[snelting19review] | Gregor Snelting, Report on "Software and Mind" by Andrei Sorin, 2019.
Book review, written for U. Toronto Press |
Abstract
In Eco's famous book "The Name of the Rose", inquisition victim Salvatore claims "If
one's true enemies are too powerful, one must search for weaker enemies". This is exactly what
Sorin is doing in his 900 page book. His ultimate goal is to defend human freedom and creativity.
Unaware of today's true enemies of freedom and creativity, he constructs a weaker enemy: the
mechanistic world view, as found in software engineering, mathematics, physics, behaviourism,
structuralism, and Chomsky's generative grammar. Sorin fights this enemy on 900 pages, but his
enemy is like Don Quichottes windmill.
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