Interesting perspectives from a scientist known for contrarian views. There are many problems with the text from the general lose format, to the out of date information, to impressive failures in predicting problems we deal with in the futures he describes.

Still you can learn interesting ideas from books like this about how different our world is, and strategies that make sense vs ones that don’t.

The general premise that there is infinite science in all directions and diversity of kinds of science remains interesting and valid today. ( )

Great book. First part is a life lesson.

As infinity is, -1/12 is a rather odd notion I have come the conclusion that it is not space and time that is curved but numbers and mathematics. Space and time is actually straight when you take this into account.

Maybe that's why I love quantum physics; it challenges science with science to move beyond its arrogance that ‘this is what is’. What is is only what we think we understand at the moment. Is is always evolving, then, something new becomes what is. I believe it’s possible for layers of what is; I accept I don’t know and remain open to ideas. I love this idea that yes, on a macro level time moves forward and on a granular level other things may be going on. Fascinating!

And what we can say about nature is dictated by the conventions in which we choose in order to describe it. We have (for example) chosen to adopt a measure of time which dictates what is "cause" and what is "affect". Based on instinct. We feel that we are born before we die. Just reverse the direction of time, rewrite physics so that what we now regard is an "affect" is now the "cause", and everything is consistent. The choice is simply one of convention. Arguably, it doesn't matter one bit. What matters is that we understand what we mean by the "direction of time".

It's an epistemological debate. Is the direction of time a fundamental choice, or just an arbitrary one? If we were to choose another, it would change how we write the physical laws, but would it really change the universe as we observe it?

Physics is a model that "works". It isn't the truth. There isn't a "truth".

According to scientists from various specialties the experience of human consciousness is not real in different ways. These views are based on conclusions from theoretical constructs. The data used to verify scientific theories and the theories themselves are products of human consciousness. So if consciousness is inherently fallible, how can we trust conclusions ultimately derived from consciousness? Science like art and culture have enriched the world, for both good and bad - I'm not seeking to deny that, it is too obvious.

What I am saying is that when it comes to actual nature, actual reality, the factual state of things as they are, my abstractions about it, or yours, or anyone else's, no matter how noble or enlightened they might be, have no significance. The word is not the thing. The word "tree" is not the actual thing we call a tree. Our knowledge of the world is not the actual world, in the same way that a map is not the actual territory it describes, but is merely a convenient series of abstract marks that can guide a person in a conditional, limited and purely functional way. The map of the New Forest is not under any circumstances, now or in the everlasting future, the New Forest - it is a man-made construct which has come into existence for private and purely subjective, goal based ends. The map is a means to and end, like a description, like a word. The reality is an end in itself and is not man-made.

This is not philosophy, it is a matter of simple observation and discernment of which a child is capable. Words have become so important to us that we miss the actual fact: it is a kind of madness. When it comes to matters of truth and actuality, science, even the greatest science of Einstein or Planck, is only an approximation at a mental level, a conceptual level, of how/what reality is: it is not reality itself.

String Theory and the Kaluza-Klein (and Calabi-Yau Spaces) reflect the old conundrum between epistemology and ontology...Freeman Dyson has a book entitled "Infinite in All Directions.” If that is so, science could go on exploring for ever. On the other hand it may be circular in which case science will go round in circles for ever filling in more details. The current view is that intelligence and awareness somehow arose from the physical universe, but now it is conjecture that information inherently exist in the universe, however it is possible that by extending information to intelligence, intelligence might inherently exist in the universe. Science relies very on instrument to 'see' phenomena, various scopes, telemicro oscilloscopes, etc. So the development of scopes will presumably go on forever yielding evermore certain information. Dyson is not a Sphere... ( )

Part two somewhat dated as Soviets collapsed the next year after publication ( )

Part two somewhat dated as Soviets collapsed the next year after publication ( )