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The book is packed with brilliant ideas and valuable insights. But the main conclusion of the book is apparently self-contradictory. The author repeatedly argues that there are no timeless laws or timeless truth. "[B]eliefs about timeless truths and timeless realms are mythology" the author declares (location 93).
But the claim that "there is no timeless truth" itself is timeless! It is obviously a self-defeating claim. The author probably wants to say there are no timeless *physical laws*. This might be true. But on more than one occasion he seems to deny the principle itself.
The author repeatedly asserts that, if the laws of the universe are like computer programs, then the future is perfectly decided. He writes (location 989): "A deterministic physical theory can be likened to a computer. ... Given the input and the program, the output is completely determined."
For some reason, the author overlooks the results of Turing, Post, Rice, and other logicians, about uncomputability. They show that, for any sufficiently rich computer program, there is no systematic way to decide (by inspecting the program as such) if the output of the program has a certain non-trivial property. This means that a rich computer program may very well produce unexpected (and uncomputable) output. If the author is endeavoring to introduce uncertainty, novelty, and unpredictability into the Newtonian paradigm, this has already been done via the theorems of Gödel and Turing, among others.
The author criticizes the "block universe" view as timeless while time is an undeniable fact that we observe. But, if we follow the author's own approach, the block universe is a view for the universe as a whole. The block-view is unobservable from within the universe. Thus, there should be no contradiction in principle between a timeless block universe and time-dependent events inside the universe. These are two different views from different perspectives that need not be matched.
Overall, the book is provocative and forces the reader to think and rethink in novel manners. Despite some shortcomings highlighted in other reviews, it is an indispensable volume in the science library.
- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Mariner; Reprint edition (April 8, 2014)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0544245598
- ISBN-13: 978-0544245594
- Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.9 x 8 inches
- Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
- Average Customer Review: 171 customer reviews
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