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Title: The Night Is Large: Collected Essays 1938-1995 by Martin Gardner ISBN: 0-312-16949-3 Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin Pub. Date: 15 July, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (10 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A renaissance man in the third millennium
Comment: I thoroughly enjoyed this, the definitive collection of Gardner's essays, and recommend it highly. My recommendation, however pales beside those that appear on the book jacket, including praise from Noam Chomsky, Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould, Raymond Smullyan, Arthur C. Clarke, and Stefan Kanfer. Little more need be said about the value of this splendid book; but I would like to offer some observations.
The first chapter, a review of four books on symmetry is easily the most informative and insightful ten pages I have ever read on the subject. Gardner's rare talent for making things clear is shown to such advantage here that I would recommend it as a must read for anyone wanting a career in science writing. It's almost magic, the way he evaporates the fog.
The next nine chapters are on the physical sciences including chapters on relativity, quantum mechanics, time, superstrings, cosmology, etc., all good reads. The next five are on the social sciences, and it is here that I was introduced to a side of Gardner that I had not found in the other three collections of his that I have read. Chapter 11, "Why I Am Not a Smithian," is on economics and is primarily a dissection of the supply-siders who held forth during the Reagan years. It makes for lively reading even though, curiously it turns into a tribute to Norman Thomas as "the only notable American" to vigorously oppose the Japanese internment camps during WW II. In the next essay, "The Laffer Curve," Gardner continues his assault on the "voodoo economics" of the Reagan years as he presents his own satirical "neo-Laffer curve." Gardner is a sharp eyed and sharp-penned social critic, and, as he demonstrates in Chapter 21, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," a pretty good movie critic as well. (Although here I think he underrated the magic of Spielberg's movie in order to better concentrate on zapping the usual Spielberg schmaltz and pseudoscience.) Politically speaking, Gardner reveals himself as a "social democrat."
The chapter on "Newcomb's Paradox," which Gardner interprets as "related to the question of whether humans possess a genuine power to make free, unpredictable choices," has the effect of revealing Gardner's personality. You'll have to read it to see what I mean, but the choices he makes are psychological choices and reveal him as a man who is not afraid to stand by his beliefs. Herein and in the next chapter we encounter the question of whether we can have free will in the view of an omniscient God. Gardner's solution (with C. S. Lewis and others) is to put God outside time and avoid the contradictions. Incidentally, Gardner makes the very salient point that any language that allows sets to be members of themselves or evaluates the truth or falsity of its statements will run into contradictions (p. 419).
It is here in the chapters on philosophy and religion that Gardner is at his most intriguing. He is a theist and a believer in free will, although he admits that "distinguishing free will from determinism" is something we are incapable of doing (p. 427). He equates free will with self-awareness and consciousness, and declares (p. 444) "I am not a vitalist who thinks there is...a soul distinct from the brain." Yet on page 438 he writes, "I cannot conceive of myself as existing without...a brain that has free will." Although none of this is contradictory, we can see that there is something Gardner believes in that is akin to Bishop Berkeley's idealism and beyond the rock of realism that Samuel Johnson gave a kick to in an attempt to refute Berkeley. I agree with Gardner that we are not about to find an answer to the conundrum of free will, although I think it's important to add that as a practical matter the illusion of free will is, for us, as good as the "real" thing. Readers may be surprised to learn that Gardner also identifies himself as a "fideist," a word I had to look up. It refers to someone who believes in God as a matter of faith.
I would like to say (since Gardner doesn't) that consciousness as self-awareness should be made distinct from consciousness as self-identity. The former is a question of relative complexity, e.g., chimp consciousness versus flatworm consciousness. The latter is an illusion with great psychological power foisted on us by the evolutionary mechanism primarily to make us fear death. It is adaptive for long-lived creatures such as ourselves, but is otherwise empty. When the Buddhists (and the Vedas and yogic psychology) say the ego is an illusion, this is what they are talking about, this delusional self-identity that we sometimes refer to as consciousness.
There are number of funny jokes and asides herein. One of my favorites identifies Ayn Rand (philosophically speaking of course) as "the ugly offspring of Milton Friedman and Madalyn Murray O'Hare" (p. 484).
Rating: 5
Summary: Incredible Breadth of Interests
Comment: Martin Gardner is a national treasure. His breadth of intellect is astounding. The only problem with reviewing a Gardner volume is deciding which of his collections of essays is the best place to start reading.
This volume may represent the best intro to Gardner. While the subtitle is, "Collected Essays, 1938-1995," none of the essay shows any signs of age. Each essay is supplemented by a postscript which updates more recent developments, or more commonly, Gardner's recent thinking on the subject. Consider the section headings: Physical Science, Social Science, Pseudoscience, Mathematics, The Arts, Philosophy, Religion. Is Gardner the last Renaissance man or what?
In short, a great introduction to an amazing thinker. By the way, if you already have one or several of Gardner's other collections, get this one as well. Gardner has lots more to say!
Rating: 5
Summary: Gardner's best
Comment: This book is made up of 47 fascinating chapters, which really are Gardner's best. If you liked Gardner in SciAm you'll love The Night Is Large.
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Title: Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener by Martin Gardner ISBN: 0312206828 Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin Pub. Date: 21 August, 1999 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: From the Wandering Jew to William F. Buckley, Jr. : On Science, Literature, and Religion by Martin Gardner ISBN: 1573928526 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $28.00 |
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Title: Weird Water & Fuzzy Logic: More Notes of a Fringe Watcher by Martin Gardner ISBN: 1573920967 Publisher: Prometheus Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 1996 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (Popular Science) by Martin Gardner ISBN: 0486203948 Publisher: Dover Publications Pub. Date: 01 June, 1957 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Did Adam and Eve Have Navels?: Debunking Pseudoscience by Martin Gardner ISBN: 0393322386 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: October, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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