In sharp contrast with the classic slobbering review at Time of string theorist Brian Greene’s new book, Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe (Penguin 2020), the Nature reviewer is not impressed. (Kiddos, that was back when Time Magazine mattered, as did newsprint in general.) By contrast, Philip Ball appears appropriately skeptical:
Brian Greene’s Until the End of Time sits within a tradition of grand, synoptic visions of the Universe, rooted in physics, that feels (to this British reader) distinctively American. Halfway through, I realized why. With its scepticism of religion but openness to humanistic wonder, awe of nature, celebration of the individual and recognition of the power of physical law, the narrative has a strong whiff of transcendentalism. There is an echo of philosopher Henry David Thoreau in Greene’s account of lying out at night, enraptured by the aurora borealis. And essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson’s declaration that the “sublime laws play indifferently through atoms and galaxies” could almost be this book’s epigraph.
Philip Ball, “From Big Bang to cosmic bounce: an astronomical journey through space and time” at Nature
Right. It’s a shlock religion. If you’re an adult who likes jawbreakers and plastic shark toys, check it out. Otherwise, note this:
When it comes to human behaviour — creativity, art, story, religion — Greene places a reductive faith in evolutionary psychology. He is probably right to say that many of our complex behaviours are underpinned by rather basic adaptive impulses, but he doesn’t adequately acknowledge how culture shapes them. For instance, he supports psychologist Steven Pinker’s notorious description of music as “auditory cheesecake”. This posits that music is enjoyable because it piggybacks on capacities that evolved for other reasons, such as the ability to separate our auditory experience into comprehensible chunks. This might or might not be true, but to appreciate what music really means, we need to consider its cultural, historical and social specifics, and not just attribute it to “our ancient adaptive sensitivity to sounds with elevated information content”.
Philip Ball, “From Big Bang to cosmic bounce: an astronomical journey through space and time” at Nature
But that amounts to saying that an aggressive application of Darwinism does not provide serious answers to the human condition, which amounts in turn to saying that… string theory, Darwinism, etc., are not the big ansewr to conundrums that baffle science.
Um.
See also: String Theory as a philosophy of life – Time’s reviewer laps it up. Some reviewers almost make us forget that string theory was supposed to be science, not religion. Get a load of this review of string theorist Brian Greene’s new book, Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe (Penguin 2020)
“The evolutionary psychologist knows why you vote — and shop, and tip at restaurants”
and
Post-modern physics: String theory gets over the need for evidence
Same old, same old, it seems.
As to this comment from the article:
I guess we should thank Greene for elucidating the fatal flaws within reductive materialism co clearly.
Greene falsely imagines, in his book “Until the End of Time”, that all of his thoughts are reducible to particles in motion. And he also falsely believes that there is an “inevitable thermodynamic cost” to his thoughts.
There are a few, rather gaping, holes in Greene’s beliefs.
For instance, all the words that Greene wrote in his book to try to prove that all of his thoughts are reducible to material explanation, (all the words that he himself wrote!), are themselves immaterial in their fundamental nature.
The thing about information that forever prevents material processes from ever giving an adequate account of it is its immaterial nature. As Dr. Stephen Meyer explains in this following video, information is immaterial in its fundamental nature and therefore, by its very nature, irreducible to materialistic explanations.
Thus Greene’s very own words, that he himself wrote in his book to try to prove that all his thoughts are materialistic in their fundamental nature, in and of themselves. prove that all of Greene’s thoughts cannot possibly be materialistic in their fundamental nature.
Humans think, (and write), about many things which are immaterial and timeless in nature and therefore cannot possibly be reduced purely to ‘particles in motion’, i.e. reduced to materialistic explanations.
For primary example, mathematics and logic themselves, (the very backbone of all science, technology and engineering), are blatantly immaterial. As Dr. Egnor notes, “What is the physics behind the Pythagorean theorem?,,, What is the “physics” of the fact that the area of a circle is pi multiplied by the square of the radius? And of course what is natural and physical about imaginary numbers, infinite series, irrational numbers, and the mathematics of more than three spatial dimensions?,,, What is the location of modus ponens? How much does Gödel’s incompleteness theorem weigh? What is the physics of non-contradiction? How many millimeters long is Clark’s argument for naturalism? ”
Simply put, mathematics itself exists in a transcendent, beyond space and time, realm. A realm which refuses to be reduced any possible material explanation. This timeless and immaterial mathematical realm is commonly referred to as a Platonic mathematical world and furthermore “Mathematical platonism,,,, is frequently considered the default metaphysical position with respect to mathematics.”, since “mathematical entities are not constituents of the spatio-temporal realm.”
The fact humans can think about this timeless and immaterial realm of Platonic mathematical objects is proof in and of itself that humans must possess a timeless and immaterial component to their being. i.e. Humans must possess a ‘soul’.
As Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin’s contemporary, himself noted “Mathematics is alone sufficient to prove in man the possession of a faculty unexistent in other creatures. Then you have music and the artistic faculty. No, the soul was a separate creation.”
In fact, besides mathematics and logic, (and as Alfred Wallace touched upon), there is an endless library of abstract, immaterial, concepts that humans think about that cannot possibly be reduced to materialistic explanation.
As Dr. Egnor noted, “Human beings think about mathematics, literature, art, language, justice, mercy, and an endless library of abstract concepts.,,, We are more different from apes than apes are from viruses.”
It is surprising how many things fall into this abstract category of being immaterial.
Darwinists ultimately seek to ‘scientifically’ explain everything in materialistic terms. i.e. Reductive materialism. And yet, if something is not composed of particles or does not have physical properties (e.g., length, mass, energy, momentum, orientation, position, etc), it is abstract, even ‘spiritual’.
Numbers, mathematics, logic, truth, distance, time, beauty, ugliness, species, person, information, etc.. etc.. all fall into that category of being an abstract property of the immaterial mind. It is amazing how many things fall into that ‘abstract’ category even though most everyone, including atheists, (“atheists” also happens to be an abstract term itself), swear that they exist physically.
Take for instance the abstract concept of species, The term species is an abstract property and/or definition of the immaterial mind that cannot possibly be reduced to any possible materialistic explanations. i.e. How much does the concept of species weigh? Does the concept ‘species’ weigh more in English or in Chinese? How long in the concept of species in millimeters? How fast does the concept go? Is the concept of species faster or slower than the speed of light? Is the concept of species positively or negatively charged? Or etc.. etc.. ?..
You don’t have to take my word for it. A Darwinist admitted that “The most important concept in all of biology, (i.e. species), is a complete mystery”
Needless to say, if you cannot even provide a rigid definition of ‘species’ in the first place, (in your theory that supposedly claims to explain the ‘origin of species’), well then, so much for the claim from Darwinists that Darwinian evolution even qualifies as a hard science in the first place.
As to Greene’s claim that, “thought processes” have an “inevitable thermodynamic cost.”
I thought this claim from Greene to be particularly interesting. The reason why I find that claim from Greene to be particularly interesting is that in quantum mechanics it is now found, via the Quantum Zeno effect, that “an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay.”
Atheistic materialists have tried to get around the Quantum Zeno effect by postulating that interactions with the environment are sufficient to explain the Quantum Zeno effect. Yet, the following interaction-free measurement of the Quantum Zeno effect demonstrated that the presence of the Quantum Zeno effect can be detected without interacting with a single atom.
In short, the Quantum Zeno effect, regardless of how atheistic materialists may feel about it, is experimentally shown to be a real effect that is not reducible to any materialistic explanation. And thus the statement of, “an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay”, stands as being a true statement.
Moreover, on top of that, recent experiments in quantum mechanics have now also shown that “entropy is always dependent on the observer.”
And as the following 2017 article states: James Clerk Maxwell (said), “The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.”,,,
quantum information theory,,, describes the spread of information through quantum systems.,,,
Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,
Thus, directly contrary to what Brian Greene presupposed, and according to our latest advances in quantum information theory, thought processes are not the result of thermodynamic processes, but thermodynamic processes are instead found to be subservient to “an observer who describes a system.”
This IS NOT a minor discrepancy between what Brain Greene presupposes to be true, namely that there is always a ‘thermodynamic cost’ to his thoughts, and what empirical science is now telling us to be true, namely, “we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,
This statement is just fascinating! Why in blue blazes should the finely tuned entropic actions of the universe, entropic actions which also happen to explain time itself, even care if I am consciously observing them unless conscious thought, i.e. the ‘immaterial mind’. really is more foundational to reality than the finely tuned 1 in 10^10^123 entropy of the universe is? To state what is now blatantly obvious, this finding of entropy being “a property of an observer who describes a system.” is very friendly to a Mind First, and/or to a Theistic view of reality.
For instance Romans chapter 8: verses 20 and 21 itself states, “For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”
Supplemental notes on how advances in quantum biology have now completely upended the presuppositions inherent in Darwinian materialism: