Calculating God
by Robert J. Sawyer · first published 2000
78% recommend22% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Accessible science fiction that uses a story to engage with science and philosophy; often recommended to readers who don't usually enjoy the genre, and remembered as a first real sci-fi read that opened up the genre.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Calculating God is the new near-future SF thriller from the popular and award-winning Robert J. Sawyer. An alien shuttle craft lands outside the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. A six-legged, two-armed alien emerges, who says, in perfect English, "Take me to a paleontologist." It seems that Earth, and the alien's home planet, and the home planet of another alien species traveling on the alien mother ship, all experienced the same five cataclysmic events at about the same time (one example of these "cataclysmic events" would be the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs). Both alien races believe
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…require more data than we currently have, and would require that data to point in directions that demonstrate the universe having agency and intent of some sort. You might enjoy the science fiction novel Calculating God, by Robert J. Sawyer, which riffs a bit on this theme: Somewhat spoilery summary is on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculating_God To give a hypothetical example of the kind of future…
on “Origin of life theory involving RNA–protein hybrid gets new support” ↗Robert Sawyer wrote a great book on this subject, Calculating God. He has a way of writing about science and philosophy that's incredibly engaging and accessible because it's in the form of fiction. It's one of the few scifi books I can recommend to people who normally…
on “Why God Did Not Create the Universe” ↗For me was Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer, in which an alien appears at the Royal Ontario Museum and asks to speak with their paleontologist. Through that book, GoL was my on-ramp to all kinds of cellular automata, a-life,…
on “Remembering Conway” ↗May I interest you in "Calculating God" by Robert J. Sawyer? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculating_God?useskin=vector
on “The “Wow!” signal was likely from extraterrestrial source, and more powerful” ↗Sawyer's "Calculating God" was the first book I would consider "real sci-fi" that I ever read, at around age 13 or so. A friend's older brother had recommended it to me and it blew my mind. It was, for me, the turning point from…
on “WordTsar, a WordStar Clone” ↗…Kovacs trilogy -The Culture Series (meh..) -The Demolished Man More dev-oriented: -Reamde (which I hated, but I seem to be in a minority) -Neuromancer I'll always have a special place in my heart for Calculating God (not science fiction), because its the book that got me into reading seriously.
on “Ask HN: Sci-Fi Books for Hackers?” ↗…Conscience" "VALIS" trilogy "The Book of Strange New Things" "Behold The Man" "The God Engines" "Book of the New Sun" "The Parable of the Sower" "The Dosadi Experiment" "Grass" "Project Pope" "Calculating God" "Factoring Humanity" "Jesus on Mars" "Surface Detail
on “Ask HN: Books that gave you different perspective on religion” ↗In the book Calculating God, a character notes that this is a common civilization-wide choice. Living in virtual reality, rather than trying to expand into the vast expanses of space, is a common trope as much as it's a logical…
on “Satellites reveal heat leaking from largest US cryptocurrency mining center” ↗I first read this theory in the book Calculating God, but it has also appeared in the Hyperion book series. I recently saw it in Black Mirror season 3 (for humanity). Not exactly a new theory. Still has the problem of the exponential population expansion…
on “A New Theory on Why We Haven’t Found Aliens Yet” ↗