Models of My Life

The rather eccentric autobiography of a scientific Renaissance man - whose combined achievements in the areas of cognitive theory, artificial intelligence, social science, and science-related politics nearly outweigh his official trump card: a Nobel Prize in Economics. The Milwaukee-born son of a German-Jewish engineer, Simon's childhood predilection for mathematics and mazes led to an adult preoccupation with the mechanisms that underlie human problem-solving, decision-making and, eventually, artificial intelligence and human creativity. The metaphor of the labyrinth informs this account as well as Simon retraces his steps along a number of separate personal and professional trails - as a political-science major at the Univ. of Chicago, a professor at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, a member of LBJ's Science Advisory Committee, an active scientific politician, and an admittedly unabashed maneuverer for the Nobel Prize in Economics long after the issues surrounding artificial intelligence had captured most of his attention. Denying that a life, at least my life, has a central theme, a unifying thread running through it, Simon presents his life as a series of distinct, photographic moments, downplaying their relation to one another. The result is a jarring sequence of tedious career-related recollections interspersed with astonishingly intimate personal revelations (including Simon's unflattering assessment of his parental deficiencies and an account of his unfulfilled romantic longing for a former student). In the end, Simon's deliberate rejection of a central theme robs his account of its vitality, rendering it of interest to patient aspiring polymaths only. (Kirkus Reviews)