-
The Island of Knowledge
- The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning
- Narrated by: William Neenan
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $24.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Your Brain Is a Time Machine
- The Neuroscience and Physics of Time
- By: Dean Buonomano
- Narrated by: Aaron Abano
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Your Brain Is a Time Machine, brain researcher and best-selling author Dean Buonomano draws on evolutionary biology, physics, and philosophy to present his influential theory of how we tell and perceive time. The human brain, he argues, is a complex system that not only tells time but creates it; it constructs our sense of chronological flow and enables "mental time travel" - simulations of future and past events.
-
-
Great book on an underrated subject
- By Neuron on 05-09-17
By: Dean Buonomano
-
Consciousness and the Brain
- Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts
- By: Stanislas Dehaene
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How does the brain generate a conscious thought? And why does so much of our knowledge remain unconscious? Thanks to clever psychological and brain-imaging experiments, scientists are closer to cracking this mystery than ever before. In this lively book, Stanislas Dehaene describes the pioneering work his lab and the labs of other cognitive neuroscientists worldwide have accomplished in defining, testing, and explaining the brain events behind a conscious state.
-
-
I had no idea we knew this much.
- By Tristan on 01-18-16
-
Lost in Math
- How Beauty Leads Physics Astray
- By: Sabine Hossenfelder
- Narrated by: Laura Jennings
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Whether pondering black holes or predicting discoveries at CERN, physicists believe the best theories are beautiful, natural, and elegant, and this standard separates popular theories from disposable ones. This is why, Sabine Hossenfelder argues, we have not seen a major breakthrough in the foundations of physics for more than four decades. The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity: Observation has been unable to confirm mindboggling theories, like supersymmetry or grand unification, invented by physicists based on aesthetic criteria.
-
-
A rare glimpse into the inner world of physics
- By Joe on 12-08-18
-
Spooky Action at a Distance
- The Phenomenon That Reimagines Space and Time-and What It Means for Black Holes, the Big Bang, and Theories of Everything
- By: George Musser
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is space? It isn't a question that most of us normally stop to ask. Space is the venue of physics; it's where things exist, where they move and take shape. Yet over the past few decades, physicists have discovered a phenomenon that operates outside the confines of space and time. The phenomenon - the ability of one particle to affect another instantly across the vastness of space - appears to be almost magical.
-
-
SPACE AND TIME
- By CHET YARBROUGH on 05-21-16
By: George Musser
-
When Einstein Walked with Gödel
- Excursions to the Edge of Thought
- By: Jim Holt
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Does time exist? What is infinity? Why do mirrors reverse left and right but not up and down? In this scintillating collection, Holt explores the human mind, the cosmos, and the thinkers who’ve tried to encompass the latter with the former. With his trademark clarity and humor, Holt probes the mysteries of quantum mechanics, the quest for the foundations of mathematics, and the nature of logic and truth. Along the way, he offers intimate biographical sketches of celebrated and neglected thinkers, from the physicist Emmy Noether to the computing pioneer Alan Turing and the discoverer of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot.
-
-
A good overview of scientific theory
- By Kindle Customer on 09-11-18
By: Jim Holt
-
Blueprint
- The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
- By: Nicholas A. Christakis
- Narrated by: Nicholas A. Christakis
- Length: 14 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For too long, scientists have focused on the dark side of our biological heritage: our capacity for aggression, cruelty, prejudice, and self-interest. But natural selection has given us a suite of beneficial social features, including our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, and learning. Beneath all our inventions - our tools, farms, machines, cities, nations - we carry with us innate proclivities to make a good society.
-
-
Many interesting thoughts
- By Jonas Blomberg Ghini on 06-01-19
-
Your Brain Is a Time Machine
- The Neuroscience and Physics of Time
- By: Dean Buonomano
- Narrated by: Aaron Abano
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Your Brain Is a Time Machine, brain researcher and best-selling author Dean Buonomano draws on evolutionary biology, physics, and philosophy to present his influential theory of how we tell and perceive time. The human brain, he argues, is a complex system that not only tells time but creates it; it constructs our sense of chronological flow and enables "mental time travel" - simulations of future and past events.
-
-
Great book on an underrated subject
- By Neuron on 05-09-17
By: Dean Buonomano
-
Consciousness and the Brain
- Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts
- By: Stanislas Dehaene
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How does the brain generate a conscious thought? And why does so much of our knowledge remain unconscious? Thanks to clever psychological and brain-imaging experiments, scientists are closer to cracking this mystery than ever before. In this lively book, Stanislas Dehaene describes the pioneering work his lab and the labs of other cognitive neuroscientists worldwide have accomplished in defining, testing, and explaining the brain events behind a conscious state.
-
-
I had no idea we knew this much.
- By Tristan on 01-18-16
-
Lost in Math
- How Beauty Leads Physics Astray
- By: Sabine Hossenfelder
- Narrated by: Laura Jennings
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Whether pondering black holes or predicting discoveries at CERN, physicists believe the best theories are beautiful, natural, and elegant, and this standard separates popular theories from disposable ones. This is why, Sabine Hossenfelder argues, we have not seen a major breakthrough in the foundations of physics for more than four decades. The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity: Observation has been unable to confirm mindboggling theories, like supersymmetry or grand unification, invented by physicists based on aesthetic criteria.
-
-
A rare glimpse into the inner world of physics
- By Joe on 12-08-18
-
Spooky Action at a Distance
- The Phenomenon That Reimagines Space and Time-and What It Means for Black Holes, the Big Bang, and Theories of Everything
- By: George Musser
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is space? It isn't a question that most of us normally stop to ask. Space is the venue of physics; it's where things exist, where they move and take shape. Yet over the past few decades, physicists have discovered a phenomenon that operates outside the confines of space and time. The phenomenon - the ability of one particle to affect another instantly across the vastness of space - appears to be almost magical.
-
-
SPACE AND TIME
- By CHET YARBROUGH on 05-21-16
By: George Musser
-
When Einstein Walked with Gödel
- Excursions to the Edge of Thought
- By: Jim Holt
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Does time exist? What is infinity? Why do mirrors reverse left and right but not up and down? In this scintillating collection, Holt explores the human mind, the cosmos, and the thinkers who’ve tried to encompass the latter with the former. With his trademark clarity and humor, Holt probes the mysteries of quantum mechanics, the quest for the foundations of mathematics, and the nature of logic and truth. Along the way, he offers intimate biographical sketches of celebrated and neglected thinkers, from the physicist Emmy Noether to the computing pioneer Alan Turing and the discoverer of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot.
-
-
A good overview of scientific theory
- By Kindle Customer on 09-11-18
By: Jim Holt
-
Blueprint
- The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
- By: Nicholas A. Christakis
- Narrated by: Nicholas A. Christakis
- Length: 14 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For too long, scientists have focused on the dark side of our biological heritage: our capacity for aggression, cruelty, prejudice, and self-interest. But natural selection has given us a suite of beneficial social features, including our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, and learning. Beneath all our inventions - our tools, farms, machines, cities, nations - we carry with us innate proclivities to make a good society.
-
-
Many interesting thoughts
- By Jonas Blomberg Ghini on 06-01-19
-
Infinite Powers
- How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe
- By: Steven Strogatz
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Infinite Powers recounts how calculus tantalized and thrilled its inventors, starting with its first glimmers in ancient Greece and bringing us right up to the discovery of gravitational waves. Strogatz reveals how this form of math rose to the challenges of each age: how to determine the area of a circle with only sand and a stick; how to explain why Mars goes "backwards" sometimes; how to turn the tide in the fight against AIDS.
-
-
Not written to be read aloud
- By A Reader in Maine on 02-21-20
By: Steven Strogatz
-
The Math of Life and Death
- By: Kit Yates
- Narrated by: Kit Yates
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From birthdays to birth rates to how we perceive the passing of time, mathematical patterns shape our lives. But for those of us who left math behind in high school, the numbers and figures hurled at us as we go about our days can sometimes leave us scratching our heads, feeling as if we're fumbling through a mathematical minefield.
-
-
Good but More Statistics than Biology
- By Anonymous User on 02-08-20
By: Kit Yates
-
Chaos
- Making a New Science
- By: James Gleick
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
James Gleick explains the theories behind the fascinating new science called chaos. Alongside relativity and quantum mechanics, it is being hailed as the 20th century's third revolution.
-
-
Best AudioBook on Math/Physics yet
- By Ryanman on 03-02-11
By: James Gleick
-
This Is Your Brain on Parasites
- How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society
- By: Kathleen McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Nicol Zanzarella
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A riveting investigation of the myriad ways that parasites control how other creatures - including humans - think, feel, and act. These tiny organisms can live only inside another animal, and, as McAuliffe reveals, they have many evolutionary motives for manipulating their host's behavior. Far more often than appreciated, these puppeteers orchestrate the interplay between predator and prey.
-
-
A parasitologist view of the world
- By Colin Mc on 10-25-16
-
Now
- The Physics of Time - and the Ephemeral Moment That Einstein Could Not Explain
- By: Richard A. Muller
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You are reading the word now right now. But what does that mean? What makes the ephemeral moment "now" so special? Its enigmatic character has bedeviled philosophers, priests, and modern-day physicists from Augustine to Einstein and beyond. Einstein showed that the flow of time is affected by both velocity and gravity, yet he despaired at his failure to explain the meaning of now. Equally puzzling: Why does time flow? Some physicists have given up trying to understand and call the flow of time an illusion.
-
-
Worth the listen
- By Amazon Customer on 10-04-16
-
Fundamentals
- Ten Keys to Reality
- By: Frank Wilczek
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins, Frank Wilczek
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of our great contemporary scientists reveals the 10 profound insights that illuminate what everyone should know about the physical world.
-
-
Precious knowledge explained well
- By MP on 01-13-21
By: Frank Wilczek
-
Probable Impossibilities
- Musings on Beginnings and Endings
- By: Alan Lightman
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 5 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Can space be divided into smaller and smaller units, ad infinitum? Does space extend to larger and larger regions, on and on to infinity? Is consciousness reducible to the material brain and its neurons? What was the origin of life, and can biologists create life from scratch in the lab? Physicist and novelist Alan Lightman explores these questions and more - from the anatomy of a smile to the capriciousness of memory to the specialness of life in the universe to what came before the Big Bang.
-
-
Mumbler
- By Phil Gaskill on 08-07-22
By: Alan Lightman
-
Something Deeply Hidden
- Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime
- By: Sean Carroll
- Narrated by: Sean Carroll
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist and one of this world’s most celebrated writers on science, rewrites the history of 20th-century physics. Already hailed as a masterpiece, Something Deeply Hidden shows for the first time that facing up to the essential puzzle of quantum mechanics utterly transforms how we think about space and time. His reconciling of quantum mechanics with Einstein’s theory of relativity changes, well, everything. Most physicists haven’t even recognized the uncomfortable truth: Physics has been in crisis since 1927.
-
-
The Best Layperson Book on Quantum Physics
- By Conrad Barski on 09-11-19
By: Sean Carroll
-
What Is Real?
- The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics
- By: Adam Becker
- Narrated by: Greg Tremblay
- Length: 11 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Every physicist agrees quantum mechanics is among humanity's finest scientific achievements. But ask what it means, and the result will be a brawl. For a century, most physicists have followed Niels Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation and dismissed questions about the reality underlying quantum physics as meaningless. A mishmash of solipsism and poor reasoning, Copenhagen endured, as Bohr's students vigorously protected his legacy, and the physics community favored practical experiments over philosophical arguments.
-
-
Best Science Book This Year!
- By serine on 11-15-18
By: Adam Becker
-
Until the End of Time
- Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe
- By: Brian Greene
- Narrated by: Brian Greene
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Until the End of Time is Brian Greene's breathtaking new exploration of the cosmos and our quest to find meaning in the face of this vast expanse. Greene takes us on a journey from the big bang to the end of time, exploring how lasting structures formed, how life and mind emerged, and how we grapple with our existence through narrative, myth, religion, creative expression, science, the quest for truth, and a deep longing for the eternal.
-
-
Uneven
- By NJ on 03-03-20
By: Brian Greene
-
The Big Picture
- On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
- By: Sean Carroll
- Narrated by: Sean Carroll
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Already internationally acclaimed for his elegant, lucid writing on the most challenging notions in modern physics, Sean Carroll is emerging as one of the greatest humanist thinkers of his generation as he brings his extraordinary intellect to bear not only on the Higgs boson and extra dimensions but now also on our deepest personal questions. Where are we? Who are we? Are our emotions, our beliefs, and our hopes and dreams ultimately meaningless out there in the void?
-
-
Vaguely Antitheist
- By Beatrice on 06-23-18
By: Sean Carroll
-
Einstein's Cosmos
- How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time: Great Discoveries
- By: Michio Kaku
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A dazzling tour of the universe as Einstein saw it. How did Albert Einstein come up with the theories that changed the way we look at the world? By thinking in pictures. Michio Kaku, leading theoretical physicist (a cofounder of string theory) and best-selling science storyteller, shows how Einstein used seemingly simple images to lead a revolution in science. With originality and expertise, Kaku uncovers the surprising beauty that lies at the heart of Einstein's cosmos
-
-
Five stars and could not understand half
- By BillB on 02-22-14
By: Michio Kaku
Publisher's Summary
Why discovering the limits to science may be the most powerful discovery of all.
How much can we know about the world? In this audiobook physicist Marcelo Gleiser traces our search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence, the origin of the universe, the nature of reality, and the limits of knowledge. In so doing he reaches a provocative conclusion: Science, like religion, is fundamentally limited as a tool for understanding the world. As science and its philosophical interpretations advance, we face the unsettling recognition of how much we don't know.
Gleiser shows that by abandoning the dualistic model that divides reality into the known and the unknown, we can embark on a third way based on the acceptance of our limitations. Only then, he argues, will we be truly able to experience freedom, for to be free in an age of science we cannot turn science into a god. Gleiser ultimately offers an uplifting exploration of humanity's longing to conquer the unknown and of science's power to transform and inspire.
More from the same
What listeners say about The Island of Knowledge
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Gary
- 03-06-15
Guidebook for cool things about physics and math
This author has done it again. I read books in order to find out about our universe and our place in it, and this book does better than any other book since his last book "A Tear at the Edge of Creation". I have no idea why his books do not become instant classics and aren't more widely read. He really relates well to my way of thinking and leaves no stone untold while telling his story. And what a story he tells with this book!
Yes, we are in Plato's Cave, but we do manage to get out from time to time. It is our ignorance that leads us to knowledge. It is the things we don't know that leads to our further understanding. Our very foundations of reality are based on the constructs that we use to explain the patterns we see in data. Particles are made of matter (electrons, quarks,..) and forces. Fields describes these forces and matter and their interactions. The definition of the field is not precise but we continue to use it in our explanations.
The author covers all of the physics that's exciting to me. The Greeks lay the foundations by using intuition and argumentation but never quite adding the empirical. It becomes the void verse matter, the being verse becoming which leads to matter verse energy. Before Einstein, matter needed matter to travel through giving us the aether. The aether makes sense until it's not needed. The Morley Michelson experiments were at first explained by the natural compression of space as objects flow through the aether. The narrative's we use change as our understanding improve and our scientific definitions expand.
There is large problem with the understanding of physics. The measurement problem, the dual nature of light (wave and particle), double slit experiments, that darn dead and alive cat, and how does "spooky action at a distance" (now known as real and called Entanglement) fit into our narratives. Einstein thought reality had to be understandable and that nature at the most fundamental level had to make sense and it must be our operational levels that were failing us. David Bohm and Einstein thought there must be hidden variables to explain the cosmic complexity at the quantum level. At the local level,they have been shown to be wrong.
This book covers all of the controversies associated with the Copenhagen Interruption, and how the act of measuring does change the system being measured. At the heart of understanding nature with the current narratives we have in place there are mysteries that can't be resolved. The more we find out we don't know, the better stories we can end up telling.
Our nexus of knowledge doesn't lie outside of us, it lies within us. We our the ones who determine how we understand and when a light flickers in our cave we find another way to describe what we see.
He's got a nice section on mathematics, Godol's theorem and Turing's universal machine and the Halting Problem. Plato with his cave says math is always discovered not invented. The author will explain why it's best to think of it as being invented not discovered. The incompleteness, lack of coherence as proof for a system, and the problem of the self realization for a finite solution ('Halting Problem') leads to a better understanding of math. By the way, the author does point out for my hero, Mr. Spock, with his logical consistency and understanding will really never be attainable.
This is a book that just keeps on giving. He'll tell the reader about Higgs Bosons, Dark Matter, Dark Energy , expanding universes, what advanced AI can mean for us and a host of other just as interesting things.
Needless to say, I would strongly recommend this book and his other book available on Audible ("A Tear at the Edge of Creation"). Regretfully, this author's books seem to be ignored by the public at large, but if I can convince just one more person to read this book, I would have made the world just a little bit better!
91 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Joshua Kring
- 07-26-15
Island of knowledge
I’m going to exaggerate and say that I understood maybe 20% of Marcelo Gleiser’s book. Then, there’s another 40% that I think I understood, but I’m not sure. That leaves 40% that went completely over my head. I listened to every minute of it at normal speed, however, large chunks of it might as well have been spoken in Swahili. He goes through some complex mathematics in great detail that became just noise to me. I felt like the Monty Python character saying, “my brain hurts!”
Let me stress that the problem is not with the writing. The problem is with me. No matter how much I want to be, I’m not a theoretical astrophysicist and I don’t understand quantum mechanics.
Now, the portions of the book that I could comprehend were outstanding. Gleiser takes the listener through the history of science from the ancient philosophers through the alchemists to the modern scientists working on cutting edge quantum physics.
William Neenan reads the material with confidence. I have nothing negative to say about his narration. I would happily listen to more books read by him.
I know this isn’t much of a review, but that’s all I got. For more disappointment look at unhelpfulreviews dot com.
96 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- serine
- 03-21-16
Incredibly beautiful! A must read!
I know I am reading a truly great book when I finish a chapter and am compelled to go back to the beginning of the chapter and read every word again, not because it was too complex or the author lost me, but rather because the information was so necessary, so compact, and so important that it deserved another pass. I reread almost every chapter of this book, at least once. I cannot understand any review that doesn't give this book 5 full stars. It was amazing. So many books provide a history of how we came to know what we know about the universe. The history in this book was rich, unique, extremely important, and simply exquisitely written. I have not enjoyed a history this much since reading Swerve. There were times I wanted Greenblatt to go into more detail (or be more clear) about the ideas and lives of Epicurus and Lucretius. What Greenblatt left out, Gleiser provided, and it was amazing.
Gleiser artfully took the reader through one of the best histories ever written in order to help the reader understand our most current picture of the strange and complex universe (multiverse). He built a bridge between the past and present that was incredible for the reader to traverse. It is a rare skill indeed to be able to choose not only the wide scope of space, the universe and multiverse itself, but to put into the contexts of both ancient and modern time.
As a byproduct of, what I perceived to be the author's main goal, he was able to successfully do for the 2010s what
Tomas Kuhn did for the 1960s, when he helped the public understand how scientific ideas undergo paradigm shifts.
I read this book at the same time I read Mathematical Universe by Tegmark. Reading both together was an amazing experience. I have read so many physics books lately. Many of them deserve 5 stars because the information contained within them is worth the 5 stars. However, when I am lucky enough to read a book that is extremely relatable, entertaining, informative, and addictive (one that makes you almost want to cry when it ends because you feel a loss), I often wish there was an extra half star that I could give it. This is that kind of book. I loved it!
10 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- CHET YARBROUGH
- 01-26-16
A MYTH OF SCIENCE
Marcelo Gleiser believes an A.I. singularity predicted by Ray Kurzweil is a myth of science that will be stranded on “The Island of Knowledge”. His point is that the nature of science, human cognition, and quantum physics make computers incapable of superseding or equaling human intelligence. The horizon of the unknown will always be present for human beings, even with computational advances. Gleiser implies that the computer will only be a tool of humankind to explore the unknown.
Gleiser is saying pursuit of nature’s truth is important but precise truth is unattainable. He argues that a final truth will never be found because discoveries of science will only lead to more questions, more experiments, and better tools of measurement. Nature’s truth will always be beyond human understanding; i.e. at best, nature’s truth will only be shadows of reality with sharper outlines.
Gleiser is quick to point out that this conclusion is not meant to discourage scientific exploration. He believes human beings have an innate desire to understand nature. The life of humans suggests pursuit of nature’s essence is true of all cultures because of a common desire for money, power, and prestige; i.e. motivations that are magnified by scientific discovery.
7 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Don Dean
- 06-14-15
High Intelligence and Thoughtful Awareness
I deeply enjoy science books written by individuals with high IQ's and small egos. Marcelo Gleiser fits this description perfectly. It takes a unique scientist to speak to the potential limits of humanities search for knowledge.
23 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Bror Erickson
- 02-29-16
The Limitation of Scientific Knowledge
“Science, like religion, is fundamentally limited as a tool for understanding the world.” I think that was the line in the publisher’s description that got me to buy this book. I am glad I did. I love books like this. It started in college reading Karl Popper, and Coppleston’s “History of Philosophy.” I love it when scientists actually humble themselves enough to probe what it is they know and how they can know it. I find all too often today that what people often call science is nothing more than a religion, and they are dogmatic about what they believe citing scientific “evidence” that is not really evidence and findings that can be interpreted many different ways.
The basic thesis of this book is that science only advances by showing where previous scientific theories were wrong. We can never know if we have the whole picture, but we can know that we don’t. We don’t have the whole picture, and new evidence may be out there that when discovered will throw everything we think we know now upside down.
I’ve read plenty philosophical history and even history of science works. Marcelo is great when it comes to these topics. I especially like that he brought to light the dependence of Roman Catholic theology on Aristotelian thought, which was really behind the Galileo controversy. But when it comes to the history of religion, he falls a little short. He says that Martin Luther condemned Copernicus because he challenged Scholastic theology. There are numerous problems with this myth. 1. The citation is from “Table Talk” which is students recording Luther one-liners. Normally after copious amounts of beer which his wife was known for brewing. 2. He doesn’t condemn the man in question but calls him a fool. Copernicus is never mentioned by name. If I had first heard this theory in that day, I might greet it with skepticism too. So would you. But calling someone a fool is hardly a condemnation of the man. For all we know, Luther was being sarcastic. 3. Copernicus was actually first published in Wittenberg during Luther’s day, because of the efforts of Melanchthon who was Luther’s cohort. This would not have happened without Luther’s approval. 4. Luther hated scholastic theology. It represented everything wrong with the Roman Catholic theology of the day, in his estimation! One of his most famous works was “Against the Scholastics.” In fact, one might argue that rather than Copernicus’s break with Aristotelean thought being the reason for the supposed condemnation of Copernicus, it was the reason his book was first published in Wittenberg. This would not have happened without Luther’s blessing. He basically owned the press there. Coincidentally, this would also be why the pious king of Denmark, a staunch Lutheran, would have funded the studies of Tycho Brahe.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michael
- 04-30-17
Downer Physics
Largely this is yet another brief history of physical science. At this, it better than some, but far from the best in that genre. The book also talks about the The Limits of Science which is where I found it quite disheartening. This author is far from alone in seeing limits to scientific knowledge.
The author says, "All we see are projections on the cave wall. Plato dreamt of a cave with an exit to the light of perfect knowledge, but it seems wise to accept that no knowledge can be perfect or final." Wise? It seems to me it would be wise to try to break our chains, turn around, and see reality. The author seems to believe that our chains are somehow unbreakable.
"We don't know how to obtain a deterministic description of the quantum world. These unknowns are not simply a reflection of our current state of ignorance or of our limited tools of exploration. They express Nature's very essence," This may be true, but there is absolutely zero evidence this is the case (See Bell's comments on de Broglie–Bohm theory). Without evidence Einstein did not believe this c&@p and neither do I.
The author claims all measurements have fundamental limits. This is a misunderstanding of the process of measurement. All measurements have three phases. Counting things, comparing counts, mapping to units. Sometimes these counts are off, but this is due to environmental interference/detector inefficiency etc. The fundamental limits of measurements only appear when attempting to map counts to multiple, overlapping, continuum (like position AND momentum).
Imagine learning the rules of chess only by watching games. At first you would have many wrong theories of the rules, but after watching many games, you would have good theories for most of the rules, but some rules that come up very rarely (pawn becoming knight or 50 moves causing stalemate) would be big surprises. Nevertheless your theories would approach the actual rules and eventually your theories would completely model the actual rules (but you could never be certain there is not another rule for which you have never seen an example). During this process you may feel you have a small island of knowledge in a sea of unknown, but with finite rules, this is a passing phase. Certainly if you only get to see a small part of the board, and if the rules seem more complex than chess, you might be on this small island of knowledge for quite some time, but even then, it will be a passing phase. The author seems to think that it would be better to never learn all the rules, instead desiring the pleasure of always learning.
Notice this simple chess example has many features we see in quantum theory. If you can't see the whole board, some local situations may seem to have random outcomes, because they depend of the strategy involving every piece (include those out of your view = non-locality). If a queen can take two different pawns you will be unable to predict which pawn will be taken unless you know all the rules, the strategy, and the position of every piece ( superposition of states),. This is not spooky. Basically this is what de Broglie–Bohm theory proposes. This author very briefly discusses, and discards, de Broglie–Bohm theory without discussing why John Bell felt it was critical physicists understand it deeply. Bell did not think de Broglie–Bohm theory is a good theory (it is not) it is just very important theory in understanding the nature of the limits of our knowledge.
The author states that experiments have "discovered" that randomness is an inherent aspect of nature. This is simply not true. It has been found that if causality is inherent then non-locality is also inherent. Randomness might be inherent (Bohr), or apparent randomness may result from our lack of knowledge of non-local effects (Bohm).
The author says "To me, the real downer is to presume that there is an end to the search and that we will eventually get there." I disagree. I want to learn all the rules as quickly as possible, then begin playing the actual game. Never learning all the rules would be the real downer (and desiring this option seems a bit crazy to me).
There are indeed fundamental limitations upon observer knowledge in our universe. This is not because the unknown is infinite, but because observers have fundamentally limited resources (bits) in comparison with the vastness of the unknown (bits). Nevertheless, even with our limited bits, it may be possible to come to understand the incorrect assumptions we have been making, discard them, and eventually understand the underlying equation describing our universe. Science will not end when we learn all the rules. We are currently doing pre-release Science, Real Science 1.0 can't begin until we know the rules of the universe, only then will real science begin.
I lost count of the number of time the author insisted his Island of Knowledge was not a downer, not giving up, not defeat, not throwing in the towel, not surrender. Perhaps not.
There is a VERY short PDF with four images that are mildly useful in understanding the Wheeler Delayed Choice Experiment described late in the book. It does not really help unless you already understand the subtle experiment. To do that check out delayed choice quantum erasers on Wikipedia before you get to chapter 25.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Alen.For
- 01-12-16
Amazing
Marcelo gleiser is a gifted writer. This book tells a history of nature, research,, philosophy and how we see our environment
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Caroline Smith
- 09-22-16
Excellent content, boring narrator
The book itself was fascinating and thought-provoking, and I can't wait to check out more of Glesier's work. A lot here for science and philosophy nerds alike. But unfortunately the monotone of the narrator caused my mind to drift at times, and I would have to back-track over and over. I typically love male narrators with British accents, but the complete lack of modulation left me.... zzzzz.....
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Marium
- 07-14-19
A must read!!
Opens your eyes to the relationship between science and humanity. Very inspiring, recommend science skeptics to read this!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Peter
- 04-27-16
A lot of waffle with soome poor intonation.
Narrator was disconnected with the material for large parts. Too much fluff not enough stuff.