SPIRITUAL INSIGHTS FROM THE NEW SCIENCE: COMPLEX SYSTEMS AND LIFE

Spiritual Insights from the New Science is a guide to the deep spiritual wisdom drawn from one of the newest areas of science ― the study of complex systems. The author, a former research scientist with over three decades of experience in the field of complexity science, tells her story of being attracted, as a young student, to the study of self-organizing systems where she encountered the strange and beautiful topics of chaos, fractals and other concepts that comprise complexity science. Using the events of her life, she describes lessons drawn from this science that provide insights into not only her own life, but all our lives. These insights show us how to weather the often disruptive events we all experience when growing and changing.

The book goes on to explore, through the unfolding story of the author's life as a practicing scientist, other key concepts from the science of complex systems: cycles and rhythms, attractors and bifurcations, chaos, fractals, self-organization, and emergence. Examples drawn from religious rituals, dance, philosophical teachings, mysticism, native American spirituality, and other sources are used to illustrate how these scientific insights apply to all aspects of life, especially the spiritual. Spiritual Insights from the New Science shows the links between this new science and our human spirituality and presents, in engaging, accessible language, the argument that the study of nature can lead to a better understanding of the deepest meaning of our lives.

Readership: This book is aimed at general readers with an interest in complex systems and nonlinear science. Readers interested in theology, and those working on their own spiritual growth or guiding others in theirs, will also find it useful. It could, in addition, be used in graduate-level seminary courses in theology, religion and science or even spiritual direction, and is also appropriate for undergraduate seminars in the history or philosophy of science or religious studies.

Dr Raima Larter retired as Professor of Chemistry at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI), USA in 2003 and moved to Washington to direct the country's research program in theoretical and computational chemistry at the National Science Foundation (NSF) for over ten years. In addition to three decades of research and teaching at IUPUI, she also served in a variety of administrative positions, including Associate Dean, Department Chair and President of the Faculty. She taught courses on topics from freshman chemistry to advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in thermodynamics, kinetics and statistical mechanics. Her research interests were and continue to be in complex systems, especially in biophysical settings. She holds a PhD in Chemistry from Indiana University, USA. While at NSF, Dr Larter also edited the agency's newsletter, The Current, for a few years which kickstarted her foray into writing about science for the public. At the same time, she continued to pursue her work in complex systems science through agency initiatives and became especially interested in the application of complexity and emergence ideas to social systems. She obtained an MA in Writing from Johns Hopkins University in 2016 and is now a full-time writer. Dr Larter currently does freelance science writing for a number of organizations, including the American Institute for Cancer Research, National Science Foundation, American Chemical Society, and American Institute of Physics. She has published numerous short stories and essays, some of which have won awards. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and the author of two fiction novels, Fearless and Belle o' the Waters, of which the former was a finalist in the 2017 Faulkner-Wisdom Fiction Contest. She hosts the blog Complexity Simplified, where she discusses topics ranging from science to spirituality and writing.