[christianbryant]

I spend most of my days reading technical journals and books, so I like to take a break once in a while and read more general writing. The two below are the only books I pledged to finish this Summer.

1) Challenging Sociality: An Anthropology of Robots, Autism, and Attachment by Kathleen Richardson

From the Introduction: This book explores the development of humanoid robots for helping children with autism develop social skills based on fieldwork in the UK and the USA. Robotic scientists propose that robots can therapeutically help children with autism because there is a “special” affinity between them and mechanical things.

2) Wandering Towards a Goal: How Can Mindless Mathematical Laws Give Rise to Aims and Intention? Edited by Anthony Aguirre, Brendan Foster, Zeeya Merali

From the Introduction: This collection of prize-winning essays addresses the controversial question of how meaning and goals can emerge in a physical world governed by mathematical laws. What are the prerequisites for a system to have goals? What makes a physical process into a signal? Does eliminating the homunculus solve the problem?