Synopsis
Language: English
Pages: 166
About the Book
The Loom of Time shows how reality is generated in a recursive fashion and uses this insight to illuminate many puzzles of history and culture. Recursion is at basis of mimicry in nature and germination and development of biological organisms; it also provides structure to mental images of physical systems and human behavior. It helps us make sense of the repeating patterns across cultures and nations, understand the manner in which technology is impacting society, and see the reasons behind the crises of the contemporary world.
The topics covered in this book include philosophical bases of recursion, cosmologies old and new, religion and modernity, globalization and bureau-cratic control, loss of meaning and freedom, spirituality, narcissism leading to despair, and limits of medicine. It deals with problems of employment and questions of meaning of life when robots and other machines become more numerous than humans. The book straddles history and science, aesthetics and religion, and politics and power, by juxtaposing material in ways that provide surprising new insights.
About the Author
Subhash Kak is Regents Professor at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater and Professor of Computing at Curtin University, Perth. Apart from research in computer science and quantum information, he has written on history of Indian science, yoga and art. His twenty published books include Mind and Self, The Astronomical Code of the Rgveda, The Wishing Tree, The Nature of Physical Reality, and The Prajna Sutras. He has also authored several books of verse, and the distinguished Indian scholar Govind Candra Pande compared his poetry to that of William Wordsworth. He, was editor for India for UNESCO's ICOMOS project on
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