cover image Elemental Mind: 2human Consciousness and the New Physics

Elemental Mind: 2human Consciousness and the New Physics

Nick Herbert. Dutton Books, $22 (320pp) ISBN 978-0-525-93506-3

Building on the insights in his Quantum Reality , Herbert proposes that mind, instead of being localized in our brains, is a phenomenon as deeply imbedded in nature as light or electricity. Three basic features of the universe predicted by quantum mechanics--randomness, the interconnectedness of all phenomena, and thinglessness (quantum objects do not possess attributes of their own)--were rejected by Albert Einstein, but to Herbert, a Stanford-trained physicist, each of these features of matter is a manifestation of a corresponding basic trait of mind: free will, deep psychic connectedness, and ambiguity. A skillful popularizer, Herbert scrutinizes recent brain research, reviews highly conjectural quantum models of mind, and outlines his own theory of ``quantum animism'' in which mind permeates the world and interacts with matter at the quantum level, which, if true, might help explain paranormal phenomena. (Nov.)