The Island of Knowledge

The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning

By: Marcelo Gleiser

Narrated by: William Neenan

Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

Why discovering the limits to science may be the most powerful discovery of all.

How much can we know about the world? In this audiobook physicist Marcelo Gleiser traces our search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence, the origin of the universe, the nature of reality, and the limits of knowledge. In so doing he reaches a provocative conclusion: Science, like religion, is fundamentally limited as a tool for understanding the world. As science and its philosophical interpretations advance, we face the unsettling recognition of how much we don't know.

Gleiser shows that by abandoning the dualistic model that divides reality into the known and the unknown, we can embark on a third way based on the acceptance of our limitations. Only then, he argues, will we be truly able to experience freedom, for to be free in an age of science we cannot turn science into a god. Gleiser ultimately offers an uplifting exploration of humanity's longing to conquer the unknown and of science's power to transform and inspire.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2014 Marcelo Gleiser (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Daunting!

An amazing and comprehensive use of title/theme in a historic survey. It is hardy a casual listen. I will probably either read it and/or certainly listen again sometime.

Great destination, wasn't into the journey

This book was peppered with fascinating ideas & interesting viewpoints, but too often got bogged down in details of the science involved. this was probably a personal thing, as I am a graduate in physics that's learned (and thought deeply about) quantum mechanics, relativity, & thermodynamics so the explanations behind these wasn't compelling to me. Some of the history presented about them was, though. I also thought the ending was fantastic, brilliantly synthesizing previous ideas into deep thoughts & insights about science, the nature of reality, & consciousness.

Excellent content, boring narrator

The book itself was fascinating and thought-provoking, and I can't wait to check out more of Glesier's work. A lot here for science and philosophy nerds alike. But unfortunately the monotone of the narrator caused my mind to drift at times, and I would have to back-track over and over. I typically love male narrators with British accents, but the complete lack of modulation left me.... zzzzz.....

Consciousness Altering

One of those books that can affirm all your intuitions about life without having to do years of study to gain and get lost, along the way, in specific study. An epic overview of the history of science/knowledge which builds like a blockbuster and an open ended finally.

Fantastic narration and flow to the audio which, I’m sure, ads to the authority of the authors words.

A must read!!

Opens your eyes to the relationship between science and humanity. Very inspiring, recommend science skeptics to read this!

Boring

only interesting thing I heard was Newton had papers from Hermes Tri. or Thoth.
book is written by a scientist barely out of the materialistic mind set. his observances are beset with many of the presumptions scientists make. categorical imperatives that are only presumptions.
not worth listening to... IMHO

thanks

Boundaries Are Most Interesting

If you are like me, you might find what you can't know more interesting than what you can know. For example, if you can come up with all the logical boundaires of a given set of things you want to know, filling that bucket with empirical data suddenly becomes much less interesting. Why? Because you can know a lot about that data before you go looking into the universe for it, you can understand the confines it will take, based upon the logical necessities you are bringing to your search. Maybe I just read too much Wittgenstein in college - as he approached this problem/situation from language - but this is where things get interesting. In this book the author does a great job of painting a picture of the knowable universe from both science AND philosophy. I was really impressed with him starting way back with philosphy 101 with pre-Socratics most people have never heard of (Thales) but who are the modern developers of systemic world views. I found this book intuitive, but I have already gone through many of its topics in previous studies. I'd still recommend it to beginner and expert. We all feel there is a bigger world than that which we can ever possibly sketch - but sketch we must - and this author does a great chop of sketching, really painting the limits of modern, and future (and all possible thought) in the process.

it's a little opinionated but eye opening

first let me say that this is the least opinionated book I've read. It merges philosophy and scientific thinking wonderfully. It is pretty clear to see his opinion on quantum physics though.

Guidebook for cool things about physics and math

This author has done it again. I read books in order to find out about our universe and our place in it, and this book does better than any other book since his last book "A Tear at the Edge of Creation". I have no idea why his books do not become instant classics and aren't more widely read. He really relates well to my way of thinking and leaves no stone untold while telling his story. And what a story he tells with this book!

Yes, we are in Plato's Cave, but we do manage to get out from time to time. It is our ignorance that leads us to knowledge. It is the things we don't know that leads to our further understanding. Our very foundations of reality are based on the constructs that we use to explain the patterns we see in data. Particles are made of matter (electrons, quarks,..) and forces. Fields describes these forces and matter and their interactions. The definition of the field is not precise but we continue to use it in our explanations.

The author covers all of the physics that's exciting to me. The Greeks lay the foundations by using intuition and argumentation but never quite adding the empirical. It becomes the void verse matter, the being verse becoming which leads to matter verse energy. Before Einstein, matter needed matter to travel through giving us the aether. The aether makes sense until it's not needed. The Morley Michelson experiments were at first explained by the natural compression of space as objects flow through the aether. The narrative's we use change as our understanding improve and our scientific definitions expand.

There is large problem with the understanding of physics. The measurement problem, the dual nature of light (wave and particle), double slit experiments, that darn dead and alive cat, and how does "spooky action at a distance" (now known as real and called Entanglement) fit into our narratives. Einstein thought reality had to be understandable and that nature at the most fundamental level had to make sense and it must be our operational levels that were failing us. David Bohm and Einstein thought there must be hidden variables to explain the cosmic complexity at the quantum level. At the local level,they have been shown to be wrong.

This book covers all of the controversies associated with the Copenhagen Interruption, and how the act of measuring does change the system being measured. At the heart of understanding nature with the current narratives we have in place there are mysteries that can't be resolved. The more we find out we don't know, the better stories we can end up telling.

Our nexus of knowledge doesn't lie outside of us, it lies within us. We our the ones who determine how we understand and when a light flickers in our cave we find another way to describe what we see.

He's got a nice section on mathematics, Godol's theorem and Turing's universal machine and the Halting Problem. Plato with his cave says math is always discovered not invented. The author will explain why it's best to think of it as being invented not discovered. The incompleteness, lack of coherence as proof for a system, and the problem of the self realization for a finite solution ('Halting Problem') leads to a better understanding of math. By the way, the author does point out for my hero, Mr. Spock, with his logical consistency and understanding will really never be attainable.

This is a book that just keeps on giving. He'll tell the reader about Higgs Bosons, Dark Matter, Dark Energy , expanding universes, what advanced AI can mean for us and a host of other just as interesting things.

Needless to say, I would strongly recommend this book and his other book available on Audible ("A Tear at the Edge of Creation"). Regretfully, this author's books seem to be ignored by the public at large, but if I can convince just one more person to read this book, I would have made the world just a little bit better!

For those who want to know whats outside "reality"

If you could sum up The Island of Knowledge in three words, what would they be?

Re-assess whats 'REALITY'

Who was your favorite character and why?

All the known names of scientist have their doubts and reservation in the true spirit of science but sadly the 'modern and newly programmed' education/government system colored it w certain shade of bias prejudice misinformation and withheld/killed the innate nature of curiosity & discovery and therefor physical mental and spiritual expansion beyond the very limited 5 senses version/filtered of 'reality'
Humanity has been trapped in a never ending loop of slavery and ignorance for the self-interest of few who play the rest of the humanity as gambling chips and inhumane experiment.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

Reader seems monotone and in his favorite reading rhythm.... could learn more about sound projection and reading skills if this were to be more professional regular job

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

There is no 'reality' and you dont even exist!
sub title : what are you? meat-body or bundle of energy? really?

Any additional comments?

Awesome research and book... indeed it can be a 'difficult' material as it implicitly constantly challenge one to re-examine what is 'reality', which provokes the ego and the sense of self that has been defined from birth by all the different characters and environment, which now has been called into question. Furthermore, the author covers a full range of topics from traditional science to ufology aspect to the unknown. Nothing is spare in the true spirit of seeking the true reality. AWESOME! Are we not here to discover ourselves a.k.a. know thyself? In truth, this books may serve as a passage for enlightenment :) breaking out of the old/artificial doctrine, laws and system they tell us is 'true' and 'final all'. What if we were sent to earth (on a purposeful mission) to develop the 6th to 8th sense? any luck so far??? Whats 'out there"? Care to find out and learn our true 'identity'? :D