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# The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself

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The instant New York Times bestseller about humanity's place in the universe—and how we understand it. “Vivid...impressive....Splendidly informative.” — The New York Times “ Succeeds spectacularly. ” —Science “ A tour de force. ” — Salon Already internationally acclaimed for his elegant, lucid writing on the most challenging notions in modern physics, Sean Carroll is emerging as one of the greatest humanist thinkers of his generation as he brings his extraordinary intellect to bear not only on Higgs bosons and extra dimensions but now also on our deepest personal questions: Where are we? Who are we? Are our emotions, our beliefs, and our hopes and dreams ultimately meaningless out there in the void? Do human purpose and meaning fit into a scientific worldview? In short chapters filled with intriguing historical anecdotes, personal asides, and rigorous exposition, readers learn the difference between how the world works at the quantum level, the cosmic level, and the human level — and then how each connects to the other. Carroll's presentation of the principles that have guided the scientific revolution from Darwin and Einstein to the origins of life, consciousness, and the universe is dazzlingly unique. Carroll shows how an avalanche of discoveries in the past few hundred years has changed our world and what really matters to us. Our lives are dwarfed like never before by the immensity of space and time, but they are redeemed by our capacity to comprehend it and give it meaning. The Big Picture is an unprecedented scientific worldview, a tour de force that will sit on shelves alongside the works of Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, Daniel Dennett, and E. O. Wilson for years to come.

Review: An Excellent Book (With An Error) - The Big Picture by Sean Carroll is an excellent book for anyone who wants a concise, understandable, and we'll written overview of modern science, with an emphasis on quantum mechanics and the philosophy of Poetic Naturalism. In this review I will focus on the philosophical side of his work and particularly his treatment of issues related to consciousness. As Carroll puts it, "Naturalism” claims that there is just one world, the natural world... (while) “Poetic” reminds us that there is more than one way of talking about the world . He describes these different ways of talking about the world as an "interconnected series of models appropriate at different levels". From this perspective, physics, chemistry, biology, and even psychology and sociology are simply different but useful ways of talking about the same world. From a scientific perspective, the most fundamental way of talking about the world is quantum field theory and, more specifically, the Core Theory, a term coined by Nobel Laueate Frank Wilczek. The Core Theory may be viewed as quantum field theory within a "domain of applicability" that includes most of the universe in which we live but excludes certain phenomena (e.g. dark matter, the big bang and black holes). Though the Core Theory is not the elusive Theory of Everything, it has been validated by so much data from so many experiments that it may be as close as we ever get to scientific certainty. As Carroll puts it, "We can be confident that the Core Theory, accounting for the substances and processes we experience in our everyday life, is correct. A thousand years from now we will have learned a lot more about the fundamental nature of physics, but we will still use the Core Theory to talk about this particular layer of reality". That is an audacious claim, but Carroll supports that claim with rigorous scientific reasoning. Carroll views higher level or "coarse grained theories" such as chemistry and biology as "emergent" and describes them as "... speaking different languages, but offering compatible descriptions of the same underlying phenomena in their respective domains of applicability". For example, chemistry and biology are emergent models of the universe, compatible with each other and the Core Theory, but with unique utilities in their particular domain of applicability. He briefly mentions supervenience, the view that emergent theories exist in an ontological hierarchy where higher level theories rest on more fundamental theories. For example, there could be no change at the level of biology without there being a change in the underlying chemistry. Similarly, there could be no change at the level of chemistry absent a change in the more fundamental physics. All of the models are interconnected and interdependent. Though each model has its own unique utility and coherence, that utility and coherence ultimately rests on a consistency with other more fundamental models. Unfortunately, Carroll's treatment of how different emergent models relate to each other alternates between autonomous or semiautonomous utility on the one hand and consistency with more fundamental models on the other. Though he warns readers not to begin a sentence in one model and end it in another, by moving between these two criteria for the validity of those models, he committs a very similar error. He frequently refers to consistency or compatibility among different models as essential, but also writes, "Within their respective domains of applicability, each theory is autonomous—complete and self-contained, neither relying on the other". This is just one example of where he suggests that the soundness of a model can be evaluated by its utility and internal coherence, and without reference to consistency with more fundamental models. In my opinion, when this level of credence is given to utility, one has entered a slippery slope that can lead to invalid ontological conclusions. Now, the criteria of utility does have its own domain of applicability, namely when the theory does not make ontological claims. For example, there are languages or ways of talking about everything from hair styling to stamp collecting that do not make claims about fundamental reality. Even Newtonian physics has its utility within its particular domain of applicability. In these areas, utility is a perfectly reasonable criteria. But when it comes to any model that claims to reflect, at some level, an underlying reality, utility by itself is an inadequate criteria. Another example is theism, a world view that Carroll does an excellent job demonstrating why it is not only unnecessary but a way of looking at the world but one that is ultimately inconsistent with the Core Theory. But if one evaluates the validity of theism, and particularly the theism embodied in major world religions such as Jewdaism, Christianity, and Islam, from the perspective of their utility, one is headed for an ontological train wreck. Who can deny the comfort (i.e. utility) that faith in a loving god and a blissful after life has given millions if not billions of people? But does that mean that such a world view is real in the same sense that the Core Theory is real? Of course not. The same logic applies to the role of consciousness in human behavior. Though there may be personal or social utility in the belief that conscious intent is responsible for human behavior, such a position is inconsistent with everything we know from cognitive science and everything we know about how the world works according to the Core Theory. Behavior emerges from complex brain activity, not inner experiences. The fact that our brain is responsible for both behavior and consciousness, at approximately the same time, gives rise to the illusion that conscious intent causes behavior. It is no more reasonable to claim that consciousness is responsible for behavior than to claim that a god is responsible for behavior or that a roosters crowing causes the sun to rise. Carroll tries to get around this by claiming that consciousness is just another way of talking about brain activity and the deeper layers of chemistry and physics. Unfortunately, reducing consciousness to a way of talking about experience fails to solve the Hard Problem. Consciousness is more than just a way of talking about brain states. It is dependent for its existence and form on those states, but is not identical to them. I do not claim to know what consciousness is, but whatever it is, it is more than words. Thus, poetic naturalism fails as a satisfactory philosophy of mind on two counts. First, it fails to give an adequate understanding of inner experience and secondly, it provides credence to the idea that consciousness is responsible for behavior. The first failure is understandable; the Hard Problem is hard for a reason and no one has yet come up with a satisfactory solution to it. As David Chalmers has said, that may take a hundred years. But Carroll should have seen the second failure coming. By allowing for the claim that consciousness can be responsible for behavior, he is opening the door for a new element in the Core Theory, an element he has argued persuasively does not exist. If it existed, this new element or property, somehow related to connsciousness, would make David Chalmers a very happy camper, but for the Sean Carroll who describes the Core Theory with such reverence, not so much. In conclusion, The Big Picture is an excellent book on the current status of science and his portrait of Poetic Natualism as a unifying philosophy. For those reasons, I highly recommend it to interested lay readers. However, I also urge those readers to be very careful in analyzing his treatment of consciousness. I believe he made a significant error in that analysis, though the error could very easily be my own.
Review: The physicist as philosopher - This is an enormously ambitious book, infused with an admirable passion and a formidable intellect. Professor Carroll, who is a Cal Tech physicist by trade and one heck of a philosopher by inclination, attempts to reconcile the scientific truth that we are “mere matter in motion” (p. 14) with our psychological need to believe we are something grander. Some observations: “Why are we here?” is not a question for a physicist. Nor is it a question for a philosopher. It’s a question for a poet. The belief that such a “why” question can be answered presupposes some belief in purpose. In no equation, in no observation, in no result of an experiment will you find purpose except as put there by humans. Purpose is an anthropological notion. And so, it is as the poet said, “We are here as on a darkling plain where ignorant armies clash by night.” (Matthew Arnold) Or Life “is a tale. Told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing.” (Shakespeare) So, it is not by happenstance that Professor Carroll calls his philosophy “poetic naturalism.” He knows better than I do that science does not answer “why” questions. What he is saying with this idea--for example in the case of free will and in the conflict between a scientific viewpoint and our social and even practical need to believe in free will--is that both viewpoints can be said to be legitimate depending on the frame of reference in which they are expressed. If we’re in a courtroom free will is a legal fact of life; but if we are neurologists perhaps free will is an oxymoron. Whether a homicidal maniac has free will or not and is responsible for his actions or not is beside the point: he has to be stopped. Whether he should be punished or whether heroes should be rewarded has nothing to do with whether we have free will or not. The homicidal maniac should be punished so as to deter others from behaving in a similar manner; heroes should be rewarded in order to encourage others to heroic action. But wait! If we don’t have free will how can others act in accordance with doing the good and avoiding the bad? The answer is, with or without free will they will be influenced to do what is right and avoid what is wrong by societal forces acting both from within and from without. While poetic naturalism may be a felicitous way of talking it doesn’t change the fact that in a scientific sense free will is an absurdity. What Carroll is doing is glossing over the truth for social and perhaps political lubrication. If we adopt his position (and I think we should) we don’t have to be concerned with some awkward truths. Some more observations: Carroll writes: “The Big Bang itself, as predicted by general relativity, is a moment in time, not a location in space.” (p. 51) I realize that physicists use the term “time” as a way of talking. Einstein himself did even though he made it clear that time does not by itself exist. Better here I think would be “…is an undefined event, not a location in space.” He says as much in the next paragraph when he notes that the Big Bang is “most likely, not real…” but “is a prediction of general relativity.” In the same paragraph beginning with “The Big Bang itself” Carroll writes the Big Bang “would be the moment prior to which there were no moments: no space, no time.” I think he means “subsequent” not “prior.” Carroll asks (p.90) “How do you know you’re not a brain in a vat, or a character in some more advanced being’s video game?” He answers, “You don’t. You can’t.” Two pages later Carroll brings up philosopher Nick Bostrom’s contention that “it’s more likely we are living in a simulation than directly in the ‘real world.’” Carroll explains, “The idea is essentially that it’s easy for a technologically advanced civilization to run powerful computer simulations, including simulated people, so most ‘people’ in the universe are most likely part of such simulations.” How to fight against cognitive biases? Ask yourself “Do you want something to be true? That should count against it in your assignment of credences, not for it. Does new, credible evidence seem incompatible with your worldview? We should give it extra consideration, not toss it aside.” (p. 121) In talking about an “antirealist” approach to quantum mechanics, Carroll contends that Niels Bohr believed that “There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature.” (p. 167) This is similar to one of my favorite ideas, namely that humans can never find ultimate truth but, as in an ever-widening sphere, gain more and more knowledge and understanding. On page 219 Carroll makes the point that life is “a process rather than a substance.” (Also see page 2.) He adds, “Life is a way of talking about a particular sequence of events taking place among atoms and molecules arranged in the right way.” Incidentally “a way of talking” is an expression and idea central to this book. Some things in our experience and understanding are for all we can prove just “a way of talking.” Carroll’s point is that a way of talking can be very important. A sly joke: “Mars is the only known planet to be inhabited solely by robots.” (p. 238) When Carroll writes about consciousness (I’m thinking of the “neuristor” thought experiment on page 342) he fails to define consciousness. He writes on the next page that “We should judge a conception of what consciousness really is on the basis of whether is provides a useful way of talking about the world…” In my book “The World Is Not as We Think It Is” I give a three-part definition of consciousness that allows us to “talk” more effectively about consciousness. At least I hope so. Understanding consciousness is another matter. It may be that it is so difficult that we could compare it to the difficulty a two-dimensional creature would have in understanding or appreciating the three-dimensional world. As noted above Carroll’s stance on free will is a bit slippery. On page 393 he avers that “We aren’t slaves to our desires; we have the capacity to reflect on them and strive to change them.” I would say, “Yes, IF that is our desire.” On page 411 Carroll seems to agree—again it’s a bit slippery. He quotes David Hume: “Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions.” (Read “desires are.”) Carroll goes on to say that we “…are the raw materials from which morals are constructed. Judging what is good and what is not is a quintessentially human act., and we need to face up to that reality.” In other words, our morality comes from our desires or passions. He notes that “other people might not pass judgments in the same way we do.” --Dennis Littrell, author of “Hard Science and the Unknowable”

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| Best Sellers Rank | #30,130 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #16 in Cosmology (Books) #54 in Evolution (Books) #59 in History & Philosophy of Science (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 4.4 out of 5 stars 3,595 Reviews |

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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ An Excellent Book (With An Error)
*by C***B on January 8, 2017*

The Big Picture by Sean Carroll is an excellent book for anyone who wants a concise, understandable, and we'll written overview of modern science, with an emphasis on quantum mechanics and the philosophy of Poetic Naturalism. In this review I will focus on the philosophical side of his work and particularly his treatment of issues related to consciousness. As Carroll puts it, "Naturalism” claims that there is just one world, the natural world... (while) “Poetic” reminds us that there is more than one way of talking about the world . He describes these different ways of talking about the world as an "interconnected series of models appropriate at different levels". From this perspective, physics, chemistry, biology, and even psychology and sociology are simply different but useful ways of talking about the same world. From a scientific perspective, the most fundamental way of talking about the world is quantum field theory and, more specifically, the Core Theory, a term coined by Nobel Laueate Frank Wilczek. The Core Theory may be viewed as quantum field theory within a "domain of applicability" that includes most of the universe in which we live but excludes certain phenomena (e.g. dark matter, the big bang and black holes). Though the Core Theory is not the elusive Theory of Everything, it has been validated by so much data from so many experiments that it may be as close as we ever get to scientific certainty. As Carroll puts it, "We can be confident that the Core Theory, accounting for the substances and processes we experience in our everyday life, is correct. A thousand years from now we will have learned a lot more about the fundamental nature of physics, but we will still use the Core Theory to talk about this particular layer of reality". That is an audacious claim, but Carroll supports that claim with rigorous scientific reasoning. Carroll views higher level or "coarse grained theories" such as chemistry and biology as "emergent" and describes them as "... speaking different languages, but offering compatible descriptions of the same underlying phenomena in their respective domains of applicability". For example, chemistry and biology are emergent models of the universe, compatible with each other and the Core Theory, but with unique utilities in their particular domain of applicability. He briefly mentions supervenience, the view that emergent theories exist in an ontological hierarchy where higher level theories rest on more fundamental theories. For example, there could be no change at the level of biology without there being a change in the underlying chemistry. Similarly, there could be no change at the level of chemistry absent a change in the more fundamental physics. All of the models are interconnected and interdependent. Though each model has its own unique utility and coherence, that utility and coherence ultimately rests on a consistency with other more fundamental models. Unfortunately, Carroll's treatment of how different emergent models relate to each other alternates between autonomous or semiautonomous utility on the one hand and consistency with more fundamental models on the other. Though he warns readers not to begin a sentence in one model and end it in another, by moving between these two criteria for the validity of those models, he committs a very similar error. He frequently refers to consistency or compatibility among different models as essential, but also writes, "Within their respective domains of applicability, each theory is autonomous—complete and self-contained, neither relying on the other". This is just one example of where he suggests that the soundness of a model can be evaluated by its utility and internal coherence, and without reference to consistency with more fundamental models. In my opinion, when this level of credence is given to utility, one has entered a slippery slope that can lead to invalid ontological conclusions. Now, the criteria of utility does have its own domain of applicability, namely when the theory does not make ontological claims. For example, there are languages or ways of talking about everything from hair styling to stamp collecting that do not make claims about fundamental reality. Even Newtonian physics has its utility within its particular domain of applicability. In these areas, utility is a perfectly reasonable criteria. But when it comes to any model that claims to reflect, at some level, an underlying reality, utility by itself is an inadequate criteria. Another example is theism, a world view that Carroll does an excellent job demonstrating why it is not only unnecessary but a way of looking at the world but one that is ultimately inconsistent with the Core Theory. But if one evaluates the validity of theism, and particularly the theism embodied in major world religions such as Jewdaism, Christianity, and Islam, from the perspective of their utility, one is headed for an ontological train wreck. Who can deny the comfort (i.e. utility) that faith in a loving god and a blissful after life has given millions if not billions of people? But does that mean that such a world view is real in the same sense that the Core Theory is real? Of course not. The same logic applies to the role of consciousness in human behavior. Though there may be personal or social utility in the belief that conscious intent is responsible for human behavior, such a position is inconsistent with everything we know from cognitive science and everything we know about how the world works according to the Core Theory. Behavior emerges from complex brain activity, not inner experiences. The fact that our brain is responsible for both behavior and consciousness, at approximately the same time, gives rise to the illusion that conscious intent causes behavior. It is no more reasonable to claim that consciousness is responsible for behavior than to claim that a god is responsible for behavior or that a roosters crowing causes the sun to rise. Carroll tries to get around this by claiming that consciousness is just another way of talking about brain activity and the deeper layers of chemistry and physics. Unfortunately, reducing consciousness to a way of talking about experience fails to solve the Hard Problem. Consciousness is more than just a way of talking about brain states. It is dependent for its existence and form on those states, but is not identical to them. I do not claim to know what consciousness is, but whatever it is, it is more than words. Thus, poetic naturalism fails as a satisfactory philosophy of mind on two counts. First, it fails to give an adequate understanding of inner experience and secondly, it provides credence to the idea that consciousness is responsible for behavior. The first failure is understandable; the Hard Problem is hard for a reason and no one has yet come up with a satisfactory solution to it. As David Chalmers has said, that may take a hundred years. But Carroll should have seen the second failure coming. By allowing for the claim that consciousness can be responsible for behavior, he is opening the door for a new element in the Core Theory, an element he has argued persuasively does not exist. If it existed, this new element or property, somehow related to connsciousness, would make David Chalmers a very happy camper, but for the Sean Carroll who describes the Core Theory with such reverence, not so much. In conclusion, The Big Picture is an excellent book on the current status of science and his portrait of Poetic Natualism as a unifying philosophy. For those reasons, I highly recommend it to interested lay readers. However, I also urge those readers to be very careful in analyzing his treatment of consciousness. I believe he made a significant error in that analysis, though the error could very easily be my own.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The physicist as philosopher
*by D***L on September 4, 2017*

This is an enormously ambitious book, infused with an admirable passion and a formidable intellect. Professor Carroll, who is a Cal Tech physicist by trade and one heck of a philosopher by inclination, attempts to reconcile the scientific truth that we are “mere matter in motion” (p. 14) with our psychological need to believe we are something grander. Some observations: “Why are we here?” is not a question for a physicist. Nor is it a question for a philosopher. It’s a question for a poet. The belief that such a “why” question can be answered presupposes some belief in purpose. In no equation, in no observation, in no result of an experiment will you find purpose except as put there by humans. Purpose is an anthropological notion. And so, it is as the poet said, “We are here as on a darkling plain where ignorant armies clash by night.” (Matthew Arnold) Or Life “is a tale. Told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing.” (Shakespeare) So, it is not by happenstance that Professor Carroll calls his philosophy “poetic naturalism.” He knows better than I do that science does not answer “why” questions. What he is saying with this idea--for example in the case of free will and in the conflict between a scientific viewpoint and our social and even practical need to believe in free will--is that both viewpoints can be said to be legitimate depending on the frame of reference in which they are expressed. If we’re in a courtroom free will is a legal fact of life; but if we are neurologists perhaps free will is an oxymoron. Whether a homicidal maniac has free will or not and is responsible for his actions or not is beside the point: he has to be stopped. Whether he should be punished or whether heroes should be rewarded has nothing to do with whether we have free will or not. The homicidal maniac should be punished so as to deter others from behaving in a similar manner; heroes should be rewarded in order to encourage others to heroic action. But wait! If we don’t have free will how can others act in accordance with doing the good and avoiding the bad? The answer is, with or without free will they will be influenced to do what is right and avoid what is wrong by societal forces acting both from within and from without. While poetic naturalism may be a felicitous way of talking it doesn’t change the fact that in a scientific sense free will is an absurdity. What Carroll is doing is glossing over the truth for social and perhaps political lubrication. If we adopt his position (and I think we should) we don’t have to be concerned with some awkward truths. Some more observations: Carroll writes: “The Big Bang itself, as predicted by general relativity, is a moment in time, not a location in space.” (p. 51) I realize that physicists use the term “time” as a way of talking. Einstein himself did even though he made it clear that time does not by itself exist. Better here I think would be “…is an undefined event, not a location in space.” He says as much in the next paragraph when he notes that the Big Bang is “most likely, not real…” but “is a prediction of general relativity.” In the same paragraph beginning with “The Big Bang itself” Carroll writes the Big Bang “would be the moment prior to which there were no moments: no space, no time.” I think he means “subsequent” not “prior.” Carroll asks (p.90) “How do you know you’re not a brain in a vat, or a character in some more advanced being’s video game?” He answers, “You don’t. You can’t.” Two pages later Carroll brings up philosopher Nick Bostrom’s contention that “it’s more likely we are living in a simulation than directly in the ‘real world.’” Carroll explains, “The idea is essentially that it’s easy for a technologically advanced civilization to run powerful computer simulations, including simulated people, so most ‘people’ in the universe are most likely part of such simulations.” How to fight against cognitive biases? Ask yourself “Do you want something to be true? That should count against it in your assignment of credences, not for it. Does new, credible evidence seem incompatible with your worldview? We should give it extra consideration, not toss it aside.” (p. 121) In talking about an “antirealist” approach to quantum mechanics, Carroll contends that Niels Bohr believed that “There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature.” (p. 167) This is similar to one of my favorite ideas, namely that humans can never find ultimate truth but, as in an ever-widening sphere, gain more and more knowledge and understanding. On page 219 Carroll makes the point that life is “a process rather than a substance.” (Also see page 2.) He adds, “Life is a way of talking about a particular sequence of events taking place among atoms and molecules arranged in the right way.” Incidentally “a way of talking” is an expression and idea central to this book. Some things in our experience and understanding are for all we can prove just “a way of talking.” Carroll’s point is that a way of talking can be very important. A sly joke: “Mars is the only known planet to be inhabited solely by robots.” (p. 238) When Carroll writes about consciousness (I’m thinking of the “neuristor” thought experiment on page 342) he fails to define consciousness. He writes on the next page that “We should judge a conception of what consciousness really is on the basis of whether is provides a useful way of talking about the world…” In my book “The World Is Not as We Think It Is” I give a three-part definition of consciousness that allows us to “talk” more effectively about consciousness. At least I hope so. Understanding consciousness is another matter. It may be that it is so difficult that we could compare it to the difficulty a two-dimensional creature would have in understanding or appreciating the three-dimensional world. As noted above Carroll’s stance on free will is a bit slippery. On page 393 he avers that “We aren’t slaves to our desires; we have the capacity to reflect on them and strive to change them.” I would say, “Yes, IF that is our desire.” On page 411 Carroll seems to agree—again it’s a bit slippery. He quotes David Hume: “Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions.” (Read “desires are.”) Carroll goes on to say that we “…are the raw materials from which morals are constructed. Judging what is good and what is not is a quintessentially human act., and we need to face up to that reality.” In other words, our morality comes from our desires or passions. He notes that “other people might not pass judgments in the same way we do.” --Dennis Littrell, author of “Hard Science and the Unknowable”

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Fascinating Topic
*by B***K on February 26, 2023*

The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself by Sean M. Carroll “The Big Picture” presents the fascinating scientific story of our universe (the big picture) and why we think it’s true and philosophically why despite being part of a universe that runs according to impersonal underlying laws, we matter. Theoretical physicist Sean Carroll provides readers with an ambitious yet accessible view of topics pertaining to the big picture. This interesting 475-page book includes fifty chapters broken out into the following six parts: 1. Cosmos, 2. Understanding, 3. Essence, 4. Complexity, 5. Thinking, and 6. Caring. Positives: 1. Professionally written, accessible and well-researched book. 2. The fascinating topic on the origins of life and its meaning. 3. Sean M. Carroll does a wonderful job of turning complex and interesting topics accessible to the layperson. He does this by making effective use of diagrams and concise descriptions and keeping mathematical equations to a minimum. 4. Describes how the purpose of life came to be. “Purpose and meaning in life arise through fundamentally human acts of creation, rather than being derived from anything outside ourselves. Naturalism is a philosophy of unity and patterns, describing all of reality as a seamless web.” 5. Describes effectively terms. “This principle goes by a simple, if potentially misleading, name: conservation of information. Just as conservation of momentum implies that the universe can just keep on moving, without any unmoved mover behind the scenes, conservation of information implies that each moment contains precisely the right amount of information to determine every other moment.” 6. The Big Bang described. “The Big Bang itself, as predicted by general relativity, is a moment in time, not a location in space. It would not be an explosion of matter into an empty, preexisting void; it would be the beginning of the entire universe, with matter smoothly distributed all throughout space, all at once. It would be the moment prior to which there were no moments: no space, no time.” 7. How we learn about the world. “Bayes’s Theorem can be thought of as a quantitative version of the method of inference we previously called “abduction.” (Abduction places emphasis on finding the “best explanation,” rather than just fitting the data, but methodologically the ideas are quite similar.) It’s the basis of all science and other forms of empirical reasoning.” 8. Describes reality. “Together they have dramatically increased our credence in naturalism: there is only one world, the natural world, operating according to the laws of physics.” 9. The strength of science examined. “The nice thing about theories in physics is that they are very clear about what information is needed to predict the behavior of an object, and also clear about what the predicted behavior actually is.” “Science is all about discovering the actual world in which we live.” 10. Some statements resonate loudly. “I would rather live in a universe where I am responsible for creating my own values and living up to them the best I can, than in a universe in which God hands them down, and does so in an infuriatingly vague way.” 11. A look at consciousness and its implications. “Consciousness emerges from the collective behavior of particles and forces, rather than being an intrinsic feature of the world. And there is no immaterial soul that could possibly survive the body. When we die, that’s the end of us.” 12. The world of quantum mechanics. “Quantum mechanics is a profound change from classical mechanics, whereby the outcomes of experiments are not perfectly predictable, even if we know the state exactly. Quantum mechanics tells us the probability that, upon observing a quantum system with a specified wave function, we will see any particular outcome.” 13. Interesting conclusions. “The progress of modern physics and cosmology has sent a fairly unequivocal message: there’s nothing wrong with the universe existing without any external help.” 14. The implications for the immaterial soul. “If the particles and forces of the Core Theory are what constitute each living being, without any immaterial soul, then the information that makes up “you” is contained in the arrangement of atoms that makes up your body, including your brain. There is no place for that information to go, or any way for it to be preserved, outside your body. There are no particles or fields that could store it and take it away.” 15. The second law of thermodynamics explained. “The second law says that the entropy of an isolated system will increase until the system reaches maximum entropy, after which it will sit there in equilibrium. In an isolated system, the total amount of energy remains fixed, but the form that energy takes goes from being low-entropy to being higher-entropy.” 16. The power of science. “How do species evolve from earlier species? How do organic molecules become synthesized? How do cellular membranes assemble themselves? How can complex reaction networks overcome free-energy barriers? How can RNA molecules develop the ability to act as catalysts for biochemical reactions? These are questions we have answered.” 17. Evolution. “The octopus eye is a better design, with the retina in front and nerves in back, so that octopuses don’t have a blind spot like humans do. Our anatomy reflects the accidents of our evolutionary history.” 18. Describes what makes consciousness special. “Consciousness is not a single brain organ or even a single activity; it’s a complex interplay of many processes acting on multiple levels. It involves wakefulness, receiving and responding to sensory inputs, imagination, inner experience, and volition.” 19. Debunks free will. “There is no room for human choice, so there is no such thing as free will. We are just material objects who obey the laws of nature.” 20. Death. “There are few issues of greater importance than the question of whether our existence continues on after we die. I believe in naturalism, not because I would prefer it to be true, but because I think it provides the best account of the world we see.” 21. Ethics. “Our ethical systems are things that are constructed by us human beings, not discovered out there in the world, and should be evaluated accordingly.” “The rules of basketball aren’t objectively defined, waiting out there in the universe to be discovered; but they aren’t arbitrary either. Morality is like that: we invent the rules, but we invent them for sensible purposes.” 22. Appendix and references provided. Negatives: 1. My biggest complaint has to do with how extremely careful to a fault Carroll was about not offending atheists and theists. In fact, very rarely uses the term atheism preferring to use naturalism. 2. The book lacked a little panache. Fascinating yet not necessarily what I would consider fun to read. 3. In general Carroll does a good job of describing complex topics but I have found some other authors like Cox, Greene, and deGrasse Tyson more effective. 4. Some topics even at the most accessible levels are complex and will go over the layperson. 5. The term poetic naturalism seems a bit contrived. In summary, I’ve had this book in my queue to read for several years and finally came around to it and I’m glad I did. Carroll masterfully interweaves multiple scientific disciplines in short chapters to draw a picture of the universe and why we matter. This is an ambitious book that covers a lot of territory via many scientific disciplines and for the most part Carroll succeeds in explaining complex topics where I feel he fails is when he gets too cute with some of the terms. As an example, poetic naturalism, where Carroll wants to have his cake and eat it too. That said, the book is overall very good and I recommend it. Further recommendations: “From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time” by the same author, “Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution” by Neil deGrasse Tyson, “Until the End of Time” by Brian Greene, “To Explain the World: The Discovery of Modern Science” by Steven Weinberg, “Why Does E=mc2?” and “Wonders of the Universe” by Brian Cox, “Longitude” by Dava Sobel, “Cosmos” by Carl Sagan, “The Grand Design” by Stephen Hawking, and “A Universe from Nothing” by Lawrence Krauss.

## Frequently Bought Together

- The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
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