About Biocentrism

How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe

Don’t miss the book that started it all, and shocked the world with its radical rethinking of the nature of reality.

In biocentrism, Robert Lanza and Bob Berman team up to turn the planet upside down with the revolutionary view that life creates the universe instead of the other way around.

Biocentrism takes the reader on a seemingly improbable but ultimately inescapable journey through a foreign universe‒our own‒from the viewpoints of an acclaimed biologist and a leading astronomer. It will shatter the reader’s ideas of life-time and space, and even death … the reader will never see reality the same again.

“Like “A Brief History of Time” it is indeed stimulating and brings biology into the whole. Any short statement does not do justice to such a scholarly work… Most importantly, it makes you think.”
—Nobel Prize Winner E. Donnall Thomas

Book trailer for Lanza’s new novel with award-winning author Nancy Kress

Book cover of Robert Lanza's Observer: A Novel

If we can alter the structure of reality, should we?

OBSERVER takes you on a mind-expanding journey to the very edges of science. It will thrill you, inspire you, and lead you to think about life and the power of the imagination in startling new ways.

“Robert Lanza is one of the most exciting thinkers of our time, and his novel, OBSERVER, is a thrilling exploration of his most daring theories, a thought-provoking page-turner that asks the most profound question of our existence—what is our role in the true nature of reality?"—Blake Crouch, New York Times bestselling author.

“Robert Lanza has taken the gigantic step of incorporating his ideas into a science fiction novel with Nancy Kress …brilliant…a riveting and moving story."—Rhonda Byrne, #1 New York Times bestselling author.

“A startling, fascinating novel.”—Kim Stanley Robinson, New York Times bestselling author.

Get 40% off if you pre-order now button link to Observer A Novel website.

Lanza featured on the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC’s) Ideas, one of the oldest and most respected radio programs in the world

Lanza featured on the Canadian Broadcast Corporation graphic image

BEYOND BIOCENTRISM: Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death
Host Paul Kennedy has his understanding of reality turned-upside-down by Dr. Robert Lanza in this paradigm-shifting hour. Dr. Lanza provides a compelling argument for consciousness as the basis for the universe, rather than consciousness simply being its by-product.

Observers determine the structure of spacetime itself
The paper—published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (one of the world’s leading journals in cosmology & astrophysics, covering the latest developments and breakthroughs including Stephen Hawking’s groundbreaking work on the evolution of the early universe)—was co-authored with Dmitriy Podolskiy and Andrei Barvinsky, one of the world’s leading theorists in quantum gravity & quantum cosmology. The paper shows that networks of observers define the structure of physical reality/spacetime itself. In particular, it reveals the exasperating incompatibility between Einstein’s general relativity and quantum mechanics vanishes if one takes the properties of observers—us—into account. The study also represents a rare case in physics when the presence of observers drastically changes the behavior of observable quantities themselves not only at microscopic scales but also at very large spatio-temporal scales. Observers determine the value of both the gravitational constant and the effective cosmological constant.

JCAP paper [Read More]
Big Think [Read More]

Lanza’s Paper is the Cover Story of Annalen der Physik, which Published Einstein’s Theories of Relativity

Magazine cover image of Annalen der Physik

On Decoherence in Quantum Gravity

In his papers on relativity, Einstein showed that time was relative to the observer. This new paper takes this one step further, arguing that the observer creates it. The paper shows that the intrinsic properties of quantum gravity and matter alone cannot explain the tremendous effectiveness of the emergence of time and the lack of quantum entanglement in our everyday world. Instead, it's necessary to include the properties of the observer, and in particular, the way we process and remember information.

TIME Magazine Names Biocentrism Author, Robert Lanza the “100 Most Influential People in the World”

Dr. Robert Lanza selected for the 2014 TIME 100 list of the hundred most influential people in the world, along with Beyoncé, Hillary Clinton, Pope Francis, Vladimir Putin, Robert Redford, and other artists, pioneers, leaders, titans and icons.

Biocentrism Author, Robert Lanza Named One of the Top 50 “World Thinkers”

Lanza named one of the top 50 world thinkers graphic image

Robert Lanza selected as one of the top "World Thinkers 2015" by Prospect Magazine. The thinkers were chosen for "engaging in original and profound ways with the central questions of the world today," as well as for their continuing significance for "this year's biggest questions" (in economics, science, philosophy, cultural and social criticism and in politics).

Google Scholar Citations

h-index for Lanza = 81

From Wikipedia: The h-index measures both the productivity and impact of a scientist or scholar. A value for h of about 12 might be typical for advancement to tenure (associate professor) at major [US] research universities. A value of about 18 could mean a full professorship, 15–20 could mean a fellowship in the American Physical Society, and 45 or higher could mean membership in the United States National Academy of Sciences. According to Hirsch (who put forward the h-index), an h index of 20 is good, 40 is outstanding, and 60 is truly exceptional.

The Grand Biocentric Design

How Life Creates Reality

The Grand Biocentrism Design Book Cover Image

What is consciousness? Why are we here? Where did it all come from? Humans have been asking these questions forever, but science hasn’t succeeded in providing many answers – until now. In The Grand Biocentric Design, Robert Lanza, one of Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People,” is joined by theoretical physicist Matej Pavsic to shed light on the big picture that has long eluded philosophers and scientists alike.

“quite thrilling … its notions are exciting ones, and they do a sound job of linking them to observable, replicable experiments. Fans of revolutionary science—or just big, cerebral questions—will enjoy this ambitious work. A thought-provoking dispatch from the frontier of physics.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“a masterpiece”—Anthony Atala, W. Boyce Professor, Wake Forest University

“paradigm-shattering”―Lucian Del Priore, Robert R. Young Professor, Yale University

“It’s fabulous—I couldn’t put it down!” —Ralph Levinson, Professor Emeritus, UCLA

“Robert Lanza is one of the most creative and brilliant scientists I have ever known”—Kwang-Soo Kim, Professor, Harvard University

How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe

Don’t miss the book that started it all, and shocked the world with its radical rethinking of the nature of reality.

In biocentrism, Robert Lanza and Bob Berman team up to turn the planet upside down with the revolutionary view that life creates the universe instead of the other way around.

Beyond Biocentrism Front Book Cover Image

Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death

Biocentrism shocked the world with a radical rethinking of the nature of reality.

But that was just the beginning.

“Beyond Biocentrism is an enlightening and fascinating journey that will forever alter your understanding of your own existence.”
—Deepak Chopra

“Beyond Biocentrism is a joyride through the history of science and cutting-edge physics, all with a very serious purpose: to find the long-overlooked connection between the conscious self and the universe around us.”
—Corey S. Powell, former editor-in-chief, Discover magazine

Image of a person walking through the light

Does Death Exist?

New theory says “no”.

Picture of dog prints in sand on beach

Death is Only the Beginning

If death doesn’t exist, then what happened to your dog?

Photo of Dr. Robert Lanza speaking to an audience

Rethinking Our Insanely Improbable Universe

Speaking with the authority of a distinguished scientific career, Robert Lanza presents the case for abandoning the "dumb universe" paradigm…

Photo of Dr. Robert Lanza speaking to an audience

Lanza on Biocentrism

Robert Lanza’s talk on biocentrism at the Science & Nonduality Conference.

Image of light rays

Free Abridgement of Biocentrism

How life creates the universe. Authors say cosmology misses the big picture unless it includes biology.

Graphic image for Dr. Robert Lanza's Discover Magazone article

The Biocentric Universe Theory: Life Creates Time, Space, and the Cosmos Itself

Stem-cell guru Robert Lanza presents a radical new view of the universe and everything in it.

Streaks of light in circular pattern

Biocentrism Explored

Rethinking Time, Space, and the Nature of the Universe.

Robert Lanza is one of the most respected scientists in the world—a US News & World Report cover story called him a “genius” and a “renegade thinker,” even likening him to Einstein. Lanza has teamed with Bob Berman, the most widely read astronomer in the world, to produce Biocentrism, a revolutionary new view of the universe.

Every now and then a simple yet radical idea shakes the very foundations of knowledge. The startling discovery that the world was not flat challenged and ultimately changed the way people perceived themselves and their relationship with the world. For most humans of the 15th century, the notion of Earth as ball of rock was nonsense. The whole of Western, natural philosophy is undergoing a sea change again, increasingly being forced upon us by the experimental findings of quantum theory, and at the same time, towards doubt and uncertainty in the physical explanations of the universe’s genesis and structure. Biocentrism completes this shift in worldview, turning the planet upside down again with the revolutionary view that life creates the universe instead of the other way around.

In this paradigm, life is not an accidental byproduct of the laws of physics. Biocentrism takes the reader on a seemingly improbable but ultimately inescapable journey through a foreign universe—our own—from the viewpoints of an acclaimed biologist and a leading astronomer. Switching perspective from physics to biology unlocks the cages in which Western science has unwittingly managed to confine itself. Biocentrism will shatter the reader’s ideas of life—time and space, and even death. At the same time it will release us from the dull worldview of life being merely the activity of an admixture of carbon and a few other elements; it suggests the exhilarating possibility that life is fundamentally immortal.

The 21st century is predicted to be the Century of Biology, a shift from the previous century dominated by physics. It seems fitting, then, to begin the century by turning the universe outside-in and unifying the foundations of science with a simple idea discovered by one of the leading life-scientists of our age. Biocentrism awakens in readers a new sense of possibility, and is full of so many shocking new perspectives that the reader will never see reality the same way again.

Robert Lanza Worked (and Published Scientific Papers) with Some of the Greatest Scientists of the 20th Century

Work with Professor Christiaan Barnard

Time Magazine cover image of Professor Christiaan Barnard

Performed the World’s First Heart Transplant

New England Journal of Medicine 307; 1275 (1982)
Lanza (with Barnard & Cooper)

JAMA 249; 1746 (1983)
Lanza (with Barnard, Cooper & Cassidy)

American Heart Journal 107; 8 (1984)
Lanza (with Barnard, Cooper & Boyd)

Work with Dr. Jonas Salk

Time Magazine cover image of Dr. Jonas Salk

Developed the Polio Vaccine

J. Supramol. Struct 182;33 (1979)
Lanza (with Salk)

Work with Professor B.F. Skinner

Most Influential Psychologist of All Time
―American Psychological Association

SCIENCE 207; 543 (1980)
Lanza (with Skinner & Epstein)

SCIENCE 212; 695 (1981)
Lanza (with Skinner & Epstein)

Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 38; 201 (1982)
Lanza (with Skinner & Starr)

Work with Professor Rodney Porter

Recipient of the 1972 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology

Lanza worked with Porter at Oxford University in 1977

Work with Dr. Gerald Edelman

Nobel-winner was “The Father of Modern Immunology”

Lanza worked with Edelman at Rockefeller University in 1976

Reception to Biocentrism

“I downloaded a digital copy of [biocentrism] in the privacy of my home, where no one could observe my buying or reading such a “New Agey” sort of cosmology book. Now, mind you, my motivation was not all that pure. It was my intention to read the book so I could more effectively refute it like a dedicated physicist was expected to…The book had the completely opposite effect on me. The views that Dr. Lanza presented in this book changed my thinking in ways from which there could never be retreat. Before I had actually finished reading the book, it was abundantly obvious to me that Dr. Lanza’s writings provided me with the pieces of perspective that I had been desperately seeking. Everything I had learned and everything I thought I knew just exploded in my mind and, as possibilities first erupted and then settled down, a completely new understanding emerged. The information I had accumulated in my mind hadn’t changed, but the way I viewed it did –in a really big way.”

— Scott M. Tyson, Physicist, The Unobservable Universe

“The heart of [biocentrism], collectively, is correct. On page 15 they say “the animal observer creates reality and not the other way around.” That is the essence of the entire book, and that is factually correct. It is an elementary conclusion from quantum mechanics. So what Lanza says in this book is not new. Then why does Robert have to say it at all? It is because we, the physicists, do NOT say it—or if we do say it, we only whisper it, and in private—furiously blushing as we mouth the words. True, yes; politically correct, hell no! Bless Robert Lanza for creating this book, and bless Bob Berman for not dissuading friend Robert from going ahead with it. Not that I think Robert Lanza could be dissuaded–this dude doesn’t dissuade! Lanza’s remarkable personal story is woven into the book, and is uplifting. You should enjoy this book, and it should help you on your personal journey to understanding.

— Richard Conn Henry, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University

Photo of Deepak Chopra, Bestselling Author

“Having interviewed some of the most brilliant minds in the scientific world, I found Dr. Robert Lanza’s insights into the nature of consciousness original and exciting. His theory of biocentrism is consistent with the most ancient traditions of the world which say that consciousness conceives, governs, and becomes a physical world. It is the ground of our Being in which both subjective and objective reality come into existence…I agree more with [Lanza] than with anyone else that I have ever met.”

— Deepak Chopra, Bestselling Author (heralded by Time magazine as one of the top heroes and icons of the century)

Robert Lanza Interview By Deepak Chopra

“My special guest is Dr. Robert Lanza and his extraordinary mind, I just finished reading his book Biocentrism and I said to myself, ‘Finally, aha, somebody that I can totally relate to.’”

“Deepak Chopra”

“TIME Magazine: Top 100 Icons of the Century”

Lanza Featured in OMNI MAGAZINE’s Collector’s Edition

Omni Magazine is back. Featured story:

Building Doctor Who’s Time Machine

What if you could travel through time just like you navigate space? The journey starts here

OMNI Magazine [Read More]