Book worth buying?

From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Sun Aug 31 2003 - 23:57:09 MDT

  • Next message: Spudboy100@aol.com: "Re: consilience"

    This book looks interesting and I am wondering if somebody has already read
    it in hardcover?

    Book Review listed Amazon.com
    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1930722222/ref=br_books_nn/002-8624483-
    2171238
    <<
    Editorial Reviews
    From Publishers Weekly
    Science has yet to find a way of knowing what, if anything, existed before
    the Big Bang that created our universe. Further, how can we account for physical
    laws that are so finely tuned for the creation of carbon-based life? Science
    writer and amateur cosmologist Gardner proposes a startling theory: that a
    pre-existing superintelligent race that inhabited a "mother universe" created
    this one and tweaked the physical laws in its baby universe to ensure the
    continuity of intelligent life and of the cosmos itself; this universe, then, will
    foster the growth of a new superintelligence eons from now with complete command
    over the laws of nature and the ability to create yet more universes with
    inheritable characteristics. Thus, Gardner argues, our universe is a "Selfish
    Biocosm" that created intelligent life to ensure its own survival. Gardner
    marshals cutting-edge thinking in cosmology, string theory and the associated M
    theory, and complexity theory to support his ideas. Readers may want to jump to
    chapter 15 for a full statement of his theory, since the pr‚cis in his
    introduction is vague; still, this is not for casual readers of popular science. If one
    doesn't favor an explanation for the creation of life that involves a deity
    of some sort, then Gardner's theory seems a plausible alternative, though some
    readers may feel that speculating on superintelligences in pre-existing
    universes may be akin to Darwin's proverbial dog speculating on the mind of Newton.
    8-page color insert not seen by PW. >>
        
    <<
    Paperback: 344 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.74 x 8.96 x 7.08
    Publisher: Inner Ocean Publishing; (September 2003)
    ISBN: 1930722222 >>
        



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