Rating: 
Summary: Great re-thinking of the implications of quantum physics!
Review:
Most books that explore the intersection between science and spirituality seem to be written by non-scientists who explain some basic scientific principles and then extrapolate wildly to support their spiritual viewpoint.Goswami, a physics professor, approaches it from the other direction. He carefully lays out a scientific theory - essentially that matter is a phenomina of consciousness rather than vice versa. In the process he navigates through various topics in physics, mathematics, religion, and philosophy in order to provide the necessary components for us to get a grip on his theory of "monistic idealism" which he proposes as an alternative to the current "material realism" (matter is all that is real) which pervades scientific thought today. I don't want to imply that I'm stupid, but the only fault I found with the book was that much of his jargon and scientific references went right over my head - so I came away with a good understanding of his theory, but also with the impression that much of it's depth and subtlties were lost on me. I'm not sure how this book was received by the author's peers (if at all) but he impressed me as a "blow-the-lid-off-the-subject" type of scientist who is willing to ruffle feathers and push beyond the traditional limitations of his field to integrate various disciplines in a search for a truth that doesn't just look right on paper but also jives with human experience and the soul. Well worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: MATTER, MIND and DESTINY
Review:
Review by:
David S. Devor
Exec. Director, Project Mind Foundation
http://www.webscope.com/project_mind/project_mind.html
Copyright 1995 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. If the matter/mind, science/spirit question interests you, this is
a book you should read. It is rich in fact, observation and
speculation and constitutes a serious contribution to the new
proliferation of books attempting to bridge temporal and
transcendent worlds. If you are not a physics buff and yet are a
little familiar with popular notions of quantum mechanics, you may
wish to read the introductory material that runs until page 24, and
then skip over the technical sections to part three on page 147.
This section is called "Self-Reference: How The One Becomes Many"
and includes chapters entitled "Exploring the Mind-Body Problem,"
"In Search of the Quantum Mind," "The `I' of consciousness" and
"Integrating the Psychologies." Part 3 is concerned with the issues
themselves while everything up to page 147 is concerned mainly with
physics and the question of non-locality. This technical section
will be especially useful for those who wish to see Goswami's
arguments anchored in physics theory.
What we have here is a physicist and associates with more than a
passing acquaintance with spiritual matters, applying insights
gleaned from physics to a wider understanding of life. The "new
paradigm" he offers is not so new but Goswami does succeed in
drawing fairly solid analogies between recent thinking in physics
and the world of spirit and meaning. He bases himself on "monistic
idealism" which he claims is "the correct philosophy for science in
view of quantum physics"[p.54]. The idea of monistic idealism is,
roughly, that the prime reality is outside space-time and generates
all temporal or "local" phenomena. But this is about as close as
Goswami ever comes to delivering on the promise of his subtitle,
"How Consciousness Creates the Material World." So if this is what
interests you, be warned that this book is not a work on cosmology.
The crux of the argument is that nonlocal, distance-independent,
instantaneous effects have their source in a transcendent domain
outside of space-time. Goswami begins by illustrating the
relationship between consciousness and quantum measurement and
claims that it is observation or awareness that collapses a
"quantum wave" into a local, observable phenomenon.
The implication is that collapse (and thus observation) creates the
restricted temporal world. Limited awareness and subjectivity
derive from time-lags, memory and "tangled hierarchies." I quote:
"According to monistic idealism, objects are already in
consciousness as primordial, transcendent, archetypal possibility
forms. The collapse consists not of doing something to objects via
observing but of choosing and recognizing the result of that
choice"(p.84). Goswami claims that our choices are made nonlocally
and not in the ego where we think they are made. Thus the source of
consciousness and quantum action is nonlocal, outside the time-
space continuum. Their local expressions are the local results we
normally and unwittingly call "reality."
Another key element, a corollary of monistic idealism, is the
notion that mind is not an epiphenomenon of the brain but that the
brain is a physical expression of mind that mediates between local
and nonlocal (transcendant) reality by acting as a quantum
measuring device. "The conviction has been growing among many
physicists that the brain is an interactive system with a quantum
mechanical macrostructure as an important complement to the
classical neuronal assembly"[p.169]. Consciousness (usually outside
awareness) is shared by us all but we are unaware of our unlimited,
everpresent consciousness which originates outside of space-time.
The "self" is defined as "the a relationship between conscious
experience and the immediate physical environment"[p.199].
As deeply as this book probes into the theoretical details of
matter and psychology, it disappoints in the vagueness of its
recommendations for the future where it resorts to fluff. "I
propose that science and religion in the future perform
complementary functions -- science laying the groundwork in an
objective fashion for what needs to be done to be done regain
enchantment, and religion guiding people through the process of
doing it" [p.216]. "In the new science, which infuses a new
worldview, we draw upon science and religion and ask practitioners
of both to come together as co-investigators and co-developers of
a new order"[p.224].
Where Goswami comes closest to raising cogent possibilities for the
future is in chapter 16, "Inner and Outer Creativity." Here he
touches on aspects such as the nonlocality of creativity and that
it involves new contexts. But he neglects, entirely, the motor of
creativity and the imperative of all life - desire - including
motivation and commitment. According to T.Kun's new book, Project
Mind - The Conscious Conquest of Man & Matter Through Accelerated
Thought (Unimedia, Indian Rocks, FL, 1993), desire, calling and
commitment, are the essence of Creation and of the creativity that
will eventually allow us to bridge locality and nonlocality -
science and spirit.
According to Kun, science, by addressing the enigma of matter, is
already engaged in the highest calling of spirituality. All that is
lacking is the level of intensity that characterizes the best of
spiritual striving in order to turn the entire human body into an
creative intrument of vision. Thus "holistic science" would begin
to give our body, which in its entirety is really a brain-mind, its
full expression of what Goswami calls its "quantum mechanical"
potential. We would thus be filling our conscious role in granting
nonlocality its rightful expression within the local temporal world
which, for us, is destined to be the receptacle of the transcendent
and of which the ephemeral matter of this world is the mere crust.
# # #
Rating:
Summary: Seeing Into the Cosmic Mind
Review: Amit Goswami invites us to suppose, for a moment, that our universe is self-aware. Next, let's imagine how this very consciousness of the universe creates the physical world around us. Goswami further asserts that we are all part of THE SELF-AWARE UNIVERSE, and shows us how to lift the veil of material monism that tends to obstruct our ability to peer into the cosmic mind.
Goswami utilizes findings from recent experiments in quantum physics to provide ample evidence of his assertion that old assumptions based on material monism are out-dated and no longer valid. Goswami points out that: we live in a non-local universe, where everything is interconnected to everything else at the most fundamental level; we cannot hope to observe anything without affecting what we are observing; we can only predict the outcome of events in probabilities (not certainties); and there is something much more to this universe than just the matter and energy we can measure. With a brilliant mind and warm heart, Goswami guides the reader on a wonderful journey. We discover objects that exist in two places at once, effects that precede their causes, the implications of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox and the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment, and the fascinating world of paradoxes and tangled hierarchies. At the end of this journey, we find ourselves wondering who we truly are. Goswami writes, "the self of our self-reference is due to a tangled hierarchy, but our consciousness is the consciousness of our Being that is beyond the subject-object split. There is no other source of consciousness in the universe. The self of self-reference and the consciousness of the original consciousness, together, make what we call self-consciousness." I highly recommend this enchanting book!
Rating: 
Summary: Consciousness Explained Philosophically
Review: As a non PhD Biologist, which in this case makes me an interested layman, I may not be qualified to review this book. However, as a reader that purchased the book with the expectation that I would gain new insights in to the nature of consciousness let me share my thoughts with you. The first portion of the book is a crash course in Quantum Physics using various dialogues to make a multitude of points. I am somewhat familiar with the cast of characters of the history of Quantum Physics and the major eastern religious texts and I wish the author had of just stated his case. But then I was soon to realize that the book was not about consciousness, but his theory called "monistic idealism". I promised myself, in my thirties, that I would go wherever my intellect and curiosity could take me, which is why I finished the book. Now in my middle sixties, I followed his many logical arguments and his quotations from a wide variety of philosophers, psychologists, scientists and religious texts. It is a wide-ranging book and in all fairness I did gain some new and interesting insights. However, when the author gives his definition of "Quantum self" as "The primary subject modality of the self beyond ego in which resides real freedom, creativity, and nonlocality of the of the human experience", I decided I felt more comfortable thinking about human consciousness actually being hugged between groups of nerve synapses deep within the human brain.
Rating:
Summary: Consciousness Explained Philosophically
Review: As a non PhD Biologist, which in this case makes me an interested layman, I may not be qualified to review this book. However, as a reader that purchased the book with the expectation that I would gain new insights in to the nature of consciousness let me share my thoughts with you. The first portion of the book is a crash course in Quantum Physics using various dialogues to make a multitude of points. I am somewhat familiar with the cast of characters of the history of Quantum Physics and the major eastern religious texts and I wish the author had of just stated his case. But then I was soon to realize that the book was not about consciousness, but his theory called "monistic idealism". I promised myself, in my thirties, that I would go wherever my intellect and curiosity could take me, which is why I finished the book. Now in my middle sixties, I followed his many logical arguments and his quotations from a wide variety of philosophers, psychologists, scientists and religious texts. It is a wide-ranging book and in all fairness I did gain some new and interesting insights. However, when the author gives his definition of "Quantum self" as "The primary subject modality of the self beyond ego in which resides real freedom, creativity, and nonlocality of the of the human experience", I decided I felt more comfortable thinking about human consciousness actually being hugged between groups of nerve synapses deep within the human brain.
Rating:
Summary: A disappointment
Review: I picked up this volume with a great deal of sympathy for Amit Goswami's thesis, only to discover he does not deliver in the crucial areas he claims. He sets up exponents of material realism as straw men he then knocks down, rather than examining the actual range of thinking in this realm of discourse. His arguments for monistic idealism are of the nature of, "my imagination fails to include an alternative so what I am comfortable believing must be true." Even as I read I envisioned alternative monistic postures never explored, discussed, or suggested in this volume. Rather than a demonstration of his argument Goswami has produced an attempt at persuasion to his personal biases. I quite agree a thoughtful critique of material realism is in order, and also that a monistic posture can address the paradoxes of quantum mechanics, but this is not the text to go to for the goods. Admittedly, Goswami's outline of quantum mechanics is cogent and useful. It's the new age fluff approach to philosophizing that destroys his credibility.
Rating:
Summary: Accepting new concepts of reality
Review: I thought that this book was very interesting. I would also recommend "The Science of G-d" by Israeli physicist Gerrard Shroeder. I am constantly surprised by the number of individuals that seem threatened by different concepts of reality. I am an environmental scientist and not a physicist, but I keep up with many of the current trends in physics. Considering the fact that it has been proven multiple times in reputable physics labs that reality can be affected by consciousness. I didn't feel this book was a big leap. Anyone that studies up on laboratory experiments involving photons and observation would be doing a disservice to science by not at least acknowledging that the mind can exist on levels beyond physical synapses. How else could physical observation by an intelligent mind effect the ultimate outcome of any individual photon?
Rating:
Summary: Monistic Idealism Creates Confidence In Your Consciousness
Review: I've recently returned from a journey to the rain country of western Oregon where I discovered "monistic idealism." It's about to become a philosophy of choice in the consciousness revolution. I gathered this intelligence at the Eugene home of Amit Goswami, Professor of Physics at the Institute of Theoretical Studies at the University of Oregon. I arranged this special interview because of Goswami's new book, The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World. (Tarcher/Putnam). I wanted to meet the person who authored such a book and to make sure I was correctly understanding its many profundities. At first glance, the book appears to be one of those "new science" books that have become so popular. It does describe quite well the basic experiments of quantum physics, the ones that produce such paradoxes as the dual identity (wave and particle) of electrons and their ability to communicate at a distance with each other instantaneously (non-locality). But rather than simply leaving us with a "Gee, whiz, isn't this incredible?" impression that the real world isn't as we assumed, Goswami boldly, yet very thoughtfully, introduces us to monistic idealism and suggests we accept it as a foundation for a new, and quite compelling, worldview. Monistic idealism is the academically correct name given to a philosophical position that once was considered pre-scientific. It existed before the advent of what philosophers today label as materialistic dualism,. or what we might call the current official scientific world view. Materialistic dualism is the assumption that physical matter is the primary reality and that mind is separate from, but dependent upon, matter. In this view, mind is a secondary phenomena, or, to use the favored term, is an "epiphenomenon," meaning that it is some kind of separate, extra stuff that bubbles harmlessly out of brains. Monistic idealism, however, turns things around. In this position (dating back to Plato in the West, to Hinduism and Buddhism in the East), there is but one mind and it is the primary reality. Matter is an expression of mind, not separate from mind, but mind manifested materially. The worldview expressed in Edgar Cayce's psychic readings is a perfect example of monistic idealism. Cayce's formula, "Spirit is the Life, Mind is the Builder, the Material is the Result," for example, gives consciousness a very creative role in manifesting the material world. Goswami's book basically says, "Look, if you'll adopt the viewpoint of monistic idealism, then everything--the paradoxes of quantum physics, the puzzle of individual consciousnesss and free will, the enigma of psychic abilities, the universals in spiritual teachings--everything falls into place!" His book is a journey of creative thinking, providing the most credible and complete tour of the worldview we call "The New Paradigm" that I've yet read. One of the early warning signs of this new paradigm, which Goswami refers to as the "consciousness revolution," was Heisenberg's uncertainty principle: The observer affects the observed. The scientist looks into the microscope at nature to find nature responding to the observation. How did nature know there was a scientist looking? It takes an electron, it turns out, to know an electron. When the scientist flashes a light on atomic structures, the photons of light disrupt the atoms observed. This simplistic explanation, however, is misleading because it hides the greater truth. Goswami points out that we habitually use materialism to assume that there is a fixed material reality--independent of the observer--one that is simply rebuffed by our gaze. Reality is not fixed, however, and that is where the observing consciousness makes a difference. There is literally a quantum leap of creativity that comes into play as the observer, searching for the material electron "thing" within the etheric electronic wave activity, forces the many possibilities into a single, manifested actuality by the very act of observation The quantum leap is, according to Goswami, like an act of grace--creative, unpredictable, synchronistic and "non-local" (psychic). In talking with him, I realized that it took a quantum leap in my own imagination to fully digest all the implications of monistic idealism. It was easy to understand the ethical implication that we each have to take responsibility for our choices. Goswami emphasizes that it make a difference which ideals we live by, because they determine which potentialities in the unmanifest, quantum mind will materialize through the channel of our individual lives. Individuality, by the way, especially in the context of a universal consciousness, becomes an intriguing question. Edgar Cayce once had a dream envisioning the mind as being like a single star with spokes radiating out to form individually functioning conscious minds. This model expresses exactly the transcendent, unitary mind assumed by monistic idealism. The spokes even anticipate Goswami's formulation as to how and why the unitary mind creates the impression of separate individual minds. Why, if consciousness is truly unitive and singular, do we have the experience of separate minds? The brain, according to Goswami, is a measuring instrument. It collapses the non-local (a.k.a., infinite and eternal) quantum mind into concreteness and specificity as manifested through individual experience. Our individual "minds" are necessary to "realize" (make real) the material world. We are co-creators of reality, yet created ourselves to help reality become aware of itself. Goswami refers to the theory of "
Rating:
Summary: Monistic Idealism Creates Confidence In Your Consciousness
Review: I've recently returned from a journey to the rain country of western Oregon where I discovered "monistic idealism." It's about to become a philosophy of choice in the consciousness revolution. I gathered this intelligence at the Eugene home of Amit Goswami, Professor of Physics at the Institute of Theoretical Studies at the University of Oregon. I arranged this special interview because of Goswami's new book, The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World. (Tarcher/Putnam). I wanted to meet the person who authored such a book and to make sure I was correctly understanding its many profundities. At first glance, the book appears to be one of those "new science" books that have become so popular. It does describe quite well the basic experiments of quantum physics, the ones that produce such paradoxes as the dual identity (wave and particle) of electrons and their ability to communicate at a distance with each other instantaneously (non-locality). But rather than simply leaving us with a "Gee, whiz, isn't this incredible?" impression that the real world isn't as we assumed, Goswami boldly, yet very thoughtfully, introduces us to monistic idealism and suggests we accept it as a foundation for a new, and quite compelling, worldview. Monistic idealism is the academically correct name given to a philosophical position that once was considered pre-scientific. It existed before the advent of what philosophers today label as materialistic dualism,. or what we might call the current official scientific world view. Materialistic dualism is the assumption that physical matter is the primary reality and that mind is separate from, but dependent upon, matter. In this view, mind is a secondary phenomena, or, to use the favored term, is an "epiphenomenon," meaning that it is some kind of separate, extra stuff that bubbles harmlessly out of brains. Monistic idealism, however, turns things around. In this position (dating back to Plato in the West, to Hinduism and Buddhism in the East), there is but one mind and it is the primary reality. Matter is an expression of mind, not separate from mind, but mind manifested materially. The worldview expressed in Edgar Cayce's psychic readings is a perfect example of monistic idealism. Cayce's formula, "Spirit is the Life, Mind is the Builder, the Material is the Result," for example, gives consciousness a very creative role in manifesting the material world. Goswami's book basically says, "Look, if you'll adopt the viewpoint of monistic idealism, then everything--the paradoxes of quantum physics, the puzzle of individual consciousnesss and free will, the enigma of psychic abilities, the universals in spiritual teachings--everything falls into place!" His book is a journey of creative thinking, providing the most credible and complete tour of the worldview we call "The New Paradigm" that I've yet read. One of the early warning signs of this new paradigm, which Goswami refers to as the "consciousness revolution," was Heisenberg's uncertainty principle: The observer affects the observed. The scientist looks into the microscope at nature to find nature responding to the observation. How did nature know there was a scientist looking? It takes an electron, it turns out, to know an electron. When the scientist flashes a light on atomic structures, the photons of light disrupt the atoms observed. This simplistic explanation, however, is misleading because it hides the greater truth. Goswami points out that we habitually use materialism to assume that there is a fixed material reality--independent of the observer--one that is simply rebuffed by our gaze. Reality is not fixed, however, and that is where the observing consciousness makes a difference. There is literally a quantum leap of creativity that comes into play as the observer, searching for the material electron "thing" within the etheric electronic wave activity, forces the many possibilities into a single, manifested actuality by the very act of observation The quantum leap is, according to Goswami, like an act of grace--creative, unpredictable, synchronistic and "non-local" (psychic). In talking with him, I realized that it took a quantum leap in my own imagination to fully digest all the implications of monistic idealism. It was easy to understand the ethical implication that we each have to take responsibility for our choices. Goswami emphasizes that it make a difference which ideals we live by, because they determine which potentialities in the unmanifest, quantum mind will materialize through the channel of our individual lives. Individuality, by the way, especially in the context of a universal consciousness, becomes an intriguing question. Edgar Cayce once had a dream envisioning the mind as being like a single star with spokes radiating out to form individually functioning conscious minds. This model expresses exactly the transcendent, unitary mind assumed by monistic idealism. The spokes even anticipate Goswami's formulation as to how and why the unitary mind creates the impression of separate individual minds. Why, if consciousness is truly unitive and singular, do we have the experience of separate minds? The brain, according to Goswami, is a measuring instrument. It collapses the non-local (a.k.a., infinite and eternal) quantum mind into concreteness and specificity as manifested through individual experience. Our individual "minds" are necessary to "realize" (make real) the material world. We are co-creators of reality, yet created ourselves to help reality become aware of itself. Goswami refers to the theory of "
Rating:
Summary: Spirituality from the perspective of physics.... amazing!
Review: It has been a long time since I was so happy reading a book. I grew up in Christian Science. As a Christian Scientist I would not normally approach the subject of spirituality from the perspective of physics. However, even though Goswami doesn't OVERTLY talk about spirituality per se, I was amazed at how you can get to virtually the same conclusions on God, Life, and universal consciousness as Mary Baker Eddy taught and wrote about in "Science and Health" about 130 years ago. I hope that "The Self-Aware Universe" and Dr. Goswami don't get burdened with erroneous labels of "cultism". Maybe the Science will be a little more accepted in this day and age.
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