Customer Reviews

The SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE: How Quantum Physics Proves the Existence of the Soul

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If this book is accepted, it could be revolutionary. A masterpiece--talk about uniting Science and Religion!!! By the time you read just the first chapter your mouth will water for more as you wonder, "By the time I finish this will I finally have an answer to the eternal burning questions?" Well, you will have Fred Alan Wolf's answer, to God, the soul, existence, and so on. He had some difficulty and struggle to write a SCIENTIFIC account of the soul. Science is supposed to only deal with things that can be sensed and directly observed, isn't it? So what place does it have on the soul other than maybe denying its existence? Well, we've never found the soul because we've been asking the wrong questions. We have the wrong idea about the "ghost in the machine." We have the wrong conceptions about many things, Soul, Matter, Self, Conciousness, all different, though related, phenomena. He gives a tour through all past contemplations on the nature of the soul's physics. It starts off with a juxtaposition of Thomas Aquinas' and Aristotles' soulish ideas. Then it goes from Plato, to ancient Egypt, to the Qabala. (Providing us with a modern quantum physics interpretation of the Eden story) Fred not only turns to modern science theories, but also Buddhist teachings. The two fields of knowledge on agree on much more than you would ever think. Even the Dalai Lama has said that it could be possible for a soul to incarnate a computer!! Now, I'm not exactly scientifically inclined... and alot of the chapters were deep material for me to comprehend. I never studied quantum mechanics or anything, but this all depends on your own scientific understandings. Some of it may be over your head, but maybe not then again I was up late pretty tired while reading it, Hehe. But he doesn't obfuscate anything, it will nevertheless will be very interesting. (all kinds of stuff, Zero point energy, the Dirac Sea, antimatter) Once it delves more into the Zen Buddhism which he extols, there is alot of soul philosophy. Seeing that everyone is in the illusory cycle of suffering, and that we lose contact with our souls through material addictions...to the point where we don't differentiate the self and the soul. (Which are more like reflections of one another) Such is the nature of Maya. He shows us that there is no plurality to consciousness. There is really only one soul and consciousness, the mind of God, from which we all arise.

This book is DEFINITELY worth your time. And if you don't gain anything else, one thing will atleast be the most unique theory you've every heard, in the chapter titled "Resurrection Physics."1

Fred Alan Wolf (born 1934) is an American theoretical physicist (and former physics professor at San Diego State University) specializing in quantum physics and the relationship between physics and consciousness. He has helped popularize science on the Discovery Channel, and has produced a number of audio and video presentations (e.g., Dr. Fred Alan Wolf: The Secret of the Law of Attraction 1: The Big Bang Within You, Spirit Space; A Journey Into Your Consciousness, Dr. Quantum Presents: A User's Guide to the Universe, Dr. Quantum Presents: Meet the Real Creator--You!, Dr. Quantum Presents Do-It-Yourself Time Travel (Sounds True Audio Learning Course), etc.) He has also written books such as Time Loops and Space Twists: How God Created the Universe, Mind into Matter: A New Alchemy of Science and Spirit, Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists, Dr. Quantum's Little Book Of Big Ideas: Where Science Meets Spirit, etc.

He wrote in the Introduction to this 1996 book, "I wish to show that the self is fundamentally an illusion arising as a reflection of the soul in matter much as a clear lake at midnight reflects the moon. At the same time, the soul is not an illusion, although it is a reflection of spirit... One goal of this book is to show how the concept of self differs vitally from the soul. To do this will require us to venture on a journey of soul-deconstruction and reconstruction, moving backward and forward through time and history." (Pg. 28)

Here are some additional quotations from the book:

"My scientific mind habitually takes over, and I become skeptical and unfeeling. But my path in this life is through the mind and my intuition. So I have to work to gain subjective insight that is heartfelt as much as most nonscientists may have to work to gain objective scientific knowledge." (Pg. 23)

"So the early Bible writers would be in a predicament. How can what can't be described be conveyed as a teaching? The answer was to base the Bible in an arcane language with hidden meaning that could only be appreciated through work and study." (Pg. 101)

"Consequently, addiction cannot be cured without considering the spiritual dimension of human beings. We need to grasp that desire for a material form is the root cause of any and all addictions." (Pg. 196)

"When the self talks to the soul, the box expands. In such a moment the self feels release from tension and in self-less-communion with God and all sentient life forms in the universe. Buddhists call this Nirvana. Christians call it Faith or Consciousness of God. I call it realized compassion." (Pg. 298)

"A soulless world is nearly unthinkable, but the danger of the world becoming this way is always present. Soul awareness must be borught into the intellectual world of science." (Pg. 308)

I bought this as a gift for my father. He's reading it now and really enjoys it. He says it's pretty deep and not a book you can just pick up and read anytime...you have to sit and think about what's written.

I have to agree with the "hacibey" and Parker reviews here for the most part.

I'm going to start off by saying this is a valiant effort on Mr. Wolf's part. But it falls flat.

The single most valuable contribution this book makes is that it opens your eyes to how utterly lame all speculation on the soul has been since Plato and Aristotle to the present theories of quantum mechanics and uncertainty that are being used today to understand spiritual matters. All religion, from Buddhism to Judaism, Hindusim, Christianity etc. and all belief systems that attempt to account for the mysteries of life, what the soul is, what spirit is, what happens after death, are pure speculation.

Mr. Wolf tries to synthesize these concepts stretching back thousands of years into a logical, rational pattern that has fundamental meaning. But its all just more speculation.

In fact, its all bull.

Each belief system has perhaps, some small core elements of truth to it. But this probably is as much a result of random chance as it is actual insight into these things.

Want to know what the soul really is? Want to know what happens to you after death? Want to know what heaven and hell really entail? There is one simple solution to finding out the ultimate answer to all these questions.

Die.

Eventually, we will all know one way or the other.

Until then, in the words of Nikita Kruschev, "Life is short. Live it up."

Trying to understand the reality of what exists beyond existence is, to put it politely, beyond our pay grade.

I will admit to reading the entire book, hoping for some revelation at some point. But the farther I got into it the more angry and frustrated I became at Mr. Wolf's groundless assertions. Again, he makes a valiant effort here, but he's drawing conclusions without any facts. The evidence we have for what happens beyond the physical plane, beyond death, can be used to draw many different conclusions. Humanity's diverse, conflicting beliefs are an example of this.

And in my view, they are all wrong, including this one.

I write very few reviews on Amazon. But I felt this book deserved a cautionary note for anyone picking it up and hoping to find answers to the age old questions. You won't find them here. You'll find more opinions, preached to you as FACT, as so many "authorities" in our world attempt to do today...

I wonder if Mr. Wolf himself still buys into these ideas, 15 years after writing the book? I doubt he follows much of it himself any more...unless its making him a lot of money in speaking engagements...

-------------------

October, 2011:

Upon second thought I have to admit that this book is a valid way of looking at the "spiritual" world or afterlife from an atheistic or agnostic point of view. So if a reader comes to it with that point of view in mind, it likely makes a lot of good intuitive sense scientifically.

I support and applaud anyone that tries to further scientific understanding. I just don't think that the non-physical, spiritual realm is one where science can speak with any authority. Its beyond science. I think the esoteric views of Buddhism describe the realm beyond the physical better than science ever can, and I'm not a proponent of Buddhism as it doesn't espouse a belief in God...

So this book is a mixed blessing depending on your point of view when reading it. I found it personally alienating and a cold analysis of things near and dear to most people's hearts. But that's just me.

Gives good insight into the Grand Truth of the origin of everything - the Universe(s), Life, Soul, Spirit, God.. from 2 perspectives - Quantum Physics & Budhism. How "Everything" is created from "Nothing" by mere reflection of "Opposites" which is the fundamental Truth held in Budhism. This is done in a pretty good convincing way. The culmination of science (observation & logic) and religion (mysticism) is going to be SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT INVESTIGATION INTO THE ULTIMATE TRUTH FOR EVER..THE GRAND UNIFICATION THEORY for Science which is indeed the MOST IMPORTANT INVESTIGATION for Science is only a stepping stone to understand the Grander and much wider ULTIMATE TRUTH about everything.. This is one of the many, many books being made available in this greatest area of research and it is a pretty good one.

I hoped this book will give me more solid response to questions I had about the soul, mind etc but I think it is more like anthromorphism. There are assumptions that seem to be taken as definite such as closed end cosmolgy, separation of body and soul or mind which is controversial. The idea of soul is mainly built upon collapse of wave function or rather conciousness. I was intrigued that when a robot tests something it could be registering of both results ie, the wave function does not collapse if it is a robot doing the measurement. there is proof of uniqness of the soul in the creation, that is difficult to comprehend i read it many times but the result is interesting, there goes judea-Christian belief and comes Buddha. It is a book that you should read back and forth many times and contemplate, it is worthed and also read Descrates Error.

This book was recommended to me by a long-time Alcoholics Anonymous member who is very interested in spirituality. I was therefore very disappointed when, after an interesting exposition of Aristotle and Plato's views on the soul, the author went off on a rampage through ancient Egyptian beliefs, the Qabala, Frank Tipler and "The Physics of Immortality", the Big Bang and the Big Crunch, the Self vs. the Soul, the Buddha and his teachings, Hermes the trickster, ch'i and yin and yang, Kepler, Jung, and Pauli. Somewhere early on in this mess he casually states that he has proven that individual souls don't exist and there is only one cosmic soul which is mysteriously linked with the vacuum of space (which in quantum physics is an active place). His assertions about quantum physics seem to agree with other material I have read but his explanations of how they connect to or illustrate the existence of the Soul are not persuasive. This book suffers from Cosmic Allness. Spare yourself a New Age mindache and take a pass.