intellectual properties

online book club: Absence of Mind

i have a few different groups of friends who semi-regularly get together to accomplish various types of activities and tasks, some of them athletic, some of them intellectual, some communal, some artistic, some of them therapeutic, some of them purely entertainment. (the best ones are a combination of all of those things).

and while we’re all in our own sub-sub-sub culture together at least enough to know one another, there are in some cases some deep divides in terms of belief systems, and the topics of religion and science.

i just saw Marilynne Robinson on the Daily Show promoting her new book about religion vs science, Absence of Mind. She articulated my position better than anyone i’ve seen/heard/read in a while. that position is something more in agreement with religion than even i would think, in that i don’t necessarily always believe what scientists have determined is empirical evidence, and that – in many cases – what science claims is evidence enough to prove a theory is not much different at the core than many religious arguments.

In this ambitious book, acclaimed writer Marilynne Robinson applies her astute intellect to some of the most vexing topics in the history of human thought—science, religion, and consciousness. Crafted with the same care and insight as her award-winning novels, Absence of Mind challenges postmodern atheists who crusade against religion under the banner of science. In Robinson’s view, scientific reasoning does not denote a sense of logical infallibility, as thinkers like Richard Dawkins might suggest. Instead, in its purest form, science represents a search for answers. It engages the problem of knowledge, an aspect of the mystery of consciousness, rather than providing a simple and final model of reality.

or maybe this is a rather exaggerated distinction the author used to rabble rouse and sell books; i’d be interested in hearing the discussion either way.

watch: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-july-8-2010/marilynne-robinson

so the book is out in hardcover now, and i’ll be waiting for paperback. a used version. (for those who have asked about using amazon….i first always support buying from your local independent book store. but for the purposes of providing onlinks here, i support buying books from small booksellers selling on amazon, which you can readily find by clicking the “new” and “used” links.) i have no idea what level of understanding of the belief systems of these fields the reader needs to have to engage this book, but it seems accessible to me.

now, of the things that none of the groups i currently semi-regularly meet with is a book club, although we have talked about it numerous times. so what i am proposing here is that it be an online book club (hosted where tbd), and possibly also an offline book club, if enough people in the immediate Bay Area want to join it. we’ll have to see how many people participate, so the format remains to be seen. but if you do want to participate, online or off, leave a comment or email me, and when the book comes out in paperback, i’ll let you all know (how long is that?). if you’ve already read it, good for you. you’re ahead. do you recommend this book?

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