The Transcendent Brain, Alan Lightman
The Transcendent Brain, Alan Lightman
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The Transcendent Brain
Spirituality in the Age of Science

Author: Alan Lightman

Narrator: Christopher Grove

Unabridged: 4 hr 54 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/14/2023

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

From the best-selling author of Einstein’s Dreams comes a rich, fascinating answer to the question, Can the scientifically inclined still hold space for spirituality?

Gazing at the stars, falling in love, or listening to music, we sometimes feel a transcendent connection with a cosmic unity and things larger than ourselves. But these experiences are not easily understood by science, which holds that all things can be explained in terms of atoms and molecules. Is there space in our scientific worldview for these spiritual experiences?

According to acclaimed physicist and novelist Alan Lightman, there may be. Drawing on intellectual history and conversations with contemporary scientists, philosophers, and psychologists, Lightman asks a series of thought-provoking questions that illuminate our strange place between the world of particles and forces and the world of complex human experience. Can strict materialism explain our appreciation of beauty? Or our feelings of connection to nature and to other people? Is there a physical basis for consciousness, the most slippery of all scientific problems?

Lightman weaves these investigations together to propose what he calls “spiritual materialism”—the belief that we can embrace spiritual experiences without letting go of our scientific worldview. In his view, the breadth of the human condition is not only rooted in material atoms and molecules but can also be explained in terms of Darwinian evolution.

What is revealed in this lyrical, enlightening book is that spirituality may not only be compatible with science, it also ought to remain at the core of what it means to be human.

* This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF that contains illustrations from the printed book. 

About Alan Lightman

Alan Lightman is a physicist, novelist, and essayist. He was educated at Princeton University and at the California Institute of Technology, where he received a PhD in theoretical physics. Lightman is the author of five novels, including the international bestseller Einstein’s Dreams, two collections of essays, a book-­length narrative poem, and several books on science. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Granta, The New Yorker, and The New York Review of Books, among other publications.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Krista on January 30, 2023

A fascinating paradox is that most transcendent experiences are completely ego-free. In the moment, we lose track of time and space, we lose track of our bodies, we lose track of our selves. We dissolve. And yet, as I suggest, spirituality emerges from consciousness and the material brain. And th......more

Goodreads review by Nancy on April 14, 2023

There are experiences of things seen that have never left me. Green trees filled with thousands of white egrets during spring migration. A Green Heron in tandem flight with a jet just taking off from an airport. The majesty of Niagara Falls. The view of the ocean from the cliffs of Mt. Desert Island......more

Goodreads review by Ag on February 10, 2023

What. A. breathtakingly. Awesome. Book. I would call this a book on very rational spirituality. While I do realize that my review now might be as much about me as it is about this book. I feel like I have to add some of my own story to the review so it makes sense why exactly I loved this book as mu......more

Quotes

“Mr. Lightman [has a] gift for distilling complex ideas and emotions to their bright essence. . . . He displays a beautiful economy of language. . . . Mr. Lightman, though, belongs to a noble tradition of science writers, including Oliver Sacks and Lewis Thomas, who can poke endlessly into a subject and, in spite of their prodding, or perhaps because of it, stir up fresh embers of wonder.”
—The Wall Street Journal

“Thoroughly researched, well-written. . . . Moving.”
—The Washington Post

“A revelation about how mere atoms and molecules can give rise to the very persuasive experience of a self, of a soul, of something that feels so vast and complex and magnificently irreducible to matter. . . . Radiant. . . . Largehearted.”
—The Marginalian

“Scientists don’t do enough to emphasize the mystery of the world behind appearances, and what is so often taken for granted, missed entirely, or unexamined in the domain of human experience. This book is an inspiring and convincing antidote to that trend. It is a rigorous and yet very personal inquiry into and recounting of how scientific knowledge does not preclude, diminish, or extinguish the experience of transcendence, but rather brings it very much to the fore. Lightman provides direct inspiration to the reader to apprehend for oneself and revel in the wonder that is everywhere.”
—Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and author of Meditation Is Not What You Think and Falling Awake
 
“With scholarly verve and unbounded curiosity, Alan Lightman asks how our experiences of awe, wonder, and the sublime can unfold in a universe—and in our brains—built only of atoms. A fascinating exploration of where science and humanism meet.”
—David Kaiser, Germeshausen Professor of Physics and the History of Science, MIT
 
“A remarkable meditation on the emergent structures, feelings, and values that arise from the self-organization of neurons, atoms, and creatures. The book is an invitation to reflect on the wonder of firefly group flashes, sociality and, ultimately, consciousness itself.”
—Peter Galison, University Professor of the History of Science and of Physics, Harvard University and author (with Lorraine Daston) of Objectivity

"Science and spirituality converge in this probing examination of humanity’s connection to the divine. . . . The prose is reflective and lyrical, and Lightman’s arguments succeed in walking the fine line between honoring spiritual experiences without lapsing into pseudoscience. Thoughtful and intellectually rigorous, this treatise impresses."
—Publishers Weekly

“A scientist explains experiences that seem inexplicable. . . . Never shy about tackling big, complex issues. . . . Lightman urges readers to accept a scientific view of the world while embracing experiences that cannot be understood by material underpinnings. We need to balance a yearning to know how the world works with a willingness to surrender ourselves to things we may not fully comprehend.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Lightman writes with passion and panache about how the search for knowledge need not inhibit moments of transcendence, offering a poignant reminder that wonder is everywhere, if we only look.”
—Booklist

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