Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality and Utopia Kindle Edition
by Michael Shermer (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
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"[A] fascinating book...Shermer visits...utopian theories with detail and considered analysis, drawing readers along increasingly unrealistic (or are they?) possibilities for our future evolution. It's a journey as boggling as it is engrossing."
--Maria Konnikova, The New York Times Book Review
"[An] intriguing study." --Nature
"[An] ambitious, erudite volume...bringing the high evidentiary standards of science to bear on heavenly claims."--The Washington Post
"[An] inviting and informative tour of human kind's various conceptions of where God locates himself...In bringing so many heavens together, Mr. Shermer does us a service. Among other things, he shows us why we are lucky that not everything can be fully grasped by our limited capacities." --The Wall Street Journal
"Faulty religious reasoning and sloppy secular arguments earn a skeptic's side-eye....Michael Shermer aims to deconstruct systems of irrational beliefs." --Science Magazine
"This is fascinating stuff."--St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"[T]he author delivers a moving essay on the meaning of life... an ingenious popular-science account of how we deal with mortality."--Kirkus Reviews
"Michael Shermer is a beacon of reason in an ocean of irrationality." --Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, host of Cosmos and StarTalk, and author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
"This book's theme is the one of greatest practical importance to all of us: does some heaven or afterlife await us after we die? Most Americans, and even many atheists, believe that the answer is 'yes.' If there is no heaven, how can we find purpose in life? Michael Shermer explores these big questions with the delightful, powerful style that made his previous books so successful--but this is his best book." --Jared Diamond, professor of geography at UCLA and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and other books
"Thank goodness for Michael Shermer's sound and inspired mindfulness and for this importantly useful volume. Truly a delicious read. Ten Goldblums out of a possible ten Goldblums!" --Jeff Goldblum, actor
"Heavens on Earth is absolutely brilliant, filled with profundity, startling facts, and mind-expanding ideas. Michael Shermer somehow manages to be entertaining and scientifically erudite at the same time. He also brings some of history's greatest thinkers to life and makes their ideas accessible. This is one of the most fascinating books I've read in a long time." --Amy Chua, Yale Law professor and author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and The Triple Package
"[A] refreshing change. Most takedowns of religion simply preach to the unconverted, so to speak, and they hardly ever convince true believers to recant. Heavens might not convince them, either, but Shermer listens to people with spiritual leanings and engages them in legitimate debate."--The American Scholar
"How do you convincingly dismiss most of civilization's beliefs in the hereafter and still arrive at fresh optimism about the meaning of our all-too-human existence? ...Michael Shermer does a fine job of it - and much more - in his absorbing 15th book."--Book Page
"Shermer argues compellingly that awareness of our mortality leads us to live purpose-driven lives, since our legacy may be the only thing that survives our deaths." --Booklist
"Shermer succeeds not only in analyzing human beings' efforts to live forever in a utopian existence, but he ends the journey by encouraging readers to seek the forms of heaven which exist around us, in our own lives." --Library Journal
"I appreciate every evolutionary step skepticism takes toward openness. Heavens on Earth is an affirmation that other world views deserve respect and understanding. In this book science may actually be catching up with the world's wisdom traditions." --Deepak Chopra, M.D., author War of the Worldviews and You Are the Universe
--This text refers to the hardcover edition.
Book Description
A scientific exploration into humanity's obsession with the afterlife and quest for immortality from the bestselling author and skeptic Michael Shermer. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.
About the Author
Michael Shermer is the Publisher of Skeptic magazine, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University. He is the author of The Moral Arc, The Believing Brain, and many other bestselling titles. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.
Review
Not only a bizarrely uplifting look at death and the great beyond, but a witty and insightful examination of morality as dictated by science - Independent --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
From the Back Cover
A scientific exploration into humanity's obsession with the afterlife and the quest for immortality from the bestselling author and sceptic Michael Shermer
In his most ambitious work yet, Shermer sets out to discover what drives humans' belief in life after death. For millennia, the awareness of our own mortality and failings has led to religions concocting comforting notions of an afterlife, of heaven and hell, utopias and dystopias, and of the perfectibility of human nature.
Heavens on Earth explores the numerous manifestations of the afterlife - a place where souls might go after the death of the physical body. Religious leaders have toiled to make sense of this place that a surprisingly high percentage of people believe exists, but from which no one has ever returned to report what it is really like.
This is one of the most profound questions of the human condition and has long driven philosophers and theologians to try to understand the meaning and purpose of life for mortal beings, and how we can transcend mortality. Shermer details recent scientific attempts to achieve immortality by radical life extentionists, extropians, transhumanists, cryonicists and mind-uploaders, along with utopians who have attempted to create heaven on earth.
Heavens on Earth concludes with an uplifting paean to purpose and progress and what we can do in the here-and-now, whether or not there is a hereafter.
Michael Shermer is the author of The Moral Arc, Why People Believe Weird Things, The Believing Brain and several other books on the evolution of human beliefs and behaviour. He is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, the editor of Skeptic.com, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, and Presidential Fellow at Chapman University. He lives in Southern California.
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
From the Publisher
Dr. Michael Shermer is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University where he teaches Skepticism 101. He is the author of New York Times bestsellers Why People Believe Weird Things and The Believing Brain, Why Darwin Matters, The Science of Good and Evil, and The Moral Arc. His next book is Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality & Utopia. Michael regularly contributes opinion editorials, essays, and reviews to: the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Science, Nature, and other publications. He appeared on such shows as The Colbert Report, 20/20, Dateline, Charlie Rose, Oprah, and Larry King Live (but, proudly, never Jerry Springer!). He has been interviewed in countless documentaries aired on PBS, A&E, Discovery, The History Channel, The Science Channel, and The Learning Channel. Dr. Shermer was the co-host and co-producer of the 13-hour Family Channel television series, Exploring the Unknown. His two TED talks, seen by millions, were voted in the top 100.
Dr. Shermer received his B.A. in psychology from Pepperdine University, M.A. in experimental psychology from California State University, Fullerton, and his Ph.D. in the history of science from Claremont Graduate University. He has been a college professor since 1979, also teaching at Occidental College, Glendale College, and Claremont Graduate University, where he taught a transdisciplinary course for Ph.D. students on Evolution, Economics, and the Brain. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
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Will M
5.0 out of 5 stars Who wants to live forever?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 July 2018
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Intense but interesting book. Heavens on Earth is not a holiday-beachy-read. It’s more cold and clinical, I’d recommend you read this book while eating your microwave meal for one in your three walled “cubical” at your insipid temp job.
Reading about the inevitablity of a lonely death and a lack of hope for an afterlife is still going better than joining Sandra’s birthday party in the employee lounge - stapler stealing bitch. Be happy to remember one day Sandra and the droning monotone sounds that come from her cake munching maw will one day come to an end too.
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Peter Smith
2.0 out of 5 stars Too Verbose. Could have done with a good editor. Tough going as it is.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 October 2020
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250+ pages of fine meandering text. The premise and subject is great, but with some good editing the author would've had enough material for a sequel.
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Elisabeth Brookes
5.0 out of 5 stars A spectacular book!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 January 2019
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This is a deeply human book which addresses the very meaning of what is life and the meaning of life but this is done from a scientific and rational perspective.
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hardtruth
4.0 out of 5 stars Another winner by Shermer
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 February 2018
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Another fascinating and lucid book by a fine writer. Shermer covers a wide range of topics and pulls all the threads together very well.
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galloway
4.0 out of 5 stars The sky on earth?
Reviewed in Italy on 29 May 2021
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A fascinating journey into the unknown. After all, everything revolves around the classic 5 questions: who what when where why. Each of us makes them by giving different answers. Only we humans can do it without however being able to break the wall of our ignorance in which we are imprisoned since that sperm hits that egg. The sky on earth. With these words the author closes his book. But I don't think he solved the problem. And I'm still here wondering who I am, what I'm doing here, why I'm here, where I'm from and where I'm going and above all why for all this. For me as for the millions and millions of other of mine, white, black or yellow, young or old, ignorant or wise, of yesterday, today and tomorrow, all without an answer. The sky on earth...
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Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia
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Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia
by Michael Shermer
3.84 · Rating details · 446 ratings · 68 reviews
A scientific exploration into humanity's obsession with the afterlife and quest for immortality from the bestselling author and skeptic Michael Shermer
In his most ambitious work yet, Shermer sets out to discover what drives humans' belief in life after death, focusing on recent scientific attempts to achieve immortality along with utopian attempts to create heaven on earth.
For millennia, religions have concocted numerous manifestations of heaven and the afterlife, and though no one has ever returned from such a place to report what it is really like--or that it even exists--today science and technology are being used to try to make it happen in our lifetime. From radical life extension to cryonic suspension to mind uploading, Shermer considers how realistic these attempts are from a proper skeptical perspective.
Heavens on Earth concludes with an uplifting paean to purpose and progress and how we can live well in the here-and-now, whether or not there is a hereafter. (less)
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Hardcover, 320 pages
Published January 9th 2018 by Henry Holt & Company
Original TitleHeavens on Earth. The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia
ISBN1627798579 (ISBN13: 9781627798570)
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Jenna
Oct 05, 2018Jenna rated it really liked it
Shelves: non-fiction, religion-mythology, science, philosophy
Heaven, Stairs To Heaven, Sky, Faith, Stairway, Path
The good news? You're alive (well, I HOPE that's a good thing for you). The bad news? You're going to die. Sorry, but that's just the way it is. For millennia, humans have been trying to evade death by creating afterlives. Sure, we can't stop our physical bodies from dying but we certainly can imagine that they'll either be resurrected or we have some immortal soul that will live on outside of our bodies. We know that religions promise some sort of immortality, but what does science tell us?
In "Heavens on Earth", Michael Shermer explores the various beliefs humans have held for the last few thousand years. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks, Jews and Mesopotamians -- all were on a quest for immortality, constructing heavens and hells, places where our souls would travel to after death. He explores the concept of reincarnation held by many Eastern people. Do psychics really communicate with the dead? What are NDEs and do they prove the existence of an immortal soul?
Unfortunately for those who wish to believe in an afterlife and a soul distinct from our physical bodies and brains, science shows there is absolutely no proof of this and the more we learn about our brains, the less likely it appears that we are more than our physical selves and will survive death.
Shermer doesn't just debunk religious beliefs though; he also explores the various ways atheists dream of immortality. From brain uploads into computers to cryogenics, to transplanting our brains into new bodies to a future AI capable of bringing back to life all who've ever existed, Shermer explains why these are all but impossible, at least with what we know today. Whilst I wasn't exactly jumping up and down with happiness to have my dream of getting my brain put into a new body at some point, I am nevertheless glad to know that it's highly unlikely and thus stop hoping for that day. Why waste time and energy on something that's not likely to happen? It's always better to face the facts and accept them than to place our hopes on something that's never going to happen. That's how I feel about it anyway; everyone is different and I know some would rather hold on to their religious and supernatural beliefs than accept their mortality, but I am not one of them.
So what do we do when we no longer have hope of an afterlife? How do we find purpose and meaning in life when it's temporary, when we're only here for what amounts to less than a blink of an eye in the universe's history? Well, we create our own purpose and meaning. Knowing that ultimately there IS no meaning bestowed upon us does not mean we have to live lives without purpose. In fact, I would argue that it's the opposite. When we accept our own and everyone else's mortality, we can better appreciate the here and now. We can better appreciate the fact that we were born and have a life to enjoy. Trillions upon trillions of people who might have existed never did and never will. Were we "given" our life by some supernatural being? No, probably not. Does that mean we cannot be grateful for it or cannot make it meaningful? No, absolutely not. For me, knowing this is all I have gives MORE meaning to life. I have this one chance to live and learn and love so I must make the most of it and I can live a healthy lifestyle to hopefully extend this life. I can focus on the good I can do now, knowing everyone else is in the same boat as I am - we all will eventually die and forever cease to be. Instead of wasting time thinking of and preparing for some time that won't eventuate, I can focus my energy on making my life and the lives around me as good as possible for the short time we are here.
I enjoyed reading this book and recommend it to anyone who really wants to know what science has to say about an afterlife. As a skeptic and someone who long ago stopped believing in an afterlife (minus my hope in medical technology giving me a new body or granting me immortality by uploading my brain into a computer), there wasn't a lot of new material for me to consider. These are probably concepts most agnostics and atheists have considered, possibly many religious people as well. I might not have learned much, but I DID learn some things and had my beliefs challenged, thus I am glad I read it.
Now, just in case there IS some future, all-powerful AI that is conscious of this book review at some point in the far, far future.... please don't hesitate to reconstruct my connectome and give me a new body... but only if you still have Brussels sprouts in your time. Oh, and chocolate! I definitely need chocolate as well!
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Feb 14, 2018Book rated it really liked it
Shelves: neuroscience, science, atheism-religion
Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia by Michael Shermer
“Heavens on Earth” is an intellectually provocative yet accessible book that explores the afterlife. Dr. Michael Shermer is a well-known skeptic, professor and accomplished author of many books. This enlightening 303-page book includes twelve chapters broken out into the following four parts: I. Varieties of Mortal Experiences and Immortal Quests, II. The Scientific Search for Immortality, III. All Our Yesterdays and Tomorrows, and IV. Mortality and Meaning.
Positives:
1. Shermer is a gifted writer. He has great command of the topic and is able to convey his thoughts in a clear, concise manner.
2. As fascinating a topic as you will find, the scientific search for the afterlife, in the capable hands of Shermer. “This book is about one of the most profound questions of the human condition, one that has driven theologians, philosophers, scientists, and all thinking people to try to understand the meaning and purpose of our life as mortal beings and discover how we can transcend our mortality.”
3. Intellectually provocative. “To experience something, you must be alive, so we cannot personally experience death. Yet we know it is real because every one of the hundred billion people who lived before us is gone. That presents us with something of a paradox.”
4. Makes great reference to other great authors. “In his book Immortality, for example, the British philosopher Stephen Cave contends that the attempt to resolve the paradox of being aware of our own mortality and yet not being able to imagine nonexistence has led to four immortality narratives: (1) Staying Alive: “like all living systems, we strive to avoid death. The dream of doing so forever—physically, in this world—is the most basic of immortality narratives.” (2) Resurrection: “the belief that, although we must physically die, nonetheless we can physically rise again with the bodies we knew in life.” (3) Soul: The “dream of surviving as some kind of spiritual entity.” (4) Legacy: “More indirect ways of extending ourselves into the future” such as glory, reputation, historical impact, or children.”
5. The debunking of the soul. “The soul has been traditionally conceived as a separate entity (“soul stuff”) from the body, but neuroscience has demonstrated that the mind—consciousness, memory, and the sense of self representing “you”—cannot exist without a brain.”
6. Interesting look at suicides. “People desire death when two fundamental needs are frustrated to the point of extinction; namely, the need to belong with or connect to others, and the need to feel effective with or to influence others.”
7. A look at Christian heaven. “Once you get to the Christian heaven, what’s it like? Since no one has ever gone and come back with irrefutable evidence, believers must once again be content with biblical or theological narratives, sprung entirely from the imagination of the narrators.”
8. Addresses ideas about the afterlife and immortality from the perspective of spiritual traditions. “Dualists believe that we consist of two substances—body and soul, brain and mind (called “substance dualism” by philosophers). Monists contend that there is just one substance—a body and a brain—from which consciousness is an emergent property, “mind” is just the term we use to describe what the brain is doing, and the soul is just the pattern of information that represents our thoughts, memories, and personalities.”
9. Philosophically provocative questions. “In other words, if brains are not the source of consciousness, then what is?”
10. Examines evidence for the afterlife. “And we can ask ourselves what’s more likely: that NDE accounts represent descriptions of actual journeys to the afterlife or are portrayals of experiences produced by brain activity? Many lines of evidence converge to support the theory that NDEs are produced by the brain and are not stairways to heaven.”
11. Debunked claims and stories. “It is revealing that the author of The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, improbably named Alex Malarkey, recanted his allegedly true story, admitting that he made it all up.”
12. Examines reincarnation. “In this sense reincarnation is a type of cosmic justice in which the scales are ultimately balanced, or life redemption in which wrongs are righted and the crooked is made straight, and it fits squarely into the Law of Karma, which holds that the world is just so justice will prevail sooner (in this life) or later (in the next life).”
13. A look at biases. “Such longings make us all subject to a number of cognitive biases, most notably the confirmation bias in which we look for and find confirming evidence and ignore disconfirming evidence.”
14. Examines the soul. “The neurobiologist and philosopher Owen Flanagan summarizes the three primary characteristics of the soul: the unity of experience (a sense of self or “I”), personal identity (the feeling of being the same person over the course of a lifetime), and personal immortality (the survival of death).” “The vast majority of people base such belief on religious faith, but science tells us that all three of these characteristics are illusions.”
15. So can science conquer death? “They are the cryonicists, extropians, transhumanists, Omega Point theorists, singularitarians, and mind uploaders, and they are serious about defeating death.” “As the name suggests, singularitarians are scientists considering singularity-level technologies to engineer immortality by, among other things, transferring your soul—the pattern of information that represents your thoughts and memories as stored in the connectome of your brain—into a computer.”
16. A look at utopias. “In 1935 a former chicken farmer instituted the Society for Research and Teaching of the Ancestral Inheritance, devoted to the historical and anthropological search for the origin of the superior Germanic race. His name was Heinrich Himmler, and he went on to became the Reichsführer of the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) and the titular head of the Reich’s die Endlösung der Judenfrage—the final solution to the Jewish problem. Such is the power of myth when put into action.”
17. So was Atlantis real? Find out.
18. A look at Hitler’s inspiration. “Adolf Hitler, in fact, read Chamberlain’s biography of Wagner, and he drew heavily from the racial theorist for his own ideas about racial purity, one of which was that for the Germanic peoples to survive, the Jews would have to be removed from German society.” “All such utopias are premised on a vision of a past that never was and a projected future that can never be, a heaven on earth turned to hell.”
19. A look at why we die. “For scientists, the ultimate answer to why we age and die begins (and ends) with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which guarantees that the cosmos is running down and in the long run must come to an end hundreds of billions of years from now.” “To date, no convincing evidence showing the administration of existing ‘anti-aging’ remedies can slow aging or increase longevity in humans is available.”
20. Interesting perspectives. “Participants reminded of global warming, for example, were more supportive of international peacemaking, in the sense that a threat to all of us reduces the concerns about the differences between us.”
Negatives:
1. Honestly, this wasn’t Shermer’s best effort.
2. Lacks depth.
3. No formal bibliography.
In summary, I enjoyed this book. Shermer has a knack for covering very interesting topics and does so with the layperson in mind. I like Shermer’s approach and what keeps this book from five stars is the lack of depth and dare I say I sense the book was rushed. It lacks the awe I sensed from what I consider his greatest book, The Believing Brain. That said, I’ve enjoyed Shermer’s books and look forward to more material in the future. I recommend it!
Further suggestions: “The Believing Brain” and “Why People Believe Weird Things?” by the same author, “Immortality” by Stephen Cave, “The Problem of the Soul” by Owen J. Flanagan, “Science in the Soul” by Richard Dawkins, “The Physics of the Future” by Machio Kaku, and “How to Create a Mind” by Ray Kurzweil.
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Terence
Dec 16, 2018Terence rated it liked it
Shelves: philosophy, religion-general, science-general
2.5 stars
The book starts out strong with Shermer deconstructing the delusions of religious, philosophical and scientific "heavens" but then becomes too much a paean to a technophilic, libertarian vision of society.
Of course, that's a complaint from my own point of view & may not bother other readers so much. (less)
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Glenngrubb
Jun 18, 2018Glenngrubb rated it did not like it
When I got my $30 book home and began to read I had to wonder if the supplier had slipped the wrong book into the jacket. But, indeed this was the correct book: “Heavens on Earth, The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia”; accolades including: “brilliant, filled with profundity, startling facts, and mind-expanding ideas.”
In chapter one on page one, within seven words, something does not meet with the authors’ deductive standards. His words are, “Come again?”. For the reader this proves to be an alert; in other words, get used to searching out meaning. Here are more examples of the blasé rejoinders that indicate the book is going to pass judgement: “I don’t think it is… I don’t think this will happen… It seems to me... I am not at all sure… I became curious… I think not.”
Let’s try to figure out the author’s deductive standards and what the author is trying to say. There are arguments made 1) about mortality and immortality, 2) about imagining mortality and immortality, and 3) that we demonstrate something about an afterlife because we do not fear death. The author believes that ‘we’ do not fear death. He’ll ‘prove’ this for us. There will be more about this, and more about ‘we’, later in this book review/critique.
Statements from page one and two are here quoted: “In order to observe or imagine a scene you must be alive and conscious…”, and: “You can no more visualize yourself after you die than you can picture yourself before you were born…”, and: “It is… impossible for a thinking being to imagine nonbeing…”, and from page two: “We cannot indeed, imagine our own death…”, and: “To experience something, you must be alive, so we cannot personally experience death…”.
Read chapter one for yourself and see if the book doesn’t conflate the imagining of something and the existence of something. Evaluate the logic of these quotes and see if we don’t have similar logical equivalences being: ‘if you are only imagining a twinkie there is no such thing as a twinkie’, and ‘you can’t be alive when you’re dead’.
Problems continue in chapter one. The book describes “TMT” (Terror Management Theory) and “EPT” (Emotional Priority Theory). It does not believe in TMT, but it does believe in EPT. The author does not agree that death inspires the “creativity” and “terror” that TMT proposes; but rather that EPT allows “prioritization of one’s emotions”. Within one sentence the author jumps from “when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight”, to “Facing death focuses one’s mind on the most important emotions in life, love being arguably the deepest. In fact, love is so powerful an emotion that it can be addictive, like chocolate and cocaine…”. This curious conjunction of factoids rolls on for another paragraph, invoking ‘science’ and dopamine, love, lust, the pituitary, oxytocin, and a footnote. The book then proceeds to take this very strained opportunity to jump directly to the value of using EPT: “Confirming my Emotional Priority Theory prediction… of the 425 death row inmates…”. Would you (the reader) draw conclusions about intuiting something about an afterlife, and/or whether ‘we’ fear death, by evaluating the statements of death row inmates? Was this possibly a convenient, but unfortunate source of data?
Should ‘we’ believe that the attitudes and beliefs of death row inmates and their judges represent the attitudes and beliefs of the general population? The author here takes the opportunity to refer to his work/’statistics’, as if it confirms some kind of hypothesis that he has presented. He also speculates that this situation (i.e: death; sentencing; death row) is, “… perhaps priming judges of their impending death… remind(ing) them to prioritize their sense of moralistic punishment, an emotion we all carry over from our evolutionary ancestry”. This is the books’ odd segue into chapter two. The book next spends time chasing supposed connections between an afterlife and: animal behavior, pollen at an ancient burial site, evolutionary predecessors, ancient murder, and children’s beliefs.
Regarding animals, the book points out that there are, ”(emotional) correspondences of which may be found, in some degree, in our fellow mammals, including and especially primates and cetaceans…” . Here the book describes dolphins and elephants acting disturbed when their pod mates / herd mates die. The book also observes that “cautious scientists (are) concerned about the anthropomorphizing of animals, but it is pertinent to note that we are animals too.”
Next we are presented with ‘science’ that maintains that pollen that existed at one ancient burial site was due to the activity of rodents.
Regarding archeology (i.e. the grave sites of Neanderthal) and quoting from the book: “Neanderthal brains were as large as our own… we may reasonably infer that these were thinking and feeling hominids who had some awareness of their own mortality”. Indeed, the book warns us of “the difficulty of fossil interpretation”.
Next we have a claim that a 2013 study of 85 Homo-sapiens burial sites were mostly, “… relatively plain with items from daily life, but a few contained… ornaments of stone, teeth, and shells.” And next we learn, “Curiously there was no sign of progression over time… . So, the behavior of humans does not always go from simple to complex…”.
And jumping ahead: “In a column in Scientific American I argued that intentional burial may be the result not of mourning but of murder”. Here the author (apparently) proposed that bodies were buried, not just because they stink, but because individuals were murdered (thereby suggesting that the bodies were hidden by the murderer). Here again the author has conveniently taken the opportunity to support his own (unrelated?) ‘work’.
And (from the book) children might be able to “understand that death is inevitable, universal, and irrevocable”, but that the concept of an afterlife…”, i.e. religion, has the “corrosive effects of confusing young minds.” Does the contention that young minds can be confused demonstrate something about the existence of an afterlife?
This reviewer believes that whether a child’s mind is confused, or a human progenitor was murdered, or a dead body stinks, or whether ancient graves were lavishly or minimally decorated, or whether a possible (marginally?) human ancestor (i.e. Neanderthal) speculated about mortality; are moot points. None of these demonstrate something/anything about the existence of an afterlife.
In this reviewers’ opinion, it would seem reasonable that there is a relationship, for adult humans, between fear of death and belief in an afterlife. The author’s assertion, though, is that we do not fear death. To identify this position sort through the mash of information in chapter one to find his argument against “TMT”. Quoting (regarding a connection between death and the ”terror” of TMT): “I have my doubts. First, it is not obvious why contemplating death should lead people to experience terror…”, and, “Those hominid groups that developed religious rituals to quell their death terror were more likely to survive.”, and, “fear of death is only one of many drivers of creativity and productivity, if it is one at all.” In this last sentence he states that fear is “one of” the drivers, but he (really) believes: “… the claim that people feel “terror” when contemplating mortality is an assertion, not an observation… depend(ing) on unconscious states of mind makes it even more problematic when determining what, exactly, is being tested.” So, dear reader, if you are fearful, it’s due to an unconscious state of mind and we can rule out whatever it is that you assert that you’re thinking about. The book believes that “The capacity to reason and communicate symbolically is… surely a more basic survival skill than the management of death terror.”
The book says, “… faith in some spiritual protection… (is) a colorful story, but one lacking in empirical evidence…”. The author needs to examine what constitutes empirical evidence. Is it empirical to speculate about Neanderthal’s speculations, or a hominid’s religious rituals? How do we know the hominid’s weren’t speculating about the earth mother or Thor or the industrious woodchuck or mad scientists of the future?
It seems to be fashionable for intellectuals to laugh at death. Quoting the book, quoting Feynman: “I’d hate to die twice. It’s so boring”. And, according to the book: Hitchens, “after swiftly dispatching Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s famous (and flawed) stage theory of dying (not everyone goes through all five stages…)”… “Hitch reflected, “… I can’t see myself smiting my brow… or… whining about how it’s all so unfair…” “. Apparently we are to believe that Ross’s theory is inaccurate because it didn’t click for all five stages. This reviewer is not willing to go off on another tangent to investigate whether the author, and “Hitch”, may have been accurately critiquing Kubler-Ross, or if they were putting spin on otherwise worthwhile work. If this is an argument about Ross not being accurate on all five points, we may want to consider this book’s obsessive need for counting, numbering, and pidgeonholing:
On page 12 there are four immortality narratives: #(1), #(2), #(3), & #(4). The book sums up problems with narrative #(1) in this not so helpful way: “First, staying alive is not presently possible.” On page 13 the book finds two problems, designated (1), and (2) with immortality narrative #(2). Problems (1) and (2) are here (in the book) delineated (respectively) as The Transformation Problem and the Duplication Problem; you can read them for yourself and see if they are useful. For problem (1), we learn that (quoting the book) “I am involved in one aspect of this research and will discuss it at length in Chapter 7”. In Chapter 7 we have the potpourri of: “Star Trek… Commander William Riker… Plutarch… Minotaur(s)… replacement of atoms… foreign cells… identity shattering, God… duplicating your (self), (etc)”. Back on Page 14 and 15, regarding “not… ambition but… trepidation”, or is it, “positive emotions (and creations) to avoid the terror that comes from confronting one’s death”, or is it “a little cooling down of animal excitability and instinct, a little loss of animal toughness, a little weakness and descent of the pain-threshold, will bring the worm at the core of all our usual springs of delight into full view, and turn us into melancholy metaphysicians”, here the author states: “I have my doubts. First …, Second …, and Third…”. And Page 19: ”Figure 1-1“ Chart about (eight)… “Emotional Reasons Why People Believe in God”… including stupidity. And Page 24: “Figure 1-2. Content analysis of Texas Death Row Inmates’ Final Statements”, including eight more categories complete with probabilities; for which category 7 is (paraphrasing): ‘I didn’t do it’, for which (quoting) “k=.842,p<.01: 14.8%”.
In chapter one we have already heard of/from: “Sartre… Goethe… Freud… Becker… Cave… Soloman… Greenberg… Pyszczynski… and James”. Freud was implicated in the mash of imagination and existence (on page one and two of chapter one). In chapter three we also hear of/from: “Wright… McGrath… Russell… Segal…”, and now specifically (quoting the book): “McDannell and Lang”. Here in chapter three “The world’s major monotheistic religions” are dispatched thusly: “the variation in heavenly themata… is staggering”, and, the “diversity of ideas… is… disappointing…”. Here we readers are called on to indulge the book in its disappointment and frustration that there is not a clearly demarcated throroughfare to the hereafter. In addition to the “lack of agreement” being “… disappointing” for a “theologian”, it is also said to also be “frustrating” in an “ontological” sense for a “philosopher”. It’s disappointing and frustrating that here the book chooses to call on theologians and ontologists to make this point; these are types that the author delights in debating on national TV. That the book considers diversity of ideas to be a “delectation” is beyond odd.
The author claims that “for the scientist such variation of beliefs is indicative of the likelihood that none of them are “true” in any ontological sense”. Does science consider data that doesn’t conform to pre-conceptions to be incorrect… or that it is amusing to find data varied? The book seems unacquainted with arguments in theology and jusrisprudence that maintain that conformity of testimonies suggests that the witnesses have been paid off; multiple observers often have varied report of the same incident.
The book reports that in 1999 “Pope John Paul II determined that heaven and hell are not actual physical places but states of the soul…” and (quoting the book/Pope): “ ‘heaven’ or ‘happiness’ in which we find ourselves is… a living, personal relationship…”. This superficially (and when taken out of the context of the book) seems to be headed towards a type of position held by the book, but don’t jump to conclusions; the book objects to this, too. Quoting, “… how did the pope determine that heaven and hell are not real places, anyway, beyond the usual arm-chair ratiocination?” So reader, don’t forget that the only this author, not even the pope, is qualified to perform arm-chair ratiocination.
By the end of chapter four even a casual observer can confirm that the book has ulterior motives. Is it helpful to approach a situation you want to understand with dismissive pre-conceptions? The author is here resentfully determined not to like his chapter four investigative weekend away; his attitude is, quoting from the book: “… then I had to go back to work on Monday morning because my mortgage… was coming up soon”. Is this an attitude that is conducive to the scientific process? The book then describes the startling results of observations by visiting scientists that reviewed this (chapter four) activity; results that the author must never have expected. The scientific conclusions (of the visiting scientists) are arguably the only science we’ve seen in this book. What we’ve seen so far is improper choice of data, muddled reasoning, name dropping, and pseudo-philosophical noodling.
What science could be more captivating than finding a result that you never expected? It seems like the author would notice, ‘gee, everything I loath results in an outcome I didn’t foresee. I’d better really try to figure out what I’m missing - what could be the cause and effect of what we’re observing!’ Perhaps (with this book…with this work) we could have had investigation into a new wave theory of scotoma, or insights into early childhood traumatic imprinting, or something - anything that resembles scientific process. The author however doesn’t take the bait; the science didn’t matter. He concludes chapter four with, “… I did benefit, even while remaining skeptical that consciousness is the ground of being…”. The book muddles on to the end, not mentioning this best approximation of heaven on earth that we’ve seen yet. Perhaps we should be thankful that this book didn’t try to connect those dots.
If you have the “stupefying patience” (a descriptive phrase from the book which was applied to a biblical character; here taken out of context) to continue on through the rest of this book you’ll find more on: near death experience, reincarnation, “the soul”, “afterlife for atheists”, cryopreservation, utopian communities, and alt-right nationalism.
For an ironic distraction as you finish the book, look for information in chapter 8 about the BPF (Brain Preservation Foundation). Our author is apparently on the advisory board! The author describes BPF neuroscientist Kenneth Hayworth as having, “… mannerisms and affectations (that) remind me of Sheldon Cooper on Big Bang Theory (without the nerdy laugh)”. The scientists let the author look through their microscope but the author’s attitude makes you wonder if he ever intends to work with these guys again.
The last chapter, chapter 12, starts by asking for a “deeper understanding of spirituality and awe”. It begins with a Sagan-esque invocation of vast spaces and large numbers of stars. The book then quickly ‘debunks’ awe; explaining it away according to types of personalities being “awe-prone”. Warm and fuzzy is not what this book is about. What does impress the author is ultra-human accomplishment such as a 100 mile open ocean swim or a three thousand mile non-stop bike race. Our author happens to be an avid bicyclist. This, to our author, exemplifies the “… true nature and cause of self-esteem: accomplishments through effort.”
Chapter 12 concludes by making (superficially) well-articulated observations about what gives things, and what gives us, purpose. The book (seemingly) sagely observes that “we create our own purpose, and we do this by fulfilling our nature, by living in accord….”. In an upside-down way this book does illustrate that this can happen. Too bad this purpose and fulfillment hinge on conjuring up a conclusion and obsessively twisting information to fit. It’s an odd way to fulfill ‘our nature’.
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Dan Graser
Jan 17, 2018Dan Graser rated it it was amazing
Michael Shermer is simply an indispensable writer and his latest volume is one of his very best. This is a complete survey and analysis of the various notions of the afterlife and immortality divided mainly between:
1) How these claims have been scientifically tested and evaluated
2) How such notions have been depicted throughout humanity's history in works of art, philosophy, and literature.
3) How we have attempted to transcend our mortal limitations
4) What we can reasonably expect in this area
Not only dealing with those familiar claims from the various monotheisms, Shermer casts an equally critical eye on those claims from New Age "gurus" (a nice way of saying charlatan), near death experiences, reincarnation, gruesomely cynical mediums preying on the desperate, as well as the efforts of some scientifically and pseudo-scientifically minded people seeking to extend human life as long as possible in the form of cryonicists, extropians, transhumanists, Omega Point theorists, singularitarians, and mind uploaders.
There are many skeptical writers I enjoy but Shermer's worldview is probably the closest to my own and his indefatigability to examine the numerous spurious claims in this area of discourse with an objective, scientific mind is commendable and makes for mind-clearing, lucid reading.
Where many volumes on this subject are just full of woo-woo, pseudo-scientific, and platitudinous nonsense, here there is only reason and science and yes; it is possible and necessary to speak of such matters in such terms. That we have been led to think otherwise is among the most frustrating things surrounding mature conversation of this subject and an act of intellectual abnegation. Shermer is a sagacious guide through this territory and his broadly focused work ends on the most reasonable and hopeful of tones. A must read. (less)
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Ryan Boissonneault
Dec 28, 2018Ryan Boissonneault rated it really liked it
Humanity has been incapable of accepting the finality of death for a long time. Ancient burial sites up to 100,000 years old contain items for “use” in the next life, and visions of heaven and reincarnation have been thought up by countless world religions and philosophies.
Unfortunately, the actual evidence in support of our ability to survive death is weak or nonexistent. Michael Shermer, in his typical skeptical fashion, spends much of the book debunking this supposed evidence for the afterlife, including near-death-experiences, anomalous psychological experiences, communication with the dead, and “miraculous” events that are supposed to count as evidence for whatever supernatural belief.
Really, it’s this mass ignorance of the law of large numbers, combined with agenticity and patternicity, that causes the human mind to jump to supernatural conclusions every time something rare happens. As Shermer wrote:
“Then there is the Law of Large Numbers: with seven billion people having, say, ten experiences a day of any kind, even million-to-one odds will result in seventy thousand coincidences per day.”
The same goes for death premonitions and any other anomalous experience that isn’t really anomalous at all. In fact, with billions of people having trillions of experiences, it would be a miracle to NOT experience or hear of “miraculous” events or dreams that foretold actual events.
Shermer also tackles the scientific quest for immortality, utopias and dystopias, and the science of aging and mortality. Shermer concludes the book by offering a better way to think about death and life, and how the nonexistence of the afterlife actually makes people behave better, as they tend to better appreciate their brief time on earth. (less)
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Andrei Khrapavitski
Feb 19, 2018Andrei Khrapavitski rated it it was amazing
Finished reading Michael Shermer’s new book Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia. I found it a timely read, given my interest in future-related topics. I have had my fair share of arguments with both religious zealots and pseudo-scientific transhumanist believers, but even I needed a dose of high quality skepticism not to get too excited after reading authors like Kevin Kelly or listening to another podcast about the promise of CRISPR and life extension science.
Shermer, the founder of The Skeptics Society, and editor-in-chief of its magazine Skeptic, is a perfect choice to bring anyone back to reality. But realism is not equal to existential pessimism. No, far from that! I had already recommended his extraordinary book Moral Arch as a supplementary reading to Steven Pinker’s Better Angels of Our Nature. These two books can give you hope in humanity. So let’s see what Shermer’s latest offering will bring.
Heavens on Earth begins by dismantling humans’ long-lasting belief in the afterlife. No sugarcoating here. If you believe in the Garden of Eden or Jannah or Tian, etc., prepare for the hard truth. No, you are not going to heaven. Good news, sinners, you are not going to hell either. Shermer not only explains why any version of afterlife you may think of is unlikely but offers reasons why our species tend to believe in life after death.
After dealing with traditional religions, Shermer has some bad news for transhumanists and singularitarians, fans of Ray Kurzweil, Peter Diamandis, Aubrey de Grey, Zoltan Istvan, and the like. No, singularity is not that near. No, you will not live forever. No, your diet won’t help. No, you will not get uploaded into a computer. And, with the current state of development, cryonics is probably waste of money. Bam! Some hard-hitting facts hard to swallow even for atheistic technology buffs.
Shermer retells a sad story of FM-2030, a lifelong vegetarian and transhumanist who believed he would live forever, even wrote a book Are You a Transhuman?: Monitoring and Stimulating Your Personal Rate of Growth in a Rapidly Changing World. FM-2030 died from pancreatic cancer and was placed in cryonic suspension at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale. Cryonics is a growing industry. People want to believe that one day in the future when technology is there, someone will bring them back to life. Well… As I noted above, there’s a low probability this will ever happen to those who are currently frozen in such facilities.
Spoiler alert! If you need any physical law that can settle the question of immortality once and for all, the second law of thermodynamics can do the job. Entropy is why you are alive and why you will not live forever. You can read more on it and the arrow of time and get done with the whole thing.
Shermer is not a physicist. He mentions entropy and even the multiverse, but he doesn’t touch the topic of infinities. Modern understanding of cosmology leaves the door open for those of us who want to have, at least, a dim hope about coming back to life. Any organism, or even a planet, is a finite system (with a finite number of atoms and possible combinations), while most versions of multiverse are either infinite or near infinite systems. If you take infinite time and keep on shuffling randomly, you can get the exact match. Some physicists claim that there may be exact copies of you and me somewhere in the cosmos. In theory this can go on forever. If this gives you hope, so be it.
But don’t delude yourself. Shermer approaches this topic from another perspective. He recalls Derek Parfit’s personal identity thought experiments. Those cosmic copies are more like your clones. Imagine that you are cloned. Would you agree to be killed while your clone lives on? As Shermer claims, what counts in terms of our personal identity is our memories and our POV self (the way we view ourselves). Even if we could split into two organisms with exactly the same memories, from that moment onwards we get to live separate lives. Here Shermer differs from Parfit who doesn’t consider POV self as relevant. But the conclusions they make are similar. On this later.
Having ripped our hopes apart about afterlife and immortality, Shermer directs his skeptic eye to those who attempt at creating heavens (or utopias) on earth. Communists, Nazis, fascists, etc. Our species did some appalling social experiments in the past. But some contemporaries did not learn from mistakes. Shermer focuses on the phenomena of the Alt-right and the Regressive Left, two worrisome trends in the XXI century American and European politics. Two sides of the same coin. In fact, Alt-right is the direct consequence of the regressive trends on the Left, claims Shermer.
So what are we left with? Is there no hope for us? To the contrary! We are living in the best period of human history so far. We should enjoy every moment of our brief existence. Organisms, Shermer claims, are survival machines for our genes to be passed along, reproduce and live on in other organisms. We should embrace the fact of our mortality and find purpose and meaning for ourselves. Shermer is right to claim that purpose is not the same as happiness. I know what he is talking about. Like when I’m running 10K or doing some hard coding task, the feeling is not happiness. But there’s a personal purpose in that. It gives me a short temporal meaning. We need to learn to create such goals. For instance, having children (whom I don’t have) can, in fact, make you less happy but can also create meaning for you.
But is that all? Religious people have a sense of awe. What’s left for a person like me? I don’t believe in any deity. But I totally agree with Shermer here. Atheists can have a sense of awe. I do. This sense comes from the fact of being alive, being conscious and having what can be termed as a cosmic perspective. When I stroll through the parks of my beloved city of Vilnius, looking at squirrels or birds, trees and flowers, when I travel to the coast of Scotland or mountains of Norway, it is hard to ignore the beauty of our planet. In cities, it is hard not to get mesmerized by the art, magic of music, grandeur of architecture produced by the humankind. When I explore machine learning algorithms, I can’t but think that this math is to some degree an attempt at representation of decision-making inside of my own skull. And when I look at the stars, which I like to do when the weather allows, I can’t but feel awe at the vastness of what I see.
Reading this book, I couldn’t but agree with the famous skeptic. Look around, this is the real heaven we have. Let’s just not turn it into hell for one another. Share good ideas, fight bad ideas. Be kind to those who share these precious moments with you. Cosmic perspective helps a lot. We are all on our little spaceship Earth. This is all we have. Let’s try not to screw up. (less)
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The Laughing Man
Jul 11, 2018The Laughing Man rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
90 highlights
Objective and Well Meaning Critiques
I am glad he took the time to address transhumanism and objectively criticize it, we needed this in order not to turn into cult thinking, over all the book increased my hopes in transhumanist thought.
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Leonard Singer
Feb 07, 2018Leonard Singer rated it liked it
First two parts ugh; last two parts worth the read.
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Jerry James
Jan 23, 2018Jerry James rated it really liked it
If you're already a skeptic there is not much in this book that's surprising, but Shermer is always enjoyable. The end of the book was the most fun for me as he outlined all the things that provide meaning for life without the use of religion. (less)
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Gendou
Dec 24, 2018Gendou rated it liked it
Shelves: philosophy, non-fiction, science, skepticism
Shermer is a great skeptic and it's always fun to read what he has to say. This book surveys the different versions of an afterlife found in the major religions of the world and how they're all totally incomparable with our modern understanding of neurology, etc. It talks about utopia and how people have tried and failed to achieve it, often with disastrous results. He also talks about current and future programs to achieve immortality, and evaluates their plausibility with some basic philosophical tools.
There's one topic where he seems to go awry. He talks about this idea of a "point of view self" (my continuous thread of existence?) contrasted against the "memory self" (who I am made from my memories). He seems to take the former seriously as though it matters. As though there is a Dualistic self apart from the machinery of the brain. I don't know what "a continuity of experience" has to do with consciousness. He dismisses sleep with a hand-waving explanation. Seems like a Dualism sacred cow to me.
He also presents some research he himself conducted on the last words of prisoners on death row. This is pretty morbid, but his findings are somehow ultimately uplifting. The human spirit and all that. (less)
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Russell Atkinson
May 21, 2019Russell Atkinson rated it liked it
My rating is meaningless because I did not read the book, at least not after the first two or three chapters; I clicked three stars in order to be able to post a review because I think it's important people know what this book is and is not. I totally misunderstood what it was about. I thought it was literally about what is indicated by the title: people trying to find heaven on earth, i.e. a utopia here, the best place to live, a society where virtually everyone is happy, healthy, satisfied with life, possibly the latest life-extending medical and technical breakthrough to help us reach immortality here on earth. Instead, it's a philosophical/religious tract exploring what individuals and societies believe about heaven and hell or some other form of afterlife, and why they do or don't. The topic really is death. Once I realized that's all it was going be, I stopped reading. (less)
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Tim Gorichanaz
Feb 23, 2018Tim Gorichanaz rated it really liked it
We're obsessed with what happens after we die. We can't seem to help it. This is an engaging synthesis of different views on the matter, with a New Atheist tilt. It finishes with a "what's the point of life?" section much along the lines of Sean Carroll's The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself. (less)
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Jack Hicks
Apr 21, 2020Jack Hicks rated it really liked it
Heavens on Earth, the Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality and Utopia
By Michael Shermer, 2018
When I started reading this book, I didn’t think I would end up recommending it but when I finished, I realized that there’s an interesting and important message contained. We all realize we are mortal beings and as we age that realization becomes more and more apparent as that last moment approaches. As put by Jorge Luis Borges “ To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is mortal”.
Shermer begins by taking us through the historical, mythological origins of human ideas of death, the afterlife and the soul from The Egyptian myths of Osiris rising from the dead to Christian, Jewish and Muslim beliefs in the resurrection and the afterlife. For all religious believers, Shermer is a scientific and rational skeptic. What is a soul? Is it the summation of a person’s personality and memories at the time of death? There are 108 billion people that have ever lived in the history of humankind but only 7.5 billion alive today. Where did all the souls go? Out of body experiences and near-death experiences are explored but it turns out provable scientific evidence is not there. Then there are the high-tech billionaires that want to preserve their bodies cryogenically or down-load their brains to a computer to obtain some measure of immortality. As of now these technologies are not proven and there is no assurance they will ever work. And then there are those that want to establish heavenly utopias on earth but almost always end in establishing dystopias instead in the end. And yet is there another way to look at mortality and our purpose in the universe outside of conventional ancient mythologies, paranormal, utopian ideas or life extending technologies? Shermer posits there is, and it lies in the laws of the universe and in evolution and maybe even in forgotten passages of wisdom from our own religious texts.
“We are therefore made out of star stuff….we feed upon sunbeams, we are kept warm by radiation of the sun and we are made out of the same materials that constitute the stars”. But what is the purpose of life? “The purpose of life is to survive, reproduce and flourish and it has been fulfilling its destiny for 3.5 million years in an unbroken chain from Precambrian to today”. “The difference between mountains, rivers and living organisms is that life survives, reproduces and flourishes in the teeth of entropy. This makes the second law of thermodynamics the first law of life”. “The most basic lesson is that natural selection is the only known natural process that pushes populations of organisms uphill into higher degrees of functional order…This extropy occurs only in an open system with an energy source such as our planet with the sun providing the energy that temporarily reverses entropy, and with replicating molecules like RNA and DNA that enable living organisms to send near duplicates out into the world that provide fodder for natural selection. Once this system is up and running, evolution can move away from the left wall of minimum order and simplicity and toward the right wall of maximum order and complexity”. “In this sense, evolution granted us purpose-driven life by dint of the laws of nature. Purpose is in our nature, and in our case we have brains big enough to contemplate it and language sophisticated enough to talk about it, so we as a species alone is capable of (less)
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Nick Mclean
Nov 14, 2018Nick Mclean rated it liked it
Shelves: philosophy, science
Michael Shermer offers readers a brief tour of the evolutionary roots of our belief in an afterlife, various spiritual and religious concepts of heaven, concepts of utopia and dystopia attempts to achieve immortality in the modern world and what we can learn about the finite nature of life. I honestly was not that impressed with the book. I enjoy Shermer's work in books like the Moral Arc and was a reader of his Sceptic magazine, but there is not much heft to this book. Most of his observations are fairly banal and familiar to readers of Sagan, Dawkins, Grayling, Campbell or Houston.
A few years ago I read the Unpersuadables (titled the Heretics in its original British release) that was a sympathetic look at those who hold various anti-scientific, superstitious beliefs and a harsh critique of many prominent sceptics. Shermer reached out to different religious and spiritual figures in this book, but most of the material is not that interesting. I really didn't need to know that the spurious claims about visiting heaven from a child celebrity were impossible, or that most reports of near-death experiences can be scientifically debunked. Deepak Chopra's bizarre quasi-theology is hardly interesting enough to merit a serious investigation. His coverage of mostly American attempts at forming Utopian communities was interesting, but not terribly original and the disastrous attempts at political utopias have been well studied.
The later chapters about those working towards senescence (life extension) were reasonably interesting. Shermer gives us a tour through the Extropians, Transcendentalists, Singularists and others working to achieve immortality or a vastly extended life. In the end, he returns to a conclusion he reached convincingly in previous books. The finite nature of life can actually give it meaning. And we can work towards Protopias, dedicating our lives to incremental improvement of the world. I share his sentiments but really hoped for something more provocative in this book. (less)
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Socraticgadfly
Aug 25, 2019Socraticgadfly rated it really liked it
Solid overall but nothing spectacular.
As a secularist, I of course knew the arguments against religious-based afterlives, whether heavens as a one-time thing, or heavens via a process of reincarnation or something else.
The better part of the book comes after that.
Shermer shows that atheists’ hope for a secular afterlife, whether through mind downloading, Kurzweil’s singularity, or cryogenics, are all hogwash at this time. (The mind-downloading angle also applies to reincarnation in its traditional forms; how does a human soul map on to an animal brain?)
He also shows that medical claims we’re near the point of immortality through medical life extension are also hogwash.
There are a few errors. Most are minor, but still need noting.
First, not all ontological monists are materialist monists. Good Buddhists certainly are not.
Second, psilocybin is not LSD!
Third, the brain is probably not as modular as Shermer claims, and more recent actual neuroscience has refuted some of these claims. In addition, the idea of subselves is more complex than these ideas of brain modularity.
Nietzsche did not go mad. The best evidence indicates he has a brain tumor that changed his mind.
Fifth, the rhetoric is nice, but with the partial exception of Henrietta Lacks, our genes aren’t immortal, and even there, it’s as much rhetoric as reality. Per issues of mutability of a personal self, “our” genes aren’t ours after enough generations of offspring.
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Evan Kostelka
Jul 14, 2019Evan Kostelka rated it really liked it
Shelves: 2019
A full discussion of the ideas of immortality both in religion and secular settings. He spends the first two parts of the book giving brief overviews of the monotheistic religions and their views on an afterlife. He then pokes holes in the 'evidence' that near death experiences provide to an afterlife. He isn't saying these religions and experiences don't mean anything to those involved, but that they are not proof of an afterlife.
The third part of the book are an interesting look at the bias in humans to be pessimistic and optimistic at the same time (dystopian and utopian).
The last part touches on the current leading theories on why humans age and die as well as how you can find meaning in a meaningless universe. I have not heard of the author before but enjoy his take on the issues presented in the book. He is someone who enjoys experiencing the topics he is trying to understand, even if he ultimately concludes there is nothing to them.
He ends with a hopeful note for those who can't assent to the belief in a super powerful God ruling the universe,
"We are given this one chance to live, some four score trips around the sun...Given all we know about the universe and laws of nature, that is the most any of us can reasonably hope for. Fortunately, it is enough. It is the soul of life. It is heaven on earth." (less)
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Kevin Rhodes
Apr 12, 2018Kevin Rhodes rated it really liked it
For me, Michael Shermer is an acquired taste. I enjoy his TED talks and read his books, I subscribe to his email newsletter… but he’s one of those guys who absolutely and endlessly loves to debate , and I’m quite sure he’s never lost an argument in his life. For me, that approach to life gets old, and even though I could never win an argument with him, I really don’t want to. For me, reason has its limits, and when he pursues his arguments out to the max and minutiae, I find myself rolling my eyes.. But on the other hand, the keenness and utter capacity of his intellect, the scope of his research, the breadth of his analysis… these things are staggering. The man does his homework. And somehow, he manages to communicate his deep and rich love of life, so you end up if not liking then at least appreciating him -- like that friend you wouldn’t give a hug but you appreciate because he keeps you honest and barks at your laziness. For all of these reasons, if you’re interested in the topics of this book, I can’t recommend it highly enough. (less)
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Danielle
Apr 27, 2021Danielle rated it really liked it
Shelves: 2021-completed-books, spiritual
This was a technical guide through all things related to death really and not so much specifically about evidence for or against the "afterlife". The author is a scientist and he comes at the evidence society gives for the afterlife (near death experiences, visions of heaven, the bible, etc) in a technical, scientific way; he uses science, psychology, biology, etc to explain and offer opinions.
The author is an atheist and obviously does not believe in there being any kind of afterlife. His arguments against it are interesting but more than that, I found the chapters about the search for immortality (near death experiences, reincarnation, can science defeat death? Spiritual seekers) so informational. Like I said, the entire book is not a diatribe against those who believe in the afterlife or the presence of the afterlife. It has everything to do with death (biology and how the body breaks down, creating a Utopia to live in, psychological experiences, evidence for the afterlife, meaning in the universe, etc).
It was interesting, fascinating, technical and heavy. (less)
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Malathi Mrinal
Mar 06, 2018Malathi Mrinal rated it really liked it
Shelves: atheism
Approximately 100 billion humans have come and gone since the beginning of time, he notes, and not a single one has returned to confirm the existence of an afterlife, “at least not to the high evidentiary standards of science.”
“Heavens on Earth” does just that, bringing the high evidentiary standards of science to bear on heavenly claims. Shermer examines the claims of spiritual seekers, who see consciousness as primary, an essence from which all human experience is derived. He tries to take these views seriously — especially those of his friend and intellectual rival Deepak Chopra, the most prominent American proponent of these ideas. He even attends a conference and meditation training at the Chopra Center in California. But in the end he is critical of Chopra’s lack of rigor, dismissing his writing and thinking as “gobbledygook” and “pseudo-profound bafflegab.”
Like every Book of Michael Shermer :Heavens on Earth: is a must read
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Anup Sinha
Jul 15, 2019Anup Sinha rated it really liked it · review of another edition
Another Thought-Provoker by Shermer.
An excellent discussion book by the Skeptic himself, Michael Shermer, on a topic we all find mysterious and perhaps most important; death.
He goes from almost every angle and has a lot of scientific research and evidence to explain his conclusions.
One thing I found missing was a discussion of ghosts and other supernatural phenomena. There are so many ghost sightings that I find it difficult to ignore in a book that is designed to explore every aspect of life after death. Shermer mentions his own personal “ghost experience” but with no mention of the myriads of other reported hauntings. I would have liked to have known his research on their validity.
The book was well-written overall but it had some slow and cumbersome parts in the beginning, belaboring his early points about religion, which I ended up skimming over.
Nevertheless a very worthy read and recommended for anyone with such existential interest. (less)
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Bilbo
Mar 11, 2018Bilbo rated it really liked it
M. Shermer deals with religious concepts of an afterlife in cultures all over the world, historical attempts to create utopia by various political regimes, but most importantly with scientific attempts to create "heaven on Earth". Radical life extension, cryogenetics, transhumanism, uploading conciousness into the cloud, you named it...
I loved the usuall scepticism from Michael as he gives all these wild ideas more critical serious outlook and emphazis about how we need to be careful and humble to make any unsubstantiated claims.
As he responded to a question in an interview somewhere:
"Shermer, don't you wanna live to be 500?!"
"Just give me 80 without cancer, 90 without Alzheimer, 100 wihout being tied to bed in hospital somewhere... than we talk about that, OK?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqKY9... (less)
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D.C. Lozar
May 01, 2018D.C. Lozar rated it it was amazing
In his book, “Heavens on Earth,” Michael Shermer does a wonderful job of addressing and debunking many of the anti-aging theories. Additionally, he provides rational arguments as to why humans cling to these theories despite the discouraging evidence. He addresses the ethereal aspects of new-aged religions, the cultish draw of technologic immortality, the way we think as we approach death, and how people are fooled into thinking they've experienced life-after-death or that a child could be the reincarnated soul of a dead pilot. I was impressed with the respect he showed our varied human belief systems even as he methodically dissected the tender flesh to reveal the brittle bones upon which they were built. This is a book for thinkers, written by a thinker, and it garners my highest praise and respect. Well done! (less)
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