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God's Debris
I like reading books that make me think, but not in the same way that I think when I'm at work or doing homework. When reading for pleasure, I want something that at first glance is so strange it's absurd, but at closer examination makes a tremendous amount of sense. That depth is the essence of Scott Adams' God's Debris, A Thought Experiment.
Adams is not known for writing super-intelligent commentaries on life, at least ones without a punchline or visual gag. Creator of Dilbert, his writing to this point has focused upon the world of cubicles and shifting organizational charts where engineers and management ('induhviduals' as he often calls them) square off in battles where the engineers are right and management is wrong. Very straightforward, enjoyable reading, but nothing compared to his latest work.
God's Debris was first published in May of 1999 as an e-book. It is sold by Digital Owl and can be purchased as bits for $4.95 or in hardcover wherever books are sold. The story focuses on both the physical laws of nature (relativity, gravity, the origin of the universe) and the psychology behind religion. The story is told by a fairly educated narrator talking to an unseen second character who seems to hold a deep understanding of the universe. As I read more, I found my own questions being raised by the narrator, and addressed by the other character. This arrangement makes for a very strange read, but the unusual format enhances the overall reading experience.
This book second guesses everything one learns in school, and comes close to succeeding. I cannot think of a single statement in the book that can be proven incorrect. To a college-educated reader like me, some of the assertions may seem totally ridiculous -- the problem is that they make just as much sense as Einstein's relativistic physics. In the introduction to the book, Adams observes the fact that ' ... the simplest explanation usually sounds right and is far more convincing than any complicated explanation could hope to be.'
The protagonist makes some very peculiar assertions throughout; My favorite is a statement he makes about the true nature of gravity, specifically that it is fueled by probability. The idea his advances is that all matter is constantly switching in and out of existence, and that is how objects move. The reason that matter appears to be attracted to other matter is that, according to the rules of probability, each piece of matter will inherently appear closer to massive objects the next time it comes back into existence. If you didn't understand that, and you'd like to, then you should read the book.
If you are a religious person, I can assure that this book will be disturbing. Although not told from an atheist point of view, the protagonist rejects the traditional view of religion. There are references to religious beliefs as 'delusions' only intended to allow the less-enlightened to live in relative peace in a world which has little. Taken as a whole, the views expressed can best be summarized ala Jesse Ventura, that 'organized religion is a crutch for the weak-minded.'
I'm purposely avoiding going into detail about the contents of the book. This is not only because a small piece doesn't make sense by itself, but also because most of the fun is in the discovery. Reading this book, you feel as if you are the first and only person to truly understand the world. I wouldn't want to spoil that for you. It's only 132 pages, broken up into very short chapters, and it can be read on your lunch break. I highly recommend it.
You can purchase this book at Fatbrain. Do you want to see your book review on Slashdot? Please take a look at the book review guidelines first.
Jesse Ventura rephrased that from Karl Marx, who said that "religion is the opiate of the people".
Grab.
It would be hard to take any book by him that does not contain comic strips, seriously. I would also find it hard to take seriously a book on philosophy by Charles Schultz, Stan Lee, O.J. Simpson, or Tonya Harding. There's just too much extra baggage tied up with what I think I know of the author. Plus I still haven't forgiven him for that damn Dilbert T.V. show.
And loved it. There's something in every chapter to make you think, and the source of the title, "God's Debris", left me stunned. I highly recommend this book if you're looking for a complete "mind-job", and it contains a lot of new ways of looking at just about every aspect of life - from religious to physical to social.
READ IT.
That is all.
Last post!
I haven't read this book. However, Adams exposed his "serious writer" persona in the last section of "Dilbert Future", in which he talked about his personal observations on science and humanity. I found this section the weakest of the book -- it was poorly thought out and scarcely researched. Furthermore, Adams' smug writing style needs to be offset by humor in order to avoid seeming arrogant. Many of his claims about physics in "Dilbert Future" are easily disproven by anyone who can think critically. I don't think I'll be rushing out to buy this one.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
You are correct -- most people get it wrong, including you. For a proper name, you add "'s" as in "Scott Adams's God's Debris".
I'm too lazy to find a link to prove it to you.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
As for the science vs. religion, I never understood the hypocricy of people who get angry about the past of religion's stupidity towards scientific discovery and the scientific method, yet then turn around and pull the same crap. It is true that many use religion, philosphy, money, relationships, sex, and other 'things' (including drugs, porn, video games, food, excercise, etc) in order to not have to deal and cope with life, but that no more makes them automatically 'wrong' than justification make it right.
I get rather frustrated at people who while claim to be faithful Christians, they get very angry if you question them. (note that here I mean question, as in seeking to learn and analyze... NOT when you are obviously picking a fight (e.g. "How does this work?" as opposed to "Why would anyone use that?!")) The bible teaches us to question our own reality and our beliefs, otherwise we will never really have faith. a sword is tempered and folded under intense heat and pressure, over time and with blood, sweat and tears... if you just poured in the alloy in a mold you would merely have a very heavy and fragile (relatively) stick.
I personally have never seen any dichotomy between science and religion... any religion that I am familiar with. However it is hypocritical zealots (Sept 11, anyone?) that are the problem. Ghandi once said that the Christian Bible was the best manual for how to live. While he personally did not accept Jesus, he understood the logic of what the Bible taught (thats the theology part).
oops, this is way too long. Whether it is religion, politics, or your choice of shoes... always try to take a logical and rational outlook instead of an emotionally reaction.
This is my opinion, and it can be taken for thought, or discared... but it is still my opinion. I at least still have that right.
Several months ago I paid for and downloaded the DigitalOwl TitleVision ebook version of "God's Debris". I paid $5 for it.
I also downloaded the reader, installed it, and read the book, which was good. However, I didn't like the reader at all. So, using a screen capture utility, I took screen shots of all 90 pages of the book, saving them as .PGMs. Then I booted into Linux (I'd had to be in Windows to run the reader) and used gOCR and a shell script to do initial OCR conversion of all the images. Finally I spent a while with grep and a spell checker cleaning everything up. Overall, this took me about five hours.
Now I've got a 143KB ASCII text file with the same content as my 195KB encrypted .OWL file. I don't ever plan to give anyone a copy of my plain text version; I like Scott Adams and want him to get paid for his work.
If I assume that a professional "image -> OCR text -> corrected text" conversion specialist gets paid $10/hour, then the five hours it took me incurred about $50 in labor cost, bringing the total price to around $55. Not as cheap as the dead-tree version (<$15), but easier to grab quotes from. And of course I now have some valuable skills which I could use to help out Project Gutenberg.
I'm sure what I did would be considered illegal by Digital Owl (though probably not by Scott Adams). I'm just glad I won't have to try to hunt down a copy of the TitleVision viewer fifteen years from now just to read the book again.
And I'm glad that there's now a paper version so that most other people can obtain a less legally-encumbered version without having to do the grunt work I did.
Graham "Teach" Mitchell, computer science teacher, Leander HS
Without having read the book, it sounds like the whole point is that these wacko theories, while strange, are just as good as any other theory to explain phenomena we don't understand.
I suppose you could say that God reaches out and pushes massive bodies together. Or that invisible chewing gum binds things together. It may well be that the "truth" (if we ever discover it) will be just as strange. Certainly quantum theory is bizarre and, if people I respect didn't keep telling me it was true, I wouldn't beleive it.
It doesn't sound like Adams is a an anti-religious zealot at all, but rather somebody who's very aware of the limits of scientific knowledge.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
It's easy to make up 'theories' to explain phenomena... before Descartes and the Scientific Method theories were accepted based upon how good a story they were and how they appealed to various people -- reinforce existing beliefs and your theory is accepted. Descarte realized that hypotheses must be testable in order to decide if they're true or false.
...hmm and this idea has an implied conception of time that must be defined as well.
There are lots of neat ideas out there to explain various physical phenomena, but its hard to come up for tests for many of these... How would you test to see if matter is popping in and out of existence? What do you mean by existence anyway? What exactly does the word matter mean?
My point is, scientific facts must be tested and verified by experiment. Sure there are lots of other ideas that can't be tested.... but these fall in the same realm as religion and require faith. The so called Copenhagen interpretation is a prime example of this.
The Copenhagen interpretation claims that wave functions in Quantum mechanics collapse because they are effected by being observed by an intelligent observer. Supposedly you can see this by taking a large number of observations of photons or electrons or whatever and seeing the 'spike' from the wave function collapse. But wait, statistic's Law of Large Numbers says that if you take a large number of observations with random error you'll get this spike no matter what just because of the math - not because of some interaction between the particle and the observer.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
That same problem applies to all of our physical theories about the universe, at some level. Newton's theory of gravity did not explain why massive objects attract each other - they just do. Einstein's General Theory of Relativity does not explain why spacetime warps in the presence of mass - it just does.
All we can really do with our theories is describe what we observe, and develop predictive models. Physics doesn't provide an ultimate answer to the question of "why" - it only ever provides local answers, pushing back the "why" to a different level.
Scott Adams' theory of gravity does this too, and is actually quite comparable to Newton's theory. In fact, I'm sure it would be possible to develop an Adamsian theory that's the equal of Newton's theory in all predictive respects - but you would ultimately find that you could dispense with the winking in and out of existence stuff, just as Einstein was able to dispense with the ether as a medium for the propagation of electromagnetic waves. As you pointed out with the carrier pigeon example, if something can't be detected, and doesn't add predictive value to a theory, to all intents and purposes it doesn't exist.
This book looks to be particularly dreadful, as it ignores the relative functional form of science. For instance, the review states that Adams believes that gravity is fueled by probability. It really doesn't matter whether he just made that up or it is the result of methodical analysis. Until Adams shows us how this 'new physics' can better send a rocket to Mars it is largely useless. Take a look at it this way. We have all sorts of alternative theories of gravity, most in an effort to reach a theory of Quantum Gravity. It each case, the authors try to find something that can be tested in a lab. For instance, we may generate black holes in the next generation of accelerators, and that will be interesting.
Some may invoke Thomas Kuhn and say I am being obstructionist. This is not the case. I am merely saying that it not so hard to write 128 of compelling fiction, and the fact that it is anti-establishment does not say anything about ir's correctness. It is true that many great discoveries were hard to believe. It is also true that most of these corrected severe defects in contemporary theory. We could not begin to simply explain the planets without Galileo. We could not explain black box radiation with Planck. We could not fully explain the planets without Einstein. Again, I want to see Adams tell us how to get to Mars faster.
I do have great respect for Adams. He is honest and straightforward about what he does and why he does it, much like Heinlein. He also has an ego bigger than Shatners, and it may be getting the best of him.
now this may not be a sophisticated as a physicist, or your college certified philosopher, but it can be useful. Not everything will be spot on, that depending entirely on the insights of the author.
I for one, do not know what he would make of the guy who has offered a million dollar reward for evidence conclusively proving there is no afterlife.
But that is part of the fun of talking about things like this.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
The former is a system of beliefs which one comes to based on one's own experiences and understanding.
The latter is an external system, often forced on individuals, without any thought on their own part.
I happen to be a very "religious" person myself, but I'll be the first to admit that a huge percentage of people filling our churches, synagogues, mosques or whatever are there simply to be led around by the nose without having to really wrestle with the deeper questions of life and their existence.
In that sense, yes - "Organized Religion" is certainly an Opiate.
Your Servant, B. Baggins
When Scott Adams first published God's Debris as an e-book, I refused to buy it because of the platform-biased and fair use-restricted nature of his chosen distribution technology. And I told him so. The conversation turned into a fairly in-depth conversation on the nature of e-publishing and software piracy. The results are on my web site as an e-mail exchange between us that he gave permission for me to post.
At least one person who has written me about the exchange felt that I gave up. I didn't really give up-- in fact I hadn't intended it to become a drawn out argument in the first place. But by the end I felt I had reached the point of diminishing returns-- it was clear that Scott didn't want to be convinced. I decided that the real argument would be won in the court of public opinion-- which was why I felt it important to end on a (superficially) conciliatory note and get him to give me permission to publish the discussion. If I had taken the last word, I think it unlikely he would have let me post our exchange.
To be fair, Scott made two points that bear further consideration:
1) E-books are not identical to executable software.
2) If free file sharing is ubiquitous, people will steal when it's easier than buying.
I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but briefly I would respond to both points by saying that non-executable media such as books, movies, photographs, and music need to have a new distribution infrastructure put in place where buying is actually easier than stealing, and quite cheap for the end user. I believe the future of electronic distribution will lie not in increasingly Draconian legal and technical barriers that fight against the paying customer, but in the ubiquitous availability of micropayments that make enjoying creative content painless and subject to the Free Market. I believe Scott would point out that that system isn't here yet.
In another unpublished conversation, Scott credits e-publishing in this matter with enabling him to land his print-based book deal. He's happy with the outcome.
You're splitting angel hairs here. Marx was an athiest. But we can still have a little fun:
Karl Marx dies and shows up at the gates of heaven to be met by Saint Peter.
"Name?" asks Peter.
"Marx, Karl Marx." replies the famous author.
"Hmm," says Peter to himself, "why do I know that name?"
"I am Marx," Marx said, beaming with pride, "founder of socialism and the driving force behind the communist ideal called Marxism."
"I see," Peter said. "I'll have to check with God."
So Peter rushes off to confer with God. God hears the name Marx and immediately a look of disgust infects His face. "Marx?" God says, "He's nothing but a trouble maker. Send him down to hell."
So Peter happily signs the appropriate forms and deports Karl Marx to Satan's fiery hell.
Some time later, a free trade agreement is forged between Heaven and Hell. The deal is hailed by all to be a great economic leap forward that would revitalize both struggling economies. But soon after the treaty, God realizes that Heaven is no longer receiving any products
from Hell. So he sends Saint Peter down to investigate.
"Well?" asks Peter of Satan, "What's the hold up? We have an agreement!"
Satan shrugs his shoulders, exasperated. "It's that Marx fellow," Satan
replied. "Ever since he got down here, all we've had are strikes and labour demands. Productivity has dropped to zero!"
"So?" Peter asks, "What would you have us do?"
"Take him back. Take Marx back to Heaven, and I guarantee productivity will sky rocket!"
So Peter agreed, on God's behalf, to accept Karl Marx back to Heaven.
Some time later Satan realizes that Hell has not received any orders for product from Heaven. In fact, very little communication at all has leaked from Up Above. So, concerned for the economic welfare of Hell, he makes a trip to Heaven.
"Peter! Peter, are you there?" Satan demands.
"Yes, what is it?" Peter answers.
"What's the hold up? What about the flow of trade?"
"Oh I'm sorry," Peter said, "We have decided to adopt a Marxist isolationist stance. We are an intrinsic self-governed body that is now based on the needs of the prolitariate. It is our opinion that this free trade agreement only benefits the bourgeois."
"What?!" Satan was furious. "I demand to speak to God!"
Peter's eyebrow is raised in confusion. "Who?"
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
What if science were a crutch for the weak-minded?
And what if the world sat spinning on a stack of turtles? It's a cute theory, but you'd have to prove it. And there's the difference between faith and science. There's a large amount of evidence supporting quantum mechanics and little supporting the existence of God. Science isn't a crutch for anything. It's just a formal method for finding out how the world works. You hold yourself to strict rules of evidence, and bit by bit, fact by fact, crawl toward a greater understanding of physical phenomena. You make alot of mistakes along the way. You interpret things incorrectly, make false assumptions, etc. But by jerks & starts you make progress and we learn more.
To paraphrase from Richard Feynman re: quantum electrodynamics: "It probably doesn't make sense to you, but that's not important. It doesn't have to make sense, because regardless of our reason and logic that is how it is."
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
It's bad, but bad enough to be funny, I guess. Or maybe not.
Gandhi never said the Christian bible was any sort of manual for how to live. He did, however, esteem Jesus over any other historical/mythical/whatever person. I quote:
A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.
He saw the passion of Jesus as the ultimate act, and considered it the moment at which Jesus truly became human in sacrifice to God.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
science freely admits that it doesn't know what caused the big bang explosion and probably never will.
Not knowing is no reason to pick up the closest fairy tale at hand and go parading it around. If the choice is between the confortable security of myth or an uneasy yet honest lack of knowledge give me that latter.
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
The other thing is that several of the individuals you listed are either deists (essentially agnostics; believing in a deity, but not necessarily the christian one), or atheists. Here's a few quotes for you:
Thomas Jefferson:
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
Christian theologians talk about the wine and the wineskins. The wine is the good message that Christians have to share with others. The wine is vitally important - it is what has real value. The wineskins are the structures that facilitate the growth of the message. The value of the winkeskins is directly related to their effectiveness in delivering the wine to the people. They have no value apart from the wine.
The problem of most Christian organizations is that they have forgotten the importance of the wine. They have allowed the wineskins to be seen as valuable in and of themselves. The structures of the church - the buildings, the meeting formats, the hymns (Oh the hymns!!), even the chairs - have remained the same for hundreds of years because they have been valued for their tradition. But they should not be valued if they do not effectively communicate the wine, and judging by the number of people bored out of their minds on Sundays, they are definitely not serving this purpose. They were once effective, but they are not any longer.
Organized religion is good when it provides an effective means of distributing special revelation to the populace. Every part of a Christian organization should be geared towards distributing the wine. Organized religion is bad when it is not willing to prune away the dead branches. If members are not willing to do so, if they value any part of the structure more than the wine, their organization is destined for trouble.