Books

Here are some of the books that I have read and can recommend for you to read as well. THIS PAGE IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. I also wish I’d have more time for reading.

Novels / fiction

Alice in Quantumland

Alice in Quantumland is a parody of the classic Alice in Wonderland, which by the way is written by the mathematician Lewis Carroll.

What would a society that prizes happiness and stability above all else look like? In Aldous Huxley’s vision in 1932, such a society would encourage consumerism for the sake of the economy, and provide the citizens with bread and circuses to keep them occupied and docile. Political movements, ideologies and religions would be suppressed to prevent disagreements and societal unrest. Sexuality would be encouraged only in promiscuous form to discourage forming close bonds with other people, preventing them from having other allegiances than to society as a whole. Any residual unhappiness is medicated away. Many of these have an uncanny resemblance to our society of today.

The subtle ways the utopia of the book has become a dystopia are perhaps best described by this quote from the 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death, which compares the book to the classic dystopia of Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. “What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.”

As an interesting side note, Aldous Huxley’s brother Julian Huxley popularized the term transhumanism.

Foundation series

This is a classic of science fiction and demonstrates the reader that valuing science and knowledge is essential for the success of a civilization.

Harry Potter

Ilkka Remes

Many of the characters are combinations of several people who have actually existed.

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

“We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull.” This dystopian novel describes a society where every action of each citizen is monitored and evaluated for ideological purity. Objective study of history has been forgotten, and past records are altered at will to suit the political environment of today. Even the language itself is being moulded in a way to make it impossible to express arguments that criticize those in power. Those that dare to raise voices of concern are sent to re-education camps, possibly never to return.

The book was published in the year 1949, but remains very much relevant to the society of today. To quote Mikko Hyppönen, the Chief Research Officer of the Finnish information security software provider WithSecure, “George Orwell was an optimist”. The book is very capable in describing the dystopia of mass surveillance, but failed to take into account the technological development that has placed the necessary surveillance hardware (known as telescreens in the book) in our pockets, and our society is increasingly mandating that each citizen should carry one with them at all times. Saying “I don’t care about mass surveillance because I have nothing to hide” is like saying “I don’t care about free speech because I have nothing to say”.

If you don’t want our society to become like the one in the book, please support your local nonprofit organizations that defend privacy and free speech, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Electronic Frontier Finland (Effi).

The Last Question

There’s also a great comic version. See also the 1979 article Time without end: Physics and biology in an open universe by Freeman Dyson.

The Lord of the Rings

An absolute masterpiece of imagination.

Release that Witch

This is definitely among my favourite novels. A chinese engineer gets reborn in a medieval kingdom as its prince that has been banished to lead a small remote village, where there’s a witch hunt ongoing. Therefore it’s a classic isekai, and the the first chapters suffer from some anime and manga cliches. However, once the story gets going, it’s a tour de force of almost 1500 chapters of the industrial revolution and the development of modern civilization, and the amount of details is astonishing. To give you an example from chapter 33: “Gunpowder was known as the secret weapon for mass production. Its ingredients were easily accessible. The prescription required three ingredients: sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter. Gunpowder would be made by just mixing these three ingredients at at 1:1.5:7.5 ratio. It could be easily produced without any technical barriers.” The importance of mathematics, physics, chemistry, engineering, economy and diplomacy for a modern society is not understated. From there on the story slowly snowballs to the point that the Kardashev scale and Clarke’s three laws become useful. However, the book was unfortunately probably subject to Chinese censorship, as the civilization in the book started to become too democratic for the Chinese government, and this is visible in some abrupt turns of the plot.

The manhua is not even nearly as good as the novel, but it has a few pages that give good glimpses into the story. The novel also has a wiki, but it contains very heavy spoilers and should not therefore be read before fully reading the book. The only exception is the map of the Four Kingdoms, which is highly useful in keeping track of the various locations. Unfortunately the writer had to cut the story short, and the final chapters are quite hastily written. As a fun coincidence, some ideas in the final chapters are close to the subject of my second master’s thesis.

Star Maker

Are we alone in the universe? What are the limits of what life can accomplish? Could there be life unlike anything we have seen so far? Could life have significance in the evolution of the universe? How would interplanetary civilizations develop? How would they interact? How would intergalactic civilizations arise? What would life look like to them? What would life look like to an intergalactic hive mind spanning billions of (light-)years across the cosmos in both time and space? Few novels are capable of expressing concepts as grand as in the Star Maker.

The story starts very slowly, but will eventually describe the progress of life all the way from the first cells throughout the Kardashev scale and beyond.

The Silmarillion

The “Bible of Middle-earth”. It also contains fascinating use of historical language.

The Chronicles of Narnia

I’ve only read the books 0-3.

Other

Anthropic Cosmological Principle

This is definitely among my favourite books. As reviewed by the journal Nature, it’s “practically a universal education in both the history of modern science and the history of the Universe.” The simplest version of the anthropic principle, the weak anthropic principle, states that an observer cannot make an observation that contradicts the existence of the observer.

To fully grasp the book, one should have a master’s degree in theoretical physics, plus knowledge of philosophy and history comparable to at least a bachelor’s degree. Some ideas in the book are also quite far-fetched and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Reviews: The New York Times

The Art of War

Despite being over 2000 years old, the stratagems of this book still apply in modern conflicts.

The Bible

The Bible has been highly influential in shaping the development of western culture, and even various recent works are largely based on its stories. Just don’t try to read it in the chronological order, as you’d get bored to death when reading the genealogies, and you’d also miss a lot of context. It’s better to start from the New Testament. You’ll find that it’s quite different than the child-safe stories you may have heard.

Consciousness: The Science of Subjectivity

Written by Antti Revonsuo, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the university of Skövde in Sweden and of psychology at the university of Turku in Finland.

Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

Esko Valtaoja

The Fabric of Reality

Written by David Deutsch, a pioneer of quantum computing.

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

Sequel to Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.

How to Win Friends and Influence People

No Place to Hide

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

The Phenomenon of Man

This highly abstract, esoteric and difficult-to-read work includes a few ideas that were a lot ahead of their time. The book was written in the 1930s, but foreshadows what we today call as the Internet, and what transhumanists call as the technological singularity.

The Singularity is Near

Written by Ray Kurzweil

For a less-handwavy version, please see Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies.

Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies

The dangers of superintelligence are far greater than those of climate change or even a full-scale nuclear war. However, its potential is equally great. This book is written by Nick Bostrom, the founding director of the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford.