Category: Book Reviews

“In the garden is where I let myself stand, unknowing of answers.”

In Homing: A Quest to Care for Myself and the Earth, Alice Irene Whittaker offers both a memoir and an investigation into climate-healthy living. She weaves together her younger life as a dancer, her struggles with body image and perfectionism, and her family’s move from an apartment in an Ontario city to a cabin in the woods of Quebec. It was there that I had the privilege of meeting Alice Irene, her husband Nik, and their family—core elements of her story. Over time, I followed the development of her book, heard her speak in her various environmental leadership roles, and attended its launch.

Reading Homing, I learned many things:

Wilderness and Rewilding. The alluring idea of wilderness draws many into rewilding efforts. But Alice Irene reminds us that the concept of wilderness is constructed through the forced removal of Indigenous peoples, excludes racialized people, and perpetuates an imaginary space occupied by whiteness and dominated by men. We imagine wilderness as our true home to forgive ourselves for the problematic modern homes we inhabit.

Regenerative Farming. She explores how farming can become a way to improve the land rather than deplete it—putting carbon back into the soil and working in harmony with nature.

Gift Economies. Learning from the little-known sharing practices of ravens, she engages with local Buy Nothing Groups and the Ottawa Tool Library—models of mutual aid that resist the dominant capitalist paradigm.

Clothing. This is an area I’ve tried to improve myself—buying good quality, ideally local clothes that last long and contain no plastics. Alice Irene goes deeper, meeting and developing relationships with the people who make her clothes, grounding her fibres in connection and care.

Gardening. The garden is a focal point of her story. Planting and relentless weeding challenge her perfectionism. She writes of harvesting vegetables in the rain, pushing herself toward balance and finding nourishment: “In the garden is where I let myself stand, unknowing of answers.”

Ancestors. In a conversation with Chúk Odenigbo, an environmental academic and activist, she learns that first-generation settlers need to form their own bond with the land and strive to become good ancestors for future generations.

Throughout Homing, Alice Irene returns to the story of her family, offering a tender window into their lives. At bedtime, her daughter Owl reflects on a toad they had seen earlier, “He has a sad face.” Sensitive, quiet, and brave, Owl explains, “He was away from his family.” Later, when their big dog Bear dies, I cried with them.

The story, the struggles, and the lessons remind me of The 100-Mile Diet by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon, a book deserving of its acclaim and impact. Lovingly and carefully written, Homing is meticulously researched and full of practical advice shaped by the pandemic years. It is a guide for anyone seeking to live in deeper relationship with the Earth. I carry away this line from Jane Goodall in The Shadow of Man: “It is the peace of the forest that I carry inside.”

Follow on Bluesky | Subscribe on Substack

“Dopamine makes promises that it is in no position to keep”

Three books have profoundly shaped my understanding of the mind’s duality through the lens of neuroscience. Iain McGilchrist’s The Master and His Emissary (2009) reveals how the brain’s two hemispheres—holistic and contextual (right) versus analytical and reductionist (left)—define human experience and culture. McGilchrist argues that the modern world is increasingly dominated by the left hemisphere’s narrow focus, creating a fragmented, disconnected society. Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) explores this duality through the interplay of two systems of thought—intuitive and automatic (System 1) versus deliberate and analytical (System 2). Kahneman’s work exposes the biases and heuristics that influence human decision-making. Recently, I discovered a third book that complements these perspectives: Daniel Z. Lieberman and Michael E. Long’s The Molecule of More (2018). It examines dopamine, the chemical of desire and motivation, and its pivotal role in shaping human ambition, creativity, and the tension between future aspirations and present contentment.

Lieberman and Long explain the brain’s division of the world into two domains—peripersonal space (what is within immediate reach) and extrapersonal space (what lies beyond). Peripersonal space is regulated by chemicals tied to present-moment awareness, fostering contentment and connection. Extrapersonal space, however, is dopamine’s realm, focused on anticipation, ambition, and the pursuit of what could be. Evolutionarily, this split was critical. Immediate resources like food or shelter required urgent action, while extrapersonal resources demanded exploration and strategic planning. Dopamine ensured survival by driving humans to seek novelty and improvement.

Desire originates deep within the ventral tegmental area, a dopamine-rich structure that scans the environment for potential opportunities—be they food, shelter, or social connections. When dopamine is triggered, it signals the brain to “wake up and pay attention,” sparking a sense of excitement. This response is automatic, beyond conscious control, yet it is not synonymous with pleasure. Dopamine is the molecule of anticipation, not satisfaction. It thrives on the unexpected, propelling us toward uncertainty and novelty. Classic experiments, such as B.F. Skinner’s studies on variable reward schedules, highlight dopamine’s role in addictive behaviors like gambling, as well as its influence on the design of video games, which capitalize on progress and anticipation.

Happiness in the dopamine framework lies not in achieving a goal but in the pursuit itself. Once a desired object is attained, dopamine activity wanes, leaving a sense of emptiness. This dynamic explains why chasing a goal often feels more rewarding than reaching it. To savor the present, the brain must shift from dopamine-driven anticipation to the “here-and-now” (H&N) chemicals, such as serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins. These neurotransmitters enable us to experience pleasure through relationships, sensory engagement, and mindfulness.

Dopamine’s love of novelty also explains the waning excitement in long-term relationships. Early in a partnership, unpredictability triggers dopamine-fueled attraction. As familiarity grows, dopamine subsides, often leaving individuals restless or searching for new excitement. Yet, this same neurochemical underpins creativity. Artists and scientists frequently describe the act of creation as their most euphoric experience, fueled by dopamine’s capacity to bypass inhibitions and spark originality. Fascinatingly, dopamine-boosting medications, such as those for Parkinson’s disease, have been linked to increased creativity. Lieberman and Long share the case of a poet who, after beginning Parkinson’s treatment, wrote an award-winning poem despite no prior history of creative writing. Similarly, painters on dopamine therapies increased their use of vivid color.

This phenomenon resonates with me personally. After my Parkinson’s diagnosis this year, I began treatment with levodopa, which converts to dopamine in the brain. I marked an improvement in my mental clarity and creative drive. It felt as though I had reclaimed my younger mind. My hobby of writing, neglected for a few years, became a passion again. My neurologist said this effect is not commonly reported, but Lieberman and Long’s observations align with my experience. A similar effect is reported in an episode of the Parkinson’s podcast, Movers and Shakers.

Dopamine’s influence shapes political ideologies. Liberals, often dopamine-driven, focus on progress, innovation, and solving systemic problems. Conservatives, more grounded in H&N chemicals, emphasize stability and tradition, valuing the present over the uncertain future. These neurological differences fuel polarization, as each group struggles to comprehend the other’s perspective. Interestingly, research suggests that small interventions—such as reducing vulnerability—can temporarily shift conservative leanings toward liberalism by enhancing dopamine activity. Dopamine is both a blessing and a challenge. It has propelled humanity forward, enabling remarkable achievements in science, art, and culture. Yet its insatiable nature demands balance. To avoid the trap of perpetual dissatisfaction, individuals must engage the H&N chemicals that anchor them in the present. These neurochemical systems offer the contentment and joy needed to appreciate life as it is, not as it could be. In this interplay between dopamine and the present lies the secret to balancing ambition with fulfillment, ensuring that humanity continues to progress without losing sight of what truly matters.

Subscribe on Substack

Posthumanism invites us to embrace the plurality of being: I am they; we are they

The term “posthuman” may initially evoke unease. After all, human values, rights, and humanity have long been central in our struggles against the forces of greed and mechanization. The word “posthuman” suggests a movement beyond the human, hinting at something dystopian or even apocalyptic. However, posthumanism is a philosophical inquiry that challenges the centrality of humanity in the 21st century. It critiques anthropocentrism—our human-centric worldview—and deconstructs human identity in relation to others, to nature, and even to technology. Francesca Ferrando’s The Art of Being Posthuman is a helpful guide for unpacking this complex and sometimes unsettling concept. While it acknowledges dark possibilities, it also illuminates liberating and enlightening ones.

The question of identity

Like anyone, I’ve wrestled with the question of identity, beginning with my upbringing among Dutch immigrants and their religious worldview. It provided a sense of belonging and purpose. Family, faith, work, and politics were interwoven into a tightly bound system of identity. Over the decades, all of it frayed, challenged by the complexity of being.

Studying psychology introduced me to various theories of personality, all proposing ideas of a stable self and identity. As I delved deeper into economics and social justice, I learned how the systemic oppressions of sexism, racism, and classism impose identity on people to sustain capitalism.

Posthumanism challenges these oppressive frameworks by deconstructing identity. Ferrando writes, “Philosophical posthumanism reveals how the universalization of the notion of the human has benefited only some humans, sustaining the oppression of others.” Disidentifying with narrow definitions of “human” is key to dismantling these systems of power.

Resonance with Buddhism

I studied Buddhism and practiced meditation for several years. Posthumanism resonates with aspects of Buddhism, which teaches that the self is an illusion—the root cause of suffering. Buddhism posits that clinging to any limited identity leads to suffering, and meditation can help alleviate this by fostering focus, emotional balance, clarity, and insight. However, traditional Buddhism is burdened by ideas of reincarnation, a hierarchy of beings, and mystical notions of enlightenment requiring multiple lifetimes. Posthumanism, in contrast, is less encumbered. It extends the Buddhist deconstruction of self, reframing human identity into a broader ecological and technological existence, while avoiding mysticism.

Body, species, and animism

Am I my body, an individual organism with the genetic type of the human species? Biologically, a human is an ecosystem. As Ferrando reminds us: “Bodies are universes, with all the life they contain. They are multiverses; bodies within bodies, one and many, separated and united, inextricably intra-related, necessarily (hyper-)connected: biotic inter-being. Human bodies are made of the same quantity of microbial cells (including bacteria, viruses, fungi, and archaea) as ‘human’ cells, if not more.”

Homo sapiens are not superior to other species. Humans, as part of the Earth, are an ecology of beings. This perspective opens the door to animism—the belief that all things, from rocks to rivers, are alive. While often dismissed as primitive, animism offers a healthy lens for understanding and addressing the climate crisis.

Relationship with technology

Posthumanism also interrogates our relationship with technology. Traditional sentiocentric ethics, which extend dignity to beings capable of suffering or intelligence, still impose a hierarchy, privileging beings with human-like traits. Posthumanism rejects these limits, affirming the dignity of all entities—biotic and abiotic—without human-centered biases.

Are rocks alive? If aliens had visited Earth five billion years ago, they might have said there was nothing here but rocks. If they visited again today, they might think the rocks had evolved into complex life. Would they be wrong? Is evolution still occurring? From rocks come minerals like silicon from which computers are made. The tech giants fancy themselves inventors of AI, but perhaps intelligence is a cosmic ordering principle, using these corporations to express itself anew in AI. Ferrando’s work challenges us to think beyond binaries of superiority and inferiority, especially concerning artificial intelligence.

The tech giants fancy themselves inventors of AI, but perhaps intelligence is a cosmic ordering principle, using these corporations to express itself anew in AI.

Posthumanism views being as a continuation of natural processes: from rocks to microbes, from animals to AI. Quoting Martin Heidegger, technology is poiēsis—a creative act that reveals existence itself. Posthumanism liberates us from seeing technology as mere tools or potential threats. Instead, it envisions technological entities as partners in the existential flow. AI may not exist to serve us, nor will it necessarily seek dominion. It could, just as plausibly, serve the collective good of all earthlings—human and non-human alike.

Plurality: I am they

If “I” and “we” are not limited to being human, who are we? Posthumanism reminds us that identity is dynamic and relational. Humans are not fixed beings but fluid participants in a web of existence that encompasses individuals, societies, species, and the cosmos.

Ferrando writes, “Posthumanism, as a philosophy of the 21st century, approaches humans (in all of their diversities), non-human animals, technology, and ecology relationally.” This perspective transcends planetary crises and technological upheavals. It invites us to embrace the plurality of being: I am they; we are they.

Subscribe on Substack

From Google to ChatGPT — How AI is Shaping Our Web Experience

Remember Your First Google Search?
Do you remember the first time you used the Google search engine? Before then, web search was often a frustrating experience using platforms like Alta Vista or Ask Jeeves, delivering mixed-quality results. When Google launched in 1997, it revolutionized the search experience. The clean, ad-free interface was simple, and the results were surprisingly relevant. It was a groundbreaking moment in web user experience.

Google’s founders, Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, detailed their creation in the paper The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine. Google’s innovation lay in how it ranked pages based on the number of links pointing to them, harnessing collective human intelligence to gauge relevance. This was one of the early steps in shaping Web 2.0—the social web. Google’s search engine dominated the digital landscape until recently, when Artificial Intelligence (AI) emerged to reshape our online interactions.

ChatGPT: An Elaborate Autocomplete Application
Enter ChatGPT, the generative AI chatbot developed by OpenAI. Unlike traditional search engines, ChatGPT can engage in natural language conversations, whether about poetry, business, or debugging code. It is a reading and writing machine capable of tailoring responses to any length, format, style, or level of analysis.

Ethan Mollick, in his book Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI, traces the development of AI toward the seminal 2017 paper “Attention is All You Need” by Google researchers. This paper introduced the now-famous transformer architecture, which revolutionized deep learning by using attention mechanisms to process and understand language. Though initially created for machine translation, the paper laid the groundwork for large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, which perform tasks such as question answering, text generation, and more. This architecture has since become a cornerstone in the rise of generative AI.

ChatGPT indexes a vast amount of text from online sources, learning patterns in how language is structured. When asked a question, it generates a coherent response based on likely word sequences. In a sense, it functions as an advanced autocomplete application.

AI at Work: A Moment of Realization
AI’s practical use became clear to me during a team meeting. We were stuck in an hours-long discussion, struggling to produce a cost-benefit analysis for a new product. Pressed for time, I turned to ChatGPT for help, requesting a generic analysis of similar products. Within seconds, it provided a solid draft that we quickly tailored for our presentation. I was sold on the power of AI.

Mollick imagines how LLMs can supercharge our productivity. He describes a system in which every aspect of our work is monitored and controlled by AI. It would track activities, behaviors, outputs, and outcomes of workers and managers. It would set goals and targets, assign tasks and roles, evaluate performance and dispense rewards. “AI’s ability to act as a friendly adviser could sand down the edges of algorithmic control, covering the Skinner box in bright wrapping paper. But it would still be the algorithm in charge. If history is a precedent, this is a likely path for many companies.”

AI, please take my job before this dystopian nightmare becomes a reality. ChatGPT has become integrated in my work, and I am grateful for the productivity it gives me. I have no intention, however, to be subject to an algorithm, repurposing my liberated time for maximum efficiency. The benefit is the freedom from low-level cognitive work. I can finally escape the keyboard, go for a walk outdoors, and engage in creative and holistic thought, inventing new work for the AI to execute. Consider too the accessibility improvements, allowing everyone to participate in a workplace that does not require years of training to perform mundane information tasks. That’s where I want to work.

The Role of AI in Writing and Judgment
I pointed ChatGPT to a collection of my online writing and blushed to hear its assessment of my writing style. “Your writing style is reflective, intellectual, and often philosophical, exploring deep questions about art, culture, and human experience. You blend personal insight with broader commentary, using precise language and a contemplative tone.” It went on with its praise. No doubt an AI hallucination. As Mollick observes, “LLMs work by predicting the most likely words to follow the prompt you gave it based on the statistical patterns in its training data. It does not care if the words are true, meaningful, or original. It just wants to produce a coherent and plausible text that makes you happy.”

Hallucination is often cited as a flaw in AI systems. However, misinformation has always plagued traditional information systems, summed up by the phrase “garbage in, garbage out.” Given the enormous size of its training set, the web, the accuracy of ChatGPT is impressive. More problematic is how its answers blend truth and falsehood, and its limited ability to give references. It answers like a human.

Mollick stresses that despite AI’s growing role in cognitive work, we must remain “the human in the loop,” exercising judgment over AI-driven outputs. While we can delegate tasks to AI, the ultimate responsibility for decisions stays with us.

I’m Feeling Lucky
The Google Search page traditionally had a second button, entitled, “I’m Feeling Lucky.” It invited our trust in it to return the right answer with one click. It was a gamble, simply returning the first result of a Google search, usually not a bad choice, but often insufficient. The button was rarely used and variously dropped from the interface.

The I’m Feeling Lucky button is what AI claims to deliver, a complete and satisfactory answer with one click. It could be revolutionary for user experience. Endless clicking, reading, analyzing, and summarizing are cognitive tasks currently performed by humans at desks with computers, keyboards and monitors. We could make all the technology and drudgery disappear into the background. We could just ask the computer the answer, like the Star Trek computer. Will it work? I’m feeling lucky.

Subscribe to my Essays on Substack

“I can imagine a world without books. I cannot imagine a world without reading.”

For generations, print books have been central to the reading experience. Yet, with each passing decade, the digital encroaches further, reshaping how we interact with text. We are among the first generations to experience this digital shift, and its implications for reading remain largely uncharted. Andrew Piper’s Book Was There: Reading in Electronic Times provides an essential exploration of this transition, examining how the print book continues to influence the digital screen and, by extension, the act of reading itself.

The title Book Was There borrows from Gertrude Stein, who understood the profound importance of location in reading. Piper reflects on this notion, remarking, “My daughter … will know where she is when she reads, but so too will someone else.” This observation carries both promise and an undercurrent of unease, as we grapple with what it means to “know where we are” in a digital landscape.

Piper does not argue for or against print or digital books. Instead, he illuminates their complexities. The print book is a physical object. It is “at hand,” a tangible presence capable of reinforcing ideas through continuous reference. Meanwhile, the term “digital” is rooted in “digits,” or fingers, emphasizing its tactile origins. Digital texts are ambient and accessible, opening doors to diverse voices and debates. Yet, as Piper notes, digital spaces can also reinforce echo chambers, where dissent is ignored.

One of the enduring criticisms of digital text is its perceived instability—turn off the power, and it disappears. Piper counters that digital text is surprisingly resilient, requiring extreme measures, like hard drive immolation, to truly erase. This duality of permanence and fragility typifies the digital age.

The physical book, with its two-dimensional pages facing one another, invites reflection in ways the single-dimensional scrolling of web pages may not. Does the latter numb the mind, or does it offer new cognitive possibilities? Piper doesn’t provide definitive answers but raises questions worth considering.

The digital medium has also redefined authorship and collaboration. Traditional books were often solitary endeavors, while digital works, like Wikipedia, emerge from collective contributions. Piper wonders whether such collaborative writing can ever achieve the cohesive weave of literature. Similarly, the ease of sharing in the digital age—derived from “shearing,” or splitting—has redefined how books are consumed and altered. Readers can now “fork” texts, publishing their own endings or versions. While this fluidity can spur creativity, Piper cautions that over-sharing may lead to fragmentation, as seen in the early development of Unix. Yet, Unix itself ultimately thrived. Might digital literature follow a similar trajectory?

Twenty-five years ago, a professor of mine lamented that he could not read all the academic literature in his discipline. Today he can with “distant reading,” the use of big data technologies, natural language processing, and visualization, to analyze volumes of literature in detail. In Piper’s research, he calculates how language influences the writing of a book, and how in turn the book changes the language of its time. It measures a book in a way that was never possible with disciplined close reading or speed reading. “If we’re going to have ebooks that distract us, we might as well have ones that help us analyse too.”

Piper embraces these new practices, emphasizing that they need not replace traditional reading. Print books will always hold a place for those who savor a slow, immersive read. Yet, as the digital landscape evolves, trade-offs are inevitable. Books born digital are often shorter, optimized for quick reading and algorithmic analysis. New authors write with digital audiences in mind, reshaping both readers and reading itself.

“I can imagine a world without books. I cannot imagine a world without reading.” The reading landscape is undeniably shifting. While traditional reading of print books—or even ebooks—may endure for some, it feels increasingly like a niche practice. Piper’s work reminds us that, even as the medium evolves, reading itself remains central to how we understand and engage with the world.

(Written ten years ago, this post concludes my Best Thirty Book Reviews. I am busy posting new reviews and essays. So much has changed. Today I use Generative AI to proofread and critique my writing. This morning, I heard that Microsoft has launched a publishing imprint. Heavily invested in AI, they are not currently accepting unsolicited manuscripts. Books and reading are still here, it is writing that may be at risk.)

Subscribe on Substack

“Sit down, shut up, and ask yourself what’s true.” Write your own metaphysics, question everything until you hit bedrock.

“The one and only truth of any person lies like a black hole at their very core, and everything else—everything else—is just rubbish and debris that covers the hole.” Enlightenment is truth-realization: the self is false. “Your moments of blackest despair are really your most honest moments, your most lucid moments.” Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing by Jed McKenna is one heck of a book. McKenna is enlightened, he tells us, and most people are not. It is a cocky claim, but his clear thinking and the effective dispatching of the usual spiritual trappings suggest a person with first-hand experience.

Damnedest is set in an ashram in Iowa where McKenna is a spiritual instructor of sorts, though he is quick to disclaim any special mystical status. “Think for yourself and figure out what’s true.” Dialogue with students provides a light narrative around his philosophy. Life is a dream, says McKenna. The core of this delusion is a belief in the self and all the ensuing dualities, including right and wrong. Happiness is a good dream, and suffering is a bad one. It is neither desirable nor important to become enlightened unless you are one of those rare few in a hundred million who insist on truth.

McKenna advises a form of truth-seeking called spiritual autolysis. “Sit down, shut up, and ask yourself what’s true.” Write your own metaphysics, question everything until you hit bedrock. Done. I agree that there is no constant self, no soul. There is no external world of pure forms, no essence. Change is at the heart of our universe and human nature.

I disagree with his reductive approach to truth. “All beliefs. All concepts. All thoughts. Yes, they’re all false; all bullshit. … If you’re going for truth, you’re not taking any of them with you.” What about scientific truth? Is it all bullshit? McKenna might be surprised to learn of the consistency between the laws of physics and his views. Take the second law of thermodynamics, which asserts that everything falls apart. It is an empirical truth, a predictable dynamic in space-time, and quite useful for understanding the big picture and our little lives. What about existential truth? Yes, I might die tonight, but probably not. Meaning is fleeting and beautiful. There is both truth and beauty.

Enlightenment is both difficult and liberating. It can take years to fully sink in. It changes everything. For McKenna, it is the end of the human drama. He jokes that he has become a vampire, a post-human. I think enlightenment is more common than McKenna knows. Life inevitably forces the realization upon us, and many choose to embrace it.

Subscribe on Substack

Newton’s personal library of a few hundred books was quite enough to found physics

The Universe Within by Neil Turok is the 2012 Massey Lectures. I have read several histories of physics and perhaps did not need to read another one, but Turok speaks with profound wisdom. A theoretical physicist, he has worked with Stephen Hawking, Paul Steinhardt, and other brilliant minds to develop our understanding of the early universe. He is currently Director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada. He has a deep political consciousness and is dedicated to connecting abstract ideas with everyday people and young minds.

Turok makes many thoughtful reflections. I highlight three of them here. First, the problem of information overload in the modern digital world is not a new one, but Turok stopped me with this observation:

“In the Wren Library in Trinity College, Cambridge, Isaac Newton’s personal library consists of a few hundred books occupying a single bookcase. This was quite enough to allow him to found modern physics and mathematical science. A short walk away, in the main University Library, Charles Darwin’s personal library is also preserved. His entire collection of books occupies a ten-metre stretch of shelving. Again, for one of the most profound and original thinkers in the history of science, it is a minuscule collection.”

Maybe the internet, with its millions of books of data, is required for the rest of our average brains. More likely, digital technology and the internet simply allow too much text to exist. A little curation goes a long way to intelligence.

Second, I was glad to find a heavyweight physicist who shares my skepticism of the multiverse theory. Put simply, the multiverse concept proposes a universe for each possible outcome in space-time. Cast a six-sided die, and each outcome occurs in a different universe. The multiverse is proposed to resolve certain logical problems arising from quantum mechanics. It was delightfully rendered in the fictional work The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter. I am skeptical about it as a serious idea. As Turok says:

“It is hard to imagine a less elegant or convincing explanation of our own beautiful world than to invent a near-infinite number of unobservable worlds and to say that, for some reason we cannot understand or quantify, ours was ‘chosen’ to exist from among them.”

Finally, I am grateful to Turok for giving the new atheists a kick in the ass. Scientists like Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss have caused me to re-evaluate my vague agnosticism, even to acknowledge that I am an atheist, at least on weekdays. I maintain objections to their smugness. In The God Delusion, Dawkins opens by describing his profound wonder at the vastness of the universe. The same feeling has been shared in religious terms by Sagan, Einstein, Hawking, and other scientists. When these scientists talk about God, they are doing so in a poetic sense. The God Delusion, says Dawkins, is not an attack on their God. No, his attack is not on the poetic thinkers but on the literalists, those who think in fairy tales rather than in good, solid physics. You can make a bold claim – God is a delusion – only if you exclude all good thinking on the subject and focus just on a straw man.

I was also disappointed by Krauss’s A Universe from Nothing. The book promises to take on the deep philosophical question: Why is there something rather than nothing? I learned fresh ideas about the distribution of energy in the universe—fascinating, but not informative about the primary question. I get his argument: the sum of energy in the universe has been accounted for, so there is no need to invoke a creator. Fine, don’t invoke a creator. But why is there something rather than nothing? As Turok says: “The rhetoric is impressive, but the arguments are shallow.”

If you are looking for a modest and reflective take on the subject, I recommend Why Does the World Exist by Jim Holt. Turok makes another recommendation which I have added to my reading list:

“In comparing Krauss’s and Dawkins’s arguments with the care and respectfulness of those presented by Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, all the way back in the eighteenth century, one can’t help feeling the debate has gone backwards. Hume presents his skepticism through a dialogue which allows opposing views to be forcefully expressed, but which humbly reaches no definitive conclusion. After all, that is his main point: we do not know whether God exists.”

Of late, I have wondered if the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were not the peak of human intellect. Neil Turok is an equal for our own day.

Subscribe on Substack

Good people looking after one another; the Dutch were better than their theology

Westerhof—now there’s a Dutch name, like all the names in Catch Me as I Fall. There’s the Van crew, of course, like Van Dyk. There’s an abundance of Frisians, the Northerners, names with vowels and often ending in the letter a: Boersma, Dykstra, Veenstra, Zylstra. I am a Miedema and grew up with people just like them. There are many immigrant stories in Canadian literature, but few Dutch ones. Dutch immigrants were a quiet, practical lot, quick to assimilate. Westerhof’s collection of eleven loosely related short stories is a rare treat.

The immigrant story is not a new one, but the Dutch perspective is unique. The church was the core of this community. Religion was heavy-handed, and the book’s title was well chosen. The fall of man is central to Dutch theology. Of course, there was doubt. In the story Unfailing Mercies, Sarah stands in front of the church for the ritual Profession of Faith. She ponders how casually she had drifted into the faith, agreeing to believe. When Reverend Post asks her to commit her life to Christ, she feels an urge to laugh, then panics. Personally, I declined to undertake the ritual. It was my point of departure from the church. Still, I remember that they were generally good people looking after one another; the Dutch were better than their theology. I still love to sing the old hymns.

The stories touch on all the memorable points—the difficult ones and the happy ones. There was the Dutch school, with all those young blond heads and blue eyes. In Canada, it is not uncommon to hear about discrimination against immigrants, but the Dutch were bearers of prejudice against Catholics, Blacks, gays—you name it. To be fair, during the war, many Dutch people risked their lives to hide Jews from the Nazis who occupied their country. On a happier note, I was reminded of our good farm foods: meat and potatoes and green beans, soup with Maggi, boterkoek, and apple pie with ice cream. My diet has diversified since those days, but I have fond memories.

Westerhof’s stories are often sentimental, and this works because the Dutch are sentimental. That, and stubborn. Wooden-shoed and wooden-headed. In the story Probability, Ellie is never as confident as her aptly named friend, Will. Maybe the certain answers of his faith made him feel there should be certain answers for everything. Westerhof nails it there. Belief in a grand design has a way of programming a person to see the world in a structured way. Now Will is dead. What will she write for a eulogy? Well, Westerhof’s book is a eulogy of sorts—a testament to a past time that still echoes with love in me. Thank you, Patricia.

Subscribe on Substack

Our universe may have started as a hack in a physicist’s lab

Why is there something rather than nothing? Any world view worth its salt needs an answer to this question. I recently read two books on the subject: Why Does the World Exist by Jim Holt, and A Universe from Nothing by Lawrence M. Krauss. Of the two, I preferred Holts existential detective story because of its humbler, broader approach.

There are creation myths, Christian and otherwise. A creator brings the world into being out of nothing or out of chaos. People generally think creation myths are just nice stories, but any move to take them literally invokes quick criticism. There is a problem with creation theories. Where did the creator come from? Self-created of course, or eternal, but then why can’t the universe be self-created or eternal?

A logical person might argue, look, there is either going to be nothing or something. When there is nothing, there’s nobody there to notice. Something is bound to turn up sooner or later. See, there’s something. A Buddhist would not agree. Is there something, really? One does not get something from nothing. The substance of things is an illusion. The universe never came into being.

Does nothing exist? Heidegger said you can’t use the verb, is, when it comes to nothing, as in, nothing is. As usual, he invented a new word, noths, nothing noths. It may be nonsensical to try to talk or think about nothing. Logical positivists preferred formal logic and empiricism to account for the world. One of Wittgenstein’s main propositions is poetical and wise, Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Physics proposes a new answer. Our knowledge of the universe has expanded. We have empirical proof that there was a big bang, a point in time when the universe began, likely from a random quantum fluctuation. If the sum of energy in the universe can be accounted for, there is no need to invoke a creator. This answer introduces the notion of the multiverse, the possibility that many different universes can exist, each with its own set of physical laws and constants. I am intrigued by the cheeky suggestion that our universe may have started as a hack in a physicist’s lab in another universe, initialized with values then launched for expansion.

I begin to think of physics as religion, only better because it can be proven. Consider entropy, the second law of thermodynamics, energy always dissipates, nothing lasts. It’s a good explanation of just about everything, the fate of the universe and my balding head.

Of course, each solution sets up its own problem. If our universe came into being because of a hack in another universe, where did the first universe come from? We circle back to the beginning. Does it even make sense to talk about other universes? Doesn’t the definition of universe necessarily include everything? Recursion is the trick and curse of origin questions.

Subscribe on Substack

I have a plastic brain and a tin flute

One of the happier research findings of the 21st century is that the adult brain isn’t fixed—it continues to grow and change throughout life. This phenomenon, known as neuroplasticity, is something I’m putting to the test as I learn my first musical instrument: the tin flute. To help me along, I’m reading Making Music for the Joy of It by Stephanie Judy.

This book is a welcoming guide for beginners, addressing common myths like tone deafness and demystifying the basics of reading music. Part of it feels like an introduction to adult learning, with practical advice such as finding a good time and place to practice. But it’s also a broader reflection on the nature of practice itself. For some, there’s a quiet satisfaction in the act of practicing; at the same time, as Judy notes, I find that I can explore more complex techniques when I simply allow myself to play. “In the place we call Music,” she writes, “improvisation is that window off to the side—an irresistible view for some musicians, all they ever look at, really.”

The “mapping technique” she describes is especially fascinating for beginners. While seasoned musicians can often approximate a new piece after just one look, my attempts are awkward and error-filled even after several tries. The mapping approach involves practicing in layers. First, study the piece briefly, noting a few key details. Then, try playing through without the music. With each pass, you add depth and observation until the music starts to feel more natural.

One quote from Judy resonates with me: “People only half listen to you when you play. The other half is watching.” Yikes. I hope, one day, to feel comfortable enough to perform with and for others. I’d always imagined that would be far in the future, but Judy suggests that playing music with family is not only joyful but also a great way to ease into performing. Inspired by her suggestion, I’m rehearsing Joy to the World to play for my family this Christmas—a dream come true.

Follow on Substack