The Quantum Self (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Several quite good popular accounts of quantum physics have been published in recent years..." (more)
Key Phrases: quantum hussy, greater ordered coherence, neuron cell walls, David Bohm, Ilya Prigogine, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The authors of this heady discourse seek nothing less than a physics of human consciousness grounded in quantum mechanics. British philosopher Zohar and her husband, Marshall, a psychiatrist, argue that consciouness arises through the interaction of the fundamental building-blocks of mind (photons, virtual photons) and of matter (electrons, protons, neutrons). Out of the "correlated jiggling of molecules in neuron cell walls" (i.e., Bose-Einstein condensates), a human self emerges that is integrally linked to other selves, much as two particles, though light-years apart, may interact. Quantum physics, more than a metaphor, is used here as an explanatory tool, a means to help us go beyond the isolation and narcissism of modern culture. The authors take a perilous speculative leap from a recognition of the creativity built into all living systems to "our selves as co-authors of the world." Illustrated.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

In The Quantum Self, Danah Zohar argues that the insights of modem physics can illuminate our understanding of everyday life -- our relationships to ourselves, to others, and to the world at large. Guiding us through the strange and fascinating workings of the subatomic realm to create a new model of human consciousness, the author addresses enduring philosophical questions. Does the new physics provide a basis by which our consciousness might continue beyond death? How does the material world (for instance, ugly inner cities) impinge upon our sense of self? Is there a subatomic wellspring from which our creativity, our empathy with others, and our feelings of unity with the inanimate world originate?

Most important, Zohar shows how the vitality of the new physics combats the alienation and fragmentation of twentieth-century life, and replaces it with a model of reality in which the universe itself may possess a type of consciousness, of which human consciousness is one expression.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (May 24, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688107362
• ISBN-13: 978-0688107369
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #413,755 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and well-written, April 14, 1998

By	[e-mail] (College Park, MD, USA) - See all my reviews

This book is a must for anyone having an acquaintance with the puzzles posed by quantum theory and a sense that they might have something to do with consciousness, but that the ideas posed so far in answering such questions are inadequate. Zohar's intriguing thesis is that subjective awareness arises directly from quantum processes and that the wave-particle duality (or unity, as Yilmaz calls it) of quantum theory underlies the mind-body duality (or unity) familiar to all of us raised in the Cartesian tradition.

My only criticism is that Zohar engages in the all-too-familiar Newton- and Descartes-bashing that has become so popular lately. If one reads Newton's original writings, it is clear that he is not advocating a mechanistic world view but only a method of inquiry in which "formal causes" (as Aristotle would say) are substituted for attempts to find material and final causes. Thus mathematical relationships, rather than purposes and specific qualities of physical objects, became primary in Newton's method. It was in virtue of this insight that the new physics ever become possible at all. Similarly, it is the analytical techniques that Descartes pioneered which have made possible the discoveries that Zohar interprets so compellingly. That criticism aside, this is an excellent book with a revolutionary idea that deserves to be taken seriously.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Ideas, needs stronger scientific background, March 26, 2002

By	Matthew E. Bowes (Kent, OH United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The idea of trying to define consciousness and understand it in a scientific context is something I'm highly interested in. This book has some great ideas which I find highly intriguing, but to be convincing the author needs a stronger foundaiton in science. For instance, she constantly refers to neurons as having "cell walls", but a freshman college science major would no that no animal cell has a cell wall, period. This leads me to wonder how informed Zohar may be on the other scientific issues, such as physics, in this book. That sais, I think she's on the right track, and thinking about the subject in the proper way. But i think we need to look for more authoritative scientific sources on the subject, such as Roger Penrose...

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Paradigm Shift, December 19, 1999

By	J. Goodman - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Zohar effectively breaks out of Conventional Wisdom's monologue on human consciousness with her "Quantum Self". It is sometimes a difficult task to use the language of today's thought to describe tomorrow's. It is understandable, therefore, when Zohar dips into her personal stash of religious metaphors to describe a world that is decidedly metaphysical.

A few religious references may come as an unpleasant surprise at first read, to the self-described universalist, but an open-minded reader will easily see the broader truths being espoused without marriage to a specific western or eastern point of view. It is impossible to stop an idea whose time has come. This book takes us a step closer to a unifying theory of consciousness, matter, and phases of existence.