Zeeya,
I have read the first chapter ("God's Billboard: the Cosmic Microwave Background") and I can already see that it will take a long time to finish your book. That is my highest compliment.
First, I was compelled to take Anthony Zee's Fearful Symmetry off my shelf after 30 years, for another read. I enjoyed it so much, and I may buy the new edition you mentioned. And then I was reminded how much I "hated" John Horgan's The End of Science; I hated it so much I read it three times in a row (and will probably read it again, too, concurrent with Zee and Merali). I heartily disagreed with Horgan's premise ("ironic science") yet I was enchanted by the dialogue, and delighted to get a look at the private musings of great scientists.
I may "hate" your book for the same reasons. Though Horgan is not a believer, as you are, you share the same fascination with the limits of knowledge.
Suppose we had no secrets from one another--our most intimate thoughts and deeds completely transparent to every human on Earth. Would we know ourselves as individuals?
So far as we do know, we come complete; i.e., with a complete consciousness--not to say that we can't grow or change--but we seem to be born already individualized, with built-in hidden compartments for secret thoughts, and infinite potential for interaction.
Compare to computers--who have a consciousness of their own--and limited potential for interaction. We might make exceptions for such machines as IBM's Deep Blue; nevertheless, we have to tell it how to interact, and though we may be amazed to find that it creates incomprehensible algorithms of its own, one need be reminded of poet Delmore Schwartz: "I am a book I neither read nor wrote." The same poet wrote, "Existentialism means that no one else can take a bath for you."
If every thought has the potential to be free and independent, where does it begin and end? - with God, with irony? With artificial intelligence?
The best we can do, it seems, is to enjoy the journey wherever it takes us. Thanks for taking me with you! We may yet be able to realize the full import of Jacob Bronowski's observation, "All science is the search for unity in hidden likenesses."
All Best,
Tom