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9781911116219

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There are few contemporary thinkers who possess either the breadth of Ray Tallis's knowledge or the depth of his scholarship. There are fewer still who can write so cogently and insightfully about the human condition. -- Kenan Malik, author of The Quest for a Moral Compass: A Global History of Ethics 'You affirm', wrote Albert Einstein to his best friend Michel Besso, that the transition from 'lived experience to objectivity... is accompanied by suffering, which - if one interprets as a physicist - is tied to irreversible processes'. The physicist befuddled by the complexity of the question simply replied, 'I do not know how to help you'. Now Raymond Tallis takes on the challenge, bravely going where few have ventured, investigating the painful nature of time's passage, one intimately felt yet stubbornly denied by numerous scientists. Of Time and Lamentation is an important philosophical investigation, at the same time personal and scholarly - a bold and original experiment where art and poetry are given as much importance as science, measurements, equations. -- ?Jimena Canales, ?Thomas M. Siebel Chair in the History of Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and author of The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson and the Debate that Changed Our Understanding of Time

There are few contemporary thinkers who possess either the breadth of Ray Tallis's knowledge or the depth of his scholarship. There are fewer still who can write so cogently and insightfully about the human condition. -- Kenan Malik, author of The Quest for a Moral Compass: A Global History of Ethics

There is hardly a thinking person who has not been struck, at some stage in life, by the deep mystery of time. How is it that things come into being and then pass away? What is a moment, and what flows as the moments succeed each other? What is it to exist in time, and is time another dimension, like the three dimensions of space? Can time be recaptured, replayed, or is all time unredeemable? Does time as described by the theory of relativity square with time as experienced by you and me? All these questions and many more besides well up in the minds of thinking people as soon as they begin to reflect on the nature of time, and in this book Raymond Tallis spells them out clearly, systematically and sympathetically, so as to give the fullest examination to date, both of time as part of the fabric of reality, and of time as the condition of self-conscious experience. He does not solve the mystery, but his argument deepens it in a fascinating way. Written with scholarly rigour and lively humour, this study of the greatest source of our metaphysical anxieties will provide hours of pleasure and instruction to all who delve into it. -- Professor Sir Roger Scruton; 'You affirm', wrote Albert Einstein to his best friend Michel Besso, that the transition from 'lived experience to objectivity... is accompanied by suffering, which - if one interprets as a physicist - is tied to irreversible processes'. The physicist befuddled by the complexity of the question simply replied, 'I do not know how to help you'. Now Raymond Tallis takes on the challenge, bravely going where few have ventured, investigating the painful nature of time's passage, one intimately felt yet stubbornly denied by numerous scientists. Of Time and Lamentation is an important philosophical investigation, at the same time personal and scholarly - a bold and original experiment where art and poetry are given as much importance as science, measurements, equations. -- Jimena Canales, Thomas M. Siebel Chair in the History of Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and author of The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson and the Debate that Changed Our Understanding of Time

There is hardly a thinking person who has not been struck, at some stage in life, by the deep mystery of time. How is it that things come into being and then pass away? What is a moment, and what flows as the moments succeed each other? What is it to exist in time, and is time another dimension, like the three dimensions of space? Can time be recaptured, replayed, or is all time unredeemable? Does time as described by the theory of relativity square with time as experienced by you and me? All these questions and many more besides well up in the minds of thinking people as soon as they begin to reflect on the nature of time, and in this book Raymond Tallis spells them out clearly, systematically and sympathetically, so as to give the fullest examination to date, both of time as part of the fabric of reality, and of time as the condition of self-conscious experience. He does not solve the mystery, but his argument deepens it in a fascinating way. Written with scholarly rigour and lively humour, this study of the greatest source of our metaphysical anxieties will provide hours of pleasure and instruction to all who delve into it. -- Sir Roger Scruton, Senior Fellow, Ethics & Public Policy Center, Washington DC There are few contemporary thinkers who possess either the breadth of Ray Tallis's knowledge or the depth of his scholarship. There are fewer still who can write so cogently and insightfully about the human condition. -- Kenan Malik, author of The Quest for a Moral Compass: A Global History of Ethics 'You affirm', wrote Albert Einstein to his best friend Michel Besso, that the transition from 'lived experience to objectivity... is accompanied by suffering, which - if one interprets as a physicist - is tied to irreversible processes'. The physicist befuddled by the complexity of the question simply replied, 'I do not know how to help you'. Now Raymond Tallis takes on the challenge, bravely going where few have ventured, investigating the painful nature of time's passage, one intimately felt yet stubbornly denied by numerous scientists. Of Time and Lamentation is an important philosophical investigation, at the same time personal and scholarly - a bold and original experiment where art and poetry are given as much importance as science, measurements, equations. -- ?Jimena Canales, ?Thomas M. Siebel Chair in the History of Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and author of The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson and the Debate that Changed Our Understanding of Time

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Raymond Tallis trained in medicine at Oxford University and at St Thomas’ Hospital London before becoming Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Manchester. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences for his research in clinical neuroscience and he has played a key role in developing guidelines for the care of stroke patients in the UK. From 2011–14 he was Chair of Healthcare Professionals for Assisted Dying. He retired from medicine in 2006 to become a full-time writer. His books have ranged across many subjects – from philosophical anthropology to literary and cultural criticism – but all are characterised by a fascination for the infinite complexity of human lives and the human condition. The Economist’s Intelligent Life magazine lists him as one of the world’s leading polymaths.

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