"The Self Aware Universe" by Amit Goswami

[stanley]

Everyone knows that matter is composed of tiny particles called molecules and that the properties of these building blocks determine all that we can see and touch as well as much that we can't. There are molecules of the one hundred or so elements on the periodic table and thousands of other more complex molecules that comprise myriads of different compounds of the basic elements. All molecules in turn are comprised of atoms, the building blocks of the building blocks, and atoms are themselves made up of infinitely smaller particles with names like "electron", "proton," and "neutron." Modern particle physicists with the aid of huge machines, cyclotrons, are busy bashing one particle against others in hopes of breaking off even more elementary particles one of which will prove to be the final tiniest building block of all. Our faith in science is such that most laymen and a lot of physicists expect that elusive particle to emerge and answer a host of questions about the ultimate nature of matter and the universe it inhabits.
Unfounded assumptions, asserts Amit Goswami, author of "The Self Aware Universe", a world class quantum physicist and writer of highly regarded physics texts used all over the world. Early in the work he mystifies the layman reader by declaring that there is no "scientific" reason for believing in building block materiality, that matter is not made of constituent particles, but rather that "... the ground of all being is consciousness..." It is consciousness itself that creates our world. Though I had only a dim notion of what Goswami, meant, I was fascinated by the idea and took it so seriously from the start that I looked to it for affirmation of my own notions about reality which go roughly like this: "My god, everything is thinking!"
Goswami, I'm sure would carefully qualify such a simplistic assumption as he does in his book by first carefully laying the ground work for understanding the history scientific thought. He starts with the ancient Greeks who early in the game proposed atoms as the granular components of matter, on up through Newton's laws of motion and assertions about time and space, (time is absolute and flows everywhere at the same rate everywhere in the universe and is entirely independent of space.) And from 'classical physics" to Einstein's relativity and then finally to quantum physics, both of which are nearly a century old, but are still so esoteric to laymen like me as to challenge common sense notions of reality.
With Goswami"s patient help it is possible for the mystified layman to consider the astonishing implications of current quantum thought by entertaining such questions as; Is every thing in the universe the simple result of some chain of cause and effect, how can effect precede cause? Is the velocity of light the ultimate speed limit after all? What is time and what is space. How is light both wavelike and particle like and yet neither? Why is absolute scientific objectivity not possible? Is it necessary or even valid to see scientific inquiry as the necessary division between observing subject and isolated object? How do the ways we ask the questions create the answers. How do we account for the startling parallels between current quantum thought and ancient Hindu and Buddhist texts?
If you'd like to know the answers to these and many other "modern" questions, including "in what way is consciousness the ground of all being?" Consider this book. "The Self Aware Universe." is written for lay readers but does not insult them by 'dumbing' down the text anymore than is necessary. I found this book at many points an easy and enjoyable read. At other points where experiments were described and dissected I had to think very hard, and came back again and again to study a difficult concept. If you want answers and enjoy a challenge to your accustomed habits of thought, You'll find "The self Aware Universe a book for revisiting again and again.

[sun300487]

This sounds super interesting!! Might have to look into it!