Interesting NY Times science post by George Johnson.
(Hat tip to Rick Ryals on Facebook.)
” … it is almost taken for granted that everything from physics to biology, including the mind, ultimately comes down to four fundamental concepts: matter and energy interacting in an arena of space and time.”
” … maybe decades or millennia from now — here or someplace yet to be imagined — science on Earth, circa 2014, will look like nothing more than a good start.”
concludes Johnson.
In practice it’s a comparative review of two books:
Thomas Nagel’s 2012 “Mind and Cosmos:
Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False” and
Max Tegmark’s 2014 “Our Mathematical Universe:
My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality”
The former gets slated by Pinker, so that’s a good recommendation for me. (Here a review in Prospect Magazine.)
I’m a fan of Thomas Nagel and did read Mind and Cosmos, difficult as it was for me. The review in Prospect really gets into where he’s coming from I believe. Best one I’ve seen yet.
Thanks Seev. Not read MInd and Cosmos yet, but expect I will.