The House of Truth: Living and Dying in a Quantum Universe - Tapa blanda

Michael Meredith s earlier books have established him as a unique writer on the frontiers of religion and science. He is unashamedly personal in his presentation of the issues recognising, it seems, that most of us can digest new insights as stories when we would find it difficult to digest them as theory. At the same time, he is just as unashamedly bold in fleshing out his own theoretical perspectives, with the help of a wide variety of conversation partners. Much of the delight and excitement of this book is to be given a share in these conversations. Michael s analysis of the Four Quadrants of Truth is a really clear and illuminating model, which as he demonstrates later in the book when he is discussing the work of Richard Dawkins helps us tease out different kinds of claims and experiences in a way that is sensitive and constructive. It is a paradigm for thinking about thinking which gently but insistently challenges the crude models we often work with and are encouraged to work with by our culture: models of plain binary oppositions, yes or no questions, the reduction of all our searching to kindergarten terms. Michael s long and complex but completely engaging conversations with Professor Chris Isham show how far genuine scientific exploration is from the sad caricatures that make up the science-religion debate in the media. Michael s picture of the human mind is of an unfolding energy, blossoming into maturity not by finding answers but by letting itself be enlarged in both wonder and rigorous intellectual enquiry. And beyond all the detail of this lies the Fifth Room the hardest to speak about, yet in a way the clue to all the rest of the analysis. This is where you cannot just rest content with the mind processing individual experiences in time; there is the inescapable sense of being on the edge of not so much seeing as simply inhabiting endless life. It is the not-knowing of the mystic, the moment of homecoming and enlightenment in which the depth and interconnection of all things is intuited in a way that seems to be at a different level from the usual processes of thought and sensation. Michael, with great sensitivity and care, tells us how this has for him been linked to encounter with the person of Christ: the intuition of the connections in things, the wholeness of the implicate order in the title of David Bohm s great work, is mysteriously bound up with the history of the person of whom his early followers said that all things cohere in him . Readers of this book will come from diverse backgrounds and convictions, and some will be puzzled by this daring link between the most inexpressible of intuitions and the very specific presence of a man in history. To such readers, I can only say that they will need to follow the entire argument with care and openness, to see how this powerful affirmation of a Christian heart to the argument does not lead to any kind of exclusivism or Christian chauvinism . This is throughout a work of courage and humility combined, full of mind-stretching insight and also of vivid and beautiful personal glimpses. It is just as sophisticated and attractive as his earlier work, and forms a fitting climax to the long and lively exploration of these fundamental questions that Michael has helped us with so wonderfully in the last decade or so. For me, it has been a privilege to share in this exploration, and I hope many readers will feel the same. --Dr Rowan Williams Archbishop of Canterbury

I have been enjoying reading through your fascinating and moving text. You have written a remarkable book that combines insight, imagination, spiritual sensitivity and an infectious commitment ... The dialogues are particularly absorbing ... You must be delighted --Professor Dr John Hedley Brooke

The House of Truth, with a foreword by Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is the personal insight of an engineering scientist who has experienced the presence of God and spent over two decades meeting people of many faiths, listening to their insights, empathising with their beliefs and sincerely worshiping alongside them. It is a story layered with scientific and spiritual understanding, vibrant with love, hopeful in death. Michael s work cradles a deep-rooted meaning for each of our personal lives. If you want to know what Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Christians along with scientists, quantum physicists, engineering professionals and other discerning people really believe read the open-minded conversations in the House of Truth. The conversations are genuine but the pattern uncovered by the author reveals truths which are far more profound than anyone could have foretold. The use of scientific method in the form of engineering system analysis principles has been developed using data from world philosophies and religions to tease out the nature of the human construct which is referred to as truth from which distinctive patterns of the dynamic nature of science and religion are deduced.