Equations of Eternity: Speculations On Consciousness Meaning and Mathematical Rules That Orchestrate the Cosmos - Hardcover

Darling, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1562828754 ISBN 13: 9781562828752

Publisher: Hyperion, 1993

Synopsis

A cosmological journey into the unknown world of inner space chronicles the history of human consciousness and the evolution of human intelligence and contemplates its unlimited future. By the author of Deep Time.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

In another speculative volume, Darling (Deep Time, 1989) foresees a grand and glorious future as he ponders the nature and destiny of humanity. With degrees in physics and astronomy, he's able to write knowledgeably, if glibly, about current conundrums and issues--so, in a sense, his latest offering serves to introduce readers to current ideas in cosmology, computer science, and evolution. But there are caveats. Darling writes didactically, without nuance. It's as if it were common consensus, for example, that the divisions of the brain are neat and simple: left for logic, right for feeling; that mathematics is neither discovered nor invented but resonates with reality; that the fundamental particles are the electron and quark; and that, at the level of quantum mechanics, it's the intervention of the observer that causes a ``fundamental, unknowable disturbance in the system.'' All this leads Darling to embrace the thesis that human consciousness is both necessary and sufficient for establishing reality. These are ideas that have been heard before in David Bohm, John Wheeler, and the proponents of the anthropic principle. Here, they're brought to apotheosis in a final anthropic principle in which the mind evolves, bodies fade, and some sort of universal consciousness arises and permeates the galaxies: That's the grand and glorious future. Meanwhile, a perverse thought keeps stirring: Isn't this solipsism turned inside out? -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

Darling ( Deep Time ) includes no equations and few fresh ideas in this fast-forward review of quantum physics and relativity. The precis of quantum mechanics is quite a good one for the general reader, which makes it all the more regrettable when Darling abandons real science in favor of florid speculation on a communal "cosmic consciousness" that would pack the house at a New Age weekend retreat. Having prepared his audience with a neat summary of the subatomic quantum world as we know it, Darling finally gets to his real interest: our possible super-evolution into a species of space-time architects, freed from the physical brain to travel through black holes to colonize the cosmos. Someone should send him a copy of Arthur C. Clark's Childhood's End.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hyperion
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 1562828754
• ISBN 13: 9781562828752
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208