Higher dimensions of space should “come with a warning, scrawled in the margins of the ever-growing cosmic map: here be monsters”!
For those of us thatHigher dimensions of space should “come with a warning, scrawled in the margins of the ever-growing cosmic map: here be monsters”!
For those of us that are not Stockholm Syndrome slaves to the notions of organized religion and creationism, it seems accepted lore that the universe as we know it began with the Big Bang,
“a state of unimaginable density to an all-encompassing cosmic fireball to a simmering fluid of matter and energy”.
And, speaking of fluid, Katie Mack's book reminds us that it is obviously still a matter of very fluid discussion and ongoing development of competing notions as to whether the Big Bang was a one-off event; whether it’s a cyclic event that has happened before and will happen again; whether it’s an event that could happen again without any particular pattern or cycle; whether the universe we inhabit and can observe and measure stands alone; or whether it exists in the company of other universes embedded in an infinite meta-universe of possibilities. That plus the obvious question of how the development of the universe that we live in is driven and if, when and how it might come to an end forms the subject matter of THE END OF EVERYTHING (ASTROPHYSICALLY SPEAKING), an update to the current state of physicists’ expostulations on cosmology.
Given the depth and difficulty of the subject matter, it’s light-hearted and occasionally even irreverent and humorous but, make no mistake, the reading will take your full concentration and complete application of your proverbial “little gray cells”. I leave it to readers more informed than me to suggest that it is exhaustive as of the date of its publication.
THE END OF EVERYTHING is a veritable monster Texas grill fest of succulent meat to chew on and savour – the currently suggested five possible endings for this universe’s vale of tears - the Big Crunch, Heat Death, the Big Rip, the Bounce and the Vacuum Decay; the re-establishment of Einstein’s Cosmological Constant in the formulation of General Relativity (despite the fact that Einstein had once called it “his greatest mistake”); the robust nature of General Relativity and its almost uncanny refusal to be supplanted by a new Theory of Everything that seems to be needed so desperately; current thoughts on a multi-dimensional meta-universe in which our universe and others might be embedded; the possibilities for communication between universes via gravity waves; current efforts to defeat the almost complete lack of progress on the consolidation of general relativity and gravity with quantum mechanics and the other forces that govern the structure of the universe.
If you’re a patient, careful reader and the contemplation of how our universe began and might meet its ultimate close is of some interest to you, then THE END OF EVERYTHING will fall in your reading wheel house. Definitely recommended.
“Imagine spending a lifetime creating an entire body of knowledge about your imaginary friend. That’s theology!”
I should have realized that the su“Imagine spending a lifetime creating an entire body of knowledge about your imaginary friend. That’s theology!”
I should have realized that the sub-title was a giveaway, “Discord in the After-Life: A Bishop and an Atheist Deny Their Culpability for Abuse and War”.
Let me put my belief simply. Atheism is simply an unwillingness to believe in the existence of a god of any kind when there is no testable, verifiable, repeatable evidence to support that belief. And when atheism is defined in that way, the only correct way I might add, there is no possible world in which atheism can be considered as a sufficient or necessary condition for violence and war-mongering, right wing politics, or fascism. On the other hand, I’ll give full marks to the author who, despite his adherence to the Roman Catholic faith, comes down hard, unrelentingly, firmly, solidly, smash-your-fist-down hard, on the Roman Catholic administration for its continuing crimes and cover-ups of the clergy child abuse sex scandal. Although why that criminality isn’t sufficient to cause the author to repudiate his adherence to a disgusting religion and theology escapes me completely.
CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN was clearly written by an unswerving theist, a Christian one at that, who assumed the veracity of the Christian version of a deity from first page to last and simply assumed that the typical atheist’s questions were risible in the face of a god whose love should be unquestioned and who ultimately would demand our love as a prerequisite for entry into heaven. Here is a direct quote from Rosser’s version of god meeting the titular deceased atheist at the pearly gates, what an atheist would call a narcissistic god whose desire for adulation must be characterized as psychopathic:
“GOD: There is nothing that I have created that I do not love. The fact that some of my creatures do not love me in return, and have chosen to live in eternity beyond my presence, grieves me. But I gave each of them a choice. The same choice that I give to you.”
In other words, “Love me or leave me”. Rosser “presents a vision of God” that the back cover marketing blurb would suggest portrays “the ultimate conveyor of restorative justice”. I think not. I have found nothing in Rosser's theistic Christian ramblings to persuade me that Roman Catholicism is not evil. Nor am I persuaded in even the slightest to reconsider my position that atheism is a just, moral, and perfectly reasonable and eminently justified approach to the world until explicitly proven otherwise.
“Already today, “truth” is defined by the top results of the Google search.”
In SAPIENS, Yuval Noah Harari offered his distinctly left-wing interpretat“Already today, “truth” is defined by the top results of the Google search.”
In SAPIENS, Yuval Noah Harari offered his distinctly left-wing interpretation of the history of mankind’s cultural evolution, of the possible reasons for its xenophobia, racism, misogyny, patriarchy, greed and capitalism, its consumerism, its imperialism, its wars, and its creation of gods, religion and shamanism. As a reader with a definite left-wing bent to my beliefs and my thinking, I found myself nodding in agreement at Harari’s narrative and his conclusions. But I’ll admit that I found myself wondering whether his left-wing thinking led him to the book’s conclusions or whether his academic research led him to conclusions that appeared to be left-wing in nature.
And now, 21 LESSONS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY continues that thread of consciousness, if you will. Noah Harari moves from the distant past of mankind's entire history to the very recent past, to today and to a very, very small number of years in a possible future. In twenty-one loosely connected essays on a variety of topics, he posits how that seventy millennia of evolution has affected our short-term thinking, how we have evolved (devolved?) in the microcosm of the high speed historical microburst of two decades of the 21st century, and how we might position ourselves for a chance at continued life on this beleaguered planet. He celebrates “human wisdom” but decries the ubiquitous effects of “human stupidity”.
He asks,
“What does the rise of Donald Trump signify? What can we do about the epidemic of fake news? Why is liberal democracy in crisis? Is God back? Is a new world war coming? Which civilization dominates the world – the West, China, Islam? Should Europe keep its doors open to immigrants? Can nationalism solve the problems of inequality and climate change? What should we do about terrorism?”
Consider the following tidbits of his thinking:
On social media and community: “people live ever more lonely lives in an ever more connected planet.”
On human-caused global climate warming: “… as of 2018, instead of a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, the global emission rate is still increasing. Humanity has very little time left to wean itself from fossil fuels. We need to enter rehab today. Not next year or next month, but today. “Hello, I am Homo sapiens, and I am a fossil-fuel addict”.”
On shamanism and the outright fraud of a religious patriarchy: “The true expertise of priests and gurus has never really been rainmaking, healing, prophecy, or magic. Rather, it has always been interpretation. A priest is not somebody who knows how to perform the rain dance and end the drought. A priest is somebody who knows how to justify why the rain dance failed, and why we must keep believing in our god even though he seems deaf to all our prayers.”
On nationalism and the necessity for humility and a more modest outlook toward our true place in the world: “One potential remedy for human stupidity is a dose of humility. National, religious, and cultural tensions are made worse by the grandiose feeling that my nation, my religion, and my culture are the most important in the world – and therefore my interests should come before the interests of anyone else, or of humankind as a whole.”
On bigotry, xenophobia and religious zealotry: “From an ethical perspective, monotheism was arguably one of the worst ideas in human history”
or “When a thousand people believe some made-up story for one month, that’s fake news. When a billion people believe it for a thousand years, that’s a religion, and we are admonished not to call it “fake news” in order not to hurt the feelings of the faithful (or incur their wrath)”. (Omigod, I couldn’t agree more!!)
And, if you are of a secular, atheist bent (as I am), you will positively howl with delight when you read the etymological history of the phrase “Hocus Pocus!” I had NO idea!
21 LESSONS is an absolutely first-rate, mind-expanding, evocative, provocative, thrilling, intellectual joy ride. Take your time and savor Harari’s thoughts one bite at a time. Although there is a clear flow to the set of ideas in the total book, each essay can stand on its own merits so you might also choose to read it slowly alongside your favourite bit of easy-going fiction. That will work too.
Definitely recommended. And on that note, I have definitely added HOMO DEUS to my TBR list.
“When Eddie dies, trying to save a child from a terrible accident, he wakes upRecommended only for theists of any flavour
From the back cover summary:
“When Eddie dies, trying to save a child from a terrible accident, he wakes up in heaven. Heaven, he discovers is a place where your life on Earth is finally explained to you. It is explained by five people, friends or strangers, who somehow affected your life – and who changed its path forever.”
As a confirmed atheist, my first thought, of course, is why should an omniscient, omnibenevolent and omnipotent god, subject his loving creations to such pain during their lifetime? But, that aside, even if I accepted the notion of a god and a heaven, I found THE FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN to be too simplistic, too pat, too cute and too saccharine by half. Such advice as it offered was entirely obvious to anyone who gives a moment’s consideration to life and its vagaries and none of its supposedly “pithy” commentary or observations constituted anything that might improve my time on this planet.
Not recommended to anyone other than those mentally enslaved by notions of god and religion.
“Asking what came before the Big Bang is … like asking what is south of the South Pole?”
If he isn’t the greatest intellect of the last century, I’“Asking what came before the Big Bang is … like asking what is south of the South Pole?”
If he isn’t the greatest intellect of the last century, I’m certainly not certain who I’d put in front of him. In any event, his thoughts on some of the most pressing, most confusing, most challenging, and most urgent philosophical, scientific and cultural questions are certainly worth reading. Is there a God? What is inside a black hole and can we travel in time? Should we be pursing colonization of space? What is the future of artificial intelligence? How did the universe begin?
Eminently readable, compelling, provocative and informative, BRIEF ANSWERS TO THE BIG QUESTIONS belongs on the reading list of any well-informed and concerned citizen of planet Earth.
As species go, Homo Sapiens is definitely a nasty piece of work
Harari’s afterword, entitled “The Animal That Became a God”, provides a first rate As species go, Homo Sapiens is definitely a nasty piece of work
Harari’s afterword, entitled “The Animal That Became a God”, provides a first rate summary of the entire book:
“Seventy thousand years ago, Homo sapiens was still an insignificant animal minding its own business in a corner of Africa. In the following millennia it transformed itself into the master of the entire planet and the terror of the ecosystem. Today it stands on the verge of becoming a god, poised to acquire not only eternal youth, but also the divine abilities of creation and destruction.”
It’s not an easy read, it’s not a pleasant read, it’s not an edifying read. In fact, it’s downright disturbing to realize just how ugly the creature is that Homo Sapiens has become. HOMO SAPIENS is the history of mankind’s evolution, of the possible reasons for its xenophobia, racism, misogyny, patriarchy, greed and capitalism, its consumerism, its imperialism, its wars, and its creation of gods, religion and shamanism. As a reader with a definite left-wing bent to my beliefs and my thinking, I found myself nodding in agreement at Harari’s narrative and his conclusions. But I’ll admit that I found myself wondering whether his left-wing thinking led him to the book’s conclusions or whether his academic research led him to conclusions that appeared to be left-wing in nature. You’ll have to judge for yourself.
HOMO SAPIENS is a positive treasure trove of quotable quotes and trivia tidbits that will stick with you well beyond the closing of the final page.
“… our concepts ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ are taken not from biology, but from Christian theology.”
“Many Americans nowadays maintain that their government has a moral imperative to bring Third World countries the benefit of democracy and human rights, even if these goods are delivered by cruise missiles and F-16s”.
“Two thousand years of monotheistic brainwashing have caused most Westerners to see polytheism as ignorant and childish idolatry.”
“… coprolite (the technical name for fossilized turds)”
“There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.”
A compelling, informative, instructive, evocative and provocative read that will definitely have you scratching your head in amazement, wondering what kind of beast you might be, and musing about where your progeny and ancestors are headed and what they might do to the world in which they live.
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