SCIENCE, TRUTH, AND MEANING: FROM WONDER TO UNDERSTANDING: From Wonder to Understanding

by Benjamin L J Webb

Overview

Science, Truth, and Meaning presents a scientific and philosophical examination of our place in the world. It also celebrates how diverse, scientific knowledge is interconnected and reducible to common foundations.The book focuses on aspects of scientific truth that relate to our understanding of reality, and confronts whether truth is absolute or relative to what we are. Hence, it assesses the meaning of the scientific deductions we have made and how they have profoundly influenced our conception of life and existence.The subtitle is 'From Wonder to Understanding', which is a paraphrased quote from Einstein, who said that the search for scientific truth is ' ... a continual flight from wonder to understanding'.In addressing the goal of advancing our understanding of our place in the world, this book also reveals the development and details of diverse sciences, their connections and achievements, and that while perhaps the same fundamental questions exist, they are seen in the light of an ever-refined scientific perspective on reality.Why the book is needed: many popular science books have been written, aimed at different levels of subject expertise, and nearly all treat their specific subject in isolation. Few attempt to link different sciences to their common foundations, and those that do are written by physicists. Since human knowledge is derived by, and relates to, the biological organism that human beings are, then such a book written from a biological perspective represents a novel perspective on the integration of science, and addresses new questions. This is such a book.Impressive aspects: the depth, breadth, consistency, and clarity of the work.Contents:

• Philosophy and Science
• Physics and the Classical World
• The Quantum World
• The Biological World
• The Evolving World
• Consciousness and the World
• Mind-Knowledge-Meaning

Readership: The educated/interested layperson, physicists, biologists, chemists, philosophers, and any scientist or philosopher interested in metaphysical problems, the connectivity of science, and subjects covered in the book.Free Will;Determinism;Consciousness;Evolution;Quantum Theory;Reality;Special Relativity;General Relativity;Universe;Mind;Limits;Knowledge;Philosophy;Cell;Physics;Relativity;Quantum;Science;Idealism;Logic;Logical Positivism;Rationalism;Empiricism;Dialectical Materialism;Pragmatism;Phenomenology;Existentialism;Classical WorldScience Truth and Meaning is a remarkable book. Ben Webb's synthesis of recent ideas about consciousness and the nature of reality is both brave and timely. While written for the general reader, it maintains a high level of scholarship, and is full of bold and original ideas.' - Nicholas HumphreyEmeritus Professor of Psychology, London School of EconomicsVisiting Professor of Philosophy, New College of the Humanities, Darwin College Cambridge

'Benjamin Webb brings a host of interesting new ideas to his tale of our efforts to understand the universe. Science, Truth and Meaning is important for all of us, and above all for scientists and philosophers. It is impressively wide-ranging in its expertise.' - John LeslieUniversity Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Guelph, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada author of Universes (Routledge), and Infinite Minds: A Philosophical Cosmology (Oxford University Press)

'Benjamin Webb has written an intriguing book. Each chapter provides an interesting account of a particular area: philosophy of science from Aristotle to Popper; physics, including relativistic and quantum; biology: cells, genes and evolution; through to consciousness and free will. His overall intention is to demonstrate what science has to tell us about mind, knowledge and reality, and his achievement is excellent.' - Andrew WhitakerProfessor of Mathematics and Physics, Queen's University, Belfast

'Benjamin Webb has steeped himself in the great thinkers about the big questions of truth, purpose, and meaning. Read this book for a soaring overview and for a passionate personal perspective.' - Andrew BriggsProfessor of nanomaterials, University of Oxford author of The Penultimate Curiosity (Oxford University Press), and It Keeps Me Seeking (Oxford University Press)

'In this ambitious work, Benjamin Webb describes a large part of western philosophy, modern physics (including relativity and quantum mechanics) as well as biology, genetics, evolution and the neurophysiology of the brain. He then brings all these strands together to show how they underpin our relationship with the world and our own nature. He does not shirk from tackling issues that are still controversial, such as the quantum measurement problem and the 'hard problem' of human consciousness.' - Alastair I M RaeReader in quantum physics, University of Birmingham author of Quantum Physics: Illusion or Reality (Cambridge University Press),&Quantum Mechanics (Routledge)

'Benjamin Webb has written a remarkable and unusual book that delves into fundamental questions about science, and meaning. The book has an astoundingly broad scope and starts with a detailed review of philosophy and science, covering the early attempts by Plato and Aristotle, via the logic formulations of Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell and Kurt Gödel, to the more pragmatic theses of Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend and Karl Popper. Webb then focuses on the status of modern scientific theories of physics, biology and evolution. His analysis of the classical and quantum views of physics includes Albert Einstein's major contributions not only to his creation of the special and general theories of relativity but also to the birth of quantum mechanics. After a familiar account of how Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and Max Born crafted the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, Webb devotes much more space to the implications of Schrödinger's Cat for the quantum measurement problem, and of Bell's inequality for hidden variable theories. Although these may seem deep and confusing matters for most working physicists, quantum entanglement and decoherence are now of direct relevance to quantum computing. As a working biochemist it is not surprising that his account of modern biology and the implications of the discovery of DNA — with Francis Crick's postulate of gene expression and the 'central dogma of molecular biology' — is thorough and detailed. After a discussion of modern views on Darwin's theory of evolution and the puzzle of the Burgess Shale, Webb moves on to the more controversial topics of consciousness and free-will. The book concludes with a wide-ranging discussion of knowledge, Artificial Intelligence and the nature of reality. In summary, Webb's book covers an amazing range of topics and provides the reader with a fascinating overview of deep questions about the limits to our scientific understanding.' - Professor Tony HeyCBE, FREng, FAAAS, FACM, FIET, FBCS, FInstP, C.Eng.Chief Data Scientist, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory STFC, Didcot, OX11 0QX, UKSenior Data Science Fellow, eScience Institute, University of Washington, Seattle, USA

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789811231919
Publisher:	WSPC
Publication date:	04/07/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	720
File size:	3 MB