Reddit reviews The Grand Design
We found 20 Reddit comments about The Grand Design. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
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Reddit reviews The Grand DesignWe found 20 Reddit comments about The Grand Design. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Not OP, just helping out with some formatting (and links!) because I like these suggestions.
> 1) The Magic Of Reality - Richard Dawkins
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> 2) The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins
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> 3)A Brief History Of Time - Stephen Hawking
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> 4)The Grand Design - Stephen Hawking
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> 4)Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari (Any Book By Daniel Dennet)
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> 5)Enlightenment Now - Steven Pinker
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> 6)From Eternity Till Here - Sean Caroll (Highly Recommended)
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> 7)The Fabric Of Cosmos - Brian Greene (If you have good mathematical understanding try Road To Reality By Roger Penrose)
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> 8)Just Six Numbers - Martin Reese (Highly Recommended)
https://www.amazon.com/Grand-Design-Stephen-Hawking/dp/055338466X/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Spoiler: Earth is not flat, nor is it 10000 years old
>Particle physics has nothing to say about this because none of them posit a universe (or particles) that is actually without cause.
Surely you jest.
Some of my favorites:
Brian Greene -- The Fabric of the Cosmos, The Elegant Universe, and The Hidden Reality. Greene is, to my mind, very similar to Hawking in his ability to take complex subjects and make them understandable for the physics layman.
Hawking -- I see you've read A Brief History of Time, but Hawking has a couple of other books that are great. The Grand Design, The Universe in a Nutshell, and A Briefer History of Time.
Same thing applies to Brian Cox. Here's his Amazon page.
Leonard Susskind -- The Black Hole Wars. Here's the basic idea behind this book. One of the basic tenets of physics is that "information" is never lost. Stephen Hawking delivered a presentation that apparently showed that when matter falls into a black hole, information is lost. This set the physics world on edge. Susskind (and his partner Gerard T'Hooft) set out to prove Hawking wrong. Spoilers: they do so. And in doing so, they apparently proved that what we see as 3 dimensions is probably similar to those 2-D stickers that project a hologram. It's called the Holographic Principle.
Lee Smolin -- The Trouble with Physics. If you read the aforementioned books and/or keep up with physics through pop science sources, you'll probably recognize that string theory is pretty dang popular. Smolin's book is a criticism of string theory. He's also got a book that's on my to-read list called Three Roads to Quantum Gravity.
Joao Magueijo -- Faster Than the Speed of Light. This is another physics book that cuts against the prevailing academic grain. Physics says that the speed of light is a universal speed limit. Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Magueijo's book is about his theory that the speed of light is, itself, variable, and it's been different speeds at different times in the universe's history. You may not end up agreeing with Magueijo, but the guy is smart, he's cocky, and he writes well.
On science and evolution:
Genetics is where it's at. There is a ton of good fossil evidence, but genetics actually proves it on paper. Most books you can get through your local library (even by interlibrary loan) so you don't have to shell out for them just to read them.
Books:
The Making of the Fittest outlines many new forensic proofs of evolution. Fossil genes are an important aspect... they prove common ancestry. Did you know that humans have the gene for Vitamin C synthesis? (which would allow us to synthesize Vitamin C from our food instead of having to ingest it directly from fruit?) Many mammals have the same gene, but through a mutation, we lost the functionality, but it still hangs around.
Deep Ancestry proves the "out of Africa" hypothesis of human origins. It's no longer even a debate. MtDNA and Y-Chromosome DNA can be traced back directly to where our species began.
To give more rounded arguments, Hitchens can't be beat: God Is Not Great and The Portable Atheist (which is an overview of the best atheist writings in history, and one which I cannot recommend highly enough). Also, Dawkin's book The Greatest Show on Earth is a good overview of evolution.
General science: Stephen Hawking's books The Grand Design and A Briefer History of Time are excellent for laying the groundwork from Newtonian physics to Einstein's relativity through to the modern discovery of Quantum Mechanics.
Bertrand Russell and Thomas Paine are also excellent sources for philosophical, humanist, atheist thought; but they are included in the aforementioned Portable Atheist... but I have read much of their writings otherwise, and they are very good.
Also a subscription to a good peer-reviewed journal such as Nature is awesome, but can be expensive and very in depth.
Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate is also an excellent look at the human mind and genetics. To understand how the mind works, is almost your most important tool. If you know why people say the horrible things they do, you can see their words for what they are... you can see past what they say and see the mechanisms behind the words.
I've also been studying Zen for about a year. It's non-theistic and classed as "eastern philosophy". The Way of Zen kept me from losing my mind after deconverting and then struggling with the thought of a purposeless life and no future. I found it absolutely necessary to root out the remainder of the harmful indoctrination that still existed in my mind; and finally allowed me to see reality as it is instead of overlaying an ideology or worldview on everything.
Also, learn about the universe. Astronomy has been a useful tool for me. I can point my telescope at a galaxy that is more than 20 million light years away and say to someone, "See that galaxy? It took over 20 million years for the light from that galaxy to reach your eye." Creationists scoff at millions of years and say that it's a fantasy; but the universe provides real proof of "deep time" you can see with your own eyes.
Videos:
I recommend books first, because they are the best way to learn, but there are also very good video series out there.
BestofScience has an amazing series on evolution.
AronRa's Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism is awesome.
Thunderfoot's Why do people laugh at creationists is good.
Atheistcoffee's Why I am no longer a creationist is also good.
Also check out TheraminTrees for more on the psychology of religion; Potholer54 on The Big Bang to Us Made Easy; and Evid3nc3's series on deconversion.
Also check out the Evolution Documentary Youtube Channel for some of the world's best documentary series on evolution and science.
I'm sure I've overlooked something here... but that's some stuff off the top of my head. If you have any questions about anything, or just need to talk, send me a message!
This isn't really to do with atheism... it's just science.
> I know this may be better placed in a science related sub reddit but I don't really know of one
/r/explainlikeimfive or /r/cosmology or /r/askscience or ...
In particular try:
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/search?q=big+bang&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all
See also:
Krauss, Lawrence A Universe from Nothing
Hawking and Mlodinov The Grand Design
Congratulations! I know what a big step that is, as I've been in the same boat. Books are the best way to become informed. Check out books by:
Also check out the video series Why I am no longer a creationist.
The more you know, the more confident you will be.
I really enjoyed Hawking's Grand Design because he throughly and eloquently answers the common question of "how can you explain the origins of the Universe without a god?". That is often times the one conflict point that believers just cannot grasp their heads around.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Grand-Design-Stephen-Hawking/dp/055338466X
> I think it's more likely that there is a higher power of some kind.
Why? What are the "numbers" you crunch to say "more likely"?
I would say that it's less likely as with each century that passes we discover time and time again that gods have never been the answer to anything.
> and I mean fully explain the big bang and what came before and after and all the laws of the universe
So until they do you're content with a supernatural explanation?
And there may be that there was literally nothing before the "Big Bang" (which was neither big nor a bang).
Have you studies what we do know? This is an excellent book to read on the subject.
Yeah! This weekend I went to a local book store and spent the better part of the evening there. I had a blast and picked a book by Stephen Hawking
Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe
The Grand Design
>There is no conceivable mechanism by which the brain could generate consciousness, yet I am conscious.
Yes there is, check out I am a strange loop..
>There is no conceivable mechanism by which the universe and everything came into existence, yet here it is.
Yes there is check out A Universe from Nothing or The Grand Design.
You can argue these all you want, but (here's the important bit), even if there weren't conceivable mechanisms for these things, and even if our prior probability was really low for these things, we have roughly 10^500 times more evidence for our existance, and for our consciousness (ignoring the semantic problem with this word), than we have for things like para-psychology.
If I walked around every day, communicating with others psychically, and, when I ask the neighbor for sugar psychically, she comes over with some sugar, and when I psychically scream "Stop!" everyone stops and stares at me, then yes, I would be a fool to dismiss psychic communication.
This is exactly what happens with consciousness. I notice that people behave exactly as they would as if they are conscious (myself especially). If they weren't conscious, they (and I) would behave differently, so their behavior is a testing mechanism.
This is exactly what happens with existence. I notice that things... exist, and behave as if they exist. If something didn't exist, I wouldn't expect everyone to behave as if it did.
It's all about probabilities. nd with para-psychology, the probability is simply really, really tiny.
>He that will only believe what he can fully understand has either a very short creed or a very long head.
Your leaving out the other half here. While it may be stupid to only believe thing you completely understand (by the way, I believe many things that I only partially understand, advanced mathematics, for example), the alternative, believing everything you don't understand, is far more "stupid. (really, personal attacks, is that necessary)."
>"Don't be so quick to put us (theists/spiritualists) all in the same boat. There may be many more like me than you realize. Unfortunately, the more close minded, irrational among us tend to be the more vocal."
Also, more numerous: http://www.gallup.com/poll/155003/hold-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx
>"Yes I realize that the latter hold place in certain historical religions, but I really don't care about them, as they don't have anything to do with my beliefs. I do get that you are making the point that my beliefs now, ultimately, are just as fictional as those beliefs then. But I would say that it is a false equivalency, a slippery slope, to compare them. Any belief must be tested and judged on its own merit."
It's not so much "Dead religions are untrue, so currently relevant religions are also untrue" as it is "If you exhaustively study other religions you will see pervasive shared themes and implied psychology that the "somewhat smart" mistake for proof that all religions are divinely inspired and that the slightly more clever realize is proof that they were all authored by human beings."
Part of judging a belief system, in particular a holy text on it's own merits is giving it a read-through without the a priori assumption that it's correct on some level. Look at it instead as an anthropologist and psychologist, it is very revealing.
>"In fact, I'm suggesting that contemplation of this other realm is purely optional, that you don't need it for fulfillment in this realm, and that any conclusions about this other realm should not fly in the face of what we know about this realm."
In an ideal world. But what you've said is another way of saying "Don't treat it as if it's true, and it won't create problems". Other sincere, devout religious people you try to convert to this approach will sense that about it right away, like a cow catching a whiff of the slaughterhouse it's being led into.
>"Who am I?"
A mostly hairless self aware primate, part of a thin film of primates currently coating the globe for however long the oil holds out.
>"Why am I aware of myself?"
You have a sufficiently complex brain.
>"Where does my experience as an individual come from?"
The fact that your brain is physically separated from others and does not exchange information with them except by speech and writing.
>"How did the universe begin?"
Spontaneous particle and antiparticle separation events in an endless sea of quantum potential. "Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, 'But how can it be like that?' because you will get 'down the drain', into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that." -Richard Feynman
>"Why is there something instead of nothing?"
Nothingness is maximally ordered. Collapse into somethingness was guaranteed by entropy. As for why entropy still applied back then, see the Feynman quote above.
>"I don't think science can answer these questions."
It's actually explained most of that and is working hard on the rest. I recommend picking up a copy of http://www.amazon.com/The-Grand-Design-Stephen-Hawking/dp/055338466X
>" It only simply gets at the fact that belief in a spiritual....something....may well satisfy certain philosophical questions that science can not. "
But does it? Simply offering up a story is not the same as explaining something. An explanation which cannot be shown to be true is not an explanation, it is a story. If you need to know a big bang occurred I can show you pictures of the lingering background radiation from it. If you need to know that matter and antimatter can spring from nothingness (insofar as we can tell at the moment) I can show it to you in a particle accelerator or at the event horizon of black holes in the form of Hawking Radiation. There's such a wealth of provable explanations on offer from science that the idea that some people take a story and treat it like an explanation because it's religious in origin is profoundly frustrating.
>"But I don't think these questions will ever be answered in any quantifiable, measurable way."
Even if that were true, it doesn't make a story legitimately equivalent to an explanation. Treating the story as true just because we don't have an explanation yet ignores the other, more sensible option of simply saying "we don't have it all figured out yet, and may never". I'll admit, "We don't know" is not satisfying. But that doesn't justify replacing it with pretend-knowledge.
>"But for those who chose to contemplate them, they must be answered spiritually. At least for now."
If, indeed, what they are doing can truthfully be called 'answering'.
I don't have a theory of everything, no, but I am referencing books like Laurence Krauss's A Universe from Nothing amd Stephen Hawkings' The Grand Design
Here is a youtube video of Krauss explaining it.
I really liked The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking. It gives you a perspective of string theory, multiverse, tons of stuff about the universe, origins of the universe, and the philosophy of science that is ment for more entertainment and informing than dense physics literature.
If your looking more for space stuff there is Space Chronicles by Neal deGrasse Tyson
What about A Short History of Nearly Everything? Or Seal Team Six? Or The Magicians? What about American Gods, Hyperspace and The Grand Design
What I'm saying is 18 is too few. Get cracking.
There's no such thing as nothing.
>Single point... a very hot and dense... already existing... single point... which rapidly expanded (the expansion being the Big Bang).
Ahh gotcha, so this is what you're talking about asking for proof the universe began.
Then I'd recommend the following further reading:
A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing by Lawrence M. Krauss
The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking
The Inflationary Universe by Alan Guth
>Universe was not created per evidence.
There's a high level primer here.
>I would submit this "suppression of truth" is the cause of much the violence, suicide, drug use, mental illness, and hopelessness in the unbelieving world.
I would submit that you're wrong. I've been an atheist my entire life and I'm not violent, suicidal, a drug user, mentally ill (I think) or hopeless, nor have I ever been.
>Copying errors and mutation cannot create new organized coded information.
This sentence lets me know you don't actually understand evolution.
>Scientists operate on the principle that the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics are always true, always, but the atheistic scientist cannot say why.
There are several ideas on why this is true. You just haven't read them. Stephen Hawking's latest book goes into it in quite some detail. Lawrence Krauss also did a great lecture on the subject.
>Everyone would say that the torture of women is wrong, but in a random evolutionary world, why would it be wrong.
Because we're relatively weak species who really only get by on our wits and ability to cooperate. Torturing women (which is an interesting example) would degrade group cohesion and make cooperation less likely, meaning that a group with better cooperation would outcompete them for available resources.
>All the atheist can say is “we all know right from wrong”. Oh really, why would that be if my brain is a separate biological unit from everybody else?
Because our ideas of right and wrong are based on behavioral traits that helped our ancestors succeed. We love our kids because being loved by their parents helped our ancestors to survive.
>No wonder they are so unhappy.
You ask us not to resort to name-calling and then you keep insisting that I'm unhappy. I'm not unhappy, and most of the non-believers I know aren't unhappy.
>No, we're talking about the general idea of an intelligent creator. How come something came up of nothing?
Thats where you are ;dont want to call wrong; but have a different view. There needs to be a beginning, a backstory with an intelligent creator too if there is one right?
To begin with; the universe might not even need an intelligent creator. Human's universe and time perceptions might be different than what we are thinking right now.
http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-origin-of-the-universe.html
Its the same thing with myths; you think they are different but no. In the early history the science and technology wasnt this advanced. It was very, very basic life; sort of like animalistic. When there were lightning strikes people told eachother it was because they made the owner of the land(area, territory) angry.
2-3 thousand years ago people believed there is something like an intelligent creator, and earth is his backyard; a playspace.
Maybe 2 or 3 thousand years later people will look at us and laugh about our ideas/religions about universe and rest just like we find "lightning strikes" stuff weird, understandable; but not true.
I dont know how universe "started" for sure, there are theories about it but maybe they can change in the future; we dont know.
There is something missing in your wording too, its in grey area. Its just disbelief of religion and gods, no need to complicate it; it isnt necessarly an alternative theory to religion/gods. "Disbelief in something bigger" does not mean refusing to acknowledge anything about "beginning of universe, before the universe" stuff; its just disbelief of gods, creating creatures/testing them/punishing them/ kind of gods. And yes; gods can be your "something bigger" but also antimatter; big-bangs can be your "something bigger" in your wording. An agnostic tells me "you cant prove nonexistence of god"; but its just same like fairytales; i dont need prove to know that they arent true.
https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/about-atheism/
I also honestly dont have enough word/term knowledge to discuss these stuff advanced. You can look/search these.
https://www.amazon.com/Grand-Design-Stephen-Hawking/dp/055338466X