Jeffrey J. Kripal, How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2024.

Deion

A mind-bending invitation to experience the impossible as fundamentally human.

From precognitive dreams and telepathic visions to near-death experiences, UFO encounters, and beyond, so-called impossible phenomena are not supposed to happen. But they do happen—all the time. Jeffrey J. Kripal asserts that the impossible is a function not of reality but of our everchanging assumptions about what is real. How to Think Impossibly invites us to think about these fantastic (yet commonplace) experiences as an essential part of being human, expressive of a deeply shared reality that is neither mental nor material but gives rise to both. Thinking with specific individuals and their extraordinary experiences in vulnerable, open, and often humorous ways, Kripal interweaves humanistic and scientific inquiry to foster an awareness that the fantastic is real, the supernatural is super natural, and the impossible is possible.

内容简介

这是一个令人思维震荡的邀请，让我们将不可能视为人性的根本。

从预知梦和心电感应幻象，到濒死体验、UFO遭遇等等，这些所谓的不可能现象本不该发生。但它们确实在发生——而且一直都在发生。杰弗里·J·克里帕尔断言，不可能性并非源自现实本身，而是源自我们对何为真实的不断变化的假设。《如何思考不可能》邀请我们将这些奇异（但普遍存在的）体验视为人之为人的本质部分，它们表达了一个既非精神亦非物质的共享现实，而这个现实正是精神与物质的源头。克里帕尔以脆弱、开放且常带幽默的方式，思考特定个体及其非凡经历，将人文研究与科学探索交织在一起，以培养这样的意识：奇异是真实的，超自然是超级自然的，不可能是可能的。

Reviews

Kripal bravely dives into fundamental questions, and he offers mind-stretching possibilities as a result.

― Kirkus Reviews

Kripal’s latest book is an intellectual route-map toward exploring authentic anomalous, paranormal and mystical experiences ostracized by orthodox science.

― Fortean Times

A bold effort to grapple with the notion that people who experience the impossible might actually be telling the truth . . . It is also a set of proposals about how we could begin to understand reality once the impossible has been accepted into our understanding of the universe.

― First Things

To ‘think-with’ the ‘experiencers’ of such things [as UFO encounters] means treating them as enquirers who can change how history is written. . . . Whether our sources tell us our subjects spoke with Venusians, the Virgin Mary or Kali does not matter: their experiences were valid expressions of their neurology, not their beliefs. They were ‘ontological shocks’, which reveal that consciousness is or might become less bounded than we now suppose it to be. . . Kripal’s sensitive retellings of what his contactees endured show we cannot just write them off as mad or delirious.

― History Today

This daring book offers a serious challenge to many of the dogmatic assumptions that govern the humanities, our understanding of religion, and—most significantly—our conceptions of reality. Kripal’s ideas call for nothing less than a quantum leap beyond the paradigms that shape our thinking about what is possible or impossible. His philosophy is as bold as it is compelling, and the cogency of his arguments is intensified by prose that packs a vigorous punch. Kripal has a gift for conveying very complex ideas succinctly, bringing abstractions out of their ether and connecting dots that have long needed connecting.

―Carlos Eire, author of 'They Flew: A History of the Impossible' and 'Waiting for Snow in Havana,' winner of the National Book Award

Read this book if you want to make sense of how apparently impossible events do sometimes occur and how uncanny connections can arise between quantum physics and religious mysticism.

―Amitav Ghosh, author of 'The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable'

If I am to be provoked, I’d want it to be by a book like this one. How to Think Impossibly asks us to take seriously (but not solemnly) notions that reason would have us reject: to contemplate compassionately, humanely, and broadly the quiddities of human experience. Kripal’s book is the best kind: not an instruction manual on what to believe but an invitation to the imagination. Frankly, I don’t know what I think about it—but I want to think about it.

―Philip Ball, author of 'Beyond Weird: Why Everything You Thought You Knew about Quantum Physics Is Different'

Kripal inspires and provokes us to rethink what we imagine can and cannot be. Winding his way through accounts of encounters with demons, flying saints, precognitive dreams, clairvoyant visions, near-death experiences, and alien intruders, he invites us to take seriously the fantastic and exotic. Alternately outrageous, whimsical, weird, and startling, How to Think Impossibly offers a breathtaking adventure into the world and meaning of wonders.

―Greg Eghigian, author of 'After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon'

评价

克里帕尔勇敢地深入探讨根本性问题，因此提供了令人思维拓展的可能性。

——《柯克斯评论》

克里帕尔的新作为探索正统科学所排斥的真实异常、超自然和神秘体验提供了一份智识路线图。

——《奇闻时报》

这是一次大胆的尝试，旨在探讨经历不可能事件的人们可能确实在讲述真相这一观点...同时也提出了一系列建议，关于在将不可能纳入我们对宇宙的理解之后，我们该如何开始理解现实。

——《要事》

与此类事件（如UFO遭遇）的"经历者"进行"思维共振"意味着将他们视为能够改变历史书写方式的探究者...无论我们的资料来源告诉我们他们是在与金星人、圣母玛利亚还是迦梨女神对话都无关紧要：他们的经历是其神经系统的有效表达，而非其信仰的表达。这些是"本体论冲击"，揭示了意识可能或将变得比我们现在认为的更加无界...克里帕尔对其接触者所经历的敏感叙述表明，我们不能简单地将他们归类为疯狂或谵妄。

——《历史今日》

这本大胆的著作对主导人文学科、我们对宗教的理解，以及最重要的——我们对现实的概念的许多教条式假设提出了严肃的挑战。克里帕尔的想法呼吁我们超越框定我们对可能与不可能的思考的范式，做出质的飞跃。他的哲学既大胆又令人信服，其论证的说服力通过有力的文笔得到了加强。克里帕尔有将极其复杂的想法简明表达的天赋，能将抽象概念具象化，并将长期需要连接的点连接起来。

——卡洛斯·艾尔，《他们飞翔：不可能的历史》与国家图书奖获奖作品《等待哈瓦那的雪》作者

如果你想理解看似不可能的事件如何确实发生，以及量子物理学与宗教神秘主义之间如何产生神秘联系，请阅读这本书。

——阿米塔夫·高希，《大错乱：气候变化与不可思议》作者

如果要被一本书激发思考，我希望是这样的书。《如何思考不可能》要求我们认真（但不严肃）对待理性会让我们拒绝的概念：以同情、人性化且广阔的视角去思考人类经验的本质。克里帕尔的书是最好的那种：不是告诉我们该相信什么的说明书，而是对想象力的邀请。坦白说，我不知道我对此作何想——但我想要去思考它。

——菲利普·鲍尔，《超越怪诞：为什么你对量子物理学的所有认知都是有所不同的》作者

克里帕尔激励并激发我们重新思考我们想象中的可能与不可能。他在恶魔遭遇、飞行圣徒、预知梦、千里眼幻象、濒死体验和外星入侵者的叙述中穿行，邀请我们认真对待奇异和异域。《如何思考不可能》时而离经叛道，时而异想天开，时而怪诞，时而惊人，为我们提供了一次探索奇迹世界及其意义的惊心动魄的冒险。

——格雷格·埃吉吉安，《飞碟来临之后：UFO现象的全球史》作者

About the Author

Jeffrey J. Kripal holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. He is the author of several books, including, most recently, The Superhumanities: Historical Precedents, Moral Objections, New Realities, also published by the University of Chicago Press.

作者简介

杰弗里·J·克里帕尔在莱斯大学担任J·牛顿·雷佐哲学与宗教思想讲席教授。他著有多部作品，最新作品包括同样由芝加哥大学出版社出版的《超人文科学：历史先例、道德异议、新现实》。

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