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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A torturous text on paradoxes of knowing what is unknowable,
By Govindan Nair (Vienna, VA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Impossibility: The Limits of Science and the Science of Limits (Paperback)
Is science fast coming to an end? Can we arrive at a so-called theory of everything? Are there limits to our abilities to discover the nature of reality?In trying to tackle such questions, Astronomer John D. Barrow invites readers to an intriguing journey which I understood as twofold. First, it promises to show how the notion of impossibility is far subtler than everyday language suggests and to demonstrate how fundamental are the limitations to science (in the broadest sense of human capability to discover and know things). To support this contention, he serves up a menu of what seems like disjointed readings into the limits of human endeavor as demonstrated in findings in different fields such as astronomy, mathematics, psychology, economics, and others. Each of these readings, which are sub-sections of chapters, is individually interesting and the book overall is not deeply technical, -- and thus remains accessible to the truly curious generalist reader. It covers some familiar basic ideas in different fields, which all depict the notions of limits and impossibility, whether in scientific discovery or in social decision-making. The topics range from the technical bounds to scientific experiments, such the speed of light and difficulties of producing the extremely high temperatures not found on earth which are needed to test our version of the forces of nature, to Arrow's impossibility theorem on the inability to generate a consistent ranking of social preferences based on an aggregation of ranking of individual preferences. Unfortunately, these sub-sections of chapters, while individually very interesting and clearly written, tend to conflate different ideas of impossibility rather than leading to a straightforward conclusion on the fundamental limitations of human endeavors of creation and discovery. The secondary thrust of the book is on the nature of reality itself. Barrow argues that the kind of limitations he enumerates defines the universe more powerfully than a list of what we think is possible. In fact, he contends that this ?impossible? nature of the universe is what itself allows the self-reflection consciousness of humans, a rather intriguing, if not entirely novel, proposition. My judgment on this book is a complex as the range of subjects the author attempts to cover. It is without doubt an intriguing set of propositions loosely connected with some related discussion on the history of scientific thought. I found the discussion of nineteenth century notions of impossibility very informative. However, the book may achieve its appeal by overstating its case (QUOTE the astronomers? desire to understand the structure of the universe is doomed merely to scratch the surface of the cosmological problem UNQUOTE) and resorting to fast and loose comparisons of paradoxes and limits which are well-known to practitioners in a number of different fields. Ultimately, the book gives a sense of having covered too much, and thus providing too little in any given area. I confess that notwithstanding these reservations, I enjoyed reading this somewhat unusual book. If you do have the stamina to complete this book, you might choose to do so in a non-linear fashion by working through the clear summaries of each chapter first, and then going through the chapters in your order of preference. If you manage to do all this, you are likely to enjoy another book on a different but related topic on the nature of the human mind entitled ?Figments of Reality? by Stewart and Cohen which I have also reviewed on this site.
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Misson Impossible,
By Mohammad Ali Shaikh (Montreal, Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Impossibility: The Limits of Science and the Science of Limits (Paperback)
Recurring fascination with the question: whether or not the ever-expanding frontiers of science are subject to limits, led me to the study of John Barrow's 'Impossibility'. Barrow asserts that there are definite limits to the development of science due to philosophical, sociological, biological, technological, mathematical and logical factors as well as Laws of Physics, like finite speed of light, cosmic singularity theorems, inflationary cosmology, relative time travel; and 'Anthropic Cosmology', which states that there must be physical constants (viz. the mass of the proton) to allow for the existnece and emergence of living creatures; and Godel's theorem, which has been used to argue that a computer may never be as smart as a human being because the extent of its knowledge base is limited by a fixed set of algorithms, whereas a person may discover unexpected truths. Without minimising the great merit in Barrow's approach, I feel that finding limits to scientific development is like learning to swim: no matter how much the instructor tells you before hand, you only learn after you have stepped into the water. While it is useful and desirable to have an idea of the limits which may beset scientific inquiry, it is imperative that scientists, at any given time, pursue research on the premise that further progress in science is always achievable.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A fascinating journey through the science of limits,
By
This review is from: Impossibility: The Limits of Science and the Science of Limits (Paperback)
This is an interesting book and presents some issues which were unfamiliar to me. I had heard of most of the arguments before but some were completely refreshing especially those concerning Goedel, the Arrow Impossibility theorem and Donald McKay. Like some of the other reviewers I found the book to be a little muddled in terms of making clear points in each chapter but overall it was good. I would have been interested if Barrow had looked at some other ways of looking at the world such as Goethean science, unlike Kant, which notes that it is possible to truly experience what is real, or the approach of intuition which Goedel himself notes "I don't see any reason why we should have less confidence in this kind of perception, ie mathematical intuition ..." or for that matter the logical approach first created by Spencer Brown in his "Laws of Form". There are times when much is assumed which of course is not unexpected since Barrow is a hard scientist who stays well within the expected bounds of science. It is good to see the text interspersed with humorous asides such as those of Douglas Adams and many others. All in all a fascinating journey through the (normal) science of limits.
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