A Beginner’s Guide to Reality: Exploring Our Everyday Adventures in Wonderland by Jim Baggott (PDF)

Description

Have you ever wondered if the world is really there when you’re not looking? We tend to take the reality of our world very much for granted. This book will lead you down the rabbit hole in search of something we can point to, hang our hats on and say this is real. On the way, Jim Baggott examines some of the things that have been said about reality by a few of the world’s greatest thinkers-from the philosophers of ancient Greece to modern scientists and social theorists.Jim Baggott is the author of The Meaning of Quantum Physics and Beyond Measure: Modern Physics, Philosophy, and Quantum Theory, both published by Oxford University Press. He lives in England.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: About the Author Jim Baggott is the author of The Meaning of Quantum Theory: A Guide for Students and Beyond Measure: Modern Physics, Philosophy, and the Meaning of Quantum Theory, both published by Oxford University Press. He lives in England.

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

⭐This book, right now, is a little more than I can comprehend. But my best guy LOVES it! He takes a chapter at a time, reads it, sleeps on what he’s read and shares it with me. He says it’s one of the best books he’s read on the subject and he has read MANY books in his 68 years. And because I told him how scarce it is to purchase, he is not even lending it out. (And for him, that’s the highest positive critique he can give because he’s so generous with his books and the sharing of his knowledge.)

⭐This is a really superb introduction to the ‘philosophical’ question,’what is really real and how do we know’. It briefly surveys most of the major philosophical works and movements through the ages, clarifies them with well known works from pop culture, such as the Matrix movies, and rounds out the story with a consideration of the deep impact of relativity, quantum theory and current work on quantum gravity.I have never read a better introduction/summary. It leaves me bubbling over with questions and ideas. What more could you ask for.

⭐The title says it all: “A Beginner’s Guide to Reality”. The author uses three perspectives to look at what we consider objective reality through several different lenses. His three parts, in which he views the world as social, philosophical, and physical are a nice introduction to the world as we feel it, think about it, and actually experience it. This is an introduction, and a good one, with one caveat. I had hoped that the section on quantum physics would be a bit more accessible, and the use of math was a turnoff for me. Many writers have approached quantum physics in a lively and entertaining way, and I thought he fell short in that respect. However, I must say that the Epilogue more than made up for that shortcoming: a nice summary, pulling all the threads together.

⭐The book provides a lot of knowledge from a lot of sources about reality, and remains objective through out. I think if one thing that is great about this book, is the authors ability to remain objective even though in the end he admits to favor 1 of the 3 perspectives that he provides near the end of the book.The beginning parts should be easy to understand, a little bit of the philosphy was repetitive to the point where I got lost in what he was trying to say or trying to connect, but pushing through and ignoring those bits didn’t hurt the rest.The physics parts when it came to quantum theory were rather tough, and even got into a little bit of math that seemed weird to me, the percentages of directions for example. But again pushing past the points he was trying to make there, didn’t hurt much either, you could just take the provided conclusions and move on with out hurting your brain.Though I don’t think you should skip the rest of the book and go straight to the end of it because there is a lot of value in the whole of the book, the epilogue is one of my favorite parts. It is where he takes most of the knowledge of the book and breaks down the 3 perspectives: empiricism, social constructivism, and scientific realism. These can be said to be similar to being Atheist, Agnostic, and Theist.

⭐I’m a fan of Jim Baggott’s science writing, especially his earlier quantum mechanics works. I was hoping for a fundamental look at “what is reality?”. However, the book is more in the pop realm, referencing the film “The Matrix” and such. Perfectly fine book, but didn’t match my expectations.

⭐I recommend this book, it is very thought provoking and does a good job of pulling together all the fragments of science and philosophy we have all heard and thought about over our lifetimes. He pulls it all together into one book and taken as a whole, it will cause you to rethink just what is really going on…..

⭐This is really good for someone new to the whole “singularity” thing. But for me, the book died after the first chapter; the rest of the book was just a meditation on the same tune with, really, very little variation.

⭐Excellent!8

⭐Some very interesting topics covered in this book, would be 5 stars but i found some of the content was a little repetitive

⭐Really enjoyed this book, it gets you thinking without being too heavy.

⭐Well written. All ‘Astronomy or Astrophysics’ students must read this book for basic understanding well about these subjects.

⭐Alles super, war ein Weihnachtsgeschenk, Beschenkte hat sich gefreut

⭐Really enjoyed the mind job. I think I’m gonna pop!

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