God's Debris: A Thought Experiment

Rating:
Summary: Only Because it's Scott Adams
Review: If this weren't Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, this never would have made it to print. It needed a critical editor to push the storyline to achieve something. As it stands, it's a dialogue between a deliveryman and an old man, whom we are to assume is either God or omniscient or something, and the deliveryman is pushed by the old man into thinking about, and questioning, profound thoughts. It goes along okay, and I won't say it isn't provocative in some ways, and I won't say I didn't enjoy reading it. But a little over halfway through, the "deliveryman" starts bringing up issues of ESP, and the resulting discussion really brings the book down to amateur level. Again, if this weren't Dilbert's creator, no publisher would have considered it.

Rating:
Summary: Never taken a high-school philosophy class....?
Review: Oh please. What was it the book would say it would do? Spin our brains around or something? This book could have been a 10th-grade philosophy student's final essay. The ideas in this book are so old, so trite, that frankly it just restates questions philosophical questions that smart bored twelve-year olds have already asked.

"Do we have free will? Well, if God knows everything, doesn't He know what we're going to do next?"

Crickey, what a good question!

"Woah, woah, but get this one: If God knows everything, doesn't He know what HE is going to do next???"

Wow! My brain is spinning around!

Seriously though. If this were aimed as side-reading to a highschool freshman's introduction to philosophy, there would be no problem in writing such trite. But to market this book as containing original thought, as one that will make you think, either implies that Adam's truely thought he was on to something new here, in which case he ought to have taken more philosophy classes, or that it was over-hyped both by him and his agent.

Rating:
Summary: Could have been much better. Take a lesson from Sagan
Review: When I heard of this book, I was hoping that Adams, world-class humorist that he is, had with "God's Debris" written a profound and amusing treatment of Omega Point theory - the idea that everything that has ever happened will be replicated and perfected in some distant, heavenly future. Having years ago read Frank Tippler's "The Physics of Immortality", I felt that a popularization of the subject of this dry, voluminous, yet thought-provoking book was long overdue. As a longtime Dilbert fan, I would have liked nothing better than for Adams to write one.

For about the first third of "God's Debris", I though he might have. His forward warned not to hold the story up to excessive factual scrutiny, and "Physics of God-Dust" promised showed promise to get into some cool speculation about quatitized time and quantum gravity. Alas, this promise was never fulfilled. By the time Mr. Avatar began discoursing on the physical non-existence of light and the instantaneous effect of changes in gravity - ideas at odds with the last century of experimental Physics - all hope had fled. And, this book having only the thinnest narrative framework, the events and characters created only to present its ideas, when those ideas become unignorably wrong, the reader is left with nothing. In fairness, the information on social skills in "Relationships" is sound and worthwhile, but occurring as it does nearly at the end of the book, it was a struggle to regain interest.

This book is one of the rare ones that I had to put down several times, not to reflect upon, but because its failings were so painful.

The pity is that this needn't have been. A competent physicist could have marked this book up with a sprinkling of additions and corrections that could have kept it on track, and made it into a book that would stir the imagination of more experienced and technically literate readers, while not leading less experienced ones into a grab-bag of archaic intellectual pitfalls. When Carl Sagan, no slouch scientifically, wrote "Contact", he invited folk like Kip Thorne to proofread it, the result being a bestselling novel with practically no scientific holes.

The idea of a "5th level human being", a step above the 4th level ("skepticism ... good working grasp on truth, thanks to science, your logic , and your senses) is deeply intriguing. To be convincing, however, such a character must evidence that he has acquired the "good working grasp" skills of the previous level of consciousness. Otherwise, the ancient wise man comes across as an enthusiastic but naive youth. A "man who knows everything" would always include the Michelson-Morley experiment in an explanation of Special Relativity, and be numerate enough to avoid statements like "if you flip a coin often enough, eventually it will come up heads a thousand times in a row" (The odds of 1,000 consecutive heads is 1/2^1000 =~ 1/10^301. If every person presently alive on earth flipped a trillion coins a second until all conventional matter has vanished from the universe (10^124 sec), the chance of one person getting 1,000 heads in a row is still worse than 1:10^270 !)

Rating:
Summary: Intellectual enlightment for the common man.
Review: What a great read. Scott Adams has produced a book that gives much food-for-thought about a presence of a god or lack thereof. It is the perfect introduction to his most recent release, "The Religion War" (a continuation of the story)

Both of these stories ask simple questions that invoke the reader into pondering the possiblities. We can only hope that Adams can contribute to a new age of intellectual enlightenment.

Everyone should read this book.

Rating:
Summary: You must buy this book
Review: As a proud DNRC member I must say that it was more than worth the pittance I paid. Now I truly know why I appreciate Dilbert so much. I'm no Doctor of Philosophy but I've always enjoyed epistemology. This masterpiece definitely delivers in that area. Thank you Mr. Adams for giving me permission to remain an agnostic.

As far as theories go all theories have presuppositions so nothing is certain. Those who claim to know are pretty arrogant. But how does one evaluate a theory then if by definition it can't be proven? The answer is simple, a theory is good if it provides a useful perspective. This theory definitely provides a useful perspective. Useful by whose definition? Mine of course.

What's my point? Well it's that this book is a good read. It prompts one to think, it's a nice way to spend a couple hours, and it also provides some good laughs even though the subject matter is pretty heavy. Here's a profound thought for you, I wish you luck in attaining level 5.

Rating:
Summary: Teacher's resource?
Review: This was an interesting book, but does not stick in my mind quite the way the author suggests it might. I think this book might be best read by 9th/10th graders as it may present some new or interesting perspectives to them. (It's also short and a fun read).

Rating:
Summary: Really funny and fun too
Review: If you find you can't laugh while reading this book, no amount
of explaining will help you. Like most jokes, explaining them
makes it *not* funny. But the next time you hear something
similar you might get it.

I do think Mr. Adams needs more practice writing. This was good,
but definitly an "early work". Most chapters had me laughing,
and on a few it took me several minutes to stop so I could keep
reading. Telling a joke verbally and telling it on paper require
different timing, and I think he's almost got it.

I'm looking forward to more books from Mr. Adams - I'm pretty
sure he will improve with practice. God's Debris is easy to
read, fun and really funny.

Rating:
Summary: definately one of the best books i've ever read
Review: i think the reviewers who give this book low ratings are either taking the book or themselves way too seriously! the author practically provides a disclaimer that he is not a scientist and that his scientific theories should not be taken seriously. but still some reviewers insist on showing how big their brains are by picking apart the very same theories that Adams admits are not sound from the very start.
i think that a great explanation as to why the "scientific" theories were even included was offered by another reviewer down the list. i.e perhaps the incorrect science was included purposely to challenge the reader to research these scientific ideas for themselves. thereby Adams would be, in a weird way, tricking people into becoming more knowledgeable. seems like the sort of thing Andy Kauffman would have found hilarious.
but the real jem of this book was the meaning of the term "god's debris". this was the real reason why the book was written. the importance of all the rest of the content is secondary. i don't want to ruin it for anyone who hasn't read it, but the explanation is brilliant and truly unique! i've never read any explanation for the existance of god and the universe that was so profound and yet so obvious! i'd recommend this book to anyone and everyone who just enjoys reading new ideas and philisophical concepts! excluding those who take themselves too seriously. they can stick to math textbooks.