Every Life Is on Fire: How Thermodynamics Explains the Origins of Living Things by Jeremy England (PDF)

Description

A preeminent physicist unveils a field-defining theory of the origins and purpose of life.Why are we alive? Most things in the universe aren’t. And everything that is alive traces back to things that, puzzlingly, weren’t. For centuries, the scientific question of life’s origins has confounded us. But in Every Life Is on Fire, physicist Jeremy England argues that the answer has been under our noses the whole time, deep within the laws of thermodynamics. England explains how, counterintuitively, the very same forces that tend to tear things apart assembled the first living systems.But how life began isn’t just a scientific question. We ask it because we want to know what it really means to be alive. So England, an ordained rabbi, uses his theory to examine how, if at all, science helps us find purpose in a vast and mysterious universe.In the tradition of Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, Every Life Is on Fire is a profound testament to how something can come from nothing.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Illuminating insights into the physics of life.”―Kirkus”In this sparklingly original book, Jeremy England tackles perhaps the biggest scientific question of all — what is life, and how did it emerge from inanimate matter? It’s a delight to read, not only for its charming content, but, because, much like the Hebrew scriptures interwoven throughout the text, the prose flows with a poetic rhythm. I couldn’t put it down.”―Ard Louis, University of Oxford”A unique project that proposes to build a metaphorical bridge between the richness of mythic language and the precision of physical theory. Somewhere below this bridge flow the waters in which biological life first evolved and upon which England is an ecumenical-physicist river guide.”―David Krakauer, president and William H. Miller Professor of Complex Systems, Santa Fe Institute About the Author Jeremy England is senior director in artificial intelligence at GlaxoSmithKline, principal research scientist at Georgia Tech, and the former Thomas D. and Virginia W. Cabot career development associate professor of physics at MIT. He was a Rhodes scholar, a Hertz fellow, and named one of Forbes “30 Under 30 Rising Stars of Science.” He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐”Reading this book, I have learnt a lot on the subject of “what’ is life or rather that there is no clear border between life and non-animated objectsThe author bases all his claims on latest scientific theory and experiments.As for the Biblical references, there is nothing that stands in the way of science and the point of why it is mentioned is to demonstrate that human values are at different level than physics.It definitely doesn’t have to deter the potential reader. It is not a religious book and the readers who abandoned reading the book on that ground did it prematurely the lost is all theirs.The author goes a long way in his effort to explain the ideas to lay audience. The explanations are by analogies .rather than by mathematics, that is beneficial but wordy. I had to read the text from page 70 on several times A reader well versed in Thermodynamics would have benefitted with more mathematical summaries as is attempted in the appendix.Very illuminating and thought provoking book.

⭐I wish to say something different about Every Life is on Fire than what one may learn from it scientifically. I have just a little interest in the science in general because I am just getting started. But there is that indeed, and lots of it in England’s book. It is well-explained, and yet the Biblical references make the scientific interpretations interesting. I came to this book hoping to learn why personal Merkabah experience is lost about a week or so after it happens. Merkabah rides to heaven and back are for Kabbalists like myself a sublime religious and rare experience. Think of your best days on Earth, and multiply the strangeness and richness by infinity, those are Merkabah experiences. At any rate, since I have them every now and again, and being Jewish myself, a sort of mystical Jewish person who talks to his Angels he loves within him, and who also writes about them in books as well, I think of the Merkabah time as a gift from God, something that is not earned in any way, but given for a while, to experience heaven, and I was curious how science could explain some of it, whether there were techniques which go beyond the idea that Merkabah times can be triggered in the eyes of scientists. So by learning from England’s book, I get the feeling that there are forces that may play a role psychologically in the mystic which can be triggers to higher experience, and yet I feel it may help to learn more of what England is describing when he speaks about the landscape of a ball in motion. I am enthusiastic that one can learn to become ever more sensitive to God’s gifts, even if they cannot be earned or triggered. That increased sensitivity is what I take from this book to be a surprise which yet one may be encouraged to nurture. I also thought the book was well-organized, and very eloquent being from a scientist working with modern biology and physics. As a Kabbalist, as far as the religious aspect of England’s book, I myself see the God of the Hebrew Bible as transforming into his own Astral Self after the Bible ended. That means that God passed from a jealous and temperamental God to the perfect being, as in the diagram of the Ein Sopf, the best Being possible, one which makes the God in the Hebrew Bible look almost unfallen, except for the fact that they are the same God, but that God too transformed into his Astral Self, the Ein Soph, which symbolizes the Tree of Life. So I read the God of the Hebrew Bible as not yet in his completed state in those pages, but only that the pages imply that God got better afterward. We all of us have done bad things in our lives, and God too within those pages in our eyes. If the creation was bungled from the get-go, and evil existed then and now at times, then I think it better that God saw a change in his state, just like we will, I trust, when we leave the Earth to become our Astral Angel Selves. This connects to England’s orthodox interpretations of Moses and God for England has much to say about both as well, which he does eloquently. My perspective on England’s book comes as a mystic, but one who has interest in science, in scientific vocabulary and experiments as well as its social aspect. However, I learned both from Richard Rorty and also trends in Jewish Mysticism not to seek knowledge, but hope in its place. You can find that hope too in England’s book, as I have in a way of explaining better the spiritual phenomenon of Merkabah experience and perhaps a better way of being sensitive to God’s gifts overall.

⭐The material covered is 5 star quality, but he stopped shorter than he needed to keep lay people involved but still stretch into advanced ideas. I wanted to write a review because I’m afraid many will be waived off by the religious critiques. I wasn’t interested in the religious content, but it only comprises less than 10% of the book and is easily ignored (skim the beginning, each chapter but the last only has religious stuff in the last couple of pages. Then just ignore the final chapter. I have been following complexity science since the 1980s (Prigogine, et al) and I found England’s work an important advance in the missing link to physics. The book makes these advances accessible to most people. It is precise and avoids the usual oversimplifications. If you are technically adept, you can read his papers, get it all plus some, without the Bible lesson. If not, get this book and passover (pun) the easily excised religious content.

⭐TLDR+ You can safely ignore the complaints regarding the religious connection. The author does try to illustrate some philosophical, rather than religious, points with the references, but that doesn’t distract or detract from the key concepts.+ If you have a good grasp of the abstract concept of configuration space or phase space, you will be able to follow the key concepts and will see the world in an entirely new way.In more detail:The author tries to make some philosophical points about key topics like the fuzzy boundary between living things and inanimate matter as well as morality and the meaning of life. He ties some examples to phrases from the Hebrew bible to illustrate that these questions been discussed in religious texts without having to rely on detailed scientific knowledge. It’s an interesting perspective: I didn’t find it very compelling but I didn’t mind reading it. In any event, the author doesn’t promote creationism, intelligent design, or any similar religious perspective. This book is, after all, is a discussion of how life-like behavior can appear spontaneously in physical systems obeying physical laws.The book is among those that will leave you seeing the world differently (my list of such books includes The Unfolding of Language and Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches, to name a couple). Fascinating topic, novel perspective, and compelling (and appropriately tentative) speculation about the meaning of the findings.You need to be comfortable with the concept of configuration space or phase space in order to really grok the book. Basic knowledge of physics, chemistry, etc. wouldn’t hurt, but you don’t need a strong mathematical foundation to follow the discussion. Listening to the author’s conversation with Sean Carrol on the Mindscape podcast will give you even more accessible background before reading the book.

⭐If it seems obvious to you that science ‘works’, but you recognise the attraction of stories, and their power to lift the ‘human spirit’, then this book provides a breath-taking way of reconciling the two without the need to divide the world into ‘physical’ and ‘spiritual’ realms. Deeply respectful of the ambiguities of life, the book is an antidote both to deeply religious people who reject the validity of scientific findings, and also to scientists who close their minds to the wisdom found in the Bible. I found it inspirational.

⭐As scientist within the fields of mathematics and evolutionary dynamics, I find this book to be extremely refreshing and thought provoking. The book provides a fair picture of the immense knowledge gained from scientific methods and research over the more recent past (i.e. 50 years). Yet, it is well balanced and realistic about the limitations and constraints placed by our own ability to interpret the world as physical human beings (as well as technological/computational limitations).Intentionally or not, the book also provides a powerful interpretation of Gould’s NOMA (Non-Overlapping Magisteria) where ideas from science and religion can fundamentally co-exist without direct conflict since each one represents a different domain of knowledge. Clearly, the book is not likely to go down well with the extreme sides of the spectrum of our current polarised world, in particular the ‘fundamentalist’, Dawkins-loving, members of the scientific community.However, I believe that most open-minded, common-sense, scientists as well as readers who like to learn and explore different scientific points of view will enjoy to think and reflect about some of the ideas within the book and the author’s perspective.

⭐Ever since the famous dispute between Galileo and the Pope, it should be clear to every scientist that it’s a bad idea to try and force religious ideas into science.Sadly, Mr. England did not seem to be aware of this principle when he wrote his book.While the constant mentioning of biblical texts in a supposedly scientific book might appeal to creationists (i.e. proponents of “intelligent design”), it is a real turn-off for both philosophers and scientists.It gets ridiculous when England tries to match biblical stories about Moses to a scientific understanding of life. He does for the bible what some fundamentalist islamic preachers do for the Quran: According to both, it was always there in the holy scripture, and modern science only shows that these ancient texts where right all along. The (often desperate) apologetics should have been left out of the book, as they greatly diminish its seriousness.And of course, with no word does England mention that it is scientific consensus that Moses probably never lived.I had expected a scientific book, but what I got was a lengthy, rather low-standard philosophical treatise, intertwined with much religious apologetics. I found this book to not be enlightening, but rather annoying, much like a Jehovah’s Witness ringing my door bell on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

⭐Very disappointing. It goes round and round with indeed nice ideas and parallels between physics and biology. But it does so always trying to articulate with old testament passages, which I found completely unnecessary. Then all those nice ideas are just a preamble of a few experiments that the author claim com stand for a model o how matter can be organized as living organisms. Then, the author resume the biblical ideas to claim “humans have soul” and talk about spirituality. It was already bad by itself at this point, but trying to raise moral issues from the a violent and machist religious standpoint made it unswallowable.

⭐This book was a great disappointment. It was not what I expected from a scientist. It was almost unreadable but I persisted in the hope I’d get to some good bits. The lengthy and continual references to the Bible were very annoying. I wanted science, not religion. After reading it through to the biter end I felt no wiser as to how thermodynamics explains anything. The title should have been “How the Bible Explains Everything about Thermodynamics and Life”.A waste of money. I should have taken note of the negative reviews.

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