God's Debris   by Scott Adams.

August to Sept. 2007     Discovered on the Internet.

It probably happened at some point when I was reading the past month's archived "Dilbert" comics. Somewhere there I would have seen something about the Book, which I would have looked up, then down-loaded. (And It was in a horrible format, but I fixed that up after a bit of time.) So... this is a philosophical, metaphysical book which plays around with ideas, by the writer of Dilbert. What can one expect?

My strongest impression is of inexpertness. Although the Author has a lot of ideas, many of which are interesting, he demonstrates a lack of literary skill in putting them in a book. He Tried, it's true, to weave them together, to have as story, to have some kind of setting, rather than the whole book being the narrator alone saying "what about this idea? How about this one? Have you ever thought of this? Here's another interesting idea." The author's attempt pretty well failed though:

Instead of it being directly Author telling us all these ideas, it's the Mysterious, funny, old man telling the bright but inexperienced young man all these ideas. Neither of their characters go beyond those descriptions. The young one only agrees with the old one, saying "that IS an interesting idea! I'd never thought of it like that!" or offers the occasional argument against the old man... so that the old man can better clarify his position and prove the argument against him to be meaningless.

There are a few painfully clumsy attempts, (typically at the beginning of a chapter,) to remind the reader that it's a story, and not just a long lecture on "what if..." They usually were a variation on "I threw another log on the fire, noticing that it was already twilight. 'now tell me about-' " And then back to the philosophical or religious questions for a few pages. So... that's the writing style.

Now how about the content of the book? It was at least half way interesting. It discussed God, probability, the universe, and how the three things inter-react with one another. It includes thoughts about ESP, Luck, free will and belief. Perhaps twenty percent of the ideas were truly interesting, and another forty percent were vaguely interesting. The rest... were "uh huh. -That's one way to think about it."

The most amusing idea was about Teacup Symbiosis. It made me laugh and impressed me with the author's originality. The idea goes like this: If an alien race comes to our planet in a billion years and does excavations, using some specific logic, (which the old man was arguing against, at this point,) they could create a whole theory about Tea Cups Evolved. They would class tea cups as beings... which evolved over time (from the crude clay bowl to fluted bone china,) in a symbiotic relation with human beings. The tea cups made themselves so necessary, that they convinced their hosts (people,) to take care of the reproduction for them, to transport them from place to place, and to take care of them. They, in return, would help us to eat, (or Drink, in this case.) What can I say about that idea? It's genius, and utterly daft. I'd expect that he thought it up in a drug induced state... if it wasn't so logical and well thought out.

The most profound and intellectually interesting idea was the one he got the title from: God's Debris. The argument went something like this: God is All Powerful. God is all knowing, including the future. This means that God can do whatever he wants, and that there is nothing he cannot know. SO... anything God wanted to do would have been done way back at the beginning of time. (And God would have then set up the universe in a way so that it would continue according to his plan.) This means that God has NOTHING to do, and is bored out of his holy skull. God has no reason to exist. There is nothing for God to do, or think. There is no point at all. The only possible mystery for God would be... "what would happen if I destroyed myself?" So God would have nothing at all to do... except blow himself to smithereens, -and see what could happen then. (As it would be a time where he's no longer God, he'd not be able to know what would happen.)

That's the set up. The idea is then this: WE, (Humanity, or the entire world and galaxy,) are the result of God blowing up. We ARE God's Debris. And what is our natural tendency? To make connections. To build networks. To organise and assemble. Give us, the little pieces, another 100 million years, and we will rebuild God... out of ourselves. (There is also mention then of how our technology, and our achievements when we all work together become more and more powerful, magical, and closer to "miracles.")

It's an idea I rather like. It also is close to what I thought about God and spirituality when I was younger; I used to feel that there is certainly no "God in Heaven," separate from us, planning and leading our lives. I felt that if there's anything more than Death and Taxes, if there's anything spiritual, or supernatural, it would be in the Connections between people. It would be a case of humanity being greater than the sum of it's parts. The only difference in the idea of the book is that this spiritual entity, created by our interrelations, is growing and developing.

The literary, story-telling style is rather amateur, but a number of the concepts are fresh, original, and a few even thought provoking. Nice to read a chapter or two, if one's in a pensive mood.