Hélio Steven’s Reviews > The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself > Status Update
Hélio Steven
is on page 205 of 480
Carroll breaks the question of the existence of the universe down into different problems and shows just how far modern physics can adequately respond to them. His fair assessment of why it all exists at all deserves special praise: while our total evidence provides us with excellent reason to stick to naturalism, he admits that the regularities we observe in the universe are, by themselves, more likely under theism.
— Jan 29, 2018 01:51PM
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Hélio Steven
is on page 250 of 480
I had no idea Schrödinger's offered a working definition of life, let alone one which seems to be both incredibly useful on general terms and that also beautifully shows how biology and fundamental physics are closely tied together. (The definition is roughly this: life is basically a self-sustaining system that can "keep going" by taking in "free energy" and putting it to use wherever it's needed for that system.)
— Feb 01, 2018 06:31PM
Hélio Steven
is on page 237 of 480
Thoroughly enjoyed the whole third part of the book, but I'm only commenting here to register some quote I really liked at the end of part 4's first chapter: "Those swirls in the cream mixing into the coffee? That's us. Ephemeral patterns of complexity, riding a wave of increasing entropy from simple beginnings to a simple end. We should enjoy the ride."
— Feb 01, 2018 02:29PM
Hélio Steven
is on page 186 of 480
Carroll beautifully expands on the reasons why our current understanding in modern physics disallows the existence of certain entities/phenomena. Every single chapter of part 3 so far has been extremely fascinating. My pick for one of the book's best provocative quote: "Quantum field theory ... knocks down our speculations about what kinds of things can happen in physical reality."
— Jan 26, 2018 01:59PM
Hélio Steven
is on page 159 of 480
Chs. 18 and 19 are concise, yet fairly good arguments against certain supernatural posits, namely God and various paranormal phenomena. Contrary to what some say, the plausibility of metaphysical claims can often be submitted to empirical scrutiny, and it's perfectly reasonable to appeal to our current scientific knowledge in order justify a lower credence in many supernatural phenomena or entities.
— Jan 23, 2018 01:31PM
Hélio Steven
is on page 144 of 480
Ch. 17 is by far the worst one. Carroll is wise to warn us against essentialist thinking in science, but he doesn't provide any good reasons for the reader to believe there aren't other ways to resist the gender identity idea on scientific grounds. While I'm inclined to think there are good, scientific reasons to accept the basic gender identity claim, I can see how someone who rejects it could reasonably complain.
— Jan 22, 2018 02:37PM
Hélio Steven
is on page 123 of 480
Ch. 14 mostly puts Quine's web of belief metaphor in a new dressing, now called "planets of belief". This might be a better analogy because the idea of a "gravitational pull" exerted by mutual beliefs seems a better way to picture a belief system. But I think Carroll fails to appreciate that an element of foundationalism can be accomodated in the metaphor in a way that Kornblith tried before (https://goo.gl/Adkyp7)
— Jan 19, 2018 01:51PM
Hélio Steven
is on page 115 of 480
Caroll provides further reasons to think he's actually a realist about high level phenomena, while at the same time eschewing strong emergentism. I don't know how familiar he is with Dennett's "Real Patterns", but his stance on high level phenomena seems extremely close to talk of real patterns as a way to navigate the issue about the reality of these phenomena.
— Jan 18, 2018 06:05PM
Hélio Steven
is on page 105 of 480
Ch. 12 is the most exciting chapter so far. Carroll lays out a nice account of emergence in the sciences, and in the process makes it clearer what is his take on high level phenomena. It's still not as clear as it could be, but there's very good reason to think he leans towards some sort of realism; this is especially clear when he defends the idea that there are HLP that are multiply realizable at the lower level.
— Jan 17, 2018 01:35PM
Hélio Steven
is on page 93 of 480
Carroll's response to radical skepticism looks a lot like a pragmatistic one, with a good pinch of Peircean verificationism. While I do like this flavor, I have to say Carroll's sketch of his answer wasn't very well elaborated. I see where he's coming from, and I also share his attitude, but I would understand if someone with a good epistemology background complained about that answer.
— Jan 15, 2018 01:35PM
Hélio Steven
is on page 60 of 480
Chapter 7 (Time's Arrow) made me think about an issue that might be worth pursuing later, which is to know whether the entropy-based evolution of the universe lends any decent support to the multiple realizability argument against straightforward reductionism of all of the special sciences to fundamental physics -- and, if so, to what extent it does support it. But then again, I might be terribly, way off here.
— Jan 10, 2018 07:15PM
