wbiro

Perfect for a long road trip.

Reviewed: 01-01-25

It is always amazing how much a professor knows about a subject.
Much knowledge about the past that the average person would not otherwise know, and which connects to the present.
Broadens one's interests.

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Listening to This Book is How to Lose Time

Reviewed: 10-26-24

Not only could I not determine the overall plot, but also the character (who or what was she?), the universe (too many asides muddling the picture), or, incredibly, any of the scenes (who was doing what, even the main character), and never mind why, which was even more obscure. In the end, the book was pleasant noise that kept me awake while driving. I came away with only one thing: that a "post postscript" is PPS rather that PSS...

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Good Solid General History

Reviewed: 09-19-24

And a lot of it. This book was also refreshing for me, allowing me to spend time with reality after having suffered through a few books that were steady streams of BS (motivational books making false claims). So my suggestion is, to fully appreciate this book, torture yourself with a motivational book or two first...

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1 person found this helpful

Not Real

Reviewed: 09-15-24

False claims and make-believe. This, and not the narration, is why it is not listenable. The human brain cannot listen to a steady stream of BS.

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The Title Does Disservice to the Book

Reviewed: 11-02-23

The book is really a broad coverage of science, science history, and some philosophy. The philosophy is weak and based on errors, however. Another negative is that the author genuflects to religion on some points (he believes in a 'soul', for example), perhaps to please friends and family, or to bow to the powers that be (as did thinkers of the past who preferred to avoid deadly Inquisitions by flattering religion).

I have three levels of critique for this book:

1. The Harshest Critique: that if you want proof that humans are still idiots, this book will prove it.

2. The Neutral Observation: The author has the common misconceptions and faults of his generation.

3. The Positive View: That the book is really a broad coverage of science, science history, and philosophy, though the philosophy was extremely weak and based on past errors in thinking, given little verified knowledge of the times..

What were the author's common misconceptions of his generation?

1. He did not knowing what 'Now' is. He thought it was something in the stream of time, which befuddled him, rather than what I say, which is that 'now' is the current arrangement of atoms in the universe, which solves the 'arrow of time' problem that the author could not fathom or solve due to his erroneous starting point (his erroneous notion of 'time').

2. He said that you can stand still in space. when I say that you can't, not in this universe, which is, everywhere, constantly in motion.

3. He said that Infinity was a very large number. I say that it is the equivalent of nothingness, since it has no bounds, and any physical 'something' has to have bounds. I also say that Infinity is the background nothingness in which everything exists (and the same goes for Eternity, which is the background changelessness in which everything changes). This is at least a useful view of the two notions.

4. He still believed in a soul, which is obviously a silly, primitive premise born of using one's wild imagination )(if not hallucination) to propose answers to life's deepest questions.

5. He did not know what time was, thinking that it was a physical property that we could physically travel through, when I know that time is just an idea that we invented to give temporal units to change, which is the actual physical property that we should be addressing when engineering anything. Going back in change, for example, has no Grandfather Paradox. To note, the paradox should have been a red flag that you were not thinking correctly about time in the first place. just like, the the universe being 'something from nothing' as for as its beginning is concerned. Since it is a paradox, then it indicates we are not thinking correctly about 'something' and 'nothing' in the first place (perhaps we are like dogs presented with Calculus in that matter*) (*enter Artificial Intelligence, which is not limited by biological brain evolution)...

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Helped Spur the Philosophy of Broader Survival

Reviewed: 09-15-23

This is where I realized that all of life uses the Three Lower Strategies of Broader Survival: Population Increase, Population Diversity, and Population Dispersal (the Three Higher coming later, emerging with Higher Consciousness: Extended Reason, Broader Proaction, and Higher Technology.
Beyond that, the book was eye-opening concerning nature and other species, and entertaining.

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Exhaustive

Reviewed: 08-22-23

A rigorous journey through mountains of human hogwash and oceans of abject cluelessness by many past thinkers that I now know to dismiss rather than waste my time with.

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Science,and,History

Reviewed: 07-06-23

This is not an opinion book. it is, in fact, the best science and history book that I've listened to in a while (all the more appreciated after listening to the loads of opinionated tripe on YouTube).

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Good History and Partial Truth

Reviewed: 06-06-23

I say "partial" in a general sense, since any one point of view, if subjective (like history), will only offer partial truths at best. This book is a good defence of Reagan, with some criticisms thrown in so it isn't a whitewash.

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Fine Narration, Outstanding history.

Reviewed: 06-06-23

Enjoyed this window into the past. Nicely researched, well written, and well narrated. Well done.

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