God Is Not Dead: What Quantum Physics Tells Us about Our Origins and How We Should Live by Amit Goswami (PDF)

Description

Move over, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens—a highly regarded nuclear physicist enters the debate about the existence of God—and comes down on the side of the angels.Goswami’s hypothesis is that quantum physics holds the key to all the unsolved mysteries of biology—the nature and origin of life, fossil gaps of evolution, why evolution proceeds from simple to complex, and why biological beings have feeling and consciousness.In God Is Not Dead, Goswami moves beyond theory and shows how a God-based science puts ethics and values where it belongs: at the center of our lives and societies. He provides a scientific model that steers between scientific materialism and religious fundamentalism; a model that has implications for how we live both individually and collectively.God Is Not Dead is a fascinating tour of quantum physics, consciousness, and the existence and experience of God.

User’s Reviews

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

⭐It has always been fascinating to me how one’s intellectual development over time can change from believer to non-believer, from ignorant to smart, and from immature to mature. I am someone who for most of my life, has been always had a strict scientific point of view. In my early youth I was a believer and went to church every week etc. My search for facts and truth brought me in my late teens and early 20s, to the conclusion that scientific materialism did not need a “God hypothesis” to understand the universe.Now that I am well into my senior years, the “new science” exploring quantum physics made me realize that there is indeed, more to the universe and man than just materialism. This is why when I saw this 311-page softcover book (God is not dead: what quantum physics tells us about our origins and we should live by Amit Goswami, Ph.D.) on Amazon for a bargain price I decided to purchase it. Even though I have read numerous books over the years on how quantum physics, the focus of this book intrigued me because it offers a proof of “God” that combines quantum physics with our human consciousness. The material in this volume presents the topic in a way that will appeal to those into reason, logic, science and rationality.Whether the author will influence those dogmatic people on either end of the spectrum is debatable; however, this book will certainly open your mind to possibilities in the search for truth and the universe.This excellent book is organized into five detailed parts with a total of 21 chapters and 2 very interesting epilogue sections. Part one is an introduction focusing on an overview of what will be covered. Part two is about the evidence for downward causation. The third part explains the evidence for the subtle bodies. The fourth part deals with the downward causation revisited and part five focuses on quantum activism.Even though clearly the author promotes the religious view point in this book; nevertheless, his knowledge of science and quantum physics make this a must book to read whether you are a believer or not.Rating: 4 Stars. Joseph J. Truncale (Tactical Principles of the most effective Combative Systems).

⭐Amit Goswami’s “God is Not Dead” is an interesting read, even as a less noteworthy contribution compared to Goswami’s “The Self-Aware Universe.”Goswami’s treatment springs from his understanding of quantum mechanics, the quantum wave function, and the wave function’s collapse. He (page 22) writes: “Quantum possibilities are possibilities of consciousness itself, which is the ground of all being. This takes us back to monistic idealism…. Our looking is tantamount to choosing, from among all the quantum possibilities, the one unique facet that becomes our experienced actuality.” Looking collapses the wave function, as much as we can tell from quantum mechanics.Goswami (page 23) writes: “We don’t choose in our ordinary state of individual consciousness that we call the ego the subjective aspect of ourselves that the behaviorist studies and that is the result of conditioning. Instead, we choose from an unconditioned, objective state of unitive consciousness, the non-ordinary state where we are one, a state we can readily identify with God.”Goswami writes (page 23) the following. “Our exercise of choice, the events quantum physicists call the collapse of the quantum possibility wave, is God’s exercise of the power of downward causation. And the way God’s downward causation is this: for many objects and many events, the choice is made in such a way that objective predictions of quantum probability hold; yet in individual events, the scope of creative subjectivity is retained.”Goswami writes (page 24): “The quantum signatures of downward causation are discontinuity (as in our experience of creative insight), nonlocality (as in the signal-less communication of metal telepathy), and circular hierarchy, also called tangled hierarchy (as sometimes experienced between people in love).” Goswami expands on the tangled hierarchy, a structure introduced by Douglas R. Hofstadter.Goswami writes (page 30): “The paradigm shift of our science now taking place is revealed in depth psychology and transpersonal psychology and the branch of medicine that is called alternative medicine. The paradigm shift is also revealed in the work of organismic biologists who see causal autonomy in the entire biological organism, not merely in its microscopic components. Some evolutionary biologists even see the necessity of invoking `intelligent design’ of life to break the shackle of Darwinian beliefs. The practitioners of these branches of science have penetrated the camouflage to some extent. With the help of quantum physics, the penetration of the camouflage is much more extensive. “Goswami’s book provides evidence for the reality of God, and he gives (page 34) an early outline: “In view of quantum physics, the vast data on life after death, and alternative subtle-body medicine, it is considerably more difficult to refute the ideas of downward causation and subtle bodies. And who in their right mind would try to refute the importance of virtues and values in our lives? Clearly, the religious have a more plausible theory of virtues and values than the biologists who claim they evolved from Darwinian adaptation via chance and necessity.”Goswami writes on the sometimes hidden foundation of religious attitude: “Jesus himself was a great mystic. Following his lead, Christianity in the West has had other great mystics who have propounded monistic idealism, mystics such as Meister Eckhart, Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint Catherine of Genoa, etc. But the organized nature of Christianity drowned out the voices of the mystics (ironically, including Jesus), and dualism has prevailed in the official thinking of Christendom.”Goswami tells us that it is feeling that gives us the first sign of something beyond the physical that leads to the spiritual. It is feeling that is left unexplained by science. Goswami writes (page 137): “When we look at our experiences of feeling, meaning, and the archetypal contexts of feeling and meaning through the conceptual lens of the new science – science within consciousness – we find that there is ample experimental proof that they don’t arise from the physical body. They occur in conjunction with the body, but they are not the physical body. Instead they come from God, or more accurately from the Godhead; we choose them from our own God potentia. In other words, no mystic has to tell us that God is our `father.’ Every one of us has that intuition already. The new science is just validating that intuition.”Goswami writes (page 153): “The God hypothesis is needed to incorporate feelings as part of our experience. You will notice that feeling-oriented cultures tend to be believers in God (good or bad), whereas when rationalism dominates a culture, it tends to move away from the God hypothesis. This is not a coincidence.”I am afraid that my brief review will not do justice to all of the topics in Goswami’s book. There is discussion of reincarnation, karma, parapsychology, mind-body healing and other topics that are being related to the reality of God as philosophical arguments. Goswami is breaking new ground here. Nevertheless, the book could benefit with additional treatments of some classical philosophical arguments, and I mean to point to arguments that are beyond Thomas Aquinas. Hegel’s “ontological proof of God” and Charles S. Peirce’s “neglected argument for the reality of God” (as they are known) provide non-dual understandings that are agreeable to Goswami’s monistic idealism, in my opinion.

⭐There is a small but growing range of writings by scientists who are exploring the strange world of quantum physics and finding that it is not inconceivable that it leads towards a state of reality that could fairly be described as God. This exciting trend away from the dead hand of dreary reductionist materialism will give open-minded, intelligent readers something to chew on, whether or not they agree with the conclusions. The physics, however, is solidly established and set out in this book by an expert by a top physicist who writes clearly for the layman. You can’t ask for more. Buy it, read it and expand your horizons.

⭐There’s much more of a link between Quantum physics/mathematics and God than people think, this basically lays out the argument for God in a ‘quantum physics’ way.

⭐Very informative and easy to read book .Makes quantum physics more easy to understand.

⭐Book jacket:—————“God Is Not Dead is a fascinating guided tour of quantum physics, consciousness, and the existence and experience of God. University of Oregon physics professor Amit Goswami shows readers that God’s existence can be found in clues that the science of quantum physics reveals.Goswami helps readers to break through their materialistic conditioning, viewing reality as defined by Newtonian physics, to become free through a quantum understanding and experience of consciousness and God. In fact, God Is Not Dead argues for a quantum activism, leading a balanced life that incorporates both the quantum and material worlds and an experience of consciousness.God Is Not Dead will change how readers think and experience the nature of reality, the existence of souls, the power of dreams, the universality of love, the possibility of ESP, and the very mind of God.”What I would like to add:—————————–This book should be both appealing to readers of the materialist scientific background (or conviction), as well as to the common Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and to readers who are interested in the metaphysical and in ancient spiritual traditions. The perspective of quantum physics to the question of God seems to be the only way in which we can both integrate the material & spiritual into our world view, without the two contradicting each other. If you aren’t aware of the most fundamental implications of quantum physics, this book has the potential of changing and challenging your world view. Goswami displays, in a peaceable way, that within “new science”, there is room for both physics and spiritualism. “Quantum Activist” Amit Goswami conclusively challenges us, the reader to become Quantum Activists ourselves in order to better the planet and to evolve society as a whole. The insight and acceptance of a true, universal creator alone, and the implications that come with it should be our starting point.Not having read any previous books of the author (at least ten), it appears to be a well balanced “summary” of his work, as Goswami often gives reference to topics discussed in his previous books, as well as to the work of many other scientists and authors when discussing one of the many related topics. To prove the case of a universal Creator, the most complex problem to resolve in science, it is of course necessary to approach this from many different angles. With all it’s different content, the book appears to be very well structured. Sometimes a little dry, however the author on some occasions shows to have great humor which will make you smile.This book deals with the following topics:———————————————– Science (materialism, history, etc.)- Quantum Physics (fundamentals, it’s implications)- Biology (Darwin, evolution, genetics)- Philosophy- Religion (Christianity, Buddhism, various spiritual traditions from India, Japan)- Psychology [Social behavior, Dream Interpretation, Archetypes, etc. (Freud, Jung)]- ESP [Extrasensory perception (telepathy, etc.)]- NDE [near death experiences, prior to Eben Alexander’s “Proof of Heaven” (2012)]- The inconsistencies of materialist science (fossil gaps in archeology, and many, many others)(did I miss anything?)The only negative points I have to raise concern the editor and the publisher:————————————————————————————— Still a few typos- On one or two occasions Goswami’s reference to a diagram on an earlier page isn’t correct- As with many books from American publishers, even with the hardcover edition, the paper quality is fairly moderatre (un-bleached, relatively thick paper)Bottom Line:——————Amit Goswami really goes into the depth. He obviously has a vast knowledge about the topics he’s writing about. Some technical descriptions and spiritual ideas aren’t always that easy to grasp for average Joe, but a reader who’s interested in the topic shouldn’t shy away from it. It’s a colossal work; not in pages, but in content. It should provide the reader with much material for discussion, many things to further investigate (plenty of references), and with much to ponder on.

⭐Finding this one hard to get through. Style is extremely scattered, jumping around from one topic to the next as if written as a stream of consciousness. The proof of the given arguments are usually explained simply by reference to another author or text, at times texts written by the books author himself. Some information factually incomplete, such as referring to Einstein’s theory of relativity as a creative spark out of nowhere. It is known that Einstein was merely continuing a theory and it was not entirely original. I’m not sure I can finish it, too little factual information and too much energy spent warping theories from others into some form to support an argument.

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