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The Formula (Paperback)
ALBERT-LASZLO BARABA / HACHETTE USA / 2018년 11월
평점 : 
What a great experience! This book instantly reminded me of where I was in high school, where so many book shelves were standing in line. I don’t recall who brought up the idea of putting them on the corridor where the students’ walking through, but it is the idea. I never seen like this before in my life. You could borrow any books you want. No supervisor, no penalty. The only thing you do was just wrote down the name of the book you borrowed. But that is something not happened as much as the school manager expected. I didn’t know it while I have been around. After graduation, I heard that the school lost books a lot. It’s a shame. Because that means we were not the ones who deserve the self-ruled library. Anyways, the time I was in, the idea hasn’t gave in.
Babarasi, am I correct?, the author of the book is well known as an author of his another book ‘The Link’. I read it in high school, from the corridor library. I wasn’t and still am not an IT guy so network theory is definitely not my thing. But for some reason that I didn’t know, I picked up the book and read it through. The book came to me like a flood of new world, it was like discovering totally uncharted area of human intelligence. I wasn’t and still am not able to understand the details of what he said in the book. But it was a great amusement. It gave me some idea or feelings that I might knew more than I thought, which is hard to say if it’s true.
Maybe it’s because the author, Babarasi has a talent to convince others to believe that they know more than they actually do. We think we know the truth, who did what to whom, but sometimes it’s confusing. There is a word for this. Backwards causation. As it said on its words, you often ( I’d say always but) see the cause before the result, in that order. But the term means there is possibility that you see the result first and then see the cause. I can’t explain this properly, but if it’s true, I’d say I kind of feel like that before. I can’t prove it. but “feel like” I experienced it. let me put it this way. Isn’t there a time like when you look back, it’s just happened the way it has to be. I’m not saying that everything has determined and there’s nothing you can change. There ‘is’ something (well, lots of things) you can change, but ‘still’ there’s something you can’t change. Like a Constant in math. No matter how much you change the others, the one that related to your determined future won’t change. Some people might called it a fate but it’s little bit far from it. it’s more flexible concept. I can’t fully explain how it’s gonna work but I can say it’s rooted in your genetic traits.
The minute you hear the word genetic, you think it has to be something to do with DNA, which is innate. I think there must be some sort of widely accepted misunderstanding of this word. I don’t think we can figure out how much we’ve been affected by our DNA. Because DNA is not some miniature version of us. it is very complicated description of future-ourselves. So to function properly, DNA has to be interact with the environment, and in the process of it, some DNA turn on and some don’t. so it’s not just because of your DNA or environment. It’s both of them. without knowing how they co-work in the process, a struggle to find a source of the result could be meaningless.
In summary, our DNA interact with the environment we are in, and it produces a different kind of DNA patterns and environment. Mathematically saying, there would be a handful of possibility someone can have, that’s what I am thinking. When you’re born, quite lots of things just determined without your consent. The place you have to live in, the parents and siblings you live with, the language that will make your thought process, the culture you accept or resist etc. please don’t take me wrong. I’m not saying you’re the one who doesn’t have a free will. We all know we have it (do we?) what I’m trying to say is the concept of ‘free will’ it self is very confusing. Sam Harris once tried to explain it, I didn’t read his work yet, but it takes him to write ‘a book’! so I am very cautious to say that I know what free will is.
Then what’d we do? I don’t know the answer of it. I just do something makes me feel good whatever it takes. I know some stuff from my life experiences but I can’t tell it’s also true to yours. I just hope that I’m not that wrong about myself and the community that I live in. sometimes the possibility that the future might be determined long before is terrifying me, but also gives me a comfort that I don’t have to do something that I can’t do. No matter what you do you’ll always be as you are supposed to be. Maybe the same thing goes with everything. Be grateful what you have, be nice to others, be positive to come.