A Leaven ‘World of Ideas’ book : Metaphysics

Borders of Perception
by
Robin Bradbury


We are from generations that have closed borders around existence, leaving us to find what contentment we can in our material, physical experience. So much of our environment denies even the possibility of venturing to other lands. Robin Bradbury has listened to explorers who tell of those borders being open and he finds extraordinary sympathies between their respective stories. In Borders of Perception he recounts some of what he learns from thinkers continuing to challenge any presumption that human experience extends no further than any exclusively physical environment.

The book begins with news from Leonardo da Vinci, it is news that encourages us visit first Plato and then Samuel Taylor Coleridge. From there we call in on the worlds of General Relativity, of Quantum Mechanics, of String Theory, of Consciousness, before visiting a first century Christian thinker. As ideas and insights unfold we are increasingly struck by the close affinity between apparently diverse disciplines. In these days of increasing specialization it is rare to be in the company of a thinker turning his attention to such an overview of human experience in the world of ideas. Borders of Perception takes us into such company, and here we find the border between the physical and the metaphysical to be as open and as inviting as it has ever been.

CONTENTS
LEONARDO DA VINCI AND ‘THE VIRGIN OF THE ROCKS’
PLATO AND ‘THE SIMILE OF THE CAVE’
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE AND ‘IMAGINATION AND FANCY’
MATERIAL REALITY?
CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE COSMOS
TRANSFIGURATION


Published 2007
ISBN 978-0-9555716-0-2

Price £14.99 (including Postage and Packing)
Leaven Publications Reader Review

REVIEWED BY JACKIE BODE
Is there reality between what we can see and what we experience? I have been intrigued enough by Robin Bradbury's own ideas in Borders of Perception, and by this author's own insight into ideas promulgated by such intellectual giants as Leonardo da Vinci, Plato, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Einstein, amongst others, to read this book twice this summer.

As we are informed in the foreward, Borders of Perception is concerned with ideas, and how these ideas together show what we are and where we are. Throughout the book we learn of the search for Truth, from thinkers who have looked beyond their own experience of life and physical boundaries. I found Borders of Perception fascinating, informative, stimulating, and always thought-provoking. As an observer of life who always likes to question, wonder and challenge, I revelled in the unfolding of the increasingly clear link between such diverse worlds of Art, Philosophy, Quantum Meachanics, Cosmology and Theology.

Borders of Perception is not only stimulating but intellectually challenging. However, just as you think you are drowning in a sea of innovative ideas beyond all understanding, this author's personal, dry, almost eccentric wit acts as a life-saving device and pulls you to the surface. This I liked. This, however, is a serious book with a serious aim - to enable the reader to see that he could think beyond the empirical, to search, explore and savour ideas outside of his comfort zone, and to acknowledge that the world we experience may involve much more than can be physically seen.

JB Autumn 2007