What do you think?
Rate this book
The Human Touch: Our Part in the Creation of a Universe
What do we really know? What are we in relation to the world around us? Here, the acclaimed playwright and novelist takes on the great questions of his career--and of our lives
Humankind, scientists agree, is an insignificant speck in the impersonal vastness of the universe. But what would that universe be like if we were not here to say something about it? Would there be numbers if there were no one to count them? Would the universe even be vast, without the fact of our smallness to give it scale?
With wit, charm, and brilliance, this epic work of philosophy sets out to make sense of our place in the scheme of things. Our contact with the world around us, Michael Frayn shows, is always fleeting and indeterminate, yet we have nevertheless had to fashion a comprehensible universe in which action is possible. But how do we distinguish our subjective experience from what is objectively true and knowable? Surveying the spectrum of philosophical concerns from the existence of space and time to relativity and language, Frayn attempts to resolve what he calls "the oldest mystery": the world is what we make of it. In which case, though, what are we?
All of Frayn's novels and plays have grappled with these essential questions; in this book he confronts them head-on.
Humankind, scientists agree, is an insignificant speck in the impersonal vastness of the universe. But what would that universe be like if we were not here to say something about it? Would there be numbers if there were no one to count them? Would the universe even be vast, without the fact of our smallness to give it scale?
With wit, charm, and brilliance, this epic work of philosophy sets out to make sense of our place in the scheme of things. Our contact with the world around us, Michael Frayn shows, is always fleeting and indeterminate, yet we have nevertheless had to fashion a comprehensible universe in which action is possible. But how do we distinguish our subjective experience from what is objectively true and knowable? Surveying the spectrum of philosophical concerns from the existence of space and time to relativity and language, Frayn attempts to resolve what he calls "the oldest mystery": the world is what we make of it. In which case, though, what are we?
All of Frayn's novels and plays have grappled with these essential questions; in this book he confronts them head-on.
512 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
43 people are currently reading
344 people want to read
About the author
Michael Frayn
113 books268 followersMichael Frayn is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy. His novels, such as Towards the End of the Morning, Headlong and Spies, have also been critical and commercial successes, making him one of the handful of writers in the English language to succeed in both drama and prose fiction. His works often raise philosophical questions in a humorous context. Frayn's wife is Claire Tomalin, the biographer and literary journalist.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
July 7, 2014
Philosophy, as a subject, is about as old as our civilization, and most people who read serious books have read at least some of the famous philosophers. After a while, you can't help wondering if this isn't something you could do too. After all, it just looks like a particularly advanced kind of bullshitting. Surely, you think, you've spent hundreds if not thousands of hours speculating about subjects which no one understands, and which maybe can't be understood in the first place. Why should your opinions be worth less than those of a few weird guys (for some reason, they're almost all men), who somehow have managed to get themselves elected to this bizarre pantheon?
If thoughts like the above cross your mind from time to time, you may find The Human Touch an educational experience. Michael Frayn is an excellent writer, with a string of good novels and dramas to his credit. He's obviously very smart, reads widely in several languages, and is intensely curious, not just about philosophy, but also about science, history, psychology and pretty much anything else you care to name. He's not a professional philosopher: but, heck, shouldn't he be able to produce something interesting and worthwhile all the same?
To me, the value of the book is that Frayn does such a good job of conveying the feeling, familiar to every amateur philosopher, that a breathtaking but strangely elusive insight is almost within one's reach. I don't think he achieves anything in terms of actually reaching the goals he sets himself, but he is disarmingly honest in explaining his thought processes. Frayn is evidently impatient with the narrow, technical frameworks that characterize most contemporary philosophy: he wants to be like Plato or Descartes and write about the whole universe, both physical and mental. Unfortunately, this is now a very difficult thing to do, and, every time Frayn got into any subject where I possessed a little specialist knowledge, I could see that he immediately fell flat on his face. His characterization of quantum mechanics is completely wrong (he admits himself that he has no inkling of how the mathematics works); he doesn't understand how possible worlds are used to formalize modal logic; his criticisms of Chomskyan linguistics fail even to reach the level of attacking a straw man; and his discussion of Artificial Intelligence resolutely ignores anything that's been done since the 70s. Alas, all of these issues are central to his argument.
But, as always, he writes beautifully; the book works well as a record of how a smart person tries to become a philosopher and learns the hard way that there's more to it than you might think. If you've ever been tempted to try this yourself, check out Frayn first.
If thoughts like the above cross your mind from time to time, you may find The Human Touch an educational experience. Michael Frayn is an excellent writer, with a string of good novels and dramas to his credit. He's obviously very smart, reads widely in several languages, and is intensely curious, not just about philosophy, but also about science, history, psychology and pretty much anything else you care to name. He's not a professional philosopher: but, heck, shouldn't he be able to produce something interesting and worthwhile all the same?
To me, the value of the book is that Frayn does such a good job of conveying the feeling, familiar to every amateur philosopher, that a breathtaking but strangely elusive insight is almost within one's reach. I don't think he achieves anything in terms of actually reaching the goals he sets himself, but he is disarmingly honest in explaining his thought processes. Frayn is evidently impatient with the narrow, technical frameworks that characterize most contemporary philosophy: he wants to be like Plato or Descartes and write about the whole universe, both physical and mental. Unfortunately, this is now a very difficult thing to do, and, every time Frayn got into any subject where I possessed a little specialist knowledge, I could see that he immediately fell flat on his face. His characterization of quantum mechanics is completely wrong (he admits himself that he has no inkling of how the mathematics works); he doesn't understand how possible worlds are used to formalize modal logic; his criticisms of Chomskyan linguistics fail even to reach the level of attacking a straw man; and his discussion of Artificial Intelligence resolutely ignores anything that's been done since the 70s. Alas, all of these issues are central to his argument.
But, as always, he writes beautifully; the book works well as a record of how a smart person tries to become a philosopher and learns the hard way that there's more to it than you might think. If you've ever been tempted to try this yourself, check out Frayn first.
Read
July 9, 2014I can't imagine reading this book, having lived through Manny's reading of it. It was awful, having to listen to him talk about how completely Frayn had misunderstood everything in science and philosophy he talked about. When he did come to actual interesting content by Frayn he couldn't stand the round about, waffling way in which he wrote, peppering everything with asides which were sometimes entertaining and generally irrelevant. Somehow Bill Bryson writing mostly of irrelevancies is okay, but not Frayn. Maybe he isn't good enough a writer.
Having started this book some years ago, I am certainly never going to read it now. I don't have the discerning eye resulting from knowledge of the fields to be able to read it in a discriminating way. But I want to make a few points which come from my understanding of Frayn which explain the failure of this book.
The first is that this book is the consequence of a shambles - Frayn's mulling over the world for a great many years. So when, for example, he discusses some point of AI which has been obsolete for decades, or a Chomsky theory which he himself abandoned before the old queen died, this is, I suspect, because that his ideas came from that period. We happen to be reading them now.
The second is that this book undoubtedly reflects something Frayn talks about in Stage Directions - he found it very hard to go back to novels after working as a dramatist for a long period because writing plays was writing in a highly disciplined limited way, whereas novel writing was like open countryside compared with the city. Limitless. He found it necessary to create ways to give the novel limits. One can see that, for example, in one of my favourites, The Trick of It. In this context, what could be more unbounded, less able to be disciplined, than the subject of The Human Touch?
The third is that Frayn - and again this comes from reading Stage Directions - is obsessed with the notion of the audience and in particular with is ability to change the thing it is watching. Nothing is objective. The meaning of everything and anything comes from its audience.
Rest is here:
http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpres...
Having started this book some years ago, I am certainly never going to read it now. I don't have the discerning eye resulting from knowledge of the fields to be able to read it in a discriminating way. But I want to make a few points which come from my understanding of Frayn which explain the failure of this book.
The first is that this book is the consequence of a shambles - Frayn's mulling over the world for a great many years. So when, for example, he discusses some point of AI which has been obsolete for decades, or a Chomsky theory which he himself abandoned before the old queen died, this is, I suspect, because that his ideas came from that period. We happen to be reading them now.
The second is that this book undoubtedly reflects something Frayn talks about in Stage Directions - he found it very hard to go back to novels after working as a dramatist for a long period because writing plays was writing in a highly disciplined limited way, whereas novel writing was like open countryside compared with the city. Limitless. He found it necessary to create ways to give the novel limits. One can see that, for example, in one of my favourites, The Trick of It. In this context, what could be more unbounded, less able to be disciplined, than the subject of The Human Touch?
The third is that Frayn - and again this comes from reading Stage Directions - is obsessed with the notion of the audience and in particular with is ability to change the thing it is watching. Nothing is objective. The meaning of everything and anything comes from its audience.
Rest is here:
http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpres...
April 11, 2013
It is difficult to sum up this book. It̕s neither an introduction to philosophy, nor a personal philosophy. It is for a general audience, but it requires a great deal of work. What truly distinguishes this book is the writing, especially the author̕s use of analogies and examples. Frayn does not set up arguments in the usual manner. His book moves more like a literary work. Its basic goal is to show how much our perspective, as humans, affects the world we know. This applies not only to modern physics, but to everything.
I think that every college student should read this book, not as an assignment for a course, because I cannot imagine a course using this book, but as summer reading: five pages a day, read twice.
I think that every college student should read this book, not as an assignment for a course, because I cannot imagine a course using this book, but as summer reading: five pages a day, read twice.
February 24, 2019
030219 from ??? 2000s?: i do not know how this is not on here, as i remember it well enough to stop my run of reading frayn. at the time i was becoming more read in philosophy and becoming convinced against almost all sf read, that science is not the total explanation/understanding/meaning of our 'world', which as each of us have one, is indefinitely, exponentially, greater than our shared universe... which does not mean i agree with the ideas put forward here...
frayn is a writer i read mostly in the 200os. he is an intellectual writer who has read a lot, thought a lot, tried to organize a sort of art version of that physics possibly illusory goal of 'grand unified theory', that would help us understand everything everything about this universe that is necessarily stranger than can be imagined. i have some disputes that there could be such or that it is a 'theory'. i tend towards the subjective, artistic, creative, way of understanding, so i can recognize/admire the aspirations to bring together divergent ways of thinking in arts and sciences. everyone wants the recognition only science give us postmodern post-whatever people. this is long long very long and not exactly concise, understandable, refers to a entire tradition of philosophy of which i remain untaught, no it is long but i do not know if he is making empirical claims, prejudices, lies, hates, loves, through technically philosophical work, and his insistence on human-partnered values in such inevitable heat-death, of cold, dark nothingness, is valiant and excuse to not stop to discuss...
frayn thinks much as artist who has watched porn gathered porn, with her naked and alone, lost and helpless somewhere in endless halls of this edifice that offers porn not just of beautiful bodies but sometimes intelligence. so his script is brilliant thought-porn, not very much philosophical, higher-level undergraduate maybe, that flatters my humanity but never quite convinces it. there is, i insist, that essential world before words or deep human thought, not everything is quantum whatever, and we mostly share it with others. unless you write it, like me. but okay: there is art connected to is science as a priori patterns by which we live as humans, but this connection is only tenuous, fragile, ever-remewed and i believe, again not with this author, this determines not the 'what' of the universe but the 'how' of our human experience of the universe, no more...
but then, i did read this years ago...
frayn is a writer i read mostly in the 200os. he is an intellectual writer who has read a lot, thought a lot, tried to organize a sort of art version of that physics possibly illusory goal of 'grand unified theory', that would help us understand everything everything about this universe that is necessarily stranger than can be imagined. i have some disputes that there could be such or that it is a 'theory'. i tend towards the subjective, artistic, creative, way of understanding, so i can recognize/admire the aspirations to bring together divergent ways of thinking in arts and sciences. everyone wants the recognition only science give us postmodern post-whatever people. this is long long very long and not exactly concise, understandable, refers to a entire tradition of philosophy of which i remain untaught, no it is long but i do not know if he is making empirical claims, prejudices, lies, hates, loves, through technically philosophical work, and his insistence on human-partnered values in such inevitable heat-death, of cold, dark nothingness, is valiant and excuse to not stop to discuss...
frayn thinks much as artist who has watched porn gathered porn, with her naked and alone, lost and helpless somewhere in endless halls of this edifice that offers porn not just of beautiful bodies but sometimes intelligence. so his script is brilliant thought-porn, not very much philosophical, higher-level undergraduate maybe, that flatters my humanity but never quite convinces it. there is, i insist, that essential world before words or deep human thought, not everything is quantum whatever, and we mostly share it with others. unless you write it, like me. but okay: there is art connected to is science as a priori patterns by which we live as humans, but this connection is only tenuous, fragile, ever-remewed and i believe, again not with this author, this determines not the 'what' of the universe but the 'how' of our human experience of the universe, no more...
but then, i did read this years ago...
November 2, 2012
Michael Frayn’s philosophical book (Faber 2006) THE HUMAN TOUCH is reading in low light during a drunken bar brawl word by word. I mean don’t get me wrong it’s a fascinating and highly intelligent in depth arse kicking piece of writing, but Frayn is a mad hatter at the epicentre of the abstract copping zone. A taste of Frayn, “…there is no stuff called size at large in the world, only particular sizes, and that for there to be a particular size there must be a something that has it?” Get that? Fortunately for us Frayn’s spends 500 pages (including in depth end-notes) blasting away with his sharp .50 Cal colorectal mind. Frayn lays down hard earned observations regarding our primal responses to logic, biology, philosophy and the irregularity of existence. He explores the hazards of this human relationship against a backdrop of the universe’s perfidious frozen banality. Frayn’s suggests society, culture and science expend so much energy in understanding and explaining it. Yet, in the end my conclusion was, “Yeah well it’s just there.” Frayn says, “…what would the universe be like if we were not here to say something about it?” Try that line at a meat market.
What is this book about? It’s a personal perspective of the universe from a prolific writer of fiction and non-fiction. I think Frayn was inspired by some of the pedantic episodes of Doctor Who. Frayn writes, “…if we actually manage to resolve the great paradox…it won’t help with any of the world’s practical problems, or make us better people.” I like that sentiment. I found The Human Touch a backbreaking and immensely convoluted and difficult journey and on occasions I gave him a kick in the guts.
I loved this book because being squeezing through the wringer page by page I discovered a fetish for the enlightening masochistic genre. The Human Touch is an astonishingly hard earned learning experience, however, your contribution to its knowledge is only as good as your willingness to trust the “The problems really begin when we focus our attention upon specific individual micro-situations, as we have to if we are to make sense of causality in the snooker-ball way.”
What is this book about? It’s a personal perspective of the universe from a prolific writer of fiction and non-fiction. I think Frayn was inspired by some of the pedantic episodes of Doctor Who. Frayn writes, “…if we actually manage to resolve the great paradox…it won’t help with any of the world’s practical problems, or make us better people.” I like that sentiment. I found The Human Touch a backbreaking and immensely convoluted and difficult journey and on occasions I gave him a kick in the guts.
I loved this book because being squeezing through the wringer page by page I discovered a fetish for the enlightening masochistic genre. The Human Touch is an astonishingly hard earned learning experience, however, your contribution to its knowledge is only as good as your willingness to trust the “The problems really begin when we focus our attention upon specific individual micro-situations, as we have to if we are to make sense of causality in the snooker-ball way.”
September 17, 2011
The old chestnut, if a tree falls and no one's around does it make a sound? Apparently, of course it does, but not really because there is nobody to observe it or give it meaning.
The Human Touch starts of as a great book, examining science and epistemology, then gets bogged down with language, where every stone is turned, even if totally unnecessarily. The subject matter and the main question of the book (how to reconcile the objectivity of science and physics with the subjective meaning and naming of the world) are very interesting, but Frayn comes across as someone who has read Merleau-Ponty but not understood him, because they neglect to read Heidegger.
Frayn's point of view is similar to a scientific Cartesian, never really letting go of the the separation of mind and body, clinging to his Dualism while bashing it at the same time. Similar to Sartre who could never let go of the 'I', while avidly re-writing 'Being and Time' with the Cartesian 'I' firmly at its centre.
Although, I can't really criticize Frayn all that much, as it is a very good book in places and Dualism is so ingrained within ourselves it is difficult not to fall into the same old traps.
The Human Touch starts of as a great book, examining science and epistemology, then gets bogged down with language, where every stone is turned, even if totally unnecessarily. The subject matter and the main question of the book (how to reconcile the objectivity of science and physics with the subjective meaning and naming of the world) are very interesting, but Frayn comes across as someone who has read Merleau-Ponty but not understood him, because they neglect to read Heidegger.
Frayn's point of view is similar to a scientific Cartesian, never really letting go of the the separation of mind and body, clinging to his Dualism while bashing it at the same time. Similar to Sartre who could never let go of the 'I', while avidly re-writing 'Being and Time' with the Cartesian 'I' firmly at its centre.
Although, I can't really criticize Frayn all that much, as it is a very good book in places and Dualism is so ingrained within ourselves it is difficult not to fall into the same old traps.
March 14, 2021
Mind expanding, mind bending and a very intelligent examination of "the world's oldest mystery" , a paradox: "The universe plainly exists independently of human consciousness, but what can ever be said about it that has not been mediated through that consciousness? When the human race is no more there will be "no is, no was, no will be" and yet the Universe will go on exactly as before. It will be affected by our departure no more than it was by our presence. What were we after all?"
I found this a challenging read. I had to really make myself cintinue with it at times, and some of the philosophical arguements were lost on me, but it was, as I've said, mind expanding, amusing at times, touching at others, and overall, a good experience. I particularly liked what Michael Frayn has to ssy about thinking and self-consciousness.
I found this a challenging read. I had to really make myself cintinue with it at times, and some of the philosophical arguements were lost on me, but it was, as I've said, mind expanding, amusing at times, touching at others, and overall, a good experience. I particularly liked what Michael Frayn has to ssy about thinking and self-consciousness.
August 5, 2018
May 2010. I am impressed by Frayn's writing but in the end put off by his worrying a topic till it (his concern) seems overwrought.
April 2017. Reading in this book again. Fascinating in small doses. 'The more you think about it the longer your explanation goes on — and the longer your explanation goes on the more it merges into the universal sea of all explanation, in which all things are lost.' Michael Frayn, The Human Touch, p. 65.
April 2017. Reading in this book again. Fascinating in small doses. 'The more you think about it the longer your explanation goes on — and the longer your explanation goes on the more it merges into the universal sea of all explanation, in which all things are lost.' Michael Frayn, The Human Touch, p. 65.
May 2, 2021
I couldn’t read more than 100 pages. I understood the idea behind all the observations, but didn’t grasp where the author was headed. It read like a discussion and a dialogue in author’s own mind. I didn’t walk away with a message because it was too abstract.
June 22, 2020
Good book
February 17, 2021
Very good for the brain. An entertaining journey through philosophy’s current views on how humans relate to the world. And vice versa.
March 1, 2024
A bit prolix.
Read
February 5, 2009In less-skilled hands, Michael Frayn's observations might strike the reader as self-indulgent and esoteric, or worse, inaccessible. After all, Frayn spans the range of human experience in this hefty tome__from the origin of consciousness to the infinity of the universe__in an attempt to describe "the great mutual balancing act." Overall, Frayn has a remarkable grasp of science, mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and related disciplines, and he possesses an intuitive ability to connect with an audience (sharpened, no doubt, by his stage work, most notably in Noises Off and Copenhagen). Also, a keen sense of humor never hurts. The result recalls James Burke (he of the popular history-of-science series Connections) working on a higher plane and with a greater wealth of anecdotes.
This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.
July 14, 2011
This book makes a number of good connections with what it feels like to be human. He takes a philosophical vantage point and takes a look at everything that makes up our daily actions, our waking thoughts and how we impact the conceptual world in which we live. It is actually interesting, I do like his ideas but he really hammers each point into the ground to where it just feels overwhelming instead of liberating. Ok we get it! Five hundred examples are not necessary the first one hundred will suffice! And stop bringing god into it Frayn. Why!? It never has anything to do with your actual five hundred examples!
December 23, 2011
Michael Frayn is brilliant. The only reason this book didn't get a five star rating from me was because parts of book that included math were not always clear to me, so I had a bit of an intellectual struggle at times. I admit that I went into reading the book with a predetermined mind set, and his discussions regarding various physicist's ideas about God and the universe fit my conclusions. For anyone who thinks science and God (not religion) don't "fit" together, this is a good read. (NOTE: The science in this book is very dated particularly in light of the rapid developments in astrophysics.)
October 1, 2012
I took philosophy at university and had a fabulous three years flexing my thinking. This brought most of it back and added a little bit extra on top. I understood it beautifully as I read, because I was being guided through by a wonderful mind. I don't think I would have been quite so good at explaining what I had read on the mornings after...
Delighted to have a copy that my wife asked Mr Frayn to autograph for me for a birthday present. The next time she goes to see him on stage, I will go with her.
Delighted to have a copy that my wife asked Mr Frayn to autograph for me for a birthday present. The next time she goes to see him on stage, I will go with her.
May 10, 2010
I tried ...i really tried!! Having a read a good deal of Frayn's work over the years and enjoying his wit and insight I bought this thinking it would be like his other works...wrong!! It is a challenge and while I like challenges this is beyond me. I always considered myself reasonably intelligent but life is to short and there are too many good reads in my library to spend anymore time on this! Yep!! I give up!!
October 11, 2017
A well-written book of general ruminations that touches on all the important thing: physics, evolution, consciousness, language. It doesn't offer any really new angles but it is a very readable introduction on "stuff that matters" (as Slashdot used to put it) and the current state of the art. Obvious things still need to be said, and here they are said in a nicely digestible (but not too digestible) manner.
August 31, 2014
Sometimes obvious and unnecessarily elaborate. Overall, however, if I imagine Frayn as a philosophizing writer––rather than a writing philosopher––I can get through this piece happily. If he does not make important headway, he does bluntly and accessibly adumbrate western philosophies, and–– similarly––offer various, personal, comforting responses. A pleasant, if too long, lunch with an under-dressed friend.
September 12, 2012
This book took me nearly the entire summer to finish. Fascinating but very dense for me. I think I'm going to read it again, maybe as an audiobook. I don't think I really understood more than a quarter of what Frayn was discussing. Oddly, I went straight from this to Frayn's novel "Skios" that touches on some of the ideas in a brilliant manner.
January 25, 2011
Really interesting and vast... but at the same time challenging to read. It skims across many areas and in the end resolves nothing - but that's what philosophy is all about :P If you are up for a challenge and some deep thought, give it a go.
May 5, 2014
I gave up on this book. I could grapple with his arguments, but then wondered why I'd bothered. Most of the time he is stating the obvious at great length, but then asserts that he has proved or demonstrated some point when, to my mind, he hasn't. And in the end he is stating nothing new.
January 1, 2025
Didn’t get that far into it, haven’t read too many philosophy books but I couldn’t really get into the content of this because of how it’s organized. Could have some good messages sprinkled in here and there but it couldn’t hold my attention.
December 15, 2025
A meditation on life, creation, and the world. The author offers us a sense for our place in the world. He outlines the limits of our understanding. He expresses that even with empirical knowledge and certainty, we fail to answer the most fundamental questions of life.
January 4, 2009
I really enjoyed this although it seems to get a lot of bad reviews for some reason: philosophy as it should be done.
Want to read
August 26, 2017An intellectually captivating book.
June 10, 2011
Wonderful insight into philosophy with the knowledge of physics (astrophysics in particular).
Read
May 20, 2014I love Michael Frayn, and I'm usually into this sort of subject matter, but for whatever reason, this was too tedious going for me. I gave up after about 3/4 of it.
Read
November 17, 2015Mothers, don't let your playwrights grow up to be philosophers. Unreadable.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews