I declare neutrality

"War of the Worldviews" contains a debate on science and spirituality between Deepak Chopra and Leonard Mlodinow. Chopra is a neo-Hindu/New Age self-help writer with at least one foot in Hollywood. Mlodinow is a quantum physicist who co-authored several books with Stephen Hawking. Subjects covered in the book include Darwinism, the mind-body problem and the future of religious belief.

Despite all the hype (both Larry King and the Dalai Lama recommends the book), "War of the worldviews" is incredibly boring. Both Deepak and Leonard - they use their first names throughout - pull a few verbal punches, but these sound contrived in the extreme. War? What war? At bottom, both writers agree that somehow science and spirituality can or should be harmonized, and both reject creationism or the hard line ID position. This, of course, narrows the battlefield considerably. Besides, Chopra and Mlodinow apparently worked together on their book, making the war metaphor even more contrived. If you want a real war, let Richard Dawkins argue with Ted Haggard or Yousef al-Khattab!

Personally, I wish to declare neutrality in this war. I suppose I "should" support Deepak, but many of his concrete arguments are quite bad. Thus, I'm sceptical to the idea that quantum physics "prove" spirituality. At best, it suggests that a certain kind of crude materialism simply can't be the whole picture. However, I fail to see how a wave function is spiritual? Chopra's arguments against Neo-Darwinism also miss the mark (and no, I don't consider myself Neo-Darwinist). Thus, he doesn't make a clear distinction between genetic and reciprocal altruism, which Neo-Darwinism can explain, and "real" altruism, which it arguably cannot. It's also unclear why Chopra sees the intelligence of Border Collies as mysterious? Another problem is that Chopra constantly attempts to portray his teachings as an ancient Indian philosophy confirmed by modern science, when it's really a very modern self-help technique not yet confirmed by science.

But Mlodinow also stumbles rather badly. In fact, he is forced to concede that things such as meaning, love, ethics and even "spirituality" are immensely important, but he can't explain why this is the case, since his fundamental worldview is based on reductionist materialism. At one point, he comes close to denying the existence of free will, although he admits that we can't live without assuming that we really are free: "I admit it feels strange to think of myself as a biological machine governed by the same laws that govern Pluto. But understanding my essence doesn't diminish my appreciation for the gift of being alive; it makes me appreciate it even more. That's not a scientific principle. It's just the way I feel". Since Mlodinow believes that science tells us have the world *really* works, he is essentially suggesting that our human dignity is simply an irrational feeling, but since we can't let it go, we might as well stay with it. Why not accept religion, then? It too is "irrational" but seems to be working. At one point Mlodinow actually comes very close to conceding this (see ppg. 284-285). He constantly rejects metaphysics as unreliable, but his own anti-metaphysical position turns out to be a strange form of dualism, with the "real" world in one compartment and everything that really matters in quite another.

Incidentally, I'm sceptical to Chopra's strictly impersonalist view of the Divine, but I can hardly fault him from defending his own metaphysics...

"War of the Worldviews", then, is a major disappointment. Boring, bland, bad arguments and constant concessions from the guy supposed to be the Robocop of materialism redux. Still, it's fascinating that so many people seem to like this book... What did they see, which I did not?