EHE Book Reviews

Theories/Hypotheses Record Type: Review ID: 863
The Matter Myth: Dramatic Discoveries That Challenge Our Understanding of Physical Reality Davies, Paul, & Gribbin, John
In the Preface, Davies says the most profound transformation that is taking place in science is not in the specific discoveries or technology so much as in the change in how scientists view their world. Science is casting off the paradigm that he calls the "myth of mechanism," or "the matter myth." It is being replaced by a "postmechanistic" paradigm. The chapter titles are "The Death of Materialism," "Chaos and the Liberation of Matter," "The Mysterious Present," "Interlude: Confessions of a Relativist," "The Universe at Large," "The First One Second . . . ," ". . . And the Last," "Quantum Weirdness," "The Cosmic Network," "Beyond the Infinite Future," and "The Living Universe." They close with this statement: "Ryle was right to dismiss the notion of the ghost in the machine—not because there is no ghost, but because there is no machine" (p. 309).
Publisher Information:	New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. 320p. Bibl: 310-313; 43 figs; Index: 315-320

Web Media Management by Palyne Gaenir of ScienceHorizon.

The Matter Myth: Dramatic Discoveries That Challenge Our Understanding of Physical Reality