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Science Books Media Book Reviews

God's Debris 334

Posted by timothy from the sweep-sweep-sweep dept.
Thank reader mblumber for this review of Scott Adams's God's Debris, newly republished in hardcover after starting out life a few years ago as an e-book. For those who've never seen Adam's serious side, this is an interesting introduction.
God's Debris
author Scott Adams
pages 128
publisher Andrew McMeel, Publishers
rating 9
reviewer mblumber
ISBN 0740721909
summary An existential thought experiment in the form of a dialogue.

I like reading books that make me think, but not in the same way that I think when I'm at work or doing homework. When reading for pleasure, I want something that at first glance is so strange it's absurd, but at closer examination makes a tremendous amount of sense. That depth is the essence of Scott Adams' God's Debris, A Thought Experiment.

Adams is not known for writing super-intelligent commentaries on life, at least ones without a punchline or visual gag. Creator of Dilbert, his writing to this point has focused upon the world of cubicles and shifting organizational charts where engineers and management ('induhviduals' as he often calls them) square off in battles where the engineers are right and management is wrong. Very straightforward, enjoyable reading, but nothing compared to his latest work.

God's Debris was first published in May of 1999 as an e-book. It is sold by Digital Owl and can be purchased as bits for $4.95 or in hardcover wherever books are sold. The story focuses on both the physical laws of nature (relativity, gravity, the origin of the universe) and the psychology behind religion. The story is told by a fairly educated narrator talking to an unseen second character who seems to hold a deep understanding of the universe. As I read more, I found my own questions being raised by the narrator, and addressed by the other character. This arrangement makes for a very strange read, but the unusual format enhances the overall reading experience.

This book second guesses everything one learns in school, and comes close to succeeding. I cannot think of a single statement in the book that can be proven incorrect. To a college-educated reader like me, some of the assertions may seem totally ridiculous -- the problem is that they make just as much sense as Einstein's relativistic physics. In the introduction to the book, Adams observes the fact that ' ... the simplest explanation usually sounds right and is far more convincing than any complicated explanation could hope to be.'

The protagonist makes some very peculiar assertions throughout; My favorite is a statement he makes about the true nature of gravity, specifically that it is fueled by probability. The idea his advances is that all matter is constantly switching in and out of existence, and that is how objects move. The reason that matter appears to be attracted to other matter is that, according to the rules of probability, each piece of matter will inherently appear closer to massive objects the next time it comes back into existence. If you didn't understand that, and you'd like to, then you should read the book.

If you are a religious person, I can assure that this book will be disturbing. Although not told from an atheist point of view, the protagonist rejects the traditional view of religion. There are references to religious beliefs as 'delusions' only intended to allow the less-enlightened to live in relative peace in a world which has little. Taken as a whole, the views expressed can best be summarized ala Jesse Ventura, that 'organized religion is a crutch for the weak-minded.'

I'm purposely avoiding going into detail about the contents of the book. This is not only because a small piece doesn't make sense by itself, but also because most of the fun is in the discovery. Reading this book, you feel as if you are the first and only person to truly understand the world. I wouldn't want to spoil that for you. It's only 132 pages, broken up into very short chapters, and it can be read on your lunch break. I highly recommend it.

You can purchase this book at Fatbrain. Do you want to see your book review on Slashdot? Please take a look at the book review guidelines first.
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God's Debris

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  • Organised religion quote (Score:4, Informative)

    by Grab ( 126025 ) on Friday November 09, 2001 @12:36PM (#2543803) Homepage
    Jesse Ventura rephrased that from Karl Marx, who said that "religion is the opiate of the people".

    Grab.
    • i thought it was "revolution is the opiate of the masses"...

      ?
      • i thought it was "revolution is the opiate of the masses"...
        No. [bartleby.com]

        It's worth pointing out that some of the meaning of the original quote has been lost. In Marx's day, "opiate" didn't mean "addictive recreational drug"; it meant "powerful, potentially harmful painkiller".

        Put another way, Marx saw capitalism as a disorder for which religion was a dangerous, limited remedy, and communist revolution the cure.

        Yecchhh, I'm actually defending Marx. I'm going to go take a shower now...

    • Slight difference (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Bilbo ( 7015 ) on Friday November 09, 2001 @01:24PM (#2544175) Homepage
      Not that I think Jesse Ventura necessarily understood the subtle difference, but there is a difference between "Religion" (i.e., the fundamental belief in the existence of a Higher Power (i.e., "God") outside of the scope of our physical world) and "Organized Religion" (a formalized set of beliefs, often propagated by an organized, hierarchal system of "Priests").

      The former is a system of beliefs which one comes to based on one's own experiences and understanding.

      The latter is an external system, often forced on individuals, without any thought on their own part.

      I happen to be a very "religious" person myself, but I'll be the first to admit that a huge percentage of people filling our churches, synagogues, mosques or whatever are there simply to be led around by the nose without having to really wrestle with the deeper questions of life and their existence.

      In that sense, yes - "Organized Religion" is certainly an Opiate.

    • It is also derived from a quote from Sigmund Freud:
      Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world, which we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological necessities. But it cannot achieve its end. Its doctrines carry with them the stamp of the times in which they originated, the ignorant childhood days of the human race. Its consolations deserve no trust. Experience teaches us that the world is not a nursery. The ethical commands, to which religion seeks to lend its weight, require some other foundations instead, for human society cannot do without them, and it is dangerous to link up obedience to them with religious belief. If one attempts to assign to religion its place in man's evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a parallel to the neurosis which the civilized individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity.
      "Moses and Monotheism", 1932
    • Excuse me, but Marx said that television is the opiate of the people. Yes, he was ahead of his time.

      And John Lennon said that lsd should be the religion of the people.

      Then Postman said television is the religion of the people.

      Then Burroughs said lsd is better than television

      Ventura just was trying to start a new thread.

      Actually I prefer "consumerism is the religion of the people" .
      Working to buy a bigger car than your neighbor sure makes life meaningful.

      Sarcastic? Who, me?
    • The Marx statement is, I think, generally misinterpreted. Keep in mind that Marx made it in the early 19th century. At that point, opium was a key medical drug for relieving pain.

      I don't really think that Marx meant to imply that religion put people into an unthinking daze in which they would be content with their situations. Rather, the focus was that such pain existed, in a social sense, and the fact that people needed something to help them deal with it was indicative of a real problem that needed to be addressed. In other words, the statement isn't a commentary on the merits of religion, but rather on the state of society.

      (side note: if I recall correctly, I first encountered this interpretation in a book by Edward Hays)

  • I'd have a hard time taking this book seriously (Score:3, Funny)

    by tmark ( 230091 ) on Friday November 09, 2001 @12:38PM (#2543822)
    It would be hard to take any book by him that does not contain comic strips, seriously. I would also find it hard to take seriously a book on philosophy by Charles Schultz, Stan Lee, O.J. Simpson, or Tonya Harding. There's just too much extra baggage tied up with what I think I know of the author. Plus I still haven't forgiven him for that damn Dilbert T.V. show.
    • I've learned more from Scott Adams' books, comic strips and LOTD forum than all the corporate seminars, hot-shot management guides and corporate CEO puff biographies I've attended or read all rolled into one. He can say more in a few short sentences or cells than most of these windbags say in a ponderous volume of prose. Who says comic books and graphic novels aren't a legitimate forum for art and ideas? Satire is wasted on some people.

      Vote today on Dilbert's List of Top 822 Most Unhelpful Statements From the Help Desk [unitedmedia.com]

      • Re:I'd have a hard time taking this book seriously (Score:5, Insightful)

        by legLess ( 127550 ) on Friday November 09, 2001 @01:55PM (#2544408) Journal
        Satire is wasted on some people.

        Satire?? Dilbert is one of the sorriest attempts at satire ever. What's Dilbert's basic message? "Bosses are stupid, but we all have to do what they say anyway, unless we can trick them by being lazy or fucking up."

        Folks, wake up and smell the capitalism. Real satire inspires you to action, it twists in your mind until its meaning is communicated, it disturbs and outrages. Real satire has teeth, it draws blood. If you want satire read Jonathan Swift: [art-bin.com]
        My hate, whose lash just Heaven had long decreed,
        Shall on a day make sin and folly bleed.
        His satire had a goal, a purpose. He wrote to tear down empires, to destroy human stupidity.

        Scott Adams has an entirely different goal: to become rich as Croesus [harvard.edu] by exploiting human stupidity and pandering to it. Pathetic.
        • From dictionary.com:

          Satire: 1a) A literary work in which human vice or folly is attacked through irony, derision, or wit.
          b) The branch of literature constituting such works. See Synonyms at caricature.
          2) Irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity.

          Nothing there that says satire can't be subtle.

        • Read Candide by Voltaire if you want to see what true satire is. Try to find a version with a foreword to explain the time it was written in and what Voltaire was mocking. Adams is just a very funny humorist, though the "very funny" is IMHO only.

          -Kasreyn
    • that's an astute observation, but it's an observation about a problem that you have, not a problem with Adams writing philosophy.
    • This attitude is, of course, why a lot of writers have used pseudonyms. For example, if Charles Dodson had published Alice in Wonderland under his own name, it would have really discredited his mathematical publications in a lot of people's minds.

      OTOH, I'd guess that Adams publishes such writings under his own name with the idea of publicly tweaking the dummies who pigeonhole writers. He would probably classify you as an "induhvidual",
      and you'd deserve the name.

      You should also read his "Dilbert Future" book. It's tremendously funny, and very serious at the same time. And he's starting to look like a real prophet already ...
    • Charles Schultz had a large number of strips dealing with questions of spirtuality, usually from the christian tranditions. Some of them are quite well done and thought provoking.

      Linus has always been a bit of a student of theology...

    • If you truly have a difficult time taking Scott seriously, you haven't read any of his other (non-comic strip) books. In _The Dilbert Future_, especially, Scott reveals the depth of his intellect, and, more to the point, his great joy in tinkering with the established modes of thought. Scott likes to question not only social authority, but also our dogmatic approach to science. Even though I appreciate _Dilbert_ and the sardonic humor therewith associated (as someone else pointed out, BTW, Dilbert is _not_ satire, although some satirical elements do crop up from time to time), I enjoy even more Scott's critical give and take when he examines our beliefs and speculates on our future.

      I don't expect Scott's style to appeal to or impress everyone. But don't make the mistake of dismissing him as a "mere cartoonist." In point of fact, it takes a fairly formidable intellect to generate graphic humor of this type, despite its superficial simplistic nature. I've examined a number of cartoonists in some depth, including Trudeau, Watterson, Breathed, Griffith, Sam Hurt (Eyebeam), and of course Adams. While most of them are egotists and some are rather disagreeable, all of them are quite intelligent.

      While we can never really know with certainty what, if anything, can offer us spiritual salvation, I believe that the salvation of the earthly soul can be achieved through humor. With that precept firmly in mind, I celebrate Scott Adams and name him among my personal heroes.

    • Virtually every single one of Scott Adams books (that aren't 100% comic strips) contain plenty of insightful, interesting and thoughtful philosophical comments. Its difficult to miss, so I can't understand how you could have read any of his works without noticing it. Similarly, I found mblumber's "Adams is not known for writing super-intelligent commentaries on life" comments quite strange. Even his comic strips deal with philosophical and religous issues (such as the one where Dogbert postulates that God, the 'ultimate higher-level being', must be our future, not our past, because progressively higher-level systems in life are continually being developed from simpler, "building-block" organisms, and that we are just one step along the way). There are plenty of examples though. It boggles my mind that anyone can have read any of his books without noticing the obvious non-mainstream philosophical slant. If you've been reading Dilbert (and more generally anything of Scott Adams) as purely light humour, you've been missing out.

  • I bought this book when it was in e-form (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DahGhostfacedFiddlah ( 470393 ) on Friday November 09, 2001 @12:40PM (#2543842)
    And loved it. There's something in every chapter to make you think, and the source of the title, "God's Debris", left me stunned. I highly recommend this book if you're looking for a complete "mind-job", and it contains a lot of new ways of looking at just about every aspect of life - from religious to physical to social.

    READ IT.
    That is all.

  • Adams is smug (Score:4, Interesting)

    by s20451 ( 410424 ) on Friday November 09, 2001 @12:43PM (#2543867) Journal
    I haven't read this book. However, Adams exposed his "serious writer" persona in the last section of "Dilbert Future", in which he talked about his personal observations on science and humanity. I found this section the weakest of the book -- it was poorly thought out and scarcely researched. Furthermore, Adams' smug writing style needs to be offset by humor in order to avoid seeming arrogant. Many of his claims about physics in "Dilbert Future" are easily disproven by anyone who can think critically. I don't think I'll be rushing out to buy this one.

    • Re:Adams is smug (Score:2, Insightful)

      by zimmerman80 ( 315916 )
      "God's Debris" is not written to be serious, just to provoke thought, as his last book apparently did for you ("...easiily disproven by anyone who can think critically"). It was a very great read and I strongly recommend it.

    • Re:Adams is smug (Score:2, Informative)

      by Maryck ( 84 )
      I haven't read The Dilbert Future, so I can't comment on it, but I did read God's Debris and did not find it overly smug or anything. Adams actually prefaces the book with some comments saying that he in no way claims that the views expressed in the book are the truth or even necessarily what he believes; his primary intent in the book is just to get your mind moving...I think he even refers to the book as a thought experiment. And he does a very good job accomplishing that. Do his arguments hold up to strong discussion? Not really, but at least they provoke the discussion.

      -Mike Wolf

      • Do his arguments hold up to strong discussion? Not really, but at least they provoke the discussion.

        Isn't that the dictionary definition of a troll?

    • It's hardly fair to attach labels like "smug", "arrogant", and "scarcely researched" to Adams' "serious" writing when he makes it quite clear that he's only playing with ideas, and YMM (and probably will) V. As with any experiment, the gedanken variety sometimes works, and frequently doesn't. Imho most of that last section of Dilbert Future was ludicrous. Otoh, I consider the last section of Dilbert Principle one of the sanest pieces of business writing ever published. God's Debris (imho again) falls somewhere between these; a mental playground that won't interest the Nobel committee, but will give many of us a refreshing, entertaining cerebral workout. Which is exactly as Adams intended.

  • Gravity (Score:2, Interesting)

    by dachshund ( 300733 )
    The idea his advances is that all matter is constantly switching in and out of existence, and that is how objects move. The reason that matter appears to be attracted to other matter is that, according to the rules of probability, each piece of matter will inherently appear closer to massive objects the next time it comes back into existence.

    It's hard to make any sort of statements on a book I haven't read... But that Gravity quote seemed sort of silly. It doesn't actually explain why matter inherently comes back into existence closer to large objects. Of course, there might be a lot more to the argument-- I wish more of it had been posted.

    One might as well say that at an extraordinarily small scale, matter and energy actually consist of swarms of tiny carrier pigeons whose mating instincts are responsible for what we see as the peculiar behavior of the universe. Since nobody can really determine whether this is true or not, and the net result is that the explanation is as good as any other... Well, we should keep it in mind, I suppose, in case we ever find some way to prove or disprove it. But isn't there some old quote about a stampede of Zebras?

    • But that Gravity quote seemed sort of silly. It doesn't actually explain why matter inherently comes back into existence closer to large objects.

      That same problem applies to all of our physical theories about the universe, at some level. Newton's theory of gravity did not explain why massive objects attract each other - they just do. Einstein's General Theory of Relativity does not explain why spacetime warps in the presence of mass - it just does.

      All we can really do with our theories is describe what we observe, and develop predictive models. Physics doesn't provide an ultimate answer to the question of "why" - it only ever provides local answers, pushing back the "why" to a different level.

      Scott Adams' theory of gravity does this too, and is actually quite comparable to Newton's theory. In fact, I'm sure it would be possible to develop an Adamsian theory that's the equal of Newton's theory in all predictive respects - but you would ultimately find that you could dispense with the winking in and out of existence stuff, just as Einstein was able to dispense with the ether as a medium for the propagation of electromagnetic waves. As you pointed out with the carrier pigeon example, if something can't be detected, and doesn't add predictive value to a theory, to all intents and purposes it doesn't exist.

  • Does this still have the insanely weird "gravity is just everything expanding" model? He advocated this in a previous book, and refuses to budge, even though it's easy to show it's wrong. (Hint: Three objects of different masses not in a straight line.)

  • as far as religion goes (from a Christian) (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 09, 2001 @12:59PM (#2543981)
    I have long held the opinion, based on my own observations backed by historical facts, that organized religion has been the greatest cause of interference in a persons relationship with God and Christ. (which is really what it is all about)

    As for the science vs. religion, I never understood the hypocricy of people who get angry about the past of religion's stupidity towards scientific discovery and the scientific method, yet then turn around and pull the same crap. It is true that many use religion, philosphy, money, relationships, sex, and other 'things' (including drugs, porn, video games, food, excercise, etc) in order to not have to deal and cope with life, but that no more makes them automatically 'wrong' than justification make it right.

    I get rather frustrated at people who while claim to be faithful Christians, they get very angry if you question them. (note that here I mean question, as in seeking to learn and analyze... NOT when you are obviously picking a fight (e.g. "How does this work?" as opposed to "Why would anyone use that?!")) The bible teaches us to question our own reality and our beliefs, otherwise we will never really have faith. a sword is tempered and folded under intense heat and pressure, over time and with blood, sweat and tears... if you just poured in the alloy in a mold you would merely have a very heavy and fragile (relatively) stick.

    I personally have never seen any dichotomy between science and religion... any religion that I am familiar with. However it is hypocritical zealots (Sept 11, anyone?) that are the problem. Ghandi once said that the Christian Bible was the best manual for how to live. While he personally did not accept Jesus, he understood the logic of what the Bible taught (thats the theology part).

    oops, this is way too long. Whether it is religion, politics, or your choice of shoes... always try to take a logical and rational outlook instead of an emotionally reaction.

    This is my opinion, and it can be taken for thought, or discared... but it is still my opinion. I at least still have that right.

    • ...The bible teaches us to question our own reality and our beliefs...
      Unfortunately, not everyone reads it that way. While I'm not religious, my favorite thing to say to pushy religious zealots is: "Since God gave me the gift of a mind capable of logic and questioning, I'd be insulting Him if I didn't use it."

    • Gandhi & Jesus (Score:3, Interesting)

      by gdyas ( 240438 )

      Gandhi never said the Christian bible was any sort of manual for how to live. He did, however, esteem Jesus over any other historical/mythical/whatever person. I quote:

      A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.

      He saw the passion of Jesus as the ultimate act, and considered it the moment at which Jesus truly became human in sacrifice to God.

    • Amen to that. As a Christian I am very frustrated at the way 'organized' religeon has distorted God and Christ in order to fit its own theological conclusions. I hate to say it, but, IMHO, large organized Christian 'based' religeons are the devils greatest tools of deception. It is less obvious, and more dangerous to give someone 95% of the truth, but leave out the 5% that really makes a difference in a persons salvation. I see it in constant biblical misinterpretations, which if the 'reader' would actually sit down and read the words to figure it out for themselves, they would be astounded at the amount of crap that is really being preached in the pulpit. Even some of the preachers themselves know they are not right (I know at least 2), but continue to tow the line for the sake of their 'job' Not a good thing at all, and it is so widespread - rooted in traditions that go back a thousand or more years, that it is impossible to disuade people in large numbers from it to the actual truth. There has been almost no reconciliation between science and christianity either. I am fascinated by technology and the universe, as much as everyone else here, but I take it for what it is, and I do not let it rule my existance.... my 2 cents anyway.
    • Whether it is religion, politics, or your choice of shoes... always try to take a logical and rational outlook instead of an emotionally reaction.
      We are in violent agreement here. Everyone basically agrees on the rules of logic and argument, in science and religion. Where the differences come in is in which premises you start from, and how you check them.

      In science, all the premises are supposed to be of the form "Someone I trust went out and looked. Here's what they say they saw, and you can go out yourself and look if you don't believe me."

      In religion, the premises seem to be of the form "Someone I trust talked to a Supreme Being, and they say this is what they were told." Some religions extend this with "And you can talk to the Supreme Being yourself if you don't believe me."

    • As for the science vs. religion, I never understood the hypocricy of people who get angry about the past of religion's stupidity towards scientific discovery and the scientific method, yet then turn around and pull the same crap.

      The intelligent reaction to religion's stupidty towards scientific discovery is to recognize that any belief that contradicts known facts is false, or at best, fantasy. Unfortunately, this renders Christianity into the realm of fantasy when taken literally. When not taken literally, the tenets of Christianity tend to become odorless, actionless, matterless, aetherial sort of things. That's how a rational person disagrees with religion.

      Turning around and pulling the same kind of crap is when someone worships science. What a concept! True science is nothing but a bunch of facts. A good example is all of that eastern metaphysical shit that's in The Dancing Wu Li Masters, an otherwise good book. A lot of people "worship" the Theory of Evoloution, because they believe it's survival of the fittest, implying some sort of conscious choice.
    • Why do you describe yourself as a Christian? A Christian has X set of beliefs. You obviously have a different set. I think you should refer to the religion in a personal way. Why not describe yourself as an "Anonymous Cowardian"?

      I don't know your real name so I used the AC identity.

  • my $55 copy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Teach ( 29386 ) <graham@grahammitchel l . c om> on Friday November 09, 2001 @01:04PM (#2544006) Homepage

    Several months ago I paid for and downloaded the DigitalOwl TitleVision ebook version of "God's Debris". I paid $5 for it.

    I also downloaded the reader, installed it, and read the book, which was good. However, I didn't like the reader at all. So, using a screen capture utility, I took screen shots of all 90 pages of the book, saving them as .PGMs. Then I booted into Linux (I'd had to be in Windows to run the reader) and used gOCR and a shell script to do initial OCR conversion of all the images. Finally I spent a while with grep and a spell checker cleaning everything up. Overall, this took me about five hours.

    Now I've got a 143KB ASCII text file with the same content as my 195KB encrypted .OWL file. I don't ever plan to give anyone a copy of my plain text version; I like Scott Adams and want him to get paid for his work.

    If I assume that a professional "image -> OCR text -> corrected text" conversion specialist gets paid $10/hour, then the five hours it took me incurred about $50 in labor cost, bringing the total price to around $55. Not as cheap as the dead-tree version (<$15), but easier to grab quotes from. And of course I now have some valuable skills which I could use to help out Project Gutenberg [gutenberg.org].

    I'm sure what I did would be considered illegal by Digital Owl (though probably not by Scott Adams). I'm just glad I won't have to try to hunt down a copy of the TitleVision viewer fifteen years from now just to read the book again.

    And I'm glad that there's now a paper version so that most other people can obtain a less legally-encumbered version without having to do the grunt work I did.

    • I just installed ghostscrpit for windows and printed the thing as a .ps file.

      Took me all of 3 minutes to do :o)

      • You don't even need ghostscript for windows. I just installed that so I could view what I printed (to make sure it turned out ok). I just installed the HP PaintJet XL300 drivers that come with windows, and had it print to file. My output is 1.83 megs (bigger than the original), but its a perfect copy.

    • I looked at the web page for the book, and while it says text is not selectable, it says it IS PRINTABLE. So, why not just print to the "FILE:" port with some postscript driver? You could then convert it to text or PDF with almost no effort. IS there something that prevents you from doing this? Anyone care to provied a copy to prove it ;-) ?

      • So, why not just print to the "FILE:" port with some postscript driver?

        To tell you the truth, it never even crossed my mind. Since I don't have any desire for a paper copy I generally don't think about clicking "print", even when the destination is a file.

        I wish I had, though. Probably would have saved me at least three hours.

  • Science must be testable (Score:3, Interesting)

    by EccentricAnomaly ( 451326 ) on Friday November 09, 2001 @01:08PM (#2544048) Homepage
    It's easy to make up 'theories' to explain phenomena... before Descartes and the Scientific Method theories were accepted based upon how good a story they were and how they appealed to various people -- reinforce existing beliefs and your theory is accepted. Descarte realized that hypotheses must be testable in order to decide if they're true or false.

    There are lots of neat ideas out there to explain various physical phenomena, but its hard to come up for tests for many of these... How would you test to see if matter is popping in and out of existence? What do you mean by existence anyway? What exactly does the word matter mean? ...hmm and this idea has an implied conception of time that must be defined as well.

    My point is, scientific facts must be tested and verified by experiment. Sure there are lots of other ideas that can't be tested.... but these fall in the same realm as religion and require faith. The so called Copenhagen interpretation is a prime example of this.

    The Copenhagen interpretation claims that wave functions in Quantum mechanics collapse because they are effected by being observed by an intelligent observer. Supposedly you can see this by taking a large number of observations of photons or electrons or whatever and seeing the 'spike' from the wave function collapse. But wait, statistic's Law of Large Numbers [uah.edu] says that if you take a large number of observations with random error you'll get this spike no matter what just because of the math - not because of some interaction between the particle and the observer.
    • The Copenhagen interpretation claims that wave functions in Quantum mechanics collapse because they are effected by being observed by an intelligent observer.


      No, it doesn't. Remove the word "intelligent" and you're closer. All CI says
      1. Wave functions are probabilities
      2. Any act of measuring involves interaction, and interaction collapses the wave function, and measurements are indeterministic.

      Not unreasonable. And certainly not dissimilar from the Law of Large Numbers (since that deals with probabilities and CI says thats what we're dealing with).

      You can see this by taking a large number of observations of photons or electrons or whatever and seeing the 'spike' from the wave function collapse.

      What spike? The spike in what? This is physics, be specific
  • see this review [reall.org] of his book The Dilbert Future, and his response [reall.org]. I lost much of my respect for him as a serious commentator after reading the last chapter of The Dilbert Future, and the rest of it after reading the above response.


    He should stick to cartoons about management, he's certainly good at that.

  • Gravity (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Hitokage_Nishino ( 182038 )
    One thing Adams seems to be unable to realize is that any explanation of gravity must account for all effects of it. This includes the orbits of planets. His theory in Dilbert future claimed that gravity is just the effect of everything growing in size. While that _may_ explain why things fall straight to the ground, it does not explain why the Earth orbits the sun in circular motion or why light bends around massive objects.

    Although I haven't read God's Debris, claiming it all to be a matter of probability is less founded than the previous theory... as it doesn't even explain simple attraction well. "It happens just because... IT HAPPENS!" Then he goes off to claim religion is off base? At least religion has the benefit of involving non-testable topics. His pseudoscience has no such excuse.
    • To be fair, Adams does state that his "toy models" are not an attempt to explain all parts of a physical system. And it certainly is valid to question whether things that we currently think are intimately related (the behaviour of falling bodies and the motion of the planets for example).

      Granted however, one of the "strengths" of modern science is the use of a small number of models to "explain" a wide variety of behaviours.

  • So what? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by nuetrino ( 525207 ) on Friday November 09, 2001 @01:20PM (#2544136)
    I read a few of Scot Adams' books. I found his delving into psuedo philosophy and metaphysics so inane and superficial that they destroyed my enjoyment of his comics. Frankly, it reminds me of L. Ron Hubbard. For example, in one of his management books he talks about certain mystical principles he used to help him succeed. At the time it reminded me of certain aspects of Scientology.

    This book looks to be particularly dreadful, as it ignores the relative functional form of science. For instance, the review states that Adams believes that gravity is fueled by probability. It really doesn't matter whether he just made that up or it is the result of methodical analysis. Until Adams shows us how this 'new physics' can better send a rocket to Mars it is largely useless. Take a look at it this way. We have all sorts of alternative theories of gravity, most in an effort to reach a theory of Quantum Gravity. It each case, the authors try to find something that can be tested in a lab. For instance, we may generate black holes in the next generation of accelerators, and that will be interesting.

    Some may invoke Thomas Kuhn and say I am being obstructionist. This is not the case. I am merely saying that it not so hard to write 128 of compelling fiction, and the fact that it is anti-establishment does not say anything about ir's correctness. It is true that many great discoveries were hard to believe. It is also true that most of these corrected severe defects in contemporary theory. We could not begin to simply explain the planets without Galileo. We could not explain black box radiation with Planck. We could not fully explain the planets without Einstein. Again, I want to see Adams tell us how to get to Mars faster.

    I do have great respect for Adams. He is honest and straightforward about what he does and why he does it, much like Heinlein. He also has an ego bigger than Shatners, and it may be getting the best of him.

  • artists as philosophers (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Friday November 09, 2001 @01:23PM (#2544172) Journal
    Of course, anyone who is working hard as an artist, even as a comic strip artist, doing commentary on life, is going to develop a philosophy, a world view.

    now this may not be a sophisticated as a physicist, or your college certified philosopher, but it can be useful. Not everything will be spot on, that depending entirely on the insights of the author.

    I for one, do not know what he would make of the guy who has offered a million dollar reward for evidence conclusively proving there is no afterlife [victorzammit.com].

    But that is part of the fun of talking about things like this.

  • Scott Adams and E-Publishing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ironwolf ( 136393 ) on Friday November 09, 2001 @01:24PM (#2544177)
    When Scott Adams first published God's Debris as an e-book, I refused to buy it because of the platform-biased and fair use-restricted nature of his chosen distribution technology. And I told him so. The conversation turned into a fairly in-depth conversation on the nature of e-publishing and software piracy. The results [dangerousgames.com] are on my web site as an e-mail exchange between us that he gave permission for me to post.

    At least one person who has written me about the exchange felt that I gave up. I didn't really give up-- in fact I hadn't intended it to become a drawn out argument in the first place. But by the end I felt I had reached the point of diminishing returns-- it was clear that Scott didn't want to be convinced. I decided that the real argument would be won in the court of public opinion-- which was why I felt it important to end on a (superficially) conciliatory note and get him to give me permission to publish the discussion. If I had taken the last word, I think it unlikely he would have let me post our exchange.

    To be fair, Scott made two points that bear further consideration:

    1) E-books are not identical to executable software.

    2) If free file sharing is ubiquitous, people will steal when it's easier than buying.

    I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but briefly I would respond to both points by saying that non-executable media such as books, movies, photographs, and music need to have a new distribution infrastructure put in place where buying is actually easier than stealing, and quite cheap for the end user. I believe the future of electronic distribution will lie not in increasingly Draconian legal and technical barriers that fight against the paying customer, but in the ubiquitous availability of micropayments that make enjoying creative content painless and subject to the Free Market. I believe Scott would point out that that system isn't here yet.

    In another unpublished conversation, Scott credits e-publishing in this matter with enabling him to land his print-based book deal. He's happy with the outcome.
    • Scott Adams also wrote an interesting piece in the New York Times about this. [nytimes.com] Notable quotable:

      E-books are impervious to analogy. With most digital products, a pirated copy is worse than the real thing and ends up being more like free publicity than a threat. For example, an MP3 music file sounds worse than a CD, and it's less portable, for now. A pirated software game doesn't give you access to technical support. A pirated Dilbert comic strip isn't as good as a collection of them in a book. And so on. But a pirated e-book is better than the original e-book because it's identical in function, free and you don't have to give anyone your personal and financial information.

      Agree with him or don't, he makes an interesting point. I tend to be more sympathetic with the fellow who converted it back to plaintext (and really, how hard can that be, given enough geeks wanting to do so? Dmitry did it pretty quickly) but I also see Scott's point.

      As for me, I prefer my books in dead tree format. Easier to deal with in every way. Articles online need to be fairly brief or I won't read them - so news is okay, but a book really isn't.

    • I think Scott actually ended up making a good argument against his first point - he said he didn't want to release a non-encrypted version because he "didn't want to compete against a free copy of his own book".

      Then in two seperate instances, he went on to note that a chapter of his own book had been OCR'ed and mailed to him and another author had a whole book OCR'ed and distributed online. So, in all probability he's competing against a free copy of his own book anyway, only it's a version probably not giving proper credit to the author!! At least with a PDF or text file released, he could make sure his name was plastered all over.

      On top of that, as you said he credits ePublishing with helping him get a book deal. So couldn't you say that even if you didn't end up making any money on ePublishing it could stil be valuable to you from after-effects like landing book deals. Sometimes people are too focused on direct costs and don't think about long-term benefits.

      The sad part is, I would have bought an open eBook too but now I'll have neither.
    • My law of the world:

      If people aren't forced to pay for something, they won't.

      A system based on the charity of others will not succeed (for long). With open source, a developer donates a bit of his time and talent to fix a problem, or add a feature HE wants. If each programer was given a random segment of code from a random project, you would not see anyone willing to donate anything. As it relates to books: People are rarely willing to throw their money into a void, even a few cents.

      Right now people will donate, as they've seen the world to which they do not want to return... Once payment is no longer forced, people will forget the situation of today, and not bother paying.

      In Adam's words: "If you're saying the shareware games are free and wonderful and people still prefer to pay because they want to be legal, well, I don't live on that planet."
  • ...here's Plop [unitedmedia.com], an experimental comic by Scott.

    It's bad, but bad enough to be funny, I guess. Or maybe not [livejournal.com].

  • I guess this idea is already being voiced a lot here -- but I just don't think of Scott Adams as being any kind of a philosopher. He's a cartoonist. A guy who writes without really thinking about a problem -- just someone who writes down observations that occur to HIM, and him alone.

    Richard Feynman [yahoo.com] was a physicist that had some interesting ideas on life.

    Albert Einstein [yahoo.com] was a physicist that had some interesting ideas on life.

    Douglas Adams [yahoo.com] had some interesting ideas on life, the universe, and everything.

    Scott Adams is a cartoonist, with some really depressing and unfounded ideas about life.

    Nuff said.

  • I know this is off topic and I will lose karma, etc.. but I need to get this off my chest.
    Just because I need and use a crutch does not mean the crutch doesn't exist.
    If I had a son that was totally dependent on me and "needed" me as a "crutch", does that prove that I do not exist?
    Why couldn't a God create beings that need him?
    I think Scott Adams and others will find that no matter how "strong" minded someone becomes, the intelligence does not eliminate the need for religion. There are blue collar who do not believe in God, and there are scientists who do not believe in God, just as there are blue collar who do believe in God and scientists who do believe in God. Strong or weak mindedness has nothing to do with it.
    • The point of a crutch is to help one along until he can function at full capacity, without hindrance or help. Existence of the crutch isn't an issue. Completeness and truth of the condition are the issue. While there is need for a crutch the condition cannot be in its true and complete form.

      Cultivated need for a crutch fosters a false reliance upon it, as well as a comfort from having it that goes beyond its utility.

      The habituation to that comfort leads one to further disassociate the crutch with reality. What evidence in your daily life makes you believe that God, existence granted, needs anything? Any notion of the nature of God is a construct of human emotion, and religion is the mythology built of those constructs.

      If the Christian God created the universe, why do so many of the 'truths' of the Christian religion clash so horribly with the truths we experience in our daily lives? People don't rise from the dead. Water doesn't turn into wine, and bread does not turn into flesh. Alchemy fell out of favor hundreds of years ago. I think we know pretty well that one little boat doesn't hold enough animals to populate the Earth. And I think we know that Adam and Eve are as real as Mickey and Minney. It just doesn't fit with the records of humanity that we have found.

      (By the way, try to build a case for Christianity without the Adam and Eve story.)

      Blue collar versus scientist is a poor example of stereotyping. Wisdom has nothing to do with occupation. Education is, however, a way to gain insight that leads to wisdom.

      Personally, I don't care if you use a crutch, but don't ever expect me to take you seriously in any conversation regarding truth or reality.
    • Without directly contradicting your statements, you need to recognize two things:

      1) Because something can't be disproven doesn't mean it exists.
      2) Strong scientific knowledge does not appear to be a factor in whether someone is strong or weak minded.

      If all things that can't be proven must exist, the universe would suddenly become so crowded with things that it would destroy itself.

      I'm certainly not well trained in psychology, but I've always seen alcohol addiction as some sort of weakness: biological, mental, or both. It is clear that alcoholism is not related to intelligence.
  • a wonderful book by Alan Lightman. [amazon.com] Strongly recommended for those interested in physics, space-time, and the like. I don't think there is a slashdot book review - maybe I'll write one.
  • Plato used the format of a somewhat-enlightened person vs. very enlightened person conversation in The Republic, which formed at least part of the basis of the Heglian dialect (thesis-antithesis-synthesis).

    Scott's doing nothing new format-wise, but I'd be interested in what he has to say. Much of it sounds like the stuff he wrote towards the end of The Dilbert Principle
  • After the 3rd or 4th book his style became like "Family Circus" and "Peanuts" to me. Predictible and common. I don't think I'll invest in his book (even though the government has asked us to keep the economy going). I think I'll buy a multi-pack of snickers instead....

  • Disprovable? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by return 42 ( 459012 )
    I cannot think of a single statement in the book that can be proven incorrect.

    Well, do you mean you applied tests to the statements and they were not disproved? Or do you mean there would be no possible way to disprove them? The latter case is called "nondisprovable" or "untestable". A theory that can't be tested is useless.

    • Re:Disprovable? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by QuadZero ( 45207 )
      A theory that can't be tested is useless.

      As long as there is no more reliable, plausible theory to supplant it, an untestable theory is merely another possibility to consider along the way toward finding a reliable, plausible theory.

      The sort of "either-or" thinking represented by your comment may be "safe" -- perhaps even required -- in a more strictly scientific setting but, in the practical experience of everyday life, very few of us live and think in the manner so strictly insisted upon in the context of online discusssion and debate.

      While it may seem certain that a given proposition must be either-or: true/false, we must come to grips with the limitations of human intellect and our present scope of knowledge.

      Perhaps a person doesn't know whether proposition p is true or false, and up to the present moment this person has no testable theory at hand. I suggest that it's quite rational to admit one's agnostic state-of-being with respect to the proposition being considered, and to entertain virtually any theory that one may imagine explains the proposition.

      Notice I did not say that one may assert, as knowledge, the imagined theory. I said that they may entertain it, perhaps even choose to [gasp!] believe it (yes, even without compelling justification for doing so).

      To believe in spite of evidence to the contrary is a hard position to defend, but to believe in the absence of any evidence whatsoever is quite human and, in the long run, perhaps even useful.

  • "To a college educated reader like myself"

    I guess proof reading isn't one of the skills taught in college.
  • I have bought and read each of Adams' books as they have come out, starting with The Dilbert Principle. I enjoyed TDP immensely, but have grown more and more disillusioned with each book.

    Whilst his jokes about "padding his material" were funny in the first book, the humor has faded as the joke is repeated in later books. Possibly because I've also had the realization that this joke is not the only thing being repeated. To be honest, the whole "philosophy" is simply repeated.

    After thinking about this for a while, I've come to the conclusion that Scott Adams is simply a lucky guy who stumbled upon the idea that depicting the inanities everpresent in Corporate America in a comic strip would touch a certain angst-ridden nerve in a fair amount of the population and be fairly popular.

    And it was. And so he set about exploiting it to make more money.

    All of which is well and good. But it doesn't make him an intelligent person or some whose theories should be given extra credence because of who he is. He's just a guy with the right idea at the right time.

    Let's not turn him into Feynman or Socrates, OK?

  • Many readers of God's Debris apparently seem to think that Scott Adams actually believes all the stuff he put in the book. Ok, so maybe he has a big ego, but even he is not that uneducated.

    He did ask people not to blame him for the words that a fictional character said in his prologue, but some readers chose not to take that bit seriously, even though they then proceeded to take the rest of the book seriously, and find holes in it.

    Of course there are holes in, but that wasn't the point. The point was to make you think. And in that the book certainly succeeds. In parts he does sound like he is lecturing like a professor, but most of the book is just a ploy to get the grey matter going.

    So take it all with a grain of salt, pick out the bits you think are good, and don't let the other bits upset you.

    Check out Theseus and the Minotaur [logicmazes.com]

  • This book sounds to me like a whole bunch of amusing psedoscience. Sure, perhaps it's meant to be taken seriously, or to make you question science, or something like that, and if that's true, well, then, to hell with it (I'm a proud scientist, thank you very much!). But it looks amusing. I'm interested. It sounds funny.

    And to all the people lamenting Scott Adams' apparent lack of originality or creativity, this is sure gosh-darned creative.

    I plan to give it a read, just because it sounds like a nice distraction.

    Peace.

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