Dialogues with Scientists and Sages: Search for Unity

by Renee Weber

from the back of book

"This is the first book in which contemporary scientists and mystics share with us-in their own words- their views on space, time, matter, energy, life, consciousness, creation, and on our place in the scheme of things. Through the immediacy of verbatim dialogue with philosopher Renee Weber, we follow their step-by-step exploration of life's enduring questions and their proposals for the new models of man and nature. These dialogues suggest that the search of the great scientist for the source of matter parallels the mystics' quest for the source of our own being. In her accompanying essays, Renee Weber provides us with glimpses into the personalities of these rare people.

The book is also the story of and American philosopher who-with these dialogues-ventures into ground-breaking territory, and of her search in America,Europe,India and Nepal for people whose work is at the center of our understanding of reality. Renee Weber's odyssey takes her from quantum physicist David Bohm to Tibetan monk Lama Govinda, from Nobel prize-winning physical chemist Ilya Prigogine to Christian mystic Father Bede Griffinths in India; from controversial biologist Rupert Sheldrake to His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet; from world-famous Cambridge astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who rejects mysticism, to Indian sage Krishnamurti, who rejects science. This unique book shows us scientists who endorse mysticism and those who oppose it, mystics who dismiss science and those who embrace it."

Genres: Science, Philosophy, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1986

Reviews

[Phil Matarese · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book overall. I read it for the sages rather than the scientists. Can’t say I necessarily understood the science as I’m not really a science guy. I’m definitely intrigued by the intersection of mysticism and science. The mystics/sages of this book were all eastern, only one Christian, perhaps that is a result of when this book was written. I think it’s much more popular now to write about God, science, and spirituality all in one book compared to when Weber was writing.

[David Chmelik · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is fascinating. It has David Bohm's (a top physicist) conversations with the Dalai Lama: they have more ideas in common than not--in fact they reach agreements. Other scientists & spiritual philosophers are in it, though Krishnamurti refused dialogue and interviews, or at least gave some very uncompromising interview or written lecture in which he denied to the last that pi is always constant. Of course, I could show why he is also true, but it is sort of an exception that requires additional ideas, so most mathematicians, including me, would say he is illogical. He encouraged people to question and not believe, but `tis said he was not perfect at both lifestyle and logic, but he barely/never questioned his prejudice against both Eastern religion and Western science, and there are equally/more interesting people in the book.