Believe
by Ross Douthat
Summary of Believe by Ross Douthat
Average at best. Some interesting points. Update my priors on the general possibilities of the supernatural, but unpersuasive on why you should believe in any of the specific religions.
The book is at its best when Douthat argues that there are clear reasons to believe in something beyond the materialistic world view. He has several arguments:
There are deep structures/regularities in natural as revealed by Science.
David Deutsch in the Beginning of Infinity, defines the supernatural as things that people – defined as universal explainers and constructors – are qualitatively unable to understand. Deutsch assumes the explicability of nature: "regularities have explanations; the world is not supernatural".
In Believe, Douthat suggests the fact that regularities exist at all cannot be explained by reason. Can science account for its effectiveness ?
This seems to me like a valid point.
) Fine tuning needed for a habitable Universe (special role of consciousness in QM )
What accounts for the wild success of our evolved intelligence ? Deutsch say this double counts 1st. If there are regularities and humans are general explainers, then the explanations are ultimately knowable to us.
) Humans seem to have a special role in nature.
(Deutsch concurs: "Science (the least parochial perspective available to us) implies that people are the most significant entities in the cosmic scheme of things.") Universal explainer and constructors
Fermi paradox as evidence for privileged role of human existence
Humans and knowledge are not only objectively significant, they are by far the most significant phenomena in nature – the only ones whose behavior cannot be understood without understanding everything of fundamental importance
I think here Douthat's point is that its not only odd that we happen exist, but that we are also the most important thing in the universe. (We are doubly incredibly lucky !) Maybe anthropics save you here? Only universal explainers can pose the question …