Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- WHAT IS LIFE?
- Foreword
- Preface
- 1 THE CLASSICAL PHYSICIST'S APPROACH TO THE SUBJECT
- 2 THE HEREDITARY MECHANISM
- 3 MUTATIONS
- 4 THE QUANTUM-MECHANICAL EVIDENCE
- 5 DELBRÜCK'S MODEL DISCUSSED AND TESTED
- 6 ORDER, DISORDER AND ENTROPY
- 7 IS LIFE BASED ON THE LAWS OF PHYSICS?
- EPILOGUE. ON DETERMINISM AND FREE WILL
- MIND AND MATTER
- 1 THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
- 2 THE FUTURE OF UNDERSTANDING
- 3 THE PRINCIPLE OF OBJEGTIVATION
- 4 THE ARITHMETICAL PARADOX: THE ONENESS OF MIND
- 5 SCIENCE AND RELIGION
- 6 THE MYSTERY OF THE SENSUAL QUALITIES
- AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- WHAT IS LIFE?
- Foreword
- Preface
- 1 THE CLASSICAL PHYSICIST'S APPROACH TO THE SUBJECT
- 2 THE HEREDITARY MECHANISM
- 3 MUTATIONS
- 4 THE QUANTUM-MECHANICAL EVIDENCE
- 5 DELBRÜCK'S MODEL DISCUSSED AND TESTED
- 6 ORDER, DISORDER AND ENTROPY
- 7 IS LIFE BASED ON THE LAWS OF PHYSICS?
- EPILOGUE. ON DETERMINISM AND FREE WILL
- MIND AND MATTER
- 1 THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
- 2 THE FUTURE OF UNDERSTANDING
- 3 THE PRINCIPLE OF OBJEGTIVATION
- 4 THE ARITHMETICAL PARADOX: THE ONENESS OF MIND
- 5 SCIENCE AND RELIGION
- 6 THE MYSTERY OF THE SENSUAL QUALITIES
- AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
Summary
A scientist is supposed to have a complete and thorough knowledge, at first hand, of some subjects and, therefore, is usually expected not to write on any topic of which he is not a master. This is regarded as a matter of noblesse oblige. For the present purpose I beg to renounce the noblesse, if any, and to be freed of the ensuing obligation. My excuse is as follows:
We have inherited from our forefathers the keen longing for unified, all-embracing knowledge. The very name given to the highest institutions of learning reminds us, that from antiquity and throughout many centuries the universal aspect has been the only one to be given full credit. But the spread, both in width and depth, of the multifarious branches of knowledge during the last hundred odd years has confronted us with a queer dilemma. We feel clearly that we are only now beginning to acquire reliable material for welding together the sum total of all that is known into a whole; but, on the other hand, it has become next to impossible for a single mind fully to command more than a small specialized portion of it.
I can see no other escape from this dilemma (lest our true aim be lost for ever) than that some of us should venture to embark on a synthesis of facts and theories, albeit with second-hand and incomplete knowledge of some of them -and at the risk of making fools of ourselves.
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- Chapter
- Information
- What is Life?With Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches, pp. 1 - 2Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992
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