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Masks of the Universe: Worlds in the Making; The Heart Divine; The Cloud of Unknowing
by Edward Robert Harrison
Product Group: Book
Publisher: MacMillan Publishing Company (1985-08)
ISBN: 0029487803
EAN: 9780029487808
Hardcover: 306 pages
SKU: 20072
Condition: Used: Very Good
Comments: Hardback. Book: VeryGood. Dust Jacket: Very Good. Book pages clean and crisp with no markings.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
In Masks of the Universe, Edward Harrison brings together fundamental scientific, philosophical and religious issues in cosmology and raises thought provoking questions. Philosophical issues dominated cosmology in the ancient world. Theological issues ranked foremost in the Middle Ages; astronomy and the physical sciences have taken over in more recent times. Yet every attempt to grasp the true nature of the universe creates a new "mask," People have always pitied the universes of their ancestors, believing that their generation has at last discovered the "real" universe. Do we now stand at the threshold of knowing everything, or have we created yet another "mask," doomed to fade like those preceding ours? Edward Harrison is Adjunct Professor of Astronomy, Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, and Emeritus Professor of Physics and Astronomy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He worked as a scientist for the Atomic Energy Research Establishment and the Rutherford High Energy Laboratory in England until 1966 when he became a Five College professor at the University of Massachusetts and taught at Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith College. He is the author of numerous books, including Cosmology: the Science of the Universe (Cambridge, 2001)
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Download Description
To the ancient Greeks the universe consisted of earth, air, fire and water. To Saint Augustine it was the Word of God. To many modern scientists it is the interaction of atoms and waves, and in years to come it may be different again. What then is the real universe? History shows that in every age society constructs its own universe, believing it to be the real and final one. Yet these are only models, or masks covering what is not understood and not known. This book brings together fundamental scientific, philosophical, and religious issues in cosmology, raising thought provoking questions. In every age people have pitied the universes of their ancestors, convinced that they have at last discovered the full truth. Do we now stand at the threshold of knowing everything, or will our latest model also be rejected by our descendants?
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Customer Reviews
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Reassuring humility from leading scientist
Rating  (5)
Date: 2006-11-22
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
Harrison is a veteran scientific cosmologist. Now in his eighties, he offers his own personal perspective on the subject after many decades in the field. Much as John Wheeler (the great Princeton physicist now well over 90) was forced to look back on his subject after a recent heart attack, Harrison also takes a broader perspective on the subject.
For Harrison, cosmology is not just a scientific enterprise. Of course scientific cosmologists do scientific cosmology, and it is perfectly legitimate to do so. However in Harrison's view, there is the Universe and the universe. The Universe is what the philosopher might call 'Reality' beneath appearances, or the mystic or theologian would call God or the Absolute. Harrison divides the Universe into the universes which each person's worldview creates, whether they are scientists, poets, philosophers, theologians, or just ordinary people. Harrison's view is somewhat Kantian and he regards the Universe in itself as unknowable. He offers several interesting arguments to support this, including quotes from the writer of the mystical tract 'The Cloud of Unknowing.'
Harrison concludes that many scientific schemas have come and gone over the ages which purport to supply the 'grand theory' which will explain everything. He looks at the way some systems are adopted and others rejected and in a somewhat Kuhnian vein, adopts a position from Nicholas of Cusa he calls learned ignorance. This is an essentially humble approach to the universe, the belief that what we know is only the tiniest tip on an unfathomable iceberg of the unknown. There is no final theory and there never will be one, as the cosmos and its riches are infinite and will always be probed at ever new levels, so long as the human race lives.
This metaphysical argument is very interesting and has also been posed in other forms by physicists such as Paul Davies and mathematicians such as Roger Penrose (though applied to mathematical realities rather than the physical). The humility is somewhat refreshing in the face of the hubris which occurs in some scientists, who seem to look at all culture outside of science as deeply inferior to the way science contemplates the universe. While such an argument might be wrong (one day we may come up with a final theory) it is interesting to consider.
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Awesome Humility
Rating (5)
Date: 2003-12-14
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
I feel contempt for the hubris that often accompanies a comparison of scientific and pre-scientific (i.e. religious) world views. There is no reason for contempt with Edward Harrison's awesome humility. The distinction Harrison makes between a conceptual model of the Universe (which is designated by the initial lower case `u') and the actual Universe itself (capital `U'), proves to be very practical. By explicitly preserving the mystery of the Universe, a new perspective on the old conundrums of free-will and determinism as well as consciousness and brains is gained. Because he looks at our underlying assumptions, the book has a philosophical character to it.The majority of the book is divided into three sections, each with six chapters. The first section deals with the various world-views in chronological order, not a history of the Universe, but a history of universes. The second section deals with the contemporary scientific view. I don't have much alacrity for science writing - popular or otherwise - but this was an exceptional case. He covered many things I have only a vague idea about such as quantum theory, special and general theories of relativity, the anthropic principle etc. It was the final section that I was most excited about. Harrison deals with some problems that have vexed me for quite some time. I especially like his commentary on the brain and Ultima Sentiens. I would recommend this book over the Huston Smith's Why Religion Matters on matters of religion and science. He deals with agnosticism wonderfully, and he makes it explicit that his thinking about God is not pantheism. He doesn't use the word himself, but I think the word "panentheism" is a closer match to what Harrison suggests. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in world-views and issues between science and religion.
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a step in the right direction...
Rating  (3)
Date: 2003-10-09
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
If we define each self-absorbed individual as inhabiting his/her own universe (small 'u'), then individual universes stand in a relationship to the Universe (big 'u') to the best of our estimation. We can't ever get a perfect match, but we do the best we can.In a parallel process, in each individual universe, the person struggles to formulate a concept of god (small 'g') to the best of his/her estimation. This god then stands in relation to God (big 'g'). We can't get this match perfect either, but, again, we do the best we can. In otherwords, Prof. Harrison provides a substitute for traditional religious doctrine by providing one of his own. As he points out in the book, it is basically Spinoza's doctrine updated for modern readers. It is a religion in which God vanishes into natural background. If you want a substitute for your formal religion, but just can't make the leap to secular reality, then this book may provide a welcome cushion. Or maybe just a resting place.
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Do no over look cases of gods, God, universes, & Universe
Rating  (4)
Date: 2001-09-04
1 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book touches on the subject of many different universes. Now, when you hear this you might automatically think I'm talking about the Hugh Everett's many-worlds-interpretation of quantum mechanics. Whereas the infinite universes of that idea are taken to be the objective universes of a Universe (the multiverse), Edward Harrison is talking about the universes taken to be the subjective universes (of our creating) of The Universe. (ultimate objective reality, perhaps even the multiverse)
He does not have any comforting truths about the Universe found here. He aims to show us that we strive to reach such absolutes from a cloud of unknowing and instead create our own limited models of The Universe--universes. The first chunk of his work is devoted to tracing the history of such universes. These cosmologies are as such: The Magic Universe, The Mythic Universe, The Geometric Universe, The Medieval Universe, The Infinite Universe, and The Mechanistic Universe. Thus this concatenation is also deeply intertwined with our religions and spiritual evolution. Also, it is blatant that with each new picture of reality the universe becomes more mechanistic, less alive, and always contains some "mythology" of the previous one.
[pp.40 "a myth is any component taken from the world-view of another society that fails to fit naturally into our own."
pp.117 "At last we come to the twentieth century. Adrift like shipwrecked mariners, in a vast and meaningless mechanistic universe, we are found clingin for life to the cosmic wreckage of ancient universes."]
The middle fraction of his book introduces some of the ideas of modern physics from the quantum dance of subatomic particles, to a treatise on general relativity and understanding the curvature of space time as the gravity of the outdated Newtonian universe. It then proceeds to expose a less rational universe that was left out of the pantheon of the original chapters--The Witch Universe. With this perspective of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance he ties into the question of what is valid science by using Popper's philosophy of falsifiable facts.
This all leads into his final message about The Universe, the Absolute Reality. We aim to know it by creating universes, but that The Universe remains unknowable. He thinks exactly the same of God. We aim to know "him" by creating gods, but God remains truly unknowable. He offers valuable scientific insight against these gods of classical theism and divine intervention or special creation, but claims that the true "God" is still beyond doubt since both God and The Universe are the same inconceivable Ultimate Reality. ( since The Universe no doubt is real, and he equates that reality with God, thus creating a simple theosyllogism ) But then shouldn't "gods" and "universes" be pictures of the same thing? They clearly aren't. (yet he says they can be equated, if we wish to, on pp.267) YHWH doesn't equal quantum mechanics. Though he has acknowledged that gods and universes are confused with absolute truth, my point is that this means little when you have changed the definition of God so much from external anthromopomorhized beings to the sum of all that is--or--The Universe. (I suppose you could equally change the definition of Satan to The Universe and say that Satan no doubt exists.) Though I understand his idea and the reasons why it is embraced ( I used to profess the same thing ), I have realized that it is too much of a misnomer for me to still say that, "I believe there exists a God." Not that it is quite illogical or absurd, but only that I think it is pointless to say that anyone who believes in the universe before them believes in the "existence" of God. (So was Carl Sagan unknowingly a theist?) It is pointless in the paradigm of classical theism, something which is irrational and even absurd. I do not think this idea should be used until you can change the people's view to this paradigm of Absolute Reality (which is in itself a "universe") since in the meantime God is taken in the widespread context of classical theism. Why perpetuate theistic thinking at all when all you have really done is taken the word "God" away from the essence of theism and applied it to a new definition of something we already have a name for--The Universe. ?
This was a highly enjoyed and appreciable book that I would not refuse to recommend (though I don't make it incumbent on the reader) yet in the end he makes the flaw of constructing his own universe of "The Universe". He even said himself "I hold that it is impossible to find proof of the existence of God within the framework of a particular universe, for all universes are the handiwork of human beings."---pp.263
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The Universe Behind the Masks
Rating (5)
Date: 2000-03-29
4 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
University of Massachusetts Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Edward R Harrison, takes the lay reader on a thought-provoking and learned journey through the epochs of humanity, and our attempt to unravel the workings and the meaning of the many universes which we have created in our image. Writing in beautiful prose, Professor Harrison reawakens us to the lives,the words and the views of the thinkers, sages and mystics of all-times. The everchanging character of the Universe as it is pictured in time, bounded by the confines of our religious and scientific prejudices, is rendered here like fine brushstrokes upon a canvas. In the finely crafted "Masks of the Universe," Science meets History and Religion. In the Professor's words: "All who claim freedom of will and deny the determinism of the universe in which they live are guilty of the Pelagian heresy. I am myself a Pelagian heretic."
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