|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
Toward a Holistic Theory Reality
| Article
# : |
14586 |
|
|
Section : |
BOOK WORLD
|
| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1988 |
3,165 Words |
| Author
: |
J.W.P. Traphagan
J.W.P. Traphagan is a graduate of Yale Divinity School and is
currently studying at Andover Newton Theological School. |
THE COSMIC BLUEPRINT
Paul Davies
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988
224 pp., $17.95
THE MIRACLE OF EXISTENCE
Henry Margenau
Boston: Shambhala, 1987
143 pp., $9.95
ONE WORLD
The Interaction of Science and Theology
John Polkinghorne
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986
114 pp., $7.95
"Truth is never pure, and rarely simple."
--Oscar Wilde
Since the seventeenth century, the quest for knowledge has primarily centered around attempts to explain the phenomena of life by reducing human experience to the basic laws and methods of physics, chemistry, and biology. In the twentieth century, however, physicists, biologists, and neurophysiologists have proposed theories that challenge traditional scientific method. Consequently, revised beliefs have arisen about the nature of reality and the degree to which the laws of one kind of experience can be applied to others.
Over the past decade, a new literature has developed that attempts to identify a paradigm for investigating reality that more fully takes into account the diversity of human experience. This holistic paradigm operates from the assumption that both the subject interrogating the world and the objective world itself form a context in which the parts and the whole derive meaning from each other.
A primary source for this new paradigm has been quantum mechanics, because its laws necessitate a departure from the dualistic Cartesian worldview upon which science has been based since the Enlightenment. Some of the founders of quantum theory, such as Erwin Schrödinger, turned to the ideas of Eastern religion, seeking deeper understanding of the meaning of modern scientific discoveries. But it was not until the early seventies, when Fritjof Capra published the Tao of Physics, that the
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
