As scientists we are bound to ask questions. A lot of times there is no ready-to-use answer. So we imagine that we know the answer and call it a hypothesis. The goal is to make a law (I am talking about physical laws in this post) out of a hypothesis. Laws must serve as a grounding material for our actions, and these actions are what moves us towards our goals, whatever they are. What is important to understand is that using logic is not enough to ensure reasonable actions. The logic must be grounded in laws. As Richard Dawkins suggests if we start with a “spaghetti-monster” we can apply all kinds of logic and still arrive at nothing.
The interesting thing about the physical laws is that everything is subject to these laws (that’s why they are laws) and nothing can disobey these laws. One good example is the law of gravity. It says “the earth is coming” (as a skydiver I can testify that it’s true). If there are no other laws applied such as aerodynamic laws (that’s why I was able to make more than one jump) the “earth will come”.
Given that all of that is pretty obvious we can ask a question: “What is the law that is used to develop our society (if any)?”. Daniel Quinn in his book “Ishmael” talks about this question. I found Quinn’s way of developing ideas very similar to the approach that is used by Jared Diamond in his books.
The beauty of this book is that it looks at things we see every day, but because we see these things every day we fail to make connections between them. Everyone saw apples on the ground, everyone saw apples fall to the ground… But it was Newton who discovered the law of gravity. This law shows a connection between apples and Earth in this particular case. That’s why connections are important to understand.
I was able to see the “problem”, “approach”, “hypothesis”, “solution”, and “future work” in this book. A good structure coupled with a very clear language and a very important topic (if our society is not following laws it will not survive exactly as aircrafts not following aerodynamic laws will not fly) makes this an excellent book.
Now what does it have to do with us? Well… our civilization develops using technology. And technology is developed by engineers. Hence I believe that even though it is a very good read, it’s very beneficial for engineers (in fact I consider this book “must read” for everyone). But in case you doubt my opinion (a very reasonable thing to do) Daniel Quinn won Turner Tomorrow Award‘s half-million-dollar first prize for this book.
8 comments
andrewkun says:
July 31, 2007 at 9:03 pm (UTC -4)
So why is the title Ishmael?
Alexander says:
August 1, 2007 at 9:38 am (UTC -4)
There are two major characters in the book. Ishmael is the name of one of them. The interesting thing is that Ishmael is not the major character in the book, but I suppose the title is used to make sure that we understand what the focus of the book is. For instance if “Don Quixote” was named “Panza” I think the book would be treated differently.
Howard says:
August 27, 2007 at 7:17 pm (UTC -4)
Hey, did Dawkins really come up with the Flying Spahgetti Monster?!
Alexander says:
August 28, 2007 at 5:21 am (UTC -4)
I did not investigate the origins of the Flying Spahgetti Monster, but I’ve heard about it for the first time from Dawkins.
Howard says:
August 29, 2007 at 12:05 pm (UTC -4)
Hah, wells since FSM is one of the most brilliant ideas of all time, give credit where it’s due. I am surprised to hear Dawkins is now referring to it? Wow.
Casie says:
March 4, 2009 at 11:50 am (UTC -4)
I liked Daniel Quinn’s book Ishmael because it was somewhat intelligent. It made me have to think about what I was reading instead of just blazing through it like I normally would. I really liked the way Ishmael told the guy that we, as humans, were destroying the world and we were going to be the cause of our own demise. He basically said we were killing off our predators and making more food for ourselves, but as we are doing that, we are causing over population. We are also depleting the earths natural resources and taking away land from the animals as we reproduce. He also told us how to live. He said we should live more like the Leavers and try to discover new ways to make what we need to have better for the earth or we are going to kill ourselves.
Alexander Shyrokov says:
March 4, 2009 at 11:57 am (UTC -4)
I’m glad that you liked the book, Casie. What makes this book to stand out from others, is that the author did not simply stated the facts (they have been known for a long time). Ishmael gives a model which explains our behavior, and ties the known facts into a single system.
Kyrie says:
March 4, 2009 at 12:03 pm (UTC -4)
Ishmael was a good book. It made me really think about stuff like would we ever change the way we think or the way we act. If we could then maybe the world would be a better place. We just need stop being lazy and act.