IMAGINED WORLDS: THE JERUSALEM HARVARD LECTURES

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 216 pages. Retrospective collection of essays. The definitive transcript of Freeman Dyson's epochal Jerusalem/Harvard Lectures. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only by a University Press. The First Edition is now rare. Presents Freeman Dyson's "Imagined Worlds: The Jerusalem Harvard Lectures". By critical consensus, his most visionary book. It is tempered, as always - and as very rarely found in other scientists, technocrats, and academics - by his profound humanism. Few scientists have railed vehemently against science worship or "scientism", the reigning ideology of both academe and big business, as Freeman Dyson, and at the same time, sought to harness science and technology to positive, imagined ends that surpass in their breathtaking vision everything science fiction has imagined thus far. "Freeman Dyson has been helping us see ourselves and our world from a scientist's point-of-view. He brings this perspective to a speculative future to show us where science and technology may be taking us. Whether looking at Gaia Theory or the future of nuclear weapons, Dyson is concerned with how we might mitigate the evil consequences of technology and enhance the good instead. At the heart of it all is the belief that progress in science will bring enormous confusion and misery to Mankind unless it is accompanied by progress in ethics" (Publisher's blurb). "With a rare breadth of literary and historical knowledge, and with a wonderful lucidity of style, Dyson converts science from the intellectual property of specialists into a meaningful concern for everyone with a stake in our cultural future" (Bryce Christensen). The preliminary and self-proclaimed corporate philosophy of Google was "Do No Evil". Whether technocrats Larry Page and Sergey Brin have remained true or not to their credo - they have not -, there is no question that their credo is adopted entirely from Dyson's ethical perspective, not from their Stanford science-cum-technology bias. The irrepressible Freeman Dyson died on February 28, 2020 at the age of 96. The sheer velocity of his genius-mind will be missed. An absolute "must-have" title for Freeman Dyson collectors. This copy is very prominently, neatly, and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the title page by Freeman Dyson. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. He signed on top of the page, making it even more prominent. Laid-in is a lovely 4 X 6 Souvenir Color Photograph of Freeman Dyson during the signing event. This title is a great book. This is one of very few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are in multiple subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare signed copy thus. One of the greatest scientist/thinkers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER FREEMAN DYSON TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0674539087.