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The God Problem: How a Godless Cosmos Creates
God’s war crimes, Aristotle’s sneaky tricks, Einstein’s pajamas, information theory’s blind spot, Stephen Wolfram’s new kind of science, and six monkeys at six typewriters getting it wrong. What do these have to do with the birth of a universe and with your need for meaning? Everything, as you’re about to see.
How does the cosmos do something it has long been thought only gods could achieve? How does an inanimate universe generate stunning new forms and unbelievable new powers without a creator? How does the cosmos create?
That’s the central question of this book, which finds clues in strange places. Why A does not equal A. Why one plus one does not equal two. How the Greeks used kickballs to reinvent the universe. And the reason that Polish-born Benoît Mandelbrot—the father of fractal geometry—rebelled against his uncle.
You’ll take a scientific expedition into the secret heart of a cosmos you’ve never seen. Not just any cosmos. An electrifyingly inventive cosmos. An obsessive-compulsive cosmos. A driven, ambitious cosmos. A cosmos of colossal shocks. A cosmos of screaming, stunning surprise. A cosmos that breaks five of science’s most sacred laws. Yes, five. And you’ll be rewarded with author Howard Bloom’s provocative new theory of the beginning, middle, and end of the universe—the Bloom toroidal model, also known as the big bagel theory—which explains two of the biggest mysteries in dark energy and why, if antimatter and matter are created in equal amounts, there is so little antimatter in this universe.
Called "truly awesome" by Nobel Prize–winner Dudley Herschbach, The God Problem will pull you in with the irresistible attraction of a black hole and spit you out again enlightened with the force of a big bang. Be prepared to have your mind blown.
How does the cosmos do something it has long been thought only gods could achieve? How does an inanimate universe generate stunning new forms and unbelievable new powers without a creator? How does the cosmos create?
That’s the central question of this book, which finds clues in strange places. Why A does not equal A. Why one plus one does not equal two. How the Greeks used kickballs to reinvent the universe. And the reason that Polish-born Benoît Mandelbrot—the father of fractal geometry—rebelled against his uncle.
You’ll take a scientific expedition into the secret heart of a cosmos you’ve never seen. Not just any cosmos. An electrifyingly inventive cosmos. An obsessive-compulsive cosmos. A driven, ambitious cosmos. A cosmos of colossal shocks. A cosmos of screaming, stunning surprise. A cosmos that breaks five of science’s most sacred laws. Yes, five. And you’ll be rewarded with author Howard Bloom’s provocative new theory of the beginning, middle, and end of the universe—the Bloom toroidal model, also known as the big bagel theory—which explains two of the biggest mysteries in dark energy and why, if antimatter and matter are created in equal amounts, there is so little antimatter in this universe.
Called "truly awesome" by Nobel Prize–winner Dudley Herschbach, The God Problem will pull you in with the irresistible attraction of a black hole and spit you out again enlightened with the force of a big bang. Be prepared to have your mind blown.
708 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
94 people are currently reading
1170 people want to read
About the author
Howard Bloom
25 books306 followers"I know a lot of people. A lot. And I ask a lot of prying questions. But I've never run into a more intriguing biography than Howard Bloom's in all my born days. " Paul Solman, Business and Economics Correspondent, PBS NewsHour
Howard Bloom has been called “next in a lineage of seminal thinkers that includes Newton, Darwin, Einstein,[and] Freud,” by Britain's Channel4 TV, "the next Stephen Hawking" by Gear Magazine, and "The Buckminster Fuller and Arthur C. Clarke of the new millennium" by Buckminster Fuller's archivist. Bloom is the author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History ("mesmerizing"—The Washington Post), Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century ("reassuring and sobering"—The New Yorker), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism ("Impressive, stimulating, and tremendously enjoyable." James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic), and The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock your world." Barbara Ehrenreich). Bloom has been published in arxiv.org, the leading pre-print site in advanced theoretical physics and math. He was invited to tell an international conference of quantum physicists in Moscow in 2005 why everything they know about quantum physics is wrong. And his book Global Brain was the subject of an Office of the Secretary of Defense symposium in 2010, with participants from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. Bloom has founded three international scientific groups: the Group Selection Squad (1995), which fought to gain acceptance for the concept of group selection in evolutionary biology; The International Paleopsychology Project (1997), which worked to create a new multi-disciplinary synthesis between cosmology, paleontology, evolutionary biology, and history; and The Space Development Steering Committee (2007), an organization that includes astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Edgar Mitchell and members from NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense.
Bloom explains that his focus is “mass behavior, from the mass behavior of quarks to the mass behavior of human beings.” In 1968 Bloom turned down four fellowships in psychology and neurobiology and set off on a science project in a field he knew nothing about: popular culture. He was determined to tunnel into the forces of history by entering “the belly of the beast where new myths, new mass passions, and new mass movements are made.” Bloom used simple correlational techniques plus what he calls “tuned empathy” and “saturated intuition” to help build or sustain the careers of figures like Prince, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Bette Midler, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Billy Idol, Peter Gabriel, David Byrne, John Mellencamp, Queen, Kiss, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, Run DMC, and roughly 100 others. In the process, he generated $28 billion in revenues (more than the gross domestic product of Oman or Luxembourg) for companies like Sony, Disney, Pepsi Cola, Coca Cola, and Warner Brothers. Bloom also helped launch Farm Aid and Amnesty International’s American presence. He worked with the United Negro College Fund,the National Black United Fund, and the NAACP, and he put together the first public service radio campaign for solar power (1981). Today, his focus on group behavior extends to geopolitics. He has debated one-one-one with senior officials from Egypt’s Moslem Brotherhood and Gaza’s Hamas on Iran’s Arab-language international Alalam TV News Network. He has dissected headline issues on Saudi Arabia’s KSA1-TV and on Iran’s global English language Press-TV. And he has appeared fifty two times for up to five hours on 500 radio stations in North America.
Bloom is a former visiting scholar in the Graduate School of Psychology at NYU and a former core faculty member at the Graduate Institute in Meriden, Connecticut. He has written for Th
Howard Bloom has been called “next in a lineage of seminal thinkers that includes Newton, Darwin, Einstein,[and] Freud,” by Britain's Channel4 TV, "the next Stephen Hawking" by Gear Magazine, and "The Buckminster Fuller and Arthur C. Clarke of the new millennium" by Buckminster Fuller's archivist. Bloom is the author of The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History ("mesmerizing"—The Washington Post), Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century ("reassuring and sobering"—The New Yorker), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism ("Impressive, stimulating, and tremendously enjoyable." James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic), and The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock your world." Barbara Ehrenreich). Bloom has been published in arxiv.org, the leading pre-print site in advanced theoretical physics and math. He was invited to tell an international conference of quantum physicists in Moscow in 2005 why everything they know about quantum physics is wrong. And his book Global Brain was the subject of an Office of the Secretary of Defense symposium in 2010, with participants from the State Department, the Energy Department, DARPA, IBM, and MIT. Bloom has founded three international scientific groups: the Group Selection Squad (1995), which fought to gain acceptance for the concept of group selection in evolutionary biology; The International Paleopsychology Project (1997), which worked to create a new multi-disciplinary synthesis between cosmology, paleontology, evolutionary biology, and history; and The Space Development Steering Committee (2007), an organization that includes astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Edgar Mitchell and members from NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Defense.
Bloom explains that his focus is “mass behavior, from the mass behavior of quarks to the mass behavior of human beings.” In 1968 Bloom turned down four fellowships in psychology and neurobiology and set off on a science project in a field he knew nothing about: popular culture. He was determined to tunnel into the forces of history by entering “the belly of the beast where new myths, new mass passions, and new mass movements are made.” Bloom used simple correlational techniques plus what he calls “tuned empathy” and “saturated intuition” to help build or sustain the careers of figures like Prince, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Bette Midler, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Billy Idol, Peter Gabriel, David Byrne, John Mellencamp, Queen, Kiss, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, Run DMC, and roughly 100 others. In the process, he generated $28 billion in revenues (more than the gross domestic product of Oman or Luxembourg) for companies like Sony, Disney, Pepsi Cola, Coca Cola, and Warner Brothers. Bloom also helped launch Farm Aid and Amnesty International’s American presence. He worked with the United Negro College Fund,the National Black United Fund, and the NAACP, and he put together the first public service radio campaign for solar power (1981). Today, his focus on group behavior extends to geopolitics. He has debated one-one-one with senior officials from Egypt’s Moslem Brotherhood and Gaza’s Hamas on Iran’s Arab-language international Alalam TV News Network. He has dissected headline issues on Saudi Arabia’s KSA1-TV and on Iran’s global English language Press-TV. And he has appeared fifty two times for up to five hours on 500 radio stations in North America.
Bloom is a former visiting scholar in the Graduate School of Psychology at NYU and a former core faculty member at the Graduate Institute in Meriden, Connecticut. He has written for Th
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
October 29, 2012
In Brief: I enjoyed Bloom's premise and the ideas he set forth, although I can't share his enthusiasm.
What I Didn't Care For: The style in which this book was written became tedious after a few hundred pages. I don't fault Bloom for his enthusiasm but the constant repetition (doubtless done for effect and, if I were being charitable, for thematic resonance) grates on the writer in me.
There were some issues with the argument presented here. While I am personally enchanted by the same thoughts of unity and emergence that drive Bloom, I am less convinced by the specifics of his argument. The philosophical idealism I am attracted to (which started with Plato, ran through Spinoza's panpsychism and Leibniz's rationalism before reaching a zenith in Hegel) is, to be frank, kooky by my own admission. I like the idea for what it implies, but I am the first to admit that I cannot support it on strong grounds, certainly not compared to the naturalism which my pragmatic side cannot ignore.
I see threads of this trajectory in Bloom's argument, though where Hegelian thought eventually lead to Marx (and the Left's eventual realization that the dialectic was a dead end), Bloom seems to arrive at a parallel justification for modern-day ideals of liberalism and capitalism. Applying teleological arguments to history is always a dangerous proposition, more likely the benefit of hindsight and confirmation bias than a true "story of history". To be fair, Bloom does acknowledge this in the final chapter (although, perhaps predictably, ideals win out over criticism).
For an Idea Book, I don't see this as terribly problematic, but it is worth mentioning that, scientific arguments aside, this is a book on metaphysics and the true nature of reality. As a consequence, it is subject to all the same criticisms that have faced Hegel and other forms of idealism: namely, how do we prove it? Can we prove it? Are these even questions for science to answer?
Regarding the how, I am reminded of Karl Popper's reservations with Freud and Marx, which eventually led to his famous definition of science as falsifiable conjectures. It was not the power of psychoanalysis and Marxism to explain that was in question; it was the fact that they could explain everything, without exception. While Popper was careful to note that non-scientific ideas were not invalid, it was hard to see how they could qualify as scientific. So it was with Marx, so it remains.
As for the latter question, I think that emphasizing science as the only appropriate tool to understand reality is misguided (especially if we restrict this to current science), and here I have a much deeper objection to Bloom's specific claims of anthropomorphism. Viewing the universe through a human lens is expected and, in some sense, unavoidable; I can forgive that, but I do have real concerns about the proposed *nature* of the humanity that Bloom proposes to map to universal laws (or vice versa). To treat the fundamental categories of nature as operating on notions of attraction and seduction and competition is hasty, at best, and even if we grant this argument, it is by no means clear that this is a total account of terrestrial life, let alone human action and behavior. Indeed one could easily construct a counterargument based on alternative interpretations of evolutionary theory alone, to say nothing of philosophical traditions that do not emphasize the limited set of subject-object relations taken for granted in Western (particularly American) thought.
While I am sympathetic to Bloom's desire for unity, we're treading on perilously non-scientific ground here, and we should accordingly be cautious in making claims to truth, enthusiasm notwithstanding. On that same note I would have preferred a deeper and more nuanced look at the philosophical assumptions underlying the interpretation of the scientific account of nature.
The Good: This is a big book, in ambition as well as page count, and that will always capture my sense of wonder. Bloom clearly did his research here, as attested by his formidable collection of notes spanning a range of disciplines across the history of humankind and the universe.
Even though my pragmatic side encourages restraint and my ideals conflict with Bloom's particular interpretation of the natural world, there is much to think about here and I do appreciate the larger attempt to explain how we get "something from nothing".
Overall: Whether or not Bloom succeeds in making his case is up to the reader. I didn't find myself entirely persuaded by the specifics, although I can't help but appreciate the larger argument.
What I Didn't Care For: The style in which this book was written became tedious after a few hundred pages. I don't fault Bloom for his enthusiasm but the constant repetition (doubtless done for effect and, if I were being charitable, for thematic resonance) grates on the writer in me.
There were some issues with the argument presented here. While I am personally enchanted by the same thoughts of unity and emergence that drive Bloom, I am less convinced by the specifics of his argument. The philosophical idealism I am attracted to (which started with Plato, ran through Spinoza's panpsychism and Leibniz's rationalism before reaching a zenith in Hegel) is, to be frank, kooky by my own admission. I like the idea for what it implies, but I am the first to admit that I cannot support it on strong grounds, certainly not compared to the naturalism which my pragmatic side cannot ignore.
I see threads of this trajectory in Bloom's argument, though where Hegelian thought eventually lead to Marx (and the Left's eventual realization that the dialectic was a dead end), Bloom seems to arrive at a parallel justification for modern-day ideals of liberalism and capitalism. Applying teleological arguments to history is always a dangerous proposition, more likely the benefit of hindsight and confirmation bias than a true "story of history". To be fair, Bloom does acknowledge this in the final chapter (although, perhaps predictably, ideals win out over criticism).
For an Idea Book, I don't see this as terribly problematic, but it is worth mentioning that, scientific arguments aside, this is a book on metaphysics and the true nature of reality. As a consequence, it is subject to all the same criticisms that have faced Hegel and other forms of idealism: namely, how do we prove it? Can we prove it? Are these even questions for science to answer?
Regarding the how, I am reminded of Karl Popper's reservations with Freud and Marx, which eventually led to his famous definition of science as falsifiable conjectures. It was not the power of psychoanalysis and Marxism to explain that was in question; it was the fact that they could explain everything, without exception. While Popper was careful to note that non-scientific ideas were not invalid, it was hard to see how they could qualify as scientific. So it was with Marx, so it remains.
As for the latter question, I think that emphasizing science as the only appropriate tool to understand reality is misguided (especially if we restrict this to current science), and here I have a much deeper objection to Bloom's specific claims of anthropomorphism. Viewing the universe through a human lens is expected and, in some sense, unavoidable; I can forgive that, but I do have real concerns about the proposed *nature* of the humanity that Bloom proposes to map to universal laws (or vice versa). To treat the fundamental categories of nature as operating on notions of attraction and seduction and competition is hasty, at best, and even if we grant this argument, it is by no means clear that this is a total account of terrestrial life, let alone human action and behavior. Indeed one could easily construct a counterargument based on alternative interpretations of evolutionary theory alone, to say nothing of philosophical traditions that do not emphasize the limited set of subject-object relations taken for granted in Western (particularly American) thought.
While I am sympathetic to Bloom's desire for unity, we're treading on perilously non-scientific ground here, and we should accordingly be cautious in making claims to truth, enthusiasm notwithstanding. On that same note I would have preferred a deeper and more nuanced look at the philosophical assumptions underlying the interpretation of the scientific account of nature.
The Good: This is a big book, in ambition as well as page count, and that will always capture my sense of wonder. Bloom clearly did his research here, as attested by his formidable collection of notes spanning a range of disciplines across the history of humankind and the universe.
Even though my pragmatic side encourages restraint and my ideals conflict with Bloom's particular interpretation of the natural world, there is much to think about here and I do appreciate the larger attempt to explain how we get "something from nothing".
Overall: Whether or not Bloom succeeds in making his case is up to the reader. I didn't find myself entirely persuaded by the specifics, although I can't help but appreciate the larger argument.
January 17, 2013
Bloom has a junkyard mind, and I mean that in the kindest way, as another sufferer who collects facts like some people hoard bits of string and antiques.
(Occasionally those facts are useful! Like now.)
You will not find an answer here as to how the universe could create itself without a Grand Designer. However, you will get a lot of clues and indications as to how it is at least not out of the question.
This big book is, mainly, a survey of the Western history of science and philosophy. Bloom finds in this intellectual span an evolutionary path. Remarkably enough, it's much the same path suggested by the New Age spiritualists. That is, the universe seeks to understand itself, iteratively and progressively, and at least in part through us, the custodians of enough bio-computing power to inquire and reason out the hypotheses as to how it all came about and what it all means.
I have ranted at times myself about the lack of shades of gray in our great debates (on Facebook and TV) about the big issues. I will stipulate the human role in global warming, but if I dare suggest we are actually overdue for the next *ice age,* the p.c. ranters want to lock me up with the naysayer oil-and-gas lobby. Likewise, the possible spectrum between Darwinian evolution and Creationism holds lots of room for sane discussion. This notion of intelligent design is not as foolish as the purist, posturing scientists would dismissively have us believe. It is just possible, and thinkable, that a Grand Designer, in speaking the Word to create all we see and everything we don't, decreed that matter/energy come into being in such a way that it engendered the potential to manifest every possibility.
Or, as Ernest Holmes and others have suggested, perhaps God is all that there is. Think about it. If there was nothing, but there was God, what did nothing expand from? How could a Creator from Nothing ever be separate from its creation?
Then you ask, what about ugliness and evil? To this I respond, that's the most intelligent question there is, and I can only quote Leonard Cohen, "There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
Okay, back to this mind-twisting book and the concept of Creation.
"Let there be light" could well imply "Let there be particles, antiparticles, quantum physics, stellar evolution, universal expansion, autonomous generation of life, evolution toward intelligence, willful existence, randomness and chaos, deliberate intellectual and emotional choice... "
Actually, I suspect the Word was something more like, "Let there be math."
Bummer for those high school slackers who abhor the subject. Fortunately for the Chinese, they appear to be good at it. (But Buddhism isn't exactly a motivator to the action of inquiry.)
Ho hum. Halcyon days. Talk amongst y'selves.
(Occasionally those facts are useful! Like now.)
You will not find an answer here as to how the universe could create itself without a Grand Designer. However, you will get a lot of clues and indications as to how it is at least not out of the question.
This big book is, mainly, a survey of the Western history of science and philosophy. Bloom finds in this intellectual span an evolutionary path. Remarkably enough, it's much the same path suggested by the New Age spiritualists. That is, the universe seeks to understand itself, iteratively and progressively, and at least in part through us, the custodians of enough bio-computing power to inquire and reason out the hypotheses as to how it all came about and what it all means.
I have ranted at times myself about the lack of shades of gray in our great debates (on Facebook and TV) about the big issues. I will stipulate the human role in global warming, but if I dare suggest we are actually overdue for the next *ice age,* the p.c. ranters want to lock me up with the naysayer oil-and-gas lobby. Likewise, the possible spectrum between Darwinian evolution and Creationism holds lots of room for sane discussion. This notion of intelligent design is not as foolish as the purist, posturing scientists would dismissively have us believe. It is just possible, and thinkable, that a Grand Designer, in speaking the Word to create all we see and everything we don't, decreed that matter/energy come into being in such a way that it engendered the potential to manifest every possibility.
Or, as Ernest Holmes and others have suggested, perhaps God is all that there is. Think about it. If there was nothing, but there was God, what did nothing expand from? How could a Creator from Nothing ever be separate from its creation?
Then you ask, what about ugliness and evil? To this I respond, that's the most intelligent question there is, and I can only quote Leonard Cohen, "There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
Okay, back to this mind-twisting book and the concept of Creation.
"Let there be light" could well imply "Let there be particles, antiparticles, quantum physics, stellar evolution, universal expansion, autonomous generation of life, evolution toward intelligence, willful existence, randomness and chaos, deliberate intellectual and emotional choice... "
Actually, I suspect the Word was something more like, "Let there be math."
Bummer for those high school slackers who abhor the subject. Fortunately for the Chinese, they appear to be good at it. (But Buddhism isn't exactly a motivator to the action of inquiry.)
Ho hum. Halcyon days. Talk amongst y'selves.
June 18, 2019
Howard Bloom is certainly an interesting fellow. A scientist who is curious as to how such a complex universe can exist without a "God"-like creator. In an interesting journey through philosophy, hard science and mathematics with a smattering of history the basic premise of Bloom's surround the idea that the universe, at both the micro and macro level, uses repetition with small deviations to engineer some amazing things.
The journey is vast placing you in shoes as varied as a Mesopotamian, an Egyptian, a Greek philosopher, or even a proton and or electron. From example due to the need to count barleycorn, Mesopotamians invent a "counting" system using marks that creates multiplication. Yet even that development follows the overarching theme of iteration with minuscule changes causing huge leaps -as when people like Euclid or Pythagoras then use that Mesopotamian multiplication concept or the Egyptian "brick" concept for triangles to create, centuries later, mathematical disciplines like geometry and trigonometry.
Bloom does a creditable job of taking laymen through the intricate scientific jargon in a very easy to read, and fairly entertaining, style of writing. You will see the development of scientific thought as it goes from the basic of Mesopotamia to the heights of later on Calculus-the foundation of all the math we now use.
Learn how the Big Bang cosmology tracks down the origin of the universe to a simple, remarkably uniform condition early in its history. Small inhomogeneities, of multiple previous iterations, grew in amplitude through gravitational instability and eventually collapsed and fragmented to produce the galaxies, stars, and planets we see today. Dissipation of that energy through radiation allows the formation of stable systems. The standard model of particle physics, which embodies quantum field theory, accounts for the uniformity of molecules in rich detail and for the structure of matter in general. The entire leaps of logic from basic physics to the luminaries of the field are clearly explained and Bloom show's how each idea developed on previous concepts. There is also a good look and explanations of the Darwin–Wallace theory of evolution by natural selection, conceptually grounded in Mendelian genetics and explained physically by Francis Crick and James Watson.
I think it is in the math and science portions where Bloom shines. When he launches into his look into philosophy and his fascination with axioms, I didn't care for it as much. I did enjoy a brief look at the concepts of Socrates and others. Bloom is well able to explain their complex concepts in a simple manner. While interesting it had far less interest to me. Stick to the science, though I did appreciate the point he was trying to make. It was an interesting argument about the A=A argument.
Huge in scope, able to explain complex concepts simply and well and able to entertain-the God Problem is a very interesting read. A great look at how the Math and Science of today developed from simple concepts that were then built upon. Had Bloom stuck to the science I think it would have been a 5 star book. His foray into philosophy, while interesting and ambitiously original in outlook, distracts from the solid science and math explanations in this book about how our Cosmos came to be and currently exists. All without a "creator" of any kind. Fascinating as the world and the entire universe is supposed to be.
The journey is vast placing you in shoes as varied as a Mesopotamian, an Egyptian, a Greek philosopher, or even a proton and or electron. From example due to the need to count barleycorn, Mesopotamians invent a "counting" system using marks that creates multiplication. Yet even that development follows the overarching theme of iteration with minuscule changes causing huge leaps -as when people like Euclid or Pythagoras then use that Mesopotamian multiplication concept or the Egyptian "brick" concept for triangles to create, centuries later, mathematical disciplines like geometry and trigonometry.
Bloom does a creditable job of taking laymen through the intricate scientific jargon in a very easy to read, and fairly entertaining, style of writing. You will see the development of scientific thought as it goes from the basic of Mesopotamia to the heights of later on Calculus-the foundation of all the math we now use.
Learn how the Big Bang cosmology tracks down the origin of the universe to a simple, remarkably uniform condition early in its history. Small inhomogeneities, of multiple previous iterations, grew in amplitude through gravitational instability and eventually collapsed and fragmented to produce the galaxies, stars, and planets we see today. Dissipation of that energy through radiation allows the formation of stable systems. The standard model of particle physics, which embodies quantum field theory, accounts for the uniformity of molecules in rich detail and for the structure of matter in general. The entire leaps of logic from basic physics to the luminaries of the field are clearly explained and Bloom show's how each idea developed on previous concepts. There is also a good look and explanations of the Darwin–Wallace theory of evolution by natural selection, conceptually grounded in Mendelian genetics and explained physically by Francis Crick and James Watson.
I think it is in the math and science portions where Bloom shines. When he launches into his look into philosophy and his fascination with axioms, I didn't care for it as much. I did enjoy a brief look at the concepts of Socrates and others. Bloom is well able to explain their complex concepts in a simple manner. While interesting it had far less interest to me. Stick to the science, though I did appreciate the point he was trying to make. It was an interesting argument about the A=A argument.
Huge in scope, able to explain complex concepts simply and well and able to entertain-the God Problem is a very interesting read. A great look at how the Math and Science of today developed from simple concepts that were then built upon. Had Bloom stuck to the science I think it would have been a 5 star book. His foray into philosophy, while interesting and ambitiously original in outlook, distracts from the solid science and math explanations in this book about how our Cosmos came to be and currently exists. All without a "creator" of any kind. Fascinating as the world and the entire universe is supposed to be.
May 15, 2016
The product of a maverick mind, The God Problem is emphatically NOT an atheist tract in the vein of Dawkins or Hitchens. Rather than arguing against God, it is doing something more important: trying to show how a cosmos can be seen as a self-generating process of emergence and growth.
The sum of the parts is greater than the whole, since the book can best be seen as an attempt to provide a few adjacent perspectives, and interlinked metaphors, on what makes the godless universe tic - is it logic, is it mathematics, is it information, is it meaning, is it communication?
There is no great single "unifying theory", at least in the traditional sense of scientific hypothesis.
This, however, is not a great fault, since Bloom offers a wondrous tour of competing hypotheses, not all of which are his own - from the ancient Greeks and Babylonians, to Kepler and Newton, to the mathematics of Peano and Wolfram - told in his characteristic style of engaging story-telling.
The narrative bounces around comfortably, and the sentences obey a hypnotic logic. Bloom's writing style is certainly idiosyncratic, and I can see why many people have found it jarring. But personally I found it engaging, addictive and stimulating. So be warned: your mileage may vary.
Even though he might be wrong on many particular issues - his unproven Big Bagel theory of cosmology is a good candidate - the questions he raises are more important than the answers.
The basic lessons of it I completely agree with: that metaphors matter (for science and life); that drawing out surprising implications from rather simple axiomatic premises is what guides universal creativity; that A does not always equal A; that 1+1 is often more than 2; and so on...
I will only deduct one star from excessive repetition (which MOSTLY works) and a somewhat flat and open-ended last chapter, where a few speculative hypotheses are laid out, as open research projects.
But the true greatness of the book, as Bloom himself makes clear, lies in the new metaphors that it brings to the fore, and in the holistic "big pictures" that it generates in the attentive reader who has the tenacity and willpower to take the adventurous step, the leap of non-faith, into considering quarks, anthills and human societies as existing on the same continuum of endless cosmic creativity. Such a perilous journey, I firmly believe, we must undertake.
The sum of the parts is greater than the whole, since the book can best be seen as an attempt to provide a few adjacent perspectives, and interlinked metaphors, on what makes the godless universe tic - is it logic, is it mathematics, is it information, is it meaning, is it communication?
There is no great single "unifying theory", at least in the traditional sense of scientific hypothesis.
This, however, is not a great fault, since Bloom offers a wondrous tour of competing hypotheses, not all of which are his own - from the ancient Greeks and Babylonians, to Kepler and Newton, to the mathematics of Peano and Wolfram - told in his characteristic style of engaging story-telling.
The narrative bounces around comfortably, and the sentences obey a hypnotic logic. Bloom's writing style is certainly idiosyncratic, and I can see why many people have found it jarring. But personally I found it engaging, addictive and stimulating. So be warned: your mileage may vary.
Even though he might be wrong on many particular issues - his unproven Big Bagel theory of cosmology is a good candidate - the questions he raises are more important than the answers.
The basic lessons of it I completely agree with: that metaphors matter (for science and life); that drawing out surprising implications from rather simple axiomatic premises is what guides universal creativity; that A does not always equal A; that 1+1 is often more than 2; and so on...
I will only deduct one star from excessive repetition (which MOSTLY works) and a somewhat flat and open-ended last chapter, where a few speculative hypotheses are laid out, as open research projects.
But the true greatness of the book, as Bloom himself makes clear, lies in the new metaphors that it brings to the fore, and in the holistic "big pictures" that it generates in the attentive reader who has the tenacity and willpower to take the adventurous step, the leap of non-faith, into considering quarks, anthills and human societies as existing on the same continuum of endless cosmic creativity. Such a perilous journey, I firmly believe, we must undertake.
December 31, 2012
Asks a lot of questions, starts off strong, is insufferably verbose throughout and provides no significant insight into how a godless cosmos would create itself. While I appreciated the human history lesson, it really seemed misplaced and disconnected from the underlining point of the book. Whatever that point was supposed to ultimately be.
If someone were to bring this up and ask me if it is worth reading, I'd reply with, "Eh. The opening is relatively decent. But, I'd skim through it. You'll get the basic premise and his final thoughts without having to deal with the middle parts too much".
I got more out of the fictitious writings from Scott Adams' - 'God Debris : A Thought Experiment'.
That was at least compelling enough for me to take pause and consider the implications of what the young and old man were conversing about.
Howard Bloom's - The God Problem, does not do this for me.
Think I'll go find myself a book on how a godless cosmos creates from someone who actually has something worth saying on the matter, like the bad ass Astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson or Professor and Nuclear Physicist Jim Al-Khalili.
If someone were to bring this up and ask me if it is worth reading, I'd reply with, "Eh. The opening is relatively decent. But, I'd skim through it. You'll get the basic premise and his final thoughts without having to deal with the middle parts too much".
I got more out of the fictitious writings from Scott Adams' - 'God Debris : A Thought Experiment'.
That was at least compelling enough for me to take pause and consider the implications of what the young and old man were conversing about.
Howard Bloom's - The God Problem, does not do this for me.
Think I'll go find myself a book on how a godless cosmos creates from someone who actually has something worth saying on the matter, like the bad ass Astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson or Professor and Nuclear Physicist Jim Al-Khalili.
April 5, 2013
Howard Bloom may be an atheist, but you may not be one — or remain one, if you already are one — after you finish reading The God Problem: How a Godless Cosmos Creates.
That’s because — if you’re at all like me — you may hear the selfsame words slip through your lips that I heard slip through mine — almost as an impromptu, contemporary, nondenominational prayer — when I finally put down Bloom’s book last night and whispered to no one in particular and everyone in general: “God damn! This guy thinks and writes like a divinely-inspired son of a bitch!”
But talk of theism and atheism aside (for the moment), what is The God Problem? Oh, not much more than a trifle, really: Just an amazingly-thorough (and thoroughly-amazing) distillation, concatenation, and occasional repudiation of the pivotal thinkers and thoughts in human intellectual history.
Although Bloom sometimes seems to love his own rhetoric and narrative voice a little much for my humble taste, his mastery of his subject matter seems nearly as vast as his subject — which includes (almost literally) everything that's ever been observed, hypothesized, or merely imagined to exist in this world and this solar system, galaxy, universe, multiverse and, conceivably, beyond. (Perhaps on the other, other side of the toroidal, anti-material “Big Bagel” universe that Bloom thought up as a child and trots out for our consideration as he nears his conclusion.)
Still, you gotta give the guy credit: He sets himself to a pretty ginormous literary undertaking, one that might easily collapse under a heavier hand or a more unrelievedly dry, academic tone. And that’s what ultimately saves the day in this book: Bloom’s wit and wordplay, which are both entertaining enough and interspersed enough with real insight to render his occasional excesses in verbiage and love-the-sound-of-my-own-voice patter to only occasionally distract from the flood of ideas he can unleash on virtually every topic in his domain.
And just like Bloom so often does, now I’m going to tell you again what I just said — only this time I’ll explain it differently, and tell you that Bloom’s topological turf in this topical tome includes just about everything under, above, and way-way-WAY beyond the sun, from the opening salvo and reiterative reverberations of the Big Bang to the most recent threads of quantum-physical speculation that loops Superstring Theory inside, around, and through the brand-newest brand-new bubbles of Dial-M-for-Membrane Theory. (See what I mean? After only a week with my nose pointed at his pages, I can't even describe the scale and scope of Bloom's book without suddenly writing just like him!)
Rhetorical wrangling aside, though, I have no problem with The God Problem. And neither, I suspect, will you.
Because it is a dazzling ride through time and space, all seamlessly held together with knotted strings from ancient Egypt and an inverted axiom from Albert Einstein.
It’s a fast, flashy ride and a fun, philosophical read made way more fascinating as it trains Bloom’s endlessly fascinated eye on everything that he deems noteworthy — from the great walls of termite turds that those obsessive-compulsive insects employ as colony “recruiting strategies” to the precise composition and nature of subatomic particles and transoceanic waves — both of which turn out to be way, way more and much, much less than they might appear to more-mortal observers.
Non-Spoiler Alert: Even though, Bloom does indeed answer the question inherent in his subtitle, How a Godless Cosmos Creates, by describing the implicate, enfolded, and unfolding properties of the simple, but fundamental, rules underlying this whole godless creation, as it turns out — this time, at least — the devil really is in the details. And getting to know them, on a first-name basis, after being introduced to them personally by Howard Bloom, may turn out to be the best part of your entire existence. Spoil that for you? Not on your life!
Besides, it would probably take more than the 700 or so pages that Bloom took in The God Problem for me to relay it, less cogently and artfully, to you. And just like Aristotle and Euclid and Pythagoras and Copernicus and Newton and Einstein and all the others that Bloom resurrects, inspects, and dissects, I’d be sure to screw up big parts of it, anyway.
And, for that matter, I’m a little curious myself whether you come away from The God Problem with the same thoughts I did. Because it sure seems to me like somebody up there likes Howard Bloom — and a hell of a lot, at that.
Any maybe even vice versa.
That’s because — if you’re at all like me — you may hear the selfsame words slip through your lips that I heard slip through mine — almost as an impromptu, contemporary, nondenominational prayer — when I finally put down Bloom’s book last night and whispered to no one in particular and everyone in general: “God damn! This guy thinks and writes like a divinely-inspired son of a bitch!”
But talk of theism and atheism aside (for the moment), what is The God Problem? Oh, not much more than a trifle, really: Just an amazingly-thorough (and thoroughly-amazing) distillation, concatenation, and occasional repudiation of the pivotal thinkers and thoughts in human intellectual history.
Although Bloom sometimes seems to love his own rhetoric and narrative voice a little much for my humble taste, his mastery of his subject matter seems nearly as vast as his subject — which includes (almost literally) everything that's ever been observed, hypothesized, or merely imagined to exist in this world and this solar system, galaxy, universe, multiverse and, conceivably, beyond. (Perhaps on the other, other side of the toroidal, anti-material “Big Bagel” universe that Bloom thought up as a child and trots out for our consideration as he nears his conclusion.)
Still, you gotta give the guy credit: He sets himself to a pretty ginormous literary undertaking, one that might easily collapse under a heavier hand or a more unrelievedly dry, academic tone. And that’s what ultimately saves the day in this book: Bloom’s wit and wordplay, which are both entertaining enough and interspersed enough with real insight to render his occasional excesses in verbiage and love-the-sound-of-my-own-voice patter to only occasionally distract from the flood of ideas he can unleash on virtually every topic in his domain.
And just like Bloom so often does, now I’m going to tell you again what I just said — only this time I’ll explain it differently, and tell you that Bloom’s topological turf in this topical tome includes just about everything under, above, and way-way-WAY beyond the sun, from the opening salvo and reiterative reverberations of the Big Bang to the most recent threads of quantum-physical speculation that loops Superstring Theory inside, around, and through the brand-newest brand-new bubbles of Dial-M-for-Membrane Theory. (See what I mean? After only a week with my nose pointed at his pages, I can't even describe the scale and scope of Bloom's book without suddenly writing just like him!)
Rhetorical wrangling aside, though, I have no problem with The God Problem. And neither, I suspect, will you.
Because it is a dazzling ride through time and space, all seamlessly held together with knotted strings from ancient Egypt and an inverted axiom from Albert Einstein.
It’s a fast, flashy ride and a fun, philosophical read made way more fascinating as it trains Bloom’s endlessly fascinated eye on everything that he deems noteworthy — from the great walls of termite turds that those obsessive-compulsive insects employ as colony “recruiting strategies” to the precise composition and nature of subatomic particles and transoceanic waves — both of which turn out to be way, way more and much, much less than they might appear to more-mortal observers.
Non-Spoiler Alert: Even though, Bloom does indeed answer the question inherent in his subtitle, How a Godless Cosmos Creates, by describing the implicate, enfolded, and unfolding properties of the simple, but fundamental, rules underlying this whole godless creation, as it turns out — this time, at least — the devil really is in the details. And getting to know them, on a first-name basis, after being introduced to them personally by Howard Bloom, may turn out to be the best part of your entire existence. Spoil that for you? Not on your life!
Besides, it would probably take more than the 700 or so pages that Bloom took in The God Problem for me to relay it, less cogently and artfully, to you. And just like Aristotle and Euclid and Pythagoras and Copernicus and Newton and Einstein and all the others that Bloom resurrects, inspects, and dissects, I’d be sure to screw up big parts of it, anyway.
And, for that matter, I’m a little curious myself whether you come away from The God Problem with the same thoughts I did. Because it sure seems to me like somebody up there likes Howard Bloom — and a hell of a lot, at that.
Any maybe even vice versa.
July 19, 2013
I admit up-front, I have not completed reading this book and question if I ever will, but I granted it two stars because amid the dross there is silver.
I initially heard of the book in an interview with the author on National Public Radio.
Bloom is an intelligent person, of a high IQ, but he does not communicate well. He constantly reminds the reader how bright he is, and he tends to repeat himself, not unlike a lecturer in a college freshman survey course.
The title is dead-wrong. God has nothing to do with it. Bloom is trying to demonstrate how "new knowledge" is always there, it is just that it has not been perceived yet.
The book might best be called an informal history of Western mathematical and scientific thought. And there lies the Achilles Heel.
Bloom totally overlooks the higher mathematics performed in the South Asian subcontinent (read: India) thousands of years ago. Perhaps the ancient Sumerians knew of the Pythagorean theorum, but the
Hindoos got there first.
I initially heard of the book in an interview with the author on National Public Radio.
Bloom is an intelligent person, of a high IQ, but he does not communicate well. He constantly reminds the reader how bright he is, and he tends to repeat himself, not unlike a lecturer in a college freshman survey course.
The title is dead-wrong. God has nothing to do with it. Bloom is trying to demonstrate how "new knowledge" is always there, it is just that it has not been perceived yet.
The book might best be called an informal history of Western mathematical and scientific thought. And there lies the Achilles Heel.
Bloom totally overlooks the higher mathematics performed in the South Asian subcontinent (read: India) thousands of years ago. Perhaps the ancient Sumerians knew of the Pythagorean theorum, but the
Hindoos got there first.
September 9, 2012
"The Bloom problem": as always, the main subject - literally, at the background - is Howard Bloom himself. Asimov wrote faster than god could read; Bloom knows more than gods needs to know. And as always, I found his writing entertaining, well researched and very well interconnected. I knew the big picture - I've studied Physics - and Howard added a lot of the details. Still, he doesn't seem to see what is happening as a process: the content is there, the foreground, but not the back ground. And it is right under his nose.
December 19, 2013
The God Problem's main problem is that what it took 563 pages to do could easily have been done in around a hundred. Repetition is one way to make a short book long and this book has plenty of that. Simple concepts are lathered in metaphors almost as if he jotted down a list of candidates and unable to decide on one, used them all. The idea behind it seems to be to illustrate of one of the core concepts in the book - that Aristotle's idea, that metaphor, is a poor way to truth, is wrong.
Bloom uses a peculiar autobiographical narrator through-out the book which, at times, he struggles to maintain; he asks that you pretend, for the duration of the book, that you are he and then narcissisticly proceeds to tell you how clever you were for coming up with all this wonderful stuff that he came up with.
The number of glowing quotes (39) that adorn the dust jacket and first few pages made me suspicious and it turned out that they were as over-done as the book itself.
Having said that, there were, scattered through-out the book, some interesting bits and pieces; that bees get depressed; a brief discussion on anthropomorphism versus anthropocentrism; the almost un-elucidated conclusion that every consciousness exists as a wave and, a thing about a bagel/toroidal shaped universe theory which he lays claim to but which seems also to have origins elsewhere: A search for toroidal universe doesn't show much in the way of hits for Bloom although bagel universe does. They seem to amount to the same thing, but which has precedence? I would have thought that a mathematician, having come up with a possibly viable model of the universe would not name it after a bread treat.
I thought Bloom's history of math and geometry from pre Babylonian times to the present was excellent but again, it contains too much repetition and obsessive use of metaphor.
The book ends without any clear conclusion other than a recommendation to remember to come up with new questions.
It leaves me wondering whether being a polymath is a bit like being a jack of all trades and master of none.
Bloom uses a peculiar autobiographical narrator through-out the book which, at times, he struggles to maintain; he asks that you pretend, for the duration of the book, that you are he and then narcissisticly proceeds to tell you how clever you were for coming up with all this wonderful stuff that he came up with.
The number of glowing quotes (39) that adorn the dust jacket and first few pages made me suspicious and it turned out that they were as over-done as the book itself.
Having said that, there were, scattered through-out the book, some interesting bits and pieces; that bees get depressed; a brief discussion on anthropomorphism versus anthropocentrism; the almost un-elucidated conclusion that every consciousness exists as a wave and, a thing about a bagel/toroidal shaped universe theory which he lays claim to but which seems also to have origins elsewhere: A search for toroidal universe doesn't show much in the way of hits for Bloom although bagel universe does. They seem to amount to the same thing, but which has precedence? I would have thought that a mathematician, having come up with a possibly viable model of the universe would not name it after a bread treat.
I thought Bloom's history of math and geometry from pre Babylonian times to the present was excellent but again, it contains too much repetition and obsessive use of metaphor.
The book ends without any clear conclusion other than a recommendation to remember to come up with new questions.
It leaves me wondering whether being a polymath is a bit like being a jack of all trades and master of none.
May 2, 2021
Written in a meandering, conversational style that spends a thousand words without coming to a point. Despite many footnotes, still makes multiple unsupported assertions.
Reading it felt like being smothered by marshmallows. I abandoned this one at 10% complete.
Reading it felt like being smothered by marshmallows. I abandoned this one at 10% complete.
May 3, 2013
I would not recommend this book. There is a lot here about the history of science, but the author is maddeningly verbose and self-involved.
He seeks to answer the "God Problem," that is, how a universe without God creates. He is often flippantly disrespectful to God. Given the limitations of human knowledge, he never gets to the bottom of the mystery of creation. His fundamental assumption that God does not exist is neither proved nor disproved here.
He seeks to answer the "God Problem," that is, how a universe without God creates. He is often flippantly disrespectful to God. Given the limitations of human knowledge, he never gets to the bottom of the mystery of creation. His fundamental assumption that God does not exist is neither proved nor disproved here.
October 9, 2012
I'm surprised by the high score of this book. It's unnecessary long winded, his analogies are terrible, and he simply fails to actually make any real points. Reading his press release about him being a genius f the likes of Eisenstein is frankly irritating. I think most people just don't want to appear dumb to call him out on having written a nothing book.
September 26, 2012
Very good. Lots of details. But also very thick. I'd like to get the Cliff Notes for this book -- or have when I'm stranded on a desert island and have time to really think through all the details Bloom presents. Definitely not at-the-beach reading.
March 23, 2013
Head-spinning vision of how--behind the scenes--life, the universe, and everything are even simpler than 42.
May 26, 2013
Knew all of his little factoids already, hated the presentation, and he never actually addresses the subject of the book. Waste of time.
May 4, 2022
An overall excellent read; Bloom lays out the information in a very easy-to-follow, conversational tone that, along with the generally chronological approach, does a lot to lead the readers from the most basic concepts to the most complex. Everything builds from what came before it, and Bloom does a great job of revisiting key phrases, concepts, and framing devices to connect the dots for the reader.
My biggest gripe with it is not so much the science, but rather the implications Bloom draws from it. The socio-political implications, specifically. Especially as the timeline approaches the modern day, it becomes very clear that Bloom has a very liberal (in the historical sense) bias. For him, philosophy seems to have peaked and ended at the Enlightenment, and he has a priori accepted the modern capitalist framework of things, which shouldn't be very surprising given his class stand. Some people may think this is a snowflake liberal-type complaint, but I disagree. One of the later concepts that Bloom introduces is the idea that, even if your math is correct, if your metaphor is wrong, it can ruin or derail the proper application of your theory.
Here I believe there may be some issues with the metaphors that Bloom uses due to his aforementioned bias. Some of them are small issues, such as the naturalization of modern heterosexual relationships as being descended from primal attraction and repulsion impulses dating back to the beginning of the universe. Another small note here is the casual, implicit approval for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as somehow necessary. He concedes that it is a controversial claim, but one must ask why it was even included at all. It served no purpose in furthering the understanding of the science or history at all. Sure, the science progressed a lot because of the Manhattan Project, but taking a moral stance on the bombing - especially that stance - is completely unnecessary.
Of bigger concern (and where his bias on the side of capitalism comes in) is when he talks about the way matter has, since the Big Bang, tended to clump itself together in larger and larger groups of mass until we have now planets, stars, galaxies, etc. He frames this process as one of selfishness and competition among even the smallest particles, as though they group themselves together greedily so that they can be the biggest first and thus get to consume and subsume the smaller groupings, over and over and over again until we have macroscopic and cosmic bodies of mass, like 19th century competitive capitalism tending toward monopoly capitalism. He uses this as a rationalization of why humans go to war, as though it's simply in our nature to be greedy and kill each other.
One could very easily (and perhaps more convincingly) frame the process as one, not of competition, but cooperation. Of survival. Just as humans (and great numbers of other organisms, both microscopic and macroscopic) have, for the vast majority of our existence, grouped ourselves into communities for mutual survival, communities which have grown from clan ties to civilizational ones in the now billions, one could very easily see the primordial particles as being attracted to each other into ever-increasing masses, not out of greed, but out of need. The metaphor obviously does not affect the process itself, but it does affect how we view it and, furthermore, how we understand it and apply the theory beneath.
Ultimately, the main content of the book is not political, but scientific, and in that regard it shines, no doubt. It's just frustrating seeing someone who understands the importance of sharing in knowledge be so blind as to the contradiction between that and the rest of his worldview, especially how he here expresses it. He could be a great dialectical materialist if he wanted to be.
My best advice is to pick up the book and have a strongly critical eye toward what Bloom draws from the science.
My biggest gripe with it is not so much the science, but rather the implications Bloom draws from it. The socio-political implications, specifically. Especially as the timeline approaches the modern day, it becomes very clear that Bloom has a very liberal (in the historical sense) bias. For him, philosophy seems to have peaked and ended at the Enlightenment, and he has a priori accepted the modern capitalist framework of things, which shouldn't be very surprising given his class stand. Some people may think this is a snowflake liberal-type complaint, but I disagree. One of the later concepts that Bloom introduces is the idea that, even if your math is correct, if your metaphor is wrong, it can ruin or derail the proper application of your theory.
Here I believe there may be some issues with the metaphors that Bloom uses due to his aforementioned bias. Some of them are small issues, such as the naturalization of modern heterosexual relationships as being descended from primal attraction and repulsion impulses dating back to the beginning of the universe. Another small note here is the casual, implicit approval for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as somehow necessary. He concedes that it is a controversial claim, but one must ask why it was even included at all. It served no purpose in furthering the understanding of the science or history at all. Sure, the science progressed a lot because of the Manhattan Project, but taking a moral stance on the bombing - especially that stance - is completely unnecessary.
Of bigger concern (and where his bias on the side of capitalism comes in) is when he talks about the way matter has, since the Big Bang, tended to clump itself together in larger and larger groups of mass until we have now planets, stars, galaxies, etc. He frames this process as one of selfishness and competition among even the smallest particles, as though they group themselves together greedily so that they can be the biggest first and thus get to consume and subsume the smaller groupings, over and over and over again until we have macroscopic and cosmic bodies of mass, like 19th century competitive capitalism tending toward monopoly capitalism. He uses this as a rationalization of why humans go to war, as though it's simply in our nature to be greedy and kill each other.
One could very easily (and perhaps more convincingly) frame the process as one, not of competition, but cooperation. Of survival. Just as humans (and great numbers of other organisms, both microscopic and macroscopic) have, for the vast majority of our existence, grouped ourselves into communities for mutual survival, communities which have grown from clan ties to civilizational ones in the now billions, one could very easily see the primordial particles as being attracted to each other into ever-increasing masses, not out of greed, but out of need. The metaphor obviously does not affect the process itself, but it does affect how we view it and, furthermore, how we understand it and apply the theory beneath.
Ultimately, the main content of the book is not political, but scientific, and in that regard it shines, no doubt. It's just frustrating seeing someone who understands the importance of sharing in knowledge be so blind as to the contradiction between that and the rest of his worldview, especially how he here expresses it. He could be a great dialectical materialist if he wanted to be.
My best advice is to pick up the book and have a strongly critical eye toward what Bloom draws from the science.
May 16, 2017
Bloom needed a better editor, unless his repetitious prose was intentionally paralleling his iteration, iteration, iteration premise. The book could of been a fraction of the current length without losing content--though measurement was also central to his main thesis. So, perhaps these issues are really him trying to cleverly embody his argument into the manifestation of the book itself. Most of his conclusions seem to be argued for by iteration as well. Say it enough and maybe people will forget the speculative leaps you've made and just take your points on intuition. That being said, I found the historical coverage of the book to be very engaging and thought provoking. I would dredge through the book if you are interested in the history of measurement, non-euclidean mathematics, special and general relativity, and quantum mechanics(though this last topic deserved more attention). I was left feeling that Bloom's toroidal model of creation, while very clever in its conception, needs to be argued for more rigorously than it was. Without a formal proof or predictive success it should be relegated to the realm of the hypothetical--not to say we shouldn't be open minded about exploring it as a possibility.
December 19, 2019
To me this book leaves the mystery of the universe and its origin intact, and whilst the author and his style of discussion gives the illusion that he is tackling the god problem, it is obvious that the book avoids confronting the problem with a clear answer, and instead it hovers around in a Hegelian manner trying to introduce a universe with a secular spirit .
What I see is that most atheists are avoiding two major dilemmas when discussing the god problem:
One, is how the matter came to be from a mere nothingness?
Two, who designed the rules that governs the universe, whatever these rules are?
These two questions are still not answered with a solid theory that discards God and moves him out of the picture.
The only refuge these atheists and their theories end up in is the introduction of an immortal universe. an infinite existence.
What I see is that most atheists are avoiding two major dilemmas when discussing the god problem:
One, is how the matter came to be from a mere nothingness?
Two, who designed the rules that governs the universe, whatever these rules are?
These two questions are still not answered with a solid theory that discards God and moves him out of the picture.
The only refuge these atheists and their theories end up in is the introduction of an immortal universe. an infinite existence.
September 12, 2022
mixed reaction
I was initially put off by all the wildly extravagant blurbs about the book. A work of genius. Life changing. Yeah this is rubbish. It isn’t. And a wild gush of enthusiasm is ok at times but only as an initial impetus. Then comes slow deep careful thought and imagination. There is none of that.
It is worth a read. It covers a lot of details - math, physics, biology, intellectual/cultural history - though for the most part glibly and superficially. The author is entranced by the notion of a simple set of axioms/rules generating immense unexpected complexity. Fair enough. Good point. And then ….
Be wary. There are some historical errors and some outright silliness in places. But the enthusiasm, the curiosity and the relentless questioning more than makes up for this.
I was initially put off by all the wildly extravagant blurbs about the book. A work of genius. Life changing. Yeah this is rubbish. It isn’t. And a wild gush of enthusiasm is ok at times but only as an initial impetus. Then comes slow deep careful thought and imagination. There is none of that.
It is worth a read. It covers a lot of details - math, physics, biology, intellectual/cultural history - though for the most part glibly and superficially. The author is entranced by the notion of a simple set of axioms/rules generating immense unexpected complexity. Fair enough. Good point. And then ….
Be wary. There are some historical errors and some outright silliness in places. But the enthusiasm, the curiosity and the relentless questioning more than makes up for this.
August 2, 2022
The premise was really exciting, but it was a lie. If you want a book that does this premise correctly, read The Romance of Reality by Bobby Azarian.
I was so disappointed with this. I went on to listen to Howard Bloom on some podcasts, and it seems to me that he has suffered from too much success. He was an executive in the music industry and always touted himself as extremely smart. Beware anyone who tries to produce that image, by the way. It seems like he's been surrounded by yes people for far too long and lives in delusion because of it. This book claims to be the explanation to how the universe creates, but it's actually just a strangely written history of math, which as some others pointed out, is not particularly complete or accurate.
I don't think anyone should buy this.
I was so disappointed with this. I went on to listen to Howard Bloom on some podcasts, and it seems to me that he has suffered from too much success. He was an executive in the music industry and always touted himself as extremely smart. Beware anyone who tries to produce that image, by the way. It seems like he's been surrounded by yes people for far too long and lives in delusion because of it. This book claims to be the explanation to how the universe creates, but it's actually just a strangely written history of math, which as some others pointed out, is not particularly complete or accurate.
I don't think anyone should buy this.
February 28, 2022
I'd love to have dinner with Howard Bloom
This book is a wonderfully audacious attempt to discover the axioms of creation itself & then extract the implications from gravity to the topology of Grandma's gravy. Therefore the 714 pages of this book seem short when you consider Howard is trying to wrap his mind as wide as the cosmos while going as deep as quarks and race all the way back up to quasars, all the while accounting for brains, & buildings, as well as the big bang. I think Howard Bloom may be the person on my bucketlist with whom I would most like to have dinner.
This book is a wonderfully audacious attempt to discover the axioms of creation itself & then extract the implications from gravity to the topology of Grandma's gravy. Therefore the 714 pages of this book seem short when you consider Howard is trying to wrap his mind as wide as the cosmos while going as deep as quarks and race all the way back up to quasars, all the while accounting for brains, & buildings, as well as the big bang. I think Howard Bloom may be the person on my bucketlist with whom I would most like to have dinner.
October 2, 2022
Interesting attempt to counter the second law of thermodynamics, and show the development of ideas emerging from (and possibly beyond) human consciousness. BUT, this work could have used serious editing. Arguments straight to the point should have come further to the front, and so many times this wandered off into (not necessarily relevant) biographies of the thinkers. So much of this adjacent information could have been pout into endnotes, keeping the progression of the argument on track.
October 9, 2022
Howard Bloom had some success in the music industry back in the day and has used that success to try to pivot to an intellectual. By reading this book, you'll see that it's just illusion. He has nothing to offer. This book made grand claims at the beginning, and then did absolutely nothing to satisfy these claims.
If you want a version of this book that actually delivers, written by an actual scientist and not some boomer narcissist, then read "the romance of reality" by Bobby Azarian.
If you want a version of this book that actually delivers, written by an actual scientist and not some boomer narcissist, then read "the romance of reality" by Bobby Azarian.
July 3, 2017
This is the worst book I have read in my life. The author does a survey of the development of mathematical ideas which I found to be the only redeeming feature of this book. Overly pompous language and endless repetition makes this book nigh unreadable.
April 15, 2020
I did NOT finish this book...didn't get through the first couple of chapters. Bogged down in how A does not equal A because one ship is not the same as another. I understand it, but did not care to waste much time getting from there to how the cosmos creates itself and there is no God.
August 19, 2020
Most of the book is quite brilliant. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in how the universe works. The analysis of universal patterns is deep and layered. I must confess I didn't understand anything of the history of mathematics, but Bloom made it extremely accessible.
November 22, 2023
Another highly entertaining book in his Magnum Opus which I wish he is able to finish :)
We will probably never know exactly how something came from nothing and will have to rely on brute fact and that is alright :)
We will probably never know exactly how something came from nothing and will have to rely on brute fact and that is alright :)
March 15, 2018
Alot to think about. I can see why this book annoys so many reads but it gets you thinking about the nature of the universe. Full review coming.
September 2, 2018
What a wonderful book! This is a necessary book.
Read
September 1, 2020repetitive, too long. Author self promoter
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