Wow! eBook
Order Beneath Chaos: Can We Really Get Rid Of The Gods?
Author(s): Gerard Gouesbet (Author)
- Publisher: WSPC
- Publication Date: December 26, 2025
- Language: English
- Print length: 392 pages
- ISBN-10: 9819818117
- ISBN-13: 9789819818112
Book Description
A timeless question that has long challenged human thought is the opposition between Being (Parmenides) and Becoming (Heraclitus). One can see in Being, the underlying mathematical order of the physical world, and in Becoming, the chaos of this same world. Order Beneath Chaos explores the opposition between what can be called the impassive Logos — adopting a Greek terminology — and the disordered events that shake the universe and, in particular, our planet and our lives. After describing the Cosmic Web, where the struggle between Being and Becoming unfolds in its universal grandeur, the text explores the historical development of the Logos among the pre-Socratics, Plato, and post-Platonic thinkers. The age-old question of mathematical realism is then posed. To approach this question more precisely, the discussion moves on to the Logos of mathematicians, particularly the undecidabilities revealed by the logician Kurt Gödel, and then to the Logos of physicists (relativity, quantum mechanics). The ontology of the mathematical Logos leads to an extension of the notion of undecidability beyond mathematics itself, touching on philosophical and even metaphysical questions, thus revisiting the issue of mathematical realism. Although the answer to this question is logically undecidable, the author takes a stance in favor of a Platonic vision of the mathematical world while acknowledging that an opposing position is also possible. The final chapter then addresses, against the backdrop of logical undecidability, properly metaphysical issues — including the existence or non-existence of gods, as well as morality and values.
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Prof Gérard Gouesbet is an Emeritus Professor at the National Institute of Applied Sciences of Rouen (INSA Rouen) and a researcher at Laboratory Coria, a joint research body of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), University of Rouen Normandy, and INSA Rouen. He is also an Honorary Professor at Northeastern University, Shenyang, China and Xidian University, Xi’an, China. Although retired from teaching, he remains active in research, with several scientific articles published each year. Named one of the world’s top 2% of scientists by Stanford, he has over 600 scientific publications (peer-reviewed journals, book chapters, and international conference proceedings) in English, French, and Chinese. He has also participated in around 400 national and international conferences, workshops, and seminars in various countries. As a theorist, the internet has allowed him to maintain numerous international collaborations — particularly in Brazil, China, the United States of America, and Morocco. In his research career, he has received numerous honours, including: (1) Kyoto University 70th Anniversary Memorial Foundation Grant, 1988; (2) Knight of the Order of Academic Palms (Chevalier des Palmes Académiques), 1990; (3) Gold Medal from the University of Wrocław, Poland, on its 50th anniversary, 1995; (4) Best Paper Award from the Journal of Radio-Science (in Chinese), 1994; (5) Invited Commemorative Review Paper in a special issue of Applied Optics for its 50th anniversary as a Top 50 author; and (6) Van de Hulst Award, 2020. A prolific writer, he has previously published several titles: a scientific book on chaos, Chaos and its Reconstruction (Nova Science Publishers, 2003), a scientific book on laser–matter interaction, Generalized Lorenz-Mie Theories (Springer 2011, 2017, 2023), a philosophically-oriented book on quantum mechanics, Hidden Worlds in Quantum Physics (Dover Publications, 2013), and a tetralogy on the philosophy of violence, Violences des idoles (L’Harmattan, 2016–2021). Following the latter publication, he gave a lecture at Rencontres Interculturelles, an intercultural symposium chaired by Nobel Prize winner JMG Le Clézio in Pierrefonds, Mauritius in 2024. His presentation, titled Fractality of the World’s Violence: Violence and Remedies , is in the process of being published in the proceedings of this event.