In the first chapter, "What is There," Peacocke examines the shift in metaphorical language about the nature of reality that has been necessitated by advances in understanding of the physical universe, most particularly the insights gleaned from quantum mechanics.  While humans tend to think of space and time as isolated, irreducible "things" (e.g., this "lamp" and "my childhood"), the quantum world reveals not only an incessant fluxuation in the nature of space/time, but even more importantly a reducibility of all "things" as metaphors to their irreducible constituent elements.  Rather than viewing ourselves and our actions as something that exists "in" space/time or "over-and-against" space/time, the quantum world reveals that who and what we are–in terms of reducibility–are themselves partakers of the fabric of space/time as opposed to alient substances existing therein.  

One obvious conclusion of these observations is that it remains no longer possible to speak of reality (people, events, weather, solar systems, etc.) as a series of potentially related, yet closed "systems."  No matter how small or seemingly significant something may be, its existence comes to bear on the whole of all else that exists–the butterfly in Cuba disturbing the air effects change in the weather patters in Los More >