The Dawn Of A Mindful Universe (a Manifesto For Humanity's Future)

By (author) Gleiser Marcelo
Description:

An award-winning astronomer and physicist’s spellbinding and urgent call for a new Enlightenment and the recognition of the preciousness of life using reason and curiosity—the foundations of science—to study, nurture, and ultimately preserve humanity as we face the existential crisis of climate change.

Since Copernicus, humanity has increasingly seen itself as adrift, an insignificant speck within a large, cold universe. Brazilian physicist, astronomer, and winner of the 2019 Templeton Prize Marcelo Gleiser argues that it is because we have lost the spark of the Enlightenment that has guided human development over the past several centuries. While some scientific efforts have been made to overcome this increasingly bleak perspective—the ongoing search for life on other planets, the recent idea of the multiverse—they have not been enough to overcome the core problem: we’ve lost our moral mission and compassionate focus in our scientific endeavors.

Gleiser argues that we’re using the wrong paradigm to relate to the universe and our position in it. In this deeply researched and beautifully rendered book, he calls for us to embrace a new life-centric perspective, one which recognizes just how rare and precious life is and why it should be our mission to preserve and nurture it. The Dawn of a Mindful Universe addresses the current environmental and scientific impasses and how the scientific community can find solutions to them.

Gleiser’s paradigm rethinks the ideals of the Enlightenment, and proposes a new direction for humanity, one driven by human reason and curiosity whose purpose is to save civilization itself. Within this model, we can once again see ourselves as the center of the universe—the place where life becomes conscious—and regain a clear moral compass which can be used to guide both science and the politics around it.

Review quote:
"Marcelo Gleiser argues that the only hope we have of addressing the current environmental crisis lies in rethinking our relationship to history and to the entire cosmos. The Dawn of a Mindful Universe is a work of great honesty and daring. Its message couldn’t be more alarming, yet it is ultimately optimistic." — Elizabeth Colbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction and Under a White Sky “An extraordinary book. Marcelo Gleiser has brought together cosmology, environmentalism, and spirituality in a personal and poetic call to arms that is nothing short of breathtaking. Most of the time I was smiling and nodding as I read it, and occasionally I was moved to tears.” — William Egginton, author of The Rigor of Angels, The Splintering of the American Mind, and The Man Who Invented Fiction "Marcelo Gleiser is precisely the kind of public intellectual our culture urgently needs: a skilled communicator of complex scientific ideas whose work is animated by a humane and humanistic sensibility. The Dawn of a Mindful Universe, a fascinating and often moving book, is guided by a profound sense of civilizational urgency as it charts a path toward re-enchantment." — Mark O’Connell, author of To Be a Machine and Notes from an Apocalypse "As James Russell Lowell once put it, ‘new occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient good uncouth.’ We are at a novel and fraught moment in our history as a species, and as this book posits, getting through it will require rethinking who we are and why we are here. Gleiser’s argument will send you off on interesting and fruitful tangents of your own!" — Bill McKibben, author of The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon "[A] brave, compelling book of great beauty and urgency. ... Gleiser fully understands the transformative power of science. Unlike many, however, he also sees how worldviews that claim to speak for science have led humanity to the brink of ruin through environmental destruction and the desacral