Imagined Worlds (Jerusalem-Harvard Lectures): 6 (The Jerusalem-Harvard Lectures) - Softcover

Dyson, Freeman

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674539095 ISBN 13: 9780674539099

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1998

Synopsis

Imagine a world where whole epochs will pass, cultures rise and fall, between a telephone call and the reply. Think of the human race multiplying 500-million fold, or evolving new, distinct species. Consider the technology of space colonization, computer-assisted reproduction, the "Martian potato." One hundred years after H. G. Wells visited the future in The Time Machine, Freeman Dyson marshals his uncommon gifts as a scientist and storyteller to take us once more to that ever-closer, ever-receding time to come. Since Disturbing the Universe, the book that first brought him international renown, Freeman Dyson has been helping us see ourselves and our world from a scientist's point of view. In Imagined Worlds he brings this perspective to a speculative future to show us where science and technology, real and imagined, may be taking us. The stories he tells--about "Napoleonic" versus "Tolstoyan" styles of doing science; the coming era of radioneurology and radiotelepathy; the works of writers from Aldous Huxley to Michael Crichton to William Blake; Samuel Gompers and the American labor movement--come from science, science fiction, and history. Sharing in the joy and gloom of these sources, Dyson seeks out the lessons we must learn from all three if we are to understand our future and guide it in hopeful directions. Whether looking at the Gaia theory or the future of nuclear weapons, science fiction or the dangers of "science worship," sea-going kayaks or the Pluto Express, Dyson is concerned with ethics, with how we might mitigate the evil consequences of technology and enhance the good. At the heart of it all is the belief once expressed by the biologist J. B. S. Haldane, that progress in science will bring enormous confusion and misery to humankind unless it is accompanied by progress in ethics.

About this title

Review

[A] marvellous little book.--Tim Radford "The Guardian (Manchester, England) "

[A] remarkable book.--John Leslie "London Review of Books "

One of the more daring theories in today's cosmology is that at the creation of our universe an infinite number of others were also brought into being, but that none can communicate with any other. Be that as it may, whenever I am in the presence of Freeman Dyson, a physicist and professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, I have the uncanny feeling that he is able, after all, to look around the corner into some of those other worlds from which we are cut off. Dyson claims to be a mathematical physicist interested in anatomy. But from his many writings, we know better. He is interested in any question whatever that might have a scientific solution, and in any imaginative idea that may help to anticipate the future...[E]ven while readers will disagree with this or that point, they will also most likely be swept up by the ambitious scope of the book, and Dyson's unwavering belief that our benighted species can improve.--Gerald Holton "Boston Sunday Globe "

Dyson has a startlingly profound imagination, a willingness to take ideas as far as they can possibly go...In this book he provides a fascinatingly plausible view of artificial telepathy. He has helped to design extraordinary spaceships and advised the Pentagon on wild (and no doubt occasionally woolly) weapons. Best of all, from the science-fiction writer's point of view, he admires science-fiction writers. This book is, in part, a tribute to science-fiction; it is an attempt not to predict the future, but rather, through imagination, to bring some of its potential to life.--Oliver Morton "Nature "

The world needs the kind of wisdom that Freeman Dyson has accumulated after a lifetime of theoretical physics at Cambridge and Princeton, and his contributions to the nuclear test ban treaty.--Colin Tudge "New Statesman "

Freeman Dyson...[is] brilliant and admirable: a physicist (now retired) of considerable accomplishment and a storyteller of delightful humanity and skill.--Philip Gold "Washington Times "

Freeman Dyson is one of the true geniuses of our age. His latest book, full of wry wit and profound wisdom, will be of absorbing interest to anyone concerned with the future happiness, and indeed survival, of the human race.--Arthur C. Clarke

In his new volume, Imagined Worlds, Freeman Dyson, following in the tradition of two of his heroes, novelist H. G. Wells and biologist J. B. S. Haldane, gives us a cautionary vision of where science and technology are taking us in the next century...Dyson's book is a fascinating romp through possible futures.--Steven J. Dick "Natural History "

[Dyson] constantly surprises and challenges us with his views...[His] independence of mind and his learning make his views on the future well worth reading. At first sight, Imagined Worlds may seem thin and insubstantial, but it actually contains more rewarding insights than most books 10 times its length.--Graham Farmelo "Sunday Telegraph "

Broadly knowledgeable, thoughtful, and wise, Freeman Dyson the humanist and physicist outlines here futures for the scientific enterprise--ten, one hundred, ten thousand, and a million years from now. Although not a fan of futurology, I found Imagined Worlds fascinating.--Lynn Margulis

Synopsis

How might we mitigate the evil consequences of technology and enhance the good? Using hypothetical and genuine examples of the advancement of science and technology (past, present and future), the author attempts to answer this question and examines the ethics involved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0674539095
• ISBN 13: 9780674539099
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216