The Universe In A Single Atom Pdf Download
The Universe in a Single Cantlet: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality , , Morgan Road Books, New York, 2005. $24.95 (216 pp.). ISBN 0-7679-2066-Ten Buy at Amazon
Last November, amid some controversy, Tenzin Gyatso, Dalai Lama XIV, addressed more than 10 000 scientists at the Society for Neuroscience's almanac meeting in Washington, DC. He spoke about recent developments in the "neuroscience of meditation" and the ethical implications of science. The Dalai Lama's talk was the nigh recent instance of his lifelong interest in science, a story engagingly told in his The Universe in a Unmarried Cantlet: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality.
The Dalai Lama articulates the need for what he terms an "urgent date" betwixt Buddhist philosophy and science. He writes that both traditions seek to reduce human suffering, but each uses complementary methods: Science labors to understand and to principal the outer conditions of humanity; Buddhist philosophy seeks insight into and mastery over the inner causes of suffering. Both are necessary in his view, and society can but benefit by an open and sustained dialog between the 2 traditions.
In the book one reads about the Dalai Lama'due south childhood fascination with
watches, and
in a Tibet that, outside the Potala Palace where he lived, lacked all modern machines. Every bit a child it seems he was unique in his marvel concerning Western science and
His flight from an occupying Chinese army in 1959 brought him squarely into a contemporary Indian society that was fast becoming a
sophisticated civilisation, a fact that impressed him mightily. As both the temporal and spiritual leader of the Tibetan government in exile, the Dalai Lama traveled widely, and he sought out scientists for conversations, both technical and philosophical. For example, he spoke often with Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker and David Bohm, each of whom became his friend and mentor and whom he describes with great appreciation. By the mid-1980s, he had also begun extensive conversations with neuroscientist Francisco Varela, who in 1987 organized the first of a dozen Mind and Life discussions in which 5 or vi scientists would meet with the Dalai Lama for an intensive five-day exchange concerning important topics at the intersection of science and philosophy. I have been part of several of these remarkable meetings, most actively in those dealing with physics and
The Universe in a Unmarried Cantlet is the fruit of those many Mind and Life dialogs, besides as conversations with scientists during his travels.
Varela recognized that Buddhist meditative introspection could offering an of import complementary perspective to that granted by conventional 3rd-person methods of investigating the mind that are common to Western
In cognitive
the combination of Buddhist meditative introspection and Western
has been remarkably fruitful, with experiments running at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Princeton Academy, Harvard Academy, and the San Francisco and San Diego campuses of the Academy of California that tin can be traced dorsum to the Dalai Lama dialogs.
Not until 1997 did a Mind and Life dialog on physics and
have place, for which I was the scientific organizer. Since so, attendees Anton Zeilinger, Steven Chu, Piet Hut, George Greenstein, David Finkelstein, and others have worked with the Dalai Lama, explaining the subtleties of
and astrophysics—likewise equally debating their philosophical implications. The Dalai Lama'south special interest in mod physics stems from the manner in which it challenges naive views of reality. How should we as a gild conceptualize reality, and what is the appropriate philosophical attitude toward
and their primitives? The disquisitional analysis of reality advanced by Buddhism is primarily philosophical, not empirical. Information technology argues confronting naive realism or an immutable independent reality, and for what Buddhists term "emptiness." For example, to the Dalai Lama, the problem of ascertainment in
appears as "resonant" with the logical arguments of Buddhist philosophy, particularly the Prasangika school's view of co-dependent origination. And the property of
resonates with the Buddhist concept of interdependence. He considers such exchanges every bit genuine aids to a deeper understanding of reality, thus becoming a ground for the mitigation of suffering.
I expect that many scientists will approach the volume with skepticism. What tin can one learn that is relevant to science from the leader of a world religion? Some Mind and Life participants arrive at the dialog sessions with such an attitude, merely the Dalai Lama quickly establishes his openness to well-reasoned arguments and data, fifty-fifty if it entails abandoning long-established Buddhist doctrine. His enthusiasm for science and its contributions to society is genuine, but he distinguishes betwixt the findings of science and the philosophical position of scientific materialism. Not surprisingly, he rejects the latter in favor of a fuller view of reality, a view I share.
The Universe in a Single Atom is an of import exemplar of open up-minded engagement between different intellectual traditions, an engagement that enriches our shrinking planet. The Dalai Lama, like us
recognizes the powerful office that science has had and continues to play in shaping the world. He has listened and learned much from those scientists who have generously given their time to working with him. He has repaid the states with a thoughtful and challenging book that I believe will become a minor classic in the dialog between science and religion.
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