Biocosm: The New Scientific Theory of Evolution : Intelligent Life Is the Architect of the Universe

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Summary: Interlinking life itself and universal architecture
Review: Biocosm: The New Scientific Theory Of Evolution - Intelligent Life Is The Architect Of The Universe by accomplished science essayist James N. Gardner presents a fascinating hypothesis of how our seemingly "bio-friendly" universe began and what is perceived to be its ultimate destiny. Gardner's "Selfish Biocosm" theory suggests that life and intelligence did not emerge from random Darwinian selection and environmentally deterministic chance, but from a cycle of cosmic creation, evolution, death, and rebirth. Interlinking life itself and universal architecture, fusing biology and cosmology, and more, Biocosm is an absorbing, iconoclastic, and inspirationally presented theory that is recommended as being both thoughtful and thought-provoking.

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Summary: Biocosm radically changes our model of existence
Review: Every once in awhile a science book hits the market that has the power to forever change the public's perception of our existence. Books like Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time and Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe presented concepts so unique that they forced us all to take a big gulp and digest bold new thoughts about our existence.

James Gardner's Biocosm falls into this category. This book takes a fresh look at everything we know about life and the universe and makes us think in a radical new way. Ultimately, the importance of books like this lie not in the details of their theories (which are ultimately superseded by others) but in their power to help humanity grasp what we are and how we came to be. If the question of existence is a priority for you then you must read Biocosm.

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Summary: Biocosm: Fresh New Ideas on the Question of Existence
Review: For centuries science has wrestled with the question of how our amazingly complex, life-filled, universe could have formed without the aid on an outside intelligence. Biocosm proposes the most surprising answer of all, that life itself provided the intelligence that created our bio-friendly universe.

The central hypothesis of the book is that at some time in the future, intelligent beings will have the capability of creating universes with the precise characteristics required to spawn life. Whether or not you buy this thesis, Biocosm presents a kaleidoscope of scientific possibilities so advanced that it makes Star Trek look like a buggy ride.

Gardner does an admirable job of weaving together relativity, evolution and complexity theory in a way that keeps the reader glued to each page. The result is a scientific roller coaster that stretches the readers concepts of time, space and intelligence beyond the limits of imagination.

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Summary: Universal Darwinism?
Review: If you like to explore provocative ideas, then you will enjoy Biocosm. Gardner begins by arguing that a strong version of the Anthropic Principal is required to account for the goodness of fit between the physical parameters of our current universe, and the parameters required for the evolution of intelligent life. He builds on Lee Smolin?s hypothesis (The Life of the Cosmos) that our current universe is the product of a long evolutionary history that has favored universes that could produce baby universes (in the form of black holes) and these same parameters are also favorable for intelligent life. Gardner points out (correctly) that Smolin's hypothesis does not explain how such baby universes inherit the parameters of their mothers, and then offers a provocative solution. It is our future intelligent progeny that program the physical laws into future universes (as they have in the past). This is Gardner's Selfish Biocosm Hypothesis (SB). Gardner rejects Linde's "eternal chaotic inflation" plus a weak version of the anthropic principal (ECI&WA) but it appears to me that Gardner needs Linde's idea to produce the FIRST universe with intelligent life. After that, SB might work. However, if ECI&WA is needed to get SB off the ground, then SB is no longer useful, since ECI&WA alone can account for the apparent goodness of fit between the parameters of the physical universe and the parameters necessary for intelligent life. Despite my concerns, I believe Gardner's book is worth reading because it addresses some of the critical issues and constraints that confront any acceptable theory of cosmic origins.

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Summary: Bio-Blah
Review: Initially intrigued with this book, I quickly lost interest. It starts out well but then degenerates into a bunch of random points which the author tries to use to argue his hypothesis that the universe was designed to give rise to intelligent life as a final outcome. The blurbs along the margin were major distractions & made it hard to stay focused on the actual material in the book. The book just kind of wanders around the various fields of science trying to find evidence to support the author's premise and then ends with the pronouncement that we're the peak of creation (very Genesis-like). I'd have to pronounce this book mildly interesting if you can wade through the claptrap and the biased agenda.

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Summary: Ockham's Razor cuts this book off my list.
Review: Recognizing that an intelligent designer of our universe is needed to plausibly account for the fine-tuning required for it's existence, this books author tries to avoid using anything like the omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God of Christianity as that designer. Instead he relies on a very powerful being that's more like a super-mom or super-scientist of a prior universe to do the birthing. Our infant universe--as it's mother before--has a built-in purpose to develop more "complexity" and eventually evolve to the point when it can give birth to another similar infant universe just like it's mother did to it before. This is repeated over and over again, hopefully without going astray, producing "kid universes" that provide enough "complexity" so the chain is never permanently broken. Here no prior universe exists in eternal quiescence.

But how did all this start? Whatever _begins_ to exist has a cause, how did that beginning arise? One way to avoid the regress, which then brings back what _some_ atheists want to avoid, is an eternal, uncaused intelligent designer that is timeless before creation and omnitemporal at once with creation. The author doesn't want any of that. A closed causal chain that's not self-defeating makes the "future" cause the "past" in one big loop so there never is any real beginning to time and this big cycle just always is.

One still wonders whether this infinitely birthing cycle of universes cause even more problems than a universe with a beginning. Most don't think that an infinite number of things is real because this leads to all sorts of self-contradictions and seems to provide no basis for rational thought. Consider that subtracting all odd numbers from all natural numbers gives an infinite number. So infinity minus infinity is infinity. However, subtracting all numbers greater than 2 leaves 3. So infinity minus infinity is 3! If actual infinites cannot exist in reality, an actual infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite and therefore an actual infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist. Another way of looking at it is through successions of events. Since an actual infinite cannot be reached by successive addition, and a temporal series of events is a collection formed by successive addition, then the series of temporal events cannot be infinite. It seems that time and the universe must have had a beginning a finite time ago.

Besides this book being pure speculation and propaganda, it has many specious arguments and one may want to look at other works on these topics. This may also help in deciding if the authors theory is really "falsifiable." Actually, the whole notion of "falsifiability" deserves study.

Anyway, one suggestion is to have a look at the book "GOD? A Debate Between A Christian And An Atheist" by William Lane Craig and Walter Sinnot Armstrong for better arguments.

I side with the "atheist" that believes in an intelligent designer that was atemporal and maybe "supernatural" but not one that has all the characteristics of the Christian God. This is mainly because the defense given by theists to the "problem of evil" just doesn't cut it for me, but these defenses may for others.

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Summary: Infinite Regress of Intelligent Designers
Review: The fatal flaw of the 'Biocosm' hypothesis is that of infinite regress: Each designed universe had a designer, which in turn had to have a super-designer, and so on. Ultimately, to avoid such a regress of designers, we must begin with a universe capable of producing designers that was not itself designed. But the possibility of an undesigned universe capable of producing intelligent designers undermines the whole purpose of proposing the Biocosm hypothesis in the first place. So ultimately 'Biocosm' doesn't solve the fundamental problem it sets out to solve, it merely postpones it. Note that the theistic argument from design fails for a similar reason: If organized complexity (e.g., life) requires a designer, then so does an intelligent living God (who must be organized and complex if he is to be intelligent and alive). This God, in turn, would require a super-intelligent designer, ad infinitum. It's time we all bravely faced reality, and let go of our anthropocentric hubris.

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Summary: Cosmic Biocomics
Review: This collage of theoretical explorations is as fascinating as it is (apparently) incoherent and gives a progress report on the current state of evolutionary speculation, driven by the unadmitted breakdown of the Darwinian viewpoint, a reality that can't be acknowledged in public. And that's the problem here. You can't have it both ways. It seems the ID people have Darwinists spooked and on the run, and while the elements of a new approach to evolution are certainly appearing over the horizon noone can summon up the presence of mind to ditch natural selection. Contradictory hybrids come into existence in a sort of frolic of wild notions. Now we have cosmic selection theories and Dawkins' selfish gene projected onto cosmology. Far be it from me to throw cold water on all these shenigans, especially since I find it all luridly fascinating and the book entertaining. One thing the author has done is to place the pieces of the puzzle, au courant, onto the table. Perhaps one can somehow fit them together, Darwin, selectionism, ID, anthropics, baby universes, exobilogical exhuberance, and finally a bit of Kant. I was alarmed to see the author confused by Robert Wright's directionality thesis from Non Zero with its total confusion and cooptation of Kant's essay on history. For, whatever we make of the cosmological foundations of biological theory the question of history remains inscrutable as far as current Darwinism is concerned, and Kant's essay points the way to the right question, and provides elements of the right methodology.(Cf. the reviewer's material on this issue of Kant) Current science simply cannot handle any of that,it seems. You can't hybridize Kant and Darwin. As long as the delusion persists that the descent of man was the result of natural selection the basic incoherence will persist. In fact, human history is completely beyond the reach of current science. It's not even in the right ball park and has degenerated from the insights of the Enlightenment. The result is a lot of confused physicists who are too smart to realize they are acting stupidly.
All this said, I enjoyed the somewhat disordered collation of theoretical ideas. The bits and pieces keep flying out of nowhere and I couldn't quite keep track of it all, and the standard appearance of the nonsense about sociobiological ethics mars the result. The overall picture however is highly intriguing, as an idea for the revision of current views around a theme/theory of cosmic life processes. But it is difficult to proceed without a theory of the evolution of consciousness, and there current science hasn't a clue.
Guess what! Modern science doesn't have a coherent theory of evolution. The author unwittingly lets the cat out of the bag. No wonder they have peer review.