God's Debris by Scott Adams
God’s Debris: A Thought Experiment by Scott Adams (2002)
132 pages
This little book on spirituality/philosophy was written by Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip. It tells the story of a young man who delivers a package to an older man and ends up having a long and interesting conversation with him about life and God. Because of this format it reminded me a lot of The Way of the Peaceful Warrior.
However, I can’t say that everything that was discussed in this book really made sense. The old man is supposed to appear very wise but I found some of his ideas overly complex and thought he could have got his point across in a much simpler way. Plus, as someone who has been reading books on spirituality and has been a “seeker” for many years, I don’t think I would have understood things by reading this book. If it weren’t for previous books read, I wouldn’t have been able to see through the words into the deeper truth and meaning in this story. I think it was unnecessarily complicated but there were a few passages that caught my eye. I’ve included them below simply for reference.
So, isn’t it arrogant to think that the love generated by our little brains is the same thing that an omnipotent being experiences? If you were omnipotent, why would you limit yourself to something that could be reproduced by a little clump of neurons? (14)
If someone very wise knew how the world was designed without God’s hand, could that person convince you that God wasn’t involved? (16)
How can something that doesn’t exist in physical form have influence over the things that do?
Consider gravity. Gravity is also an unseen force that cannot be blocked by an object. It reaches across the entire universe and connects all things, yet it has no physical form. (19)
The brain is composed of cells and neurons and chemicals and pathways and electrical activity that all conform to physical laws. When part of your brain is stimulated in one specific way, could it respond any way it wants, or would it always respond in one specific way? (24)
So you believe that the soul, which is not physical, can influence the brain, which is physical? (24)
Four billion people say they believe in God, but few genuinely believe. If people believed in God, they would live every minute of their lives in support of that belief. Rich people would give their wealth to the needy. Everyone would be frantic to determine which religion was the true one. No one could be comfortable in the thought that they might have picked the wrong religion and blundered into eternal damnation, or bad reincarnation, or some other unthinkable consequence. People would dedicate their lives to converting others to their religions. (27-28)
There is more information in one thimble of reality than can be understood by a galaxy of human brains. It is beyond the human brain to understand the world and its environment, so the brain compensates by creating simplified illusions that act as a replacement for understanding. When the illusions work well and the human who subscribes to the illusion survives, those illusions are passed to new generations. The human brain is a delusion generator. (34)
Why do we perceive more spiritual value in the sum of our body parts than on any individual cell in our body? Why don’t we hold funerals when skin cells die? (35)
Practicality rules our perceptions. To survive, our tiny brains need to tame the blizzard of information that threatens to overwhelm us. Our perceptions are wondrously flexible, transforming our worldview automatically and continuously until we find safe harbor in a comfortable delusion. (35-36)
To a God not bound by the limits of human practicality, every tiny part of your body would be as action-packed and meaningful as the parts of any rock or tree or bug. And the sum of your parts that form the personality and life we find so special and amazing would seem neither special nor amazing to an omnipotent being. (36)
The concept of ‘importance’ is a human one born out of our need to make choices for survival. An omnipotent being has no need to rank things. To God, nothing in the universe would be more interesting, more worthy, more useful, more threatening, or more important than anything else. (36)
Importance is not an intrinsic quality of the universe. It exists only in our delusion-filled minds. I can assure you that humans are not in any form or fashion more important than rocks or steering wheels or engines. (37)
Your inability to see other possibilities and your lack of vocabulary are your brain’s limits, not the universe’s. (39)
As you sit here, your truck exists for you only in your memory, a place in your mind. The Easter Bunny lives in the same place. They are equal. (39)
Like the Easter Bunny, the past exists only in your mind. Likewise, the future exists only in your mind because it has not happened. (39)
It is a human tendency to become what you attack. Skeptics attack irrational thinkers and in the process become irrational. (74)
I’m having trouble imagining light as not being a physical thing. How can it influence physical things if it isn’t physical itself?
There are plenty of nonphysical things that affect the world. Gravity is not physical, and yet it seems to keep you from floating off the earth. Probability is not physical, but it influences a coin toss anywhere in the universe. An idea is not physical and it can change civilization. (87)
Don’t confuse flexibility with weakness. Don’t judge people by their mistakes; rather, judge them by how they respond to their mistakes. Remember that your physical appearance is for the benefit of others. Attend to your own basic needs first; otherwise you will not be useful to anyone else. (114)
Awareness is about unlearning. It is the recognition that you don’t know as much as you thought you knew. (124)
My Rating: ★★★☆☆
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