Modern Physics and Ancient Faith by Barr, Stephen M. -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Title Page Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgments Part I. The Conflict between Religion and Materialism

1. The Materialist Creed 2. Materialism as an Anti-Religious Mythology 3. Scientific Materialism and Nature

The Scientific Materialist’s View of Nature Five Plot Twists A New Story and a New Moral

Part II. In the Beginning

4. The Expectations 5. How Things Looked One Hundred Years Ago 6. The Big Bang

The Discovery of the Big Bang Attempts to Avoid the Big Bang The Big Bang Confirmed

7. Was the Big Bang Really the Beginning?

The Universe in the Standard Big Bang Model The Bouncing Universe Scenario The Baby Universes Scenario The Eternal Inflation Scenario

8. What If the Big Bang Was Not the Beginning?

Part III. Is the Universe Designed?

9. The Argument from Design

The Cosmic Design Two Kinds of Design

10. The Attack on the Argument from Design

Pure Chance The Laws of Nature Natural Selection

11. The Design Argument and the Laws of Nature

Two Ways to Think about Laws of Nature In Science, Order Comes from Order In Science, Order Comes from Greater Order An Example Taken from Nature: The Growth of Crystals The Order in the Heavens

12. Symmetry and Beauty in the Laws of Nature 13. “What Immortal Hand or Eye?”

The Issue Can Chance Explain It? Is Natural Selection Enough? Does Darwin Give “Design without Design”?

Part IV. Man’s Place in the Cosmos

14. The Expectations 15. The Anthropic Coincidences 16. Objections to the Idea of Anthropic Coincidences

The Objections Answers to the Objections

17. Alternative Explanations of the Anthropic Coincidences

The Weak Anthropic Principle: Many Domains The Weak Anthropic Principle: Many Universes The Weakness of the Weak Anthropic Principle The Problem with Too Many Universes

18. Why Is the Universe So Big?

How Old Must a Universe Be? How Big Must a Universe Be? Are We Really So Small?

Part V. What Is Man?

19. The Issue

The Religious View The Materialist View Clearing Up Some Confusions

20. Determinism and Free Will

The Overthrow of Determinism Quantum Theory and Free Will Is Free Will Real?

21. Can Matter “Understand”?

Abstract Understanding What are Abstract Ideas? Truth If Not the Brain, Then What and How?

22. Is the Human Mind Just a Computer?

What a Computer Does What Gödel Showed The Arguments of Lucas and Penrose Avenues of Escape

23. What Does the Human Mind Have That Computers Lack?

Can One Have a Simple Idea? Is the Materialist View of the Mind Scientific?

24. Quantum Theory and the Mind

The London-Bauer Argument in Brief Going into More Detail Is the Traditional Interpretation Absurd?

25. Alternatives to Traditional Quantum Theory

Modifying Quantum Theory Reinterpreting Quantum Theory: The “Many-Worlds” Idea

26. Is a Pattern Emerging?

Appendix A. God, Time, and Creation Appendix B. Attempts to Explain the Beginning Scientifically Appendix C. Gödel’s Theorem Notes About the Author