Convincing arguments for “spiritual materialism” unlikely to disturb religious readers.
A scientist explains experiences that seem inexplicable.
Lightman, physicist, professor of the practice of humanities at MIT, and author of Einstein’s Dreams, is a materialist who believes that every phenomenon has a cause that originates in the physical universe. Even our feelings “are rooted in the material neurons of the nervous system and the electrical and chemical interactions between them.” Still, the author has also reveled in overwhelming feelings of awe, beauty, and a sense of connection with matters larger than himself, which he defines as “spirituality.” He denies that these can only be explained through mysterious occult forces. We experience them through the brain. This, he admits, puts him in the minority; 72% of Americans believe in heaven, 58% in hell, and nearly half in ghosts. Belief in a nonmaterial, ethereal world is deeply appealing because everyone knows that being alive is special and longs for permanence. No one can imagine not existing, and most of us are mesmerized by miracles; 79% of Americans believe in them. Never shy about tackling big, complex issues, Lightman devotes the first chapter to the soul: immaterial, invisible, and perfect in contrast to the flawed body. The soul is also eternal, and since most people believe that our selves don’t merely vanish when we die, even many nonreligious people believe in its existence. Lightman is skeptical, however. For most of the book, he argues that spiritual experiences emerge from a high level of consciousness and intelligence. One expert feels that consciousness is just another word for paying attention, which scientists are beginning to describe in terms of electrical and chemical activity in the brain. Lightman urges readers to accept a scientific view of the world while embracing experiences that cannot be understood by material underpinnings. We need to balance a yearning to know how the world works with a willingness to surrender ourselves to things we may not fully comprehend.
Convincing arguments for “spiritual materialism” unlikely to disturb religious readers.Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 9780593317419
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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