Johnson - Fire in the mind : science, faith, and the search for order

Acclaim for GEORGE JOHNSONS

FIRE IN THE MIND

Undeniably fascinating. Johnson is masterful at explaining complicated ideas and fitting them into the framework of modern science.

Jill Sapinsley Mooney, San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle

Subversive. Johnson has veered away from the pack with a brilliant new book, one that raises unsettling questions about the claims of science to truth. Readers are unlikely to finish the book without undergoing a crisis of faith.

John Horgan, The Sciences

Clear and thought-provoking. An intellectual and cultural journey through the landscape of northern New Mexico. An excellent book.

David K. Nartonis, Christian Science Monitor

Remarkable and eloquent. Original and revealing Johnsons desire not only to explain but to understand the urge to explain infuses Fire in the Mind with its own fire.

Seth Lloyd, Scientific American

Here is a book in the spirit of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Compression is the essence of science [and] Johnson proceeds to compress with utter clarity, almost casually tap-dancing his way through particle physics, quantum theory, cosmology and evolutionary biology. Fire in the Mind is a connoisseurs gazetteer. Vibrant and exhilarating and even inspirational.

Ian Watson, New Scientist

One of the most stimulating books of popular science to have been written for some time.

Ray Monk, The London Observer

A spectacular tour of the most compelling theories of current science.

Jon Turney, The Financial Times of London

Fire in the Mind is thoughtful, it is beautifully written, and like all courageous writing, it accepts no assumptions, examines every premise, questions every unquestioned foundation; and yet this subversiveness is so gentle (or sly) that most readers wont realize how dangerous is the territory through which they are being led. It is really a great piece of work.

Stephen Hall, author of Mapping the Next Millennium

Brilliantly illuminates the complex, deceptive relationship that exists between the physical universe and our perception of it.

Douglas Adams

Fire in the Mind is a New Mexico mystery story of a different kind. Johnson has given us a thought-provoking look at a fascinating subject.

Tony Hillerman

Johnson presents a laudable link between three faith systems all of which, because they are derived from human desire, chase the same elusive goalthe ordering of chaos. [An] excellent account.

Michael White, Sunday Times(London)

An invigorating and original examination of the interface between faith and science. Articulate and vivid seductively reasoned.

Donna Seaman, Hungry Mind Review

Rich and engaging fresh and luminous takes us to the heart of a profound intellectual issue of our time.

Chet Raymo, Commonweal

Where does myth end and science begin? With a novelists skill, George Johnson pulls us into a story of wonder, beauty, and the human drive to make sense of the universe.

Patricia Smith Churchland

Fluid poetry. This is a book to read meditatively, happily and to rejoice that such a writer exists.

Anne Fulk, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

GEORGE JOHNSON

FIRE IN THE MIND

George Johnson writes about science for The New York Times, and has written regularly for The New York Times Book Review and The New York Times Magazine. He is the author of three previous books: Architects of Fear, Machinery of the Mind, and In the Palaces of Memory. A former Alicia Patterson Fellow and the recipient of a Special Achievement in Nonfiction award from the Los Angeles chapter of PEN, Mr. Johnson grew up in New Mexico and now lives in Santa Fe.

Books by GEORGE JOHNSON

Fire in the Mind:
Science, Faith and the Search for Order

In the Palaces of Memory:
How We Build the Worlds Inside Our Heads

Machinery of the Mind:
Inside the New Science of Artificial Intelligence

Architects of Fear:
Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia in American Politics

FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, SEPTEMBER 1996

Copyright1995 by George Johnson
Illustrations and maps copyright 1995 by David Cain

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 1995.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Johnson, George.
Fire in the mind: science, faith, and the search for order /
George Johnson.
p. cm.
1. Religion and science. 2. Hermanos Penitentes. 3. Tewa philosophy.
4. SciencePhilosophy. 5. Johnson, George.
6. New MexicoDescription and travel. I. Title.
BL240.2.J547 1995
215dc2o 94-38382
eISBN: 978-0-307-76544-4

Random House Web address: www.randomhouse.com/

Author photograph by Maggie Berkvist

v3.1

For Nancy Maret

When all the stars were ready to be placed in the sky First Woman said, I will use these to write the laws that are to govern mankind for all time. These laws cannot be written on the water as that is always changing its form, nor can they be written in the sand as the wind would soon erase them, but if they are written in the stars they can be read and remembered forever.

FROM A NAVAJO CREATION STORY

S everal years ago, on a visit home to New Mexico from my self-imposed exile in New York City, I was driving through the predominantly Catholic village of Truchas, on the high road from Santa Fe to Taos, when I rounded a corner and was startled to see a tiny adobe church with a makeshift steeple of corrugated green and yellow plastic (the kind used to cover carports and swimming pools) and a sign that read Templo Sion, Asambleados de DiosZion Temple, Assembly of God.

I have always felt a little uneasy driving through Truchas. Most of the small towns on the high road to TaosChimayo, Cordova, El Valle, Ojo Sarco, Trampas, Peascoare nestled comfortably in valleys, sheltered from the elements. Truchas is more like a Tuscan village, sitting high and exposed in an austere mountain meadow in the Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ) Mountains, with an uninterrupted free-fall view down to the Rio Grande. The town has long had a certain reputation for unfriendliness to outsiders, whether Anglos from Santa Fe or New York, or Hispanles from the next village over the rise. One occasionally hears stories of visitors stopping for a drink at the local bar only to be lured into a fight they are destined to lose, or of hikers parking in the nearby National Forest for a walk to the Trampas Lakes or an assault on the Truchas Peaks, and returning to find their tires slashed or maybe parts of their engine gone. But the legend is probably exaggerated in the retelling. Most often, the people of Truchas are simply trying to protect their quiet mountain life. Like people all over the world, they are wary of strangers and sometimes prefer to be left alone.