
Why? The Purpose of the Universe
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Narrated by:
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Philip Goff
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By:
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Philip Goff
Why are we here? What's the point of existence? On the "big questions" of meaning and purpose, Western thought has been dominated by the dichotomy of traditional religion and secular atheism. In this pioneering work, Philip Goff argues that it is time to move on from both God and atheism. Through an exploration of contemporary cosmology and cutting-edge philosophical research on consciousness, Goff argues for cosmic purpose: the idea that the universe is directed towards certain goals, such as the emergence of life.
In contrast to religious thinkers, Goff argues that the traditional God is a bad explanation of cosmic purpose. Instead, he explores a range of alternative possibilities for accounting for cosmic purpose, from the speculation that we live in a computer simulation to the hypothesis that the universe itself is a conscious mind. Goff scrutinizes these options with analytical rigor, laying the foundations for a new paradigm of philosophical inquiry into the middle ground between God and atheism. Ultimately, Goff outlines a way of living in hope that cosmic purpose is still unfolding, involving political engagement and a non-literalist interpretation of traditional religion.
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Chasing Consciousness in book form
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Great beginning and middle. Disappointing conclusion.
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Referring to Goff's last popular work, Galileo's Error, he sticks to his guns. That is, he continues to conflate physics and math (throwing qualitative models out with the bathwater), and interestingly, he continues the "intrinsic natures" argument while here acknowledging energy as fundamental (as opposed to "particles" viz Galileo's Error). Yet we come away the better for having followed Goff's line of reasoning, having been made to think deeper about our own position.
Wrong. But not wrong-headed :-)
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Great Food for Thought
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Good
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Second, while I found the central thesis of this book fascinating, in order to make his case he needed to address the competing option - the God hypothesis. His way of doing this, unfortunately, was disappointingly superficial. He essentially builds his case entirely on the problem of evil as evidence of the absence of a Creator, but the only counterpoint to this argument that he notes is one of the weakest variants I’ve heard. In essence he’s attacking a straw man to amplify his position. It’s understandable because a divine Creator fits the data significantly better than his hypothesis, he knows this, and he thus can’t let the reader’s mind dwell on it. This was actually pretty distracting because I kept thinking ‘God…you’re describing God’.
There was also a point where he seems to misunderstand the mind/body problem. I find it hard to believe that he doesn’t actually get it, so I assume the fault is mine and that I just didn’t follow his argument properly. Still…it certainly seemed as though his understanding of the subject was one-dimensional.
Frankly, the display of such obviously cursory knowledge made me question pretty much everything in the book, including the original and fascinating material on a self-ordered universe.
Overall, I’m pretty disappointed.
Skip this one
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Then, after listening to hours of lecture on why one should think critically, the author closes with why socialism is correct because he believes it is. This move academic in the worst connotation I can infer. I look forward to requesting a refund for this purchase because, well, socialism is awesome I guess.
This book tries to dull you to socialism.
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