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Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe [Hardcover]

Robert Lanza , Bob Berman
3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (152 customer reviews)

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Book Description

April 14, 2009
Robert Lanza is one of the most respected scientists in the world—a US News & World Report cover story called him a “genius” and a “renegade thinker,” even likening him to Einstein. Lanza has teamed with Bob Berman, the most widely read astronomer in the world, to produce Biocentrism, a revolutionary new view of the universe.

Every now and then a simple yet radical idea shakes the very foundations of knowledge. The startling discovery that the world was not flat challenged and ultimately changed the way people perceived themselves and their relationship with the world. For most humans of the 15th century, the notion of Earth as ball of rock was nonsense. The whole of Western, natural philosophy is undergoing a sea change again, increasingly being forced upon us by the experimental findings of quantum theory, and at the same time, towards doubt and uncertainty in the physical explanations of the universe’s genesis and structure. Biocentrism completes this shift in worldview, turning the planet upside down again with the revolutionary view that life creates the universe instead of the other way around.

In this paradigm, life is not an accidental byproduct of the laws of physics. Biocentrism takes the reader on a seemingly improbable but ultimately inescapable journey through a foreign universe—our own—from the viewpoints of an acclaimed biologist and a leading astronomer. Switching perspective from physics to biology unlocks the cages in which Western science has unwittingly managed to confine itself. Biocentrism will shatter the reader’s ideas of life—time and space, and even death. At the same time it will release us from the dull worldview of life being merely the activity of an admixture of carbon and a few other elements; it suggests the exhilarating possibility that life is fundamentally immortal.

The 21st century is predicted to be the Century of Biology, a shift from the previous century dominated by physics. It seems fitting, then, to begin the century by turning the universe outside-in and unifying the foundations of science with a simple idea discovered by one of the leading life-scientists of our age. Biocentrism awakens in readers a new sense of possibility, and is full of so many shocking new perspectives that the reader will never see reality the same way again.

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Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe + Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness + The Holographic Universe: The Revolutionary Theory of Reality
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"What makes this book both interesting and worth the effort of reading it; is the unique perspective Lanza brings to the subject matter as a physician....From the way he chooses to present his arguments, it's clear he has a solid grasp of esoteric disciplines like quantum theory, special relativity and particle physics. And what makes his presentation more compelling than other efforts I've encountered is his ability and willingness to weave personal experience into the thoughts and ideas presented. His style is conversational and warm which tends to pull you along through the exposition gently. And his sense of wonder and befuddlement at shop worn enigmas like the double slit experiment, Bell's theorem, non-locality and Schrödinger's cat is as infectious as it is delightful...I very much like what Lanza has to say in Biocentrism." --Midwest Book Review

From the Back Cover

Praise for Robert Lanza's essay "A New Theory of the Universe," on which Biocentrism is based:

"Like A Brief History of Time, it is indeed stimulating and brings biology into the whole.... The book will appeal to an audience of many different disciplines because it is a new way of looking at the old problem of our existence. Most importantly, it makes you think." ―E. Donnall Thomas, 1990 Nobel Prize winner in Physiology and Medicine

"It is genuinely an exciting piece of work.... The idea that consciousness creates reality has quantum support ... and also coheres with some of the things biology and neuroscience are telling us about the structures of our being. Just as we now know that the sun doesn't really move but we do (we are the active agents), so [it is] suggesting that we are the entities that give meaning to the particular configuration of all possible outcomes we call reality." ―Ronald Green, director of Dartmouth College's Ethics Institute

"Robert Lanza, a world-renowned scientist who has spanned many fields from drug delivery to stem cells to preventing animal extinction, and clearly one of the most brilliant minds of our times, has done it again. `A New Theory of the Universe' takes into account all the knowledge we have gained over the last few centuries ... placing in perspective our biologic limitations that have impeded our understanding of greater truths surrounding our existence and the universe around us. This new theory is certain to revolutionize our concepts of the laws of nature for centuries to come." ―Anthony Atala, internationally recognized scientist and director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine


Product Details

  • Hardcover: 224 pages
  • Publisher: BenBella Books (April 14, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1933771690
  • ISBN-13: 978-1933771694
  • Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (152 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #72,803 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

An easy book to read. Steve  |  25 reviewers made a similar statement
The author presents far too much biographical information about himself in this book. Bumpkinboy  |  17 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
238 of 249 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliantly written, challenging and kind of creepy June 10, 2009
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Challenging assumptions is always excellent mental exercise. In this book Robert Lanza takes on one of the key tenets of modern thinking: that all scientific disciplines ultimately reduce to physics. In its place he offers the provocative thesis that biology is primary, and the Universe literally flows from the conscious perceptions of living creatures.

On its face this sounds absurd, which demonstrates all the more just how brilliant this man is. He draws on findings from quantum physics and anatomy studies to establish a series of foundational principles for his biocentric theory, which he then elaborates on and defends.

He begins by reminding us of something we all know but rarely think about: that reality is literally "all in our heads." We don't see the sunset, we see the interpretation of it our brain creates. We don't smell the rose, we experience the sensation of a scent created by a neural network.

We believe that these impressions are imposed on us by what Stephen Hawking calls the RWOT (Real World Out There). But our evidence for this belief amounts to subjective internal experiences! In pointing this out Lanza shifts the burden of proof to the physicalists, who assert that the outside world is what is truly real, while our qualia are illusory.

He expands on this thought by citing evidence from quantum physics.
The famous two slit experiment, observations of split photons switching spin directions simultaneously, and observations of true backwards causation (the present determining the past) are all cited. Einstein once asked a colleague if he truly believed that the moon wasn't in the sky if no one was looking at it. Lanza would reply "of course it's not!
... Read more ›
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125 of 130 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating proposal for a paradigm change July 7, 2009
Format:Hardcover
I've just finished reading the book and there is still a lot I need to process. The comments I have read (not so much here but on other sites) have been, not surprisingly, mostly negative. Personally I do think Lanza is on to something important. Reading the many criticisms of his ideas, however, makes me aware that evaluating biocentrism is going to be very difficult because it is a proposal for a paradigm shift. By definition, a new paradigm always appears to be nonsense from within the established paradigm. A proposal to change from one paradigm to another is very different than a proposal to replace one idea with another within a paradigm. Most of biocentrism's critics, it seems to me, are treating it as if it's the latter rather than the former.

It's been a long time since I read Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions but this is, I think, one of its most profound insights. For example,from the Ptolemaic perspective Copernicus and Galileo were crazy. Their critics and persecutors were not unreasonable. What Copernicus and Galileo were proposing, however, was a change in reason. As Kuhn shows, the shift from one paradigm to another is inevitably messy and chaotic. In the end, a new paradigm is finally adopted for very pragmatic reasons: it works, or at least works better than its predecessor.

For this reason, I think there is a lot of misunderstanding of what Lanza is proposing. He is being critiqued from within the assumptions of the paradigm he is seeking to replace, which is understandable and even inevitable, but nonetheless very confusing. For example, traditional Christianity and modern science have debated whether God created the universe or whether it originated spontaneously in an event like the Big Bang.
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93 of 101 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps Lanza and Hawking converge? June 10, 2009
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I must concur with all of the thoughtful reviews so far presented that Robert Lanza and Bob Berman have crafted a beautifully written account of a potentially revolutionary idea. Where as most current cosmological theories represent life and consciousness as emergent, and even accidental, properties of an otherwise lifeless universe. Dr. Lanza proposes, to the contrary, that life and consciousness are actually fundamental properties of the universe and all that it represents, so much so that the universe cannot possibly exist without life to give it reality.

From this simple idea, some might immediately assume that Dr. Lanza is seeking to justify a form of Intelligent Design or Creationism, but that would be a huge mistake. Dr. Lanza is a consummate scientist who fully embraces the latest knowledge that science has brought us, from evolutionary theory to relativity and quantum mechanics. His biocentrism, in fact, proposes to make sense of some of the most perplexing discoveries that quantum mechanics has revealed together with Einsteinian relativity, and he does this in the most engaging, patient (to this layman), and conversational style, with a minimum of mathematics. He even takes the time to explain the little math that he uses for the most innumerate among us to understand.

Basically, he contends that any unobserved universe can only exist in a state of probability that requires living observation and measurement to give it any certain reality. Some have assumed that Lanza refers only to human consciousness and question the idea on this very basis: what gave the universe reality before humans arrived? However, it is clear that he is referring to consciousness as it exists, to one degree or another, in all forms of life, known and unknown.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Book
This is going down as one of the most important books of the 21st century and it is amazingly well written.
Published 6 days ago by Barbara Luehring
5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Way to Expand Your Mind
I'm a little surprised to see such a variance in ratings for this, but I suspect it may be more from people resisting some of the ideas instead of simply enjoying the discussion. Read more
Published 29 days ago by Gary Schemnitzer
3.0 out of 5 stars Pretty so so
Informative book regarding biomecenyrism, but sort of strange how the author included personal stories. Overall pretty good, but not great.
Published 1 month ago by Lay person
4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting theory
The author is not trying to change your mind about anything. He is simply stating his theory and I find it interesting. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Shopper Wilma
1.0 out of 5 stars Pseudoscience
Full of logical fallacies and annoying side stories. On one side, author seems to criticize quantum theory (and others) as being wrong due to being complicated and non-intuitive... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Tomas Mariancik
4.0 out of 5 stars This book is great for those who wish to think outside the box
Just like the age old question: "which came first...the chicken or the egg"... I must admit that it is quite difficult to break out of the widely accepted mindset that the... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Michael Newton
5.0 out of 5 stars Fresh approach
The old materialistic and atomistic view in science is urged to review it's paradigms; consciousness and biocentrism is a great way to start. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Santiago Roel
2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed
I keep hoping for the break-through book which will offer a genuine unification of physics and spirituality without doing violence to either, and I'm still waiting. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Peter Payne
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and prophetic. A rare revelation"
Brilliant and prophetic. A rare revelation"
What did you love best about Biocentrism?
I appreciated the storyline adn anectdotal stores especially the inital story of... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Elan Sun Star
3.0 out of 5 stars ...meh
It's an interesting theory, but it's full of flaws. Worth to read, but don't take it too seriously if you ask me.
Published 2 months ago by Ádám Pantócsik
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Biology trumps Physics
Exactly, I'm a layman with great interest in this subject and having a reasonable understanding of the progress in particle observation and theory coming out of it I agree physics needs more 'outside the box' thinking. I have a friend and a sister with degrees in physics and it has been difficult... Read more
Oct 27, 2009 by George Berreman |  See all 7 posts
C. Tucker
Well known??? Post some significant links that prove your delusional post. The fact remains that "many" investors whom believe in Dr. Lanza have lost tons of their "savings" which have greatly impacted their lives. While Dr. Lanza is off writing a book. These are reasonable... Read more
May 15, 2009 by C. Tucker |  See all 3 posts
Advanced Cell Technology
"calling people stupid on a message board "
I never called you "stupid", I simply stated that your question was stupid. Their is a big difference. My question is do you know Dr. Lanza? Have you walked any steps in his life? I bet you have not, so what makes you think you... Read more
May 5, 2009 by DeAngelo |  See all 9 posts
Biocentrism and Christian Science Be the first to reply
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