Existential Physics

This is a pleasant dive through what science has to say about many of life's more philosophical questions. It's very pleasant to read, but most of the questions are approached in a pretty broad manner, meaning that each question has mostly only the surface scratched. In that sense the book is rather shallow. That's not necessarily a bad thing, each question in the book could be the topic of an entire book in itself, and I'd probably rather read these intros rather than a set of nice books, or even, say, the most appealing three.

It does mean though, that you're not going to learn much new here, unless, well unless you're the sort of person who wouldn't read this book anyway.

The existential implications of physics and the weirdness of reality are some of my favorite things to learn about, so I looked forward to picking this up. Some of the topics here I’ve learned about before but it’s so hard for me to understand them that I appreciate hearing about them in a new way.

I don’t think her communication of these complex things was always successful, at least not for me. She also chose questions to answer that weren’t always interesting to me.

My favorite ideas discussed were the nature of time, the multiverse, and free will.

I thought she was wonderfully kind to folks who are religious or spiritual, giving them space here.

Hilariously, I did indeed think she was being “no fun” at points and then she acknowledged this.

An interesting book where the author tackles some of the essential questions, and what does physics have to say about them. The author is careful to state what current day physics can actually say, before pulling in more ideas that are, in her view, not supported by the data or evidence that we know about the workings of the universe.

In a series of chapters, questions about the past, present and future (time), how the universe began, free will and consciousness are asked and answered. More speculative questions posed include whether the universe itself can think and whether humans are predictable.

You may or may not agree with her conclusions, but posing and trying to answer the questions will give you an idea about the limits of current day physics. And perhaps we have to accept that some questions may never have adequate answers.

At first I had issues with what she was writing but then I realized it was how.she was framing her arguments.

This book has changed me. I now have a better understanding of ascientific theory and what is a scientific theory. It's amazing how much other atheist/agnostic scientists put their faith in theories that have no basis in the actual scientific research.

The author does a great job of not debating those theories nor religion or have anything against them she just argues for what does the science tell us about the universe.

Taking it from that point of view, this book has changed me.