Book Review: The Big Picture by Sean Carroll

Today we are heading into the land of theoretical physics, by way of the philosophy of, well, everything…  My review copy of The Big Picture was graciously provided by the publisher, Dutton (Penguin Random House).

I have always been captivated by science – quantum theory, physics, chemistry… I find it endlessly fascinating to learn how things work, to read origin stories, to think through new theories on how and why the world works as it does. I’m trained as a lawyer, by way of studying philosophy. At first blush, the interest and the formal study seem miles apart – the hard science of facts versus the soft “science” of supposition and truth-seeking (in all its myriad forms). But if you look a bit deeper, you quickly realize that the areas are actually exceedingly close – especially when it comes to much modern scientific theory and fields of study like string theory, chaos, and quantum mechanics. There is a lot more truth-seeking of the philosophical, theory-of-everything, school in science than I think many people are comfortable with; scientists and science enthusiasts like facts and experiments, they live and die by replicability and reliability, and those aren’t words most people normally associate with law or philosophy. Not so Sean Carroll, as is exceedingly evident in his latest, The Big Picture.

The book is subtitled “On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself” and believe me when I say Carroll covers all of them adeptly and without dumbing anything down. He is a much-lauded theoretical physicist, and it is not difficult to see why he’s received the accolades he has – even if you, like me, are an amateur (and armchair) science fan and theoretician… His theories are well presented and clearly laid out. That’s not to say they are simplistic – they definitely are not. They are adroitly presented, with historical support and background, and are written in language that can be challenging to unpack but the unwrapping is part of what made the book so enjoyable for me. Too many “popular” science books are written in an overly simplistic fashion. I realize that a lot of theoretical science is exceedingly complicated; removing that complication isn’t necessary for laypeople, deciphering it is. And Carroll is a master at translating high-concept physics into accessible packets of information. You may need to reread some of the descriptions to truly grasp their layered complexity – I certainly did. But the chapters and ideas are presented in manageable, European- rather than American-sized, portions so rereading did not require as much effort as it may sound like it would.

Sprinkled throughout the book are philosophical as well as theoretical underpinnings for the ideas that are presented. The philosophy student in me loved these connections; I think they bring a lot of depth to the discussions of modern science theory and certainly inform the debates about reality and purpose to a level of sophistication I found fascinating. The explanations of these theories are crisp and clear and I think should be manageable to those for whom they are new. At the same time, as with the scientific presentations, the philosophical analyses and explications are high-level enough to hold the interest of people familiar with them. Carroll is quite adept at providing a narrative that balances expert- and introductory-level concepts. That is no easy feat – it’s rather like tap-dancing among land mines, one false step and the whole thing is blown to hell. There is nothing worse than reading a scientific or technical book and suddenly realizing the author has left you in his dust – or, equally irritating, to realize he has suddenly started talking to you like you were a simpleton. No fears about either here – the book reads like a conversation with your favorite professor: you feel rather proud of yourself for holding your own, because you know you’ve been treated like an intellectual equal even if you both know that you certainly are not…

I recently read an excellent book about the history of lobotomy. Early in The Big Picture, I found myself in an “aha!” moment about memory and causality and our experience of time. Carroll was discussing how we perceive time in the context of past, present, and future, and how our memories and the concept of entropy are a way of understanding possibility, time/causality, and interrelationships. [NB: I realize that is a vastly oversimplified statement that also manages to sound rather confusing, even knowing what I meant to say, but please forgive it – is necessary for the point I’m trying to make that I say something, and I’ve rethought and rewritten it several times and this is the best I can come up with, despite its limitations…] The gist of my realization had to do with the multiplicity of options available in the future, and how the presence of those unknowable possibilities renders our experience of the future distinct from the present or past, where the options are vastly reduced – the connection to the lobotomy patient being that he lost his ability to form memories, which meant that for him, there were just as many possible options to the present (and even the more recent past) as to the future, which led me to a fascinating inner debate about what that meant for his experience of time.

I realize this seems like a rather odd tangent; it is not meant to be. What it is meant to illustrate is the wide-ranging applicability of the theories and ideas Carroll is laying out in his new book. Within just a handful of opening chapters, the vastly big-picture theoretical physicist book was already not only interesting but also relevant. The book is full of such “aha!” moments, covering as it does everything from memory and causality to the history of the universe to our interrelationships and experience of love and life. This isn’t a book for the faint of heart; as I’ve stated, it takes effort to read, especially if you want to truly grasp the intricacies on exhibit. It is effort that will more than repay itself though. I suspect I will find myself coming back to the theories and concepts laid out by Carroll on a surprisingly frequent basis – after all, the big picture, by definition, touches on everything…