Holiday guide to human knowledge

Books, books, books

I wrote this essay earlier this week, before my father passed away on Thursday. I am grieving and processing, but grateful that his body will no longer be in pain. Thank you to everyone who has reached out already to offer their condolences, it is greatly appreciated.

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‘Tis the season for end-of-year recaps, fa-la-la-la….Before pausing this newsletter for the holidays, I thought I’d send us off with short summaries of 14 books, most of them old, that have helped me to navigate the Big Questions swirling around human society at the moment. You will pick up on some recurring themes! And, I not-so-secretly hope you will be inspired to read one or two for yourself (yourselves?).

Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges

Borges was a cognitive scientist masquerading as a short story writer. His tale of Funes the Memorius, about a man who cannot forget anything and is all but paralyzed as a result, serves as parable for our times: “To think is to forget differences, generalize, make abstractions. In the teeming world of Funes, there were only details, almost immediate in their presence.” (My friend Sean Trott wrote about Funes and its implications for AI last year.)

God Human Animal Machine, Meghan O’Gieblyn

A profound book with a subtitle—Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning—that captures my growing existential angst arising from the erosion of human solidarity. Writing about the impact that The Brothers Karamazov had on her own worldview, O’Gieblyn finds in it the proposition that, “faith in human nature, and perhaps in humanism as a project…is still a legitimate point of view and one that is worth defending.” I share that faith. (This review is worth your time.)

This robotic dog caused complications in O’Gieblyn’s marriage (photo credit)

The Body in Pain, Elaine Scarry and Praise, Robert Hass

The first is a book of philosophy, dense in its prose but dripping with rich insight on every page; the second a short out-of-print pamphlet of poetry that is as eloquent as it is contemplative. Both speak to the embodied nature of being human, and informed what I believe to be my best essay this year, or at least the one I’m proudest of.

The Dawn of Everything, David Graeber and David Wengrow

One delight of being a free-range quasi-academic ronin is discovering a new intellectual interest area, and this year it’s been anthropology for me, and thinking about the transition of the human species from primate to the “peculiar animals” we are today. This book punctures some of the myths we were taught in school (e.g., the “Agricultural Revolution,” not really a thing), and in so doing offers us a richer tapestry of human cultural development. A bit meandering, however.

Notes of a Native Son, James Baldwin

I re-read Baldwin’s work every year, and even have a little bit of a (largely imaginary) side project going to write a screenplay about his relationship with his teacher Orilla “Bill” Miller (their relationship is covered briefly here in this speech I gave in April). As the current Administration lurches deeper into re-segregation and overt white supremacy, I recur to Baldwin’s enduring gospel of human love to find courage. “We are what time, circumstance, history have made of us—but we are so much more.”

Source

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn

A classic that’s of particular relevance right now. Sam Altman fantasizes we might one day ask generative AI “to solve all of physics,” a statement that reveals the true poverty of his imagination and a deep misunderstanding of how science operates as a human institution. Kuhn’s work features in the essay I wrote for The Verge that was without question my most impactful piece of writing this year.

When We Cease to Understand the World, Benjamín Labatut

I have no idea how to describe this book to you. Is it an indictment of science or a call for reform? Is it fact or fiction? The New York Times review describes it as a “gripping meditation on knowledge and hubris,” and that will have to suffice. One warning, a friend who recommended the book said she was deeply disturbed by it in parts, with good reason.

Smoldering pic taken by Juana Gomez for the NYT

The Plot Against America, Philip Roth

A counter-historical novel wherein Roth reimagines his childhood, but if America had gone fascist under a President Charles Lindbergh during World War II. Perhaps you can understand why I find this story of increasing relevance today? This topic was also covered briefly in my ASU+GSV speech. (Still waiting to see if I’ll be invited back this year!)

Cognitive Gadgets, Cecilia Heyes

Few books have had greater impact on my thinking that this one, and I’ve re-visited it every year since its publication in 2017. The basic claim is that our cognitive architecture, not just what we think about but literally how we think, arises from our cultural practices and institutions. A few years ago, I even made a pilgrimage of sorts to Oxford to meet with Heyes (or Celia as I know her), who kindly took me on a tour of All Soul’s College, including showing me where it was vandalized by Oliver Cromwell (though subsequent Googling suggests I may be misremembering the details). Peak Britain. Anyway, more on her excellent book here.

Image source

Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Richard Rorty

The closest thing I have to a personal Bible, this book literally upended my entire political worldview (and mercifully skewered my last remaining vestiges of libertarianism). Among other things, Rorty helped me to distinguish between our acts of private self-creation versus expression of public solidarity. Also, while most of the time I view my project with Cognitive Resonance as summarizing and synthesizing the research of others, I’d like to think my Rorty-inspired notion of “Artificial Irony”—and why generative AI lacks it—provides a unique contribution to the proverbial discourse.

The Restless Clock, Jessica Riskin

Mechanical defecating ducks, erotic pocket watches, automated devils, this history HAS IT ALL. Riskin traces the long history of scientific effortsto to reduce life to something merely mechanistic and devoid of agency. In the process, she exposes the very religious undercurrents to so-called scientific determinism. And if you’ve read this far, congratulations, because here’s a tiny reveal: You’ll be reading more about her ideas in this newsletter in early 2026, straight from the source!

From The Restless Clock, 15th-16th century Italian devil automata—the erotic pocket watch was too naughty, sorry

The Eye of the Master, Matteo Pasquinelli

“We want a Marxist critique of AI’s history, yes we do, we want dialectical materalism applied to modern technology, HOW ABOUT YOU?” I don’t know if I understand Pasquinelli’s main thesis in this book, much less if I agree with it, but he sprinkles ideas throughout that I find myself chewing on. Sample platter: Labor is the first algorithm. Modern AI emerges not from theories of cognition, but contested experiments to automate perception. A knowledge theory of labor and a machine theory of science. Practices of social autonomy to foster new cultures of invention. If you’re intrigued, you can also check out this interesting interview.

The Dream Machine, H. Mitchell Waldrop

This book has a weird cover and would have benefitted from better editing and more rigorous fact-checking. Ostensibly the story of the role J.C.R. Licklider played in creating “the Internet,” it doubles as a somewhat haphazard history of cognitive science, and in particular how this new discipline rose in tandem with various technologies. Notwithstanding the previous caveats, I’ve found myself frequently pulling it off the shelf to revisit an idea or quote contained within its pages. To wit: “The thought of every age is reflected in its technique,” Norbert Weiner once said, words that might serve as warning for where we seem to be headed.

See?

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Thus concludes Ben’s Wonky Holiday Book Guide, and as I said earlier, I hope you chase a few of these down if your curiosity’s been piqued. And please share in the comments other books that have influenced your thinking this year (or any year, really).

I’ll close things out by noting that in January 2025, this newsletter was hovering at just under 1,000 readers, and it’s since tripled in size. I’m very grateful that y’all read what I have to say, and I’ve delighted in interacting with so many of you over the past year, whether in the comments—again, please don’t be shy about commenting!—or private correspondence. It’s been a tough year, and I’m worried about what looms ahead, but I find strength in the human solidarity we share.

So thank you, and have a wonderful holiday!

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