The Conscious Universe: Parts and Wholes in Physical Reality [Paperback]

Menas Kafatos (Author), Robert Nadeau (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0387988653 | ISBN-13: 978-0387988658 | Publication Date: October 29, 1999 | Edition: 2nd

A discussion of the implications for philosophy of recent experimental results that confirm some counterintuitive aspects of the way matter behaves. The authors show that a generalised principle of complementarity is pervasive not only in physical theories such as cosmological models of the universe, but also in the construction of all human realities. They discuss in detail Bells inequalities for quantum mechanical measurements as well as recent experiments which imply that even remote parts of the universe are "entangled." They go on to suggest that consciousness can no longer be divorced from the way science operates, and conclude by claiming that this entails a new way of understanding the universe - one that could obviate much of the current conflict between science and religion while providing at the same time a basis for valuation that is better suited for co-ordinating all human experience. This second edition has been completely rewritten and brought up to date.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Springer; 2nd edition (October 29, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0387988653
• ISBN-13: 978-0387988658
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,072,849 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Improvement over the original, November 14, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Conscious Universe: Parts and Wholes in Physical Reality (Paperback)

In this book, Kafatos and Nadeau update their 1990 book "The Conscious Universe: Part and Whole in Modern Physical Theory." The thesis/purpose of the new book is identical, the content is about 70% the same, but the book is completely reorganized and in mostly rewritten. The new book is greatly improved over the old. The authors made it shorter and more succinct, driving home their thesis with greater power. The florid prose of the old book is mostly absent. The only area I liked better from the old book is its earlier and extended elaboration on ontological dualism, a crucial concept for their thesis that is presented too late and too briefly in the new book. But all in all this is the book for new readers. The authors take Bohr's principle of complementarity and explore its application, espousing it as a new paradigm for human perception at every level, mundane to cosmic. The ramifications of their excellently thought-out argument make rich food for thought. The authors also shed clear light on ramifications of our universe's NON-LOCALITY as suggested by experiments testing Bell's Theorem. One irritating thing is the authors' dislike of hidden variable theories due to their untestability, while at the same time they reach equally untestable conclusions.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Complementarity of science and religion - the next level of consciousness, April 3, 2009

By 

Ted Byrd - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Conscious Universe: Parts and Wholes in Physical Reality (Paperback)

I am a firm believer that content trumps style, especially in a book such as this which is proposing a groundbreaking new view of the cosmos. So while I encountered some of the same difficulties with the authors' rendering of their ideas into intelligible language as some of the other reviewers, it was well worth the effort of decipherment to get at their message. While the sentences tend to be rather long and full of clauses, I didn't have so much trouble with that as with the tendency toward constant repetition, which persisted throughout the entire book. However, I was reading the older original version, which has since been revised and shortened, and hopefully purged of the repetition. Whatever its stylistic demerits, this is a book which should interest anyone who feels, as I do, that both science and religion(or spirituality) offer crucial positive benefits to humanity; but that both tend to overstep their bounds in trying to negate the role of the other. Kafatos, a quantum physicist, harks back to the thinking of Niels Bohr, a primary founder of quantum theory, to try and reconcile this conflict between science and religion. To accomplish this, he explores and develops Bohr's concept of complementarity. Complementarity can be exemplified by the dual nature of light. If an experiment on the nature of light is performed in a certain way, light appears to be a waveform; if the conditions of the experiment are structured in a different way, then light may assume the form of a stream of particles, or photons. Kafatos argues that this principle of complementarity extends throughout all scales and aspects of the universe as comprehended by human understanding. Thus, the reductionist attempts of scientists to pin down any process of nature to just one all-defining theory will be frustrated; because the manner in which the experiments are set up and the mental framework of the scientist as determined by his cultural milieu will impinge on the form which the result assumes. This is not to say that Kafatos is a relativist, or that he is saying that science is a purely subjective exercise. He firmly asserts that he does believe there is such a thing as an objective reality. The problem, as he states it, is that the limits of our knowledge are bounded. The universe, as he conceives it, is totally a quantum universe. According to quantum theory, and as has been demonstrated in experiments, a seeming paradox that is observed between photons, or quanta, of light is that they maintain a relationship to one another at great distances(theoretically even if they were at opposite ends of the galaxy)so that when one photon is impacted in such a way as to change its orientation, its partner-at-a-distance is immediately affected in a corresponding manner. What this suggests to quantum physicists is not that this is some supernatural form of magic, but that contrary to appearances, quanta are not separate phenomena. They are rather, different manifestations of a wholeness which cannot be reduced to separate parts. The universe is a whole, and though it appears to our perceptions to be made up of discrete, unconnected objects, this is an illusion which is caused by the limitations of our ability to perceive the wholeness. This is also why the wave/particle duality of light cannot be resolved. Light is a part of the wholeness of the universe and its true nature contains both manifestations and transcends them. The perceptions of our consciousness being derived from quantum processes in the neurons of our brains, we are unable to escape the quantum "entanglement" that gives rise to complementarity; we can never rise above the limitations of our frame of reference and see the whole. Kafatos sees complementarity as pervading all aspects of existence,manifesting itself in other dualities as well as the wave /particle appearance of light. For instance; organic/inorganic, and science/religion. This quantum entanglement has a rather visionary implication for Kafatos. If all quanta in the universe are somehow intimately connected to one another, then our quantum generated consciousness must be a manifestation of the wholeness of the universe and, as such, part of a higher consciousness; that of the universe itself. What this consciousness is truly like, we have no way of fathoming. Any attempt at conceptualizing it must only result in an anthropomorphic picture. This does not mean that we should give up on either science or religion. The authors believe that humanity could benefit by finding common ground between the two disciplines. They are both ways of trying to experience the true nature of existence, like two sides of a coin. Science is a powerful tool for advancing knowledge, but in the last analysis, will always be an approximation. Religion, or spirituality, is an intuitive way of sensing the interconnectedness of all things in the universe; an interconnectedness which is an integral part of the science of quantum theory. A fusing of the scientific outlook with the spiritual could be the next step in the evolution of human consciousness. If this outline sounds oversimplistic, that is the fault of my presentation. The bulk of the book lays a thorough scientific groundwork(at least, as scientific as can be understood by laypeople, for this book was written for the non-scientist) based on the ideas of geniuses such as Einstein, Bohr, Schrodinger, and Heisenberg. Only in the final pages, after we have been adequately prepared, do we receive the authors' summation of this information into their concept of the conscious universe and the complementarity of science and religion. This is a profoundly thought-provoking book which examines the metaphysics behind scientific progress and points to a way out of the blind alley of materialistic reductionism.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great information, but often poor writing, December 24, 1997

By 

Nicholas Murphy (Minnesota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Conscious Universe: Part and Whole in Modern Physical Theory (Paperback)

I recently completed reading this book, and I have noticed that there is indeed a lot of good information in it. However, I must side with the one reviewer on the book's rather poor writing. Once you get past this, though, it is a good book.