Skip to main content

Why? - Philip Goff *****

It might seem a bit odd to review a popular philosophy book here, but Philip Goff's content overlaps sufficiently with cosmology that it's appropriate, and that content is fascinating, even though chances are you won't agree with Goff all the way.

The point of this book is to suggest that there is purpose behind the cosmos. The main evidence for this that Goff uses is the fine tuning of our universe that makes it suitable for life. Most cosmologists agree that this is odd, but many try to explain it using the idea of the multiverse. With some nifty mathematic-less probability (though he does invoke and describe Bayes theorem), Goff demonstrates convincingly that this argument does not hold up. (You can see some detail of how he shows that it's rubbish here.) 

We then take a look at a couple of alternative explanations - a deity, or the universe itself embodying a degree of purpose, which comes under the banner of panpsychism. I didn't honestly find the arguments in either of these sections (for and against) persuasive - but this doesn't stop them from being really interesting. In the God chapter, Goff attempts to logically dismiss the concept, but I found this no more convincing than good old Pascal's wager - people have been attempting to make logical arguments about deities ever since logic existed, and none have succeeded. 

Similarly, I find the argument for panpsychism thin - but it's still interesting to see it explained by one of its major protagonists. Goff also examines other possibilities from a designer that is not all-powerful to the simulation hypothesis. And he takes us into the mind-body problem, presenting three broad options: materialism (the default scientific view of the physical world being fundamental), panpsychism (his preferred option where consciousness is fundamental and the physical world emerges from this), and dualism (the default non-scientific view, where both the physical world and consciousness are fundamental). 

Goff rapidly dismisses dualism making use of Occam's razor, which felt wrong to me. The reality of our understanding of the universe generally requires a lot of 'it's more complicated than we thought' - I don't think Occam's razor is a good enough tool to dispose of an option in such a significant matter as the mind-body problem.

Finally (after a somewhat bizarre plea for the benefits of psychedelics, which I couldn't support), Goff gives us an appendix dealing with the concept that tax is theft. This did slightly emerge from the main text, but is probably best thought of as a separate entity - again, it's a fascinating exercise in thinking about something that brings together moral positions and a field as solid, worldly and sort-of scientific as economics.

It's a slim book and an enjoyable read. Each chapter has an introductory part that takes us into the topic and then a 'digging deeper' part, where Goff takes us through some of the key counter arguments. He suggests you can skip these if you find them too heavy going - but I'd strongly recommend reading them. I've said this book is enjoyable, and it is, but that doesn't mean it's a light read. You do have to think as you go - but the result is well worth the effort.

Hardback:   
Kindle 
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

We Are Eating the Earth - Michael Grunwald *****

If I'm honest, I assumed this would be another 'oh dear, we're horrible people who are terrible to the environment', worthily dull title - so I was surprised to be gripped from early on. The subject of the first chunk of the book is one man, Tim Searchinger's fight to take on the bizarrely unscientific assumption that held sway that making ethanol from corn, or burning wood chips instead of coal, was good for the environment. The problem with this fallacy, which seemed to have taken in the US governments, the EU, the UK and more was the assumption that (apart from carbon emitted in production) using these 'grown' fuels was carbon neutral, because the carbon came out of the air. The trouble is, this totally ignores that using land to grow fuel means either displacing land used to grow food, or displacing land that had trees, grass or other growing stuff on it. The outcome is that when we use 'E10' petrol (with 10% ethanol), or electricity produced by ...

Battle of the Big Bang - Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Harper *****

It's popular science Jim, but not as we know it. There have been plenty of popular science books about the big bang and the origins of the universe (including my own Before the Big Bang ) but this is unique. In part this is because it's bang up to date (so to speak), but more so because rather than present the theories in an approachable fashion, the book dives into the (sometimes extremely heated) disputed debates between theoreticians. It's still popular science as there's no maths, but it gives a real insight into the alternative viewpoints and depth of feeling. We begin with a rapid dash through the history of cosmological ideas, passing rapidly through the steady state/big bang debate (though not covering Hoyle's modified steady state that dealt with the 'early universe' issues), then slow down as we get into the various possibilities that would emerge once inflation arrived on the scene (including, of course, the theories that do away with inflation). ...

Why Nobody Understands Quantum Physics - Frank Verstraete and Céline Broeckaert **

It's with a heavy heart that I have to say that I could not get on with this book. The structure is all over the place, while the content veers from childish remarks to unexplained jargon. Frank Versraete is a highly regarded physicist and knows what he’s talking about - but unfortunately, physics professors are not always the best people to explain physics to a general audience and, possibly contributed to by this being a translation, I thought this book simply doesn’t work. A small issue is that there are few historical inaccuracies, but that’s often the case when scientists write history of science, and that’s not the main part of the book so I would have overlooked it. As an example, we are told that Newton's apple story originated with Voltaire. Yet Newton himself mentioned the apple story to William Stukeley in 1726. He may have made it up - but he certainly originated it, not Voltaire. We are also told that â€˜Galileo discovered the counterintuitive law behind a swinging o...