Paul Matthews reviewed Between Literature and Science by Peter Swirski
Review of 'Between Literature and Science' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I thought the author was going to use Poe's Eureka to make interesting connections between science and poetry, but he mostly just demolished the extent of Poe's knowledge of his contemporarys' scientific work. I enjoyed more some really interesting analysis of Lem's portrayal of the shortcomings of science in [b:The Invincible|251633|The Invincible|Stanisław Lem|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1441700738l/251633.SY75.jpg|983629] - how little it might equip us to understand the totally alien entity. I felt his discussion of AI as author was a bit lacking in reference to the text and it also seemed dated, but then I realised that, having been written in 2000 it was actually quite prescient and it might be interesting to follow some of that thinking in later work, informed by advances in machine learning as applied to creativity.
I thought the author was going to use Poe's Eureka to make interesting connections between science and poetry, but he mostly just demolished the extent of Poe's knowledge of his contemporarys' scientific work. I enjoyed more some really interesting analysis of Lem's portrayal of the shortcomings of science in [b:The Invincible|251633|The Invincible|Stanisław Lem|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1441700738l/251633.SY75.jpg|983629] - how little it might equip us to understand the totally alien entity. I felt his discussion of AI as author was a bit lacking in reference to the text and it also seemed dated, but then I realised that, having been written in 2000 it was actually quite prescient and it might be interesting to follow some of that thinking in later work, informed by advances in machine learning as applied to creativity.