God in the Qu'ran

By Jack Miles

Theography of Allah as he is represented in the Qu'ran (as compared to the Jewish and Christian scriptures).

It's hard to draw much in the way of defintivie distinctions because God is not represented consistently in the Jewish and Christian scriptures, which were compiled over the course of roughly a thousand years. The author in the afterward makes the point explicit that the God of the Qu'ran has many distinctions from Yaweh in the early books of the Torah (Genesis in particular) but converges somewhat with the picture of God emergent in the later Old Testament scriptures and especially in the New Testament.

As such, the main focus is on the the difference between Allah in the Qu'ran and Yaweh in the Torah. Some notes/observations:

• Allah is more cleraly omniscient in Qu'ran. He is very pointedly never caught off guard or unaware of anything that is going on.
• There is a very clear focus on th afterlife and heaven/hell in the Qu'ran. In the Torah, it's not clear that there is an afterlife at all and the rewards for worshipping Yaweh are primarily in this world.
• Allah is much more focused on having everyone recognize his divine supremacy as opposed ot Yaweh who is only concerned with his “chosen people” the Israelites worshipping him. This is on disply most clearly in Exodus in which Yaweh seems to not care at all whether Pharoah submits to him whereas the Pharoahs conversion (rigth before drowing in the Red Sea) is an important point in the Qu'ranic story.
• Satan is much more prominent a player in the Qu'ran, being given explicit authority (orders?) by Allah to temp man into disobeying Allah. Satan's role is unclear or nonexistent in the Torah.

1491

By Charles C. Mann

Sprawling history of the Americas prior to the arrival of Europeans.

Native American cultures were (arguably) as old and technologically advanced as the European cultures that ended up subjugating them. The major reason that the Europeans were able to take over was most likely Smallpox instead of any particular technical advantage.

Less

By Andrew Sean Greer

Novel about protagonist Arthur Less, a middle-aged author who is a bit adrift on the eve of his 50th birthday. HIs former lover, Freddy, is about to get married so he goes on around-the-world trip in order to avoid going to the wedding. The narrative follows Arthur as he travels from San Francisco (his home) to New York, Europe, Morocco, India and Japan.

Arthur himself is something of an anti-hero. He is portrayed as a moderately successful novelist, but is mostly spurned by the gay community because he is a “bad gay” who promotes heteronormativity in his most famous novel Kalipso (a reimagining of the Odysseus story).

The first 90% of the novel is enjoyable and funny if a bit hollow. Another story about a successful middle-aged man having a mid-life crisis. There is a twist though at the end when we find that the narrator is actually Freddy and that he is in love with Arthur and essentially end his marriage after a day in order to be with him (we assume, it's not really made clear how it works out).

There is also an interesting symmetry in that Arthur talks a lot about his long relationship with renowned poet Robert Brownburn (of the Russian River School) when he was younger. He was the lover of the older poet for 15 years. This is a sort of mirror of the relationship between Arthur and Freddy. Arthur is the successful middle-aged writer while Freddy is the much younger, relatively unsuccessful lover.

The End of Theory

By Richard Bookstaber

Former risk analyst/manager for major Wall Street banks makes the case for agent-based modeling as a necessity for modeling financial systems and systemic risk.

Traditional models used in macro economics and finance are inadequate for a few key reasons:

1. Emergent phenomena - Individual actors in the system, behaving in according to simple heuristics can lead to the emergence of extremely complex phenomena at the system level
2. Computational irreducibility - How a complex system evolves over time is not computationally reducible. That is, there is no closed formed solution for the state of the system at some future time. We need to “run the system” until that time to find out it's state. Traditionally, assumptions added to make systems computationally reducible make them poor models of real world systems
3. Radical Uncertainty (aka Knightian Uncertainty) - There are a lot of “unknown unknowns” in complex systems
4. Real world market actors are not doing optimization problems, they are usually just using simple heuristics to make decisions under uncertainty
5. Formal models do a poor job of capturing recursive structure of market actor decision making (what Soros calls reflexivity)

Basic approach he advocates is to create agent-based models which represent the real structure of agents within the system and their real heuristics and then running simulations.

He makes a reasonable case for how to use agent-based models to explain past phenomena and crises but it's not clear how you use agent-based models to assess future risk. I assume it is some sort of Monte Carlo simulation based on fudging initial conditions and model parameters but he doesn't really make that clear.

The Golden House

By Salman Rushdie

Novel narrated by Rene Unterlinden, a young film maker and neighbor of titular character Nero Golden (a pseudonym of a wealthy, mobbed up tycoon who relocated from Mumbai to New York under threat from Mumbai mob Z-Company).

Rene is the neighbor of Nero and his three sons, Petya, Apu and Dionysus, who live in a mansion on McDougal St in Manhattan.

This all happens with the 2016 presidential election as a backdrop (with Trump referred to as the joker and never by name). There are also clear parallels between Nero Golden and Donald Trump.

The arc of the story is about the downfall of the Goldens. They all end up dead by the end, mostly done in by the past misdeeds of Nero himself.

The Razor's Edge

By Sommerset Maugham

Story of free-spirited Larry, pretentious snob Elliot and social climber Isabelle (all Americans from the midwest) as their lives intersect in the milieu of post WW1/pre WW2 France.

Nobody's Looking At You

By Janet Malcolm

A collection of essays by New Yorker writer Janet Malcom on a variety of topics.

Interesting and engagingly written but doubt I'll remember any one of them a month from now.

Why Honor Matters

By Tammler Sommers

Co-host of Very Bad Wizards and University of Houston philosopher makes the case for honor (properly contained) as a useful element of an ethical, fulfilling culture.

The usual dichotomy is between honor cultured and dignity cultures. Dignity cultures (roughly the modern, western rich world cultures) put an emphasis on individual liberty, impartial proportional justice and respect for individual preferences. In contrast, honor cultures tend to put much more emphasis on the individual's responsibility to the group, personal vengeance when wronged and (a bit oddly) hospitality.

It's become almost unquestioned in the modern west among ethicists that honor cultures are backwards and that dignity cultures are obviously more desirable. This is not without good reason. Honor cultures tend to be violent, repressive and highly restrictive of women.

All that said though, honor cultures tend to have some characteristics that are highly desirable. For example, the focus on group identity and responsibility can and often does produce tightly knit and supportive communities (as long as you play your role and don't buck the system). This is contrast with increasing loneliness and all it's consequent psychological and social problems in modern western dignity cultures.

Prescription is to adopt certain practices and institutions which mimic the desirable aspects of honor cultures while containing their more undesirable consequences. Examples include team sports, so-called restorative justice (where the victim of crimes are brought into the punishment process and have both a chance to face their accuser and a say in the punishment meted out).

Interesting points overall but not entirely convincing.