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| Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion | 
 enlarge | Author: Stuart Kauffman
Publisher: Basic Books
Category: Book
List Price: $27.00 (63.56 RON)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 6577
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 0465003001
Dewey Decimal Number: 215
EAN: 9780465003006
ASIN: 0465003001
Publication Date: May 5, 2008
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Product Description
Consider the woven integrated complexity of a living cell after 3.8 billion years of evolution. Is it more awe-inspiring to suppose that a transcendent God fashioned the cell, or to consider that the living organism was created by the evolving biosphere? As the eminent complexity theorist Stuart Kauffman explains in this ambitious and groundbreaking new book, people who do not believe in God have largely lost their sense of the sacred and the deep human legitimacy of our inherited spirituality. For those who believe in a Creator God, no science will ever disprove that belief. In Reinventing the Sacred, Kauffman argues that the science of complexity provides a way to move beyond reductionist science to something new: a unified culture where we see God in the creativity of the universe, biosphere, and humanity. Kauffman explains that the ceaseless natural creativity of the world can be a profound source of meaning, wonder, and further grounding of our place in the universe. His theory carries with it a new ethic for an emerging civilization and a reinterpretation of the divine. He asserts that we are impelled by the imperative of life itself to live with faith and courage-and the fact that we do so is indeed sublime. Reinventing the Sacred will change the way we all think about the evolution of humanity, the universe, faith, and reason.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
 A Fourth Law of Thermodynamics? August 24, 2008
Stuart Kauffman gave two lectures to our medical school class (U. of Pennsylvania) twenty or so years ago and I have been following his journey every since. I was struck, at the time, at his willingness to wonder at the complexity of ontogeny and admit how much was not understood. An excellent book by all standards, but as one reviewer said, to be fully critical one would need to be an expert in physics, biology, computers and philosophy.
One question, however. Practicing medicine, it seems that hypotheses must be falsifiable. On page 147, chapter Breaking the Galilean Spell, Kauffman says, "It is an amusing fact that scientists who eschew philosophy invariably espouse a philosophy of science that is long outdated. Most scientists today will somberly argue that hypotheses must be falsifiable. But science and real life are more complex." He goes on to describe the philosophy of W. V. O. Quine "the holism in science thesis." "I am not a Popperian," says Kauffman. OK, but didn't Popper support coming up with a hypothesis, and then trying to prove it wrong?(the scientific method?) Any clarification on this point would be helpful.
Also, this would be a great book for a science book club. Not only do we confront how much we don't know, as in the medical school lectures, but how much we ultimately can we know. "We must live our lives forward, into that which is only partially knowable." (P. 282)
Living Life Forward, With Courage and Faith. August 20, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
In a conversation I had with Stuart Kauffman on Star Island, NH in 2006 I told him that I had found his latest book--At Home in the Universe at that time--a difficult read. He responded that that made him sad because he had tried his best to keep it simple. I assured him that that was my problem and not his.
He obviously has done a better job in his latest book, Reinventing the Sacred, in writing for the non-expert audience. While portions of the book were difficult for me, eg, the chapter on the "Quantum Brain", the book overall is much more comprehensible to me personally. I'm sure that others with a deeper background in complexity theory and science will find the book very understandable.
The author shows courage in presenting a new (to me) scientific paradigm--emergence--and in offering what are, in his own words, highly controversial suggestions and potential methods of investigating these suggestions. Graduate students and post-docs should find a wealth of ideas for future research in this book.
As a religious naturalist I appreciate the author's writing of "naturalizing the sacred" and suggesting that he is only the latest of many thinkers who would like to hold on to the god symbol because of its power accumulated over the centuries and across cultures. Kauffman's erudition and graciousness come through in his writing, especially in the latter parts of the book as he pleads for a better understanding of our "evolving ethics" that hopefully will lead to a desperately needed "global ethic". Because we cannot foresee the future--a key feature of emergence--we must nevertheless "live our lives forward, with courage and faith." I think I will.
Got to have this book August 9, 2008
I heard this author interviewed on the radio and ordered the book from the library. Three pages in I knew I had to own the book so I could underline and write in the margins. It's a book to dialog with.
A rewarding challenge July 25, 2008
This is one of the most difficult 'popular science' books I've ever read. But as much as my brain meat hurts while my neurons are busy trying to cram everything into their speculated quantum semi-coherent computational system, I'm really enjoying the lasting effects of digesting Dr. Kauffman's perspective.
I haven't quite finished yet; I'm on the philosophical payload at the end of the book right now, and as a humanities guy who works with scientists I couldn't agree more with Kauffman's assessment of the relationship between the two fields. We've gained a lot over the past few centuries by parsing and segregating our fields of study & endeavor. Books like this demonstrate that we've reached a point in the evolution of intellect that re-integrating, on some level, will well serve to push our understanding of the world even further.
On the Limits of Science and 'Faith' July 23, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I will start by saying that this is one of the most inspiring reads I have had in a while on the borderlands between 'faith' and science. A difficult read; at times a perplexing read--yet Kauffman always returns to the point he is trying to make, and each time adds something to the offer. I will qualify this accolade by saying that Kauffman only ever gets to the trailhead in this book; he doesn't define "the sacred" very articulately at any point in the book, and he doesn't delve very deeply into his idea of "God." Yet the journey he takes you on is well-worth the effort it takes to follow his erudite analyses of cosmological, evolutionary, cultural and even economic case studies in "emergence."
He uses these case studies to urge that we need a new concept of God, and a new concept of the sacred. Kauffman is trying, here, to build a bridge between religious and scientific worldviews, and attempts to do this by embracing important concepts from the religious traditions of our species. He makes the very resonant point that "new religions" have always built new temples upon the sacred sites of older religions and reinterpreted them. He urges that a scientific understanding of "the sacred" should be built upon earlier religious concepts, and not reject the traditions of the past out of hand. He is for re-interpreting the ideas of "God" and "the sacred," not rejecting them as anathema to the scientific worldview. This is a courageous step; one that may do some good toward healing the rift between science and religions in our culture.
Kauffman has taken some very important steps, here, I think, and has given other thinkers new platforms from which to launch out into deeper explorations of the "sacred" dimension of reality from a naturalistic, scientific point of view.
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