Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe

by Brian Greene

The arts provide an arena unbounded by the strictures of flat-footed truth and everyday physical reality, allowing the mind to jump and twist and tumble as it explores all manner of imagined novelty. A mind that assiduously sticks to what’s true is a mind that explores a wholly limited realm of possibility. But a mind that becomes accustomed to freely crossing the boundary between what’s real and what’s imagined—all the while keeping clear tabs on which is which—is a mind that becomes adept at breaking the bonds of conventional thinking. Such a mind is primed for innovation and ingenuity. History makes this manifest. We owe many of the greatest breakthroughs of science and technology to a collection of individuals who were able to look at the very same problems that had confounded generations of previous thinkers and have the flexibility of thought to see those problems differently.