Parasara Sridhar Duggirala's Blog

This book is an attempt to understand the foundations of morality. What is morality? What are the various ways in which it manifests among different people? How to guide and leverage it in improving our institutions. Before going on into the details of the book, I have to commend the sheer audacity that is required to even begin a scientific analysis of a complex phenomenon of morality. Taking a step back, it seems that the western academia has immense confidence in the process of science and will subject anything and everything to the discipline of scientific inquiry. This book presents the evolution of the author in a chronological way and the formulation of moral foundation hypothesis. When his world was altered in a fundamental way (John Kerry losing elections), Haidt did not retrieve into the echo chamber. Instead, he sought out to read opposing perspectives and re-calibrate his understanding of the social and moral principles that guide the political discourse. Haidt goes further...

This book is an accessible summary of some of the interesting studies in the domain of Psychology and Education. Some foundations about the structure and modular components of brain are first explained and then some of the recent research (that are widely popular) in the domain of Psychology and Education, along with some counter intuitive advice is given by the end of the book. As an instructor teaching courses to undergraduate students, I think some of the "research" in Education are mere commonsense observations. I have seen the students fall into the same traps during the course of studying far too often. This book also provides some interesting solutions. I could summarize the book in 50 pages, but it would be very boring and dry and jam packed with information. This book was very easy to read and finding about the studies is somewhat entertaining. The knowledge about the studies helps us contextualize the observations made. As usual, you can always nit-pick the studi...

Whenever a country or a civilization faces a crisis, several intellectuals come out of the woodwork to (a) remind people of why the country or civilization is great, and (b) put it in the context of challenges that other countries and civilizations have faced. When the world was facing the consequences of sub-prime crisis that started in America, Niall took it upon himself to distill the crux of what does it mean to be called the West and why did it do better than other Civilizations. The goal of this book is to act as a warning sign and perform some self aggrandizing praise (if any). There was a sudden interest in the fall of Rome the year after Trump got elected to presidency. I am sure there will be several books on pandemics, vaccines, and economic crisis after this Covid situation. In this case, Niall preaches the modern gospel of "apps" and similar to old testament, he lists 6 virtues West has. They are 1) Competition, 2) Science, 3) Property, 4) Medicine, 5) Consumpti...

Introducing new concepts into public understanding is extremely difficult. A lot of interesting observations about the "middle universe" (phenomenon occurring at a scale that can be observed by humans) have been made already because humans and civilization has been around for millennia. Very rarely does a book introduce an entirely new concept introduced into the public understanding. Even more rare that the concept has been hiding in plain sight all along. Antifragile is one such book. It introduces a fundamentally different way of thinking about systems; from biological, to economic, to educational. It is as if we have discovered a new way to measure a system. The premise of the book is extremely simple and is summarized in the first sentence: "Wind extinguishes a candle and energizes fire." Design a system that embraces volatility "Be the fire and wish for the wind." If minor variations in environment are harmful, then the system is fragile, if they ...

In the Indian tradition of vada , often called debate, before engaging in a debate, the debater performs an activity called purva paksha  (translated as prior view ). This activity involves inspecting the opponents core principles to such a degree that one of the members of the opponents team would be happy with your summary of  their belief. Steel manning is a recent colloquial term for it. This "book" (more like an extended essay) is a liberal purva paksha of the conservative side. It is something more than that. It also highlights some of the positive aspects of liberal, libertarian, and conservative ideologies. There are several aspects where I found the book to be a drag. I do not think that the moral foundational theory helps at all. Sure, if you bring out a set of traits to be "fundamental", the self described conservatives and liberals would consider a different set of traits to be more fundamental. While this may be useful to partially understand the rea...

The "reality" we live in consists of many worlds. The world of traders, the world of politicians, the world of workers, the world of scientists, etc. Out of these world, I am particularly attracted to the world of mathematicians. For some strange reason, mathematicians seem to have "explanations" for various phenomenon occurring in almost all of the other worlds. These explanations are spoken in a language that is understood among mathematicians, but alas, there are few good translations from the language of mathematicians to the language spoken in other worlds. Having studied computer science and some of it theoretical underpinnings, I am familiar and comfortable with some of the conversations among mathematicians. This book is an attempt at translating some simple aspects of mathematics into the common parlance. As expected, the translation focuses on aspects that are most common in public use. If you really understand this book, you will not fall for some of t...

This is 100% an American book. The cultural ethos of America is permeated by the ideas of opportunity, entrepreneurship, and wealth. While the rich are hated universally, the country that hates them the least is USA. While the recent neo-lib and neo-con administrations has contributed to rich being increasingly hated, there are several reasons for the typical American mind set. Given the vast resources in the early days of discovery of Americas, the spirit of entrepreneurship was encouraged. During the American gilded age, and the wild west, a lot of rags to riches stories captured the public imagination. A culmination of all these stories is the coining of the term 'American Dream'. This book piggybacks on the popularity of obtaining wealth and sells a capitalist narrative. In this narrative, the protagonist is the product of two ideologies, one is a state-dependent socialist and second is a crony capitalist. The protagonist conveniently picks and chooses the "nicities...

I often alternate between fiction and non-fiction books in my reading regimen, just to break the monotony and have a change of perspective. I read these two books Altered Carbon and The Girl on Train. I picked up Altered Carbon because it was one of the top rated Sci-Fi novels on Goodreads and I picked up The Girl on Train because it was mentioned in one of the book reviews for Eileen (see my blog post  here ). I don't think each of them deserve a blog post of their own so that is why this combined post. Altered Carbon This is a sci-fi book about a crime story in 2500. The usual suspects of sci-fi like inter-planetary travel, floating whore houses, space ships, are obviously part of this universe. As expected, there is indirect condescension towards religion, in this case Catholicism, which is also a convenient plot point for the novel. The special aspect of this book is that your consciousness is condensed into what is called as a "disc" and can be digitally tran...

Did you ever read or write a love letter? If no, you are in luck. If yes, please read this book and compare it with the love letter you have read or written. This book is a 100 page love letter to Tea; that too, an excellent one. There are several quotes in this book which would take me 10 life times to come up with. Simply put, this book is poetry in prose. This book is not just about Tea. It is about Eastern philosophy; it is about Japan; it is about art, aesthetic, and beauty; and most importantly, it is about life. In the guise of "The Schools of Tea" preparation and their evolution, Kakuzo explains the various natural changes that happen as a part of cultural evolution. Through "Teaism", he talks about the virtues and vice of Taoism and Zenism. Through "Tea Room" and its description, he guides us through the discipline required to develop aesthetic sense and peace. Through "Art Appreciation", he lays our narcissism bare naked and forces u...

This book was insufferable! Recently, I developed an appetite for specialty coffee and wanted to read more about coffee in general. I bought this book at my local library bag sale (if you ever get a chance, you should do it, it is a good place to buy lots of books) because I got it for cheap. When I finished my previous fiction book, I wanted to read something different (non-fiction), so I picked up this book. Boy! was I disappointed. First, I think the authors should hire an editor to chop down their work. I think this entire book can be cut by two thirds and it makes for a nice 100 page book. There is a boat load of junk that doesn't add to the narration of the book. One of the most irritating aspects of the book are the quotations. Often, quotations are used to provide a perspective or to emphasize an emotion. The quotations in this book drag on and on without a specific goal or conveying an emotion. The writing is poor. It is not crisp. Many times, I would read 4 pages witho...

This book covers the history of genes, right from the age old theories of heredity to the most recent developments on gene editing with CRISPR/cas9. Interleaved with this history are some personal stories about the author's family members who suffer from Schizophrenia. The book is divided into 5 parts based on the chronological and scientific themes. I would consider this book more as a textbook written in an accessible way than a non-fiction book. I certainly learned a lot about the various scientific developments in genetics and contributions of a bunch of Nobel Laureates and also people like Oswald Avery and Rosalind Franklin who were fully deserving of a Nobel. When someone mentions that DNA has a double helix structure and is coiled within chromosomes, I always wondered, how do they know that? This book lays out a sequence of experiments which demonstrates that 1) Chromosomes are carriers of genetic information, 2) Using bio-chemistry, one can know the underlying chemica...

This book is a character study of Eileen, a 24 year old introvert from a dysfunctional family who works as a clerk in prison. She meets a charming girl and something happens. The book is presented as Eileen, who is now 60, recalls the sequence of events during the week of Christmas when she was 24. The story of this book can be condensed as a short story of 10-15 pages, but I think that is not the point. In this book, you actually get to meet Eileen. Although there was a very thin story line, I really liked this book. Eileen's character has aspects of innocence, stupidity, rage, compassion, and cruelty all mixed together. In the end, I felt like I met a real person. We can empathize with her while hating some of her actions. Her internal monologues are long, but a very lively and interesting. From her description, it is clear that she suffers from body dysphoria, depression, delusions, possibly sociopathic tendencies. But, instead of using labels, Eileen just describes her condi...

I am a fan of stories. Stories tell us about human condition and helps us empathize with the villains and cheer for heros. If you do not think that a story has to have a hero, sure, I understand. There is a protagonist and their circumstances. We would put ourselves in their shoes and get to feel their condition. This book is not one of them.  This story is about Silvie, daughter of a middle aged bus driver, Evil, who is also an amateur archaeologist. Evil's wife is Mrs. Indifference. A Prof. Stupid with three students, two guys Blah and evil-Blah, and one girl, Superwoman along with Evil family go on an "experimental archaeology" expedition. Silvie is charming in her own way and sometimes can intimidate Blah and evil-Blah. But she is also "impressed" by Superwoman. Evil and Stupid do a pre-iron age ritual and coerce Silvie (who is a minor, btw) into doing something that is clearly objectionable. Superwoman saves the day. This is not a story. There is no ...

Boy! Was this a disappointing read! I thought Nate Silver knows what he was doing when I saw FiveThirtyEight give 30% chance for Donald Trump to win the election. His interviews after the election were also refreshingly sane. He pointed out that many polls gave Hillary a high chance of winning without actually worrying about the margin of errors in polls. He also mentioned that sometimes these margins could be correlated. I remember him say that if you have a coin where tales can come up with a probability of 0.3, you will see that the coin does result in a tail sometimes. I had high hopes of understanding what Nate can teach me about predictions. After reading this book, I am really disappointed. The book can be summed up in one sentence: always think of predictions as probability distributions and be mindful of uncertainties. The book did not have a proper beginning and ending. The chapters are all ad-hoc. The book talks about prediction in the following disciplines: Economy, Poli...

As a researcher, I interact with Science on a daily basis writing papers and grants, mentoring students, crafting research problems, conducting peer-review,  and finally in communicating science to students as well as peers. Contrary to popular belief, I do not spend hours debating the various philosophies of Science, rather, I know it at a practical level and conducting science is how I earn my livelihood. Reading this book is one of the few times I engaged in actively thinking about the philosophy of Science. Unlike most books on science, Thomas theorizes that the most important aspect in the scientific enterprise is the paradigm . He affirms that scientists are interested in expanding the "reach" of a paradigm by devising new explanations and methodologies for applying a paradigm in a specific scenario. He postulates that a paradigm is in crisis only when there are several "faults" --- the instances where a paradigm does not sufficiently explain the observati...