Science “popularizing” doesn’t get much more comprehensible, or provocative, than this.
At the junctures of science and philosophy, the real world takes shape.
Throughout history, humanity has repeatedly discovered that the world is much larger and more diverse than previously thought. Danielsson, a professor at Sweden’s Uppsala University with specialties in string theory and cosmology, believes this is no less the case today and that we have only begun to grasp the nature of our own world and the larger universe(s). For all its scientific detail and speculation, this engrossing book is a closely reasoned critique of competing philosophies on the nature of consciousness, free will, and physical reality. Danielsson brings an unusually broad grasp of science and philosophy to bear in evaluating—and, in many cases, dispensing with—erroneous ideas about the world, and he is never less than evenhanded in addressing those theories—some enshrined in the cultural imagination—that are demonstrably untrue. A lucid introduction by Carlos Fiolhais, professor of physics at the University of Coimbra, sets the stage for Danielsson’s persuasive argument, which uses as its starting point the view that physics is the “mother” science that strives to explicate and define the real world. In this framework, it is about observation and testing as opposed to the incorporeal or spiritual mysteries that even some distinguished colleagues propound, dualistic notions on reality that are little different from religious belief. Danielsson’s message is clear: Do not mistake our evolving descriptions of the world, which are simply attempts to represent it, with the world itself. Mathematical models, however useful, are not the same as the real world. Computers do not think. Free will and determinism are both illusions. There is no consciousness separate from the body. Danielsson’s clarity of thought and expression and his use of illuminating literary and historical references are equal to the quality of his writing.
Science “popularizing” doesn’t get much more comprehensible, or provocative, than this.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2023
ISBN: 9781954276116
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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