The Atheist's Guide to Reality_ Enjoying Life Without Illusions - Alex Rosenberg [145]
Epicurus wasn’t right when he argued that understanding the nature of reality is by itself enough to make a person happy. Alas, some people do get everything right about the universe and our place in it and remain dissatisfied. Satisfying themselves that science answers all the persistent questions correctly, they are still troubled. You, gentle reader, may be one of these people. Fortunately for such people, Epicurus was almost right. If you still can’t sleep at night, even after accepting science’s answers to the persistent questions, you probably just need one more little thing besides Epicurean detachment. Take a Prozac or your favorite serotonin reuptake inhibitor, and keep taking them till they kick in.
THE ATHEIST’S GUIDE
TO REALITY:
THE BACKSTORY
MOST OF THE SCIENCE THIS BOOK USES IS SO WELL established that no physicist or biologist feels the need to argue for it. But there is some wonderful science writing that explains this background. This backstory identifies the scientists who have the best take on reality and/or communicate it most effectively. Providing the real substance of science in ways people can grasp is extremely difficult. The authors recommended by this backstory successfully convey substance because they have found a way to do so without storytelling.
Besides books, one great place to start if you want to know more about almost any of the science made use of here is Wikipedia. Don’t ever take my word for it. If you have questions about the science, check Wikipedia. Almost a decade ago, a scientific study revealed that Wikipedia was then at least as accurate as the Encyclopædia Britannica. Nowadays, it’s probably better. It’s certainly more up-to-date. Many of the articles in Wikipedia come with wonderful illustrations.
Wikipedia is usually a reliable source when it comes to philosophy as well. Put a phrase like “causal closure of physics” into your favorite search engine, and you are likely to see a Wikipedia result that offers an accessible introduction with reliable references. If you want to take a deeper look at a philosophical issue arising from science, check the website for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy—the online source for the current state of play in academic research by philosophers.
THE NATURE OF REALITY
The best panoramic pictures of the frontiers of physics are found in Brian Greene’s The Elegant Universe (1999) and The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos (2011). Not only does he manage to avoid stories, but Greene has a way with examples that makes even superstring theory accessible. He also makes clear what the really outstanding questions are that face physics. The most important thing Greene does is demonstrate how powerfully and precisely clever experiments and intricate observations made by astronomers and high-energy physicists continually confirm theories about what will happen on scales vastly too small and too large to grasp.
A brace of Nobel Prize–winning physicists have taken up the challenge of conveying the nature of reality in story-free terms that don’t talk down to the nonphysicists. The first of these was the great iconoclast, Richard Feynman. His QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (2006) shows how much is explained by the theory he put together, quantum electrodynamics (whence QED). But Feynman is frank about the deep problems inherent in a coherent interpretation of quantum mechanics. In QED, he wrote: “What I am going to tell you about is what we teach our physics students in the third or fourth year of graduate school. . . . It is my task to convince you not to turn away because you don’t understand it. You see my physics students don’t understand it. That is because I don’t understand it. Nobody does.” Fortunately, the part of physics we need,