Summary
Title: Is Nature Supernatural? A Philosophical Exploration of Science and Nature
Author: Simon L. Altmann
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1573929166
Pro:
• Provides a good understanding of modern physics
• Defends naturalism against dualism and other mystical explanations for the universe
Con:
• Massive book, very dense with information
Description:
• Explanation of the scientific method, logic, and naturalism
• Discusses how modern physics describes our universe
• Argues that naturalistic rather than dualistic view of universe is more accurate
Book Review
That seems to be the conclusion drawn by many people, and there is a plethora of books out there propounding this supernatural view of science and the universe. Against such arguments stands a recent book by Siman Altmann, a mathematical physicist from Oxford University. In Is Nature Supernatural? Altmann argues that even the stranger results of contemporary physics point to nature being natural rather than supernatural.
Altmann also argues that while science is the best method for helping us understand nature, scientific statements about nature should not be taken in isolation. Instead, those statements can only really be understood as part of a larger “scientific mesh” which describes all of nature and which grows, develops, and improves over time as we learn more about how to learn more.
Perhaps as a consequence of this, a large portion of the book isn’t even about science specifically. The first chapters are about the many things which form the basis of science and a naturalistic worldview: philosophy of science, natural law, logic, causality, and more. This would be a significant work on its own, but Altmann doesn’t stop there.
Through the rest of his book, Altmann proceeds to review classical scientific perspectives on time, space, and mechanics before moving on to modern ideas regarding probability, quantum mechanics, time, mathematics, and more. Altmann is addressing very difficult topics, even for physicists and professional philosophers, and many of the passages in the book require two or three readings to really understand what he is saying.
For this reason it’s probably not a great book for people wholly unfamiliar with such discussion, especially when you take into account that you’re frequently re-reading passages in a book that is over 600 pages long. However, those who do have some experience and who are willing to spend the time reading this massive volume will be rewarded.
That reward is not simply answers, in the sense of a better understanding of the mysteries surrounding quantum mechanics, Schrodinger’s cat, Bell’s inequalities, and other concepts central to modern physics. Instead, the reward is also a much better grasp of how scientists think about the universe, how they investigate the universe, and the strength of a naturalistic perspective on the world around us.
