I’d heard a lot about this book, and expected a lot from it. Theise isn’t the first writer get lost in quantum weirdness, and he won’t be the last.

The first half is a tour of complexity science, focusing on where the boundaries of complex systems lie: the “quenched disorder” threshold between static order and complete disorder, and the existence of emergent phase changes in systems constructed from lots of simple interactions. Lovelock’s “daisyworld” is a great example of this, and Theise is very strong on assigning credit where it is due (Lynn Margulis’ contributions are often overlooked). It’s an approach that could be taken a lot further.

But then it all goes wrong, lost in the mazes of quantum theory and its superficial compatibilities with various kinds of mysticism. But there are lots of different mystic systems, and choosing to focus on three that have been selected for their similarities with a naive interpretation of quantum mechanics tells us precisely nothing about reality: there are plenty of others that are entirely incompatible (including most mainstream religions), which suggests it’s at least possible for mysticism and science to coincide by chance. And it’s a category error to then try to reason back from the mystic to the scientific in an attemot to “explain” complexity.

This absolutely isn’t what it claims to be – a scientific theory of consciousness and connectedness – because it commits the fundamental error of being selective with the data. Just because we can’t (yet) explain quantum entanglement and decoherence doesn’t mean that panpsychism has anything to tell us about reality. This sort of “reconciliation” of science (“western”) and mysticism (“eastern”) isn’t new, isn’t informative, and (to my mind) does both a disservice.

1/5. Finished Wednesday 17 July, 2024.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)