In this very curious book, the economist Steven Landsburg asks (and answers) the big questions of morality, existence, and the limits of knowledge with implacable humor and wit. Among his many provocative claims, he says the universe is made of numbers, free will obviously exists, and most people aren't honest truth-seekers. On the other hand, his book is filled with a plethora of odd and amusing digressions about everything from the Olympics to Godel's incompleteness theorem to internet porn. The varied hodgepodge of topics he covers in his book makes it seem less like a treatise on life, the universe, and everything and more a feverish brainstorming session between a professional economist and his 11-year old self. And the world is better off for it. No one can read this book without having learned something new to talk about at the dinner table.
Indeed, the very point of the book is to highlight how ignorant and unthinking we are about an indefinitely large number of topics. And that's ok. We have other things to do with our time, and it would be prohibitively costly to check whether all our beliefs were correct. So we settle for believing the beliefs that are adequate enough for carrying out our day to day lives. What this means, however, is that the beliefs we're most confident about won't be the generalized abstractions prized by philosophers about God, the cosmos, or morality but rather the mundane facts about where we left our keys or how to type an essay or what Sherryl did with Jason last Friday. What's more, the true limits of our ignorance will often be concealed from us. In fact, we may even be mistaken about our own beliefs.
In chapter five, Landsburg argues that religious "believers" don't really believe what they say they do. After all, if someone was really passionate about understanding the origins and ultimate fate of the universe, why not peruse the popular alternatives? The fact that we don't see textbooks about cosmology, astronomy, and physics lining religious fanatics' bookshelves suggests they're not quite fanatic enough. Moreover, if someone really believed in hell, we would expect them to be scrupulously pious, and if someone really believed in heaven, they would scrimp on healthcare and take a few extra death-defying risks. But those predictions aren't borne out by the data. Rather, what we find is that religious believers are just as criminal and risk-averse as everyone else. And it seems even the most extreme of the extreme harbor their doubts. For instance, the world contains over a billion muslims, many millions of whom claim to believe in martyrdom. Yet each year, we see only a few dozen suicide bombings, many conducted by children (who are gullible enough to hold their beliefs sincerely) or by political activists (who accept their total annihilation for their ideology) or people duped into a suicide mission at the last minute. The (fortunate) rarity of suicide bombers, Landsburg argues, should make us reconsider whether religious believers really believe at all.
This digression on religious beliefs is only one among a slew of thought provoking digressions. The breadth of his book, however, guarantees that every reader will leave disagreeing or disappointed with something. His opening chapter on the philosophy of mathematics, for instance, amounts to little more than: "I'm going to assume you agree with me because it's so obvious." Further, he begins the 14th chapter, the chapter on quantum mechanics, by saying, "This chapter is full of lies." For the sake of the reader's understanding, he admittedly oversimplifies the experiments and concepts central to quantum mechanics. Anyone with a deep familiarity with quantum mechanics, then, may feel irked by his lack of nuance. Other groups that may grit their teeth include philosophers and people who study English. In one particularly snide aside, he remarks, "because I'm an economist and not a philosopher, I prefer to think about the argument a little more deeply." And in his last chapter, Landsburg advises students to steer away from classes on writing. He says, “If you want to take a literature course or two, I won’t begrudge you; just don’t let them get in the way of your education. But for god’s sake, avoid the writing courses.”
Landsburg's knowledge, unsurprisingly, is brightest in his treatment of economic matters. His "proof" against protectionist trade policies and his arguments for immigration are easy and intuitive enough for the layperson to understand, while rigorous and clear enough to persuade even the densest of objectors. The arguments are miles ahead of what you’ll find in a typical op-ed piece in The New York Times or Wall Street Journal. What’s puzzling about this, however, is that he doesn’t resort to any fancy mathematical models or contorted statistical inferences. In clear, plain English he lays out a convincing case for his preferred economic policies. It’s a wonder, then, why the arguments he put forward aren’t more widely used and accepted.
There's a lot to love about this book. It's a quick read. It's engaging, edifying, and can no doubt be the jumping off point for many conversations. It’s a great book to read at the beach or on the toilet, since the chapters are short and can be read all at once or as stand-alones (or sit-alones). Though we can't and shouldn't spend all our time verifying what we believe, anyone who devotes a few hours of their time perusing through The Big Questions will put the book down as a more curious, more compassionate, and weirder person.
Landsburg, S. E. (2009). The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics and Physics. Simon and Schuster.
Landsburg, S. E. (2009). The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics and Physics. Simon and Schuster.
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