Some thoughts on God's Debris

Part of growing up is learning how to change one's own goals if they become fruitless. I don't do this with books often, but this book definitely merited a good exasperated arms-in-air moment.

The first problem is his premise. It's undefined. How can I solve a thought problem in which the task itself is impossible to get? He tells us to “try and figure out what's wrong with the simplest explanations.” Two words I don't get:
1.“wrong” - does he mean it doesn't fit what we know about the world? Does he mean it's incoherent? Does he mean it's an explanation that nobody can live by, as people do live by certain expanations?
2.“simplest” - ???? Does he mean what is commonsensical? This book has nothing commonsensical. Does he mean what requires the least factors? The old man says that his idea of a god whose power is expressed in probability is simpler than the typical anthropomorphic Judeo-Christian God. Why is that?

His explanation that nobody truly believes their religion certainly has no evidence and gets quite complicated. He never explains what the difference is between using a belief and believing it. And his assertion that reincarnation, UFOs, and God are all neither real nor imaginary, but are “equal in terms of their reality” - another vague, un-simple statement.

Despite the fact that Adams has set up a dubious thought experiment to “solve,” I found some value in this book. He asks for a lot of critical thinking, and must know that some of what he put in here is bunk. I also liked his ideas on relationships, especially his analogy of the stalled car: we assume other people with different views from ours have bad judgment or values, yet they may just be working with different information, like bees looking through stained-glass windows.

This book (and the old man in it) is like that guy you meet at a party who likes to make vague provocative statements to sound intelligent and capture peoples' interest. People flock around him, trying to figure out the depth of his wisdom, and then they realize that he is another Lord Henry Wotton, full of one-liners but of dubious depth. After trying to figure out what sort of deep philosophical ideas Adams has here, I realized that it's much more sophomoric than I first percieved. Despite learning little philosophy, it was still an entertaining read.

This is a book that completely opened up my brain when I was thirteen years old. It was more than teaching me something new, it was teaching me that things could be new; that the world could be vastly different from what my teachers were telling me or what I could perceive with my senses. If you need a good brain-jarring or just trying to mix the world up you should read this book.

Though looking back at it now from much older eyes (ten years later) the book it more cute and nostalgic than anything else. ( )

If you ever enjoyed Dilbert, do yourself a favor and thank the man who did so much to make cubicle life a little more bearable by giving this short and very original book a chance. Plato would have loved (or perhaps loves) it - I'm sure God does. ( )

some of the chapters were gold. Adams warns that the all-knowing character in the book makes some scientific fallacies which is good in a sense, it keep the reader on their toes and makes them analyse everything. However, the misconceptions regarding the limitations of evolution are worrying, there's already enough misinformation surrounding this subject. The analogy between living evolution and the evolution of cookware was however clever and well presented. ( )

I read this free download on the recommendation of another LibraryThing member (Thanks, Leah!) and really enjoyed it. It is very short and thought provoking. There isn't much of a plot (it really is a thought experiment) but is never boring. It's also not for everyone - if you are religious and easily offended by ideas contrary to your own, walk away. The most intriguing bit is the author's own admission that some of the ideas are legitimate scientific or philosphical principals and some are just plain made up. Part of the experiment is to see if you can tell the difference. I admit some of them have me stumped! Either way, it's really fun to challenge your assumptions, think in a different way, and ponder the preposterous. Recommended! ( )