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| Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion | 
 enlarge | Author: Stuart Kauffman
Publisher: Basic Books
Category: Book
List Price: $27.00
Buy New: $15.74
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Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 6634
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 0465003001
Dewey Decimal Number: 215
EAN: 9780465003006
ASIN: 0465003001
Publication Date: May 5, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20081006210455T
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Product Description
Consider the woven integrated complexity of a living cell after 3.8 billion years of evolution. Is it more awe-inspiring to suppose that a transcendent God fashioned the cell, or to consider that the living organism was created by the evolving biosphere? As the eminent complexity theorist Stuart Kauffman explains in this ambitious and groundbreaking new book, people who do not believe in God have largely lost their sense of the sacred and the deep human legitimacy of our inherited spirituality. For those who believe in a Creator God, no science will ever disprove that belief. In Reinventing the Sacred, Kauffman argues that the science of complexity provides a way to move beyond reductionist science to something new: a unified culture where we see God in the creativity of the universe, biosphere, and humanity. Kauffman explains that the ceaseless natural creativity of the world can be a profound source of meaning, wonder, and further grounding of our place in the universe. His theory carries with it a new ethic for an emerging civilization and a reinterpretation of the divine. He asserts that we are impelled by the imperative of life itself to live with faith and courage-and the fact that we do so is indeed sublime. Reinventing the Sacred will change the way we all think about the evolution of humanity, the universe, faith, and reason.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
Perplexed May 11, 2008
77 out of 78 found this review helpful
This is a hard book. A work of generative genius that is almost a sustained prose poem on the subject of how reductionism is not really a good way of looking at how the universe works.I found the early part of the book which shows how the operation of biological processes cannot be determined by or derived from the laws of physics understandable and convincing. This is his home territory from his work on autocatlytic sets described in his previous book At Home in the Universe that I really liked. But then Kauffman proceeds to build less convincingly and somewhat more opaquely a super structure on top of this to accomodate culture, the economy, consciousness and indeed the role of quantum theory in consciousness. In this process he frequently lost me at the detailed level, even when directionally his arguments made sense at the macro level: they were interesting and suggestive, but they were like a large flip chart report out of a brainstorm and the clarity of understanding that should have been central to his case was lost. And like a poem he repeated his mantra of the laws of physics not predicting biological processes, adding a little more to the chorus each time. I suspect Kauffman's genius and fast processing brain intimidated his editors, who were simply not tough enough with him. If perhaps 50 times during this book, they had said to him: 'Stuart exactly what do you mean here? Tell us and we will put it in words that your audience will understand'. Then this book would have reached its full potential. My editor uses the wonderful term 'muddy': too much of this book is muddy.It's great interesting mud but mud is mud. His closing pleas for a different take on ethics are heartfelt, appealing but are not as well connected with the foregoing framework as they could easily have been. Ultimately I preferred his previous book At Home in the Universe. But hard as this book is, it is worth some trouble and maybe like Gregory Bateson's work, someone will write a commentary on this book that makes it all clear. And yes ultimately I believe he has the beginnings of the reinvention of the sacred in his sights. He did begin to shift how I see things, and that was worth the journey.
 Awe-Inspiring May 7, 2008
46 out of 55 found this review helpful
I have been waiting for days to see some real reviews of this book come up. Tired of waiting--let me say this is a fabulous book. For the lay reader, it is quite a challenge (I am an artist). Nevertheless, it is well worth the effort. Stuart Kauffman's ideas are powerful and sensible, above all else, inspiring.
I do not have the technical background to critique his ideas and I look forward to reviews written by those who do. However, as an artist, Kauffman's essential premise--that which is sacred is the immeasuarable, unfathomable creativity of the universe--resonates at a deep level. This is what I emotionally and intellectually react to each and every day I open my eyes and step out into the world.
The space of all possibilities, this is what Kauffman celebrates. I love his enthusiasm. He is a markedly creative individual, driven, no doubt, by passion. His sensibilities about the world around him are positive and heartening. This is a joy to encounter in a science-orientated, big-picture book. Kudos.
A review of Kauffman's essay in Edge outlining the main thesis of the book April 24, 2008
27 out of 61 found this review helpful
The main idea of this work , if I understand it correctly, is that the Universe is an evolving creative, self- organizing system. Creativity and non- predictability are inherent in its development. Attempts to understand the 'higher levels' of reality by reducing them to ' simpler' or ' lower ' ones including reductions of the realm of the spiritual to the physical do not provide satisfactory explanations. There are self- organizing higher realms whose development is an ongoing process. What Kauffman calls for is a process of - co- creation in which humanity through its own creative efforts contributes to the development of the Universe in the direction of its own ideals and values.
I do not understand how Kauffman determines or derives what these Values and Ideals should be. But my guess is that these Values and Ideals are too meant to be not fixed and final Determinants but ever- evolving Realities.
Kauffman wishes to stress that while he does not deny the possibility of a Transcendent Creator Who Directs the whole process, he does not favor this possibility. As he understands it the creative process in itself is sufficient to provide explanation of the overall continuing development of the Universe.
As I have said I have not read the whole, or even the great part of this work so I do not know the way he sees the process going on through vast stretches of cosmic time. Is he one who definitely believes the biological basis of Mankind must be transcended for us to truly extend Consciousness in the Universe? Is he one who imagines some kind of eventual 'filling of the Universe' with Consciousnesses, colonies of Mind, capable of connecting by communication all the great distances?
I don't know.
I do feel his work is of tremendous interest to me personally as I too seek to like so many others understand the future direction of mankind and the universe. In this regard I look forward to reading the full text when it becomes available.
I would only say that I personally see a Higher Being , God as the inevitable End of all the striving to extend Consciousness- and therefore however paradoxically the 'logical' 'Beginning' also.
 Interesting, but... June 5, 2008
25 out of 36 found this review helpful
The main premise of this book is that the traditional God of the Bible is not an accurate view of what God, or a god, actually is. Kauffman tries to reinvent, just as the title states, our view of God to be the 'creativity' the universe possesses through "emergence." He then goes into several examples of emergence, starting with life itself and going through economics, quantum mechanics, etc. For example, one of his main points is that life cannot be reduced to physics, nor can the basic principles of laws of physics be reversed to 'obtain' or deduce life itself. I believe he is accurate, based on our knowledge, at least up until this point.
I do believe, however, that his premise that the real god of the universe is nothing more than this 'emergence', is nothing more than philosophy. Kauffman does his best to show this scientifically, at which he fails miserably. The truth is that emergence itself is a touchy subject, at best, and assumes we know everything there is to know about a phenomenon. Therefore, his so-called scientific 'evidence' for rejecting the God of the Bible is nothing but opinion or perhaps scientifically oriented philosophy. But, admittedly, his discussion of the topic of emergence (the inability of certain phenomena to be derived from basic physics) is quite interesting. It actually lead to more questions than answers, for me, though.
 Huh? April 24, 2008
23 out of 159 found this review helpful
The author says that for those who believe in god, no science will ever disprove their belief. To this the appropriate response is Huh? Of course science cannot disprove the existence of a god, any more than it can disprove the existence of a spaghetti monster orbiting Uranus. Does that mean god and the spaghetti monster exist? No. It is up to the god believers to prove god exists, which they have never, and never will, be able to prove. To which people should say, why should I believe things just because other people do? The author of this book does not seem to understand that god is just an imaginary friend. Believers in god will never consider the evidence for their beliefs, because they don't want facts to get in the way. They just want to believe in what they want to believe, without regard for reason or rationality.
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