Choosing Reality: A Buddhist View of Physics and the Mind

Rating:
Summary: Masterful insight into the nature of reality
Review: A wonderful book, by a man who clearly knows his physics and his Madhyamika Buddhist philosophy inside out.

Extremely provocative, and no doubt makes a lot of scientific realists extremely insecure, as Wallace progressively shows how the metaphysical view of scientific realism simply cannot withstand analysis.

This book should be required reading for every physicist, and every physics student.

Rating:
Summary: A thoughtful and illuminating book
Review: Although science has provided us with a wealth of knowledge about the physical world, it has reduced life to an epiphenomenal by-product of complex configurations of chemicals, therefore formulating a new article of faith: all of reality boils down to matter and energy, subject to the mindless, immutable laws of nature. However, Wallace advocates that a science that fails to investigate the subjective mental events is unnatural, therefore may be misleading. His proposed instrument to overcome this barrier and enrich science is the use of refined introspection, let the mind probe the mind, cultivate states of awareness that themselves transcend language, concepts, and sensory experience.

The first half of the book concentrates on the latest development of physics and the diversity of opinions concerning the nature of physical reality. Wallace debates on "scientific realism" versus "instrumentalis" and the flaws of each one (the former is unfounded and the latter is impotent). With a clear narrative (and sometimes repetitive) the author discusses concepts such as transcendent realism, retroduction, reification, principle of unknowability, anthropics, among others. The second half is dedicated to the explanation of the "centrist view," a concept developed by Wallace and based on Buddhism. The centrist view might be called conceptual reality and it fundamentally challenges the realist ontological assumptions underlying virtually all of Western science.

The is great, great reading! Thought provoking to say the least! The concept that nothing can be found that exists in its own nature independent of our conceptual designation, is in itself a challenge. You may not agree, you may be skeptical, you might have questions and doubts, but one thing is for certain: you neurons will be put to work!

Rating:
Summary: A thoughtful and illuminating book
Review: I read this book years ago, and just today was telling a colleague how good it is. I'm writing this review because I felt a responsibility to counter the polemic of Donald Cooley ("A more honest title would be 'Rejecting Reality'"), which was the first review on the page. It appears that Cooley is threatened by some pearls of Buddhist philosophy that Wallace has to share, so much so that he wants to discourage from reading this book and forming your own judgements. But my point isn't to counter Cooley's ad hominem review with one of my own.

Rather, I want to stress that Wallace does not present his own philosophy, let alone his own "bizarre" philosophy, the impression Cooley gives. In fact, Wallace provides lucid presentations of philosophical insights gained from disciplined and rigorous dialectical reasoning methods, and even more disciplined and rigorous training of the mind to investigate - directly, not via philosophical analyses or the instrumental extensions of the senses essential to science - fundamental relationships between language, belief, and perception; epistemology and ontology, etc. As Wallace shows, the insights which emerge from this extremely rigorous Buddhist tradition in no way oppose the methods and insights of physics or Western science, though they do challenge some philosophical assumptions that have a grip on many of our minds and brains' operating systems.

So sure, check out the books Cooley suggests on 'critical realism,' which do sound quite good (I'll be getting some). But don't let his review persuade you to cheat yourself out of this cogent, rewarding and philosophically illuminating book.

Rating:
Summary: Worth reading twice
Review: The first time I read this book I gave it a poor review. It conflicted with my view of reality at the time. But based on what other reviewers said, and additional readings I've done in this area since my first reading, I decided to re-read this book. And I must say, those giving positive reviews were right. My guess is that others may also struggle with this book on their first reading, perhaps because it conflicts with their current view of reality. But if they fairly give the view given by Wallace in this book some time to sink in, I think they may also come around. In any event, I now strongly encourage others to read this book. (Or re-read it!)

Rating:
Summary: Exceptional
Review: This must be the clearest book yet on the relationship between science and Buddhism. The writer shows that the materialistic assumptions of science are untenable and lucidly explains some difficult Buddhist concepts.