Time Reborn, by Lee Smolin
Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe
by: Lee Smolin
I really liked Lee Smolin's book "The Trouble with Physics". He wrote so clearly there about, well, about the trouble with physics. So I had to look at "Time Reborn".
Right off the bat I am in difficulty with his premises. He keeps referring to the sensual world as the real world. He assumes that the world of our senses and passing time is the one and only world to which all other notions must be measured. So all ideas, arguments, conclusions are based upon that assumption. If that is how the rest of the book is going to be, then I don't think I need hundreds of pages of argument. I hope he does not take the added step of assuming what he wants to be true and are then showing how it is true.
The sections on Galileo, Kepler, and Newton are frustrating. I appreciate that the author is trying to give a different slant on this part of the history of science. But the presentation falls short because of several assumptions:
the history of scientific ideas is linear, always getting more and more true
scientists before 1600's did not have the right scientific understanding
people in other times and places (like those silly Egyptians and American Indians) did not understand anything correctly
I have elsewhere noted that people who think that our current scientific models are "true" while previous models are "wrong" are not very good historians. He himself does bring up the interesting point that previous scientific theories explained observation very well, but we now consider them wrong theories. So science is in this interesting epistemological quandary of not being able to use observation to prove that the theories correctly describe how the universe works. But this very interesting starting point is not developed.
About the "precedent" theory -- does he know that Rupert Sheldrake has been developing this idea for decades? Again, an idea proposed but not well developed. And especially not well developed since there are other writer out there with whom a conversation or two could yield some really interesting results.
Sorry, I have run out of steam for Mr Smolin's latest work. His strong point, the math, has taken over and become his weak point. He does have a truly special ability to see how modern mathematical theories (string theory) cannot lead us anywhere. But he is himself cannot give up the mathematical theories enough to see what his insights might be telling him.