From Certainty to Uncertainty: The Story of Science and Ideas in the Twentieth Century by F. David Peat (PDF)

Description

Early theorists believed that in science lay the promise of certainty. Built on a foundation of fact and constructed with objective and trustworthy tools, science produced knowledge. But science has also shown us that this knowledge will always be fundamentally incomplete and that a true understanding of the world is ultimately beyond our grasp.

In this thoughtful and compelling book, physicist F. David Peat examines the basic philosophic difference between the certainty that characterized the thinking of humankind through the nineteenth century and contrasts it with the startling fall of certainty in the twentieth. The nineteenth century was marked by a boundless optimism and confidence in the power of progress and technology. Science and philosophy were on firm ground. Newtonian physics showed that the universe was a gigantic clockwork mechanism that functioned according to rigid laws?that its course could be predicted with total confidence far into the future. Indeed, in 1900, the President of the Royal Society in Britain went so far as to proclaim that everything of importance had already been discovered by science.

But it was not long before the seeds of a scientific revolution began to take root. Quantum Theory and the General Theory of Relativity exploded the clockwork universe, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that our knowledge was, at best, incomplete?and would probably remain that way forever. There were places in the universe, such as black holes, from which no information at all could ever be obtained. Chaos Theory also demonstrated our inherent limits to knowing, predicting, and controlling the world around us and showed the way that chaos can often be found at the heart of natural and social systems.

Although we may not always recognize it, this new world view has had a profound effect not only on science, but on art, literature, philosophy, and societal relations. The twenty-first century now begins with a humble acceptance of uncertainty.

From Certainty to Uncertainty traces the rise and fall of the deterministic universe and shows the evolving influences that such disparate disciplines now have on one another. Drawing on the lessons we can learn from history, Peat also speculates on how we will manage our lives into the future.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: From Publishers Weekly At the same time that 20th-century science brought unprecedented advances, it also led to the growing awareness of the limitations of scientific knowledge itself. Through wonderfully concise, clear metaphors, physicist Peat (Infinite Potential) traces the philosophy of science from the 19th through the 20th centuries, showing how the earlier era¡s faith in the reliability of scientific research, and its belief that it was theoretically possible to predict the behavior of everything from particles to people, was abruptly shaken in the 20th century. Peat focuses especially on how the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics and chaos theory brought about cataclysmic changes in our worldview. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Review “…[Peat] is an impassioned advocate of this perspective of uncertainty, building a progressively solid case for its significance…” — What Is Enlightenment?, February-April 2004″…impressively wide-ranging study …immensely thought- provoking book” — NEW SCIENTIST, June 2002″…remarkably lucid…full of philosophical wisdom. … An admirable companion.” — METAPSYCHOLOGY ONLINE REVIEW, June 2002″Peat effectively presents problems he sees confronting the world, and he expresses confidence that they will be solved.” — Providence: Studies in Western Civilization, 2004″Peat, one of science’s more colourful historians, chronicles the shift with his usual creativity…” — Focus, January 2003″This book raises more questions than it answers. For that very reason it can be recommended as a good read.” — The Scientific and Medical Network Review, Summer 2004″This book, which is reader-friendly even to the scientifically challenged, should go on every bookshelf.” — The Constant Reader, June 2002″This well written and easily read book is intended for a general audience…” — Physics World, July 2002 From the Inside Flap “F. David Peat takes us on a wide-ranging, intellectual journey through the major scientific ideas of the 20th century, from physics and complexity to psychology and ecology. It’s a grand, exhilarating tour of the post-modern world.” — Marcia Bartusiak, author of Einstein’s Unfinished Symphony “Lucid, engaging, provocative… simply brilliant. Peat delivers a fascinating take on why uncertainty in quantum physics intimately affects every aspect of our lives and thoughts. This timely book should be required reading for anybody who cares about where we all go from here.” — James Burke, author of Circles: Fifty Round-Trips Through History, Technology, Science, Culture “The journey from certainty to uncertainty is not confined to a scientific tale. It is the story of how human thought has changed in every aspect so that we now live in an age where the only certainty is uncertainty. By making his story an intimate one and absorbing the reader with the very human nature of intellectual revolution, David Peat has done a wonderful job of illustrating how our vision of the universe has changed so radically, so quickly.” — Michael White, author of The Pope and the Heretic and Leonardo: The First Scientist About the Author F. David Peat was born in Liverpool, England. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Liverpool. He was engaged in research in theoretical physics at the National Research Council of Canada for many years and had ongoing discussions on the foundations of physics with the late David Bohm. In 1996, Peat moved to the medieval village of Pari, Italy, where he created the Pari Center for New Learning, where people can explore the new paradigms created by science and think about society’s meanings and values. Peat is a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science and a Corresponding Member of the European Academy of Arts, Science, and the Humanities. He is author of over 20 books including: The Blackwinged Night: Creativity in Nature and Mind and Infinite Potential: The Life and Times of David Bohm. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I picked this up about 10 years ago, found it boring, and didn’t finish it. 10 years later, I raced through it, finding it one of the most interesting and timely books I’ve ever read. Ironically, Peat mentions this very phenomenon in his discussion on the impermanence of identity: “Each time we pick up a book it is different because we have changed and we are bringing something new to the act of creation.”From Certainty to Uncertainty is not just about science, as many reviews suggest. It’s about the evolving social, psychological, cultural, and intellectual currents in the 20th century and beyond as we evolve past the clear-cut, analytical, classical phase of science and other disciplines into a more holistic, fuzzy, nuanced, process-oriented mode of thinking.Peat freely moves between disciplines in his investigation of our shifting paradigm. He investigates the breakdown of certainty through quantum theory (Bohr, Heisenberg, Bohm, et. al.), chaos theory (Poincare, Kolmogorov, Arnold, Moser, Lorenz, et. al.), mathematical incompleteness (Goedel), linguistic limtations (Wittgenstein), and discusses its parallels in art, philosophy, psychology, and more. It’s rare to find an author capable of such a panoramic view of culture. He also has a great sense of intellectual history to place these changes in the overall context of evolving human thought. Such breadth and depth make for a magnificent, inspiring read.Peat occasionally loses focus and spends too much time on trivial details–for example, in the chapter on chaos theory he goes off on a long tangent about the power of proxemics in business organizations, which reads suspiciously as if it were prepared for a corporate speech and repurposed for this book–but on the whole, the book hangs together very well.In an age of uncertainty and massive change, Peat echoes other authors such as Toffler, Mander, and Robert Gilman, in suggesting that we slow down and consider whether our cultural institutions, which were built in an Enlightenment-inspired era, are still serving us. A more alarming question: are these institutions even *capable* of this deep evaluation, or will they have to fail en masse before we can begin to create solutions for our complex world?How will we respond to this new age of uncertainty? Will we fall prey to the worst aspects of human nature, such as fear and aggression, or can we, as Peat suggests, cultivate a culture of reflection, humility, and fraternity? The answer will determine the future of our species.

⭐Very helpful to know the sequence of events in science journey ,until you arrive to quantum world where every thing is uncertain .

⭐After it sat on my shelf for way too long, I finally started this little book, but only got as far as page 72 for the publisher has omitted pages 73-136, something I discover too late to pursue refunds or redress. I’m sure leaving half the book undiscovered is some sort of quantum metaphor, but alas, not one its unfinished self can help me unfold from the implicate order.

⭐I’m writing a dissertation on this topic and this book was incredibly helpful. I absorbed it within two days! Absolutely fantastic read, even as a second-hand copy.

⭐This is a wide reaching and clearly thought out presentation. The ideas presented here should form a basis for thinking about science as well as about how we see life in general. Clearly, an outstanding book.

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