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This book is an exploration of different views regarding what is commonly referred to as “objectivity.” It is influenced by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, from whom the author has derived the concept of “flux” or constancy of change alone as “reality.” This is combined with a neo-Kantian or, by Nova’s own interesting account, the lesser-known logician George Berkeley, who introduced the concept of the “thing in itself,” for which both he and Kant asserted was impossible for humans to perceive or know.
While skeptical of scientific objectivity, the author is not given to pure skepticism in general. Instead, she focuses on the process of perception itself, with some influence by the French existentialist Meleau-Ponty, author of Phenomenology of Perception. Nova posits that we “stage” our understanding through two basic approaches: a mimicking talent and/or a creative talent. All this is dependent on the mind, which the writer says is constantly comparing, focusing, composing, and recomposing sensations picked up by our “crude” senses. However, the mind is not dependent on the physical brain. Einstein’s speed of light calculations are an abstraction, but Jonas Salk is an example of a creative thinker who imagined himself as both a virus and an immune system in the development of his world-famous vaccine.
There are colorful illustrations of what the author has posited as three layers of a living creative mind: a superconscious level, where NDEs indicate the mind’s survival after death; a cosmic layer that is closer to physicality; and finally, the conscious level, where our physical limitations are made manifest. Provocative and opinionated in her writing, the author pulls no punches regarding Plato’s idealism (and math in general), animal testing, and “geoengineering,” such as toxic dimethylamine sprayed into our skies to enhance cloud formation. Philosophy fans looking for their next read may wish to explore Nova’s offering.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review