Since the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859, many have found science and belief in God irreconcilable. Now, in the final decade of the twentieth century, stunning advances in physics, biology, and the new fields of chaos and complexity have brought the conflict to a crucial stage. More and more, scientists have begun to look for a single fundamental law or truth that underlies the beginning of the universe and its continued existence. But can we truly find either God or a scientific theory that will erase once and for all the notion of God? This strikingly original book…mehr
Since the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859, many have found science and belief in God irreconcilable. Now, in the final decade of the twentieth century, stunning advances in physics, biology, and the new fields of chaos and complexity have brought the conflict to a crucial stage. More and more, scientists have begun to look for a single fundamental law or truth that underlies the beginning of the universe and its continued existence. But can we truly find either God or a scientific theory that will erase once and for all the notion of God? This strikingly original book expertly yet clearly encapsulates the various cosmological arguments from science, religion, and philosophy for the nonspecialist. Called "a brilliant intermediary between the thinking of the physicist and the thinking of ordinary people" by a German radio commentator, Kitty Ferguson provides a tour de force review of the modern search for fundamental truth, writing in simple, readable prose and using relevant analogies. The result is a provocative, sometimes mind-bending challenge to reconsider the way we think about ourselves, our origin, and our destiny. Moving beyond Stephen Hawking's quest (in A Brief History of Time) "to know the mind of God", Ferguson takes us one step nearer the answer to science's ultimate question: What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?Hinweis: Dieser Artikel kann nur an eine deutsche Lieferadresse ausgeliefert werden.
First Edition, First Edition, First Edition, 1 edition
Seitenzahl: 308
Erscheinungstermin: 8. Juni 2004
Englisch
Abmessung: 229mm x 151mm x 25mm
Gewicht: 503g
ISBN-13: 9781932031676
ISBN-10: 1932031677
Artikelnr.: 21387458
Herstellerkennzeichnung
Libri GmbH
Europaallee 1
36244 Bad Hersfeld
06621 890
Autorenporträt
Kitty Ferguson, a former professional musician with a life long interest in science, is an independent scholar and lecturer who lives in Cambridge, England, and South Carolina. She has also written the best-selling books Black Holes in Space Time and Stephen Hawking: Quest for a Theory of Everything.
Inhaltsangabe
Preface / xi A Word about Inclusive Language / xiv Acknowledgments / xv 1 ‘They Buried Him in Westminster Abbey’ / 1 2 Seeing Things / 4 Is the rational universe an illusion? / 12 ‘In Nature’s infinite book of mysteries . . .can we read very much at all? / 19 Is objective reality a mirage? / 25 Are we really free agents? / 30 Is the universe a uni-verse? / 33 3 Almost Objective / 35 Where is fancy bred? / 37 The spectacles-behind-the-eyes / 44 The muse of science: Is truth beautiful? / 59 Does truth surpass proof? / 63 The elite of science / 66 The spirit of the times / 69 The essential Godlessness of science / 73 At the limits of scientific truth / 78 First steps beyond the mind’s-eye view / 80 Is there anything else? / 81 The insidiousness of God / 86 The morality of science: Is truth good? / 87 4 Romancing the Creation / 89 The uncomfortable concept of a beginning / 90 The Gordian knot of singularity / 102 The magic of imaginary time / 108 The pulsing universe and the arrow of entropy / 117 The mysterious wobbling of nothingness / 123 ‘Reality (whatever that may be)’ / 126 Reality in the absence of apples / 129 What place for a creator? / 134 The third candidate / 137 The mother of all chicken-and-egg stories / 139 5 The Elusive Mind of God / 143 God as the embodiment of the laws of physics / 145 A presence behind the process 146 The leap to purpose: The God who wishes to drink tea / 147 The watchmaker / 149 The universe as a ‘put-up job’ / 163 Second Gordian knot: The anthropic principle / 164 Hacking at the second Gordian knot / 166 The inflationary universe / 167 Baby universes to the rescue! / 171 Not the ether again! 173 The longing of Johannes Kepler / 178 The fiddler on the roof / 184 6 The God of Abraham and Jesus / 185 The law-breaker / 189 The hard edge of legalism / 191 The soft underbelly of legalism / 195 The death of the God of the Gaps / 204 Chaos meets Control 205 ‘Top-down’ determinism? / 221 ‘I AM’ / 225 When truths collide / 228 The ultimate self-confirming hypothesis / 231 The masterful use of parallel perfect fifths / 234 Who is the ‘I’ in ‘I AM’? / 239 7 Inadmissible Evidence / 241 Public vs. private knowledge / 242 Admissible evidence? / 245 The spectacles-behind-the-eyes, revisited / 246 The cloud of witnesses / 247 A game of ‘I Doubt It’ / 251 The Lucy problem / 253 ‘I should not believe such a story were it told me by Cato!’ / 254 ‘The Invincible Ignorance of Science’ / 259 ‘For the Bible tells me so’—the evidence of scripture / 260 Is there proof in the pudding? The evidence of results / 263 Armchair truth: The argument from reason / 266 The argument from explanatory power / 270 The argument from nature / 274 The argument from availability / 277 8 Theory of Everything . . . Mind of God / 279 Notes / 284 Bibliography / 293 Index / 301 Back to Tabs
Preface / xi A Word about Inclusive Language / xiv Acknowledgments / xv 1 ‘They Buried Him in Westminster Abbey’ / 1 2 Seeing Things / 4 Is the rational universe an illusion? / 12 ‘In Nature’s infinite book of mysteries . . .can we read very much at all? / 19 Is objective reality a mirage? / 25 Are we really free agents? / 30 Is the universe a uni-verse? / 33 3 Almost Objective / 35 Where is fancy bred? / 37 The spectacles-behind-the-eyes / 44 The muse of science: Is truth beautiful? / 59 Does truth surpass proof? / 63 The elite of science / 66 The spirit of the times / 69 The essential Godlessness of science / 73 At the limits of scientific truth / 78 First steps beyond the mind’s-eye view / 80 Is there anything else? / 81 The insidiousness of God / 86 The morality of science: Is truth good? / 87 4 Romancing the Creation / 89 The uncomfortable concept of a beginning / 90 The Gordian knot of singularity / 102 The magic of imaginary time / 108 The pulsing universe and the arrow of entropy / 117 The mysterious wobbling of nothingness / 123 ‘Reality (whatever that may be)’ / 126 Reality in the absence of apples / 129 What place for a creator? / 134 The third candidate / 137 The mother of all chicken-and-egg stories / 139 5 The Elusive Mind of God / 143 God as the embodiment of the laws of physics / 145 A presence behind the process 146 The leap to purpose: The God who wishes to drink tea / 147 The watchmaker / 149 The universe as a ‘put-up job’ / 163 Second Gordian knot: The anthropic principle / 164 Hacking at the second Gordian knot / 166 The inflationary universe / 167 Baby universes to the rescue! / 171 Not the ether again! 173 The longing of Johannes Kepler / 178 The fiddler on the roof / 184 6 The God of Abraham and Jesus / 185 The law-breaker / 189 The hard edge of legalism / 191 The soft underbelly of legalism / 195 The death of the God of the Gaps / 204 Chaos meets Control 205 ‘Top-down’ determinism? / 221 ‘I AM’ / 225 When truths collide / 228 The ultimate self-confirming hypothesis / 231 The masterful use of parallel perfect fifths / 234 Who is the ‘I’ in ‘I AM’? / 239 7 Inadmissible Evidence / 241 Public vs. private knowledge / 242 Admissible evidence? / 245 The spectacles-behind-the-eyes, revisited / 246 The cloud of witnesses / 247 A game of ‘I Doubt It’ / 251 The Lucy problem / 253 ‘I should not believe such a story were it told me by Cato!’ / 254 ‘The Invincible Ignorance of Science’ / 259 ‘For the Bible tells me so’—the evidence of scripture / 260 Is there proof in the pudding? The evidence of results / 263 Armchair truth: The argument from reason / 266 The argument from explanatory power / 270 The argument from nature / 274 The argument from availability / 277 8 Theory of Everything . . . Mind of God / 279 Notes / 284 Bibliography / 293 Index / 301 Back to Tabs
Es gelten unsere Allgemeinen Geschäftsbedingungen: www.buecher.de/agb
Impressum
www.buecher.de ist ein Internetauftritt der buecher.de internetstores GmbH
Geschäftsführung: Monica Sawhney | Roland Kölbl | Günter Hilger
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Batheyer Straße 115 - 117, 58099 Hagen
Postanschrift: Bürgermeister-Wegele-Str. 12, 86167 Augsburg
Amtsgericht Hagen HRB 13257
Steuernummer: 321/5800/1497
USt-IdNr: DE450055826