The Universe in a Single Atom

What Hacker News says

1. gdubsMay 2020
   Someone already mentioned “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, so I’ll go with something I read last year, Carlo Rovelli’s, “Reality is Not What it Seems.”

   I don’t think I really ever grasped the concept of relativity fully until reading that book — at least the aspects of time. [edit: well, not “fully”, I’m sure — but at least a lot more than I have in the past.]

   At the same time I read the Dalai Lama’s, “Universe in a Single Atom”, which focuses on his love of science / physics, and was a very good pair to Rovelli’s book. It made me really think about the role of subjectivity in terms of Relativity. It also made me think about life, and consciousness, broadly.

   That led to the Dalai Lama’s other book, “A Profound Mind”, which helped me really understand the Buddhist concept of “Emptiness” for the first time.

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2. gdubsFeb 2020
   Lee Smolin’s book, “Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution” is largely about particle/wave duality and an alternate theory that never caught on: the Pilot Wave theory. It’s a Realist alternative to the Anti-Realist school of Heisenberg, etc.

   As Feynman used to say, “nobody understands quantum physics”. I really don’t have a clue which theory is more “correct”. But the book’s interesting, and I recommend it.

   Also, an exploration of consciousness and quantum physics is central to the Dalai Lama’s, “The universe in a single atom”. Another book I highly recommend. He’s passionate about science, and it’s a thought provoking book. In “The Profound Mind”, he goes further into various philosophies, and has some really interesting things to say on consciousness, subjectivity, etc.

   Quantum Mechanics attracts a lot of “woo”. I didn’t find the Dalai Lama’s books to fall into that category — more philosophical than anything else. Just worth mentioning.

   It’s a shame, in general, how much pseudoscience surrounds Quantum Mechanics — the reality of things is plenty interesting and confounding on its own! [Edit: not at all meant as a judgement on this particular article; just following a train of thought.]

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3. gdubsJan 2020
   The Dalai Lama has a book called, “The Universe in A Single Atom”. He’s incredibly interested in science, quantum physics in particular, and in the book he explores the intersection between those ideas and the ideas of various Buddhist thinkers throughout history. It’s really good.
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4. gdubsJan 2020
   Beautifully written. Felt a bit prepared for this having recently read, “Reality is Not What it Seems”, but these concepts are still so hard to grasp.

   I just recommended the Dalai Lama’s “Universe in a Single Atom” in another thread and there’s something in that book that to me sounds like what Smolin is getting at — if I’m understanding correctly (and I’m probably not) — that ultimately reality must be studied subjectively to be truly understood. His claim is that through deep meditation on the true nature of things, the meditator can essentially conduct thought experiments — and that if we ever hope to truly understand reality, we need a way to scientifically measure those experiences. I have no idea how you’d go about that, since it seems fundamentally opposed to how we use objectivity to validate experiments — but it’s a fascinating thing to consider.

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5. domainkillerJan 2020
   The Universe in a Single Atom https://www.amazon.com/Universe-Single-Atom-Convergence-Spir...
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6. gdubsDec 2019
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