Hearts and Minds

The world, we are told, is made up of particles and forces. Evolution, impelled by the single purpose of survival, is guided by chance through natural selection -- survival of the fittest. DNA, from the core of each cell, directs the chemical-mechanical unfolding of life. Consciousness and self are mere artefacts of the brain’s firing neurons, it is argued. The great scientific revolution of the last five hundred years, with its technological glories and medical miracles, has arrived at the above set of summary conclusions -- or some slightly tweaked variations -- depicting a random, indifferent and wholly impersonal cosmos. But it is a picture that has been fraying at the edges for some time. Progress in medicine, quantum physics, open-systems biology, consciousness studies, epistemology, the arts and philosophy all point in a radically different direction. However, fresh, coherent narratives have not yet fully emerged out of this progress, and so the old model stubbornly endures. Hearts and Minds: Reclaiming the Soul of Science and Medicine tells a tale of emerging discoveries that restore ourselves and our own understanding as integral to the workings of the world.