In fact, except for those with health issues that interfere with learning, there is no excuse for anyone to not be a continuous learner.
In another couple of weeks, I will have been retired for 3 years. During this time, there have been weeks when I have taken time off to not do anything. But most weeks have had an objective to learn something new. This has not only helped me keep up with developments in the world, but it has also kept my brain active. I still feel as mentally alert as I have for years.
Most weeks I tackle one subject at a time, and sometimes a subject takes much longer and can extend into several weeks. This week I am tackling three subjects by reading three books:
- Time’s Arrow and Archimedes’ Point – In his classic book Confessions, Saint Augustine noted that time is both familiar and deeply mysterious. “What is time?” he asks. “If nobody asks me, I know; but if I were desirous to explain it to one that should ask me, plainly I know not.” It turns out that we really do not understand time any better today than when St Augustine wrote about it almost 1600 years ago. We do not know, why time always seems to “flow” toward the future, because the laws of physics say it should be able to work the other way as well. For that matter, we do not know what we really mean by flow of time. Look up a definition of time and you are likely to find it expressed as time = 1 second per second. Astounding that we cannot describe it without using it in the definition. Huw Price’s book walks through the philosophy of time and how it may have been misapplied in interpreting quantum physics, among other things. I very much look forward to reading this book. Chapter 1 of this book is accessible here, if you’d like to get an overview of the issues. By the way, Price is a proponent of the block universe concept of time, which is the model of time used in the TV series FlashForward (in which the future is fixed). Apparently the book includes his discussion of why a fixed future is not inconsistent with the concept of free will.
- The Plague – The classic book by Albert Camus. Reviews of the book on Amazon indicate that it ultimately suggests how one can find meaning (create meaning) even in the most disturbing and depressing of circumstances. Many of you know that I lost my faith after my wife died, about 8 years ago, and that I “found” it again after a couple of years. You may or may not know that I lost it again about 3 years ago, have never recovered it, and have since been a mixture of beliefs: maybe 60% agnostic, 15% atheist, and 25% “believer.” I struggle at times with issues of meaning in a world that seems totally indifferent to humans. (Not only is our universe vast beyond our imaginations, many of the best scientists now believe it is only one of a potentially infinite number of universes. It can be hard to “feel worthwhile” in such a conglomeration.) So I look forward to reading this book, as well.
- The Panda’s Thumb – Stephen Jay Gould’s “must read” book on evolution. Although I have a good understanding of the basics of evolution, I have never read any of Gould’s books, and I hear that he was a remarkably good writer.
While I wouldn’t expect you to mimic my “study plan,” this list of books may give you some ideas on topics you want to study. By the way, the latter two books on the list came from Jim Collins’ (author of Good to Great) recommended reading list.