Author: Brian Greene

Publisher: Knopf, 2020

ISBN:  9781524731670)

There are many writers who popularize science. Isaac Asimov took a long hiatus from writing sci-fi to explain science to the lay reader. Brian Greene complemented his long research career to do the same thing, particularly in his The Elegant Universe. His new book, Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe doesn’t explain science all that much, though. Instead, he weaves science into the tapestry of human existence to help us understand ourselves, from where we came to where we’re bound, as well as our place in our Universe, our now. He has become a generalist

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The book is organized as if we’re discovering and exploring the layers of an onion from the inside outwards. The inner core corresponds to fundamental science, some of which is very recent, so much so that’s it a bit mystical too (dark energy, for example). That discussion is necessarily a bit skimpy because the author moves outward in the onion to more controversial subjects. As we hitch a ride with him in this elevator up through the onion’s layers, we pass through biology (Darwinian evolution shouldn’t be controversial), man’s origins (a lot of data is still lacking), language and storytelling, religion, and so forth. From the well-known to the not so well-known; from the hard sciences to the social sciences and beyond. It’s quite a journey to be made in a few pages, but the many pages of notes and index will help the interested reader take side journeys that interest him.

While compact and yet profound—there’s enough material here to overwhelm even brave souls—the presentation isn’t exactly for either the complete layman or the super-specialized scientist—you need to have a ticket certifying some preparation to get onto to this elevator. An example: Chapter 5 starts with “Somewhere between the first prokaryotic cells….” As a sci-fi writer, I’ve also had to become a generalist (my training was in theoretical physics, like Greene’s) so I know what “prokaryotic” means—Isaac Asimov and I both read Science News--but both the layman and the specialized scientist, other than a biologist, might not. Both might have to google it, or take a side journey on a floor where the elevator stops to read more. There are many examples like this in the book that might make it a bit daunting.

I also found the discussion of consciousness and self-awareness a bit lacking. Greene makes much of trying to get beyond his reductionist bent commonly seen in our physics training, but he doesn’t make enough of the synthesis point of view when it comes to those topics. Having discussed Wilson’s renormalization group technique and other tools used by physicists to study collective behavior—magnetic materials and super conductivity are but two examples of what’s studied—how the instinctive behavior of simple creatures’ brains can become complex enough that self-awareness occurs might be just a matter of complexity. Indeed, computer scientists have debated about how complex a computer network has to become self-aware. Back in the sixties, sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein described how that might happen in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and Clarke and Kubrick’s HAL of 2001 went through that phase transition in 2010. That’s not hard science, of course; it’s not science at all. But it makes the point that Greene missed that complexity might be the key.

For readers of fiction, Chapter 6 about language and story might be the most interesting one. I’ve long said that storytelling is quintessentially human. Greene’s thesis is that it is what makes us human! I’ve been harping on this for a while, as readers of my blog know. I started out as a theoretical physicist like Greene; I ended up being a storyteller. Or, as Greene puts it: “With math we commune with other realities; with story we commune with our minds.” That assumes the stories are heard or read, of course.

In Chapter 7, Greene discusses religion. There’s not much here about comparing religions, by the way. He’s more interested in the origins of religion and answering the question about whether it was necessary for human evolution. He’s a bit myopic here, because he’s considering only the human mind. When he talks about ET minds, what about collective intelligences? Would they create religion and be religious? Or would they be considered gods by human beings? He’s already countered replied to those questions: “What mattered to me…was history and connection. That…is the majesty of religion.” That’s a human’s perspective. In fact, the whole book is the author’s personal journey riding up that elevator through the layers of the onion. You might want to get aboard a different one, especially towards the end.

In fact, I’m not sure Chapter 8, “Instinct and Creativity,” is needed after the discussion about storytelling. Even those cave paintings in France were picture stories. Moreover, it’s always been clear to me that human beings have both an instinct to create and an ability to appreciate the creations. Period. The laws of physics, genetics, and evolution are universally applicable (emphasis on Universe here), and I suspect there will be, are, and have been many intelligent beings who have discovered their universal truths. Discovering them is creative too, of course, so no surprises here. In fact, up to this point, there shouldn’t be many surprises even for the educated layman.

But what about that “End of Time” in the title? Chapters 9, 10, and beyond would make this introspective tome into a tragedy if it were a play. “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” The author’s answer to my question could put fear into the heart of anyone desiring immortality: the Universe started as nothing 13.8 billion years ago; and after many billions more, it will end as nothing. Entropy (the measure of chaos and disorder) always wins. Human beings will be long gone before this happens, of course, if that’s any consolation. This is the ultimate prediction of science: the Universe started with a bang, its traces left in the three-degree Kelvin radiation; it will end in a whisper, as chaos reigns supreme. To be fair, the aforementioned chapters go into much more detail, with discussions of Boltzmann brains and other physical and philosophical constructs that can be summarized as verbose ramblings reflecting both the author’s and many others’ viewpoints (in other words, there’s a lot of speculation expressed as pseudo-scientific babble), but this description sums it all up nicely. The progression from scientific fact to conjecture, both reasonable and unreasonable, ends along with the Universe as far as this book goes.

Yet, all this said, the book is a remarkable achievement, one man’s view of the past, the present, and the future, covering a wide swath of time. Isn’t it wonderful that creatures at this moment in time and here on this pebble in the sky can read all this…and wonder? Perhaps that’s the real message? We might be insignificant in this largely uncaring Universe, but we can contemplate our species’ past and its future. That’s an amazing achievement!