Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Overview of History of Discoveries in Quantum Phys
Review: A deep but essentially non mathematical overview of the progression of scientific theories relating to Quantum Physics. The thesis of the book was to refute the popular idea that recent discoveries in Quantum Mechanics have merged with and in fact provide a scientific support for metaphysical/religious philosophies. This to me was the less interesting part of the book. IN making his arguments Stenger takes the reader through a chronological history of the major discoveries in Quantum Physics. Although very deep for someone not trained in this discipline it is mostly understandable. The non mathematical reader is left hanging in a few places but overall one emerges with a general understanding of the important debates of the day in this field
Rating: 
Summary: Filled with false assumptions
Review: Boy you know, just reading one paragraph of Victor Stenger's writing makes it apparent that he's closed minded and filled with tons of a priori assumptions that he doesn't even understand. He thinks that all mysticism and spirituality is delusion, but he doesn't bother to even consider the fact that miracles happen and that paranormal phenomenon happen to billions of credible people. He just pretends all that doesn't exist. All this indicates that he'd deluded himself because he thinks that nothing exists outside of his preconceived world. If I were to go by his "everything outside of my understanding is false" paradigm, I would be saying that since I don't understand Spanish, then everyone speaking Spanish must be speaking random gibberish and deluded, which would make me look stupid. But fortunately most people are above that and open to new philosophies.Although he sounds like he knows a lot about physics and quantum physics, his thoughts and ideas are obviously closed and limited. It's all in his words. He refuses to accept all sorts of things, I could list a lot, which are real but don't fit into his paradigm. What's funny is that he tries to criticize people like Deepak Chopra because they have mystical New Age theories of quantum physics. Chopra has helped a lot of people find their spirituality and achieve higher levels of transcendence and being, which bring fulfillment to life. That's way more than Stenger can do. All Stenger does is brag about how rational he is and how deluded everyone else is. What good does that do for humanity? What a trip. lol I'd love to debate this guy someday. I could bring up things for which he'd be speechless about and just say "Impossible" or "Anecdotal" or "Can't be true". Sorry I sound so cynical here, I'm usually not like this. I'm usually a lot nicer than this. But people like him project a certain tone that makes you feel he needs a dose of his own medicine. Know what I mean? Winston
Rating: 
Summary: Does quantum theory imply mysticism?
Review: Contrary to some of the other reviews, I think this is a pretty good book. Let me point out that my own background is astrophysics (undergrad) and mathematics (grad). Stenger does a creditable job of laying out the major philosophical issues of quantum theory. He has included some sidebars for the more mathematically sophisticated. My own reading left me feeling that Stenger's aim is primarily to urge readers to approach any extrapolation from quantum facts to quantum ontologies with a great deal of skepticism. Many people have construed issues of measurement to mean that 'mind' collapses wave functions. Stenger points out that 'mind' is not easily defined, is likely an emergent property of base matter, and suggests we stop reverting to Cartesian dualism every time things get confused. He discusses De Broglie and Bohm's guiding field, and points out that regardless of its correctness, it provides a viable alternative ontology, so clearly the mystical approach is not a foregone conclusion.
The book could be better. It would be nice if he spent a bit more time discussing some of the confusion regarding 'mind', but I think he has done a good job of laying out the basic issues for the well-educated lay person, and of urging skepticism before seizing upon strange phenomena as a justification for one's metaphysics.
Rating:
Summary: Does quantum theory imply mysticism?
Review: Contrary to some of the other reviews, I think this is a pretty good book. Let me point out that my own background is astrophysics (undergrad) and mathematics (grad). Stenger does a creditable job of laying out the major philosophical issues of quantum theory. He has included some sidebars for the more mathematically sophisticated. My own reading left me feeling that Stenger's aim is primarily to urge readers to approach any extrapolation from quantum facts to quantum ontologies with a great deal of skepticism. Many people have construed issues of measurement to mean that 'mind' collapses wave functions. Stenger points out that 'mind' is not easily defined, is likely an emergent property of base matter, and suggests we stop reverting to Cartesian dualism every time things get confused. He discusses De Broglie and Bohm's guiding field, and points out that regardless of its correctness, it provides a viable alternative ontology, so clearly the mystical approach is not a foregone conclusion.
The book could be better. It would be nice if he spent a bit more time discussing some of the confusion regarding 'mind', but I think he has done a good job of laying out the basic issues for the well-educated lay person, and of urging skepticism before seizing upon strange phenomena as a justification for one's metaphysics.
Rating: 
Summary: Misleading Claims and a Defensive Tone Undermine Book
Review: Dr. Stenger can be informative and even witty but ultimately I'd have to say this book is more than a little misleading. Other reviewers have walked away with the notion that quantum mechanics "makes perfect sense", something few thoughtful physicists would be comfortable saying. I'm an atheist who has no patience with New Age writers but Stenger seems to be almost obssessively on guard against any hint of mysticism, weirdness or even ambiguity. The book is published by an off-shoot of the magazine SKEPTICAL INQUIRER, and it shares that publication's tendency to strike an almost holier-than-thou tone -- or I should say a "rationaler-than-thou" tone. Stenger does too much sneering and dismissing. He tries to buffalo his readers by assuring them that the mathematics of quantum mechanics isn't weird -- just the WORDS are. That's a weak argument at best. Applied mathematics doesn't usually lead to paradoxical physical concepts. Stenger's own preferred interpretation of QM involves recognizing that the relativistic version of the Schrodinger equation has solutions that imply backward travel in time. In other words, he capitalizes on the weirdness implicit in the purportedly unweird mathematics (Traditionally the "reverse" solutions are ignored.) Incidentally, Stenger argues that time-travel on a sub-atomic scale somehow doesn't even qualify as weird -- just counter-intuitive. That, apparently, is a more rational word than "weird".
Stenger repeatedly belittles alternate interpretations of QM and points out that functionally all serious interpretations are the same. This means that the interpretations he favors have no more going for them technically than the ones he derides. His objections are as much philosophical as they are scientific -- and yet thoughout the book he is contemptuous of philosophical considerations. He finds holistic hidden variables implausible but then acknowleges (very much in passing) that his time-travel variation of QM is also not accepted by most physicists. Apparently one's philosophical perspective is more important than Stenger wants to admit. He even goes so far as to say that most practicing physicists don't think at all about philosophic stuff -- so it can't be very important. That's another misrepresentation. Many, maybe most, physicists simply memorize the formalisms of their profession and contribute little to its development. The giants of QM, on the other hand, were frequently aware of and intrigued by the implications of their formalisms. John Bell, a man Stenger admires, spent his career encouraging scientists to more closely examine the assumptions of the Copenhagen interpretation -- and he made a hallmark contribution to QM because of his philosophical curiosity.
Stenger seems always on edge at the thought of holism and this leads to another of the book's repeated contradictions. His suggestion that particles from the future travel back to the past and influence the present seems pretty darned "holistic" to me. (That's not to say it couldn't be true.) Why is spatial holism metaphysical while temporal holism merely counter-intuitive? Both ideas have theoretical justifications and neither has significant empirical support. Why should only one of these theories be considered respectable? Why shouldn't both be further developed?
Decoherence is an intriguing idea but also seems to have more than a tinge of holism about it. (Sub-atomic particles, the theory says, have an existence because of each other. What collapses all those mysterious wave functions [or rather, what renders collapse unneccessary] is the interactive nature of reality itself. The theory still seems to suggest -- like its precusor interpretation, Copenhagen -- that if taken individually particles don't always precisely exist.)
Contrast Brian Greene's new book with this one. Green has a deep appreciation for De Broglie-Bohm hidden variables, while by no means accepting that the theory is on the right track. He admires decoherence but recognizes that to date it's still begging a few questions. Also consider John Gribbin's Q IS FOR QUANTUM. It's a basic, excellent and nuanced overview of the field in the form of an encyclopedia. Gribbin is fair to all serious interpretations of QM, while making his own preferences clear. He doesn't slight the partly-philosophical motivation for those preferences.
Lastly, let me again stress that the weirdness of QM is not purely, or even largely, a useless metaphysical misconception. Technicians have forced a single atom to occupy two separate places at the same moment. As Stan Lee would put it, "Nuff said."
Rating:
Summary: To keep us in check...
Review: I enjoyed this book immensely. If you read The Dancing Wu Li Masters, then you must read this book as well. It will bring you back down (this is a good thing).
Mr. Stenger writes very clearly and puts forth a good dialogue about what is and is not quantum physics. Before jumping on the New Age quantum, "science and Eatern mysticism are the same" bandwagon, be certain you are educated on the story from someone who lives it. Mr. Stenger lives quantum physics.
While the language is different, the goal is the same -- Mr. Stenger is merely seeking truth. Truth does not conform to the way we wish, no matter how hard we try. This book is one way to make certain that we keep the truth we think we have in check. P.S. Leon Lederman's book The God Particle is worth checking out as well.
(FYI: This is an old review from an old email address)
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Exposition of Modern Physics
Review: Stenger is a physicist completely at home in contemporary mathematical physics, yet incurably curious about the deeper philosophical issues brought up by quantum mechanics. I have read many books attempting to explain quantum mechanics to the layman and I consider this the most careful and enlightening--also quite up to date (even in the year 2000). The problems arising around quantum mechanics can be analyzed using the famous Bell equation, which Stenger develops extremely nicely (although it helps to be able to read the simple algebra in the optional 'boxes'). The violation of Bell's inequality, he argues (drawing on many technical papers and books) violates either Determinism + Locality or Separability + Locality, or Completeness + Locality (all terms well defined in the book). He argues strongly that quantum mechanics does not violate Locality itself,which Stenger takes as very important to maintain. Stenger presents the classical Copenhagen interpretation of the collapse of the wave function, as well as Bohm's hidden variable interpretation, the many-worlds interpretation, and the most recent (and to my mind satisfying) decoherence approach. The Unconscious Quantum's main message is that modern physics provides absolutely no support for New Age and more traditionally religious notions of supernaturalism. Stenger is refreshing in not denying the existence of spirituality, but holding that the world of spirituality does not, as far as we know, intersect the natural world described in the natural sciences. "While I cannot bring myself to worship a hypothesis," he notes, "I have no wish to disparage those who do. I simply ask that they not assume that science, in its current state, provides any buttress for their belief..." This does not mean Stenger supports New Age guruism. In a truly beautiful passage he says, "Anyone listening to New Age gurus and modern Christian preachers cannot miss the emphasis on the individual finding easy gratification, rather than sacrificing and selflessly laboring for a better world. Holisitic philosophy is the perfect self-delusion for the spointed brat of any age, all decked out in the latest fashion, who loves to talk about solving the problems of the world but has no intention of sweating a drop in acheiving this noble goal."
Rating:
Summary: Philosophically unsophisticated and prejudiced
Review: Stenger is quite right that there is a lot of sloppy thought and unjustified claims in the popular New Age, New Paradigm movement. He is also correct to say that it is misguided to use quantum theory to justify or prove mysticism. (Not because quantum theory is incompatible with mysticism, as Stenger argues, but because science cannot and need not prove mysticism in the first place--that's what mystical contemplation is for.) Unfortunately, his criticisms are tainted by prejudice and his own sloppiness. For example, Stenger seems to lump all the fluffy New Age ideas together with the classical mystical teachings, and then indiscriminantly calls it all mysticism. For those people who really know what true mysticism is (and how to tell it apart from New Age fluff), Stenger's use of the word "mysticism" as a mere derogatory catch-all term only shows his prejudice and apparent ignorance of real mysticism. Unfortunately, this and other similar problems only serve to confuse and seriously detract from those parts of his argument that may be valid and worthy of consideration. For more unbiased and insightful books on the philosophical implications of quantum theory, I recommend: "Physics and Philosophy" by Werner Heisenberg, "The Philosophical Writings of Niels Bohr" by Niels Bohr, "The Ghost in the Atom" ed. P.C.W. Davies, "Quantum Reality" by Nick Herbert, "Synchronicity, Science and Soul-Making" by Victor Mansfield, and "Choosing Reality" by B. Alan Wallace.
Rating:
Summary: an unsophisticated diatribe
Review: Stenger sets himself up against almost all of the major figures of 20th century quantum mechanics in denying the existence of nonlocality (action at a distance). Many experiments have demonstrated nonlocality, with one of the best performed by a French team headed by Alain Aspect of the Institut d' Optique Theorique et Appliquee. Stenger admits that the team "is probably right" and then goes on to present his own dubious theory that tries to salvage every assumption of classical physics except determinisim. Stenger holds the opinion that leading theorists such as Bohm, Schrodinger, Stapp, Josephson, De Beauregard and many others are all wrong. Why doesn't he include in his book comments on his views from some of these theorists who disagree with him? His motivation for attempting to remove nonlocality from QM is clear: "At least this would put an end to mystical speculations about quantum mechanics demanding a holistic universe" (page 197). When he writes on subjects other than physics, his arguments are crude, unsophisticated, and display his ignorance. For instance, "psychic phenomena have failed to be verified after 150 years of attempts involving thousands of independent experiments." (page 289). In the first place , the first sophisticated and systematic research only goes back to 1882 with the founding of the Society for Psychical Research, not 1845 (his book was written in 1995). Postive results have been consistently obtained, but they have always been discounted by critics if the protocol was not 100% perfect, thereby allowing the possibility of a 'normal' explanation - such as fraud. However, modern methods have become virtually foolproof, and combined with modern statistical techniques such as meta-analysis, they have obtained independently-replicated results with odds against chance of over ten thousand to one (see chapters 3-5 in The Conscious Universe by Dean Radin, additional sources listed there). The only evidence Stenger offers for his narrow opinion is one-sentence reference to a highly-controversial 1987 report written by two arch-skeptics, psychologists Ray Hyman and James Alcock. For a balanced discussion of the Hyman-Alcock report, see Radin's book, pages 215-218. If the new age goop in the bookstores needs to be balanced by Stenger's book, then Stenger's book needs to be balanced with far more sophisticated works like Radin's. For more balanced discussions of QM, see The Mystery of the Quantum World by Euan Squires, and The Quantum World by JC Polkinghorne.
Rating:
Summary: an unsophisticated diatribe
Review: Stenger sets himself up against almost all of the major figures of 20th century quantum mechanics in denying the existence of nonlocality (action at a distance). Many experiments have demonstrated nonlocality, with one of the best performed by a French team headed by Alain Aspect of the Institut d' Optique Theorique et Appliquee. Stenger admits that the team "is probably right" and then goes on to present his own dubious theory that tries to salvage every assumption of classical physics except determinisim. Stenger holds the opinion that leading theorists such as Bohm, Schrodinger, Stapp, Josephson, De Beauregard and many others are all wrong. Why doesn't he include in his book comments on his views from some of these theorists who disagree with him? His motivation for attempting to remove nonlocality from QM is clear: "At least this would put an end to mystical speculations about quantum mechanics demanding a holistic universe" (page 197). When he writes on subjects other than physics, his arguments are crude, unsophisticated, and display his ignorance. For instance, "psychic phenomena have failed to be verified after 150 years of attempts involving thousands of independent experiments." (page 289). In the first place , the first sophisticated and systematic research only goes back to 1882 with the founding of the Society for Psychical Research, not 1845 (his book was written in 1995). Postive results have been consistently obtained, but they have always been discounted by critics if the protocol was not 100% perfect, thereby allowing the possibility of a 'normal' explanation - such as fraud. However, modern methods have become virtually foolproof, and combined with modern statistical techniques such as meta-analysis, they have obtained independently-replicated results with odds against chance of over ten thousand to one (see chapters 3-5 in The Conscious Universe by Dean Radin, additional sources listed there). The only evidence Stenger offers for his narrow opinion is one-sentence reference to a highly-controversial 1987 report written by two arch-skeptics, psychologists Ray Hyman and James Alcock. For a balanced discussion of the Hyman-Alcock report, see Radin's book, pages 215-218. If the new age goop in the bookstores needs to be balanced by Stenger's book, then Stenger's book needs to be balanced with far more sophisticated works like Radin's. For more balanced discussions of QM, see The Mystery of the Quantum World by Euan Squires, and The Quantum World by JC Polkinghorne.
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