Robert Lanza

Finally, in trying to answer the old questions about the size of the universe—now known to include consciousness and to be correlative with ourselves—we can only experience futility in any effort to “picture” an entity with no fixed dimensions. So in addition to the cosmos existing outside of time, and having no death or birth, and seeing that space is a word that symbolizes nothing meaningful, we have arrived at yet another revelation: The universe is sizeless.

This is an extremely unlikely universe. So unlikely that even the most die-hard classical, randomness-believing, atheism-proselytizing physicists concede that the cosmos is insanely improbable in terms of life-friendliness. The combined existence of all the life-friendly values of all its physical constants and values defy the odds of one in several hundred million,>/blockquote>This is a failed argument and easily dismissed. Just because something is improbable, doesn’t mean it is impossible, obviously, because it happened!! There is a lot of that in this book. The authors don't consider that there may be trillions or more universes in which none of these factors align, or align in such a way as to bring about life different than we understand.

On evolution

Natural selection works because some random mutation conferred an advantage that let the animal better survive to procreate. But an eye—any eye, even the earliest ones—required not just a single mutation that created a light-sensitive cell, but also a nerve system or some other modality to carry such sensations to a brain or brain precursor, so the information could be utilized in some way, such as locomotion toward or away from the light source. Sight also requires a “perceiving” cell structure in which to form an image, even if it’s just a crude sensation of brightness. In short, even primitive vision involves far more than a single genetic mutation. No matter if the earliest eyes lacked the sophisticated elements of current animal vision, with their marvelous supporting cast of muscles for focus and adjustable pupil diameter; various types of color-sensing retina cells; lens; optic nerve; and an amphitheater of billions of specialized neurons and synapses to actually create image perception. It’s quite an elaborate architecture that today’s animals enjoy. But even the first, crudest version would require some structure to be the least bit useful. A single mutation would accomplish nothing. It would confer no benefit, and thus there'd be nothing advantageous to pass on to the kids. And what are the chances for a profusion of simultaneous, independent, but interdependently necessary mutations occuring in a single animal?

This is a specious dismissal. An argument of something not making sense to them so it couldn’t have happened is the logical fallacy Argument from Incredulity, perhaps even Argumentum ex Silentio, and Hoyle’s Fallacy for sure.

They argue long about perceptions along lines of "Colors are created by us." No, colors are named by us. They exist because of our evolved visual system translates the various frequencies into the spectra. Some people have fewer cones, and some animals have none. The characteristics of the radiation do not change. And on the eye, "Despite acknowledging the direction that light travels, nearly everyone thinks that they look 'at' things, that their visual world coincides spatially with an external realm!" Semantics. And cheap theater. Can one not “look up” to someone shorter? Please, gentlemen.

The authors say

As Nobel-winning physicist Richard Feynman once remarked, “I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics . . . Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, ‘But how can it be like that?’ because you will go ‘down the drain’ into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped.” But biocentrism makes sense of it all for the first time, because the mind is not secondary to a material universe. Rather, it is one with it. We are more than our individual bodies, eternal even when we die. This is the indispensable prelude to immortality.

I almost stopped right there. This “biocentrism makes sense of it all for the first time” is the definition of crank. Feynman may have a start of a point, but QT can’t address relativistic matter; it doesn’t address gravity (but that’s okay...gravity wouldn’t exist according to the authors unless I observe it, right?) They quote Feynman a few times, but they leave off one important quote:

Now I’m going to discuss how we would look for a new law. In general, we look for a new law by the following process. First, we guess it (audience laughter), no, don’t laugh, that’s the truth. Then we compute the consequences of the guess, to see what, if this is right, if this law we guess is right, to see what it would imply and then we compare the computation results to nature or we say compare to experiment or experience, compare it directly with observations to see if it works.

If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is … If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.

The "biocentrism explains" is the guess. But there is no experiment. (Sidebar: several times I observed that the authors use the word "inarguable" a lot, but I would argue that most of the time their conclusions are quite arguable!)

So the bottom line appears to be that the universe never existed until humans evolved enough of a consciousness to interpret the perceptions. Hmmm. This is not biocentric, rather anthropocentric and akin to religion.

This is a book with a label of “science“. For the most part, that is true, because there is a lot of science in this book. And, for the largest part, the authors convey that well. (That gives them an extra star.) They do, however, have a generous interpretation to fit their guess. And yes, theirs is a guess. Perhaps this book was never intended to explain anything about their conjecture, but then its value in supporting that conjecture is quite limited. It does have value for some science history.

I’ve concluded that “Beyond” something means that this book doesn’t present the theory, whatever it is. As such, saying “biocentrism explains” something without actually explaining how is meaningless - its a God of the Gaps argument. Any theory that does not provide precise predictions that can be tested and validated... falsified ... is useless as a theory. And not scientific. The authors mention biocentrism 42 times in the body text, which as the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is a convenient (if just contrived by me) coincidence to a theory that if I understand anything they’ve not said, is the basis for everything. "Because we said so" is ... as unsatisfying as when your parent said it.