A List of Books I Want To Read II

Hofstadter, Douglas. 1999. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. New York: Basic Books.

List of Books I Want to Read

Koskenniemi, Martti. 2005. From Apology to Utopia. The Structure of International Legal Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

This one is on international law. International law is significant because it teaches about the dichotomy of individual (state) choice, and community interest (when in conflict; see: game theory). It is interesting because "there is no world state", and the international community is evolving spontaneously.
This is also closely connected to the question of what is law, how can it be detected (and enforced), how does it come about, how does it change etc. Law is the rules, the institutions, the structure of behavior, the 'right', the moral, but also the hegemonic, the misused, the trampled upon etc.

(Me: "From Apology to Utopia. An back. And in a circle. And in-between and beyond." radical centrism?)

Ray Kurzweil on Exponential Growth

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/38 (focus on technology)
Note: exponential growing property is inherent to (positive) feedback mechanism (~self-reflection). I.e. we create technology that helps creating technology..

Robert Wright on Progress

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/68
(social/institutional learning)