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11corvus11's review against another edition
3.0
Brian Greene is by far one of my most favorite science writers and speakers. You can always tell that he is extremely passionate about education and trying to make very difficult to understand concepts more accessible to the layman, and more fun. His books often have a range within them where readers can skip around to an extent based on their education level. "Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe" has a similar formula, but is different in some major ways. It is by far Greene's most philosophical book that I have read and includes the most diverse range of subjects and discussions. Sometimes it works for him, but it pains me to say that sometimes, it really doesn't. I was very excited when I saw that Greene was putting out a new book. It has been 9 years since his last (which I also enjoyed) and I was looking forward to all of the scientific discoveries and updates that have happened since then. He does do a bit of this in gratifying ways. If the book were cut down to about the size of a novella, it would have been great.
The book starts off strong, the first few chapters capturing concepts that you expect from the title and description of the book. It is accessibly written and it made me familiar enough with things like entropy. This allowed me to understand what another reviewer meant by their witty comment that the book unfortunately increases in entropy as it progresses. The book becomes an odd sandwich where the beginning third and end section are in line with what the book promotes itself to be. In the middle, we get Brian Greene's musings on different subjects that interest him outside of his field of expertise. Some of them loosely align with the book's focus and demonstrate some understanding of the topics, others do not. The most enjoyable parts are Greene's writing style and his expressions of passion and wonder about the world. The biggest flaw in this section is that it is not well researched enough.
I can't fault anyone working in academia too much for this. Requirements for more and more specialization and the sheer amount of information out there makes it very difficult to adequately consume enough about other fields. This is why I wish Greene would have left these sections out. Other reviewers with a different education than me expressed issues with his discussion of evolution and other topics, so I am going to focus more on one I have read a ton about. I have both scientific issues and issues of mere disappointment in Greene's discussion of other animals. Greene is an ethical vegan who went vegetarian as a child and then vegan after a visit to Farm Sanctuary in NY. Now, there are plenty of ethical vegans who still struggle to understand other animals, often viewing them all as a uniform group of innocent voiceless children, which is far from the vast and complex realities of other animals lives and experiences. I guess I expected someone with Greene's intellect and ethics to give us a bit more in his discussions of nonhuman animals. I think he's either the kind of vegan that doesn't care if anyone else is or he is afraid- like many vegans- of coming off as the crazy, preachy, mood ruiner. Nonvegans often respond by shutting down or attacking vegans- even the most polite, passive, and educated ones. This might throw a wrench in the gears of his intention to make his books accessible to as many people as possible. But, when I saw him veering off into other directions, I really hoped he would approach discussions of other animals with more care and use his platform in a way that was more in line with his ethics.
So, what exactly did I take issue with? He refers to other animals as "it" which is very common in speciesist human language, but I still always try to point it out. His discussion of animal language and communication shows a very outdated understanding of the subject. It is true that human language is unique. What he missed is more recent information, a long history of research, newer theories, and an expansion of the definition of language suggest a likelihood that many other animals do have language, we just aren't adept at listening to or understanding it (despite some of them actually learning our languages.) Some of his quotes from long dead scientists are ancient and even downright demeaning. He also highlights extremely cruel nonhuman animal studies from the past with excited passion while making no mention of the ethical horrors or the point of view of the animals tortured and killed in said studies. From the average science writer writing a very specific type of book, I may expect this. But, in something this philosophical written by an ethical vegan, I wanted more from him. I kept waiting and waiting and the moment of gratification never came. I could write a ton more on this in detail, but I've already digressed enough.
The last third-ish of the book gets back to his area of expertise, which was more enjoyable. It was still a bit more disorganized than he usually is, but it still taught me a lot and I made a lot of highlights. It is also the most difficult to understand section for a layman. He packs a lot of information into a small amount of space which left me wishing that he used the space in the center of the sandwich to elaborate more on what was at the end.
Overall, I don't regret reading this book by any means. It's just definitely not his best. So, if you are new to Greene, don't start here. Even if his older works have an outdated section here or there, you'll still learn a lot more from "The Elegant Universe" than you will from this book. If you're familiar with Greene, you may want to skip around a bit.
This was also posted to my blog.
The book starts off strong, the first few chapters capturing concepts that you expect from the title and description of the book. It is accessibly written and it made me familiar enough with things like entropy. This allowed me to understand what another reviewer meant by their witty comment that the book unfortunately increases in entropy as it progresses. The book becomes an odd sandwich where the beginning third and end section are in line with what the book promotes itself to be. In the middle, we get Brian Greene's musings on different subjects that interest him outside of his field of expertise. Some of them loosely align with the book's focus and demonstrate some understanding of the topics, others do not. The most enjoyable parts are Greene's writing style and his expressions of passion and wonder about the world. The biggest flaw in this section is that it is not well researched enough.
I can't fault anyone working in academia too much for this. Requirements for more and more specialization and the sheer amount of information out there makes it very difficult to adequately consume enough about other fields. This is why I wish Greene would have left these sections out. Other reviewers with a different education than me expressed issues with his discussion of evolution and other topics, so I am going to focus more on one I have read a ton about. I have both scientific issues and issues of mere disappointment in Greene's discussion of other animals. Greene is an ethical vegan who went vegetarian as a child and then vegan after a visit to Farm Sanctuary in NY. Now, there are plenty of ethical vegans who still struggle to understand other animals, often viewing them all as a uniform group of innocent voiceless children, which is far from the vast and complex realities of other animals lives and experiences. I guess I expected someone with Greene's intellect and ethics to give us a bit more in his discussions of nonhuman animals. I think he's either the kind of vegan that doesn't care if anyone else is or he is afraid- like many vegans- of coming off as the crazy, preachy, mood ruiner. Nonvegans often respond by shutting down or attacking vegans- even the most polite, passive, and educated ones. This might throw a wrench in the gears of his intention to make his books accessible to as many people as possible. But, when I saw him veering off into other directions, I really hoped he would approach discussions of other animals with more care and use his platform in a way that was more in line with his ethics.
So, what exactly did I take issue with? He refers to other animals as "it" which is very common in speciesist human language, but I still always try to point it out. His discussion of animal language and communication shows a very outdated understanding of the subject. It is true that human language is unique. What he missed is more recent information, a long history of research, newer theories, and an expansion of the definition of language suggest a likelihood that many other animals do have language, we just aren't adept at listening to or understanding it (despite some of them actually learning our languages.) Some of his quotes from long dead scientists are ancient and even downright demeaning. He also highlights extremely cruel nonhuman animal studies from the past with excited passion while making no mention of the ethical horrors or the point of view of the animals tortured and killed in said studies. From the average science writer writing a very specific type of book, I may expect this. But, in something this philosophical written by an ethical vegan, I wanted more from him. I kept waiting and waiting and the moment of gratification never came. I could write a ton more on this in detail, but I've already digressed enough.
The last third-ish of the book gets back to his area of expertise, which was more enjoyable. It was still a bit more disorganized than he usually is, but it still taught me a lot and I made a lot of highlights. It is also the most difficult to understand section for a layman. He packs a lot of information into a small amount of space which left me wishing that he used the space in the center of the sandwich to elaborate more on what was at the end.
Overall, I don't regret reading this book by any means. It's just definitely not his best. So, if you are new to Greene, don't start here. Even if his older works have an outdated section here or there, you'll still learn a lot more from "The Elegant Universe" than you will from this book. If you're familiar with Greene, you may want to skip around a bit.
This was also posted to my blog.
bupdaddy's review against another edition
5.0
Thank you, Brian Greene. I never thought a book about cosmological physics would help get me closer than books by Daniel Dennett, Stephen Pinker and others to getting consciousness, but here we are.
If you want to understand anything, have Brian Greene write a book about it. General relativity, quantum physics, existential dread, you name it.
So what's this book about? It's the universe's life story, and the life story of how life and self-awareness came to be, and what happens for the next 10^10^68 years. And it's fascinating.
If you want to understand anything, have Brian Greene write a book about it. General relativity, quantum physics, existential dread, you name it.
So what's this book about? It's the universe's life story, and the life story of how life and self-awareness came to be, and what happens for the next 10^10^68 years. And it's fascinating.
clarke11235's review against another edition
4.0
Perhaps alternatively titled “Deep Thoughts, by Brian Greene.” At times deeply thought provoking, at other times beyond my capability to imagine, and at other times simply uninteresting. Overall a great read.
blairconrad's review against another edition
2.0
An interesting start, through about 3 chapters. I enjoyed the explanation of entropy; best I've seen. Then it bogged down fast. Greene seemed to want to talk about disciplines other than his own, which is fine, and he remains an engaging writer, but I've read other books on evolution and psychology and whatnot, often by the authors he cited, so didn't get much out of the middle bit. The promised connection to particle physics never even emerged, as far as I could tell. Frustrated, I read other reviews here, and taking a hint from them, skipped to the penultimate chapter, mostly about evaporating black holes, enjoyed it, and then closed the book.
mattbgold's review against another edition
3.0
Doesn't really offer any unique perspectives, but overall full of elegant explanations. I particularly enjoyed the ones about gravity's role in entropy, how metabolism works, and some of the speculations on the evolutionary value of dreaming and endowing our surroundings with agency. I do wish that this book was more self-aware of it's philosophical assumptions / ideology, something I absolutely loved about "The Big Picture" by Sean Carroll. I also wasn't into the sensationalist account of the Boltzmann brain scenario - something all too common in pop science books.
*Begin potentially uninformed rant* -- The idea that we actually need to explain why we shouldn't all be Boltzmann brains strikes me as a fun but ultimately silly idea taken seriously, considering the sheer magnitude of unknown ways to produce an exactly particular configuration of particles. First of all it seems to me that you'd be far better off waiting for a nebula to fluctuate into existence that given time would coalesce into a solar system capable of evolving a brain, than to wait for a brain to fluctuate into existence on its own. Far more particles, yes - but considering that the configuration, exact position, and orientation of particles would not matter and generally the vastly higher amount of wiggle room - far higher entropy. And what's a few billion years of natural selection on the timescales of Boltzmann brains? How should "moments of conscious experience" be quantified anyway if we're going to start treating it statistically. It's not at all clear to me that a Boltzmann brain that is conscious for a nanosecond should be given the same weight as a brain sustained in an environment conscious for a lifetime. But that aside - surely there would be other even higher entropy fluctuations that would produce perfectly optimized nanoscale molecular brain-building machines. Using natural selection as an example, it's easier to build up to complexity from a simple starting point than to get a fully assembled Boeing airplane from a whirlwind in a junkyard. And from a probabilistic standpoint - any fluctuation capable of building multiple brains has that much more improbability to work with. The natural answer to all of this is that Boltzmann brains are just a fun thought experiment at the intersection of entropy and vast timescales - but one that pretty quickly breaks down under the weight of its unknowns.
**End rant**
*Begin potentially uninformed rant* -- The idea that we actually need to explain why we shouldn't all be Boltzmann brains strikes me as a fun but ultimately silly idea taken seriously, considering the sheer magnitude of unknown ways to produce an exactly particular configuration of particles. First of all it seems to me that you'd be far better off waiting for a nebula to fluctuate into existence that given time would coalesce into a solar system capable of evolving a brain, than to wait for a brain to fluctuate into existence on its own. Far more particles, yes - but considering that the configuration, exact position, and orientation of particles would not matter and generally the vastly higher amount of wiggle room - far higher entropy. And what's a few billion years of natural selection on the timescales of Boltzmann brains? How should "moments of conscious experience" be quantified anyway if we're going to start treating it statistically. It's not at all clear to me that a Boltzmann brain that is conscious for a nanosecond should be given the same weight as a brain sustained in an environment conscious for a lifetime. But that aside - surely there would be other even higher entropy fluctuations that would produce perfectly optimized nanoscale molecular brain-building machines. Using natural selection as an example, it's easier to build up to complexity from a simple starting point than to get a fully assembled Boeing airplane from a whirlwind in a junkyard. And from a probabilistic standpoint - any fluctuation capable of building multiple brains has that much more improbability to work with. The natural answer to all of this is that Boltzmann brains are just a fun thought experiment at the intersection of entropy and vast timescales - but one that pretty quickly breaks down under the weight of its unknowns.
**End rant**
jdintr's review against another edition
4.0
In the beginning there was one. One and only one.
And then. Suddenly. There was everything: numbers everywhere, from the infinite to the infinitesimal, an rapid expansion of numbers that all fit into one, well, Universe--the only idea big enough to contain them all.
That's the story that Brian Greene tells in Until the End of Time: a story of numbers and how physicists' have used ever-more precise measurements to trace time back to One and to extrapolate what will happen, eventually, when numbers won't matter anymore.
Greene is an engaging writer: the best at his craft of explaining challenging mathematical and physical complexities. Like many science writers, he skillfully uses analogy to explain what seems explainable.
I had a harder time accepting Greene's assertion that humans were mere random collections of particles and that events in an individual's life were what I would call "happenstance" and he would call randomness. When nothing is predictable, it can also mean that nothing is intentional, and I still treasure that aspect of my humanity if not my role in nature.
His thoughts on death and the afterlife are better explained. Every chapter was fascinating, but I would recommend reading the final chapter two or three times to really get to the bottom of what Greene is trying to say.
It's complicated. In many ways it's much easier to believe in a Garden with a talking serpent and forbidden fruit, than to live in a world of numbers and randomness that Greene so aptly describes. But we need to understand Greene's world and hope that the myth/stories catch up to the numbers, if not with him, then eventually.
And then. Suddenly. There was everything: numbers everywhere, from the infinite to the infinitesimal, an rapid expansion of numbers that all fit into one, well, Universe--the only idea big enough to contain them all.
That's the story that Brian Greene tells in Until the End of Time: a story of numbers and how physicists' have used ever-more precise measurements to trace time back to One and to extrapolate what will happen, eventually, when numbers won't matter anymore.
Greene is an engaging writer: the best at his craft of explaining challenging mathematical and physical complexities. Like many science writers, he skillfully uses analogy to explain what seems explainable.
I had a harder time accepting Greene's assertion that humans were mere random collections of particles and that events in an individual's life were what I would call "happenstance" and he would call randomness. When nothing is predictable, it can also mean that nothing is intentional, and I still treasure that aspect of my humanity if not my role in nature.
His thoughts on death and the afterlife are better explained. Every chapter was fascinating, but I would recommend reading the final chapter two or three times to really get to the bottom of what Greene is trying to say.
It's complicated. In many ways it's much easier to believe in a Garden with a talking serpent and forbidden fruit, than to live in a world of numbers and randomness that Greene so aptly describes. But we need to understand Greene's world and hope that the myth/stories catch up to the numbers, if not with him, then eventually.
pitosalas's review against another edition
4.0
Really interesting but went a little off the rails with speculation into truly the end of time. Often but not always did a good job of explaining some very technical topics.
psurooster's review against another edition
3.0
First and final 1/3 of this book: 5 stars, typical Greene. Middle 1/3: 1 star. His overview of neuroscience, language, religion, and humanity adds little and isn't worth the time. Read Sapiens or Origin Story for a better version of that section. You can also just go watch the YT video 'Timelapse of the Far Future' to get the high-level of the most interesting content of this book but in 20min. If you find yourself wanting details after watching that, come back and read this.
milandeep's review against another edition
4.0
Some science nerds have found this book disappointing. They do not want to see a physicist delving into the realms of philosophy, worse humanities. Everyone wants to separate the subjects. Very few people like a multi-disciplinary approach to reading or learning. I've always like reading books about science and when science mixes with other fields, draws unexpected connections, it shows the universe as a whole – how atoms make up the cells and thus our bodies, how entropy explains the disintegration of things, people, society, and the cosmos, how evolution can explain behavior, religion, myths, beauty, art and music.
Brian Greene provides a concise history of the cosmos though he also goes into some esoteric topics. A very few physicists would like to speculate about the evolution of the mind and the language and the author does it quite well. He also examines consciousness and free will. People are made of particles and underneath the biology there is physics. The book covers the Big Bang to the present day, and to the end of time. I do not agree with all his conclusions but they are worth reading. I found his writing quite fascinating. Greene considers himself a reductionist and can explain a lot of concepts clearly without leaving out anything relevant.
I learned about a few new topics, touched upon a few things that I already known and came away with a new perspective on how all these things combine to make the cosmos. When science meets philosophy, it makes a great reading for me.
Brian Greene provides a concise history of the cosmos though he also goes into some esoteric topics. A very few physicists would like to speculate about the evolution of the mind and the language and the author does it quite well. He also examines consciousness and free will. People are made of particles and underneath the biology there is physics. The book covers the Big Bang to the present day, and to the end of time. I do not agree with all his conclusions but they are worth reading. I found his writing quite fascinating. Greene considers himself a reductionist and can explain a lot of concepts clearly without leaving out anything relevant.
I learned about a few new topics, touched upon a few things that I already known and came away with a new perspective on how all these things combine to make the cosmos. When science meets philosophy, it makes a great reading for me.
debr's review against another edition
5.0
Nothing short of magnificent. Greene’s arc of the history of the universe is beautifully written, mostly accessible if occasionally challenging to grasp, and profoundly humanist. What an amazing journey that centers us in the paradox of being simultaneously absolutely nothing, the tiniest specks of instantaneous dust on the timeline, and absolutely everything the cosmos has taken 13.8 billion years to get around to making. I’m incredibly grateful to Greene for this book.