The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience

With Adam Frank and Evan Thompson

It’s tempting to think that science gives us a God’s-eye view of reality. But we neglect the place of human experience at our peril. In The Blind Spot, astrophysicist Adam Frank, theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser, and philosopher Evan Thompson call for a revolutionary scientific worldview, where science includes—rather than ignores or tries not to see—humanity’s lived experience as an inescapable part of our search for objective truth. The authors present science not as discovering an absolute reality but rather as a highly refined, constantly evolving form of human experience. They urge practitioners to reframe how science works for the sake of our future in the face of the planetary climate crisis and increasing science denialism.

Since the dawn of the Enlightenment, humanity has looked to science to tell us who we are, where we come from, and where we’re going, but we’ve gotten stuck thinking we can know the universe from outside our position in it. When we try to understand reality only through external physical things imagined from this outside position, we lose sight of the necessity of experience. This is the Blind Spot, which the authors show lies behind our scientific conundrums about time and the origin of the universe, quantum physics, life, AI and the mind, consciousness, and Earth as a planetary system. The authors propose an alternative vision: scientific knowledge is a self-correcting narrative made from the world and our experience of it evolving together. To finally “see” the Blind Spot is to awaken from a delusion of absolute knowledge and to see how reality and experience intertwine.

The Blind Spot goes where no science book goes, urging us to create a new scientific culture that views ourselves both as an expression of nature and as a source of nature's self-understanding, so that humanity can flourish in the new millennium.

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What People Are Saying About The Blind Spot

“An intriguing and important reflection on the complexity of the role that we ourselves play within the scientific world picture.”

— Carlo Rovelli, author of The Order of Time and Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

“Can we aspire for knowledge more comprehensive and truer than our current scientific one? Frank, Gleiser, and Thompson’s brilliant answer is yes: one that celebrates its accomplishments yet is fully aware of what still needs to be done—and urgently. The Blind Spot breaks ground for research and education in the third millennium, shielding science from its worst enemies by offering a realistic and original program to heal our divided world and our ailing planet.”

— Jimena Canales, author of The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate That Changed Our Understanding of Time

“We are in a crisis that is global, civilizational, existential in scale. A conceptual transformation is needed. The Blind Spot shows us why.”

— Stuart A. Kauffman, author of A World Beyond Physics and At Home in the Universe

“This is a very important book that has the potential to become a classic text. ... Being aware of the Blind Spot is a necessary step toward reinscribing human experience back into science’s core.”

— Science

“This is by far the best book I've read this year.”

— Michael Pollan, Professor of the Practice of Non-fiction, Harvard University; #1 New York Times bestselling author

“(A) stimulating manifesto for changing the way we look at things.”

— Wall Street Journal

The Dawn of a Mindful Universe: A Manifesto for Humanity's Future

Since Copernicus, humanity has increasingly seen itself as adrift, an insignificant speck within a large, cold universe. Brazilian physicist, astronomer, and winner of the 2019 Templeton Prize Marcelo Gleiser argues that it is because we have lost the spark of the Enlightenment that has guided human development over the past several centuries. While some scientific efforts have been made to overcome this increasingly bleak perspective—the ongoing search for life on other planets, the recent idea of the multiverse—they have not been enough to overcome the core problem: we’ve lost our moral mission and compassionate focus in our scientific endeavors.

Gleiser argues that we’re using the wrong paradigm to relate to the universe and our position in it. In this deeply researched and beautifully rendered book, he calls for us to embrace a new life-centric perspective, one which recognizes just how rare and precious life is and why it should be our mission to preserve and nurture it. The Dawn of a Mindful Universe addresses the current environmental and scientific impasses and how the scientific community can find solutions to them.

Gleiser’s paradigm rethinks the ideals of the Enlightenment, and proposes a new direction for humanity, one driven by human reason and curiosity whose purpose is to save civilization itself. Within this model, we can once again see ourselves as the center of the universe—the place where life becomes conscious—and regain a clear moral compass which can be used to guide both science and the politics around it.

Great Minds Don’t Think Alike: Debates on Consciousness, Reality, Intelligence, Faith, Time, AI, Immortality, and the Human

Edited and with commentary by Marcelo Gleiser

Does technology change who we are, and if so, in what ways? Can humanity transcend physical bodies and spaces? Will AI and genetic engineering help us reach new heights or will they unleash dystopias? How do we face mortality, our own and that of our warming planet? Questions like these—which are only growing more urgent—can be answered only by drawing on different kinds of knowledge and ways of knowing. They challenge us to bridge the divide between the sciences and the humanities and bring together perspectives that are too often kept apart.

Great Minds Don’t Think Alike presents conversations among leading scientists, philosophers, historians, and public intellectuals that exemplify openness to diverse viewpoints and the productive exchange of ideas. Pulitzer and Templeton Prize winners, MacArthur “genius” grant awardees, and other acclaimed writers and thinkers debate the big questions: who we are, the nature of reality, science and religion, consciousness and materialism, and the mysteries of time. In so doing, they also inquire into how uniting experts from different areas of study to consider these topics might help us address the existential risks we face today. Convened and moderated by the physicist and author Marcelo Gleiser, these public dialogues model constructive engagement between the sciences and the humanities—and show why intellectual cooperation is necessary to shape our collective future.

Contributors include David Chalmers and Antonio Damasio; Sean Carroll and B. Alan Wallace; Patricia Churchland and Jill Tarter; Rebecca Goldstein and Alan Lightman; Jimena Canales and Paul Davies; Ed Boyden and Mark O’Connell; Elizabeth Kolbert and Siddhartha Mukherjee; Jeremy DeSilva, David Grinspoon, and Tasneem Zehra Husain.

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What People Are Saying About Great Minds Don’t Think Alike

“Some of the most interesting thinkers of our time are here brought together in dialogues and conversations that show them all thinking aloud, in the present and at the cutting edge (or beyond), about some of the most important issues of our time. The results are always entertaining and insightful, and often will spark new ideas in readers. A great contribution to the discourse.”

— Kim Stanley Robinson, Hugo and Nebula Award winner, author of The Ministry for the Future

“These talks and Marcelo Gleiser’s commentary offer readers a thrilling vista of the most important scientific, cultural, and ethical issues facing human civilization. This book is not to be missed by anyone wanting a broad overview of the questions we must answer to move forward as a species.”

— Adam Frank, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Rochester, Carl Sagan medalist, author of Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth

“Lively and enlightening dialogues that engage complementary perspectives on deep issues—an enjoyable way to learn timeless and topical ideas.”

— Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, author of Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters

“In Great Minds Don’t Think Alike, leading intellectual Marcelo Gleiser brings together prominent scientists and humanists to discuss some of the key questions of our age. Not only do these conversations provide important new insights into pressing issues, they also demonstrate the power of cross disciplinary perspectives, and offer a model of civil and fruitful dialogue.

— Peter Harrison, author of The Territories of Science and Religion

The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected: A Natural Philosopher's Quest for Trout and the Meaning of Everything

Winner of an award for top three best nonfiction science books in Brazil.

As a boy growing up on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, Marcelo Gleiser had a passion for fishing. Years later, a world-famous theoretical physicist with hundreds of scientific articles and several books of popular science to his credit, he felt it was time to connect with nature again in less theoretical ways. After watching a fly-fishing class on the Dartmouth College Green, he decided to learn to fly-fish—a hobby, he says, that teaches humility.

In The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected, Marcelo describes how he travels the world to attend scientific conferences, fishing wherever he goes. At each stop, he ponders the myriad ways in which physics informs the act of fishing; considers how fishing in its turn serves as a lens into nature’s inner workings; and explains how science engages with questions of meaning and spirituality, inspiring a sense of awe in the face of the not yet-known.

Personal and engaging, The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected is a scientist’s tribute to nature, an affirmation of humanity’s deep connection with and debt to Earth, and an exploration of the meaning of existence, from atom to trout to cosmos.

The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected is the winner of an award for top three best nonfiction science books in Brazil.

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What People Are Saying About The Simple Beauty of the Unexpected:

“The fly-fishing is naively beautiful. The physics is just beautiful. But the conclusion to the journey of a man so engaged by both—the epiphany—is magnificent and should be shared by us all.”
— Jeremy Lucas, European Open flyfishing champion, author of The Last Salmon

“An elegantly written, introspective, and thought-provoking meditation on growing up as someone curious about the universe. It’s a wonderful introduction to the human side of science and the scientific side of being human.”
— Sean Carroll, author of The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself

“Whether teasing apart the known, the unknown, and the unknowable in science, or immersing us in the natural world of Brazil or Iceland, Marcelo Gleiser’s words sing on the page. You don’t have to fish or seek out spiritual experiences to love this book.”
— Barbara King, author of How Animals Grieve

“With wit, charm, humor, and passion, Gleiser pulls off that rarest of catches—connecting the most fundamental and sublime aspects of science with the most intimate and ordinary experience of fishing.”
— Adam Frank, NPR commentator

The Island of Knowledge

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Humans have worked to understand and explain the universe for millennia, but Marcelo says we’ll never know it all—and proceeds to explain why. We are driven “to make sense of the world” and our place in it, and advances in mathematics and technology, from geometry and lenses to calculus and computers, have expanded our reach, revealing details of the very small and the very large. But as that “island of knowledge” grows, Marcelo says, “so do the shores of our ignorance.” From Copernicus’s proof that the Earth orbited the Sun to Isaac Newton’s laws of gravitation and motion, and quantum theory’s uncertainty principle, solutions that solved major problems also made many uncomfortable because they revealed deeper mysteries, showing “the true vastness of space and time.” Marcelo covers a broad swath of subjects—from cognition and curved space to particle physics, superstring theory, and multiverses—with a thoughtful, accessible style that balances philosophy with hard science. His island imagery will capture readers’ imagination as it examines the ideas that unnerve us even as they illuminate our world.

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What People Are Saying About The Island of Knowledge:

“We've come to know far more than our ancestors could possibly have imagined—including the depth of our ignorance. In Gleiser's lucid narrative, that marvelous paradox comes alive.”

— Frank Wilczek, Nobel laureate and author of The Lightness of Being

“Marcelo Gleiser brings a physicist's knowledge, a philosopher's wisdom, and a poet's language to elucidate our largest questions. If you finish The Island of Knowledge with all the same opinions with which you began it, then turn to page one and start reading again.”

— Rebecca Goldstein, MacArthur Fellow and author of Plato at the Googleplex

“Articulate, elegant, and at times poignant, The Island of Knowledge is a magnificent account of humanity's struggle to understand its place in the cosmos.  ... Gleiser shows how our efforts to comprehend the universe have transformed it into something rich and strange.”

— Seth Lloyd, professor of mechanical engineering at MIT and author of Programming the Universe

“Gleiser covers a broad swath of subjects—from cognition and curved space to particle physics, superstring theory, and multiverses—with a thoughtful, accessible style that balances philosophy with hard science. His island imagery will capture readers’ imagination as it examines the ideas that unnerve us even as they illuminate our world.”

— Publishers Weekly

“The Island of Knowledge is a history of the mind, its gift for finding ideas in things. The brilliance of centuries of philosophic and scientific inquiry, never more remarkable than at present, bears a profound resemblance to the brilliance it discovers in the universe. Marcelo Gleiser makes us feel what a privilege it is to be human.”

— Marilynne Robinson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Humanities Medal, and author of Gilead and Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self

A Tear at the Edge of Creation

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Marcelo proposes a radical new way to think about the universe and our place in it. Instead of the traditional view that nature's secrets are encoded in a Final Theory, which is at the core of superstring theories and other searches for a unified description of nature, he argues that this age-long search for perfection is misguided; nature is imperfect and the perfection we seek is mostly a reflection of our deeply-ingrained beliefs in a monotheistic power. What we have learned during the past decades is that asymmetry and not symmetry is the creative force behind the emergence of structure, from the cosmos to matter to life itself. This new aesthetic of science has broad-ranging consequences: Marcelo shows that life—and in particular complex, intelligent life—is exceedingly rare. We may not be the only intelligent beings out there, but for all practical purposes we are alone. This makes us very important indeed. Marcelo proposes a "humanocentrism," whereby we take charge of our moral responsibility toward our planet and toward life in general.

The Prophet and the Astronomer: A Scientific Journey to the End of the World

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The book is a transcultural examination of ideas about the end of the world. Starting with apocalyptic traditions in many religions and sects, Marcelo shows how such ideas entered science in the Renaissance and still remain there today. He discusses meteoritic and cometary bombardment on Earth's past and future; the end of the sun; the physics of black holes; and, of course, the end of the universe as a whole, from cutting-edge theories of cosmology and particle physics.

The Dancing Universe: From Creation Myths to the Big Bang

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Where does the universe and everything in it come from? How do religion and science explain the riddle of creation? In this book, Marcelo covers some 25 centuries of intellectual history, focusing on the question of the origin of the universe from a religious, philosophical, and scientific perspective.