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| Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion | 
| Author: Stuart Kauffman
Publisher: Basic Books
Category: Book
List Price: $27.00
Buy New: $16.52
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Avg. Customer Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 10671
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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| Customer Reviews:
Brilliant and flawed September 6, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Like my fellow neurologist Dr. Lasker (whom I remember from days of yore when I was a resident at UCSD--hi Bruce!) I find much to admire but some things to criticize in this book. Some of Kauffman's main ideas are as follows:
1) At each level of organization (physical/chemical/biological), new laws emerge which are inherently unpredictable from first principles of physics. The analogy here is from Godel's famous theorem that in any system of mathematics there are true statements that can not be derived from the initial axioms. If such a statement is taken as a new axiom, more true but unprovable statements result. The new emergent laws are like such true mathematical statements. Thus reductionism is doomed to failure.
2)One of these emergent laws is that complex systems tend to self-organize, and that in particular living systems organize themselves such that they reside on the boundary between order and chaos. Kaufmann extends this analysis from an individual cell to other complex areas including economics and even legal and ethical systems.
3) There is no "Creator God" but only the endless creativity embodied in the universe where complex systems emerge spontaneously along with their new principles of organization. The laws of physics are never contravened; there are no miracles--yet the systems are not predictable from first principles.
4) This natural endless creativity itself can be called "God" and can be the basis for a new global system of ethics and religion.
I like these ideas, and along the way Kauffman provides some really interesting examples, like his speculations on how life may have first evolved from systems of catalytic peptides and RNA oligomers, and how the subsequent use by organisms of "preadaptations" in evolution are inherently unpredictable from physics.
What I didn't like were his speculations on the quantum nature of consciousness (which he admits are scientifically the weakest point of his book, though it is the longest chapter). The whole argument--that consciousness depends on decoherence of a poised, enormously complex quantum wave generated essentially by the entire brain--falls down from the simple observation that small, very specific brain lesions (in the brainstem reticular activating system)abolish consciousness. It seems to me that attempts to explain this clinical fact would result in absurd Ptolemic-like epicycles. I agree with his footnote that this chapter could be skipped by the reader with no harm done to his basic ideas.
I also agree that the book could use a heavier editing hand--Kauffman tends to repeat himself often, for example with how all the unpredictable ways a screwdriver could be used (to pry open a lid, jam a door etc.) could not possibly be predicted by first principles of physics, which he employs in detail several times.
But overall I think it's a great and important book that everybody should read and ponder.
 A Fourth Law of Thermodynamics? August 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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
2 out of 3 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
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
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
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
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