Love And Other Thought Experiments
Rating: 4.2/5
Author: Sophie Ward
Publisher: Corsair Publishing
Publishing Date: 14th February, 2020
Language: English
Genre: Lesbian literature, Psychological Fiction, Gay Fiction, LGBT literature
ISBN-10: 1472154592
ISBN-13: 978-1472154590
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 272
Cost: Rs. 479 (Paperback), Rs. 455.05 (Kindle Edition)
Plot:
Rachel and Eliza are planning their future together. One night in bed Rachel wakes up terrified and tells Eliza that an ant has crawled into her eye and is stuck there. Rachel is certain; Eliza, a scientist, is sceptical. Suddenly their entire relationship is called into question. What follows is a uniquely imaginative sequence of interlinked stories ranging across time, place and perspective to form a sparkling philosophical tale of love, lost and found across the universe.
Review:
Inspired by some of the best-known thought experiments in philosophy, particularly philosophy of mind, Love and Other Thought Experiments is a story of love lost and found across the universe.
Told in ten interconnecting but self-contained chapters- each from a different character's perspective.
The novel consists of a series of connected short episodes, each based around a philosophical thought experiments which is explicitly explained at the start of each chapter. The first arises from Pascal’s wager; The second uses the Prison’s Dilemma.
There is a comprehensive source list at the end of the novel.
Each chapter begins with the explanation of a particular thought experiment and then uses that experiment as the foundation of the fiction that follows. These stories were all interconnected to each other, but in the least expected way.
Love and Other Thought Experiments is a contemporary novel about love, loss, unconventional families and the consequences of choice. It is filled with philosophical ideas ranging from free will and the nature of consciousness, to the limits of human experience.
“If I were a thought experiment,’ Rachel asked Eliza as they got into bed that night, ‘What one would I be?
I’m not sure you can be a thought experiment,’ Eliza said, ‘They are supposed to help you think about a problem.
If you can imagine it, then it is possible.
That is one theory.”
These are imaginative devices to examine different hypothesis or unsolvable riddle which provokes questions about the meaning of consciousness, the shape of reality and the limits of perception. Each section dramatizes a classic experiment devised by scientists and intellectuals such as Blaise Pascal, Hilary Putnam and Rene Descartes. The novel brings such questions to life.
Milestones of The Book:
- Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2020
- Featuring on BBC 2's Between the Covers
About the Author:
Sophie Ward is an actor and writer. She has a degree in Philosophy and Literature and a PhD from Goldsmiths on the use of narrative in philosophy of mind. She has published articles in The Times, the Sunday Times, the Guardian, the Observer, the Spectator, Diva and Red magazine. Her short stories have been published in the anthologies Finding A Voice, Book of Numbers, The Spiral Path and The Gold Room. Her book, A Marriage Proposal; the importance of equal marriage and what it means for all of us, was published by The Guardian short books in 2014.
In 2018, Sophie won the Royal Academy Pin Drop Award for her short story, Sunbed.
