The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for MeaningDo all questions have answers? How much can we know about the world? Is there such a thing as an ultimate truth? To be human is to want to know, but what we are able to observe is only a tiny portion of what's “out there.” In The Island of Knowledge, physicist Marcelo Gleiser traces our search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence. In so doing, he reaches a provocative conclusion: science, the main tool we use to find answers, is fundamentally limited. These limits to our knowledge arise both from our tools of exploration and from the nature of physical reality: the speed of light, the uncertainty principle, the impossibility of seeing beyond the cosmic horizon, the incompleteness theorem, and our own limitations as an intelligent species. Recognizing limits in this way, Gleiser argues, is not a deterrent to progress or a surrendering to religion. Rather, it frees us to question the meaning and nature of the universe while affirming the central role of life and ourselves in it. Science can and must go on, but recognizing its limits reveals its true mission: to know the universe is to know ourselves. Telling the dramatic story of our quest for understanding, The Island of Knowledge offers a highly original exploration of the ideas of some of the greatest thinkers in history, from Plato to Einstein, and how they affect us today. An authoritative, broad-ranging intellectual history of our search for knowledge and meaning, The Island of Knowledge is a unique view of what it means to be human in a universe filled with mystery. |
Contents
BEYOND SPACE AND TIME | 9 |
TO BE OR TO BECOME? THAT | 15 |
LESSONS FROM PLATOS DREAM | 25 |
OF A NEW OBSERVATIONAL TOOL | 37 |
CRACKING OPEN THE DOME OF HEAVEN | 49 |
SCIENCE AS NATURES GRAND NARRATIVE | 55 |
THE PLASTICITY OF SPACE | 61 |
THE RESTLESS UNIVERSE | 67 |
THE ELUSIVE NATURE OF HEAT | 151 |
MYSTERIOUS LIGHT | 157 |
LEARNING TO LET GO | 167 |
THE TALE OF THE INTREPID ANTHROPOLOGIST | 175 |
CAN WE KNOW WHAT IS REAL? | 189 |
WHO ISAFRAID OF QUANTUM GHOSTS? | 203 |
FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS | 207 |
CONSCIOUSNESS AND | 217 |
THERE IS NO NOW | 73 |
COSMIC BLINDNESS | 79 |
SPLITTING INFINITIES | 93 |
ROLLING DOWNHILL | 101 |
COUNTING UNIVERSES | 107 |
A PROMENADE ALONG | 117 |
CAN WE TEST THE MULTIVERSE | 125 |
Part II | 135 |
ADMIRABLE FORCE AND EFFICACY | 141 |
BACK TO THE BEGINNING | 231 |
ON THE LAWS OF HUMANS AND THE LAWS | 241 |
INCOMPLETENESS | 253 |
AWE AND MEANING | 279 |
Acknowledgments | 285 |
313 | |
319 | |
Other editions - View all
The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning Marcelo Gleiser Limited preview - 2014 |
The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning Marcelo Gleiser No preview available - 2015 |
The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning Marcelo Gleiser No preview available - 2014 |
Common terms and phrases
accelerated aether alchemy astronomers atoms Big Bang billion brain bubble called celestial cHApter classical collision consciousness constant Copenhagen Interpretation cosmic horizon cosmological constant cosmology cosmos decoherence detector distances Earth Einstein electromagnetic electron energy entangled entities equation essence existence expansion experiments explain fundamental galaxies Galileo geometry Gödel gravity happens Higgs human idea infinite infinity inflation interact Island of Knowledge Kepler laws limits mass mathematical matter measure mind motion move multiverse mysterious Nature’s Newton nonlocality objects observer orbits particles philosophers photons physical reality physicists planets Plato possible principle properties proposed quantum effects quantum mechanics quantum physics question radiation realm scalar field Schrödinger scientific scientists sense sensorial Seth Lloyd simulation space speed of light sphere spin stars string string landscape superstring theory supersymmetry telescope temperature theory of relativity things tion Tycho understanding Universe unknown wave wavefunction wavelength