Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Growing Up in Liverpool. Excursion I: Sensing the Body. Chapter 2: Ideas and Reflections. Excursion II: Quantum Strangeness. Chapter 3: Research and Diversions. Excursion III: The Many-Body Problem. Chapter 4: Oh Canada!. Excursion IV: Language and Science. Chapter 5: Radio Days. Excursion V: Schrodinger's Cat or the Quantum Measurement Problem. Chapter 6: Re-encountering Carl Jung. Excursion VI: Synchronicity. Chapter 7: Meeting the Blackfoot. Excursion VII: Dialogue. Chapter 8: David Bohm and the Implicate Order. Excursion VIII: Active Information and Quantum Mind. Chapter 9: Meetings with Artists. Excursion IX: Art and Inscape. Chapter 10: Return to Pari. Excursion X: Gentle Ation and Global Solutions. Chapter 11: The Pari Center for New Learning. Excursion XI: Ethics and Actions. Chapter 12: Conclusions.

About the Author

F. David Peat was born in Liverpool, has a PhD in theoretical physics, and is the author of twenty books as well as plays for radio and stage. He is deeply interested is the relationship between science, art, creativity and culture. In 1996 he moved from Canada to the medieval village of Pari in Tuscany where he opened the Pari Center for New Learning. His books include The Blackwinged Night: Creativity in Nature and Mind, From Certainty to Uncertainty: The Story of Science and Ideas in the Twentieth Century and Synchronicity: The Bridge between Matter and Mind.

Reviews

"Peat is a scientist with a daunting curiosity and range of enthusiasms... a mind that is searching and sympathetic." - The Guardian. "David Peat possesses one of the most incisive, expansive minds I've ever known. His work is a fascinating roadmap of twentieth-century learning and a beacon to the future. No one perceives connections or explains them with greater clarity than Peat. This book is a moveable feast." - Larry Dossey, M.D. Author of Space, Time and Medicine, The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things and Reinventing Medicine. "This autobiographical look behind the scenes will inform and engage you as you follow along Dr. Peat's journey through time and meet all the characters he found so interesting." - Fred Alan Wolf, Ph.D. Featured in What the Bleep Do We Know!? Author of The Yoga of Time Travel. "Here we have that rare and wonderful thing: a scientist who can truly write. Peat's autobiography is a daring fusion of the memoir and the cutting-edge essay. It makes a rich and readable introduction, not only to Peat's own extraordinary life and his web of 20th-century connections, but also to some of the most tantalizing ideas and figures of the period, across both science and art. It is, at times, provocative; at other times, poignantly human. Throughout, it is erudite and, above all, keenly concerned about how we, as a species and a planet, move forward in the 21st-century. Peat's words are subtle catalysts, sparking in us our own potential for transformation at all levels of life. Pathways of Chance is a fascinating book, and an important one. Read it now." - Alison MacLeod, Author of The Wave Theory of Angels and Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction. "David Peat has one of the liveliest, most wide-ranging, depth-probing minds I've ever encountered. Peat's thoughts on physics, philosophy and the arts, put forward in a genial, gracious writing style read like a can't-put-down mystery novel. Pathways of Chance will surely appeal to all who are interested in any of these subjects as well as those who like reading about his and other famous people's fascinating lives." - Joseph Eger, Conductor, Symphony for United Nations and author of Einstein's Violin: A Conductor's Notes on Music, Physics and Social Change. "David Peat's autobiography is a delightful and informative read." - David Lorimer Network Review, Journal of he Scientific and Medical Network. "Peat calls for a transformation of our society to a new order of thought that combines intellectual rigor with creative openness in which reason is enriched by a new logic of compassion, harmony and love. His own life, presented in this engaging spiritual journey, is a persuasive illustration of hat much-needed transformation." - Resurgence Magazine. "David Peat's book is an intellectual autobiography, with a stronger emphasis on the intellect than on other matters. He mentions the birth of his children, for example, without first alerting us to any romantic attachment, let alone marriage. Nevertheless, Pathways of Chance is an appealing book, even in those places where the concepts Peat is excitedly explaining are hard to grasp. Peat is a scientist with a daunting curiosity and range of enthusiasms. Growing up in Liverpool during the 1940s and early 50s, he conducted home experiments that dissolved the interior of the fridge and blacked out the neighbourhood. He also read voraciously, looked at paintings and listened to music. 'The marriage of art and science remains a great dream for me,' he says. Later, in Canada, he supplemented his research with writing - for radio, for the stage and for print. He made films, too. He is now based in Pari in Italy, where he has set up the Pari Centre for New Learning. Intercut with this story are what Peat calls 'excursions': philosophical and scientific essays. The non-specialist may not follow all the nuances of Peat's arguments, but should get an impression of a mind that is searching and sympathetic." The Guardian