Product Description

Pathways of Chance is the delightful and often humorous telling of the life, experiences and ideas of the physicist and writer F. David Peat (author of twenty books including Synchronicity: The Bridge between Matter and Mind, Blackfoot Physics, Superstrings, The Blackwinged Night: Creativity in Nature and Mind and From Certainty to Uncertainty). Beginning with his boyhood in an eccentric family in wartime Liverpool it takes us through the swinging sixties of the Beatles, theoretical research in Canada, and finally his settling in the tiny medieval village of Pari in Italy. It explores his meetings with such people as David Bohm, Roger Penrose, Bertrand Russell and Sir Michael Tippett. It engages us with accounts of a talking circle in a tepee with Native American Elders to dialogues with leading artists. Yet each step of this life story is also an exciting encounter with ideas including the elusive nature of quantum reality, the Blackfoot world of flux and transformation, the limits to what can be said, Jung and Synchronicity, creativity within the human body, David Bohm's implicate order, art and film and, finally, the need for new forms of ethical action in the world. Larry Dossey has described the book as "a moveable feast", while Fred Alan Wolf writes that it is "an honest from-the-heart answer" to the question as to what makes physicists tick. Peat has a Renaissance mind and we learn of his excursions into film, radio and theatre. He has a gift for bridging disciplines and bringing complex ideas to life in an exciting and engaging way. His lucid writing illuminates everything from the meaning of quantum reality, the way language influences the way we see the world, the Blackfoot world view and much, much more.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #695436 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

From the Publisher
We are happy to be launching this new venture, Pari Publishing, with F. David Peat's Pathways of Chance. Peat is a fine author with over twenty books to his credit, someone who has explored ideas in an engaging and accessible way over a wide range of fields. We also feel that Pathways of Chance is an innovative approach for it sets a range of fascinating ideas and theories within the context of the author's life. It also acts to set the tone for our future publications which will include a series of literary essays by George Stade, novelist, literary critic and consulting editorial director of Barnes and Nobel Classics; a series of essays on the debate between Science and Religion; a book on Art, Science and the Sacred; and The Way We Die, an examination of the medical and ethical issues surrounding death and dying. In addition to our books for the US market we shall also be producing, in Italian, a series of key books that have not yet been made available in Italy.

From the Author
"Pathways of Chance" was a joy to write. It was an opportunity to look back on my life, recall the people I had met and explore the ideas that had intrigued me. The book begins in wartime England, continues with my life as a student in Liverpool at the time of the Beatles, it then moves to Canada, to a meeting with the physicist and philosopher, David Bohm, an encounter with the Blackfoot and other Native Americans, to my ongoing interactions with artists and finally a move to a medieval hilltop village in Italy and the creation of the Pari Center for New Learning.

The book is not only about my personal encounters, it is also an investigation and explanation of the ideas I have spent my life exploring: - the mysteries of quantum reality, the paradox of "Schrödinger's Cat", David Bohm's proposal that an activity of information pervades the universe and that mind was present from the beginning. The book discusses how the languages we speak affect what we see and do. It touches on synchronicities (meaningful coincidences) and the ideas of Carl Jung, it looks at the way our understanding of the cosmos may be encoded within our bodies, the relationship between art and science, the possibility of new forms of ethical action and my hopes for the future.

About the Author
F. David Peat was born in Liverpool, England and in the mid 1960s moved to Canada where he carried out research in theoretical physics. In the early 1980s Peat turned to writing and is now the author of twenty books including "From Certainty to Uncertainty: The Story of Science and Ideas in the Twentieth Century", "Blackwinged Night: Creativity in Nature and Mind", "Blackfoot Physics", "Synchronicity: The Bridge between Matter and Mind", "Seven Life Lessons of Chaos" (with John Briggs) and "Science, Order and Creativity" (with David Bohm). In addition to his books he has written plays for stage and radio.

In 1996 Peat moved to the medieval village of Pari, near Siena, Italy where he established The Pari Center for New Learning which offers courses and conferences as well as an active program of visitors.

Customer Reviews

Fascinating
I read with great interest F. David Peat’s most recent book. Some years ago I had read his book on Synchronicity but had not realized that since that time he had explored so many other areas. The book is well written and the ideas in it are very accessible to a layperson like myself. I found it quite interesting that he intercut what he terms “excursions” of ideas with an account of his life. The themes he deals with include the ethics of a new form of action, the limitations of language, notions about the quantum theory and his experiences with Native America. I was very pleased to read the short chapter on Synchronicity and from this I can see that Peat’s thinking has progressed. I really hope that he updates his earlier book on Synchronicity with new material. I can certainly recommend this book.

A great read!!!!
I really enjoyed Pathways. I’ve read most of Peat’s other books and been fascinated by the range of his ideas, but this new book is different because it’s also his life story – and pretty funny too when he talks about his childhood. I hadn’t known he had so much interaction with artists and would like to have read more. But the book has everything and is a pretty good intro into to the sorts of ideas that are floating around today – everything from quantum theory to Blackfoot Indians to the way language works. A sort of miniature encyclopedia and a great read.

Inscape & Cosmic reflections!
In this bio David Peat shows us much more than merely the landscape of his life, he goes further into the vastness of the inscape of all life!

David Peat not only shows us that scientific community should show more Humility less dogmatism, but also the limits to the narrow mechanistic world view. He allows us all to reflect on our own play in the cosmic dance we abstractly call life!

On the whole It was a joy to read, and it will leaving you wanting to know more, which is always the sign of a good mentor!

Gordon Shippey UK