The Big Picture (Carroll book)

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The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
The Big Picture - book.jpg
Hardcover edition
Author Sean M. Carroll
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Subject Poetic naturalism
Genre Non-fiction
Publisher Dutton
Publication date
May 10, 2016
Media typePrint, e-book, audiobook
Pages480 pp.
ISBN 978-0525954828
OCLC 999399320
Preceded by The Particle at the End of the Universe  
Followed by Something Deeply Hidden  
Website Official website

The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself is a non-fiction book by American theoretical physicist Sean M. Carroll. The book was published on May 10, 2016, by Dutton. [1] In his fourth book, Carroll defends the argument that the universe can be completely interpreted by science, introducing "poetic naturalism" as a philosophy that explains the world.

Contents

Reception

Writing for The Guardian , Tim Radford commented, "Carroll builds up his narrative in brief, very readable chapters, a precept, an axiom or a physical law at a time. Naturalism – he doesn’t favour the word atheism – defines the world entirely in terms of physical forces, fields and entities, and these forces and fields are unforgiving: they do not permit telekinesis, psychic powers, miracles, life after death or an immortal soul." [2] Robert P. Crease in his review for Nature praised The Big Picture for its ambition and directness while finding Carroll's treatment of philosophical topics unsatisfyingly shallow:

Carroll confidently defines many concepts, including belief and consciousness, as if 2,500 years of philosophy have yielded little relevant to the subject; he dismisses the task of drawing careful distinctions and heeding subtleties as "ontologically fastidious". All he finds in philosophical literature are a few interesting puzzles. It's like getting a whirlwind tour of a city from a tour guide who doesn't live there, but enthusiastically gives you capsule descriptions of favourite sites. [3]

A reviewer of Publishers Weekly wrote, "Much of the material here will be new to many readers, but regardless of familiarity, Carroll presents a means through which people can better understand themselves, their universe, and their conceptions of a meaningful life." [4] A reviewer of Kirkus Reviews added, "Carroll is the perfect guide on this wondrous journey of discovery. A brilliantly lucid exposition of profound philosophical and scientific issues in a language accessible to lay readers." [5]

Poetic naturalism

Carroll terms his overall philosophical approach poetic naturalism, aiming by this term to suggest a type of naturalism which encourages a variety of ways to talk about the world, using language dependent upon the aspect of reality being discussed. Poetic naturalism acknowledges that the methods and terms used within one domain may not be coherent with those of another domain, yet both can be considered valid representations of reality.

Carroll claims that poetic naturalism resolves many of the conflicts caused by the fundamental differences between the various branches of science and philosophy. For example, the universe can be described mechanically in terms of atoms obeying certain laws. This results in a deterministic universe incompatible with the concepts of choice or free will. Determinism is not a useful perspective for navigating the human condition, which includes value judgments and the concept of cause and effect, as it essentially posits an endless chain of unavoidable "effects" stemming from a single primordial "cause". In spite of determinism, humans can be said to make decisions and control aspects of their environment. This apparent conflict does not negate either viewpoint; they can both be said to be legitimate depending on the frame of reference in which we are currently operating.

While naturalism is the "idea or belief that only natural (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual) laws and forces operate in the world", [6] poetic naturalism understands that the way we find personally relevant meaning to life does not naturally emerge from a purely scientific approach. Science is a rigorous method of finding what is true or false, while poetic naturalism encourages extending the conversation to include contemplation into what is right and wrong. [7] It integrates scientific reasoning methods into our personal purpose-seeking and meaning-making, with an emphasis on Bayesian techniques. [8] :75

Related Research Articles

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Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has existed since the beginning of time, or that all things compose an all-encompassing, immanent god or goddess and regards the universe as a manifestation of a deity. This includes all astronomical objects being viewed as part of a sole deity.

Cosmogony is any model concerning the origin of the cosmos or the universe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Determinism</span> Philosophical view that events are pre-determined

Determinism is a philosophical view, where all events are determined completely by previously existing causes. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes overlapping motives and considerations. The opposite of determinism is some kind of indeterminism or randomness. Determinism is often contrasted with free will, although some philosophers claim that the two are compatible.

Naturalism is a literary movement beginning in the late nineteenth century, similar to literary realism in its rejection of Romanticism, but distinct in its embrace of determinism, detachment, scientific objectivism, and social commentary. Literary naturalism emphasizes observation and the scientific method in the fictional portrayal of reality. Naturalism includes detachment, in which the author maintains an impersonal tone and disinterested point of view; determinism, which is defined as the opposite of free will, in which a character's fate has been decided, even predetermined, by impersonal forces of nature beyond human control; and a sense that the universe itself is indifferent to human life. The novel would be an experiment where the author could discover and analyze the forces, or scientific laws, that influenced behavior, and these included emotion, heredity, and environment. The movement largely traces to the theories of French author Émile Zola.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Incompatibilism</span> View of free will and determinism as incompatible and precluding each other

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Hard determinism is a view on free will which holds that determinism is true, that it is incompatible with free will, and therefore that free will does not exist. Although hard determinism generally refers to nomological determinism, it can also be a position taken with respect to other forms of determinism that necessitate the future in its entirety.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glossary of philosophy</span> List of definitions of terms and concepts commonly used in philosophy

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Metaphysical naturalism is a philosophical worldview which holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences. Methodological naturalism is a philosophical basis for science, for which metaphysical naturalism provides only one possible ontological foundation. Broadly, the corresponding theological perspective is religious naturalism or spiritual naturalism. More specifically, metaphysical naturalism rejects the supernatural concepts and explanations that are part of many religions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sean M. Carroll</span> American theoretical cosmologist

Sean Michael Carroll is an American theoretical physicist and philosopher who specializes in quantum mechanics, gravity, and cosmology. He is (formerly) a research professor in the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics in the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) Department of Physics and an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He is currently Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore from the summer of 2022. He has been a contributor to the physics blog Cosmic Variance, and has published in scientific journals such as Nature as well as other publications, including The New York Times, Sky & Telescope and New Scientist. He is known for atheism, critique of theism and defense of naturalism. He is considered a prolific public speaker and science populariser. In 2007, Carroll was named NSF Distinguished Lecturer by the National Science Foundation.

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The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to metaphysics:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spiritual naturalism</span>

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Coming into prominence as a writer during the 1870s, Huysmans quickly established himself among a rising group of writers, the so-called Naturalist school, of whom Émile Zola was the acknowledged head...With Là-bas (1891), a novel which reflected the aesthetics of the spiritualist revival and the contemporary interest in the occult, Huysmans formulated for the first time an aesthetic theory which sought to synthesize the mundane and the transcendent: "spiritual Naturalism".

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References