Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death
April 15, 2016
Life and consciousness are fundamental to any true understanding of the universe. So begins Lanza, in this expansion of his 2009 book Biocentrism, with further thoughts on his biology-based theory of everything. Named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2014 for his work with stem cells, Lanza attempts to refashion our conceptions of time, space, and the cosmos as one cohesive entity that exists only when observed or perceived by conscious beings. Science's attempts at a grand unified theory of physics have failed, says Lanza; the only way forward is to view consciousness and the cosmos as one in the same. Wandering between textbook, philosophical meditation, and strident manifesto, the book synthesizes physics, botany, The Bhagavad Gita, quantum entanglement, and other seemingly disparate topics into an amalgam that's as provocative as it is woolly-headed. A clear inspiration is Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time (1988), a superior but denser and less casual book. Science-minded readers open to philosophy with a New Age bent will find more to like here.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)