A bit more self-aggrandizement, for which I apologize, but I thought (hoped) y’all might want to know about the conversation I’m going to have with Alan Lightman this afternoon.
It will be on the occasion of the publication (yesterday!) of Alan’s latest book, Mr. g: A Novel About The Creation. This is my monthly Virtually Speaking Science web/Second-Life cast, and you can listen here. Here’s where to go in Second Life for a “live audience” view.
Alan, as many of you know, is both a theoretical physicist and an essayist and novelist of great accomplishment. He’s best known for his marvelous fiction-of-ideas, Einstein’s Dreams, but I’d also point you to his non-fiction, especially his recent, The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs in 20th Century Science, Including the Original Papers. That’s a work of both great depth and great fun, even if I’ve argued with Alan about his omission of Wegener’s continental drift paper.
But back to the matter at hand: Mr. g is a novel in the spirit of Einstein’s Dreams, deeply engaged in ideas, specifically, (at least as I read it), what is the maximum amount of God you can get in a universe that obeys the physical laws we now recognize. To tackle this there are familiar figures: Mr. g himself, and his questioner (the interlocutor from Job, much more than the fallen angel of Paradise Lost). And there are some not-so usual folks, specifically Mr. g’s uncle and aunt. And then there is, after a bit, space and time, universes and the Universe, and an account of what feels to me to be the tragic nature of any possible conception of a deity.
We’ll be talking about that, about what makes a work a novel, about the science-religion argument as it plays out in popular culture, and maybe even about what it takes to convey something of scientific lives and thinking to broad audiences, all in more or less an hour. If you’re interested, come on down (or download the podcast once it becomes available–within hours or the day).
Image: Michealangelo, The Creation of Adam from the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, c. 1511. Inevitable — a cliché, I know. But what are you going to do?
barath
Tom, I don’t know if this is a topic you might discuss, but I’m curious about how he views scientism as it exists today. For example, I’m thinking of our collective faith in technological progress, a faith so great that most of us don’t even realize that it’s just a faith not something grounded in something more solid, and scientifically something that’s doubtful.
srv
Perhaps you can ask this “scientist” on how to make this website go faster.
Or now that Fuckhead has returned from the netherworld, he has some tips.
Captain Howdy
You’re going to link it with science is what. You’re welcome.
Brachiator
Sounds like fun. I look forward to listening to the podcast.
Thanks very much.
Linnaeus
I don’t know if this counts as six degrees of separation or anything, but my dissertation advisor has, tacked on the corkboard outside of his office, a poster advertising MIT’s Science Writing Program. Featuring the name, of course, of our very own Thomas Levenson.
kdaug
Cheesiest of pic picks, Tom, but I’ll get the podcast anyway.
Paul in KY
I don’t know if we can (at this point in time) intelligently answer the question ‘the maximum amount of God you can get in a universe that obeys the physical laws we now recognize’.
This question would probably best be answered in a distant future time (assuming we don’t blow ourselves up).
I know y’all will give it the ole college try, though!
DFH no.6
I’m no great intellect; likely not even middling.
So, after nearly 6 decades of going round and round on this Ultimate Topic, it comes down to this for me:
Ah, but wouldn’t it be pretty to think so?
Yeah, sure, trite, but like I said…
Pretty squarely in the “no one’s out there” camp for some time now.
Started but didn’t get far with Einstein’s Dreams. Think I’ll pick it up again, and this Mr. g sounds intriguing, so I’ll give it a shot, too (enjoyed Paradise Lost some 40+ years ago, as I recall, but in much the same way I “enjoyed” Finnegan’s Wake).
Villago Delenda Est
If the FSM doesn’t make a cameo, you two are in a world of marinara.
Jay
I really enjoyed Lightman’s book, Reunion.
The novel does not get enough props.
That is all.
ornery_curmudgeon
“…what is the maximum amount of God you can get in a universe that obeys the physical laws we now recognize.”
I may not be understand what you’re saying, Tom, but why doesn’t God simply encompass all … I mean, if God was in one place and not another: what is THERE?
And I have this same issue with “Intelligent Design” advocates: why can’t God be working THROUGH physical laws and evolution?
Probably I am missing the point. Happens a lot around science/spirituality issues for me. I just don’t get the conflict.
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@kdaug: If you have not actually SEEN the Sistine Chapel, you do not and cannot know what Mike Angelo accomplished. There is NO reproduction that can actually reproduce it LOL. You have GOT to be there. Unbelievable.
ellennelle
dang it, tom – double DANG IT!!
i am just now seeing this announcement (woulda been awful nice to find it, oh, like last night maybe, couple days ago???, she grouses).
in any case, even less degrees of separation than linnaeus, i am an old friend of alan’s, both of us with memphis backgrounds and many mutual friends, and then getting truly acquainted up here in cambridge years ago.
so i am deeply disappointed i missed this event, but thanks anyhoo for the heads up.
on this note, his piece in last month’s harper’s is just excellent; highly recommend it.
have wanted to speak up about this connection, albeit very loose, for a while, but …well, didn’t. dunno why. but, here is the excuse.
so, keep up the great work, and all that.