Book Reviewed: Until the End of Time by Brian Greene

Making sense of life and cosmos In this book, the author contemplates on the cosmic structures formed from fundamental particles, and the emergence of life and consciousness. Is there a grand design or plan by the creating entity? The author resorts to metaphysical musings about life and nature, and there are no equations or theoretical physics discussed in this book. The author suggests a new kind of unified theory of everything that include life. He observes that the “pockets of order” are occasionally produced in the universe, such as molecules, stars/planets, and minds. As the book unfolds, he integrates the story of how life and mind evolved from initial disorder and progressed later with the development of language, religions, arts, and science in human society. He concludes at the end that that there is no “grand design” behind the creation of the cosmos. Brian Greene argues that a mathematical equations are true and immortal, and the laws of nature transcend time, and perhaps mortal in a multiverse concept. He observes that the power of language played a significant role in understanding the nature including our susceptibility to religious beliefs which may have boosted the evolutionary fitness. The author’ arguments are somewhat terse because other physicists have addressed this question. For example, Albert Einstein did not believe the God of Bible who smites the Philistines and rewards the believers. He opposed the idea that God interfered in the affairs of mere mortals, but he was convinced that God is an entity that created the cosmos. Cosmologist Stephen Hawking explicitly stated that there is no God, and human beings could choose to live to the fullest. Erwin Schrodinger, the father of wave mechanics was a life-long believer of Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism according to his biographer Walter J. Moore. Vedanta proposes an entity that encompasses omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), Omni benevolence (perfect goodness), immutable, simplicity, and eternal existence known as Brahman is the ultimate entity. Its qualities are personal and impersonal that exists in spaceless and timeless dimensions in an unchanging reality amidst and beyond the realm of a universe. This is the Pure Consciousness that transcend all possible laws of physics, all dimensions, and all physical realities in the multiverse. It is an absolute entity that is formless and all-pervading Consciousness. The physical reality we observe, and experience are due to the illusion called Maya. Advaita Vedanta is strongly monotheistic that believes in the existence of one Absolute Entity. Many physicists propose that three-dimensional space we live in is an illusion, but we actually live in a two-dimensional hologram and the information of our universe is contained in two-dimensional space. There are some fundamental questions that needs to be addressed. Do we understand everything in cosmos? Are we headed in the right direction? Are there limits to what science can explain to us. Are we any close to integrate subjective experience into the framework of objective reality. The author appears to be less optimistic than a philosopher regarding the unification of life and cosmos to produce one working theory. This book is more philosophical than other popular books written by this author.