The Romance of Reality: How the Universe Organizes Itself to Create Life, Consciousness, and Cosmic Complexity

by Bobby Azarian

Overview

Why do we exist? For centuries, this question was the sole province of religion and philosophy. But now science is ready to take a seat at the table.

According to the prevailing scientific paradigm, the universe tends toward randomness; it functions according to laws without purpose, and the emergence of life is an accident devoid of meaning.

But this bleak interpretation of nature is currently being challenged by cutting-edge findings at the intersection of physics, biology, neuroscience, and information theory—generally referred to as “complexity science.” Thanks to a new understanding of evolution, as well as recent advances in our understanding of the phenomenon known as emergence, a new cosmic narrative is taking shape: Nature’s simplest “parts” come together to form ever-greater “wholes” in a process that has no end in sight.

In The Romance of Reality, cognitive neuroscientist Bobby Azarian explains the science behind this new view of reality and explores what it means for all of us. In engaging, accessible prose, Azarian outlines the fundamental misunderstanding of thermodynamics at the heart of the old assumptions about the universe’s evolution, and shows us the evidence that suggests that the universe is a “self-organizing” system, one that is moving toward increasing complexity and awareness.

Cosmologist and science communicator Carl Sagan once said of humanity that “we are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” The Romance of Reality shows that this poetic statement in fact rests on a scientific foundation and gives us a new way to know the cosmos, along with a riveting vision of life that imbues existence with meaning—nothing supernatural required.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781637740446
Publisher:	BenBella Books, Inc.
Publication date:	06/28/2022
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	244,592
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Bobby Azarian is a science journalist and a cognitive neuroscientist with a PhD from George Mason University. He has written for publications including The Atlantic, The New York Times, BBC, Scientific American, Slate, HuffPost, Quartz, and Aeon. His research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Human Brain Mapping, Cognition & Emotion, Acta Pychologica, and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. His blog “Mind in the Machine,” hosted by Psychology Today, has received over 8 million views. Azarian worked on Season 2 of the YouTube Premium psychology-based series Mind Field (as a consultant and researcher), which helped the show win its first Emmy nomination. He has appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience, The Michael Shermer Show, The David Pakman Show, and The Young Turks to discuss his work. He is based in Arlington, Virginia.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part 1 Origins

1 A New Beginning 11

2 Energy, Entropy, and the Paradox of Life 19

3 Unraveling the Mystery of Life 33

4 The Emergence of Life on Earth 47

5 Biological Information and Computation 61

Part 2 Evolution

6 Natural Selection and Knowledge Creation 77

7 A Unifying Theory of Reality 109

8 The Integrated Evolutionary Synthesis 127

9 Hierarchical Emergence 151

Part 3 Transcendence

10 The Mind-Body Mystery 185

11 Causal Emergence and Free Will 205

12 The Strange Loop That Spawns the Self 223

13 Transcendence and Enlightenment 245

Acknowledgments 281

Notes 283

Index 289

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“What if, as Bobby Azarian argues in this magisterial account of cosmic evolution, the universe has built into its laws of nature principles of emergence that generate complex adaptive systems that include life and consciousness? What if our cosmic purpose is to create our own cosmic purpose? This book will blow your mind.” 
—Michael Shermer, author of Why Darwin Matters and The Moral Arc
 
“This is truly a book for the 21st century—the ‘century of complexity.’ It is a quite remarkable synthesis of all my favorite things!” 
—Karl Friston, neuroscientist at University College London
 
“What would happen if you tried answering every fundamental question about our existence? Why did life emerge? What is consciousness? Free Will? Self? Knowledge? Information? How do all these concepts fit together? Bobby Azarian’s new book is the answer to life, consciousness, cosmic complexity, and everything.” 
—Roman Yampolskiy, director of the Cybersecurity Lab at the University of Louisville and author of Artificial Superintelligence
 
“Bobby Azarian's new book is an impressive tour de force on the scientific territory of the origin of life . . . This is a comprehensive book that will nourish the science hungry and will offer guidance for the young and aspiring scientist.”
—Adrian Bejan, J.A. Jones Distinguished Professor at Duke University and author of The Physics of Life: The Evolution of Everything
 
“The Romance of Reality is a scientific book with epic psychological implications: How thrilling to realize that the existential bleakness of our reductionist worldview is finally being superseded by the realization that we are in fact nested within rapturously self-organizing systems within systems, in a grand ballet of emergent complexity.” 
—Jason Silva, philosopher and former host of National Geographic’s Brain Games and Origins
 
“Bobby Azarian's The Romance of Reality is an audacious state-of-the-art examination of the unfolding of our universe and our place in it using a complexity lens . . . Bobby's startling new synthesis is well-researched and provides a profoundly hopeful path forward for humanity.” 
—Jim Rutt, former chairman of the Santa Fe Institute and host of the podcast The Jim Rutt Show
 
“Some of the most powerful moments in life are the sudden realizations of new insights, where concepts and ideas simply fall into place and answer fundamental questions. The Romance of Reality delivers several such epiphanies in a highly engaging style.”
—Dominik Schiener, cofounder and chairman of the board of directors, The IOTA Foundation
 
“Bobby Azarian has pulled off the impossible. He has woven together entropy, information theory, and complex adaptive systems to put the life of this cosmos into a single big picture.”
—Howard Bloom, author of The Lucifer Principle and The God Problem
 
“This book begins to solve the mysteries of the universe . . . Is life random and devolving or complex and evolving? We’re at a pivotal moment in our quest to find out. As Azarian brilliantly explains, the universe is waking up through us. This book will help you do likewise.”
—Cenk Uygur, creator of The Young Turks

“The Romance of Reality maps out a mind-expanding path from reductionism to emergence, offering ‘a radical new cosmic narrative’ that revels in the sublime beauty of evolution and our plausible collective participation in it.”  
—Richard Doyle, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English at Penn State and author of Darwin’s Pharmacy: Sex, Plants, and the Evolution of the Noosphere
 
“This book achieves what many assume to be impossible. It takes some of the most difficult and profound concepts there are—What is life? What is consciousness? In what ways is free will real? What is reality?—and provides accessible and enjoyable explanations, while always respecting the depth of these topics.” 
—Adam Safron, postdoctoral research fellow, Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research  
 
“Azarian’s The Romance of Reality is an exhaustive and thorough exploration of many of the biggest theories about life and its place in the universe.”
—Johnjoe McFadden, professor of molecular genetics at the University of Surrey and author of Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology
 
“The Romance of Reality makes accessible the essence of a little-known scientific revolution currently sweeping the research community. This revolution makes clear our relatedness to the universe and is destined to provide further answers to all our big questions.” 
—John Campbell, author of Universal Darwinism: The Path of Knowledge

"This book was superbly thought-provoking and opened up to me whole new vistas of possibility about the big questions of philosophy and science. I’d highly recommend it for readers interested in the meaning of life, the universe, and everything."
—Bernie Gourley, The Introverted Yogi