers. This view made some sense one hundred years ago, when scarcity was the key economic problem, but it makes no sense now that over-consumption is the key economic problem in the United States and the other developed nations. Today, we need to invert this technocratic view, so we can change from clients who expect the planners to solve our problems into citizens who deal with these problems ourselves by putting direct political limits on destructive technologies and on growth.
This small book parallels many of my own thoughts, although it does not explicitly call for extensive redevelopment of our cities as pedestrian areas. Siegel's "Pedestrian-Oriented City" is not actually carfree but is certainly walkable and would be much more habitable than any arrangement short of the pure carfree model.
Siegel comes loaded for bear when it comes to planners. He identifies two principal schools of top-down urban planning, the Garden-City people like Ebenezer Howard and the Modernists as exemplified by Corbusier. He sees both planning approaches as highly flawed and as having led us into an untenable situation during the 20th century.
The planners were "technocrats" and knew too much for us to understand. We had to trust them. It was not until the resistance to freeway construction began to arise in the 1960s that there was any resistance to what was, in practice, an authoritarian model. Yes, the planners were appointed by elected officials, but any attempt to influence their plans for roads, roads, and more roads was largely futile, at least in the beginning.
He devotes about half of the book to the well-known failures of centralized planning. He does concede, as do I, that for some tasks, there is no apparent substitute for centralized planning. The provision of drinking water to a metropolitan region or the arrangement of its public transport route network are both examples of tasks that can really only be conducted for the region as a whole.
Siegel argues that at a smaller scale, such as a small city or a city district, we shouldn't plan at all. We should set some minimum standards appropriate to the kind of area that is foreseen to develop at the location there and let the market do its thing. All areas would be mixed use, excepting noxious uses. By raising the cost of driving to reflect externalities, the big-box model that dominates the US retail scene today would naturally come to be replaced by more local stores within walking distance of many and short driving distance of everyone else. This is certainly a more workable model than any attempt to sustain the current drive-everywhere-now model that is contemporary America.
Siegel thinks that individual demand for various kinds of housing at various densities can yield a balanced supply of housing once the centrally-planned sprawl developments have been basically killed off by internalizing the external costs of the auto-centric model. I go somewhat further in my proposals to let citizens design their neighborhoods directly, working in the field. Siegel stresses the importance of letting people see what plans would look like once built; textual descriptions are inadequate. People will accept much higher densities once they understand what it will look like, and that it does not lead to still more driving.
I was interested to note how strongly Siegel deals with the noise question. It is one of my own pet peeves about living just about anywhere, even in rural areas if you consider the noise of overflying jets. This is one of the least-considered issues in modern life, yet there is increasing evidence that noise really does kill.
For me, the interesting part of the book is Chapter 5 to the end. The initial discussion of the history of centralized planning is quite well known to me. Others may find it more useful.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in an alternative view of the future. It does not achieve all of the benefits of true carfree urbanism, but it may be more realistically attainable in the USA.
Thanks to CarFree Times for this.
http://www.carfree.com/cft/i058.html
Ron Richings
Vancouver, BC
Canada… (mehr)
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Where do I start? How do I finish? A thorough response would be longer than the book. The other reviews so far are largely praising, which means I’m probably going to get the standard “You don’t get it” responses. If you subscribe to the ghost in the machine view, you’ll probably like this book. It’s like a god of the gaps argument all over. “I can’t explain how a mind comes into existence and can control physical interactions, neither can the materialists [to which I say, yet…], so they must be wrong.” If you like apologetics, you’ll probably like this book. If you’re into philosophers who imagine what they consider fundamentally unanswerable pseudoquestions … and then imagine they have the answers, or that no one does, you might like this book. And when did "lover of wisdom" become a BOGSAT*? Siegel thinks his philosopher quotes are the final say in the matter (he uses phrases like "Many philosophers have shown that the scientific knowledge we have today cannot [Siegel really likes his absolutes] explain how we can have inner experience, such as our experience of the color red, of the smell of a rose, or of an abstract idea."
It’s books like these, short though they may be, that involve so much outside reading, because I am a true skeptic and don’t take Mr. Siegel’s arguments “on faith”. He cites a reference, I go find it and see if his distillation or (mis)representation was accurate - a couple of examples below show the answer is no more than not, and given they were from just the first page, that means I have to suspect everything. And that is exhausting. But enlightening.
I do need to say that I concurred with Mr. Siegel’s second and third paragraphs:
Bam. Spot on. And then… it went downhill. Just two paragraphs later, he hits Steven Pinker in How the Mind Works (HTMW), who says that computer models will help us understand the mind, but…
“He [Pinker] goes a giant step further by saying that, because our consciousness is a by-product of the brain, computers that modeled the human brain would have consciousness like ours—which is something like a climate scientist saying that his computer model of the rising ocean is actually wet, that people should keep away from it to avoid drowning.” Hyperbole much? It gets, uh, … better: [Pinker] says that he believes it because the idea that computers can have minds is “as fundamental to cognitive science as the cell doctrine is to biology and plate tectonics is to geology.”
No. I had to take a detour and read that book, which was on a list of mine anyway. Pinker presents a theory of thinking called "the physical symbol hypothesis system", or "computational" or "representational" theories of mind. The quote is taken out of context:
"The way the elements in the processor are wired up would cause them to sense and copy pieces of a representation, and to produce new representations, in a way that mimics the rules of reasoning. With many thousands of representations and a set of somewhat more sophisticated processors (perhaps different kinds of representations and processors for different kinds of thinking), you might have a genuinely intelligent brain or computer.
[...]
This, in a nutshell, is the theory of thinking called “the physical symbol system hypothesis” or the “computational” or “representational” theory of mind. It is as fundamental to cognitive science as the cell doctrine is to biology and plate tectonics is to geology. Cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists are trying to figure out what kinds of representations and processors the brain has. But there are ground rules that must be followed at all times: no little men inside, and no peeking. The representations that one posits in the mind have to be arrangements of symbols, and the processor has to be a device with a fixed set of reflexes, period. The combination, acting all by itself, has to produce the intelligent conclusions. The theorist is forbidden to peer inside and “read” the symbols, “make sense” of them, and poke around to nudge the device in smart directions like some deus ex machina."
Later Siegel said: For example, ancient Roman culture placed a high value on military courage. Mothers told sons going to war, “Come back with your shield or on it” Actually, it was the Greek Plutarch, writing about Spartans - three hundred years earlier. And Plutarch said he did not write political history, rather created a narrative to illustrate his points. Meaning, of course, that it is probably anecdotal at best. And meaning I’ve got to check everything here, which would take months away from other reading. Because…
On the same first page, Siegel says, from Pinker’s The Language Instinct (one I have already read before this), “Pinker thinks the computer model will be able to feel an itch even though it does not have a body to scratch. What evidence does he give for this belief? He believes it without evidence because it is a fundamental doctrine of cognitive science—which is not much different from believing without evidence that God created the universe because it is a fundamental doctrine of your religion.”
Wow. Twisting words to support a theme. Pinker is saying that representational theory is core to cognitive science, not that he believes something without evidence (Siegel says it again later in the book, doubling down, I guess.) Now, some amputees feel an itch, or pain, without a limb to scratch, but that undermines Siegel's argument. Not that it matters, I was not impressed with The Language Instinct. I thought Pinker had a way of complicating concepts with extraneous details. Siegel, on the other hand, obfuscates with philosophy. Have to watch him hard.
With respect to Pinker, Siegel gives a ref to a book, (ex: HTMW), with page numbers in the note and a reduction with a generous license of something he claims Pinker says. A problem is that the page numbers don’t quite align with editions of the book I can find and trying to find the wordings of Pinker, which also don’t quite align with Siegel’s misrepresentations, is challenging. I want to see what Pinker actually said, and how Siegel changes it to fit his agenda. Example: Siegel says “Steven Pinker is the most prominent advocate of this [mysterian] view: he says that consciousness exists but how it emerges from matter is a mystery that we will never understand. We saw at the beginning of this book that Pinker believes that computers can be conscious, because it is a fundamental doctrine of cognitive science. Yet Pinker also believes that it is incomprehensible how matter can produce subjective experience, free will, or knowledge. [he references How the Mind Works here in a note]
This is obviously a very weak position. Pinker admits that he believes computers can be conscious as a matter of doctrine, and he also admits that he does not understand how they can possibly be conscious. His beliefs are pure doctrine-faith-based rather than scientific.”
We already know that Siegel misrepresents Pinker wrt the doctrine, so off I go to check this. The note points to HTMW pp 558-565. Pinker: “And perhaps we cannot solve conundrums like free will and sentience.” And “The computational aspect of consciousness (what information is available to which processes), the neurological aspect (what in the brain correlates with consciousness), and the evolutionary aspect (when and why did the neurocomputational aspects emerge) are perfectly tractable, and I see no reason that we should not have decades of progress and eventually a complete understanding—even if we never solve residual brain-teasers like whether your red is the same as my red or what it is like to be a bat.” If you read Pinker, you know he uses cautious words - “may”, “perhaps”. This doesn't come through in Siegel's rewording.
In Part 1, Siegel writes a fantasy play of three acts (three standard materialist positions) wherein his players are right because “common sense” and everybody else doesn’t have any. Part 2 - he goes after he decides to go after six specific famous people he thinks represent all materialists (mistake there, of course). Four seem to be his other big enemies: Dennett, Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens - ostensibly because they are the modern skeptics’ gods? And everything they say is accepted as skeptic gospel? At least that’s how Siegel comes off. Please. Of those four, I’ve met and talked with Dawkins. I like Dawkins, and I don’t like Dawkins. Same with Harris and Dennett. Some of what they say makes sense, and some just doesn’t. I’ve read too little of Hitchens to have an opinion. But, I’m not sure why Siegel includes any of them. He undermines his arguments with petty nit- and cherry-picking. He calls Dawkins ignorant of religion in his chapter rant against him (while pulling aside the thin veil not hiding at all his own religious biases.) E. O. Wilson gets a treatment, and of course, Pinker bringing it home.
So, yeah, not even off of page one and I had to watch Siegel hard. He says "Evolutionists have not thought much about what reason is, because they talk only about the evolution of intelligence." Really? Rupert Reidy wrote Biology of Knowledge: The Evolutionary Basis of Reason in 1984. Another example why: "It makes no sense to say, 'I have faith, so I am sure intelligent life exists on other planets even though there is no evidence.' And it makes no sense to say, 'I am a skeptic, so I am sure that intelligent life does not exist on other planets even though there is no evidence.'”
I have encountered a lot of the faithful being “sure”, and some, but far lower percentage, skeptics being sure. Ray Nayler, in his The Mountain in the Sea had two characters exchange:
“So, I understand your skepticism - but there is skepticism, and there is naysaying.”
“Oh,” Dr. Mínervudóttir-Chan said, “I believe you. I’ve believed it all from the start. The skepticism is automatic— it is the voice all scientists need to convince in their own heads. It is my mind, trying to put the brakes on.”
Siegel says: "By contrast, the nature of mind—of consciousness and reason—is a real gap in scientific knowledge, and it gives us a real opportunity to reconcile science and religion." Why? He doesn't answer, but the implication is his religious position. I’ll quote from another fiction author, James Morrow in his Only Begotten Daughter: “Science does have all the answers. […] The problem is that we don’t have all the science.”
Yet. 2.5 stars
*BOGSAT - Bunch of Guys Sitting Around Talking
----
Too many notes, too little space. Here are a few:
"Dualism is actually based on a common-sense view of our experience"
{Materialism is based on even more sensical common sense. He’s dismissed materialism, but the evidence: consciousness exists. Just because he (and science, yet) doesn’t know how, positing that it cannot be is absurd. Meanwhile, dualism relies on mysticism...check your science at the door.}
"When we look at the problem of knowledge, we will see something even more startling, that it is impossible for the evolution of matter to produce reliable knowledge—including scientific knowledge."
{And yet it has. And the next sentence makes no sense:}"We can justify a morality that says we should treat all people justly, even if it is not to our advantage, if evolution tapped into something that transcends matter."
{So, altruism or empathy have no place in evolutionary survival? I only survive by running away?}
"Contemporary physics and biology cannot explain how consciousness arises from matter."
{That sounds like a closed mind absolute. Did he actually mean… “yet”? I doubt it.}
"Of course, both of these groups [cognitive scientists and neuroscientists] have a vested intellectual interest in believing that contemporary science gives a complete understanding of the mind, since their own work is based on this science.}
{No. They "believe" that science will...eventually. No one is saying "complete".}
"One plausible alternative to physicalism is what we can call “new-physics materialism,”"
{I had to go read the reference. Found it here.}
"The best known thought experiment about [subjective] understanding is John Searle's "Chinese Room"."
{Pinker refutes it easily, but you won't find that here.}
"Though these thought experiments seem decisive to anyone with common sense, physicalists refuse to accept them."
{Now that’s rude. “Common sense” is the purview of only those buy into the bought experiment? Pardon, you bias is showing.}
"Evolutionary theory can explain why the Nazis wanted to exterminate the Jews, but it cannot explain why Wallenberg worked to save the Jews despite the danger to himself."
{Okay, what, then, can explain why? Oh my Thor, this guy likes out there examples.}
"Because we have reason, we can understand universal moral principles, as we can understand universal mathematical principles."
{"Universal" moral principles? There's that bias again.}
"The best evidence for dualism is based on near-death experiences."
{Oh dear. He actually said this. And...}
"...seldom in these experiences does death seem to have negative consequences"
{Also, never in the history of humans has a near dead person met a god of a different religion.}
"Of course, there have been many attempts to explain away the near-death experience, since people try to explain away anything that challenges their preconceptions."
{Or other peoples’s conceptions and deductions. Why is it that Siegel, and all of the other mystics and even scientists don’t see the intuitively obvious? Commonalities of so called NDEs are due to … wait for it… commonalities in brain chemistry.}
"There is no conclusive proof that nothing exists except matter. The materialist believes this purely as a matter of dogma."
{And…? There is no proof of anything existing except matter. Must not be deliberately deceptive in our obfuscation, now.}
"What consolation can we get from the idea that nature is often cruel, and that our reason lets us see that this cruelty is an evil?"
{Evil? Really? Why? Why ascribe an anthropomorhpic term? Nature can’t be cruel. We might call what we see cruel, but that doesn't change the fact that nature just is.}
"The Aztecs were surprised to find that Cortes and his party were disgusted by this offering [of human blood to drink}."
{No mention of the evils wrought in the name Christianity? Destroying cultures (and peoples?) and other religions, including flavors of its own?}
"After studying philosophy, Harris went on to do graduate work in neuroscience, and his books suffer from the idea that ethics and religion are nothing more than properties of our brains that can be studied by scientists."
{And they are. Religion is a by product of pareidolia. Ethics are a by product of thinking.}
"The most obvious thing about [Dawkins's] writing is that he begins by believing that nothing exists except what is known to today’s physics, that he tailors his arguments to lead to this conclusion, and that he simply ignores any evidence that gets in the way."
{Um… Pot? Kettle?}
"Hitchens is incapable of thinking seriously about philosophical questions that he mentions."
{Part 2 is littered with Siegel's sneers. It really casts him in a vindictive sort of light, and at the least, reduces his credibility.}
"If you believe what Hitchens says about religion, you probably also believe him when he says that the Federal Reserve Bank is like the Boardwalk press of Atlantic City."
{And now he insults the reader. Again.}
"...evolution limited us so we cannot understand how matter can produce mind, then it also limited us so that we do not know whether matter produces mind..."
{This is a logical flaw. It does not follow that we do not know whether matter produces mind. And there is no evidence supporting the premise that we cannot understand how. That is speculation. We don’t have all the science, yet.}
"Dualists can justify humanistic ethics. They can say that reason lets us understand the moral principle of impartiality because reason transcends nature, so it can get us beyond our evolved tendency to spread our own genes and let us see that we should treat all people as ends in themselves."
{He just drops this here. No explanations. As such, it's just his opinion.}
"We only know our own sensations, and there is no reason to add the hypothesis that material objects cause them. Thus, Berkeley said that nothing exists except ideas in our own minds and in the mind of God, with God managing everything to coordinate different people’s perceptions. This is a simple solution to the mind-body problem, but it does not sound plausible to us today and it is beyond the scope of this book."
{There is no reason to add a hypothesis of a spook causing them (the Razor of Occamm). Clearly, material objects interact with the material objects of our bodies, which have nerves, which transmit the sensations to the brain where neurons interact to interpret and respond to them.}
"If matter moves only when it is bumped or pushed by other matter, it is problematic to explain how a thought in my mind can cause my arm to move—or can cause my material body to do anything."
{Really? That argument applies to your dualism as well."}
---
For the editors:
"Static electricity is the cause of lightening,"
{should be "lightning"}… (mehr)