Mad, Beautiful Ideas
God's Debris

Scott Adams, the creator of the venerable Dilbert comic, presents to the world, his "thought experiment" God's Debris in free e-book PDF form. What kind of thought experiment? Well, it's basically new potential theory on how the Universe is driven by probability. It's an interesting read.

I couldn't help but be reminded while reading the book of Rufus, from Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. In the movie, Rufus says "I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life should malleable and progressive; working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth; new ideas can't generate. Life becomes stagnant." In this book, Adams' main point appears to be that all of Humanity's ideas and beliefs regarding God are inherently flawed, because how could Man possibly understand a being such as God?

It's an interesting point, and an interesting book. He approaches the book by having the main character (well, there are only two), who goes by the name of "Avatar" who apparently knows everything. Of course, Adams admits in the prologue that he simulated that glut of knowledge by always using the simplest explanation for everything, because even though it may not always be correct, it usually sounds plausible enough to be believable.

Frankly, while the book is interesting, an easy read, and probably worth going through, providing you aren't a slobbering imbecile, it's not nearly as revolutionary as Adams would have you believe. The idea that God is unfathomable to Man is not a new one. The idea that our views on the world our tainted by our inability to understand it all, is not new. However, it makes for an interesting read, especially when you being to examine what is true, and what isn't.

In all, it's an interest book, certainly worth the download, though I'm not sure if it would be worth the $12.95 the book retails for. However, I'm debating picking up the sequel. Like I said, it's interesting, but I don't think it's likely to shock anyone to the core the way Adams seems to feel.

8.5/10