Reddit reviews The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself

Some general searches through the Phil Sci archives might turn up papers related to your interests here. In particular, there might be something under the general topics of cosmology, quantum gravity, or relativity theory.

Within that archive, some that stand out to me in relation to your question are: this paper on anthropic reasoning about many worlds, this paper summarizing unification arguments for string theory, this paper on the ethical implications of many worlds, this paper on general trends in philosophy of physics (one of which is the cosmological many worlds), this paper on whether or not string theory posits mereological simples that are extended, and this paper on what is involved in deriving GR from some string theories.

Some theoretical physicists who work on string theory or quantum gravity in general and who come to my mind as conscious of history & philosophy of science as well as metaphysics are: Lee Smolin, especially his books The Trouble with Physics and Three Roads to Quantum Gravity; Sean Carroll, perhaps even his lectures on time and his book The Big Picture; and Carlo Rovelli, especially his books Reality is Not What it Seems and Quantum Gravity. Again, I don't mention them to point to philosophical work on those topics but only to mention some physicists who work on those topics and who have a more philosophical bent.

I know Alexander Blum has looked into the history of quantum gravity but I don't know what he's written on the philosophy of quantum gravity or specifically on string theory. Tim Maudlin and Craig Callender do quite a lot of work on philosophy of space-time but I don't know that they have specifically discussed string theory. In general, you might find some interesting papers in the philpapers browser for the philosophy of string theory or of cosmology.

Also, Jeffrey Barrett has done quite a lot of work on quantum interpretations and Everettian many-worlds, which is not to be confused with the string-theoretic landscape of many worlds but you might find some of his work interesting.

Hope that helps!

I don't see how it's bunk? It explains the double slit experiment perfectly well and doesn't go deeper than that. Matter can be both a particle and a wave. It begins as a 'wave function' of probability. The particles location within the wave just isn't destined until it is measured/observed through an experiment. The measuring of such a wave forces it to collapse into a single location of matter. I will say that this is not an "Observation" in the traditional sense that it needs a living being to observe it (the giant eye in the video is misrepresented). It's all about the measuring of the wave through Mathematics.

It's still unknown why this occurs and is coined the 'Measurement problem'. The best explanation is that it supports the many world's theory of reality, in which all outcomes occur and we are but one of an infinite amount of outcomes.
I am no expert but it's insanely interesting stuff, I encourage people to look up the Quantum Wave Function on YouTube or grab a decent book outlining Quantum Mechanics.

Edit a few good options:
https://www.amazon.com/Big-Picture-Origins-Meaning-Universe/dp/1101984252

https://www.amazon.com/What-Real-Unfinished-Meaning-Quantum/dp/0465096050

https://youtu.be/OFwskHrtYQ4

https://youtu.be/p7bzE1E5PMY

> People seem to tell me to just stop asking these questions because it's impossible to ever know...

It's definitely not that you should stop asking the questions, it's that the only people who are genuinely qualified to answer them are cosmologists. So while it's fun to speculate, the only way to make real progress on these questions ourselves would be to get a PhD in physics. Which I'm pretty sure I'm not going to do at this point in my life. :-)

It's interesting to read what people who actually do have a PhD in physics have to say about these questions, though. That's why I linked you to a few articles/debates in my other reply. And there are plenty of books out there that look at the origins of the universe and how it could have arisen (for example The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself by Sean Carroll or A Universe From Nothing by Lawrence Krauss).

One thing to keep in mind is that quantum physics is not just counterintuitive but wildly counterintuitive. So even though we may have beliefs like "everything needs a cause", and even though that principle is reasonable in everyday life, it doesn't necessarily apply in quantum physics, where the very notion of causality is debatable. That's why non-physicists (definitely including philosophers and theologians) are just not qualified to answer these questions -- because our intuition leads us astray, and the rules that work for us within the universe fall apart when we're looking at the origin of the universe.

I mostly read non-fiction, and am interested in politics, morality and how smart people can come to construct completely different versions of reality... soooo if any of that kind of stuff is your bag, I can recommend:

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One Nation, Two Realities

The Myth of the Rational Voter

Stop Being Reasonable

Mistakes were made by not by me

The Big Picture

​

The first two are are semi-academic texts, so there is some experiments/data in there that you can skip over. The second two are meant for popular consumption about how people come to form and change opinions, and the big picture is a really approachable summary about everything from epistemology, quantum physics and consciousness. It's broken into lots of very short chapters so great to read before and after going to sleep.

I think that it's firstly important to make a couple of distinctions regarding what we are seeking to answer.

When Christians talk about God, there are many attributes given to God that cannot be proven, but are revealed through the Bible and the tradition of Judaism and Christianity. God's existence here is also considered revealed. Whether it is reasonable to believe in what is considered revealed knowledge, i.e., knowledge that is not gained from verifiable empirical proof, is a separate discussion.

But, Christian philosophers argue, since the early Middle Ages, that that the existence of a being from which all of reality springs can be known by the use of our reason.

So, the next question is then, is there a being who is the highest in the order of all beings in reality and who created everything. Framed differently: Where does reality come from? Or, how is it that reality came to be? This leaves out any discussion of what is God like, such as is he good or is he an evil tyrant. We are simply concerned with is there a being which accounts for all of reality.

Many materialists will simply say the existence of the universe -- whether this is simply it, or this universe is part of a multi-verse -- is a brute fact. Scientists such as Sean Carrol make this claim. There's an excellent debate between Frederick Copleston and Bertrand Russell, who are both philosophers, where at some point Russell declares that the beginning of the universe simply is, no further explanation is needed.

When we try to prove the existence of God, or what we could call God, by the use of our reason, we are doing so by logical proof. This type of logical proof is inductive, rather than deductive. Science relies on inductive reasoning. For instance, Newton’s laws of motion are a product of inductive reason. When we see that a billiard ball at rest moves after being hit by a moving billiard ball, we infer that this happens every time a moving ball strikes a still ball. We can then make predictions about how balls will move under certain conditions, thus making the game of pool possible, challenging, and fun. If we could not predict such action based on inductive reasoning, then the game would be absurd, and we would walk away frustrated and then disinterested. The same reasoning applies to the design and construction of bridges, buildings, cars, and all the technology we use as the material basis for our society. Without inductive reasoning, our reality would simply be absurd and chaotic.

The reliabilty of how the universe works can also be projected backwards in time and logically backwards (i.e., independent of time, e.g., the design of a ladder which requires a first rung; the first rung exists at the same time the last rung does, but is logically prior to the last rung when we consider how ladders work). So, through observation, we see that something cannot come from nothing. You came from your parents, and your parents came from their parents and so on. Some scientists claim that when sub-atomic particles pop into and out of existence, they are coming from nothing. But that has more to do with the definition of nothing and what causes this sudden appearance of particles.

It might be helpful to learn about the [5 logical proofs for the existence of God](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ways_(Aquinas) as put forth by Thomas Aquinas, a philosopher/theologian from the 13th century. The proofs are more comprehensive than what is in the linked Wikipedia article, but it gives a good gist of what these proofs are.

When a philosopher then argues for the existence of God, he is only arguing for a very basic idea of God, that there is a being who accounts for the existence of the rest of reality. Again, this is a logical conclusion, not one that is found through empiricism alone.

I’m not a big fan of proving “pink unicorns” or “the Flying Spagetti Monster,” because they serve to mock more than promote sincere discourse.

The first step in sincerely discussing these issues is coming to a mutual understanding of your starting point, and then being open to listening to all evidence and logical argument.

Edit: Cleaned up spelling and grammar.

His book, The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself is my favorite book that I've read this year. I highly recommend it. I'm about 15 years out of college, so was worried I wouldn't be able to keep up, but he does a fantastic job keeping concepts clear. I find it (while much longer) a more enjoyable read than A Brief History of Time.

Cosmologist Sean Carroll explains Bayes' theorem and applies it to scientific method and everyday life throughout his book The Big Picture. This book is intended for a wide audience and is very well written.

> [...] isn't the whole point of honest dialogue to learn from one another and test one's theories against those of others?

Nope. Theories are tested against evidence.

> If cause isn't a thing, then I need a better vocabulary and a better understanding of reality to describe why my car accelerates when I push the gas pedal [...]

This is a misunderstanding of scope. Cause is an emergent concept not found in the laws of physics similar to how baseball is an emergent concept not found in the laws of physics. "Baseball" can be a useful way to describe the macro world we inhabit just as "cause" can be a useful way to describe the macro world we inhabit. Does that mean the universe plays baseball?

> I honestly entreat you to help me learn what I am missing, and what I should read to correct my misunderstanding.

Please: https://www.amazon.com/Big-Picture-Origins-Meaning-Universe/dp/1101984252

You don't have to venture past page 4 to read that "[w]e find it natural to use a vocabulary of causes and reasons why things happen, but those ideas aren't part of how nature works at its deepest levels." The first section of the book elaborates.

> My supposition is that in claiming that something is unknowable we deny ourselves the ability to completely refute the unknown.

I didn't say it was unknowable. I said I didn't know.

> In other words, between atheism and agnosticism, atheism is a stronger claim, but is not defensible to the degree that agnosticism is.

This is venturing off point, but I disagree. If someone came to you and said, to use baseball again, that they know because of the existence of baseball that the universe plays baseball, would you find that to be a strong argument? Would you be agnostic on it, saying we could never know whether the universe plays baseball? Or would your response be similar to, "No, baseball is a complicated phenomenon inside the universe. What does it even mean for the universe to play baseball? That doesn't really make sense."

Your interlocutor would, of course, come back and point out that if baseball really isn't a thing in physics then he or she needs a better vocabulary and a better understanding of reality to describe nine men wearing pajamas on a field.

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There is a distinct feeling from your writing that you can't understand why I'm closed off to the concept of "cause" to the universe. Isn't it at least possible that there was a cause? That there is a God? etc, etc? My response is you have no reason or evidence for it other than a sort of intuitive physics, which I should remind you is not necessarily a path to truth (see the famous single photon double slit experiment).

Let's read more Bertrand Russell (from "Why I am not a Christian" published in 1927):

> Perhaps the simplest and easiest to understand is the argument of the First Cause. (It is maintained that everything we see in this world has a cause, and as you go back in the chain of causes further and further you must come to a First Cause, and to that First Cause you give the name of God). That argument, I suppose, does not carry very much weight nowadays, because, in the first place, cause is not quite what it used to be. The philosophers and the men of science have got going on cause, and it has not anything like the vitality it used to have; but, apart from that, you can see that the argument that there must be a First Cause is one that cannot have any validity. I may say that when I was a young man and was debating these questions very seriously in my mind, I for a long time accepted the argument of the First Cause, until one day, at the age of eighteen, I read John Stuart Mill’s Autobiography, and I there found this sentence: ‘My father taught me that the question, “Who made me?” cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question, “Who made God?” ’ That very simple sentence showed me, as I still think, the fallacy in the argument of the First Cause. If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu’s view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, ‘How about the tortoise?’ the Indian said, ‘Suppose we change the subject.’ The argument is really no better than that. There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause; nor, on the other hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our imagination. Therefore, perhaps, I need not waste any more time upon the argument about the First Cause.

I'll give Richard Feynman the last word on a similar, but again tangential, topic:

> Now if the world of nature is made of atoms, and we too are made of atoms and obey physical laws, the most obvious interpretation of this evident distinction between past and future, and this irreversibly of all phenomena, would be that some laws, some of the motion laws of the atoms are going one way — that the atom laws are not such that they can go either way. There should be somewhere in the works some kind of a principle that uxles only make wuxles and never vice versa, and so the world is turning from uxley character to wuxley character all the time — and this one-way business of the interactions of things should be the thing that makes the whole phenomena of the world seem to go one way.

> And yet we haven't found it yet. That is, in all the laws of physics that we have found so far there doesn't seem to be any distinction of the past and the future.