Mind and Life: Discussions with the Dalai Lama on the Nature of Reality

Mind and Life: Discussions with the Dalai Lama on the Nature of Reality

Mind and Life: Discussions with the Dalai Lama on the Nature of Reality

Mind and Life: Discussions with the Dalai Lama on the Nature of Reality

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Overview

Scientists, philosophers and Buddhist scholars discuss the nature of reality in a book that goes inside a Mind and Life Institute conference.

For over a decade, members of the Mind and Life Institute have gathered to discuss questions that are both fundamental and profound: can physics, chemistry, and biology explain the mystery of life? How do our philosophical assumptions influence science and the ethics we bring to biotechnology? And how does an ancient spiritual tradition throw new light on these questions?

In Mind and Life, Pier Luigi Luisi reproduces this stimulating cross-cultural dialogue in which world-class scientists, philosophers, and Buddhist scholars develop a holistic approach to the exploration of reality. He also adds scientific background to their presentations, as well as supplementary discussions with prominent participants and attendees. Interviews with His Holiness the Karmapa, the Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, and the actor and longtime human rights advocate Richard Gere further enrich the material with personal viewpoints. Conversation topics range from the origin of matter to the nature of evolution, the ethics of genetic manipulation, and the question of consciousness and ethics.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780231529709
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Publication date: 07/15/2020
Series: Columbia Series in Science and Religion
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 232
File size: 8 MB

About the Author

Pier Luigi Luisi is professor of biology at the University of Roma 3 and the author of The Emergence of Life: From Chemical Origins to Synthetic Biology. His major research has been in the fields of self-organization of chemical systems and the emergence of novel functional properties as a result of increased complexity.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. How Real Are the Elementary Particles?
2. The Emergence of Complexity; and an Interview with Matthieu Ricard
3. Toward the Complexity of Life
4. How Life Unfolds; and an Interview with Richard Gere
5. The Magic of the Human Genome and Its Ethical Problems; and an Interview with His Holiness the Karmapa
6. From Consciousness to Ethics
7. Last Words
About the Mind and Life Institute
Notes
Index

What People are Saying About This

Vic Mansfield

One of the best books of its kind. Mind and Life is accessible and engaging and yet deals with this topic in a technically sophisticated way.

Vic Mansfield, professor of physics and astronomy, Colgate University

B. Alan Wallace

In the fascinating dialogues presented in this book, leading physicists and biologists discuss with H. H. the Dalai Lama the current scientific understanding of the essential nature of the material world and the living organisms that have emerged within it. Can we know anything about atoms independently of our systems of measurement and conceptual frameworks in which we make sense of our data? Does life and consciousness emerge solely from complex configurations of molecules and cells, or are there other dimensions to reality besides the physical? These are some of the compelling questions addressed in the conversations between two great knowledge traditions—science and Buddhism—by some of the leading proponents of those cultures.

B. Alan Wallace, president, Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies

Fritjof Capra

The dialogues in this book give us many fascinating insights into the new conception of life that is now emerging at the forefront of science. Yet the book does much more. The author vividly describes a remarkable encounter of people from very different cultures who meet in a spirit of great kindness and deep mutual respect. Their non-dogmatic approach to fundamental questions of human existence provide a model for cross-cultural communications that is urgently needed in today's world.

Fritjof Capra, author of The Tao of Physics and The Science of Leonardo

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