'The title of this book was intended to characterize its philosphical content...These ideas turn out to be akin to certain widely accepted and remarkably enduring oriental view.' So writes physicist-philosopher Henry Margenau in introducing his profound analysis of some of tme most significant ideas of our times. The founders of modern physic-such as Erwin Schrodinger, who in the early 1920's turned to Upanishads to seek understanding in terms of the universal mind-realized that their discoveries necessitated a reexamination of basic philosophical issues, The Miracle of Existence follows this tradition.

Margenau boldly examines the complex issues of the mind-body problem, consciousness, the nature of thought, science and religion, and universal mind. Using his profound understanding of modern science-physics, evolutionary biology, and psychology-as well as his own pricisely developed concepts of epistemology, he draws together an understanding of science, philosophy, and religion that creates a coherent whole, a metaphysics for the atomic age. Few other contemporary thinkers possess the breadth of understanding to attempt the synthesis achieved in this work.

Henry Margenau is Professor Emeritus of Pysics and Natural Philosophy at Yale University. After a career as a distinguished theoretician in both molecular and nuclear physics, Professor Margenau began an investigation of the philosophical foundations of natural science. His many works include The Nature of Physical Reality and Einstein's Space and Van Gogh's Sky (with L. LeShan).

Contents

Introduction
Connections between the Physical and the LIving World
Evolution
The Mind-body problem: Monism, dualism, or pluralism?
Toward a study of Consciousness
Extension of scientific epistemology required for a study of the mind
On the meaning of life, mind, and consciousness
The mind-Conjectures based on physics
The mind viewed as a field
Science and religion
A universal mind?
Postscript
Notes