Marcelo Gleiser

History of physics, what we know and how we know about existence: the world, universe, unknown. Knowledge is invented rather than discovered due to the nature of our brains/consciousness. All we know is a metaphorical island that grows but we can never get off the island. There is no objective truth just our extremely clever brains reverse engineering a working set of rules and laws to explain the world around us. Fascinating stuff. From p 178 “ as Austrian physicist Anton Zeilinger wrote in Dance of the Photons: ‘We have tried for centuries to look deeper and deeper into finding causes and explanations, and suddenly, when we go to the very depths, to the behavior of individual particles of individual quanta, we find that this search for a cause comes to an end. There is no cause. In my eyes, this fundamental indeterminateness of the universe has not really been integrated into our worldview yet. ‘“
P. 187 “when it comes to physical reality, there are no final explanations but ever more efficient descriptions “
P. 191 “the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics” is some Humeian stuff— don’t axe questions!
P. 197 “Heisenberg wrote, “What we observe is not nature itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning””… (altro)

Ostensibly and at its best a dive into epistemology and the limits of frontier science, but all too often just another mediocre recap of the history of scientific developments.
If you're interested enough to be pursuing this book you are almost certainly already familiar with the majority of content it's seen fit to recapitulate. A book like The Golem (What You Should Know About Science) though more dated serves the purpose of questioning the limits of science much better by a series of case studies of less well known hypotheses and how they played out in academia; a "how the sausage is made" type insight into the practical problems of knowing.
What seems to be the ultimate point of this book is some epistemological pondering and some second rate philosophical arguments about platonic idealism when it comes to the question of scientific models approximating something that's fundamentally real or not (our author thinks not).… (altro)

I liked this book a lot. He covers the history of astronomy, physics, and math and shows how our knowledge expands but also the awareness of our ignorance expands, and in fact it looks like there are many questions that may never be scientifically explored because they may be outside the boundaries of what we can ever observe. There were a few chapters about quantum physics that I didn't really "get" but then I have never been able to grasp the quantum world although I've read many explanations targeted at lay people. Other than those chapters I felt like everything made sense to me. Very beautiful and inspiring writing from a scientific but not scientistic viewpoint.… (altro)

Thanks to NetGalley and Columbia University Press for providing an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book represents a set of transcripts of eight debates organised by the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Engagement at Dartmouth College and moderated by professor of physics and astronomy, Marcelo Gleiser. All debates were organised over the past five years, bringing together scientists and humanists to engage in highly constructive discussions in such fascinating topics as the mystery of consciousness, the nature of reality and the future of humanity in the age of AI, our own mortality and that of our own warming planet. Contributors include David Chalmers, Antonio Damasio, Sean Carroll and Paul Davies who I had previously heard speaking on podcasts or whose book I have read books . The discussions pit representatives of the sciences and humanities against each other, although when I say against each other I am doing the debates a severe injustice. The discussions are all deeply respectful and in no way become combative or argumentative.

The debates are all set up in a similar fashion where each speaker makes opening remarks on the subject following which the debaters are invited to ask each other questions to tease out their dissimilar points of view. The debaters do not necessarily disagree with each other per se, but their positions usually tend to augment each others' stance. All involved are deeply eloquent, intelligent and provide huge insight to their respective topics. I found this setup enhanced the overall conversation: humanities and science are not simply talking at each other or speaking to different audiences, but with each other allowing for a true augmentation of values to science. This kind of intellectual cooperation, in my view, will be increasingly necessary to shape our collective evolving future as our scientific understanding and possibilities with AI grow exponentially.

I finished the book with my brain fizzing with excitement. I was continuously taking notes for myself and scouring the Internet to find previous works of the different debaters to further follow up on their topics of discussion. This book is highly recommended for anybody who is looking to further their understanding on the current frontiers of our scientific knowledge and the questions which its further evolution raises for humanity and which cannot be answered by the sciences alone.

#GreatMindsDontThinkAlike #NetGalley… (altro)