The Virtual Universe: Philosophy, Physics and the Nature of Things

By Matthew Raspanti

What is the nature of the universe we live in? What is it made of? Is there purpose in it? These are among the fundamental questions addressed by this book, which includes two brief and accessible... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1587211424
• ISBN13: 9781587211423
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: 1st Book Library
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.59 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.1" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Brilliant metaphysical synthesis from an unsung philosopher extraordinaire

Wow! This is a remarkably penetrating and creative book. Raspanti tackles nothing less than synthesizing a coherent metaphysical worldview from seemingly disparate insights of Western philosophy, classical and modern physics, and computer science. To build the background for this synthesis, he first takes us on a masterfully guided tour during which he distills key ideas from philosophy and physics in beautifully concise and lucid prose, and he covers a lot of ground in the process. He then explains how all of this can be tied together through the metaphor of virtual reality to arrive at the following conjecture: 1. "We live in a nonmaterial Virtual Universe, which is somewhat similar to the much publicized virtual reality being developed by computer science, and ..." 2. "This Virtual Universe, which includes our entire bodies, is the creation of a Cosmic Mind, of which our individual minds are integral parts." If you think this conjecture sounds implausible, shallow, or even flakey, I would urge you to keep an open mind and read the book to get the details. As Raspanti puts it: "The idea of a nonmaterial world sounds certainly bizarre, if not absurd. And yet, a Virtual Universe provides a perspective from which meaningful, common sense interpretations can be given to some abstract philosophical statements from the past, and also to some strange assertions of modern physics." Raspanti is certainly not the first to propose a conjecture roughly along these lines (it strikes me as largely an extension of Berkeley's idealism), but he's among those who has done it well, and in a fairly original way. He draws on impressive erudition to build his case with care and precision (I can't do justice to the details in this review). I would have loved for Raspanti to have woven in elements of Eastern philosophy and other branches of science as well, but he has already given us much more than I could have hoped for, so I'm very grateful. I'll be reading this book again, and I've ordered his second book. Mandatory reading for anyone seriously interested in the deepest questions of philosophy and spirituality.