The Observer and the Observed: Valuable Personhood and a Theory of Everything - Softcover

Steed, Chris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1666736627 ISBN 13: 9781666736625

Publisher: Resource Publications, 2024

Synopsis

This book approaches the God-question in a different way than normal: from the perspective of psychotherapy. In a world of machine intelligence, the key idea is an analogy of being between human personhood and divine personhood as the only satisfactory way of showing that our inner conscious awareness (nourished by the validation of the self) is responded to in ultimate terms. It aims to extrapolate “from below,” from our psychological experience to asking ultimate questions, drawing lines between:
•Observation in quantum physics
•The maternal gaze
•Recognition in social worlds that confer perception in place of invisibility
•The power of inter-subjectivity in relational neurobiology and therapy
 
What has to be accounted for is our sense of personhood and how that fits in with a cosmos that is at best neutral. The metaphor of a “wifi” universe is proposed but rather than a soulless device being switched on, how a human psyche comes to a sense of consciousness of its own value is the issue here.
 
A personal God is the best explanation for the evidence of how our personhood and subject status requires correspondence. As engaging with a neutral AI entity is bound to be “soulless,” the first-person perspective requires an I-thou relationship.

A universe constructed from “nature” by itself or one where the ultimate is impersonal energy just does not cut it or respond adequately to what is inside us. This book offers an account of how the realm described by physics and our inner world can tie up—perhaps the only way they can!

About this title

About the Author

Chris Steed is head of theology and counseling at London School of Theology. He is the author of a dozen books on society, psychology, and theology.

Edition details

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1666736627
• ISBN 13: 9781666736625
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 270