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Publisher's
Information: In this stimulating and timely book, Amit
Goswami, Ph.D., shatters the widely popular belief held by Western science
that matter is the primary "stuff" of creation, and proposes
instead that consciousness is the true foundation of all we know and perceive.
His explanation of quantum physics for lay
readers, called "a model of clarity" by Kirkus Reviews,
sets the stage for a voyage of discovery through the common ground of
science and religion, the entwined nature of mind and body, and our
interconnectedness with all creation.
Pat's Review: I
buy and read any book with the name of Fred Alan Wolf, Ph.D. somewhere on
it--on the cover, a review on the back, in the forward, introduction or
preface. He is my favorite "new physicist," partly because he doesn't take
himself too seriously, but also because he has demonstrated through his
writings that he has a personal passion to understand the quantum
physics-consciousness connection and he would like to help the rest of us
understand it, too.
In his forward to The Self-Aware Universe,
Dr. Wolf writes:
"There is too much quantum weirdness
around, too many experiments showing that the objective world...is an
illusion of our thinking.
"The author posits a hypothesis that is so
strange to our Western minds as to be automatically dismissed as the
ravings of an Eastern mystic. It says that all of the [paradoxes of
quantum physics] are explainable, are understandable, if we are to give up
that precious assumption that there is an objective reality "out there"
independent of consciousness. It says even more, that the universe is
"self-aware" and that it is consciousness itself that creates the physical
world."
This book is for those of us who want to know
how consciousness creates the physical world. Read it once to have a better
understanding. Read it again to really "grock" the material.
Amit Goswami is a scholar. He has been
professor of physics at the University of Oregon since 1968 and has authored
a number of scientific papers and books explaining and exploring the ideas
of quantum mechanics. But what makes this book so powerful is his excellent
grasp of the bigger picture. His views incorporate the many "little
pictures" of various histories, religions, philosophies, sciences, and
spiritual traditions and gives them context and meaning in our evolving
world view. Where we have all been contributes to where we all are going.
And where we are going is into a new paradigm
that unites science and religion toward the development of a greater
understanding of consciousness.
In Part 1, Goswami gives a (relatively)
easy-to-understand overview of how the new physics is challenging the
mechanistic scientific world view. In Part 2, we are taken on an exploration
of various paradoxes posed by quantum physics and how an integration of
consciousness into the equation can resolve those paradoxes. "I propose that
the universe exists as formless potentia in myriad possible branches in the
transcendent domain and becomes manifest only when observed by conscious
beings." (Simple enough, no?)
In Part 3 we take a break from science and
explore how this new paradigm jibes with modern psychological theories as
well as the great religious traditions of the world. The last section, Part
4, explores the social implications--creativity, ethics, and spiritual
expression--of Goswami's conclusion that "Physics explains phenomena, but
consciousness is not a phenomenon: instead, all else are phenomena in
consciousness."
Tip: As you read, have your pencil and
highlighter close at hand.
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The
Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World