• Light Scattering and Nanoscale Surface Roughness (Nanostructure Science and Technology)
• Quantum Theory: A Wide Spectrum
• Lectures on Quantum Mechanics

The classical mechanistic idea of nature that prevailed in science during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was an essentially mindless conception: the physically described aspects of nature were asserted to be completely determined by prior physically described aspects alone, with our conscious experiences entering only passively. During the twentieth century the classical concepts were found to be inadequate. In the new theory, quantum mechanics, our conscious experiences enter into the dynamics in specified ways not fixed by the physically described aspects alone. Consequences of this radical change in our understanding of the connection between mind and brain are described.

 

Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Comment: I have found this book to be very well written and thought provoking. I love a book that makes you think and that brings up points of view that perhaps you haven't considered before. This book certainly makes you ponder how your thoughts actually affect the Universe, excuse me, Multiverse. No longer are we just passive bystanders but rather hopeful co-creators. This is on a grand scale as well as a micro scale. So go ahead...stretch your brain a little...it might hurt at first to use muscles that you might not have used in a long while (trust me I know!) but you'll thank me later!(lol)

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Modern Physics Explained for Human Beings
Comment: "Mindful Universe" by Henry Stapp begins with the sentences, "This book concerns your nature as a human being. It is about the connection of your mind to your body."

When I first read that I thought, "Oh, sure, what would a physicist know about that?" I read the book anyway, and I'm glad I did. It is without a doubt the best, most comprehensible, most useful book about modern physics I've ever read.

First Stapp lays out the basic discoveries and their ramifications that led to the overthrow of 'classical physics' in a way that is easily understood. He then goes into the 'orthodox interpretation' of modern physics as laid out by von Neumann and others. This has provided me with an understanding of modern physics that is both intuitive and actually useful to my everyday life.

Stapp has managed to do something amazing -- he teaches us what modern physics really says about the nature of the universe and our role in it, without dumbing it down and without the jargon and mathematics that make so many of the other books I've read so difficult. And what modern science really says is very different to what most books and mass-media articles present. Be ready for a reality shift.

In Chapter 6 "The Effectiveness of Conscious Will and the Quantum Zeno Effect" Stapp explains how this modern physics applies to the mind-brain connection in a way that fits well with experience. I've never understood modern physics like that.

The last sentence of the chapter "Conclusions" is, "The falseness of that deviation of science (the classical ideal of a mechanical universe) must be made known, and heralded, because human beings are not likely to endure in a society ruled by a conception of themselves that denies the essence of their being."

I would like to say this: Stapp makes good on the promise of the first sentence of the book and I understand and agree with the last. Fantastic book.

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