Learning to Use Extrasensory Perception by Charles T. Tart. (review)

162 Books and prototypical typewriters makes it clear that a degree of automation had been accomplished long before this century. The word robot is ascribed to the Czech playwright, Karel Capek, who in 1920wrote 'Rossum's Universal Robots'. And one is led from robotic fiction, through toy robots, to household, military and outer-space applications. There are, toward the end, useful discussions of cybernetics and of artificial intelligence and an allusion to Isaac Asimov's widely known story (The Last Question) of a machine that becomes God. For readers intrigued by this introductory book, I would recommend a perusal of a paper by Ewald Heer, The Role of Robots and Automation, presented to the 1979Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This paper, devoted to space exploration, explains how robot and automation technology 'in some cases ... can make the mission feasible and in other cases ... can make it economically affordable' . What Reichardt's book touches on only briefly is the prospect for automatic, flexible manufacturing: a future with assembly lines manned by robots would clearly have fundamental implications for the organization of society and the distribution of wealth. Note should be taken of the upheavals caused by the automation of a number of fruit-picking operations in California. Computers, telecommunications and ballisticsbid fair to usher in an age of macro-systems of unprecedented range and power. Peter Vajk, in Doomsday Has Been Cancelled (Culver City, CA: Peace Press, 1978)has provided an optimistic interpretation of the enhanced capabilities of humans; but the warnings of the Club of Rome-and the ever-growing threat of high-technology warfare-remind one that the outcome is, profoundly, a question of politics or, if you will, social psychology. People, enhanced by machines that are increasingly sensitive and versatile, are challenged to maintain the primacy of civilized values, lest an unfeeling and clumsy industrialization destroy humanity's necessary relationship with nature. Future education must, one suspects, have a 'post-robotic' character: the reestablishment of organic farming and the re-forestation of desiccated landscapes may turn out to be the principal tasks of the next century. Meanwhile, as brilliant robots roam the skies, I shall do well to repeat Juvenal's antique Roman question: Quis custodiet custodes ipsos? (Who is to guard the guards themselves?) The Art of Deception.How to: Win an Argument, Defend a Case, Recognizea Fallacy, See through Deception, Persuade a Skeptic, Turn Defeat into Victory. Nicholas Capaldi. Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY, 1975. 200 pp., illus. Paper, $3.95. Reviewed by Rebecca K. Jones* The basic idea behind this book isa good one: to provide a source book of informal logic based on the practical problems of presenting, attacking and defending an argument. Many people who have not studied logicbelievethat their critical faculties are in some way impaired by this deficit; but if they take up formal logic, they find that the information about p -> q does not go far in improving their rhetoric. A book with the idea of Capaldi's would suit the needs of many people, especially since, as the author points out, the current state of informal logic is one of chaotic disorganization and the unguided explorer would surely become lost. However, Capaldi has deliberately chosen to write the book 'from the viewpoint of one who wishes to deceive or mislead others' and this orientation severelylimits its usefulness. Rather than being an aid for scholars who wish to sharpen their methods of discourse, his book reads like a logical version of a get-aheadat -someone-else's-expense self-helpbook (not unlike the 'classic' Winning through Intimidation). While I do not doubt that there is an audience for this book somewhere (the fact that it isin its third printing demonstrates that), it is not to be found among serious writers on any subject. Most of the techniques Capaldi advocates are best avoided by *Dept. of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, 1-7 Roxburgh St., Edinburgh E48 9TA, Scotland. careful writers, for example using arguments ad hominem, presenting graphs without legends, profusely using the words 'obviously', 'certainly', 'surely', etc. and deliberately misstating the opponent's argument. The proof of the shoddiness of the style Capaldi recommends lies...