In this Book
- The Universe, Life and Everything: Dialogues on our Changing Understanding of Reality
- Book
- 2017
- Published by: Amsterdam University Press
-
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
summary
Our current understanding of our world is nearly 350 years old. It stems from the ideas of Descartes and Newton and has brought us many great things, including modern science and increases in wealth, health and everyday living standards. Furthermore, it is so ingrained in our daily lives that we have forgotten it is a paradigm, not a fact. There are, however, some problems with it. First, there is no satisfactory explanation for why we have consciousness and experience meaning in our lives. Second, modern-day physics tells us that observations depend on characteristics of the observer at the large, cosmic, and small, subatomic scales. Third, ongoing humanitarian and environmental crises show us that our world is vastly interconnected. Our understanding of reality is expanding to incorporate these issues. In The Universe, Life and Everything . . . Dialogues on our Changing Understanding of Reality, some of the scholars at the forefront of this change, from the fields of physics, psychology, and social sciences, discuss the direction it is taking and its urgency.
Table of Contents
- Table of Contents
- pp. iv-v
- 1. What is reality?
- pp. 7-14
- 3. The paradox of language
- pp. 41-48
- 4. Is reality what we make it?
- pp. 49-60
- 6. The direction of change
- pp. 73-92
- Acknowledgements
- pp. 105-106
- References & further reading
- pp. 107-108
Additional Information
ISBN
9789048539055
Related ISBN(s)
9789462987401
MARC Record
OCLC
1178720889
Pages
120
Launched on MUSE
2020-07-28
Language
English
Open Access
Yes
Creative Commons
CC-BY-NC-ND
Copyright
2018