- Paperback: 516 pages
- Publisher: Pen Press; First edition (5 Feb 2011)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1907499636
- ISBN-13: 978-1907499630
- Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 13.8 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 675,400 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Matter With Us
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Product Description
Product Description
This is the story of matter. Starting with the big bang and the beginning of existence, the story evolves into our tale as matter becomes 'us', and we inherit properties, including creativity and unpredictability, which are inherent in matter itself. Far from being alienated from it, we have many connections with the universe at large, and especially with other life. What sets us humans apart from our closest living relatives is walking upright, and having a big brain, with all the risks and benefits the latter brings in its train. The end of the epic is a cliff-hanger - nobody knows how it's going to end, and it's touch and go. Faced with challenges from many quarters, will we be pawns or players? And can we change the ending from epilogue to new chapter?
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Here is a book-' The Matter with Us', by John Rawles, which will de-clutter your mind and knit together the different threads of your thinking and reading, filling in gaps on the way.
The layout is interesting. Clear,short chapters are interspersed with blocks of well explained science, followed by a page or so of notes on source material where readers of all backgrounds will find some familiar ground but also new names to follow up. This is particularly useful for non-scientists, covering as it does,the whole story from Big Bang to our present dilemma by way of evolution, consciousness, philosophy, political development and what it means to be human, to what comes next.
What sets John Rawles apart in this field is that, unlike writers of a purely academic background, he was a heart consultant doing valuable research into clot-busters, so when he talks about man as an organism, or about medical ethics, he does so with authority. He has a diagnostic approach to all problems, including the use of metaphoric language and its limitations,often not acknowledged in the effort to be lucid.
The book has a message. I first encountered it in Sixth Form Latin, in Lucretius's 'De Rerum Natura', though in Ancient Rome all this had to be guesswork. I have a feeling Lucretius would have devoured this book with relish. I did.
The layout is interesting. Clear,short chapters are interspersed with blocks of well explained science, followed by a page or so of notes on source material where readers of all backgrounds will find some familiar ground but also new names to follow up. This is particularly useful for non-scientists, covering as it does,the whole story from Big Bang to our present dilemma by way of evolution, consciousness, philosophy, political development and what it means to be human, to what comes next.
What sets John Rawles apart in this field is that, unlike writers of a purely academic background, he was a heart consultant doing valuable research into clot-busters, so when he talks about man as an organism, or about medical ethics, he does so with authority. He has a diagnostic approach to all problems, including the use of metaphoric language and its limitations,often not acknowledged in the effort to be lucid.
The book has a message. I first encountered it in Sixth Form Latin, in Lucretius's 'De Rerum Natura', though in Ancient Rome all this had to be guesswork. I have a feeling Lucretius would have devoured this book with relish. I did.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is an extraordinary account of the human predicament from the big bang to the present day, It can be read on a number of levels - at it's most basic it's the clearest account of physics - both astro and quantum you are likely to read, and on the way takes in evolution and its problems, metaphor, capitalism and the language of mathematics. For non scientists, the writer takes you through that hall of mirrors that science is with a firm but gentle hand.
But 'The Matter with Us' is a lot more than that. Yes, we are in a mess Rawles tells us, but it's not all our fault - the systems that created us and those that we created have combined against us and we face testing times. But he doesn't leave us there, the book is also a manual for action, the final chapter brings it all down to practicalities, we can do our bit to help our predicament and Dr Rawles makes some suggestions as to how we might act. His model of how to live in hard times is the selfless doctor in Albert Camus' masterpiece 'La Peste' and for me it doesn't get much better than that.
Yes it's long, but it's not hard and you might not agree with it all, but it's the most thought provoking book you'll read in a long time.
But 'The Matter with Us' is a lot more than that. Yes, we are in a mess Rawles tells us, but it's not all our fault - the systems that created us and those that we created have combined against us and we face testing times. But he doesn't leave us there, the book is also a manual for action, the final chapter brings it all down to practicalities, we can do our bit to help our predicament and Dr Rawles makes some suggestions as to how we might act. His model of how to live in hard times is the selfless doctor in Albert Camus' masterpiece 'La Peste' and for me it doesn't get much better than that.
Yes it's long, but it's not hard and you might not agree with it all, but it's the most thought provoking book you'll read in a long time.
Format:Paperback
If you are a free thinker you will soon be caught up in the logic behind this book. It is not easy material to work with; one of those books you read slowly because no way can you rush what you are reading, you want to absorb what John Rawles is saying.
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