Description
Book SynopsisMaterialism asserts that the universe and everything within it, including ourselves, is a deterministic machine, trapped until the end of time on the rigid tracks of inviolable laws. Only the mechanisms of physics - forces, electrical charges, and so on - are consequential; nothing else matters. Experiences, such as the taste of honey, feelings, thoughts, choices: everything concerning the mind is an illusion, or is at best a useless and absurd epiphenomenon. This accessible and engagingly-written book is a serious philosophical work, giving solid reasons for rejecting materialism, and proposing an alternative metaphysical framework that is fully consistent with science. In the sensuous cosmos, our essence is that we experience the world in all its exquisite, sensual beauty and unbearable suffering. We actively participate as rational agents with authentic freedom. The future of our planet is not fully determined. Collectively we have it in our power to make it heaven (or hell), as we wish. We are a community of spiritual beings, living alongside other beings, animate and inanimate. Everything that exists is fully spiritual. We may perceive each other as physical bodies but, at our most intimate, we know that we are 'such stuff as dreams are made on.'
Trade ReviewPeter Ells describes pain and suffering in a personal, humane context, much more realistically than in terms of dry abstractions, as is usual in such works. This book is a valuable counterweight to the prevailing physicalist assumptions, and it criticises especially those materialists who assert that what cannot be measured numerically cannot exist for their nihilistic effects on our culture. The book shows that it is premature to jettison our everyday assumptions of the reality of our human experiences, thoughts, sorrows and joys, and of our agency and libertarian free will. I recommend and would welcome the publication of this book. (Herminio Martins, Emeritus Fellow, St Antony's College, University of Oxford)
