https://archive.org/details/myviewofworld0000schr/page/n6/mode/1up
81 pages
128 pages
My View of the World Paperback – 1 June 1983
by Erwin Schrodinger (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 9 ratings
A Nobel prize winner, a great man and a great scientist, Erwin Sebrodinger has made his mark in physics, but his eye scans a far wider horizon: here are two stimulating and discursive essays which summarize his philosophical views on the nature of the world. Schrodinger's world view, derived from the Indian writings of the Vedanta, is that there is only a single consciousness of which we are all different aspects. He admits that this view is mystical and metaphysical and incapable of logical deduction. But he also insists that this is true of the belief in an external world capable of influencing the mind and of being influenced by it. Schrodinger's world view leads naturally to a philosophy of reverence for life.
About the Author
Also by Erwin Schrodinger, The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, edited and with an introduction by Michel Bitbol
Product details
Publisher : Ox Bow Pr; Reprint of the First English edition (1 June 1983)
Language : English
Paperback : 118 pages
Top reviews
Top reviews from Australia
There are 0 reviews and 0 ratings from Australia
Top reviews from other countries
dpow
5.0 out of 5 stars This is an amazing book; beautiful and well writtenReviewed in the United States on 12 July 2014
Verified Purchase
This is an amazing book; beautiful and well written. Schrodinger wrote these essays at a time when one could espouse a world-view other than strict reductionist materialism without being attacked by practitioners of the religion of "scientism".While he was himself a materialist, Schrodinger saw into areas of biology and genetics which opened new doors into the thinking of his day and which are still amazing scientist and laymen alike.
10 people found this helpfulReport
ilya
5.0 out of 5 stars A good book, non duality philosophy.Reviewed in the United States on 12 March 2016
Verified Purchase
The book is very interesting. In my understanding Schrodinger talks about ideas that are now called "non duality". The book does not read easily.
4 people found this helpfulReport
Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Five StarsReviewed in the United States on 29 March 2017
Verified Purchase
One of the most enlightening books I have ever read.
2 people found this helpfulReport
David H. Eisenberg
2.0 out of 5 stars Bertrand Russell pointed out that we politely overlook the foolish statements of great philosophers.Reviewed in the United States on 1 July 2019
Verified Purchase
The foolish statements of great scientists too. As someone who admires Schrodinger a great deal (his What is Life? is one of the great science books, in my view), enjoys reading philosophy a great deal, this book, like much philosophy and religion, is just nonsense. It's interesting, he's clear and often compelling. But, it's not particularly logical, despite the trappings of logic, and mostly, poppycock. The idea that there is one great mind or consciousness - whatever you want to call it - must be proved to have any credibility, b/c as he readily admits, it sure seems like we each have our own one. All he proves is that there are a lot of things that we don't know and that eventually, all science and reason must rely to some degree on metaphysics and the like. Well, that's not groundbreaking. Not that he pretended to have invented any philosophy. He was just explaining what others had said. Though it's called "his view," it's mostly based on Vedic philosophy and some more modern philosophers, like Schopenhauer and Kant.
As much fun as mysticism and this kind of metaphysical, speculative thinking is, they lead nowhere. Science, even if it is based on metaphysics too and faith in reason, at least gets you somewhere with it. And Schrodinger was exceptionally good at it. While imagination is part of science, left to itself, it's just entertainment. And that's all this is, speculative feeling, awe and wonder, and ultimately . . . blather.
Great mind, good writer. But, I'd skip this one.
Read less
3 people found this helpfulReport
==
Top reviews from other countries
J. Socrates
5.0 out of 5 stars Be with an interesting mind, thinking....
Reviewed in the United States on 14 July 2024
Verified Purchase
If you want an easy bedtime story go elsewhwere, but if you get value listening to a great mind think deeply about things, and are open to ideas that aren't your own, Schrödinger is first rate
2 people found this helpful
Report
Daniel Davinci
5.0 out of 5 stars Thought Provoking
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 March 2021
Verified Purchase
If you're interesting in theology and philosophy, then this author should be someone who you're familiar with. If not, it's time to discover him. Popularised in many people's mind by the Cat Theory, he proposes parallel universes and all possibilities existing simultaneously. This is just one theory and there's more theories within theories and plenty more. There's a certain seemingly pretentious style to his writing similar to Freud, but it's comprehensible enough. Recommended!
4 people found this helpful
Report
==
==
Sexy Manatee
35 reviews
4 followers
Follow
April 29, 2024
I'm honestly not sure what to think of this work. It was a great read, however, there was a lot of language I could not fully grasp. Despite my ignorance to much of what I'm sure was second nature knowledge to Shrodinger, it was a pleasure to get a glimpse of his view of the world. As the fish is the last to discover the water, this book seems an attempt to explain and get a handle on that which is essentially not meant to be fully grasped. Whether it is an attempt at grabbing a fist full of water or shaping a nice glass for which the reader to sip the shapeless contents, it is plain to see Shrodinger gave some thought to the nature of that which his science could not explain fully.
17 likes
Like
Comment
Profile Image for Plato.
Plato
17 reviews
3 followers
Follow
July 26, 2013
Coming from a man of science, this book(or rather two essays written 35 years apart) is fairly good at giving an insight into his view of the world. Schrödinger discusses metaphysics, reality, language and understanding with clarity.
I, as a student of science, was interested in what he would say of all the metaphysical and mystical tones about which his work must have compelled him to think.
Very nice.
He called himself unmusical. Your mind was awashed with the other kind of waves ES!
german
mmb-library
philosophy
13 likes
Like
Comment
Profile Image for Arno Mosikyan.
Arno Mosikyan
343 reviews
31 followers
Follow
January 2, 2019
CITATIONS
In all the world, there is no kind of framework within which we can find consciousness in the plural; this is simply something we construct because of the spatio-temporal plurality of individuals, but it is a false construction.
Briefly summarising, we can express the proposed law thus: consciousness is bound up with learning in organic substance; organic competence is unconscious. Still more briefly, and put in a form which is admittedly rather obscure and open to misunderstanding: Becoming is conscious, being unconscious.
In all ages and amongst all peoples self-conquest has formed the underlying basis of all virtue.
This appears at once in the fact that a moral teaching always appears arrayed as a demand, ‘Thou shalt’; and it must be so, because if we consider the practical behaviour which we value as morally elevated, positively significant, or wise, the behaviour which, for reasons very variously stated, we applaud, respect or admire, we find that such behaviour, however constituted in detail, always has one thing common to it: a certain opposition to primitive desire.
philosophy
physics
9 likes
Like
Comment
Profile Image for Mason Mathai.
Mason Mathai
43 reviews
1 follower
Follow
February 23, 2021
To me, it seems fortuitous that this book even exists. When I learned that one of the most brilliant scientists in the field of quantum mechanics wrote a book on mysticism, it seemed too good to be true. But perhaps not. Maybe it makes sense that the man who conceived the "Schrodinger's Cat" paradox, a mind-bending thought exercise used to accurately describe reality on the quantum level, isn't afraid of mystical speculation.
Other books written by spiritual thinkers start out with the presupposition that metaphysics is valuable and thus chart their argument from there. Schrodinger, on the other hand, has to defy all of his colleagues and admirers, for to them he is the paragon of logical deduction and scientific inquiry. He eloquently does this when he argues that metaphysics cannot compete with science, but science cannot exist without it; crafting an articulate warning against the materialism and ego-driven scientific objectivity of the twentieth century, calling for an embrace of the metaphysical as a valuable source of motivation and ethics that may undergird existence.
To some who have not read it, this book may be seen as a form of career suicide, as it violates the separation of science and spirituality. Once read; however, it is obvious that Schrodinger has no objective truths to apply to his investigation of spirituality, and is simply engaging in it because pondering our existence and thinking about god has been the quintessential human pastime for centuries, and this his conclusions on the importance of the Vedas are most remarkable when analyzed from his perspective not as a scientist, but as a human.
favorites
6 likes
Like
Comment
Rahul Banerjee
66 reviews
2 followers
Follow
November 18, 2021
Two interesting essays by the eminent physicist, touching on several topics such as Self, Consciousness, Reality, Language, Ethics etc. Schrödinger's philosophical beliefs appear to have been heavily influenced by the philosophy of Advaita Vedanta, a Monist school of thought.
Though the content itself is very interesting, the writing style is a bit dull at places and it takes quite an effort to avoid skimming through pages.
3 likes
Like
Comment
Profile Image for Nick Black.
Nick Black
Author
2 books
838 followers
Follow
March 31, 2023
Amazon 2008-07-26. Sung to the tune of the Super Golden Crisp jingle: Can't get enough Erwin Schrödinger; he's got the wave that pays!
surprisingly strong given all the eastern jibberjabber. holy shit, people were broadly educated in the classics back then. lots to take away here. very dense.
3 likes
Like
Comment
Profile Image for Sanjarbek.
Sanjarbek
23 reviews
Follow
March 29, 2021
As the title states, the book ( rather two assays) is about the way the author saw the world.
I am inclined to say that I don’t agree with his views but I dare not touch the sun. The truth is I do not posses brainpower to digest it fully, hence the subjective absurdity for me.
What is pure bliss in reading the texts by these intellectual giants is observing with how much ease they can juggle and play with ideas ranging from Democritus to Carl Jung, and synthesize their own frameworks.
He would be rather disappointed today, I think, that we still haven’t figure out what is consciousness made of. Mind and matter are two different natural phenomena in XXI. We await another giant on the scale of Schrodinger to figure that out for us.
2 likes
Like
Comment
Profile Image for Jeff.
Jeff
7 reviews
3 followers
Follow
April 9, 2023
Its hard to understand why Shrodinger's work is important in this day and age, but none of our modern conveniences would be possible without advances by him and others such as Heisenberg. The IR-spectrum experiment, which was dependent on the Shrodinger equation, revolutionized chemistry and paved the way for modern science. Literally ALL modern conveniences come from these experiments in one way or another.
In his book, Shrodinger uses vivid imagery and anecdotes to put his own scientific work in the context of the daily lives that we care about. He also reminds us that no matter how sterile we try to make a science, it is always intertwined with our seemingly fickle human desires. The major point that he stressed in his book is about non-duality, painting the concept as a means-to-an-end for destroying a solipsistic, egocentric view of the world in place of a holistic framework, to view the world in a higher societal consciousness beyond our immediate perceptions.
I recommend this book to any other scientist.
2 likes
Like
Comment
Profile Image for Kamakana.
Kamakana
Author
2 books
394 followers
Follow
February 3, 2019
260618: i liked it, thought his use of vedanta interesting, his references to russell, wittgenstein, hume, less engaging as it is not my usual sort of philosophy. interesting sources/parallels could be useful investigating, this is a good example, perceptive, it is not that philosophy is destined to become science, but that science is destined to become philosophy...
===
ERWIN
00
SCHRODINGER
MY VIEW OF THE WORLD
WCAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY•p au
MY VIEW OF THE WORLD
By the same Author
- WHAT IS LIFE?
- SCIENCE AND HUMANISM
- SPACE-TIME STRUCTURE
- STATISTICAL THERMODYNAMICS
- NATURE AND THE GREEKS
- MIND AND MATTER
- EXPANDING UNIVERSES
ERWIN SCHRÖDINGER
MY VIEW OF THE WORLD
Translated from the German by CECILY HASTINGS
Cambridge University Press, 1964
This digitally printed version 2008
==
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
SEEK FOR THE ROAD
I Metaphysics in general
II A cheerless balance-sheet
III Philosophical wonder
IV The problem
V The Vedantic vision
VI An exoteric introduction to scientific thought
VII More about non-plurality
VIII Consciousness, organic, inorganic, mneme
IX On becoming conscious
X The moral law
WHAT IS REAL?
I Reasons for abandoning the dualism of thought and existence, or mind and
matter
II Linguistic information and our common possession of the world
III The imperfection of understanding
IV The doctrine of identity: light and shadow
V Two grounds for astonishment: pseudo-ethics
The agenda of the Executive Council meeting included a report on the activities and progress of the action plan, which was approved at the 9th Governance Assembly in 2021, including the “Flagship Projects (priority implementation projects)” being promoted by the ACRP, as well as discussions regarding the hosting of the next Governance Assembly.
On May 30, participants traveled to Colombo City for a Public Peace Forum under the theme of “The Role of Religions in Achieving Peace through Economic Empowerment”. The forum emphasized the importance of religious communities being actively involved in political, welfare, and educational initiatives, in addition to economic perspectives, in order to build up a society of peace and harmony.
In these days when online meeting is becoming the mainstream, this Executive Council meeting was a significant opportunity for leaders of different religions to come together in person and share their views for the sake of peace.
데이비드 말로이 주교. ⓒ정현진 기자
(맨 왼쪽) 포럼 참가자들과 토론하고 있는 변진흥 위원장. ⓒ정현진 기자
영화 '크로싱' 상영이 끝난 뒤 참가자들과. 맨 앞줄 왼쪽에서 두 번째 보라색 옷을 입은 이가 전수미 변호사, 가운데 두건을 쓴 이가 조현숙 씨다. ⓒ정현진 기자
7대 종단의 연대협력기구인 한국종교인평화회의(KCRP)에서 발행하고 있는 월간지 ‘종교와 평화’가 창간 1주년을 맞아 기념 전시회를 열었다.
