ECU Libraries Catalog

The blind spot : why science cannot ignore human experience / Adam Frank, Marcelo Gleiser, and Evan Thompson.

Author/creator Frank, Adam, 1962- author.
Other author/creatorGleiser, Marcelo author.
Other author/creatorThompson, Evan, author.
Format Book and Print
Publication Info Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2024]
Copyright Notice ©2024
Descriptionxvii, 307 pages ; 24 cm
Subject(s)
Contents I. How did we get here? A guide for the perplexed -- The surreptitious substitution : philosophical origins of the Blind Spot -- The ascending spiral of abstractions : scientific origins of the Blind Spot -- II. Cosmos -- Time -- Matter -- Cosmology -- III. Life and mind -- Life -- Cognition -- Consciousness -- IV. The planet -- Earth.
Abstract It's tempting to think that science gives us a God's-eye view of reality. But we neglect the place of human experience at our peril. In The Blind Spot, astrophysicist Adam Frank, theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser, and philosopher Evan Thompson call for a revolutionary scientific worldview, where science includes--rather than ignores or tries not to see--humanity's lived experience as an inescapable part of our search for objective truth. The authors present science not as discovering an absolute reality but rather as a highly refined, constantly evolving form of human experience. They urge practitioners to reframe how science works for the sake of our future in the face of the planetary climate crisis and increasing science denialism. Since the dawn of the Enlightenment, humanity has looked to science to tell us who we are, where we come from, and where we're going, but we've gotten stuck thinking we can know the universe from outside our position in it. When we try to understand reality only through external physical things imagined from this outside position, we lose sight of the necessity of experience. This is the Blind Spot, which the authors show lies behind our scientific conundrums about time and the origin of the universe, quantum physics, life, AI and the mind, consciousness, and Earth as a planetary system. The authors propose an alternative vision: scientific knowledge is a self-correcting narrative made from the world and our experience of it evolving together. To finally "see" the Blind Spot is to awaken from a delusion of absolute knowledge and to see how reality and experience intertwine. The Blind Spot goes where no science book goes, urging us to create a new scientific culture that views ourselves both as an expression of nature and as a source of nature's self-understanding, so that humanity can flourish in the new millennium.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in other formOnline version: Frank, Adam, 1962- Blind spot Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, 2024 9780262377751
LCCN 2023012137
ISBN9780262048804 hardcover
ISBN0262048809 hardcover
ISBNelectronic book
ISBNelectronic book

Available Items

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Joyner General Stacks Q175 .F768 2024 Item has been checked out - Due: 03/13/2025 Want This?