Cosmic Dance, The
Details and Description
Description
This book focuses on a new worldview, emerging from the science of the last decades of the second millennium. Its metaphor is the cosmic dance, or the harmony existing between systems that are so strongly interdependent that they behave as a single entity. This dance image hints at a general, evolving pattern in which all objects in the universe participate—like the ordered chaos of an African open-air market.
Some of the chapters discuss the nature of processes in the universe, including chaos and chance in the game of life. The reconciliation of variety and unity are addressed in reference to the space-time continuum and the unified field of relativity theory. Del Re continues the investigation into an exploration of the origins of freedom and ethics, suggesting that science indicates that the human species may have a specific task in the universe: building a bridge between matter and spirit.
Del Re ponders alchemy, the significance of symbols, and the meaning of the soul. Woven throughout a variety of esoteric and scientific inquiries is the underlying sense of the unifying principles of science and a spiritual outlook. The questions raised are issues that will be discussed by an emerging network of scientists and spiritual seekers, and this book will add a valued and informed perspective to these conversations.
Features
- Explains a new worldview connecting science and spirituality
- Presents a cosmological metaphor for the new science
Table of Contents
Foreword by Thomas F. Torrance ix
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments / xv
1. The Great Dance Image / 3
2. Information, Order, and Life / 29
3. The Structure of Sensible Reality / 55
4. Time and Becoming / 85
5. An Interlude on Chaos, the Game of Life, and Chance / 113
6. Birth of a Voice / 133
7. Regularity, Variety, and the Unity of the World / 159
8. The Place of Man / 185
9. Mechanism, Magic, and How Nature Is One / 215
10. Alchemy and Technology: From Wisdom to Know-How / 247
11. Universal Communication, Meaning, and Symbols / 275
12. Mind, Soul, Psyche / 309
13. About a Scientific World-View / 345
14. Envoy / 379
Bibliography / 393
Index of Names / 401
Index of Subjects / 405
Endorsements and Reviews
Reviews
Publisher's Weekly—New York, NY
This is a well-designed and thoughtful book.
Choice
In a remarkable survey and synthesis of physics and philosophy, chemistry and causality, and incorporating meaning and ethics Del Re presents an eminently interesting view of science an its results, suggesting that humanity could well be the bridge between matter and spirit. Highly recommended. All levels. —V. V. Raman, emeritus, Rochester Institute of Technology.
Bookwatch, The
A fascinating, informative, and at times inspiring blend of philosophy and science, The Cosmic Dance engages both the mind and the imagination that will be read with deep interest by scholarship and the non-specialist general reader alike.
Anvil
Giuseppe Del Re offers a new vision of the harmony of the universe based on the idea of dance—hence The Cosmic Dance with a commendation by Thomas F. Torrance.
Translations
Russian