Deciphering our world today (Paperback)

Questioning the things of this world ultimately requires us to 'decipher our world' one way or another, implicitly or - even better - explicitly. And to decipher our world 'today', we must consider the many facets of human culture over the past four millennia taking into account the scientific advances of the 20th century, especially those which have changed how we view time and things from the extremely small to the extremely large. In this context, the word 'today' reminds us that in the early 21st century we are still nowhere near the end of the history of science. So, should we ignore all these considerations and, in particular, their impact on everything related to living organisms? Yes, we can but we must not be surprised if the majority of our so-called 'values' i.e. those on which our lives and societies are founded (notably via religious, economic and political institutions) very often turn out to be in flagrant contradiction to the reality of who we really are or, indeed, what we will become. Like the philosophy of 'physiologists', which turned its back on myths and the supernatural, and Epicurus in the 4th century B.C.E. who linked physics to ethics, André Lannes, in the manner of Lucretius, a great admirer of Epicurus, deals with the complex questions of knowledge, individual and collective behaviour, social organisation, and possible human welfare in the light of quantum physics. This scientific and philosophical essay can be seen as a modern De rerum natura based on an inversion of Plato's allegory of the cave: the darkness lurking in the depths of Nature is its reality, while the light on its surface is its appearance. The titles of the ten points are as follows: - The emergence of thought among hominids - The yawning chasm of the thing-in-itself - Fundamental representations - In the cosmic forges of gravitation - The constructive processes of quantum biology - The evolution of representations - On the violence of life - Nature's harmonies - Beliefs and spirituality - Acting in a fraternity of the incomplete The reader will find a presentation (prepared with a pedagogical concerns) of the fundamental notions stemming from the scientific revolution, and discover the repercussions on our ideas and representations. The instability if not the sheer whimsy of the quantum world leads us to look differently at evil, violence, the disorders of Nature and humans, inequalities, the paranormal and the unexpected. In other words, do we humans have agency, or are our notions of free will, freedom, responsibility, equality, progress, etc. just empty words? This certainly casts additional doubt on the formation of judgement and thought, as well as arousing pessimism about our mastery of civilisation: a return to tragedy through science! Fortunately, the author discerns a flicker of hope, albeit minor and partial, in this gloomy picture. Quantum potential can also generate harmonious achievements in everything related to art, spirituality and the virtues. Evolution (from the hominids to today's man), in which epigenetics records these achievements, is already giving rise to this hope. And the humble researcher, who knows that we probably only know less than 5 % of all things in Nature and among living organisms, and who leaves a great deal of room for doubt, finally expresses, as a man, an expectation. As both a musician sensitive to emotional interactions and a scientist awed by the beauty of mathematics and theoretical physics, the author believes in a systemic reaction against the devouring forces of our technical modernity to gradually record new harmonies in our genetic heritage. The complex concept of the 'incomplete' and the beautiful Giralducian image of the dawn echo an allegory inspired by Homer and Hesiod i.e. that of the jar which still contains the elpis, the expectation of hope, after all the evils of the world have escaped.