The Dawn of a Mindful Universe: A Manifesto for Humanity's Future
About this ebook
Since Copernicus, humanity has increasingly seen itself as adrift, an insignificant speck within a large, cold universe. Brazilian physicist, astronomer, and winner of the 2019 Templeton Prize Marcelo Gleiser argues that it is because we have lost the spark of the Enlightenment that has guided human development over the past several centuries. While some scientific efforts have been made to overcome this increasingly bleak perspective—the ongoing search for life on other planets, the recent idea of the multiverse—they have not been enough to overcome the core problem: we’ve lost our moral mission and compassionate focus in our scientific endeavors.
Gleiser argues that we’re using the wrong paradigm to relate to the universe and our position in it. In this deeply researched and beautifully rendered book, he calls for us to embrace a new life-centric perspective, one which recognizes just how rare and precious life is and why it should be our mission to preserve and nurture it. The Dawn of a Mindful Universe addresses the current environmental and scientific impasses and how the scientific community can find solutions to them.
Gleiser’s paradigm rethinks the ideals of the Enlightenment, and proposes a new direction for humanity, one driven by human reason and curiosity whose purpose is to save civilization itself. Within this model, we can once again see ourselves as the center of the universe—the place where life becomes conscious—and regain a clear moral compass which can be used to guide both science and the politics around it.
About the author
The first Latin American winner of the Templeton Prize, Marcelo Gleiser is a theoretical physicist and a professor of natural philosophy, physics, and astronomy at Dartmouth College. His work ranges from cosmology and applications of information theory to complex phenomena to history and philosophy of science and how science and culture interact. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a recipient of the Presidential Faculty Fellows Award from the White House and National Science Foundation. Gleiser has authored five books and is the co-founder of 13.8, where he writes about science and culture with physicist Adam Frank. He is devoted to the public understanding of science and his books have been published in fifteen languages. A native of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, he lives in Hanover, New Hampshire.
