Analogia

This will be the last George Dyson book I will ever read.  While Turing's Cathedral was modestly interesting, Analogia: The Emergence of Technology Beyond Programmable Code, has more of the defects and fewer of the virtues that I noted nine years ago in my review of the former book.  The histories Dyson relates -- of the Russian colonization of the Aleutians, of the last stand of the Apaches, of the invention of the atomic bomb, the biography of Samuel Butler -- are certainly not without interest.  But his digressive, scattershot, yet somehow still overly detailed writing turns them all into a slog.  And then on the philosophical or conceptual side it's just a jumble of half-baked concepts stirred together with a dash of futurism.  I think Dyson imagines that he's describing the emergence of a new species of organism called the "analog computer".  Somehow this new type of computer will make no distinction between program and data in the way we associate with the Von Neumann architecture that powers the modern digital computer.  As far as I can tell this is the entire explanation for the subtitle.  Further, it seems this new monster aims to replace humans at the cutting edge of evolution, rendering us little better off than the Apaches.  Or at least, so I infer from tiny thread of connection one might see glimmering between Dyson's almost unrelated stories.  

George Dyson is interested in a lot of interesting stuff.  But he's not a clear thinker, nor is he a clear writer.  Fool me once ...