And the Universe Itself - On the Origins of Life

This book may appeal to those who desire an armchair philosophy to wrap around their atheism,… but not to those expecting anything approaching a physics lecture, or even to those who have a familiarity with philosophy of mind, or philosophy of physics.

While I sympathize with the general ontology presented,… what Carroll calls “Poetic Naturalism”,… a kind scientific justified philosophy,…… the book itself is too verbose. It does not present enough physics detail to maintain interest. It does not even touch on the profound problems at issue in philosophy of physics especially with respect to epistemology and quantum mechanics. One would expect this to substantiate his ontology.

I will present just a few examples….

Carroll states, (in passing) that he prefers the Many-World Interpretation of quantum mechanics,… but there is no discussion of how this particular interpretation is justified within his own ontology of Poetic-Naturalism. All quantum mechanics interpretations that are not empirically distinguishable are in essence philosophy of physics, so, one would expect given his stated ontology and apparent aversion to theism/metaphysics, that he would adopt a more epistemic interpretation, such as consistent-histories (decoherence histories). But no, unexpectedly he is drawn to one that has ‘metaphysical baggage’, as John Wheeler would say. Ironically, this sort of scientific-realism, latent with metaphysics, is of no better epistemic quality than theism.

Carroll does not present ‘the hard problem of consciousness’ (of David Chalmers) fairly. In particular, the nature of qualia (pain, colour, sound, etc). Carroll simply states that “Redness” is just a way that we communicate that experience or the way that experience is registered. This entirely misses the point of the ‘hard problem’ [historically noted by Locke, Leibniz, etc],… which is that it is seemingly inexplicable that the experience itself of “redness” should manifest from physical laws. “Redness” does not exist in objects perceived, but instead is created in the brain as an experienced phenomenon [given the physical conditions of light detected by the eye]. Now, traditionally science is seen as operationally 3rd person, however the experience of qualia,… is obviously 1st person. This is a chasm, and the point of “the hard problem”. The question of qualia requires an ontology that is not self-limited; all phenomena that are amenable to scientific investigation are in essence 1st person anyway [as experienced],… all that “consensus” deliminates between 1st person and 3rd person perspectives, is that we are all epistemologically constituted in the same way to synthesize experience, a priori. We evolved with the same capacities to experience.

Carroll does not address the difference between atheism and agnosticism and why the former is not justified from mere lack of scientific evidence, while the latter is, on epistemic grounds.

1) I felt like it was a lot longer than it had to be. At least for someone who regularly reads physics and philosophy books, the main points of the book could be communicated in less words and pages.
2) Not a big fan of his writing style. Fluctuated between attempting to be too poetic to reading like a boring text book.
3) I'm always skeptical of science books that end with "life recommendations". It makes me feel like I'm reading a self-help book as opposed to an intellectually challenging and interesting science book.
4) Made me miss reading Zizek. Even though Zizek is extremely hard to follow at times, his writing his way more interesting for someone who appreciates going on an intellectual and philosophical journey.

My mistake, I mistook this for a book about science. It's more about Carrolls idea of philosophy intended to disprove a narrow (though admittedly popular) notion of God.
I could have been OK with that, but he uses such unsatisfactory examples, including many that do not really explain anything, that it takes forever to figure out what his point really is and when you do it's usually something that could have been much more clearly stated in a few direct paragraphs. What I disliked most it the low information density; he's quite a talker and uses far too many words to describe far to little.

I can’t buy Sean Carroll’s philosophy of materialism and his advocacy of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is almost certainly wrong. I don’t find his ideas persuasive. He argues for “poetic naturalism,” but sets up straw man arguments to represent opposing points of view. Same thing for the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. He doesn’t seem to understand the deeper objections that many physicists have to it.

He claims that most physicists deny that consciousness is necessary to collapse the wave function. But many of the greats believed exactly that, and today the more thoughtful scientists still do.

Sir James Jeans wrote: “The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter, we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter. Get over it, and accept the inarguable conclusion. The universe is immaterial-mental and spiritual.” (“The Mental Universe” ; Nature 436:29,2005)

Max Planck, a physicist who originated quantum theory, regarded consciousness as “fundamental,” and matter as “derivative from consciousness.” He said that “we cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”

Eugene Wigner, a physicist and mathematician told the world that “it was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness.”

A paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Physics Essays by Dean Radin, PhD, explains how one specific experiment has been used multiple times to explore the role of consciousness in shaping the nature of physical reality.

And the great John Wheeler believed that “human consciousness shapes not only the present but the past as well.”

[...]

I've been reading Carroll's blog(s) for years now. This book is ten years of blogging summed up in a well written and information dense series of essays. The only thing new here is "poetic naturalism", which I'll get to shortly. All that said, it's a great review of modern physics with a good proportion of philosophy thrown in. Highly recommended for someone new to his work.

As for "poetic naturalism", haven't we learned our lesson from the whole Brights fiasco? There's no need to invent new words for atheism and humanism. It made me cringe every time it popped up on the page. Marketing isn't Carroll's strong point, telling the story of why time flows in one direction and why we live in a naturalistic universe is.

I purchased this book thinking it would be about science and was surprised to find out that this is primarily a philosophy book. The good news is that the science is good, but the philosophy is sub-par. I say that not because I disagree with his premises (which I do), but because the author's arguments are structured to only convince those that are inclined to agree with him from the beginning. The author only seems interested in proving that God doesn't exist, not explaining what we know of reality today. The whole section on consciousness doesn't even attempt to explain how such a thing can arise from quarks and bosons, but trust the author, that is all there is to your experience.

There are some nuggets of scientific interest in this book and that is why I rated it three stars rather than something less. If the author would stick to purely physics I would be interested in reading further of his works. Unfortunately I will be skipping any of his additional works for better science writers.

Excellent!! Well done!! Only flaw - his conclusion about the absence of God is correct only because he is using the concept of God generally used in our society. His God is not there because it's too small and also different.

I really wanted to like this book, but I just couldn't get through it. I was interested in a book on what we know about the universe at a glance, and this was not it. It was far too philosophical (surprisingly) and went into way more depth than I needed. I tried to force my way through, but somewhere around the half - way mark I called it quits. It just wasn't an enjoyable reading experience.

While I'll wholeheartedly agree that this is a well-written work that requires careful reading--and rereading, those who would buy this book should be aware that Carroll is unwilling to accept anything even vaguely transcendent or mysterious. If you're the sort who believes there's more to the universe and all that lies therein than what we can quantify, you will find yourself in disagreement from first pages. (Disclosure: I am an ordained priest.) This doesn't in any way detract from the value of Carroll's writing, but I find the purely-naturalist position somewhat depressing. If I'm just an accident of biochemistry, here and gone in relative moments, what's wrong with straightforward hedonism? Read if you must (and I would recommend it), but think about what you're reading. You'll come to a goodly number of "Wait a minutes."

I want to ground this review by saying that I read lots of popular science books from authors like Carlo Rovelli, Lisa Randall, Brian Greene, and I have also read Sean Carroll's excellent book on the Higgs field. And the fact that the authors take a few hits at religion hasn't bothered me. So I'm no fragile flower when it comes to the way scientists talk about the nature of reality. That said, wasn't prepared for what amounts to an aggressive atheist screed. Carroll goes way out of his area of expertise as an astronomer to discourse on everything and anything his mind can find that disproves the existence of God. He's especially fond of invoking Bayesian assessments of probabilities and does so again...and again...and again using highly subjective starting assumptions. When he's talking about physics, he's terrific--there's really no one better. But roughly 70 percent of this book deals with philosophy, biology and statistics, subjects Carroll's much weaker on. His exploration of the nature of consciousness is especially weak. If you want a little bit of physics and whole lot of why God doesn't exist and how stupid people are who have even a smidgen of faith, this is the book for you. Me? I won't be reading Carroll again.

Just finished Sean Carroll's book "The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself". The book describes what Sean Carroll call "Poetic Naturalism" which is his version of philosophical Naturalism. Naturalism as the author describes it is a worldview where "there is only one world, the natural world...there is no separate realm of the supernatural". The book then goes on to justify this position and attempts to explain the universe's origin, morality and meaning.

This book essentially explains my worldview so I was very excited to read it. I've read one other excellent book on Naturalism by Richard Carrier so that is what I will compare it to. I will honestly say this book is incredibly digestible for a subject that delves into science and philosophy and THIS would be the book I would recommend to a beginner on the subject. Secondly this is a book I could give to a theist without any fear of them feeling insulted (compared to a book like "the God Delusion"). I would say Carrier's book "Sense and Goodness without God" is slightly more technical and more difficult to read.

Two negatives on Sean's book is that I feel his chapters on the universe's origin left me wanting more. Chapter 25 Why Does the Universe Exist? is only 10 pgs. Chapter 36 jumps back into the subject when discussing fine tuning arguments but this is only 12 pgs. I'm used to reading entire books on the subject but luckily there is a nice recommendation for further reading in the back of the book. I also disagreed with Carroll on the Morality chapter in regards to objective morality but I'm biased by my early readings from Carrier.

Overall this book is a gem that I will re-read and reference going forward and will recommend as a primer for anyone interested in Naturalism.

[This review originally appeared on my blog, www.Jill-Elizabeth.com.]

My review copy of The Big Picture was graciously provided by the publisher, Dutton (Penguin Random House).

I have always been captivated by science – quantum theory, physics, chemistry… I find it endlessly fascinating to learn how things work, to read origin stories, to think through new theories on how and why the world works as it does. I’m trained as a lawyer, by way of studying philosophy. At first blush, the interest and the formal study seem miles apart – the hard science of facts versus the soft “science” of supposition and truth-seeking (in all its myriad forms). But if you look a bit deeper, you quickly realize that the areas are actually exceedingly close – especially when it comes to much modern scientific theory and fields of study like string theory, chaos, and quantum mechanics. There is a lot more truth-seeking of the philosophical, theory-of-everything, school in science than I think many people are comfortable with; scientists and science enthusiasts like facts and experiments, they live and die by replicability and reliability, and those aren’t words most people normally associate with law or philosophy. Not so Sean Carroll, as is exceedingly evident in his latest, The Big Picture.

The book is subtitled “On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself” and believe me when I say Carroll covers all of them adeptly and without dumbing anything down. He is a much-lauded theoretical physicist, and it is not difficult to see why he’s received the accolades he has – even if you, like me, are an amateur (and armchair) science fan and theoretician… His theories are well presented and clearly laid out. That’s not to say they are simplistic – they definitely are not. They are adroitly presented, with historical support and background, and are written in language that can be challenging to unpack but the unwrapping is part of what made the book so enjoyable for me. Too many “popular” science books are written in an overly simplistic fashion. I realize that a lot of theoretical science is exceedingly complicated; removing that complication isn’t necessary for laypeople, deciphering it is. And Carroll is a master at translating high-concept physics into accessible packets of information. You may need to reread some of the descriptions to truly grasp their layered complexity – I certainly did. But the chapters and ideas are presented in manageable, European- rather than American-sized, portions so rereading did not require as much effort as it may sound like it would.

Sprinkled throughout the book are philosophical as well as theoretical underpinnings for the ideas that are presented. The philosophy student in me loved these connections; I think they bring a lot of depth to the discussions of modern science theory and certainly inform the debates about reality and purpose to a level of sophistication I found fascinating. The explanations of these theories are crisp and clear and I think should be manageable to those for whom they are new. At the same time, as with the scientific presentations, the philosophical analyses and explications are high-level enough to hold the interest of people familiar with them. Carroll is quite adept at providing a narrative that balances expert- and introductory-level concepts. That is no easy feat – it’s rather like tap-dancing among land mines, one false step and the whole thing is blown to hell. There is nothing worse than reading a scientific or technical book and suddenly realizing the author has left you in his dust – or, equally irritating, to realize he has suddenly started talking to you like you were a simpleton. No fears about either here – the book reads like a conversation with your favorite professor: you feel rather proud of yourself for holding your own, because you know you’ve been treated like an intellectual equal even if you both know that you certainly are not…

I recently read an excellent book about the history of lobotomy (Patient H.M. by Luke Dittrich). Early in The Big Picture, I found myself in an “aha!” moment about memory and causality and our experience of time. Carroll was discussing how we perceive time in the context of past, present, and future, and how our memories and the concept of entropy are a way of understanding possibility, time/causality, and interrelationships. [NB: I realize that is a vastly oversimplified statement that also manages to sound rather confusing, even knowing what I meant to say, but please forgive it – is necessary for the point I’m trying to make that I say something, and I’ve rethought and rewritten it several times and this is the best I can come up with, despite its limitations…] The gist of my realization had to do with the multiplicity of options available in the future, and how the presence of those unknowable possibilities renders our experience of the future distinct from the present or past, where the options are vastly reduced – the connection to the lobotomy patient being that he lost his ability to form memories, which meant that for him, there were just as many possible options to the present (and even the more recent past) as to the future, which led me to a fascinating inner debate about what that meant for his experience of time.

I realize this seems like a rather odd tangent; it is not meant to be. What it is meant to illustrate is the wide-ranging applicability of the theories and ideas Carroll is laying out in his new book. Within just a handful of opening chapters, the vastly big-picture theoretical physicist book was already not only interesting but also relevant. The book is full of such “aha!” moments, covering as it does everything from memory and causality to the history of the universe to our interrelationships and experience of love and life. This isn’t a book for the faint of heart; as I’ve stated, it takes effort to read, especially if you want to truly grasp the intricacies on exhibit. It is effort that will more than repay itself though. I suspect I will find myself coming back to the theories and concepts laid out by Carroll on a surprisingly frequent basis – after all, the big picture, by definition, touches on everything…

The book has well informed and entertaining content but is deeply misguided.

I have the audio-book and kindle book, and I allowed my Kindle to read the book to me as I read along. If you have not used this Kindle feature, I recommend it. I have always likely Carroll and his voice is compelling and he speaks with authority ... if only he actually understood the foundations of mathematics and the nature of science, especially scientific epistemology.

His "poetic naturalism" falls a long way short of being adequate. The very idea of "poetic" anything with respect to modern physics is deeply disturbing and more than adequate to have Hilbert and Courant spinning in their graves. He brushes over unification, the equivalence principle, and has the profound hubris to suggest our view of physics in the foundation of the world is complete. The evidence clearly suggests otherwise.

What the book lacks in imagination it makes up for in hubris.

This book was a sweeping effort on Sean Carroll's part to explain it all- from a strict materialist standpoint. Materialist believe all of reality is basically atoms and that's it- nothing beyond just plain stuff. That many physicists believe consciousness is encountered in quantum physics is kind of derided as farfetched and old fashioned. The competing argument is the Many Worlds theory which, to me, seems as outlandish as believing in a god. The author does make it difficult to stay engaged since his efforts seem mostly to be geared toward deflating anyone's faith in something like god or a "higher power" or Consciousness (that is not derived from matter). His book does explain a lot but mostly for the purpose of disabusing one of their notion that there is something more than matter. I think Terrence McKenna can respond to this best: "Modern science is based on the principle: ‘Give us one free miracle, and we’ll explain the rest.’ The one free miracle is the appearance of all the mass and energy in the universe and all the laws that govern it in a single instant from nothing." I think this is a book where sympathizers will rate it 5 stars and those who have moved beyond "everything is just plain matter" might give it around a 2. I think it does a great job of explaining so many subjects but a bad job of then using nature to suffocate any sympathy for something greater than nature.

I think Sean Carroll is narrow minded. Inflationary cosmology is not reputable, and Sean seems to think that it would be asinine to believe in anything but a materialist big bang universe. The proble with this belief is that Big bang cosmology violates the idea of a homogeneous mass distribution that's implied by the cosmological principle.

Tolman Bondi cosmology can provide a much better resolution to the Hubble redshift than accelerating De Sitter space, and the Unruh effect is most likely responsible for the CMBR. Sean pretends these types of solutions are crazy and psuedoscience, but also pretends to adore the majesty that comes with the scale of our Universe. It seems that anyone that truly respects the scale and mysteries of reality would be a little more open minded about alternative cosmology.

Paradigm shifts don't occur because of blind obedience to existing science. They happen because someone rearranges the pieces to puzzle. Sean fails to do this in each and every one of his books. He instead focuses on what mainstream scientific options we have to choose from, and gives a dumbed-down lesson on the hottest topics in physics.

Sean is just like the other mouth pieces. It's hard to distinguish his voice from Kraus, Tyson, and the other big bang physicists. I suppose humanity will just have to wait for "the kids who hate God because of the parents" to grow old and die before we can truly start investigating the origins of reality with a scientific methodology.

If you have been looking for a comprehensive worldview as seen by atheists and naturalists, here it is. Early on, Sean Carrol discusses the apparent crash between classical and modern physics, saying they are both valid, except they are layered on top of each other. This layering of Newtonian physics (which everyone understands) above the realm of Quantum fields and of the General Relativity (which is mysterious to most of us) is helpful since they seem incompatible with each other. He tells us, both concepts are correct, but only each in its own “domain of applicabitity”. Equally valid, of course, is our cosmic conception pertaining to the Big Bang, the accelerating expansion of the universe, a hundred billion galaxies, black holes and what have you. Carroll assures us, the quantum field theory excludes any additional forces or laws we might have overlooked and so, in none of the three physical realities is there any room for theistic interpretations. As you would expect, the conclusion of this lengthy scientific presentation is the denial of the existence of God, of a soul, of a transcendental purpose of human life and life after death. We are the only thinking creatures around and must act responsibly.

That kind of thinking gives rise to many questions. How did life originate without a creator? How can human intelligence and genius emerge out of atoms, molecules, fermions and bosons? How reliable is human science? What happens to morality in the lack of final judgment? All of these queries are dealt with in great abundance, delving deep into history, psychology and philosophy. In fact, you might at times find the text tiring and windy, especially in philosophy, but still his various judgments are invariably solid and levelheaded. When you close the book, you know you have been listening to a moral and idealistic lecturer.

Sean Michael Carroll (born 1966) is a cosmologist and research professor in the Department of Physics at the California Institute of Technology. He has also written From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time and The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World; he also participated in God and Cosmology: William Lane Craig and Sean Carroll in Dialogue.

He wrote in the Prologue to this 2016 book, “We have two goals in front of us. One is to explain the story of our universe and why we think it’s true, the big picture as we currently understand it. It’s a fantastic conception. We humans are blobs of organized mud, and through the impersonal workings of nature’s patterns have developed the capacity to contemplate and cherish and engage with the intimidating complexity of the world around us… The other goal is to offer a bit of existential therapy. I want to argue that, though we are a part of the universe that runs according to impersonal underlying laws, we nevertheless MATTER. This isn’t a scientific question… It’s a heart a philosophical problem, one that demands that we discard the way that we’ve been thinking about our lives and their meaning for thousands of years… It’s a different kind of challenge to accept the world for what it is, to face reality with a smile, and to our lives into something valuable.” (Pg. 3)

He explains, “The broader ontology typically associated with atheism is ‘naturalism’---there is only one world, the natural world, exhibiting patterns we call the ‘laws of nature,’ and which is discoverable by the methods of science and empirical investigation.” (Pg. 11) He continues, “It’s a bit of a leap, in the face of our commonsense experience, to think that life can simply start up out of non-life, or that our experience of consciousness needs no more ingredients than atoms obeying the laws of physics… Naturalism isn’t an obvious, default way to think about the world… We don’t know how the universe began, or if it’s the only universe… We don’t know how life began, or how consciousness arose… The naturalist needs to make the case that, even without actually having those answers yet, their worldview is still by far the most likely framework in which we will eventually find them. That’s what we’re here to do.” (Pg. 13-14)

He points out, “An obvious place where it’s tempting to look for reasons why is the question of why various features of the universe take the form that they do… Why does the universe exist at all?... Now we’re trying to figure out why the fundamental fabric of reality is one way rather than some other way. The secret here is to accept that such questions MAY OR MAY NOT have answers. We have very right to ask them, but we have no right at all to demand an answer that will satisfy us. We have to be open to the possibility that they are just brute facts, and that’s just how things are.” (Pg. 44-45)

After quoting the Catechism of the Catholic Church, he asserts, “It is this kind of stance---that there is a kind of knowledge that is certain, which we should receive with docility, to which we should submit---that I’m arguing against. There are no such kinds of knowledge… You will sometimes hear the claim that even science is based on a kind of ‘faith,’ for example… That is wrong. As part of the practice of science, we certainly make ASSUMPTIONS---our sense data is giving us roughly reliable information about the world, simple explanations are preferable to complex ones… and so forth---but we don’t have ‘faith’ in those assumptions; they are … always subject to revision and improvement and even, if necessary, outright rejection… we stand ready to discard any idea that is no longer useful, no matter how cherished and central it may once have seemed.” (Pg. 128)

He observes, “The absence of evil in the world would be hard to explain under atheism, but relatively easy under theism, so it would count as evidence for the existence of God. But it that’s true, the fact that we do experience evil is unambiguously evidence AGAINST the existence of God… it’s easy to come up with features of our universe that provide evidence for atheism over theism. Imagine a world in which miracles happened frequently, rather than rarely, or not at all… Imagine a world in which souls survived after death, and frequently visited and interacted with the world of the living, telling compelling stories of life in heaven. Imagine a world that was free from random suffering… In any of these worlds, diligent seekers of true ontology would quite rightly take those aspects of reality as evidence for God’s existence. It follows… that the absence of these features is evidence in favor of atheism.” (Pg. 147-148)

He acknowledges, “there are biases on both sides. Many people may be comforted by the idea of a powerful being who cares about them… Personally, I am not comforted by that at all---I find the idea extremely off-putting. I would rather live in a universe where I am responsible for creating my own values and living up to them the best I can, than in a universe in which God hands them down, and does so in an infuriatingly vague way. This preference might unconsciously bias me against theism. On the other hand, I’m not at all happy that my life will come to an end relatively soon… with no hope for continuing on; so that might bias me toward it. Whatever biases I may have, I need to keep them in mind while trying to objectively weigh th evidence.” (Pg. 149)

He states, “There’s a lot to love about the [Hugh] Everett/Many Worlds approach to quantum mechanics… It’s perfectly deterministic, even though individual observers can’t tell which world they are in before they actually look at it, so there is necessarily some probabilistic component when it comes to people making predictions… Everything is just a wave function, and all wave functions evolve in the same way. There are, of course, an awful lot of universes. Many people object to Many-Worlds because they simply don’t like the idea of all of those universes out there. Especially unobservable universes---the theory predicts them, but there’s no practical way of ever seeing them… But a bad feeling is not a principled stance. The secret to making your peace with Many-Worlds is to appreciate that the approach doesn’t start with the formalism of quantum mechanics and add in a preposterously big multiverse. All those other universes are already there, at least potentially, in the formalism… Which isn’t to say that there aren’t very good reasons to be concerned about Everettian quantum mechanics… These are perfectly respectable questions---though ones that seem quite answerable to partisans of Many-Worlds.” (Pg. 269-270)

He asserts, “The progress of modern physics and cosmology has sent a fairly unequivocal message: there’s nothing wrong with the universe existing without any external help.” (Pg. 196) He continues, “Consider an issue that is inextricably tied to why the universe exists: has it existed forever, or did it come into existence at some particular moment, presumably the Big Bang? Nobody knows… Quantum mechanics allows us to consider universes that are fundamentally timeless, but in which time emerges at a coarse-grained level of description. And if that’s true, then there’s no problem at all with there being a first moment of time.” (Pg. 197-198)

He argues, “even if the universe has a first moment of time, it’s wrong to say that it ‘comes from nothing.’ That formulation places into our mind the idea that there was a state of being, called ‘nothing,’ which then transformed into the universe. That’s not right; there is no state of being called ‘nothing,’ and before time began, there is no such thing as ‘transforming.’ What there is, simply, is a moment of time before which there were no other moments… Which brings us to the important realization that makes it completely plausible that the universe could have had a beginning… There seems to be no obstacle in principle to a universe like ours simply beginning to exist.” (Pg. 200-201) He adds, “‘What is the best explanation for the existence of the universe?’ The answer is certainly ‘We don’t know.’ Understanding that time may be emergent… might help to explain HOW the universe came to be, but it says essentially nothing about WHY… There may be no ultimate answer to the ‘Why?’ question. The universe simply is, in this particular way, and that’s a brute fact.” (Pg. 202-203)

He notes, “If naturalism is true, what is the probability that the universe would be able to support life? The usual fine-tuning argument is that the probability is very small, because small changes in the numbers that define our world would render life impossible… But there are two subtleties that render this reasoning a bit uncertain. First, we don’t have reliable ways of judging whether the values of various physical quantities are likely or unlikely… Second, we don’t know that much about whether life would be possible if the numbers of our universe were very different.” (Pg. 304-305)

He points out, “in modern cosmology, the multiverse is not a theory at all. Rather, it is a PREDICTION made by other theories---theories that were invented for completely different purposes. The multiverse… was forced on us by our best efforts to understand the portion of universe that we do see. Two theories, in particular, move us to contemplate the multiverse: string theory and inflation… String theory … allows for the existence of a multiverse… We don’t currently have direct evidence that inflation actually occurred, but it is such a natural and useful idea that many cosmologists have adopted it as a default mechanism for shaping our universe into its present state.” (Pg. 307-308)

In the final chapter, he reveals, “My family and I were regular churchgoers while I was growing up… We attended services at Trinity Cathedral [Episcopal]… I liked going to church… We stopped going to church after my grandmother died when I was ten. I remained the kind of casual believer you find in many American households. My transformation to naturalism … just kind of crept up on me… A number of atheists are driven to unbelief by a repressive religious upbringing. Not me; my experience could not have been less repressive… I was always curious about the world, and fascinated by science… Everything we’ve experienced about the universe suggests that it is INTELLIGIBLE: if we try hard enough we can come to understand it… Thinking like this eventually led me to abandon my belief in God and become a cheerful naturalist. But I hope I never make the mistake of treating people who disagree with me about the fundamental nature of reality as my enemies… The universe is much bigger than you or me, and the quest to figure it out unites people with a spectrum of substantive beliefs. It’s us against the mysteries of the universe; if we care about understanding, we’re on the same side.” (Pg. 428-430)

This is an absolutely fascinating book, that disdains avoiding the “hard questions,” and honestly and frankly faces up the facts---or sometimes, the LACK of facts. It will be “must reading” for anyone interested in cosmology, or scientific theories about life.

Contrary to one of the publisher's reviews, this book is not "elegant" in the telling. It lumbers along and, in spite of its subject matter, is dry and lifeless. Much of the argument readers will already know, told by others in a much more engrossing manner and with far less repetition of the same or similar concepts.

This is NOT an analytical review of all we know today and all we can deduce about the universe, as described by theoretical physics. A fair portion of this text is Sean Carroll's soapbox about why atheism must be the only possible truth. His arguments for his viewpoints are well researched and explained; in contrast, his arguments for alternatives is lacking, missing, or satirical.

The book is an awkward mix of popular science with pseudo-religious/anti-religious views thrown-in throughout the book. The author pretends to be very objective and strictly logical in his lines of argument. However there are frequent gaps and non-justified assumptions made at seemingly unconspicuous junctures in Carroll's lines of argument. If it were not for the annoying preaching of 'poetic naturalism' throughout, this book would be great as an overview and primer on the current knowledge physics from the sub-atomic realm to big scale astronomy. Given the constant intermingling of science and home-spun interpretations of philosophy it was a tedious read.

I am an avid reader of physics and history. Given the author, title, cover description and Kindle book description, I was expecting a book describing the current understanding of how the universe works through a physics lens. What I was not expecting at all was a long, rambling monologue on why the author thinks there is no God or afterlife, why you have no soul, that everything is known about Core Theory and there is nothing else to learn, that it is ridiculous to look for cause-and-effect, and that all that is human is nothing more than an extension of quantum mechanics. I don't buy it. If you define a deity to be the creator of everything since time began and is infallible, then physics is God for the author.

The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself[[ASIN:0525954821 Who is the target audience? Three stars if it is intended for a curious, university bound 9th grader as motivation what to dig in to and what to avoid. Two stars if for a well- informed adult audience, much more promised than delivered. The author poaches on philosophy, attaches that to cosmology in an attempt to explain the meaning of life and then concludes our lives have no meaning. For the record, I agree that the physical world is all there is, and will try to review the book on how well the author presents his case. But there may be another reason to read the whole thing if you are interested in the question whether the book is a polemic for public support for cosmology education/research spending. More on that later. I suggest reading the last chapter first for the author’s perspective. My advice is to get a library copy unless you have a candidate to gift a suitable young person.
The book’s first half presents a cursory review of physics and asserts that most everything is now understood and that everything is made of stuff i.e. material as far as we can tell. That is not controversial but good explanations are not provided and the language is simplified to middle school metaphors. To be fair Carroll’s prose is clear if uninspired, free of academic jargon and convoluted subordinate clauses. Words such as exogenous robust and proximal are not here to impress us. Pop science can be interesting if it presents new ideas or if it offers novel intuitive insights. That does not happen here. Carroll presents mostly easy and shopworn boilerplate. For example, his explanation of entropy via the coffee and cream mixing analogy misses completely. A more intuitive story would be an explanation of energy dissipation (macro-state to microstates) in an internal combustion engine. Entropy can be explained as particle dynamics i.e. work and heat and also as chemical bonds and kinetic energy in the same situation. Entropy deserves a more thorough explanation as in Carroll’s view the low entropy in the primordial universe accounts for much of what happens in our world. Why that should be so, he does not explain.
The next portion deals with the disassembly of belief in god’s existence given that all we see is material, explained by physics and lack of supporting evidence. This sort of logical argumentation is really beside the point as the believers, by definition, do not need evidence and plausibly do not truly base their belief on cosmology (rationalization?) To his credit the author does not insult the believers or muddles religious history to reinforce the argument. Carroll is not strident unlike other academics (e.g. Krauss, Coyne, Myers) who delight in gratuitous insults in otherwise boring presentations. In arguments based on evidence and logic there are minor nitpicks e.g. when the author says “…despite evidence to the contrary” regarding existence of god, presumably a personal god who has an interest in humans. In fact there is no evidence to the contrary but no evidence for, just as for garden fairies and that should be enough. The author later also suggests (he is not the only one) that the universe may have “popped” into existence. There is no evidence for that and how can such evidence be obtained? Is this logic in the same category as a belief in gods? Could there be some unmoved mover? Maybe but we cannot possibly know so that is a waste to think about.
The following book section deals with consciousness, qualia, zombies, human ability to make decisions. If what you think about these issues is based on what can be measured, what difference it makes to your life and what you feel is happening, then the answer is clear enough. It seems useful to academics who can profit (not much) from the subject. This section may be useful to our young reader to decide which way he is inclined.
The last section deals with morals absent religious beliefs. Nothing new, read Pinker instead if that subject interests you.
Dr. Carroll explicitly assumes without discussion or explanation that the universe works according to the rules of physics (used to be rules of nature once) and that ultimately we will know everything there is to know. For example he says that the evolution equations of state work equally into the future and the past and he (not alone in this) is surprised that entropy works in one direction only. Do you see the irony here? There is in principle another possible view, that our knowledge is a collection of various models or recipes that given a fixed set of circumstances (state) we can predict the outcome, how to make alloys or turbines. We cannot know with certainty which way it is until we have most of the theory of everything in hand, which we do not. A universal theory would be desirable as it should be easier to complete the puzzle as more knowledge is accumulated. So is the question worth asking? We can look at some markers of progress. How well do the various disciplines accord with each other e.g. can we derive thermo- dynamics from particle physics. It seems that is not the case, each science is a separate invention/discovery. The other question is whether our knowledge is growing smoothly. It seems that there has been drought in particle physics since the ‘60’s but it could be that the timeline is too short to judge. Compared to the period from the last quarter of the 19th C to first quarter of 20th C the resources applied to physics research have increased by several orders of magnitude but without a corresponding increase in new/useful knowledge. The approach to research during the 2 periods above is different. Previously mathematics was used to explain experiments, since QM, mathematics is used as a model and experiments are done to verify. No shortage of models viz. arXiv.org. The perspective of noted physicists on “laws of physics” has changed in the last generation. If you read older Nobel laureates’ acceptance speeches, the recurring theme is “it is not our job to say what laws nature follows but to say what we can predict in nature”. Carroll puts a twist on this calling his view poetic naturalism which I do not get.
Carroll often repeats “physicists say or believe such and such” in support of his theme. In fact it is the academics who are presumably saying that but they, according to surveys, represent something like 2-3% of all physicists. Most physicists work in applied fields or different occupations and do not publish books for obvious reasons, so we do not know if Carroll’s ideas are shared by them. There is no lack of exotic ideas by prominent physicists i.e. academics e.g. multiverses, mathematical universe, black hole information loss, holographic universe, etc. etc. These ideas share 2 characteristics: they cannot be measured in principle and they have no known practical applications. Is cosmology physics?

If you're looking for 95% philosophy then you will like this book. If you're looking to further your education and understanding of physics topics like space time and quantum mechanics, this isn't the book. It was obviously a lot of work, its well written, and the audio book version is well narrated. I had to stop listening half way through because of the circular philosophical arguments and lack of in depth science. Its like this "a thick coat is better for the winter cold and a Tshirt is better for the summer. And every time winter arrives again, your confidence that a thick coat is better grows. But how do you know if a thick coat will always be better? You don't really know until you've experienced every possible winter, so really, who knows if a thick coat is better in the winter for sure?" If you want to spend hours debating reality, go ahead and read this book. If you're looking to deepen your understanding about physics, science, astronomy, etc. read something else.

I liked"The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself" although it was difficult reading for long sections of the book.

However, if you are reading it and find it is not really doing much for you, I recommend jumping to the second to last chapter called "Listening to the World." In it he lists Ten Considerations that are sort of his version of the Ten Commandments. The last 2 really connected to me.

Number 9 is called "We can do better than happiness" and he explains why the pursuit of happiness is an inferior goal to life. He ends the chapter with:
"We have aspirations that reach higher than happiness We've learned so much about the scope and workings of the universe, and about how to live together and find meaning and purpose in our lives, precisely because we are ultimately unwilling to take comforting illusions as final answers."

The Big Picture is a highly ambitious project and whether you agree with all the conclusions or not, you will walk away with many new understandings and marvel at its own internal consistency.

In this book finally, we have a natural science professor trying to give his unapologetic, no holds barred, rationalists' view on the nature or purpose of existence. Unlike many other scientists (at least in public domain), he does not shrug off what is unexplained by sciences to the realm of supernatural. And unlike many other rationalist philosophers, the author can and does use exhaustive his scientific knowledge well to make genuinely interesting points.

The author's overall construct is novel and impressive although it might be incomplete for an academic philosopher and good enough only for a popular science book. May be, it is not original either but it is for a book of this genre in the readings of this reviewer.

The main conclusion, in my words, is that any consistent and falsifiable theory that tries to explain what is going on around in our world is a part of a naturalist's bag of things to understand the world. The following are the main provisos:

- Such a theory should be valid in some ways to explain (past or present or future) a part of the world around us
- It should be falsifiable with more evidences (explained through Bayesian priors)
- It will only be valid in its domain of applicability. Bosons and fermions cannot explain how a cell functions or a theory of cells cannot explain how Facebook evolves - for instance Try explaining water pressure or properties through Hydrogen and Oxygen!
- No model can explain all the emergent or manifested facets of reality. New characteristics emerge when one changes the scale (or context of things). This is clearly true when one is dealing with chemicals where compound products have wholly different properties compared to the underlying.The author talks about this being true across realms (from quarks to protons to elements etc all the way to galaxies or from atoms to cells all the way to life, consciousness and history).
- And all such theories should be internally consistent.

The book goes on to explain some of these island theories that explain existence. Through the usual bag of theories, including relativity, quantum mechanics, biochemistry and evolution, the author describes emergence of ever rising complexity amid perpetually increasing overall chaos (entropy).

The author loses his way somewhat when he tries to apply systematic knowledge to human subjects like consciousness, morality, politics and other social/personal issues that have dogged philosophers from time immemorial. If consciousness, for instance, is an emerging phenomenon from physical brain states (like society from a group of individuals), is it totally wrong to talk about it in Cartesian dualistic way (for example once again, is water more than hydrogen and oxygen)? This is where many of the conclusions smack of dogma borne out of pre-conceived biases rather than a result of scientific inquiry. Many overall conclusions on the meaning and the purpose or the way to behave etc will likely warm all rationalist readers but for some conclusions at least, their foundations are as far away from a rational inquiry as in many other fields.

I read "The Big Picture" and "The Age of Atheists" at the same time (within reason). They both end up at similar places, concluding, to use "The Big Picture's" formulation at 'poetic naturalism'. TBP approaches the issue of a philosophical basis for a life without supernatural influence from science, while TAoA approaches it from classical philosophy. I think TBP was more successful, but the fact that they converged says you could read either one. My one complaint with both books is that they assumed the reader knew nothing about the subjects or perhaps was hostile and needed a lot of convincing. This lead to very long books. I wound up skimming largish sections of the two books, perhaps to my detriment, but of necessity.

I like all Sean Carroll's books and videos, and ive been waiting for this book for a long time, but unfortunately this book is really boring even with skipping pages especially if you have a background in that matter

The author, a prominent theoretical physicist describes what is known about the laws of nature on the emergence and development of human beings. Science in all disciplines has been making rapid progress. Physics has made more progress than the other disciplines to the point where a substantial part has become "final". There are still questions to be solved however understanding "final part" explains completely a large part of our experiences and invalidates many current concepts and beliefs billions of people still hold as valid and true.

The "final part" is referred to as the "Core Theory", consisting of a quantum field theory and Einstein's general theory of relativity in a weak gravity regime. The author makes a brilliant explanation of this "Core Theory". I have read several other explanations of these theories, and this explanation for me is the most useful. That is in part because the author explains what cannot be understood with common sense, like four dimensional reality and space-time.

The author not only presents these theories and life processes in the development of human beings at the molecular level but also how the brain functions and how it was possible that these enormously complex systems developed starting from a fish that crawled onto land and never retuned to the sea, the Tiktaalik rosrae 400 million years ago.

There is a lot to learn. He ascribes great importance to the method developed by Rev. Thomas Bayes, statistician, philosopher, an English nonconformist Presbyterian minister that developed a method to select what is true when there are several alternatives from which to choose, very helpful for me. The author presents a vast number of references and summary descriptions of scholars that through the ages have made knowledge contributions including many recent winners of Nobel Prizes essential understanding for the "Core Theory".

After describing how the brain functions the author moves to subjects like what is "consciousness", how did it develop and function considering the "core theory"?

How do people make choices? How do they decide what is good or bad? A lot is known which parts of the brain and body play a role, conscious and unconsciously are involved. His conclusion is that there does not exists and can never be found a law of nature that will determine what is the right choice. The author considers the concept of "Care that is taking care of oneself and of others" is very important. Buddha also claimed all he did was to find the laws of nature and concluded that it included compassion in a similar way where "good" is defined as meaning actions should be beneficial to self and others. This is similar but not the same. The author thinks that this kind of conclusion can be useful and wise, however it is a decision made by human beings, responsible for this conclusion but is not and cannot be a law of nature.

Some of his last conclusions are: " the universe doesn't care about us, but we care about the universe." "We can transform our planet, and someday spread life through the galaxy." " It is up to us to make wise choices and shape the world to be a better place."

The author refers to himself as a "poetic naturalist".

This cheerful nat'ralist retraced the rise
From matter in the cosmos to our hearts,
With careful explanation for the wise
Who science heed, with wonder where good starts.

Our young and vibrant universe evolved--
Its quantum wave deep in reality.
Young Earth mixed gases, light'ning; long revolved.
Organic compounds grew to you and me.

So, through this nat'ral life, we feel our way,
Constructing morals, juggling meanings frail.
Some try to understand 'tween times we play,
Inventing purpose on our human scale.

This chance-made cosmos birthed our small lives rare.
We atoms dance through change, in part aware!

The Big Picture by Sean Carroll is a very accessible addition to the category of science books for the general public. As is usually the case this incorporates contextualizing the science within the more philosophical parameters of daily life. We may not think of our lives as philosophically driven but our actions and ideas are indeed so in the broadest sense. Carroll uses the concept of “poetic naturalism” to bring the discussion from the hows of science to the whys of the humanities.

I found his discussions quite enjoyable and his arguments well grounded both scientifically (of course) and philosophically. That isn’t to say I agreed with every use of every term but he did not grossly misuse any terms to make a concept fit his paradigm. This is often where books at the boundaries between disciplines begin to falter; that does not occur here.

I would recommend this to anyone who generally likes these books as well as anyone looking for a substantive discussion of naturalism using the latest science as part of the case-building. An enjoyable read with very few instances which should require extensive background.

Reviewed from a copy made available through Goodreads First Reads.

The author is certainly knowledgeable theoretical physics. Yet he assumes that there can be nothing non-physical in the universe. His efforts to defend that position led him to fashion vague, unconvincing arguments.

This book by a Caltech physicist continues his series of semi-popularizations of cutting-edge theory. The Big Picture may not reveal much more about "the meaning of life" than that we are meant to ask about it, but on the origins of life and the universe, it delivers a lot. It alternates between in-depth analysis of details and paraphrases of findings. Carroll writes for the "educated reader," but despite this being read also as a audio version, the complexity of the work (and some of its diagrams or illustrations) probably is best comprehended at least for a first time around by a text in front of you. (I used the Kindle/ e-textbook version which keeps the original print ed. pictorial material.)

The chapters are grouped thematically, gradually shifting among the sub-titular topics. "We humans are blobs of organized mud, which through the impersonal workings of nature’s patterns have developed the capacity to contemplate and cherish and engage with the intimidating complexity of the world around us." Carroll begins, after an opening vignette with him stuck on the notorious 405 freeway in L.A., by situating life's meaning as he pursues it in perhaps a surprising admission by a scientist, but a welcome one. "Poetic naturalism strikes a middle ground, accepting that values are human constructs, but denying that they are therefore illusory or meaningless." Carroll channels this.

He explains that this approach "strikes a middle ground, accepting that values are human constructs, but denying that they are therefore illusory or meaningless." He continues: "The raw materials of life are given to us by the natural world, and we must work to understand them and accept the consequences. The move from description to prescription, from saying what happens to passing judgment on what should happen, is a creative one, a fundamentally human act. The world is just the world, unfolding according to the patterns of nature, free of any judgmental attributes. The world exists; beauty and goodness are things that we bring to it." This limits the human inquiry, however.

For he cautions about this creative quest as he reminds us of its inevitable barrier. "What we can’t do is demand that the universe scratch our explanatory itches." Still, one of the most innovative aspects of Carroll's endeavor is in his notion of chronology and duration. "Our progress through time is pushed from behind, not pulled from ahead." A sensible concept, but one I'd never heard of before.

It's worthy of elaboration even in a summation here."There is conservation of momentum: the universe doesn’t need a mover; constant motion is natural and expected. It is tempting to hypothesize—cautiously, always with the prospect of changing our minds if it doesn’t work—that the universe doesn’t need to be created, caused, or even sustained. It can simply be. Then there is conservation of information. The universe evolves by marching from one moment to the next in a way that depends only on its present state. It neither aims toward future goals nor relies on its previous history." This reminded me of the Tao, in that it does not merit any rational explanation other than that it exists.

The core of his book is that "the critical ontological question" of "what is the world, really?" is that it's a "quantum wave function." For now, at least, given how theories keep evolving as we learn more.

As we know almost instinctively, so much we may rarely notice, time and the universe parallel each other. "There is not a moment in time where there is no universe, and another moment in time where there is; all moments in time are necessarily associated with an existing universe. The question is whether there can be a first such moment, an instant of time prior to which there were no other instants. That’s a question our intuitions just aren’t up to addressing." As you can see, this narrative does strain itself as far as our knowledge can take it. While parts of it bogged down, and while his discussion of evolution for me did not resonate with quite the same freshness as the parts quoted, it does compile a lot of information that those of us who rely on "physics for poets" accounts to make at least a bit of sense of all this data, The Big Picture is valuable; it steps back as well as looks closely.

What it comes down to is that there's no grand meaning imposed on the universe from "beyond." Carroll concludes: "The universe is a set of quantum fields obeying equations that don’t even distinguish between past and future, much less embody any long-term goals." It keeps moving along.

Ultimately, neither the cold reduction to those muddy blobs nor a warm embrace of transcendental guidance will do. "We are collections of vibrating quantum fields, held together in persistent patterns by feeding off of ambient free energy according to impersonal and uncaring laws of nature, and we are also human beings who make choices and care about what happens to ourselves and to others."

This balance reminds us of our short time within this space. "Three billion heartbeats. The clock is ticking." Here I found out that there are 10 to the 50th power atoms on earth, and 10 to the 100th years for the universe itself. I never knew either calculation. They awed me, and show how puny we are in the great span of existence. What may lie beyond even this universe as we barely know it? (I hovered around 4 stars as some of the philosophical-biological material did not unfold as masterfully as did the portions I've excerpted above. But it's a solid presentation of difficult matter.)

The Big Picture by Sean Carroll can be read on many levels, but I think the author has a gift for explaining physics to the educated non scientist, especially in the areas of physics and quantum mechanics, the arrow of time, emergence and complexity (all his areas of expertise). It is not surprising that these areas are the strongest.
If you want to understand the physical world I think it is done very well here. Below are some examples.
QUANTUM MECHANICS Carroll explains that the fundamental feature of quantum mechanics is that what we see when we look at something is different from how we describe the thing when we are not looking. He says that in quantum mechanics that state of a system is a superposition of all the measurement outcomes, known as the wave function. He says that the quantum wave function is the most basic aspect of reality and further defines the wave function as a combination of every result you could get by doing an observation. Quantum mechanics tells the probability that upon observing a quantum system with a specified wave function, we will see any particular outcome. All possible outcomes exist until the wave function collapses and reduces to an individual outcome. The world is a quantum wave function. A wave function is a superposition of configurations of stuff.
ARROW OF TIME The author describes the big bang theory of how the universe began in terms of the Arrow of Time and Entropy and complexity. The arrow of time and the entropy concept explain why time flows in only one direction only and why we cannot go backward in time. Carroll explains how at the origin of the big bang the universe had very low entropy. At the time of the big bang, there was a moment in time before which there were no other moments, he states. Although as the universe ages it goes from very low entropy to very high entropy which at first glance appears inconsistent with the formation of life because life is complex and entropy is a state of randomness. However Carroll shows how as entropy initially increases complexity increases for a while so life forms, but after a while entropy will continue to increase and life and the universe will end.
EMERGENCE The author explains that the everyday macroscopic world appears different from microscopic quantum mechanics because of the concept of Emergence. Human behavior emerges from the complex interplay of atoms and forces that make up human beings. There is strong emergence and weak emergence. In strong Emergence the behavior or a system with many parts is not reducible to the aggregate of all those parts. Consciousness is emergent and real.
Other topics included in this book are phase transitions( consciousness is considered as a phase transition) the whole area of belief in God, psychic powers, and death, The author deals with the nature of life and how life began and the important role of free energy. Finally he explores the area of consciousness.
I couldn’t wait to see how a first class physicist like Sean Carroll would do explaining biology and consciousness. However, I felt that Dr. Carroll was best when he stayed in the area of physics. He explained the basics of particle physics, the fermions and bosons and how the electrons make up everything. I felt his physics explanations were even better than in his last book. I think Sean Carroll has a real gift for explaining these difficult nonintuitive concepts for nonphysicists. My one criticism would be the book is too long.I recommend this book to everyone who wants to try to understand the current thinking about the universe. Wonderful wonderful book!

"The Big Picture" is a deeply rewarding book. Time and again, we read wonderful treatises by theoretical physicists who describe the cosmos in terms the layperson can grasp. Brian Greene's masterworks come to mind. But they all stop short of answering the questions that spring readily from their pages. How, for example, should string theory, quantum mechanics and the multiverse interrelate to influence our thinking on the possibility of God's existence? Perhaps for fear of offending potential readers, perhaps on account of intellectual humility and uncertainty, most authors shy away from attempting to expound on these bottom-line, ontological issues. They often default to making the rote assertion that science and religion occupy distinct realms that do not overlap, that discussion of the former need not influence thinking on the latter.

Sean Carroll, the author of "The Big Picture," does away with all that. He ably (and courageously) steers his sturdy intellectual vessel through the roiling waters where the currents of science and religion do, in fact, intersect. Carroll readily admits science cannot now provide all of the answers to life's mysteries, but he says its trajectory is moving inexorably and quickly in that direction. In the end, Carroll unambiguously and methodically attempts to deconstruct the foundation for a belief in the existence of God or anything else that science cannot see, observe or study. The second law of thermodynamics (entropy) and the arrow of time created at the Big Bang, not an omnipotent designer, are what explain the existence of stars, planets and life. The mathematics of string theory teach that our universe could be merely one among many, and, therefore, we should not be too impressed that the laws of physics seem finely and improbably calibrated to accommodate our existence. There is nothing magical about consciousness; it can be readily understood as neurons firing in the brain, the end product of hundreds of millions of years of evolution.

In making these assertions, Carroll is careful to recognize his conclusions about "naturalism" could be wrong, that scientific study or observable phenomenon could one day put theists back on a sounder footing. But, ever the true Bayesian, Carroll is quick to impress upon us his belief that the odds of that day ever coming are slim at best.

I found the last part of the book the least satisfying. It is there where Carroll tries to convince the reader that the absence of a God or an afterlife should not meaningfully impact our ability to find purpose in life. Would that it were true. Yes, as Carroll claims, we should revel in man's unique place in the cosmos, in our mastery of its hidden details, in our relationships. But these admonishments are thin emotional gruel and do not fully sate our hunger for meaning, our psychological need to cope with the black expanse of death. In suggesting otherwise, Carroll over-intellectualizes, falsely claiming that we can think our way out of primal existential despair. Thus, Carroll unfortunately caps his intellectually rigorous book with a large dollop of new age froth.

Physicists tend not to tell the world what we really think about how it all works together, and how we fit into it. Mostly because we haven't given each and every part enough thought to carefully explain it. Well, Sean Carroll took the time. I'm a physicist and this book took the words right out of my mouth each and every time. Well written, compact, cleverly explained, clever ideas and anecdotes: this book could very well serve as the rosetta stone that regular folk can be pointed towards when trying to understand the scientists' worldview.

well, i'm not sure about the many worlds quantum mechanics bit, but he explained it a lot better than anyone else has, so i'll give him that!

this book is exceptional. i've already started giving it as a gift to people who might be interested.

Just not my cup of tea. The book seemed to start, right off the bat, as a rationalization for the acceptance of a type of atheism. Perhaps I misunderstood synopsis or didn't read carefully enough. I'm sure there are many who will find this book very interesting but I would have preferred no bias. I'm not reviewing the writing itself, which is good.

I wish I'd writen it. I'm 58 yrs, doing some very part-time Physics, Philosophy and Logic at Sydney University, and just as narrative of my sojourn including the formulation of my own "big picture questions" is taking shape BOOM! Its as if Sean Carroll has become an instant mentor, providing a "blue print" for bringing together a disparate collection of "Big Questions" for a 'complete' (in Logic) Big Picture Narrative, one that I believe must be part of everyone's personal narrative if humans wish to be the first ever life form to take control of its own "fate", and not leave it to evolution, or a copy nature's evolution who's end game is always extinction, always!

University Physics (mostly Engineering Lite these days) and University Phillosophy at the junior and intermediate level urgently need to provide capacity to study subjects alone the lines of the intellectual rigour attempted in this book,

I thought this would have a lot of physics in it but it doesn't. Carroll references physics a lot in this book, but he is not explaining physics. This book is more philosophical than scientific. I absolutely loved it. Carroll attempts to basically put everything in perspective and describes what I think is a fantastic way to view the universe, our place in it, and how to make our way in the world. This is really a great book and I highly recommend it to everyone. Big thumbs up!

The topic of this book is about 50/50 science and philosophy. Most such books written by scientists are poor, but this one is generally good. Here's what it's good for. It is extremely good at its handling of the notion of "emergent concepts" or "vocabularies" that apply at different levels of physical systems' explanation. This idea alone makes it worthwhile for those unfamiliar with the use of this very important concept. Also, his handling of what he calls "planets of belief", which is related to W. V. O. Quine's much earlier "web of belief", is skillful and useful, though without attribution. Lastly, he is tolerably respectful of those who might have different views, such as theists of all stripes. These are an unusual and good collection of qualities. The book is worth it for the handling of emergent concepts alone. The weakest technical area, I would say is his simplistic handling of the "Arrow of Time" problem. Since he wrote another book on this topic, and I don't think that one is much better, I suppose he really believes the problem is as simple as he describes it. It's not. He, and anyone interested in the topic, needs to read Huw Price, starting with "Time's Arrow and Archimedes' Point". Apart from such technical qualms, there is a pervasive self-congratulatory tone, as if someone were asking physicists to come out for another round of applause and he has volunteered to represent the triumphant. In a era in which we are causing a 6th Great Extinction and the list of existential risks for humans is dominated by human technologies amok, it would be nice if some deeper modesty could be found, but so be it.

If you avoid all speculative theories at all costs, you get something just a bit more advanced than high school's physics student book? =)

While reading enjoyed local thoughts, but after finished - impossible to summarize the story... =(

Dear Sean, if you read:
- Writing is really hard, I didn't publish any books, so I could be harsch, no? ...Or I had too high expectations? =)
but
- This is really not big picture, this is a small picture with a bias to total materialism. E.g. He writes a lot about the Core Theory and core equation, but totally avoids at all why/how physical constants are such as they are (while Tegmark, for example, conjectures this simply as a core rational support to the multiverse). etc. etc. etc. Sean rejected ALL speculative things and left us in high school physics student book =)))) Too materialistic and self-limiting.

***
Details on a few core concepts from the book:

- Bayesian Credenses as a way to believe in more or less speculative hypotheses - if some hypothesis is excessively complex, it should be discarded to the something simpler. E.g. god vs. no god - god is too strong assumption/entity, much more probable that particles obey laws of physics which we already know well.

- Arrow of time - this pushes the entropy to exist. When universe was born - entropy was lowest. Now - high entropy. And will be even bigger. Time travel to the past is impossible due to this prohibitive barrier of getting those rare (from probability point of view) previous trajectories of quantum particles in the more complex and lower entropy state.

- Complexity / Entropy - Entropy was zero at Universe birth, complexity also zero. Now we have increased complexity [in local pieces of space] and increasing entropy [around those spaces]. In the end of time complexity will be low and entropy will be high. Complexity makes our world so beatiful.

- Emergence - that every level of reality behaves by its own laws and patterns even if based on underlying layers. DNA is based on aminoacids but we don't have to understand molecules of amino acids to interpret DNA. Molecules of amino acids are built of atoms, but we don't care. Quantum particles construct electrons/protons/atoms but for higher macro levels it doesn't matter.

- No proof for god or magic or whatever - everything in reality obeys laws of physics, no signs how thinking affects physical reality. So, no speculative theories like Deutsch, like Tegmark, etc., but cold cosmos of quantum particles obeying laws of physics and emergence of new properties of higher levels of matter and its complexity.

- Conscioussness - he gave many names of thinkers, but i couldn't get the idea. I liked much more Tegmark's "Life 3.0" (he quotes the same Chalmers + mentions Julio Tononi) that consciousness is a substrate independent information process (like a life itself) of a subjective experience. Where you have to have memory to store this experinece and compute to recall it and be interconnected inside yourself and be separated from the external world.

- Moral things are a convention between people and cannot be explained by any laws of physics or natural sciences? But even biology explains how win-win collaboration is possible at the flow of available energy in our world...

OMG, this is a boring slog. On digital page 3000 I was freaking out that I still had 5000 pages to go. I used every trick in my repertoire to finish this book (endless caffeine, started another book, cat naps, took a few days off here and there). Each time I came back to this book, the pain recurred within a few paragraphs. Carroll numbs you to death with endless and recurrent mind/logic games, none of which answer any pertinent questions.
So glad to be done with this one.

At times the book drags, but what is most commendable is the sheer scope of the undertaking. The author conveys many concepts that made me stop and think. Many (most) of the concepts I've encountered in other books, but the author puts so many of them together in a coherent manner -- this is why the book is a must read for anyone interested in conceptions of reality and how physics can/should inform those philosophical conceptions. Like I said, there are times when the book would benefit from tighter editing, but I am now listening to the book (read by the author) a second time. It's that good.

This book is like a very verbose grad student who wants to impress his aunt and uncle about what he learned at the university. He rambles about the universe, man in the universe, how small we are (!), our difficulty to make sense out of the fact that we are here, etc. etc. etc. But there is no new or interesting idea whatsoever. And if there were some, it would not take 500 hundred pages to present.

There are few books with such a wide scope. The author is a Professor in Theoretical Physics at Caltech and the book covers all the "big questions": how was the universe created and evolved, how was life created and evolved, how systems of ethics were created and evolved, how are we supposed to live our lives. It is a well written book. Recommended!

Just finished the kindle version and had to order it hardbound. A breathtaking, wondrous, awe filled look at Everything; Yet, without New Age woo or religious mysticism. The Cosmos, when seen in its beautiful reality, renders magic and myth merely trifling! This is a must read!

What a fabulous book this. I won't attempt to offer a summery, some of the other reviews here do a far better job than I could. I expected the usual overview of the latest thinking about physics and cosmology, but instead I found a profoundly philosophical book. I don't consider myself a fan of philosophy, but this book really opened my eyes and my mind. I cannot recommend this book too highly.

BTW-I listened to the audio version and Carroll, besides being a profound thinker, is also a gifted narrator..

Sean Carroll is one of the only physicists I've seen present a case for why we're annihilated permanently upon death, which he does so in this book, from the physics standpoint. This agrees with my experience of getting brain damaged and realizing that life is the first and last thing we'll ever get, that consciousness is just brain function - there's no soul, that there's no god and that spirituality/mysticism is fake. This all just dawned on me the second day after brain damage when the cold/ugly/harsh/cruel reality pounded at me and so much of myself was irreversibly erased - emotionality, memory, cognition, feelings, sensation. I realized science wasn't lying. Irrational beliefs cause irrational behavior and learning science keeps us rational. That's what this book provides for me, motivation for being careful with what I have left of my one and only existence. It backs up the truthfulness of my experiential realization that the fantastical beliefs I held before brain damage weren't rooted in anything actual.

I enjoyed the book. In it, author Sean Carroll (not to be confused with biologist Sean B. Carroll) tells the story of the creation of the universe and of life in naturalistic terms, explaining how the universe and humanity came about through natural causes without invoking deities. Carroll doesn’t so much argue against the existence of God as he explains how God is not necessary to explain the universe. Carroll also spends considerable time discussing consciousness and morality and how morality can arise without religion. Here it would have been easy for Carroll to lapse into psychological or philosophical jargon, but fortunately he doesn’t. Although he doesn’t address it like that directly, a lot of the book is about the philosophy of science. But he does this successfully without using a lot of philosophical jargon. Since Carroll did a good job of explaining the philosophy of science, he could have taken it a bit further and discussed Thomas Kuhn’s views on scientific revolutions and Karl Popper’s views on falsifiability, the latter of which he only mentions near the end of the book. I recommend this book for anyone interested in science and religion.

Disclosure: I received this book for free via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Not at all what I thought it would be. The author goes on and on about his idea of "poetic naturalism", when it seems to me that all it is is an effort to reconcile science with religion and/or nutty new age mysticism. For goodness sake, we get enough of that from the superstitious folks.

While there is a lot of good scientific information in the book, it is mixed with quite a lot of New Agey stuff, nods to spirituality and touchy-feely nonsense about "feelings" and "caring", and often the author talks down to us, saying things like "All of these isms can feel a bit overwhelming". Worse, the book often includes passages in which the author seems to be trying to convince a Christian fundamentalist. He puts forward childish fundamentalist arguments as if they're meaningful - for example, in the prologue he talks about how, despite the fact that everything in the universe is just a collection of atoms with no ultimate guiding force, we nevertheless matter - we can have a purpose. Well, I don't think that's exactly a revelation - at least not to any reasonable person, and I really don't think that religious fundamentalists are being honest when they make the accusation that "If God doesn't exist, life is meaningless". So I'm not sure why Carroll feels he has to address with respect the most blatant sophistries and straw man arguments that reactionary religious folks throw at atheists and scientists, but he does, and he does it over and over again. After a while, it just gets tiring. And let's not fool ourselves - this book is never going to be a best-seller in evangelical Christian bookstores. Not gonna happen. Yet it sometimes seems as if this is what the author is hoping for.

I suspect his unwillingness to offend Christians is also why he's so careful to avoid mentioning the "G" word. For a long time in the book, he seems to dance around God, as if mentioning the word will force him to confront the issue and alienate anyone who believes in a divine creator. When he does mention it directly, in a chapter called "Abducting God", he seems at first to be defending God, as if it's an idea worth defending. He eventually comes to the conclusion that God is not real - but it seems he does so grudgingly, as if he's consoling his audience, and he hedges his bets right at the end of the chapter, saying "there are biases on both sides". All through the book, it seems he's constantly trying to walk a tightrope between faith and atheism, between science and mysticism, not wanting to alienate anyone. In doing so, he seems wishy-washy and his points are never made with any force. He's trying too hard to please everyone, and in my opinion, all he's doing is making everyone's experience of his book a frustrating one. He NEVER takes a stand - on ANYTHING. Books should not be written in this way.

Even more tellingly, Carroll is very careful to avoid the "A" word. He is a "naturalist" and certainly not anything like an atheist. Okay, he does finally admit it on page 431, but for the most part, atheism is far too scary for this author (and, I assume, for his target audience). He doesn't believe in gods, but his preferred word for that is "naturalism", not atheism. Again, we don't want to alienate anyone. This book has to remain a "safe space".

The book ends with a section called "Caring" and predictably, this is where the book completely falls apart, lapsing into trite chapters on ethics, morality, emotions, fulfillment, life after death and goodness. There is even a chapter that lists "Ten Considerations" which are supposed to replace the Ten Commandments. Ugh! And the book ends with a chapter called "Existential Therapy" - double-ugh!

And readers of this review might think that I'm just against all forms of spirituality. I'm not. I appreciate myths and stories, I feel as uplifted by a beautiful sunset or the full Moon as anyone. I just don't respond at all well when people try to pretend that these things come from some kind of supernatural force, and when an author - especially a scientist - bends over backwards to accommodate a supernatural mindset, it just annoys and frustrates me.

The author is a theoretical physicist - I think perhaps he should stick to what he knows: do the science, but leave the spiritualism and the theology alone. I think we need to get away from all that superstitious nonsense anyway. Science shows us a god-free and mysticism-free universe that is far more compelling, beautiful and meaningful than anything proposed by any of the world's religions or anything that new age mysticism puts forward. So let's stop trying to reconcile the irreconcilable.

This is one you can't read quickly. In fact, though it's written for the lay person, it's deep enough that every page must be studied for full effect. While the book deals with modern physics, Carroll's writing isn't just science: it's also psychology, sociology, logic and theology rolled into one. I bought the premise while I was still a teen, so the author and myself share our atheism. But I appreciate Carroll's unflagging determination to show religion for what it is: hopeful imagination. We're beyond that and Carroll demonstrates why time and again. This is one to savor.

Whether you are philosophically curious or interested in the prevailing questions of the cosmos, this book is a great place to start building some foundational thought. As is the case anywhere, you should always be weary of is owning all of the conclusions that the author draws. Nevertheless, Sean Carroll does a fantastic job of showing you the center of debate and how he goes from A to B on questions we have all had at least once in our life. This book is technical, though I believe it to be accessible if you are curious enough.

This book stands out in a crowded field not due to a single outstanding virtue, but for all-round excellence. Specifically, the author:

- is a real scientist with a gift for explaining complexities of his field without either condescending or overcomplicating things. Details of fundamental physics really matter to his account.

- has read and thought about the major philosophical approaches to these issues, and has synthesized them accurately in a readable manner. He is well-informed on the subject, but explains everything in natural terms, without unnecessary jargon or technicalities.

- presents a coherent overarching theory that organizes the material naturally. He does not insist on his point of view, but it makes the account personal and sincere.

It's easy to find books that do as good or better jobs on any one of these, and a few that do two, but I don't know of a better example that does all three. If you're considering buying this book, I recommend that you do it. The remainder of this review is a discussion for people who have already read the book. It's mostly critical. Everything good I said above is true, but I have a few disagreements.

I tend to dislike philosophies that require adjectives in their names, like ethical humanism, compassionate conservatism and muscular Christianity. The nouns seem to do all the work, the adjectives seem defensive. The author is a naturalist who therefore believes that humans are a bunch of atoms that obey all the laws of physics with nothing extra needed for explanation. When people hear that, they often retort, "So you don't believe that life, feelings and beauty have any meaning? Murder is just rearranging some atoms, no different from stirring a cup of coffee?"

The naturalists I know all reply, "No, all those concepts have meanings in their own terms. They refer to emergent properties that are consistent with the laws of physics, but cannot be practically deduced from atomic-level descriptions." The author calls himself a "poetic naturalist," which I think is an attempt to bypass that first question and answer. I may be missing something, but poetic naturalism seems to be the same as any non-reductionist naturalism. However, reading some of the one star reviews for this book, I acquired some sympathy for the author's apparent defensiveness.

A substantive problem is the author is inexperienced in his Bayesianism. There are two useful skills in an uncertain universe, resolving uncertainty and making shrewd decisions under uncertainty. By inclination and training, most scientists tend to prefer the former and undervalue the latter (there are some conspicuous exceptions, such as Luis Alvarez). The author asserts that observation can bring people with differing priors into closer agreement about the existence of God. However the proof that observation causes posterior beliefs to converge requires that both parties accept a means of resolving the question in principle (as the original Bayesian, Bruno de Finetti was careful to point out).

Bayesianism is not a shortcut that allows people to come to closer agreement about statements that do not have scientific meaning. It's harder to formulate a valid Bayesian hypothesis than a scientific one, not easier. Consider Gideon, the best Bayesian in the bible. When God tells him to "strike down all the Midianites, leaving none alive," he insists on tests. First he has the angel of God use a wand to burn up some food. Then he puts out a fleece at night and tells the angel to make it wet with dew while the ground around it is dry. When that is done, he insists on a control, the next night he demands that the fleece be dry and the ground wet.

Gideon accepts that as solid evidence in favor of the existence of God. But imagine if you met someone today who told you an angel of God had commanded him to commit genocide, and did three minor magic tricks. Those tricks would not increase your belief in the existence of God (I hope). Gideon also smashes an altar to Baal, and when Baal does not kill him, he accepts it as further evidence for God. But essentially the same experiment was done by the 19th century American orator Robert Ingersoll who would stand on a barrel and call on God to strike him dead with lightning, and his survival was considered evidence that God does NOT exist. Similarly the author's tongue-in-cheek example of evidence for God, "the stars in the sky rearrange themselves to say, 'I am your programmer,'" would only suggest some force or entity is powerful enough to rearrange stars (or more likely, create that illusion) not that something created the universe and obedience to it is the highest moral virtue.

I'm not just being technical here. I'm willing to accept that Bayesian logic should bring people closer together on questions like, "Did life evolve through random mutation and natural selection, or are living creatures designed?" I think that's clear enough that reasonable people will interpret evidence as directionally the same; and the answer would not fundamentally change standards of value.

That last point is the reason Bayesian questions are harder to formulate than scientific ones. Bayesians assert that even if people think they have no opinion about a probability, we can force them to make choices and observe their estimates, for example by a bet. But suppose we ask a billionaire what odds he wants to bet on whether or not God exists? He replies, "I'll bet my entire wealth against a penny that God does not exist." We might infer that he thinks the probability that God exists is less than one in 100 billion. But he could be thinking of Matthew 19:24, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." If God exists, he prefers to be poor.

An earthly version of the problem is what happens if we ask someone what they would pay for a security that pays $1 if the dollar strengthens versus the Euro over the next year. The market answer is $0.52, implying a 52% probability. But if we ask the value of a security that pays 1 Euro in that case, the answer is 0.48 Euro, implying a 48% probability. Bayesian probabilities depend on the currency of the bet, more generally, in how people value things in the state of the world where the bet wins versus if it loses. This is a subtle problem in all Bayesian inference, but it is overwhelming when dealing with questions like the existence of God that completely reorder all values. This is why forming a valid Bayesian question is harder than forming a valid scientific one. People who deal in uncertainty professionally, financial traders, infantry commanders and gamblers, for example, are well aware of this, and can become skilled in exploiting it. Most scientists are able to ignore it in their work, claiming by convention that their values play no part in the interpretation of their experimental results.

This blind spot of many scientists creates practical problems when considering issues that affect their profession. For example, the author labels it "frustrating" that Philip Anderson told Congress that the superconducting supercollider would be irrelevant to his work. But he was answering exactly the question Congress should have been interested in, his Bayesian estimate of the value of the SSC in the purest units a scientist can give, how he allocates his own research energy. When Vannevar Bush was considering the Manhattan project, he asked top physicists, "Will you personally devote your research to the bomb?" Of course, scientists, like all people, can be swayed by considerations of money and attention for their field. But even if that can be set aside, the most impartial scientist will give different Bayesian probability estimates for questions of government money than personal research efforts. Although nearly all physicists supported the SSC, the failure of really top-rank people to commit to working on it was an important reason it was cancelled; while the atomic bomb collected enough superstars to be funded.

This is an important issue today for climate science. The author writes, "we have been polluting the atmosphere with gasses that are opaque to infrared light." This is disappointing for someone careful about terminology. Pollute means "to make dirty and not safe or suitable for use." Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses are not pollutants, but natural constituents of the atmosphere (unlike many industrial chemicals) that make it better for some purposes and worse for others. Moreover, the atmosphere was opaque to infrared light before the industrial revolution, the additional greenhouse gasses make little difference to the amount of infrared light from the surface that is absorbed. Where the gasses matter is at the top of the atmosphere, where there is little water vapor, and the additional greenhouse gasses slow the radiation of absorbed heat to space.

However this effect is quantitatively minor, less than the natural variation in global temperature over century time scales, meaning it does not significantly change the range of future temperatures we should prepare for by 2100. The important policy questions are whether the climate process is dominated by positive feedback, and the related one of whether computer climate models are reliable (the questions are related because systems dominated by negative feedback are very likely too complex for the amount of data and modeling capacity we have).

As with nuclear power, the SSC and other issues of Big Science, the problem is that the people who know most about it have strong professional incentives to take one side of the question. Therefore it makes more sense to look at where the top people devote their research rather than what their stated opinions are. If the climate scientists with the best credentials go into computer modeling, which will be a dead end if the models turn out to be useless, we should have much more faith in them than if the top people prefer work on things like cloud formation or oceanic currents that will be valuable whether climate feedback is mostly negative or mostly positive. If we see top computer modelers with established reputations in non-climate fields moving to climate, that would tell us more than if the only climate modelers are people who have never proved themselves at modeling. Again, this isn't a question of personal bias or the quality of the climate scientists, although both of those things matter of course, but at getting the purest Bayesian measurement about what the experts think. (It's also interesting that US meteorologists, who have the detailed scientific training necessary to understand climate science, are far more skeptical of the computer model claims than the general public is; US meteorologists are one of the few groups of professionals who do well on tests of Bayesian logic; presumably because they are required by law to make repeated probability forecasts and they get immediate feedback; while scientists in general and even statisticians do badly).

As I said at the beginning, this is a great book and I recommend it highly. My gripes about "poetic" and sloppy Bayesianism are disagreements with the author, not reasons to miss out on this wonderful book.

I really liked the book but I found philosophical parts inaccurate and inconsistent. The book is very verbose in general. I think it could have been much shorter by focusing mostly on science instead of bringing in some superficial philosophical arguments. Moreover, the scientific discussions also feel inaccurate in neuroscience and biology.
Overall you can skip several chapters without losing much.

The Big Picture is best described as a collection of philosophical, ontological, and physical thoughts, having begun in a state of low entropy, on its cumbersome way to a state of high entropy, in between which words have been gathered upon a page by sheer force of will. There is also a sad kind of (pun totally intended) ‘preaching to the choir’ going on here. As I read, I kept thinking, “wow, this would be a great text for some of my theist friends to read”, but alas, they don’t really read. And if they did, they probably wouldn’t be interested in reading this. And even if they did, they’d just cuddle up under the bed of ignorance with their pre-existing notions and swipe at me from the shadows like a feral cat. Okay, so that’s not fair, I don’t really know anyone like that, but mostly because I don’t know many people,… probably because I say and write things like what I just wrote. Hmm. A pattern is emerging. Anyway, the real irony of preaching to the choir is: that it really is the only way to effectively preach at all; at least to most theists, in my experience. I am not a theist. There’s a word for this, even hidden in that last sentence, that I feel now has all this negative baggage associated with it, which is silly since it isn’t saying what someone is, just what they aren’t. I’m not purple either. If a theist were to sit down and really read this book and think about it, I believe it would open some pretty spectacular doors of thought for them, and not just because it’s a direct challenge to theism, it mostly isn’t. It is a challenge to construct arguments and conversations in such a way as to learn and grow as opposed to stagnate. I find that often, when bordering on any topic that has a theistic answer available, no matter the question, an element of willful blindness is present in the devout. Not always, but often. History provides enough examples of this to satisfy any need to list them here.

Unfortunately, for me the Big Picture read more like the ‘Quick Overview’. These are bit size snacks of the hardest concepts out there, and though delicious, beg for a full meal. Certainly, Carrol’s point wasn’t to write the end all be all book of all the topics in here; that simply couldn’t be done. But what he ends up with felt repetitive and disorganized. It pains me to write that, because he explains things very well, using a very reader friendly style uncharacteristic to this type of book, and includes a surprisingly good sense of humor and some personal details as well; all of which I really enjoyed.

But, we come back to that preaching to the choir. My knowledge of the sciences is enough that most of what I found in here to be a clear refreshment of difficult concepts that ultimately sent me to the bibliography for more. My knowledge of philosophy, consisting of a handful of undergraduate classes several years ago, is in a similar state. Carrol’s synopses are far removed from the mind bending experience of reading the originals, but enough to move to the next point. This simplification process almost certainly allows this book to be ingested by a larger audience, but likely one that has absolutely no interest in thinking about things of this nature. And those of us that do, honestly, need more than what is provided.

A weighty criticism, I know, but I’d like to make a final note: despite these flaws, this is a quick, engaging primer for any budding thinker. I can’t think of a better gift (Christmas would be hilarious) for someone that is ready for a challenge, or even better, for a parent with an engaged and interested teen. If you’re already a novice physicist or philosopher, reading this may not change your life, but it certainly won’t hurt you. If you are open to rethinking some core beliefs, (including those presented herein!), and have the patience to follow through, this is a good start.

Something that Sean Carroll did in his book that other people in the realm of Physics have failed to do was take special interest in Philosophy. Famous physicists such as Richard Feynman have often resented a lot of the topics covered in this book and it was refreshing to see Sean Carroll dive into the rabbit hole that others have avoided.

The physics portion of the book was excellent! I think I finally understand what I don’t understand about quantum physics. The philosophy portion was a waste of time. Let me summarize: We are are random cosmic accidents of carbon that are here for a short time and then the carbon moves on. This isn’t depressing because of a whole bunch of non-scientific reasons that make no sense including but not limited to Carl Sagan had a happy marriage, primates that got food poisoning learned to be nice to one another etc. While thought-provoking, they did nothing to invoke meaning in life.
I would definitely recommend reading this book. It gives a good scientific summary to history and where we need to go in the future.

“The Big Picture”, is certainly just that, an awful lot of ground to cover. My first thought was that Sean Carroll had bit off more than he could chew and at best he would cover the big picture with a thin frame. But I was wrong and he covered the topic with museum quality displays of knowledge.
It was a wide ranging look at the current state of affairs not only in the hard sciences such as physics but as much as possible in the soft science of human behavior from neuroscience to social relations. He seems to want to propitiate all points of view and makes you think that at different levels of reality it is okay to use different vocabulary that does not translate well from one level to the next. But he always comes to the conclusion that the naturalist explanation is the true description of life. No matter what topic you’re couching your argument in, ultimately all descriptions can not violate the core theory of quantum mechanics. He wants us to realize that the world and universe are impersonal and as a structure built from the impersonal substance of the cosmos we are free and obliged to define ourselves as we see fit during the nanosecond of our existence in the vastness of time.
The book is quite enjoyable to read because Sean Carroll has an encyclopedic fund of knowledge and you never feel that you’re being short changed in any topic he covers. And if you’re a naturalist as Sean is you’ll find the book quite reinforcing.

I bought and read this book in part because it was so highly rated and came away quite disappointed. (I also have read Carroll’s textbook on general relativity, which is quite good, so I thought I would check out his popular science writing.) There is very little science in this book and most of it is presented in sketchy form. For example, throughout the book Carroll relies (or appears to rely) on the idea that the Core Theory must be an essentially complete account of reality, putting aside highly energic events that we never encounter. According to him there is some mathematical proof of this that rules out other possibilities consistent with our observations — but it is not presented or even sketched in the book. Much of the book consists of Carroll’s philosophical musings, and Carroll is able to speak as an educated layman on many philosophical issues. But if you have an undergraduate degree in philosophy or are at least moderately well read in the area, you will not find anything terribly enlightening in this book. He essentially assumes physicalism and then draws a number of philosophical conclusions from it.

I found Carroll’s application of Bayesian reasoning to metaphysical theories (eg assesing the probability that God exists) interesting - probably the most interesting idea in the book. But though interesting, it seems to me quite implausible that such fundamental questions are really amenable to statistical analysis. We simply have no way of assigning likelihood functions in this context, so Bayesian inference can’t get off the ground (to his credit, Carroll recognizes this problem).

Not sure if it's a production quality issue or a playback issue but some tracks sound overly compressed and sound like a bad cell phone call. I've re-downloaded the title and I get the same thing. Might it be an iOS 10.0.2 and iPad Air 1st gen bug?

A fantastic simplified perspective that highlights cosmos and physics power ... very enlightening and u will learn a lot .
A true and sincere effort to reach a total scientific issue to average person .

Sean pores his heart, mind and scientific intellect into a sincere effort to explain what can and cannot be known about reality. The few "readers" who gave this book a low rating either did not actually read it or harbor an unfounded and prejudged attitude toward a legitimate inquiry into our core values that even suggests a non-theistic view in understanding the true nature of the world in which we live. Although Sean cannot, of course, provide a blueprint for ethical conduct, he narrows our options by defining what is possible in line with our current understanding of how the world works. Poetic naturalism provides a way to intelligently discuss those options within the framework of Core theory which he explains succinctly. He does not attack theists but simply engages with them to discover what we may honestly believe in light of what we can know with reasonable certainty. This is a rare book in that a scientist earnestly endeavors to engage the reader on these important questions without dismissing, out of hand, arguments on either side of the fence. His conclusions may not be what some would prefer but they nevertheless warrant serious attention if we are to honestly negotiate the moral landscape.

99% of this is pure gold -- a tour de force of popular science writing. Sean Carroll is one of the only true polymaths of our generation. With more eloquence than Carl Sagan, more accessibility than Neil DeGrasse Tyson, and more precision than Richard Dawkins, I was beginning to think this was the best book of its kind.

Then came the last chapter. All the intellectual rigor disappears, and Carroll descends into unbridled Pollyannaism. Having just made a devastating case against religious belief, he suddenly turns to thinly-veiled religious pontification about the inherent goodness of life that even Candide's Pangloss would struggle to match. With a bizarre story about making an egg, he dismisses everything ever written by thinkers like Sartre, Camus, Cioran, Schopenhauer, and Kafka about the struggle to find meaning in an indifferent universe. From shallow self-help experts and cheesy motivational speakers, Pollyannaism is par for the course. But coming from such an enlightened, well-read, and original thinker as Sean Carroll, it is profoundly disappointing.

NIce and friendly book. He's a little hesitant to come to terms with what his physics implies. Yes, of course we have to create our meaning as humans. What is the alternative? If he is afraid to offend the religious among his readers he is probably wasting his time. They all know the meaning of it all; it is in those prescientific "holy" books. WHat is he worried about?

The author makes much about a type of ontology called poetic naturalism. Alas it is a study in circular reasoning. Just as all human endeavor must be which tries to grasp more than what is known.
The. Basic premise is that a natural observable world holds all the explanation needed to explain what we can observe with our five senses however they might be enhanced. Well, yes. If you argue observing the physical is the best way of explaining the physical it makes sense that the best way to explain the physical it to observe it. Are you dizzy yet?
As with Descartes we come up against the limits of our own belief. We. Cannot know what we do not know. There are to many things in our own little lives that cannot be explained by a deliberate dedicated scientists let alone the sum of human existence. There are other forms of proof too. Simply try to prove scientifically that someone loves you. It can't be done. All the loving actions taken by another can be explained with some other motives. Does that mean love is not real? Of course not. Science as a way of trying to understand the world in which we live is a marvelous tool. Yet it can't predict how smoke rises nor are we yet aware of what makes up 75 percent of the physical world. It seems to me it is way too early for great thinkers to disregard intuition the power of prayer or a God who moves it all.
Can't we all just agree that science is the best we have at explaining what God has done and move on?

Imagine there is an aluminum siding salesman, and he is trying to convince you that putting aluminum siding on your house would be a good idea, and one of the things he says in favor of aluminum siding is that it does not rust. But this salesman comes from, and had to make a living in, a country where all the people are extremely opinionated, tirelessly garrulous, and see nothing wrong with pontificating endlessly on things they know nothing about. When they are told that aluminum siding does not rust, these people will, virtually by reflex, begin to argue, and will in fact gather in the town square, and will go on until long after nightfall, banging on the tops of barrels with umbrella handles, and, by the small hours of the night they will have completely convinced themselves that aluminum siding, which they have never seen and have no experience with, must certainly rust like crazy, because, otherwise, the siding salesman would feel no need to go around telling big lies about how it doesn’t.

As a result of this life experience, this salesman feels that just telling you that aluminum siding does not rust is inadequate, and thinks it essential to bring out a blackboard and spend four hours or so explaining to you, in terms of electron orbitals and the latest developments in materials science, just why it is that aluminum siding does not rust, while at the same time giving due consideration to all possible counter-arguments, and freely admitting that there may still be some small areas of uncertainty.

It is at least conceivable that some few potential siding customers will find this fascinating, and will make the salesman some tea and bring out some cookies, and will ask the salesman to go back over some of the earlier points in the talk. On the other hand, there may a potential customer here or there who, two and a half hours into the presentation, may begin to feel that he has died and gone to hell.

I suppose I am not part of the proper audience for “The Big Picture.” I was certainly a bad audience for it. This book acted on me like a giant sleeping pill. It was downright amazing, I could often read no more than four or five paragraphs before being rendered unconscious. I am not completely sure that I am competent to write a review. I probably slept through some things, and dreamt others. So this really won’t be more than a few comments.

While the writing in The Big Picture was, for me, potently soporific rather than engaging, Dr. Carroll did occasionally annoy me into a sort of grumpy semi-consciousness, as when he tells us that the early universe was in a state of extremely low entropy. “But,” the innocent, eager, inquiring student might ask, “didn’t Boltzmann explain that if there are many ways to rearrange the particles in a system without changing its basic appearance, it is high entropy? And wasn’t the early universe a gas of photons? And couldn’t those photons have been rearranged in what mathematicians call a “whole bunch” of ways without changing the basic appearance of the system?” The inquiring student might ask, but Dr. Carroll doesn’t. “We know something specific and informative about the past, it had a low entropy.” And how do we “know” this? “It may be just a true fact we need to learn to accept.” Yes, an actual working scientist said this, in print.

Before Dr. Carroll is allowed to publish another book he should be thoroughly examined to assure that he has learned the difference between a “fact” and a “conclusion,” and be compelled to state into which category his low entropy of the early universe falls.

But I must thank Dr. Carroll for introducing me to Calvin’s concept of the sensus divinatus, which is the human being’s natural ability to directly sense the divine. The sensus divinatus (which I am presently envisioning as a big AM/FM dial of the soul) is obviously real, but, sadly, I have to think most people have only ever had a very unrefined sensus divinatus, and they sense the divine in places like Mecca, Benares, Rome, Katmandu, Salt Lake, Karnak, the Hudson Valley, Delphi, Mauna Kea, Ayers Rock or Esalen, and, as a result, they sense the wrong divine. There may be only a few, perhaps some members of, say, the Texas Assemblies of God or some other sect, who are among the elect and not just whitened sepulchers – these people probably know who they are - who sense the correct divine. And atheists, who have always been with us, are blind, they have no sense of the divine at all, and, as a result they seldom have any desire to burn anyone at the stake, vote for Ted Cruz, or strap on a suicide vest.

I like it when a book provokes insightful thoughts, so I will give the “The Big Picture” an extra star.

And then, from what Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek has dubbed “The Core Theory,” (which has resulted in me thinking of Dr. Wilczek, probably very unfairly, as the Donald Trump of physics) we learn that, basically, the universe is a set of quantum fields, and that this is something that no one will ever be able to doubt, even if they are from a million years in the future.

There was a time, way back, before we even knew anything about relativity or quantum mechanics, when the only things we did know anything about were gravity (we got that wrong, science obviously hadn’t been perfected yet) and electromagnetism. Our primitive knowledge of electromagnetism was enough to give us, out of nowhere, the telephone, the electric light, television, and the crude beginnings of toaster science. Back then, if some crank was going on and on about how this science stuff is a bunch of hooey, you could just say things like “Oh, is that why you are sitting in the dark?”, or “Excuse me, my phone is ringing,” or “Oh, look, it is time for I Love Lucy.”

If you are completely naïve, like me, you might think for a moment that since we were able to do so much with so little, back then, now that we know tons about all kinds of quarks and possess definitive super knowledge about quantum fields etc., we should, at this point, be Masters of the Universe, or at least capable of knocking together a half-decent flying saucer, or at the very, very least be capable of designing a toaster that will toast the bread evenly, on both sides, every time, and not break after three weeks.

But developments in The Core Theory over the last forty years or so, a time period that Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek has dubbed “The Wilczek Era,” (okay, not really, at least to my knowledge, but read Dr. Wilczek’s book, and see what you think) have been more or less devoid of practical, everyday consequences.

Dr. Carroll might have devoted a few insightful, thought-provoking paragraphs to dealing with this, but he didn’t.

But, if quantum fields are now what it is all about, if nothing else the government will probably figure out a way to tax them.

Taxman: “Howdy. Beautiful day, ain’t it? And these are some mighty fine looking quantum fields you have here.”

Taxpayer: “These? Why, these quantum fields are nothing but mathematical constructs. I ain’t never made a dime out of any of them.”

Taxman: “Well, seein’ how that’s so, I will only assess you one dollar per Wilczek of quantum field. So that comes to, oh, call it six thousand bucks.”

Taxpayer: “What? Why, these fields would never rate higher than fifty Wilczeks, and that’s on their best day. And, besides, my neighbor has quantum fields that must run to twenty million Wilczeks, and he never pays any taxes.”

Taxman: “Well, of course not, seein’ as how the present administration is Republican.”

Finally, on page 437 is “The Equation Underlying You and Me.” At a glance, the equation tells you what life, meaning and the universe are all about. One word: Amplitude. If you have sufficient amplitude, then, in all probability, you are good to go. No amplitude? Too bad, too sad. The only problem with the equation is that the symbol for amplitude is “W,” which is just stupid. Obviously, amplitude needs a new symbol, but physics has long since used up all the available ones. Then it occurred to me: here, at last, is a good use for the smiley face emoticon. With this new symbol for amplitude, the equation immediately looks more reassuring, more intriguing. Kids will like physics more. Make the change in your in your own copy of The Big Picture and see for yourself.

Should be called "The Big Arrogance"
Just before Einstein blew them all out of the water, scientists were arrogantly announcing to the world how they now knew almost everything and only a few small mysteries remained to be resolved. Science departments everywhere could soon be shut down, they said.
This book is the exact same thing, all over again.
The author presents a complicated and convoluted argument for what essentially amounts to a defense of his disbelief in a supreme being. That's OK. I think scientists ought to be atheists. But as a result of that goal, this book goes absolutely nowhere.

"The Big Picture" conflates cosmology and cosmetology. The reader finds two books in one: The first a sweeping survey of contemporary scientific thinking, the other a spectacle involving lipstick and a pig.

The author is a self-described "blob of organized mud" who claims to be a naturalist and a Ph.D. I say "claims", because a card-carrying naturalist (essentially an atheistic materialist) would deny that a spooky entity called a Ph.D. actually exists (still less that such an entity could pop into existence just because a monkey grabbed a sheepskin.)

This is where the cosmetology (or "poetry") comes in: The author tries to square the circle with a little clever re-branding. As if "naturalism" were not already enough of a euphemism, he's hawking a special brand he calls "poetic naturalism". Sure, he says, you can go about your business as if Ph.D.'s were "real", so long as you never make the mistake of thinking they're really real. (And, we may add, never take them seriously.)

So the people in our lives may actually be real entities of some sort or other, provided they know their place and stay hardwired to the really-real physical stuff. In so many words, "person" is just high-falutin' talk for the almighty atom. We're not allowed to conceive of a person as a spiritual being, or as any other wonderful thing we may have thought people are. No, our loved ones are no more than jumped-up monkeys, or moist meaty robots, or mud. To believe differently is to violate the fundamental laws of the author's chosen profession — and that is a thought crime in the first degree. (Thank goodness the author is not a carpenter, or everything would look like a nail.)

From this perspective, every human problem looks like physical stuff in need of theorizing. (Even the venerable word "ontology" must be pressed into duty as a synonym for scientific theory.) Under this regime, we dare not speak of the true, the good, the beautiful, or the wise as being real in their own right. Rather, we must speak only of data and theory. We can construct certain higher-order word clouds around the data, but only insofar as these are deemed "useful" in describing or predicting underlying physical phenomena. (Alas, the author seems oblivious to the axiom that useful verbiage is rarely poetic, and vice versa.)

To the objection that materialism or naturalism is incoherent, we get only a tepid and circular defense. It's not that the author takes naturalism for granted, it's that naturalism provides the "best picture of the world". But why would you suppose that even the "best" scientific world-picture would constitute an adequate account of reality — unless you're just taking it as a given? A fish swimming in the sea has no word for land (or water).

By any name, atheistic materialism is the most primitive credal system (preceding any form of theism), yet Carroll always talks as if it's daring and avant-garde (the way an adolescent talks of sex). Nonetheless, and to his credit, Carroll is more genial than your run-of-the-mill atheist polemicist. He grants that there are many ways to describe God. That said, he seems to have avoided mature engagement with any of them, and his arguments evince no insight into how a lived faith actually works in the world. That's ironic, to say the least, given his repeated emphasis on accurate observation of the world. How is it respectable for a Ph.D. to put forward such a poorly-informed argument?

Finally, a case in point in that regard: In one passage Carroll cites three isolated sentences that apparently he screen-scraped in an Internet drive-by of a Vatican web site, and discusses them in a way that betrays abject ignorance of context and meaning. That's surprising for someone who cares about describing the world accurately, policing one's own biases, and vetting conclusions.

The idea of the book is to show that there is nothing in physics, in so called Core Theory, that is in contradiction with “non-touchable” aspects of human nature. Although at present it is not possible to prove that human consciousness is all physical phenomenon, he maintains that there is nothing to indicate that human consciousness is outside the scope of physical world... so therefore it must be physical? Title of the book suggests all encompassing approach which is really a tough task because there are too many “holes” and “unknowns”, and too many overlapping fields of study for a “specialist” like him. So, in order to give “The Big Picture”, he is trying to cover too much. And, in the process, he finds himself outside of his field, which is physics, in the fields where he is not at home and leans on other people's thoughts, ideas, research, and experiments in trying to make his point which is overburdened with his “physics bias”. Some parts of the book are interesting read, some are boring, and “The Big Picture” is nowhere to be found. Grandiose Title without capability to tackle the THEME.

Wow, I came back to post a comment because my experience was so vastly different than what I read from other reviewers. The book started poorly with overly simplistic language (typed the opening into a Dale-Chall tool, and it scored 9-10th grade readability level - from positive other reviewers, thought I was being a bit harsh, but the level of sophistication is incongruous between topic, command of material, and style elements), banal pop-culture references (probably for accessibility; ironically they come off humorless and when coupled with the simplistic language it was almost cruel), and progressed early into overly speculative, and critically unsupported, logic (from a respected scientist!). Considering the overwhelmingly positive reviews, on both the dust jacket and the store, I suggest that you preview the book - if you can - before buying it. Otherwise go ahead and take the plunge - but trust yourself and put it down at the first sign of trouble. Time may be difficult to define, but its easy to believe that its too valuable to waste.

Sean Carroll claims that he follows Bayesian reasoning yet all his arguments were very subjective and made no scientific sense at all.
His "scientific" reasoning was very general and he was skipping over a lot of the details. This was getting very annoying and I was not able to continue reading past 3/4 of the book.

Sean Carroll seems to be a brilliant physicist who cannot cope with the unknown and the possibility of the unknowable. I thought this book would be about some new scientific discoveries. Instead so far we are dealing with how opinions are formed . This is more philosophy than physics.

This book is about everything from science to philosophy, psychology, theology, and much more. In my view most of the non-scientific topics discussed in the book are trivial, banal and trite; nothing new, nothing interesting, and therefore, I found it extremely boring.
The scientific part contains almost everything from classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, biology, evolution, life and the universe. None of these topics are explained in any detail, some of the technical terms are not even defined.
Clearly, readers who are not familiar with the topics cannot gain anything from reading this book. Those who are familiar with these topics will find nothing new in this book, and therefore reading this part will be extremely boring.
There is one topic, however, which is misleading to both lay readers and experts in physics. As in the author’s previous book “From Eternity to Here,” great and exciting, but nonsensical ideas about entropy, the Second Law, the past hypothesis, and the Arrow of Time are repeated endlessly, from “Here to Eternity.”
I am well aware of the fact that most readers of this book may not agree with me. To all of these people, including the author, I recommend to read the two books of Hawking: “A Brief History of Time,” and “A Briefer History of Time.” Comparing the contents of these two books will reveal to the reader the reason behind my conclusion that all the author’s discussions about the entropy, free energy, arrow of times, etc. are plain meaningless. If reading these two books do not convince the reader, I strongly recommend to the reader, as well as to the author of this book, to read Chapters 5 and 6 of the book “The Briefest History of Time.”

What writer Mitch Albom (a plagiarizing, strike breaking, self-absorbed, facially reconstructed man, who no one in our class talked to by the time senior year in HS ended) is to the field of Morality, Sean Carroll is to the field of Theoretical Physics. In short, he just makes things up. My greatest science teacher, Dr. Michael Potenza, Rutgers, proved every statement he made and every word he uttered. That became the my personal Scientific Standard. Sean Carroll is the opposite. I am not a scientist, I am a CPA and work in the field of Finance, but even I was able to find two unsustainable claim presented as fact, in the first 10 pages. I wrote to the author and have not (as of yet...ha hah) received a reply. To me it seems the author, having achieved tremendous success in the world of Physics, is simply mocking everyone else; like when Mitch Albom crossed the picket lines at the Detroit Free Press. What a foolishly arrogant man.

I need go no further than the way the author willfully redefines the philosophical concept and and category known as ontology with his field of physics.
Basing the entire work upon this error, he simply stacks more errors on top. The ending is a Panglossian vision that, based as it is on all of the errors and misdirections, serves only as a thin, cheap wall paper over his nihilism.

First of all this is not a popular physics book neither a religious book . There is no evidence in this book which proves that there is no God. It seems like that author imposing his crazy ideas and taking advantage of his position in the world of scientists. I challenges the author to just read the Holy Quran and it's scientific revelations with open minds he will start believing in God.

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[Today, after more than a year of suffering, I managed to finish reading this book. As of now, I am giving it four stars. Negative ones! Yes, I am rating Sean as minus 4 stars out of a total of 10 positive stars at most, and five negative stars at least. I will be writing something about it in the near future]
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Provisionally, I am giving Sean Carroll (The Big Picture) a zero-stars rating. I am still at about 40% reading the book, so there is some possibility that this will go lower (minus one, minus two...), and remote possibility that this will get higher (one star at most, I guess).
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Sean is not an easy character to analyze, and so are his writings. He has good points, interesting contributions to the layman in physics, and many instances of good level of respect for opponents' views and respect to mankind. Yet, he does have many weak points, and when it comes to the core subject of this book, it looks pretty much that he fails miserably.
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Despite my rating, I think this book should be read by people. It is important, though, that people do not "believe" Sean. I am not saying that he is lying. What I am saying is that it is very hard to put together modern physics and everyday discourse, and to extract from it day-to-day meaning. Therefore, it is expected that almost any great mind in this world will fail in this task to a considerable extent, and the wary reader will be able, here and there, to spot weaknesses even in the mightiest of our modern-day intellectual colossi (be it Stephen Hawking, Sean Carroll, Victor Stenger, or Julio Siqueira).
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I have made some contributions to the comments section of Sean Carroll's blog, Preposterous Universe, especially to his latest article entitled Consciousness and Downward Causation (September 8, 2016). I will include, in the comments section of this review of mine, two rather extensive comments that I made on the topic, since they are highly relevant to the content and scope of the book The Big Picture.
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This review will be appended with more concrete info when I finish reading the book.
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In all accounts, though, it is safe to say that Poetic Naturalism is, at worst, woo woo of the feeblest sort, or, at best, Intellectual Naturism (naivety) in disguise.
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Julio Siqueira

Sean Carroll lives in a bleak universe and he knows it. He is looking for a way to feel less bad about it.

In theology, there is a term called "Apologetics" which is an essay that attempts to defend the belief in God through logic. Dr. Carroll's book is the opposite, an "Anti-Apologetic". It is a defense of a belief that there is no God, the universe created itself, that everything is deterministic, there is no free will and we have no eternal existence. Recognizing the unpalatability of that view, the author says it is OK to act as if we believe we have free will and a future beyond this existence in order to be "poetic". The poetic life he advocates is sort of a willful delusion to make life easier. (Opiate of the masses?)

To accomplish his anti-apologetic, the author, a noted physicist, hops and skips through various scientific views and speculations, picking things that suit him, ignoring others and inventing out of whole cloth others.
In his view, science has everything figured out. Well, figured out enough that there is nothing that could possibly be discovered that could upset his view.

What about something as mind blowing as quantum mechanics? Keep moving along folks nothing to see there. He only has two short chapters on quantum mechanics and concludes with his view that everything important (like consciousness, free will etc.) can be explained with classical physics. Therefore there is no possibility of free will.

But when he tries to explain how the universe came into being without the help of God, suddenly quantum mechanics becomes a wide open field for his speculations. He describes an unproven theory using quantum mechanics to explain how the universe could suddenly appear out of nothing. In fact, his theory like other similar ideas, is really just a verbal sleight of hand. His "universe" that pops into existence, is not “everything" that most people think of as being the universe. He assumes that the laws of quantum mechanics existed forever in an un-collapsed quantum state. So, by redefining the "universe" as only the current collapsed version he can claim that quantum mechanics is capable of birthing the universe without the help of God. Notably he has no explanation where quantum mechanics and the un-collapsed universe came from (and he hopes you don't notice).

And if he barely discusses quantum mechanics, what about the missing 80% of the matter in the universe? Dark matter only gets a few sentences to tell you not to concern yourself with it. Dark Energy? same thing. Keep moving folks, nothing to see here.

How loose is he with the facts? Here is a great example: He claims that science can disprove the idea of God because the universe is bigger than it needs to be to evolve life. Oh really? He knows that?

Let's look at the things he would need to know to make that claim. First he would need to know how life evolved on the earth. (Which no one does, there isn't even a good theory yet). Second, he would need to know how common life is in the universe. Are we the only planet with life? (The Fermi paradox says we are). Lastly, he would have to know what of the current attributes of the universe that are necessary for life (e.g.: existence of stars, planets, heavy elements, etc.) could exist with a smaller universe. In reality, the current theories of the universe are so bad that we can't find the majority of matter or energy that are necessary to make the current models work. (without even getting in other problems like there is no current theory that explains the uneven texture of the universe or the missing anti-matter.)

Finally he asserts, that in spite of his view of no free will and cataclysmic end to all creation with no possibility of any information about anything we have done passing to the future, that there still is a poetic concept of goodness? I would assert if nothing we do actually matters or will have any lasting impact, there is no concept of good that has any real meaning.

I think this book (like political talk radio) is really aimed at people who already hold his point of view. It's really not trying to convince someone new, but instead an attempt to give people who already feel they live in a bleak universe the permission to imagine they live in a better place. A “positive delusion” he calls it. A place that they can imagine and write poetry about but unfortunately not really live in.

I can understand why Dr. Carroll is looking for some opium to cure his depressing view of reality. But I think instead he should think about what people like Plato and CS Lewis said: Where did people get this inner longing for a universe where their decisions mattered or where there is a transcendent reality?

“Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. … If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” CS Lewis

Don’t be Fooled by THE BIG TALK.
This book is a piece if 21st century closed minded dogmatic physicalism. Here’s the dogma: Physics has a theory called “the Core Theory.” It holds that everything is particle based. The Big Bang produced the particles, and we are all riding through time on the momentum of that “initial condition of the universe.” You are free to talk about having an immaterial mind, or consciousness, but you are Wrong. Every little thing is, and can only be, a collection of particles. The author can’t explain how that works, but he insists (in the book and to his audiences) that any story about consciousness, or self-awareness as immaterial is wrongheaded. Only stories that are compatible with The Core Theory of physics can be true, or anywhere near true.

This dogmatic doctrine raises at least two questions the book and author avoid, because they can’t answer them. One is, what makes the story told by physics – the Core Theory (that all is particles) – any more true than non-particle based stories? If you feel and experience that your self-awareness is something other than a bunch of tiny pieces of matter in your head, then you must be delusional, because only the story told by physics can be true.

Second, how is the theory that the “initial condition of the universe” causes and constitutes all, any different than God caused and created all? In short, this book is a parallel universe to Religion! The Core Theory dogma has no proof that your mind is a self-delusion, nor that something exists outside the puny minded demands that nothing can possibly exist unless it’s a collection of particles, held together by gravity, and set in motion by the Big Bang.

The Catholic Church claims Omniscience, and John Carroll wants to put Particle Physics in its place, with himself as the New Pope. Skeptics Beware! Contrary to its promises, this book will tell you nothing about “life,” and try to sell you on the idiotic claim that “meaning” is a bunch of particles swimming around in your brain. Carroll asks for your Faith. I wouldn’t give him that or my money!

William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.
Author of The Human Birth Defect: On the Origins of Human Unhappiness, and Its Cure.

The author spends the whole book trying to discredit the concept of a God. I really think he is still trying to figure this concept out. Anyway I agree with the one reviewer who says the guy likes to hear himself talk.

While this book is well written and comprehensive, I feel it fails completely to answer the questions it puts forth. Instead, it merely demonstrates the author's desire to claim he can explain the universe solely in terms of material physical science. What he does not admit is that material science is, in fact, a faith based religion that strives, like virtually all other religions, to make claim it has "the answer". His debunking of near death experiences, which have been verified scientifically by the thousands, is a dead giveaway. As philosopher William James put it so simply, "Our science is a drop, our ignorance is a sea". There is far more arrogance in this type of work than a search for truth and meaning in a still mysterious world. And that is disappointing.

i have read a lot of science, Astronomy and a few physics books. This seemed nothing but philosophy. im not interestex in that at all. i was hoping for a good science read but was very disappointed.

In his prologue, the author sets his readers on his knee and counsels them: "We have two goals ... one is to explain the story of our universe and why we think it is true ... it's a fantastic conception ... The second goal is to offer a bit of existential philosophy ... though we are part of a universe that runs according to impersonal underlying laws, we nevertheless <i>matter</i>." (original emphasis) Thus we have a reductionist physicist condescending to relieve us of both our piteous ignorance and immobilizing anxiety of existence (be still, my heart!).

The author's viewpoint is graphically portrayed by the figure on p. 189 which shows the entire accumulated knowledge of the known universe of an all-encompassing "Underlying Reality" inside of which is an ellipse "Core Theory + New Physics" which contains (a pair of ellipses of "Astrophysics ..." and) a second, "Core Theory" which, lastly, encloses one titled "Everyday Experience". Presumably, at the latter base of this hierarchy is the most complex phenomena in the known universe. To me, speaking as a non-religionist, this diagram completely describes the physicist received doctrine of reductionism. Moreover, what follows is possibly humanly interesting, but who cares?

The author's church background parallels Dawkins' youthful seduction by the church which he resoundingly rejected by inventing -- as fictional an invention it obviously is -- the selfish gene. In turn, this author offers his tribe's core theory to protect us from the haints of what's out there in the big (pic) scary. Despite the cover's promise, "On the origins of life, meaning and nah-nah", humans' need for connections is completely outside this book's scope: the book is about the author and what's inside his once churchy, now physicisty head.

The author's ignorance of life, although it seems not to deter his discussion of the topic, its importance and its hierarchical complexity (rendering the "Core" irrelevant) is the book's surprising leit motif.

Most of the book reads like a combination of updated and warmed over Carl "billions and billions of stars" Sagan with a lot of Christopher Hitchens thrown in. The problem is Sagan was a better writer, and Hitchens is funnier.

Like Krauss' "Universe from Nothing" book, it is just more science vs. religion drivel. Carroll, Dawkins, Krauss, etc... all clearly have an agenda, to show the world with works like these that science is more valuable than religion, but their arguments are extremely strange and not scientific at all, no matter how much they claim it is! Many of the scientific arguments have major gaps. Since I have exhausted myself Ad nauseam already combatting Krauss' silly book (Google: arXiv:1405.6091), I don't have the time or patience (at least not right now) to do the same with Carroll's book. Thankfully, Peter Woit has addressed many of the issues here: Google Peter Woit's Wordpress page.

I will say the biggest point that Carroll gets wrong is on top-down causation, which has been pointed out several times by George Ellis, who is an expert in the field. Note to Sean: "Discussing snow flakes will not do for understanding humans!" He frequently dismisses top-down causation in favour of a purely naturalist/materialist view, but, he has not taken the time to really understand how top-down causation and importantly, quantization actually works! It is a well-known theorem due to Groenewold and von Hove that an arbitrary classical system can simply not be *fully* quantized. Surely one needs more than the Hilbert space of quantum mechanics to get back to classical mechanics. The meaning of the "no go" theorems is mostly that the structures of classical and quantum mechanics are not isomorphic. Thus, QM applications based entirely on
classical mechanics are necessarily approximations. It is therefore quite foolish of Sean to continue to advocate a worldview in which *everything* is based on quantum mechanics, since this is not mathematically correct in any which way.

For those that are interested in understanding how top-down causation *really* works, see: (I am linking the preprints here where possible since they are free and do not require a subscription to read)
1. arXiv:1406.4732
2. arXiv:1302.7291
3. arXiv:1212.2275
4. arXiv:1207.4808
5. Annals of Physics, Volume 327, Issue 7, p. 1890-1932
6. arXiv:0710.4235

Further, George Ellis has given a series of lectures and interviews at Oxford recently on fine-tuning, causation, and evolutionary biology, they can be seen here: Google: relativitydigest: a-series-of-lectures-on-fine-tuning-in-biology

Apologies for the Google: " ", the store reviews apparently does not allow the direct posting of links in the review.

Finally, for the people that are giving this review 1 star who are claiming that top-down causation is some type of mystic or religious theme, note that top-down causation aims to understand the relation between local physics and large-scale structure physics, the difference between "small-C" cosmology and "big-C" cosmology. Dennis W. Sciama who was a world-renowned physicist and an avowed atheist was one of the foremost proponents of top-down causation and spent a significant time studying it, see: arXiv:gr-qc/0102017

Sincerely,
Dr. Ikjyot Singh Kohli

This is not a book about science. It is a treatise on atheism. From the description and the NPR interview, I thought it would be the former, and was really looking forward to the scientific synopsis. So disappointed that every few paragraphs it goes back to a narrative about why the scientific principles being discussed support "naturalism" or atheism, often without any real support at all to this claim. I returned without finishing.

I a uni celular organisms, there was no meaning , only existing, but 800, 0000 years ago something happen. Unicells started to become a multi cell organism. Why? Also moral was created. Cells that will self sacrifice to save the whole. Creation started on a uni celular point. Moral. Sacrifice to the benefit of the whole.