The Brain Is Wider Than the Sky

by Bryan Appleyard

A brand-new book from the award-winning SUNDAY TIMES journalist Brian Appleyard. Simplicity has become a brand and a cult. People want simple lives and simple solutions. And now our technology wants us to be simpler, to be 'machine readable'. From telephone call trees that simplify us into a series of 'options' to social networks that reduce us to our purchases and preferences, we are deluged with propaganda urging us to abandon our irreducibly complex selves. At the same time, scientists tell us we are 'simply' the products of evolution, nothing more than our genes. Brain scanners have inspired neuroscientists to claim they are close to cracking the problem of the human mind. 'Human equivalent' computers are being designed that, we are told, will do our thinking for us. Humans are being simplified out of existence. It is time, says Bryan Appleyard, to resist, and to reclaim the full depth of human experience. We are, he argues, naturally complex creatures, we are only ever at home in complexity. Through art and literature we see ourselves in ways that machines never can. He makes an impassioned plea for the voices of art to be heard before those of the technocrats. Part memoir, part reportage, part cultural analysis, THE BRAIN IS WIDER THAN THE SKY is a dire warning about what we may become and a lyrical evocation of what humans can be. For the brain is indeed wider than the sky.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Philosophy, Technology, Popular Science

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 2011

Reviews

[M.G. Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book after becoming acquainted with the author's writing via Twitter. His early morning tweets of news articles make terrific reading, cutting across areas of education, philosophy, science, religion, technology and humour. You get a sense of a genuine 'renaissance man', and that's very much the delivery of 'The Brain Is Wider Than The Sky'.

"The Brain Is Wider Than The Sky" has a simple concept at its heart too; that simple solutions don't work for a complex world. Anyone who's spent time trying to prise nature's secrets from inside the cell knows from experience that this is true. Or any computer technician. Why do these systems behave in sometimes unpredictable ways? Because they are complex.

But this 'simple concept' is countercultural within the mainstream. Mainstream culture encourages us to believe that character is a matter of 'simple' genetics, one gene equals one phenotype, to Keep It Simple Stupid and a whole lot more.

When the mainstream has embraced something so fundamentally wrong, terrible consequences will follow. Banks will fail. The environment will falter. "The Brain Is Wider Than The Sky" seeks to explain why the mainstream drive for 'simplicity' is wrong and to show how it's leading us to hell in a hand-basket.

Many popular science/technology/economics books take a simple concept that is usually contentious and expound on it with example after example, giving very little in the way of new ideas beyond chapter four. This book, however, has chewy food for thought all the way to the end.

The author achieves this through his cross-disciplinary erudition and via the input of a wide network of renown specialists from the fields of art, economics, medicine and science. He even subjects himself to a two-hour long MRI scan to study the brain, which is what I'd call Commitment.

A truly insightful, fascinating read.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Appleyard has articulated and fleshed out exactly what I have been thinking about on a basic level for months. As Appleyard states in the prologue: "This book is about, in roughly this order, neuroscience, machines, and art." It is primarily a passionate response to our technology-loving culture's over-simplification of ourselves. He doesn't condemn technology, but he patiently spells out the dangers of being seduced by our simple gadgets and scientific achievements so much that we throw away our complex sense of personhood, art, human creativity and connection. Throughout the book, he conveys his own sense of wonder, surprise and delight at what it means to be human, while remaining scientific, rational, measured, thoughtful, and curious. His style of writing, and ability to weave stories together in a seemingly disorganized way - achieve, on the whole, a resounding argument for preserving the precious, mysterious complexity of our minds. I feel inspired. Bravo!

I recommend reading Jaron Lanier's "You Are Not a Gadget" as a companion to this book for an even deeper look at machines, the way our culture embraces them, and what implications and effects that might have on our souls and our personhood.

[Vicky · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a great book! I had to stop reading and think about some of the ideas, to open my mind, to try to understand. It is my first book by Appleyard and I found only one more in my library. But there is a great website, with many of his articles and I plan to read a lot of his work. Appleyard analyses the contemporary culture, looks at modern life from multiple angles, be it neuroscience, finances, technology or art. Chapters on creativity and genius, and others on where we are all moving in connection with new technology are fascinating. I enjoyed reading Jonah Lehrer, Daniel Kahneman on decision making, creativity and the future and this book added to the list. Appleyard does not repeat them but somehow encompasses a lot in one relatively small book. He is a journalist, and through the book he introduced various interviews with famous scientists, artists, philosophers and celebrities. If we are the last generation before technology takes completely over it is worth to read this book.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

In lots of ways this is an interesting book, as it looks at the links between art, culture, artificial intelligence, humanity and the power of the mind.

In a series of chapters Appleyard looks at the promises of advertising that offer a solution to your complicated life. To see how his brain works he undergoes a fMRI scan and analysis by the doctors,, he speaks to doctors who look at people with brain damage to see how they relate to normal people. He meets with a series of influential people; Bill Gates, James Lovelock and Eric Schmidt all with the aim of finding out their view on where humanity is heading and how we interact in the modern world.

All interesting stuff; but my main feeling was that the book didn’t hang together as a complete work. Maybe it would have worked better to have it split into sections and into separate essays.

[David Cheshire · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always this author takes the reader on a heady journey into exciting realms, here how digital media affect our consciousness and sensibilty. He touches on insight, the two modern states (on or off line), the birth of cybernetics (good to see Alan Turing staking get another claim to be the Newton of our age) and other stuff like art, being human and creativity. I loved "vuja de" and also the importance of disciplining yourself to get off line, read something extended and hard (a book, say), and think. The Emily Dickinson poem of the title and the conmentary on it is worth the hardback price alone. The big picture is rarely bigger than here.

[krn ਕਰਨ]

Fabulous! And again: fabulous! A clarion call against the pitfalls of myopic, break-it-down thinking. Using examples from, among others, anthropology (rice farming in Bali), art (David Hockney), poetry (Emily Dickinson), mathematics (Paul Wilmott), Appleyard incessantly champions the more-ness that makes us human. Complexity, interiority, originality, imagination: there is so much to being human that machines can neither replicate nor replace. If you read one book before the end of 2011, make it this one!

[Bill Tyne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This a a bit of a harder book to clasify. While it is ostensibly about aspects of AI, neuroscience and the rise in high tech computer based systems and associated instruments / gadgets, its focus is on how the reductive process and mathematical modeling behind these systems has been taken as a paradigm for modelling, analysing and understanding highly complex process and structures; especially human thought and the mind body relationship. This focus takes it more into the field of philosophy and social science / politics, than the usual popular science books, however it does raise some serious questions about how the current approach impacts on our view of ourselves and how such approaches fail when confronted with complex situations (often of the kind that the original modelers had not intended them to be used for).
A number of reviews point to the lack of coherence in the overall message of the book, and it is true that some of the chapters feel like stand alone magazine articles or essays - however there is a thematic unity of purpose. While Appleyard clearly believes there is a problem with many of the statements and views of AI enthusiasts - he is no Luddite recognises the value and importance AI, Neuroscience etc, this being so his message is nuanced which, while it may not have the clarity of a "Yaa boo sucks to all of this" or "Isn't it all marvellous quit worrying" approach is at least more honest and thoughtful.

[Bevan Knight · Rating 5 out of 5]

Subtitled 'why simple solutions don't work in a complex world' this is a witty, discursive coverage of some of the complexities of modern life: from the internet to neuroscience, from Bill Gates to David Hockney. Running through the book is the problem of understanding what life is and how things are. And Appleyard has a good choice of people included, in interviews, quotations, and anecdotes.

[Andrew Langridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book whose multidisciplinary attack on scientific reductionism and technological determinism is subtle and well executed. Appelyard is a perceptive cultural critic, who seems as at home in the world of science and technology as in the world of art and literature. His subject matter is timely. A profound unease about all-embracing technology is widespread and necessary to articulate.
My only reservation is the lack of an overarching thesis. The subtitle "why simple solutions don't work in a complex world" suggests one that does not really deliver. Imposition of order and simplicity on nature comes via mathematics such as Euclidian geometry, whose power in helping us solve everyday problems is beyond dispute. In respect of the human world, as opposed to the natural world, the problems are certainly highly complex, but it is not the degree of complexity that is the decisive factor. Science has a strong record in solving elaborate problems that were previously thought intractable, aided by the fact that nature appears to have regularity 'built-in'. The interractions between people and the world they inhabit are not just more complex, but are of a fundamentally different kind to those between objects.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully warm and informed argument against the dangers of reductionism, over simplification and technological utopianism. The author is at home discussing the arts as he is the sciences makes for a well rounded and thought-provoking discussion of complexity, humanity and creativity.

[John Kaye · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wrapping round a good few of his recent journalistic pieces. In the end I'm not sure if there really was a thesis. But a decent read.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why scientism is so silly.

[Elsa Ontiveros-rowley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting facts.