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God's Debris
from the sweep-sweep-sweep dept.
| God's Debris | |
| author | Scott Adams |
| pages | 128 |
| publisher | Andrew McMeel, Publishers |
| rating | 9 |
| reviewer | mblumber |
| ISBN | 0740721909 |
| summary | An existential thought experiment in the form of a dialogue. |
I like reading books that make me think, but not in the same way that I think when I'm at work or doing homework. When reading for pleasure, I want something that at first glance is so strange it's absurd, but at closer examination makes a tremendous amount of sense. That depth is the essence of Scott Adams' God's Debris, A Thought Experiment.
Adams is not known for writing super-intelligent commentaries on life, at least ones without a punchline or visual gag. Creator of Dilbert, his writing to this point has focused upon the world of cubicles and shifting organizational charts where engineers and management ('induhviduals' as he often calls them) square off in battles where the engineers are right and management is wrong. Very straightforward, enjoyable reading, but nothing compared to his latest work.
God's Debris was first published in May of 1999 as an e-book. It is sold by Digital Owl and can be purchased as bits for $4.95 or in hardcover wherever books are sold. The story focuses on both the physical laws of nature (relativity, gravity, the origin of the universe) and the psychology behind religion. The story is told by a fairly educated narrator talking to an unseen second character who seems to hold a deep understanding of the universe. As I read more, I found my own questions being raised by the narrator, and addressed by the other character. This arrangement makes for a very strange read, but the unusual format enhances the overall reading experience.
This book second guesses everything one learns in school, and comes close to succeeding. I cannot think of a single statement in the book that can be proven incorrect. To a college-educated reader like me, some of the assertions may seem totally ridiculous -- the problem is that they make just as much sense as Einstein's relativistic physics. In the introduction to the book, Adams observes the fact that ' ... the simplest explanation usually sounds right and is far more convincing than any complicated explanation could hope to be.'
The protagonist makes some very peculiar assertions throughout; My favorite is a statement he makes about the true nature of gravity, specifically that it is fueled by probability. The idea his advances is that all matter is constantly switching in and out of existence, and that is how objects move. The reason that matter appears to be attracted to other matter is that, according to the rules of probability, each piece of matter will inherently appear closer to massive objects the next time it comes back into existence. If you didn't understand that, and you'd like to, then you should read the book.
If you are a religious person, I can assure that this book will be disturbing. Although not told from an atheist point of view, the protagonist rejects the traditional view of religion. There are references to religious beliefs as 'delusions' only intended to allow the less-enlightened to live in relative peace in a world which has little. Taken as a whole, the views expressed can best be summarized ala Jesse Ventura, that 'organized religion is a crutch for the weak-minded.'
I'm purposely avoiding going into detail about the contents of the book. This is not only because a small piece doesn't make sense by itself, but also because most of the fun is in the discovery. Reading this book, you feel as if you are the first and only person to truly understand the world. I wouldn't want to spoil that for you. It's only 132 pages, broken up into very short chapters, and it can be read on your lunch break. I highly recommend it.
You can purchase this book at Fatbrain. Do you want to see your book review on Slashdot? Please take a look at the book review guidelines first.
I read this book (Score:1, Funny)
Organised religion quote (Score:4, Informative)
Grab.
Slight difference (Score:5, Insightful)
The former is a system of beliefs which one comes to based on one's own experiences and understanding.
The latter is an external system, often forced on individuals, without any thought on their own part.
I happen to be a very "religious" person myself, but I'll be the first to admit that a huge percentage of people filling our churches, synagogues, mosques or whatever are there simply to be led around by the nose without having to really wrestle with the deeper questions of life and their existence.
In that sense, yes - "Organized Religion" is certainly an Opiate.
I'd have a hard time taking this book seriously (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I'd have a hard time taking this book seriously (Score:5, Insightful)
Satire?? Dilbert is one of the sorriest attempts at satire ever. What's Dilbert's basic message? "Bosses are stupid, but we all have to do what they say anyway, unless we can trick them by being lazy or fucking up."
Folks, wake up and smell the capitalism. Real satire inspires you to action, it twists in your mind until its meaning is communicated, it disturbs and outrages. Real satire has teeth, it draws blood. If you want satire read Jonathan Swift: [art-bin.com] His satire had a goal, a purpose. He wrote to tear down empires, to destroy human stupidity.
Scott Adams has an entirely different goal: to become rich as Croesus [harvard.edu] by exploiting human stupidity and pandering to it. Pathetic.
it was worth a few bucks to read it, but... (Score:1)
If you like the book, I would also recommend getting The Celestine Prophecy (can't think of the author at the moment). It can be a little preachy at times, but overall has some very neat ideas in it.
I bought this book when it was in e-form (Score:3, Interesting)
READ IT.
That is all.
I liked it. (Score:1)
On correct use of apostrophes (Score:1, Offtopic)
Very few people ever get this right, so get a good look and do everyone a favor by not modding it down.
If a name ends in an 's' (Scott Adams, for example), the apostrophe should appear after the end of the word.
Correctly written: "Scott Adams' God's Debris."
Adams is smug (Score:4, Interesting)
Gravity (Score:2, Interesting)
It's hard to make any sort of statements on a book I haven't read... But that Gravity quote seemed sort of silly. It doesn't actually explain why matter inherently comes back into existence closer to large objects. Of course, there might be a lot more to the argument-- I wish more of it had been posted.
One might as well say that at an extraordinarily small scale, matter and energy actually consist of swarms of tiny carrier pigeons whose mating instincts are responsible for what we see as the peculiar behavior of the universe. Since nobody can really determine whether this is true or not, and the net result is that the explanation is as good as any other... Well, we should keep it in mind, I suppose, in case we ever find some way to prove or disprove it. But isn't there some old quote about a stampede of Zebras?
Wacky Gravity? (Score:2)
as far as religion goes (from a Christian) (Score:5, Insightful)
As for the science vs. religion, I never understood the hypocricy of people who get angry about the past of religion's stupidity towards scientific discovery and the scientific method, yet then turn around and pull the same crap. It is true that many use religion, philosphy, money, relationships, sex, and other 'things' (including drugs, porn, video games, food, excercise, etc) in order to not have to deal and cope with life, but that no more makes them automatically 'wrong' than justification make it right.
I get rather frustrated at people who while claim to be faithful Christians, they get very angry if you question them. (note that here I mean question, as in seeking to learn and analyze... NOT when you are obviously picking a fight (e.g. "How does this work?" as opposed to "Why would anyone use that?!")) The bible teaches us to question our own reality and our beliefs, otherwise we will never really have faith. a sword is tempered and folded under intense heat and pressure, over time and with blood, sweat and tears... if you just poured in the alloy in a mold you would merely have a very heavy and fragile (relatively) stick.
I personally have never seen any dichotomy between science and religion... any religion that I am familiar with. However it is hypocritical zealots (Sept 11, anyone?) that are the problem. Ghandi once said that the Christian Bible was the best manual for how to live. While he personally did not accept Jesus, he understood the logic of what the Bible taught (thats the theology part).
oops, this is way too long. Whether it is religion, politics, or your choice of shoes... always try to take a logical and rational outlook instead of an emotionally reaction.
This is my opinion, and it can be taken for thought, or discared... but it is still my opinion. I at least still have that right.
What if ... (Score:1)
A crutch for the weak-minded? (Score:1, Troll)
A little Marxist-Deist humor. (Score:5, Funny)
Karl Marx dies and shows up at the gates of heaven to be met by Saint Peter.
"Name?" asks Peter.
"Marx, Karl Marx." replies the famous author.
"Hmm," says Peter to himself, "why do I know that name?"
"I am Marx," Marx said, beaming with pride, "founder of socialism and the driving force behind the communist ideal called Marxism."
"I see," Peter said. "I'll have to check with God."
So Peter rushes off to confer with God. God hears the name Marx and immediately a look of disgust infects His face. "Marx?" God says, "He's nothing but a trouble maker. Send him down to hell."
So Peter happily signs the appropriate forms and deports Karl Marx to Satan's fiery hell.
Some time later, a free trade agreement is forged between Heaven and Hell. The deal is hailed by all to be a great economic leap forward that would revitalize both struggling economies. But soon after the treaty, God realizes that Heaven is no longer receiving any products
from Hell. So he sends Saint Peter down to investigate.
"Well?" asks Peter of Satan, "What's the hold up? We have an agreement!"
Satan shrugs his shoulders, exasperated. "It's that Marx fellow," Satan
replied. "Ever since he got down here, all we've had are strikes and labour demands. Productivity has dropped to zero!"
"So?" Peter asks, "What would you have us do?"
"Take him back. Take Marx back to Heaven, and I guarantee productivity will sky rocket!"
So Peter agreed, on God's behalf, to accept Karl Marx back to Heaven.
Some time later Satan realizes that Hell has not received any orders for product from Heaven. In fact, very little communication at all has leaked from Up Above. So, concerned for the economic welfare of Hell, he makes a trip to Heaven.
"Peter! Peter, are you there?" Satan demands.
"Yes, what is it?" Peter answers.
"What's the hold up? What about the flow of trade?"
"Oh I'm sorry," Peter said, "We have decided to adopt a Marxist isolationist stance. We are an intrinsic self-governed body that is now based on the needs of the prolitariate. It is our opinion that this free trade agreement only benefits the bourgeois."
"What?!" Satan was furious. "I demand to speak to God!"
Peter's eyebrow is raised in confusion. "Who?"
my $55 copy (Score:5, Interesting)
Several months ago I paid for and downloaded the DigitalOwl TitleVision ebook version of "God's Debris". I paid $5 for it.
I also downloaded the reader, installed it, and read the book, which was good. However, I didn't like the reader at all. So, using a screen capture utility, I took screen shots of all 90 pages of the book, saving them as .PGMs. Then I booted into Linux (I'd had to be in Windows to run the reader) and used gOCR and a shell script to do initial OCR conversion of all the images. Finally I spent a while with grep and a spell checker cleaning everything up. Overall, this took me about five hours.
Now I've got a 143KB ASCII text file with the same content as my 195KB encrypted .OWL file. I don't ever plan to give anyone a copy of my plain text version; I like Scott Adams and want him to get paid for his work.
If I assume that a professional "image -> OCR text -> corrected text" conversion specialist gets paid $10/hour, then the five hours it took me incurred about $50 in labor cost, bringing the total price to around $55. Not as cheap as the dead-tree version (<$15), but easier to grab quotes from. And of course I now have some valuable skills which I could use to help out Project Gutenberg [gutenberg.org].
I'm sure what I did would be considered illegal by Digital Owl (though probably not by Scott Adams). I'm just glad I won't have to try to hunt down a copy of the TitleVision viewer fifteen years from now just to read the book again.
And I'm glad that there's now a paper version so that most other people can obtain a less legally-encumbered version without having to do the grunt work I did.
Science must be testable (Score:3, Interesting)
There are lots of neat ideas out there to explain various physical phenomena, but its hard to come up for tests for many of these... How would you test to see if matter is popping in and out of existence? What do you mean by existence anyway? What exactly does the word matter mean?
My point is, scientific facts must be tested and verified by experiment. Sure there are lots of other ideas that can't be tested.... but these fall in the same realm as religion and require faith. The so called Copenhagen interpretation is a prime example of this.
The Copenhagen interpretation claims that wave functions in Quantum mechanics collapse because they are effected by being observed by an intelligent observer. Supposedly you can see this by taking a large number of observations of photons or electrons or whatever and seeing the 'spike' from the wave function collapse. But wait, statistic's Law of Large Numbers [uah.edu] says that if you take a large number of observations with random error you'll get this spike no matter what just because of the math - not because of some interaction between the particle and the observer.
For Scott Adams' earlier forays into this stuff, (Score:2, Insightful)
He should stick to cartoons about management, he's certainly good at that.
Gravity (Score:2, Insightful)
Although I haven't read God's Debris, claiming it all to be a matter of probability is less founded than the previous theory... as it doesn't even explain simple attraction well. "It happens just because... IT HAPPENS!" Then he goes off to claim religion is off base? At least religion has the benefit of involving non-testable topics. His pseudoscience has no such excuse.
So what? (Score:4, Interesting)
This book looks to be particularly dreadful, as it ignores the relative functional form of science. For instance, the review states that Adams believes that gravity is fueled by probability. It really doesn't matter whether he just made that up or it is the result of methodical analysis. Until Adams shows us how this 'new physics' can better send a rocket to Mars it is largely useless. Take a look at it this way. We have all sorts of alternative theories of gravity, most in an effort to reach a theory of Quantum Gravity. It each case, the authors try to find something that can be tested in a lab. For instance, we may generate black holes in the next generation of accelerators, and that will be interesting.
Some may invoke Thomas Kuhn and say I am being obstructionist. This is not the case. I am merely saying that it not so hard to write 128 of compelling fiction, and the fact that it is anti-establishment does not say anything about ir's correctness. It is true that many great discoveries were hard to believe. It is also true that most of these corrected severe defects in contemporary theory. We could not begin to simply explain the planets without Galileo. We could not explain black box radiation with Planck. We could not fully explain the planets without Einstein. Again, I want to see Adams tell us how to get to Mars faster.
I do have great respect for Adams. He is honest and straightforward about what he does and why he does it, much like Heinlein. He also has an ego bigger than Shatners, and it may be getting the best of him.
artists as philosophers (Score:3, Insightful)
now this may not be a sophisticated as a physicist, or your college certified philosopher, but it can be useful. Not everything will be spot on, that depending entirely on the insights of the author.
I for one, do not know what he would make of the guy who has offered a million dollar reward for evidence conclusively proving there is no afterlife [victorzammit.com].
But that is part of the fun of talking about things like this.
Scott Adams and E-Publishing (Score:5, Interesting)
At least one person who has written me about the exchange felt that I gave up. I didn't really give up-- in fact I hadn't intended it to become a drawn out argument in the first place. But by the end I felt I had reached the point of diminishing returns-- it was clear that Scott didn't want to be convinced. I decided that the real argument would be won in the court of public opinion-- which was why I felt it important to end on a (superficially) conciliatory note and get him to give me permission to publish the discussion. If I had taken the last word, I think it unlikely he would have let me post our exchange.
To be fair, Scott made two points that bear further consideration:
1) E-books are not identical to executable software.
2) If free file sharing is ubiquitous, people will steal when it's easier than buying.
I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but briefly I would respond to both points by saying that non-executable media such as books, movies, photographs, and music need to have a new distribution infrastructure put in place where buying is actually easier than stealing, and quite cheap for the end user. I believe the future of electronic distribution will lie not in increasingly Draconian legal and technical barriers that fight against the paying customer, but in the ubiquitous availability of micropayments that make enjoying creative content painless and subject to the Free Market. I believe Scott would point out that that system isn't here yet.
In another unpublished conversation, Scott credits e-publishing in this matter with enabling him to land his print-based book deal. He's happy with the outcome.
And if that's not enough Scott Adams for you... (Score:3, Informative)
It's bad, but bad enough to be funny, I guess. Or maybe not [livejournal.com].
print it to a file (Score:1)
time spent in doing that: more or less 15 minutes.
reason: having a backup copy of the book that can be kept in a safe place, sure that one day it could be used platform-independently.
Feynman, Einstein -- and Adams??? (Score:2, Insightful)
Richard Feynman [yahoo.com] was a physicist that had some interesting ideas on life.
Albert Einstein [yahoo.com] was a physicist that had some interesting ideas on life.
Douglas Adams [yahoo.com] had some interesting ideas on life, the universe, and everything.
Scott Adams is a cartoonist, with some really depressing and unfounded ideas about life.
Nuff said.
My crutch doesn't exist because I need it (Score:2, Interesting)
Just because I need and use a crutch does not mean the crutch doesn't exist.
If I had a son that was totally dependent on me and "needed" me as a "crutch", does that prove that I do not exist?
Why couldn't a God create beings that need him?
I think Scott Adams and others will find that no matter how "strong" minded someone becomes, the intelligence does not eliminate the need for religion. There are blue collar who do not believe in God, and there are scientists who do not believe in God, just as there are blue collar who do believe in God and scientists who do believe in God. Strong or weak mindedness has nothing to do with it.
Reminds me of Einstein's Dreams (Score:2)
The format's been done (Score:2, Informative)
Scott's doing nothing new format-wise, but I'd be interested in what he has to say. Much of it sounds like the stuff he wrote towards the end of The Dilbert Principle
I gave up on Dilbert...er....Scott Adams (Score:2, Funny)
Disprovable? (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, do you mean you applied tests to the statements and they were not disproved? Or do you mean there would be no possible way to disprove them? The latter case is called "nondisprovable" or "untestable". A theory that can't be tested is useless.
Missing the Point? (Score:1)
despite some of the faults I found in it's so-called science and logic, I still found it really enjoyable to read. It is definitely one of the better books that I have read in the past couple of years.
IMHO, the whole point of this book is try and get people to think 'outside of the box'. All too often people just accept what they see on the news/tv/newspaper or from 'subject experts' as fact, without bothering to think or do research for themselves.
Where would we be today if people just accepted the status-quo and there were no innovative or different ideas?
Scott is not trying to force the wacky views in this book on his readers. He is just trying to provoke thought and challenge the accepted norms.
In fact, I believe he even says something to this affect in the intro to the book.
Don't judge a book by it's cover... Or by it's Slashdot comments.
Misuse (Score:1, Interesting)
People commit murders all the time an account of such things as love and money; do you have a problem with those things as well? The fact that religion is often a motive for murder does not make religion in and of itself wrong or bad. Hinckley tried to kill Ronald Reagan for the sake of Jodie Foster. That does not mean Jodie Foster doesn't exist, nor does it mean the Jodie Foster Fan Club are inherently idiots.
I'd also like to point out that it was science and scientists that created those planes and buildings, not to mention those bombs, those poisonous gasses, those weaponized strains of virii, all those wonderful new ways to kill more efficiently and indiscriminantly. If we're going to attack the motive, let's not forget the method, too.
Cast the first stone, science.
"To a college-educated reader like me" (Score:2)
I guess proof reading isn't one of the skills taught in college.
My thoughts on Adams (Score:2, Insightful)
Whilst his jokes about "padding his material" were funny in the first book, the humor has faded as the joke is repeated in later books. Possibly because I've also had the realization that this joke is not the only thing being repeated. To be honest, the whole "philosophy" is simply repeated.
After thinking about this for a while, I've come to the conclusion that Scott Adams is simply a lucky guy who stumbled upon the idea that depicting the inanities everpresent in Corporate America in a comic strip would touch a certain angst-ridden nerve in a fair amount of the population and be fairly popular.
And it was. And so he set about exploiting it to make more money.
All of which is well and good. But it doesn't make him an intelligent person or some whose theories should be given extra credence because of who he is. He's just a guy with the right idea at the right time.
Let's not turn him into Feynman or Socrates, OK?
Don't Take It So Seriously (Score:2, Insightful)
Many readers of God's Debris apparently seem to think that Scott Adams actually believes all the stuff he put in the book. Ok, so maybe he has a big ego, but even he is not that uneducated.
He did ask people not to blame him for the words that a fictional character said in his prologue, but some readers chose not to take that bit seriously, even though they then proceeded to take the rest of the book seriously, and find holes in it.
Of course there are holes in, but that wasn't the point. The point was to make you think. And in that the book certainly succeeds. In parts he does sound like he is lecturing like a professor, but most of the book is just a ploy to get the grey matter going.
So take it all with a grain of salt, pick out the bits you think are good, and don't let the other bits upset you.
Check out Theseus and the Minotaur [logicmazes.com]
Take the book for what it is (Score:2, Interesting)
And to all the people lamenting Scott Adams' apparent lack of originality or creativity, this is sure gosh-darned creative.
I plan to give it a read, just because it sounds like a nice distraction.
Peace.
Been there done that. (Score:1)
Adams doesn't cover any new ground here, and is simply regurgitating other people's ideas and opinions in a mediocre story format.
There are several connections he makes that are mildly interesting, but skips many other connections and observations. For the most part this book is not worth the time or money. I purchased it looking forward to the promised "brain spinning in my head" and instead was bored stiff throughout most of it.
I do enjoy some of his Dilbert books, "The Joy of Work"
Re:Another day... (Score:2)
If you honestly consider Scott Adams a geek icon, you have some serious problems.
(now if you're talking about the Scott Adams that helped define the interactive fiction genre, that's something different, but scratching out badly drawn cartoons for 10 years until they're about as funny as Garfield doesn't qualify one for cultural icon status).
Re:Another day... (Score:1)
Besides, if something's not proven, why do you believe it? "Intelligent" people might simply dislike taking idiocies for granted.
Re:Another day... (Score:1)
Re:Another day... (Score:3, Insightful)
Without having read the book, it sounds like the whole point is that these wacko theories, while strange, are just as good as any other theory to explain phenomena we don't understand.
I suppose you could say that God reaches out and pushes massive bodies together. Or that invisible chewing gum binds things together. It may well be that the "truth" (if we ever discover it) will be just as strange. Certainly quantum theory is bizarre and, if people I respect didn't keep telling me it was true, I wouldn't beleive it.
It doesn't sound like Adams is a an anti-religious zealot at all, but rather somebody who's very aware of the limits of scientific knowledge.
Re:take out the fucking smart quotes (Score:1)
Dónde aprendió usted el español? ;-p
Re:Another day... (Score:3, Insightful)
science freely admits that it doesn't know what caused the big bang explosion and probably never will.
Not knowing is no reason to pick up the closest fairy tale at hand and go parading it around. If the choice is between the confortable security of myth or an uneasy yet honest lack of knowledge give me that latter.
Re:Another day... (Score:1)
cause the big bang.
True, but science has made lots of thories as
to why it happened. Including:
1. Time began at the big bang sigularity.
2. Richard Tollman's repeating big bang and
big crunch oscillating universe. Now invalidated
by Entropy consideration.
3. The Ekpyrotic hypothesis. The big bang was caused by a collision between two empty 3+time dimensional in a 4+time dimension
space.
3. A cyclic universe version of the above, ok with entropy [lanl.gov]
4. Baby universes bud a universe into a new
big bang from the insides of black holes, Lee Smolin.
5. Stephen Hawking No boundary hypothesis.
6. Timeless 4d space, tunnels into spacetime
Of couse we have little chances of proving these
thories at present. However they can make subtle
difference to astrophysics for example to fluctionas in the cosmic background radition. Don't assumption because the isn't a accepted
theory at this point, that there never will be
one.
Re:So what is new if some hates God? (Score:1)
For all of you out there who think God is not watching, you are in the dark, and are in for a big unpleasant suprise.
Hm, sure you're not thinking of Santa Claus? The way I remember it, he was the guy in charge of the whole naughty/nice thing. Or was that L. Ron Hubbard? Joseph Smith? Muhammed? David Koresh? Jim Jones? Bob [subgenius.com]?
When you leave the land of evidence and logic for the land of Word From On High, you've really got to trust the person who tells you what that Word happens to be.
Why should we trust you?