Dmitry’s point above just says that Lanza’s work, even if it’s true, is ultimately just to say “oh, that’s nice.”, but you can’t really do anything with it.

It’s like Kent Hovind’s ridiculous “vapor canopy theory” for explaining the biblical flood myth — let’s hypothetically assume he’s correct. There is absolutely no useful knowledge to be gained from that since the cause (God) is not predictable and thus there are no potential applications. Intelligent Design suffers a similar fate — how would one apply the knowledge that life was designed by an intelligent agent?

If Lanza wants to think that objective reality exists only in our mind, the best you can get out of that is some kind of new age philosophy (hence “woo”) — there is no application for that idea.

After reading the book I can’t explain it, but I simply do not view existence as I once did.

“The Hoyle example is refuted decisively by David Gross, who points
out that quantum chromodynamics is a fixed structure, so the nuclear resonance that is required to make carbon is there, Fred Hoyle or no Fred Hoyle. Once you understand that the universe is purely mental, you are hardly surprised at the fine tuning.”

“… what I care about is truth or falsity, as judged by experiment. And
the answer, by experiment, is, that the universe exists only in our minds.”

“Acceptance would be of immense value to society, through placing humankind once again at the center of the cosmos.”

Well, I have nothing to say to Henry’s philosophy.

But if Gross said that he is wrong, the quark masses are not ‘fixed’ by anything that we know about, and the carbon resonance might very easily depend on fine-tuned values of them.

Of course there may be other ways to create carbon – for example if beryllium-8 were stable. This might happen if nuclear forces were slightly different…

Since you read the book, does Dr. Lanza give ?ordinary people? or maybe even ?physicists? an advice on how we should implement this fact into our practical ways? If he doesn?t do you genuinely believe that he doesn?t know, or maybe he does and chose to avoid further comment on that matter?

Even though you understand that Dr. Lanza is onto something, he himself doesn?t predict anything. Do you think he doesn?t predict anything because those predictions are very hard to test under a practical equation. Now do you think his objective point of view is actually transforming towards a subjective matter which will require a totally new way of thinking (perhaps a new science?).

Ok here you going into funding. I also agree with you that we can?t completely stop the projects that we are funding now just to explore something somewhere else. I do think that Dr. Lanza have a very interesting point of view that does need further funding in order to explore the possibilities that I can?t completely grasp.

Now regarding your next statement ?ACT is tremendously overestimated as any careful study will show?. Can you please advise me to where I can read or find these careful studies to make myself a bit more aware regarding that statement. I want to know exactly what you mean by ?capitalization of ACT is tremendously overestimated?.

I stumbled upon your blog from different links and found it very interesting. Your review raised many questions in my mind. Yes I can admit to my ignorance in the field of physics and biology. I do see much opportunity to learn from an individual like you in order to be more aware and help myself understand the world that we are experiencing. With this knowledge we can make a better sense in the world that we live in, and probably develop a happier state of mind. I?m sorry I will decline your offer to explain fundamentals of these sciences for a charge. I?m however very interested in your point of view and would love to continue our discussion.

but much of your comments I arrived to one thing, many are unhappy with the work, because he made certain remarks about the exact field that you all have passion towards.

Then, you have missed my point – what I said in the end of the review goes beyond physics. Let me try to explain… Dr. Lanza basically says that observer determines objective reality around him/her and without observer no objective reality exists. Fine, let it be so, suppose this is an established fact that observer defines the world around him. How can I use this fact? Exploit it? What’s there in this fact for us/me? How can a funding agency make money out of this fact? Sorry, maybe I am a bit practical.

Second question is – is there a practical way to make sure that Lanza’s observation is indeed correct or wrong (or maybe it is correct just in a certain regime)?

Unfortunately, answers to both sets of questions are absent in the book, and if you think a bit, you’ll find that it is fundamentally impossible to get such answers out of the Lanza’s idea. That’s why I am saying that Dr. Lanza explains everything but predicts nothing.

I am not sure why exactly a funding agency will want take its money out of string theory research and give it to Lanza – especially taking into account that biotech is a huge bubble and capitalization of Advanced Cell Technology is tremendously overestimated as any careful study will show.

Now what I’m asking you is to put the physicist inside of you aside for a minute and remember the thought pattern that you were receiving while reading the book. Was there anything out of the ordinary that you yourself found appealing? confusing? out of the ordinary? perhaps scary? Hopefully this will help me develop a curiosity for his book further.

Actually, I did not quite get why exactly you “wanted me to put a physicist inside of me aside” taking into account that 90% of Lanza’s book is about physics. This blog is also about professional theoretical physics, and you may have guessed correctly, that I have more important and interesting things to do than writing a second review of Lanza’s book. Also, I don’t think that my audience will understand me

But I tell you what – if you are willing to buy my precious time at rate, say, about 70 USD/hour, then I am willing to explain you physics (quantum mechanics, special relativit, even general relativity), biology and philosophy behind Dr. Lanza’s book in details, and at the level understandable for a newcomer.

Cheers,
Dmitry.

thanks for the link, angry guy my review seems to be much less sardonic than his.

Cheers,
Dmitry.

I am not quite sure how you were able to conclude from my review that

feedback loop is just fantasy

Would you want to explain?

Cheers,
Dmitry.

I have not read the book yet.
Thank you,
Peace

I am not saying that Pauli did not understand physics, I am saying Dr. Lanza does not understand it. But for the sake of arguing… physics is a large science – so surely he did not know all of it – and advanced quite a bit since Pauli’s death. For example, it was established much later after his death that Pauli-Fierz massive gravity is sick Another thing is that science is not a question of believe, region is.

Cheers,
Dmitry.

by the way, what happened to point F? lol

Just disappeared on its way to print

I agree with your overall assessment except for points D and G

In any case, decoherence is not a solution to the measurement problem.

I did not say that decoherence explains the physics of measurement, what I said is that Lanza misses the nature of quantum/classical transition issue.

By the way, do you care to explain why you disagree with me?

Cheers,
Dmitry.