by
Nicholas Maxwell
This book, published today, might be of interest to
those concerned about ultimate questions – the nature of the universe,
the meaning of life, the fate of
humanity.
Cutting God in Half argues that, in order to tackle
climate change, world poverty, extinction of species and our other global
problems rather better than we are doing at present we need to bring about a
revolution in science, and in academia more generally. We need to put our problems
of living – personal, social, global – at the heart of the academic
enterprise.
How our human
world, imbued with meaning and value, can exist and best flourish embedded
in the physical universe is, the book argues, our fundamental
problem. It
is our fundamental philosophical problem, our fundamental problem of
knowledge and understanding, and our fundamental practical problem of
living. It
is this problem that we fail, at present, to recognize as fundamental – to
our cost.
It can be
understood to arise as a result of cutting God in half – severing the God of
Cosmic Power from the God of Value. The first is Einstein’s God,
the underlying unity in the physical universe that determines how events
occur. The
second is what is of most value associated with human life – and sentient
life more generally.
Having cut God in half in this way, the problem then
becomes to see how the two halves can be put together
again. This
book tackles outstanding aspects of this problem, and in doing so throws out
original ideas about science, education, religion, evolutionary theory, free
will, quantum theory, and how we should go about tackling our impending
global crises. It transpires that bringing
our basic problem into sharp focus has revolutionary
implications. It becomes clear how and why
many aspects of our social and cultural world urgently need to be
transformed.
Cutting God in Half is written in a lively, accessible
style, and ought to be essential reading for anyone concerned about the
future of humanity.
“Maxwell is advocating nothing less than a revolution
(based on reason, not on religious or Marxist doctrine) in our intellectual
goals and methods of inquiry ... There are altogether too many symptoms of
malaise in our science-based society for Nicholas Maxwell's diagnosis to be
ignored."
Professor Christopher Longuet-Higgins, Nature
Cutting God in Half – and Putting the Pieces Together Again: A
New Approach to Philosophy, by Nicholas
Maxwell, Pentire Press,London, Pp. x +
370, Ł8.95, $14
ISBN: 978-0-9552240-2-7
www.nick-maxwell.demon.co.uk
