Book Reviewed: Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions by Sabine Hossenfelder

Reality and Illusion This author is known for skeptical and contrarian views which are visible as she addresses the nature of physical reality in this book. In a clear pattern from her previous books, she argues against the advances made by physicists taking a philosophical approach to counter the understanding of life and cosmos. According to the laws of physics, the future, the present, and the past all exist in the same way since laws of nature preserve information. Hence, all information of past and future must be present in one cosmic reality. But the quirk of this is that quantum reality is undeterminable and hence determination and free-will do not exist according to the latter. Then how does the past lead to the future, which is very deterministic? Is consciousness required for the operation of laws of nature? We know it is important in the interpretation of quantum reality. Since information is so fundamental in particle physics and molecular biology, the dissemination of information may include some form of intelligence or pure consciousness at the most fundamental level. Afterall Information could be used to create artificial intelligence. In the later part of the book, the author discusses if a universe could be built in the laboratory. Since our universe started with a finite amount of energy, not an infinite energy, and suggest that an expanding universe makes its own energy. If we know how our universe began, we might be able to kick-start the growth of a new one, the author concludes. In another section, the author says that the human behavior is partially predictable, but it's questionable that it'll ever be fully predictable. She goes a step further and claims that scientists can learn something from an organized religion after criticizing physicists like Stephen Hawking for their views of the Creator. Her arguments become funnier and ridiculous when she does an interview with physics journalist Zeeya Merali, a Muslim fundamentalist who believes that Islam is the True religion that God created. The conversation goes like this: “After the obligatory check that we can indeed hear each other, I begin with asking her, too, "Are you religious?" "Well," Zeeya Merali says, "I've just come off a month of fasting for Ramadan, so judge for yourself." If you want to learn about the nature of physical reality or anything that matters for understanding life and cosmos, you may stay away from this book. There are numerous books available in the market that better address the fundamental questions about the cosmos.