Shortlisted for The Royal Society Science Book Prize and a Los Angeles Times Book Award
"The only laws of matter are those which our minds must fabricate, and the only laws of mind are fabricated for it by matter." -- James Clerk Maxwell
Preface to the 20th Anniversary Edition
Published in September 1995 in hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf and reprinted three times. The paperback, now in its 14th reprinting (as of fall 2015), is available from Vintage Books. Published in January 1996 by Viking Penguin in Britain. Editions have also been published in German, Portuguese, Japanese, and Italian.
Jacket painting (hardcover): Putting Up the Stars by the Navajo artist Clifford Brycelea. Jacket design by Calvin Chu, copyright 1995 by Alfred A. Knopf.
Paperback cover design (pictured here) by Calvin Chu with a photograph, "Tewa Offering to the Sun, San Ildefonso" by Edward Curtis.
Reviews
"A brilliant and powerful exploration of the nature of humanity and the way we, in diversity, see our world and our place in it. A joy to read."-- Roger Lewin, Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Johnson asks the most important questions about the power and social impact of science . . . An excellent book." -- Stephen Jay Gould, The New York Times
"Brilliantly illuminates the complex, deceptive relationship that exists between the physical universe and our perception of it." -- Douglas Adams, author of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
George Johnson's masterly account provides some of the best science-writing I have come across in a long time. Fast-paced and thrilling. A must for all those seriously interested in the key ideas at the frontier of scientific discourse. -- Paul Davies
"Fire in the Mind is thoughtful, it is beautifully written, and like all courageous writing, it accepts no assumptions, examines every premise, questions every unquestioned foundation; and yet this subversiveness is so gentle (or sly) that most readers won't realize how dangerous is the territory through which they are being led. ... It is really a great piece of work." -- Stephen Hall, author of Mapping the Next Millennium
Fire in the Mind is a New Mexico mystery story of a different kind. Johnson has given us a thought-provoking look at a fascinating subject." -- Tony Hillerman
"Rich and engaging . . . fresh and luminous . . . takes us to the heart of a profound intellectual issue of our time." -- Chet Raymo, Commonweal
"Undeniably fascinating. . . . Johnson is masterful at explaining complicated ideas and fitting them into the framework of modern science." --Jill Sapinsley Mooney, San Francisco Examiner Chronicle
"Subversive. . . . Johnson has veered away from the pack with a brilliant new book, one that raises unsettling questions about the claims of science to truth. . . . Readers are unlikely to finish the book without undergoing a crisis of faith." -- John Horgan, The Sciences
"Where does myth end and science begin? With a novelist's skill, George Johnson pulls us into a story of wonder, beauty, and the human drive to make sense of the universe." -- Patricia Smith Churchland
"Clear and thought-provoking. . . .An intellectual and cultural journey through the landscape of northern New Mexico. . . . An excellent book." -- David K. Nartonis, Christian Science Monitor
"Remarkable and eloquent. . . . Original and revealing . . . Johnson's desire not only to explain but to understand the urge to explain infuses Fire in the Mind with its own fire." -- Seth Lloyd, Scientific American
"Here is a book in the spirit of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Compression is the essence of science [and] Johnson proceeds to compress with utter clarity, almost casually tap-dancing his way through particle physics, quantum theory, cosmology and evolutionary biology. . . . Fire in the Mind is a connoisseur's gazetteer. . . . Vibrant and exhilarating and even inspirational." -- Ian Watson, New Scientist
"One of the most stimulating books of popular science to have been written for some time." -- Ray Monk, The London Observer
"A spectacular tour of the most compelling theories of current science." -- Jon Turney, The Financial Times of London
In the spirit of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." Compression is the essence of science [and] Johnson proceeds to compress with utter clarity, almost casually tap-dancing his way through particle physics, quantum theory, cosmology and evolutionary biology. . . . "Fire in the Mind" is a connoisseur's gazeteer. . . . Vibrant and exhilarating and even inspirational . . . a god's-eye view of the terrain. -- Ian Watson, New Scientist
"anyone who has ever tried to write a popular science book of this length will know what a challenge it is, and Johnson rises to it magnificently." -- Christopher Badcock, New Statesman & Society
"Johnson presents a laudable link between three faith systems ... all of which, because they are derived from human desire, chase the same elusive goal -- the ordering of chaos. . . . (An) excellent account." -- Michael White, Sunday Times (London)
"An invigorating and original examination of the interface between faith and science. . . . Articulate and vivid . . . seductively reasoned." -- Donna Seaman, Hungry Mind Review
Fluid poetry. . . .This is a book to read meditatively, happily and to rejoice that such a writer exists. -- Anne Fulk, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Reviewed by Stephen Jay Gould in The New York Times, by Roger Lewin in The Los Angeles Times Book Review, by Seth Lloyd in Scientific American, by John Horgan in The Sciences, by Gregory Chaitin in Complexity, by Michael White in The Sunday Times of London, by Ray Monk in The London Observer, by Ian Watson in New Scientist, by Jon Turney in The Financial Times and by Danah Zohar in The Independent.
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Are there really laws governing the universe? Or is the order we see imposed by the prisms of our nervous systems, a mere artifact of the way evolution wired the brain? Do the patterns found by science hold some claim to universal truth, or would a visitor from another galaxy find them as quaint and culturally determined, as built on faith, as the world's religions?
In this stunningly original book, set among the mountains and canyonlands of northern New Mexico, George Johnson explores the human hunger for pattern, the innate drive to find (or impose) order in our capricious world. In this land of strange juxtapositions, where magic and science, religion and reason constantly bump up against each other, Johnson introduces us to an amazing diversity of people who see the world through different eyeglasses, who find vastly different pictures in the night sky.
Just north of Santa Fe, the Tewa pueblo of San Ildefonso sits at the bottom of the plateau on which the laboratory city of Los Alamos stands. While the people of San Ildefonso carry out secret ceremonies in the kivas and dance to the rhythms of the seasons, the physicists of Los Alamos struggle with some of the deepest ideas of quantum theory, particle physics, and a new science called the physics of information, which seeks to understand the very source of pattern and order in the world.
Los Alamos and San Ildefonso are just two pieces in this jigsaw puzzle of world views. In the dizzying heights of the Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ) mountains, the faithful flock to an old Catholic church for samples of holy soil said to heal all wounds. Descending from this land of miracles to the foothills around Santa Fe, we visit a revolutionary think tank called the Santa Fe Institute. Here scientists are focusing their computational microscopes on questions that hover within the penumbra between science and religion: How, from the random jostling of molecules, did life arise and evolve to the point where it can contemplate its own beginnings? Are we accidents of the universe -- miracles -- or is there a reason for us to be here?
By examining some of the most radical new theories of physics and biology emanating from the laboratories of northern New Mexico and comparing them to the intricate belief systems of the Tewa Indians, a Catholic sect called the Penitentes, and other inhabitants of this land, Johnson casts the scientific enterprise in a startling new light. The result is an intellectual adventure story of the highest order, a journey to the far reaches of the scientific frontier where the human soul struggles to make sense of life's deepest mysteries.
"Is the emergence of organized complexity a fluke or part of a lawlike trend? A battle is raging between Darwinian traditionalists and an iconoclastic alliance of computer scientists, mathematicians, physicists and heretical biologists. George Johnson's masterly account of this battle provides some of the best science-writing I have come across in a long time. Here is a topic of immense scientific and philosophical significance, treated in a careful and even-handed manner, yet fast-paced and thrilling. A must for all those seriously interested in the key ideas at the frontiers of scientific discourse." -- Paul Davies, author of The Mind of God
"How can I know what is really true if the mind/brain is not a passive reflecter but an active constructer of worldly order? Where does myth end and science begin? George Johnson's brilliantly fresh exploration of these questions has an on-the-mat honesty along with an uncluttered feel for the logic behind the ideas of science and theology. In Johnson's hands, Santa Fe becomes a kind of living metaphor for the 'real-world/brain-world' problem, and with a novelist's skill, he pulls us into a story of wonder, beauty, and the human drive to make sense of the universe."
-- Patricia Smith Churchland, Professor of Philosophy, University of California at San Diego
The Table of Contents and Preface are available online.