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Title: Masks of the Universe : Changing Ideas on the Nature of the Cosmos by Edward Harrison ISBN: 0-521-77351-2 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 08 May, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.25 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Awesome Humility
Comment: I feel contempt for the hubris that often accompanies a comparison of scientific and pre-scientific (i.e. religious) world views. There is no reason for contempt with Edward Harrison's awesome humility. The distinction Harrison makes between a conceptual model of the Universe (which is designated by the initial lower case 'u') and the actual Universe itself (capital 'U'), proves to be very practical. By explicitly preserving the mystery of the Universe, a new perspective on the old conundrums of free-will and determinism as well as consciousness and brains is gained. Because he looks at our underlying assumptions, the book has a philosophical character to it.
The majority of the book is divided into three sections, each with six chapters. The first section deals with the various world-views in chronological order, not a history of the Universe, but a history of universes. The second section deals with the contemporary scientific view. I don't have much alacrity for science writing - popular or otherwise - but this was an exceptional case. He covered many things I have only a vague idea about such as quantum theory, special and general theories of relativity, the anthropic principle etc. It was the final section that I was most excited about. Harrison deals with some problems that have vexed me for quite some time. I especially like his commentary on the brain and Ultima Sentiens. I would recommend this book over the Huston Smith's Why Religion Matters on matters of religion and science. He deals with agnosticism wonderfully, and he makes it explicit that his thinking about God is not pantheism. He doesn't use the word himself, but I think the word "panentheism" is a closer match to what Harrison suggests.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in world-views and issues between science and religion.
Rating: 3
Summary: a step in the right direction...
Comment: If we define each self-absorbed individual as inhabiting his/her own universe (small 'u'), then individual universes stand in a relationship to the Universe (big 'u') to the best of our estimation. We can't ever get a perfect match, but we do the best we can.
In a parallel process, in each individual universe, the person struggles to formulate a concept of god (small 'g') to the best of his/her estimation. This god then stands in relation to God (big 'g'). We can't get this match perfect either, but, again, we do the best we can.
In otherwords, Prof. Harrison provides a substitute for traditional religious doctrine by providing one of his own. As he points out in the book, it is basically Spinoza's doctrine updated for modern readers. It is a religion in which God vanishes into natural background.
If you want a substitute for your formal religion, but just can't make the leap to secular reality, then this book may provide a welcome cushion. Or maybe just a resting place.
Rating: 4
Summary: Do no over look cases of gods, God, universes, & Universe
Comment: This book touches on the subject of many different universes. Now, when you hear this you might automatically think I'm talking about the Hugh Everett's many-worlds-interpretation of quantum mechanics. Whereas the infinite universes of that idea are taken to be the objective universes of a Universe (the multiverse), Edward Harrison is talking about the universes taken to be the subjective universes (of our creating) of The Universe. (ultimate objective reality, perhaps even the multiverse)
He does not have any comforting truths about the Universe found here. He aims to show us that we strive to reach such absolutes from a cloud of unknowing and instead create our own limited models of The Universe--universes. The first chunk of his work is devoted to tracing the history of such universes. These cosmologies are as such: The Magic Universe, The Mythic Universe, The Geometric Universe, The Medieval Universe, The Infinite Universe, and The Mechanistic Universe. Thus this concatenation is also deeply intertwined with our religions and spiritual evolution. Also, it is blatant that with each new picture of reality the universe becomes more mechanistic, less alive, and always contains some "mythology" of the previous one.
[pp.40 "a myth is any component taken from the world-view of another society that fails to fit naturally into our own."
pp.117 "At last we come to the twentieth century. Adrift like shipwrecked mariners, in a vast and meaningless mechanistic universe, we are found clingin for life to the cosmic wreckage of ancient universes."]
The middle fraction of his book introduces some of the ideas of modern physics from the quantum dance of subatomic particles, to a treatise on general relativity and understanding the curvature of space time as the gravity of the outdated Newtonian universe. It then proceeds to expose a less rational universe that was left out of the pantheon of the original chapters--The Witch Universe. With this perspective of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance he ties into the question of what is valid science by using Popper's philosophy of falsifiable facts.
This all leads into his final message about The Universe, the Absolute Reality. We aim to know it by creating universes, but that The Universe remains unknowable. He thinks exactly the same of God. We aim to know "him" by creating gods, but God remains truly unknowable. He offers valuable scientific insight against these gods of classical theism and divine intervention or special creation, but claims that the true "God" is still beyond doubt since both God and The Universe are the same inconceivable Ultimate Reality. ( since The Universe no doubt is real, and he equates that reality with God, thus creating a simple theosyllogism ) But then shouldn't "gods" and "universes" be pictures of the same thing? They clearly aren't. (yet he says they can be equated, if we wish to, on pp.267) YHWH doesn't equal quantum mechanics. Though he has acknowledged that gods and universes are confused with absolute truth, my point is that this means little when you have changed the definition of God so much from external anthromopomorhized beings to the sum of all that is--or--The Universe. (I suppose you could equally change the definition of Satan to The Universe and say that Satan no doubt exists.) Though I understand his idea and the reasons why it is embraced ( I used to profess the same thing ), I have realized that it is too much of a misnomer for me to still say that, "I believe there exists a God." Not that it is quite illogical or absurd, but only that I think it is pointless to say that anyone who believes in the universe before them believes in the "existence" of God. (So was Carl Sagan unknowingly a theist?) It is pointless in the paradigm of classical theism, something which is irrational and even absurd. I do not think this idea should be used until you can change the people's view to this paradigm of Absolute Reality (which is in itself a "universe") since in the meantime God is taken in the widespread context of classical theism. Why perpetuate theistic thinking at all when all you have really done is taken the word "God" away from the essence of theism and applied it to a new definition of something we already have a name for--The Universe. ?
This was a highly enjoyed and appreciable book that I would not refuse to recommend (though I don't make it incumbent on the reader) yet in the end he makes the flaw of constructing his own universe of "The Universe". He even said himself "I hold that it is impossible to find proof of the existence of God within the framework of a particular universe, for all universes are the handiwork of human beings."---pp.263
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Title: Grammars of Creation by George Steiner ISBN: 0300097298 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Book of the Cosmos by Dennis Richard Danielson, Dennis Danielson ISBN: 0738204986 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: 15 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Art, Creativity, and the Sacred: An Anthology in Religion and Art by Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, Diane Apostolos Cappadona ISBN: 082640829X Publisher: Continuum Pub. Date: September, 1995 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Galaxies and the Cosmic Frontier : by William H. Waller, Paul W. Hodge ISBN: 0674010795 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: May, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Atkins' Molecules by Peter Atkins ISBN: 0521535360 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 25 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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