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How did life begin? Did it start here, by blind chance or by necessity, or was Earth seeded by extraterrestrial visitors? (And, if so, how did they arise?) Physicist and science writer Paul Davies tackles these heavy questions and more in The Fifth Miracle: The Search for the Origin and Meaning of Life, a wide-ranging survey of the field of biogenesis. From the "Martian meteorite" ALH84001 to the hardy microorganisms living on--and under!--our sea beds, Davies looks for evidence pointing toward our first ancestor. His willingness to consider any possibility makes for a fun, fascinating journey through our solar system and beyond.
The Fifth Miracle provides convincing arguments that life flourishes, and may indeed have begun, deep within the earth's crust, and not in Darwin's "warm little pond." And if in our planet's crust, why not in others'? Indeed, he shows that it is not just possible but likely that living organisms have passed between Earth and Mars embedded within meteorites. Davies's command of the data and his facility with explaining it to nonprofessionals give the lie to his self-description as "a simple-minded physicist" intruding in another's domain. The best scientists hate to see questions finally answered and love to see new ones raised; by that standard (and by any other), The Fifth Miracle is a first-rate book of scientific speculation. --Rob Lightner
Book Description
Are We Alone in the Universe?
In this provocative and far-reaching book, internationally acclaimed physicist and writer Paul Davies confronts one of science's great outstanding mysteries -- the origin of life.
Three and a half billion years ago, Mars resembled earth. It was warm and wet and could have supported primitive organisms. If life once existed on Mars, might it have originated there and traveled to earth inside meteorites blasted into space by cosmic impacts?
Davies builds on recent scientific discoveries and theories to address larger questions of existence: What, exactly, is life? Is it the inevitable by-product of physical laws, as many scientists maintain, or an almost miraculous accident? Are we alone in the universe, or will life emerge on all earthlike planets? And if there is life elsewhere in the universe, is it preordained to evolve toward greater complexity and intelligence?
Through his search for answers to these questions, Davies explores the ultimate mystery of mankind's existence -- who we are and what our place might be in the unfolding drama of the cosmos.
Customer Reviews:
How did life on Earth originate?.......2007-03-06
How did life on Earth originate?
Wisely Davies begins his book by answering this question with the question of what is life? After discussing various theories that have been previously proposed, Davies concludes that it's an organicly autonomous creation sometimes capable of obtaining and metabolizing food and creating copies of itself.
Having dealt with this question, Davies examines the three so far discovered domains of life on Earth: prokaryotes (us and pretty much every organism we've actually ever seen), bacteria, and archea...an ancient form of life living in extreme planetary environments such as ocean volcanic vents and hot water pools. Unlike the other two domains, archea live in environments that have largely unchanged in the past four or so billion years of Earth's history. Therefore, Davies reasonably concludes that they have most retained their original forms basically living off sulfur and or methane.
In this last particular, archea display an unusual quality for life by actually making their living off of inorganic matter.
In this way, Davies advances a possible terrestrial origin of life.
Likewise, Davies also discusses the possible extra terrestrial origins that have been proposed for Earthly life: from space and from Mars. As to the spacely origins theory, Davies notes the abundance of comets with organic matter in them. As to the Martian origins theory, Davies notes the fact that for its first billion years or so, Mars had both liquid water and an atmosphere.
Significantly, during that same time on Earth, life not only arose or was transferred but had propogated into at least two different domains. It is for these reasons, Davies believes that life indeed once existed on Mars.
Tantalizingly, Davies also discusses the discovery of ALH80001, one twelve Martian metiorites discovered in the Antarctic. Unlike its peers, this meterite showed possible evidence of fossilized Martian life. Wisely agnostic about whether this meteriorite really was itself evidence of Martian life, Davies' discussion of it nonetheless is thorough and thought provoking.
Davies was also thought provoking in discussing the Urey Miller experiments of 1953 wherein amino acids were artificially synthesized under experimental conditions. At that time, the experiements thought maybe they were just days from synthesizing life itself.
However, as noted by Davies, the gap between the bricks of amino acids and the houses of DNA and RNA still elude the efforts of modern science. Still the same, like all great science, the question is a fascinating one to ponder and well worthy of our attentions.
Although life is but the fifth miracle listed by God in the Bible at the time creation according to Davies, it stands as a primary miracle for those who enjoy having it.
Searching for the Laws of Life.......2006-09-18
According to the book of Genesis, God's fifth act of creation was to create life on earth. Modern science has a different myth. In the beginning, there was a simple soup of inorganic chemicals: water, ammonia and methane. And into this soup came a bolt of lightning that brought into being the amino acids that gradually assembled themselves into peptides and proteins, and the nucleotides from which came RNA and DNA. And the DNA learned the art of becoming self-replicating and so began the ascent of life.
In this well-reasoned book, the distinguished physicist Paul Davies suggests that believing the scientific myth demands an act of faith and credulity as great as believing in the literal truth of the Biblical story. He is one of many scientists who have calculated the seemingly impossible odds of all this happening by chance. This is not some back door into intelligent design, but instead an exploration of some profoundly important ideas in biology that make us realize that there are some gaping holes in our current models.
Paul Davies starts with some questions: is life a random chemical accident, a meaningless fluke in an accidental universe? Or is the universe somehow "friendly" to biology? Are the laws of nature such that they demand the eventual appearance of life, not just on earth, but also throughout the universe? The book does not come up with a definitive answer, but it explores some very interesting ideas, including the well-known concepts of the late Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe that life may have arrived from space. It is a puzzle how life seems to have appeared so soon after the earth became a stable globe, and the remarkable adaptability of living organisms to the most astonishingly inhospitable environments.
Inorganic processes tend to run down and become disorganized over time: they show entropy. By contrast living processes become progressively more organized, a process that requires massive amounts of information. It is not difficult to calculate that the amount of information required for even the simplest organism far out strips the biochemical processes of an organism. Thus the implication that life requires a new fundamental law of nature that is yet to be discovered.
Paul Davies does not shy away from discussing the consequences of these ideas or an undiscovered law or laws that would make the appearance of life inevitable. And would also imply a progressive march toward greater and greater complexity, that would eventually lead to sentience.
This book does not provide any final answers, but is an excellent introduction to an exceedingly important topic.
Simply Astounding.......2004-12-12
This book is my Science recommendation for 2004. As usual Davies ploughes through a whole whack of cosmic data and implications to look at the question of life: How did it begin? What are the current theories of life? What are the necessary conditions for life forms.
It is interesting to note that all of these questions are pre-evolution questions, since we do not need a mechanism to add, refine or make life more complex -- natural selection does that wonderfully --- the central question of life is how did it arise in the most simplest of organisms.
In this wonderful read, Davies analyses first the physics of life, entropy, open systems and thermodynamic equilibrium. It is this approach that Davies uses that I find personally so fascinating since it is one that is often ignored by a lot of chemists and biologists, but is it germane -- what kind of physical properties are necessary in the universe for life to arise? This is a real good qustion and Davies gives us a good intro tour of the how complexity can arise in an environment which always seems to be striving towards thermodynamic equillibrium.
The second part of the book could be called the biochemical reasons necessary for life. Here Davies looks at elementary organisation and gives us a really good history of the experimentation in this area, from the elementary forces that may be required to bring about nucleotides, proteins and polypeptide strings.
One really interesting thing Davies does is trace back the evolutionary history of organisms and the current data that evolutionary forces were at work for almost 4 billion years. From this he describes ancestors from this time that may still be living on the earth (meso/thermophilic bacteria). A really great way of looking at evolution.
The last chapters sort of synthethise the physics and chemistry parts and look at the implications of the planetary forces, both gradual and catastrophic over the history of the earth and their potential to influence the rise of life and shape the evolutionary forces.
There is a lot of food for thought here and of course no one knows how life started, but it is clear that current theory and evidence are making science more interesting than even before. We may never know as Davies states, but in knowing more and more we are attaining the best goals of mankind.
A wonderful book with science as the only aim.
It should be stated that Davies has no political axe to grind with anyone and his writing is ideologically clean. But let there be no misunderstanding, when in doubt there is no evoking of blind forces in any or Davies books. His passion is science and reason and, like most people who think deeply, he regards the constant state of unknowing as a challenge as a never ending challenge.
For the person who says that Davies is not "open-minded" because he does not consider (notice I did not say believe) that a omnipresent God waved his hand and made us... that is simple. Personal belief has nothing to do with science since it yields nothing of benefit to Science. Even if Davies did personally believe that a God created life, that does not get anyone closer to understanding life... And this is the fundemental point that people who believe in Gods (or as with the current fashion, intelligent design) as ulimate cause fall into --- intelligent design, even if right is not science, it cannot be proved. It is a sterile end on the path of unknowing.
Thank God for people like Davies that can remind us that Science alone can yeild truth -- that it will never yield all of the truths is the central tenet of Science... and with that there is comfort, because it means that reason remains paramount, and man advances.
The best little book I have read in years........2004-07-07
The fifth miracle is an outstanding little book that discloses a miriad of possibilities about the origin of life on earth. The controversy arises when Davis exposes some unorthodox theories like Panspermia, the truth is that when he does that he is really persuasive. Paul Davies is an intelligent scientist and one that has kept updated and with experience on field, so his arguments are no less than powerful and convincing, once again, even the controversial ones. Though he doesn't take part in most of the different theories explained, his book might look a little biased, but great, besides he may even be right.
fails to answer the big question........2004-04-17
Davis titled his book the Search for the Origin and Meaning of Life, but he never really answers this fundamental question. Sure, science hasn't answered this, and unlike Davies' optimistic assertion that they will accomplish this feat someday, I don't believe science will. If approached from the viewpoint that life arose spontaneously from the haphazard collision of random molecules by the direction of chance then the mystery will never be solved. The process that produced life was so improbable that it can't be reproduced in the laboratory and was truly an event that took place against all odds. Understanding that anything with a value of 1 10^50 is an impossibility, and that the conditions for life to occur would need a much bigger number, attempting to solve this mystery is a waste of time.
Nevertheless, if life is the product of a set of laws written into the universe that favor the creation of life then the search is not futile. Nevertheless, this opens up the possibility for design arguments and the need for a programmer to write such a code; This is a development that I welcome as a Christian, but one that is scorned by other scientists. Some of this attitude comes through at times in Davies book when he states on pg. 31, "However, it is the job of science to solve mysteries without recourse to divine intervention." This assertion is patently false. It is the job of science to explain observable phenomena with a natural explantion if the results are verifiable and make more sense than a mystical argument. It could very well be that the deity who created the universe was a very competent programmer who designed the creation to operate under very specific natural laws, and one of those laws is for the universe to create life under the right conditions. This is just a possibility, but one that should not be eliminated simply because the establishment thinks it should.
In the end this book fails to answer the question that matters most: If life did arise by natural means, then how did it do so? Davies offers absolutely no new insight into this perplexing question. In fact, many of his arguments seem to point against random, senseless and purposless creation. Believing that all the right circumstances could fall into place is just as much grounded in faith as is the idea of a Divine creator. The only new arguments presented by this book were those that speculated that life began underground and not at the surface. Yet, this raises a whole host of questions. RNA or DNA could not develop inside the earth because the tremendous heat and pressure would destroy the volatile molecules. Therefore, one is forced to conclude the cell came first and this gave the RNA and DNA the sufficient shelter to form and replicate. But this just brings us back the chicken-egg paradox and doesn't answer anything since the cell cannot survive efficiently without the help of DNA, RNA, and catalytic enzymes. Stating that the first simple cell was a more crude device which operated on a more crude scale only begs the question and is meaningless conjecture without evidence.
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In The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins proposed the concept of the meme as a unit of culture, spread by imitation. Now Dawkins himself says of Susan Blackmore:
Showing greater courage and intellectual chutzpah than I have ever aspired to, she deploys her memetic forces in a brave--do not think foolhardy until you have read it--assault on the deepest questions of all: What is a self? What am I? Where am I? ... Any theory deserves to be given its best shot, and that is what Susan Blackmore has given the theory of the meme.
Blackmore is a parapsychologist who rejects the paranormal, a skeptical investigator of near-death experiences, and a practitioner of Zen. Her explanation of the science of the meme (memetics) is rigorously Darwinian. Because she is a careful thinker (though by no means dull or conventional), the reader ends up with a good idea of what memetics explains well and what it doesn't, and with many ideas about how it can be tested--the very hallmark of an excellent science book. Blackmore's discussion of the "memeplexes" of religion and of the self are sure to be controversial, but she is (as Dawkins says) enormously honest and brave to make a connection between scientific ideas and how one should live one's life. --Mary Ellen Curtin
Book Description
'Any theory deserves to be given its best shot, and that is what Susan Blackmore has given the theory of the meme I am delighted to recommend her book.' Richard Dawkins Humans are extraordinary creatures, with the unique ability among animals to imitate and so copy from one another ideas, habits, skills, behaviours, inventions, songs, and stories. These are all memes, a term first coined by Richard Dawkins in 1976 in his book The Selfish Gene. Memes, like genes, are replicators, and this enthralling book is an investigation of whether this link between genes and memes can lead to important discoveries about the nature of the inner self. Confronting the deepest questions about our inner selves, with all our emotions, memories, beliefs, and decisions, Susan Blackmore makes a compelling case for the theory that the inner self is merely an illusion created by the memes for the sake of replication. 'Anyone who hopesDSor fearsDS that memetics will become a science of culture will find this surefooted exploration of the prospects a major eye-opener.' Daniel Dennett
Customer Reviews:
From the Oxford University Press Editor.......2007-05-18
The following elucidation of her text, copied from the back cover- does much to reveal the content of Dr. Blackmore's insightful and often controversial insights into the perspective of life from the view of memes. What it fails to portray are Dr. Blackmore's total reversal of every aspect of human life, viewed not from the everyday perspective, but from that of the self-replicating selfish "mental" gene, the Meme.
Humans are extraordinary creatures, with the uniques ability to imitate, and so to copy from one another ideas, habitats, skills, behaviours, inventions, songs, and stories. These are all memes, a term first coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book "The Selfish Gene." Memes, like genes, are replicators, competing to find space in our minds and cultures, and this enthralling book investigates the consequences. Confronting the deepest questions, from why humans have such a big brains and language, to altruism, sex and the Internet. Susan Blackmore makes a compelling case for the theory that even our inner conscious self and our sense of free will are illusions created by the memes for the sake of their own replication.
Copied from the text by: Bryan McGilly
clear and interesting, but... .......2007-05-16
I just finished the book and think it is a clear and interesting introduction on the subject. On the other hand I felt it was rushing into too many generalizations and the arguments on science vs. religion sounded quite empty.
The Meme Machine.......2007-05-08
This book was just plain fun to read and has given me new insights into why people push there points of view even when you wish they would not bother you with them. Reading this book has brought an increased sense of humor to my experience in relationships with people where discussion about religion are concerned. My tolerance for meme campaingns has increased, and I feel better able to accept my own "meme" infections. While this is a relatively serious topic, it is also a fun one. After reading the book, I am aware that I too am pushing my own meme preferences in sublties, and am able to laugh about it when I catch me doing it. better, I am doing it less and less. My daughter is a mom with a little daughter, and we laugh and play with the memes we are passing along to her. Some "memeing" is useful enough, and supports having a quality life experience. Reading this book has opened my eyes to why I got caught up in certain beliefs that were without practical applicatons in my life. It explained to me why belief agenda's get promoted and why I bought into some of them unwittingly. I jokingly refer to replicators, and meme fountains in causual converstaions now with others who have read the material. I feel better able to choose my loyalty to certain meme complexes now. I can stop the insanity of participating with the subtle control that can happen in a society where people don't ask why. And, I am having a lot more fun dealing with the meme fountains in life experience now~ including dealing with those who push their invasive and distructive memes unmercifully onto others who are innocent and unaware of the affects it will have on them to remain passive. If you want to wake up and smell the roses on purpose, read this book~
An aid to understanding thought contagion.......2007-01-13
Blakemore's book endeavors towards two goals:
1) A recapping of the origins of meme theory...which she does exceedingly well and
2) Humble suggestions on the place of memes in consciousness...where she seems to stumble.
In relation to her first goal, Blakemore admirably retraces the work of the likes of Richard Dawkins and Dan Dennett. For his part, Dawkins coined the term "meme" in his 1976 book "The Selfish Gene" wherein he described meme as a process or idea subject to replication. The song "Happy Birthday" for example would be a meme. Dennett built on Dawkins work by saying in his 1991 book "Consciousness Explained" that consciousness is a combination of in built human cognitive systems (like our innate understanding of physics or our ability to acquire language) along with memes.
Blakemore also recapped Dennett's later book "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" for his tower of states of consciousness, viz. a first level occupied by Darwinian creatures who have to produce a new generation in order to acquire new abilities, a second and higher level occupied by Skinnerian creatures that can acquire new abilities inter vivos but only through operant conditioning, a third and still higher level occupied by Popperian creatures -- for Karl Popper -- capable of abstract reasoning to acquire new abilities and a final highest level occupied by Gregorian creatures that can pick up additional abilities by means of culture or memes.
Building on these earlier thinkers Blakemore asserts that meme theory in and of itself can explain everything from temporary fads like the tulip craze bemoaned by Charles Mackey in his 1841 book on the Madness of Crowds to religion itself.
The mechanism by which Blakemore posits the transmission of memes is one of virture wherein superiorly altruistic memes will oust those previously occupied by more selfish memes. Her thinking is that the vehicles of meme transmission, us, will be more favorably disposed to ideas disseminated by people who have been nice to us than by those who haven't.
To the extent Blakemore ventures out on her own, I would part company with her.
Understanding any aspect, let alone persuasion of others, of human behavior is tricky business. And while Blakemore would posit a subtle arithematic to human behavior the truth probably lies closer to a delicate calculus.
As she herself indicated in her book, understanding consciousness is probably best begun with an understanding of first principles, namely that that subset of evolution relating to human behavior is but a special case for the general rules bearing on behvaioral evolution generally.
In other words, human consciousness is not different in kind but rather merely in degree from animal consciousness generally.
As shown by evolution, animals with motility will have to have both the ability to differentiate between themselves and their environment as well as discriminate the ingredients of their environment between potential areas of sustance and potential areas of threat. And so, the seemingly nettlesome questions of consciousness kind of answer themselves.
A sense of "I" exists because it evolutionary has to and the likes and dislikes of "I" (the so called "qualia" question) really amount to a running tally of emotionally encoded learned experiences.
To be sure, that sense of "I" is different for a person than a pidgeon but again, the differences of degree (albeit, in some cases a great degree, rather than kind).
So, to take religion as an example:
1) From pidgeons to humans, it's an aspect of cognitive perception to allow for false connections or superstitions to arise. And so, the difference between a pidgeon dancing around a machine to obtain randomly produced pellets is not that different from a person performing an elablorate ritual prior to gambling.
2) In the case of humans, theory of mind works powerfully to over ascribe personality. And so, the gambler makes his petitions not to chance but to Lady Luck personified.
3) Because, as noted by Dennett, we have in built cognitive systems, those systems can be decieved from time to time in remembering certain types of knowledge in preference to others. And so, while most English verbs use "ed" as past tense, the special case, commonly used verbs have irregular endings to promote their specialized recognition and recall. In the same way, we remember novel creatures over others. And so, Lady Luck is just like any woman but if pleased can grant you unlimited fortune.
4) Humans also respect strategic knowledge. From evolution in an environment where an extended knowledge of strategic relationships was helpful, we are capable of understanding metarepresentational interactions up to the sixth level. What I think that you may know about what someone else believes that somone else said is not a meaningless sentence. This quality fires our mythologies just as certainly as our soap operas. If we could experience an alligator religion or soap opera, I think we'd be bored.
5) Again, as noted by Blakemore, game theory gives us a sense of the outer contours of religious belief. In this regard, the recent Jeffrey Moses book "Oneness" which is a verbatim repetition of religious principles from around the world shows that the similarities in the main statements of religions around the world (e.g. all of them have a "golden rule," advice to respect elders, educate children and the like) shows that all human religions have made basically the same types of prescriptions and prohibitions.
6) And powerfully, finally a sense of group membership. Are you or are you not one of us?
As can be seen, though the exchange of ideas operates in each of the six domains (and there are certainly others in some cases) the interplay of those ideas varies in individual cases. In this way, while why humans religiously ideate is certainly a question of history and society it's also a question of individual psychology.
Like choas theory operates to produce no two snowflakes that look alike so again no two personal histories are the same respecting their religious ideation.
In other words, while Blakemore's provides some helpful aid in understanding memes and their place in thought contagion, the ultimate answer is certainly much more complicated than her impressions would suggest not only on religious ideation but as to the other examples of meme transmission she discussed.
Before closing, it's noteworth that there's a definate Daoist feel to her last chapter wherein she renders her advice for taking the "I" out of your consciousness. Though she didn't intend it, it certainly does provide some interesting food for thought as to why attempts at Daoist living have such a...well...Daoist feel to them.
Really Fun!.......2006-12-13
I won't try to describe the book's content as several excellent reviews below have done. I just want to add that this book is one hell of a read. It's great fun and will stretch your mind (if there's really a "you" in there - see the book for more on this). I could barely put it down. Memes were definitely transferred!
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The Study of Human Nature: A Reader
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Book Description
Now in a new edition, this exceptional anthology provides an introduction to a wide variety of views on human nature. Drawing from diverse cultures over three millennia, Leslie Stevenson has chosen selections ranging from ancient religious texts to contemporary theories based on evolutionary science. An ideal companion to the editor's recent book, Ten Theories of Human Nature, 3/e (OUP, 1998), this interdisciplinary reader can also be used independently. The Study of Human Nature, 2/e offers substantial selections illustrating the ten perspectives discussed in Ten Theories of Human Nature, 3/e--The Bible, Hinduism, Confucianism, Plato, Kant, Marx, Freud, Sartre, B.F. Skinner's behaviorism, and Konrad Lorenz's ethological diagnosis of human aggression. The Islamic tradition is represented by a selection from the 20th-century Iranian philosopher Ayatullah Murtaza Mutahhari. The 17th- and 18th-century philosophers Descartes, Hobbes, Hume, Rousseau, and Kant are also represented. Selections from Rousseau, J.S. Mill, and Nancy Holmstrom discuss alleged differences between women and men, and a paper by Henry Bracken deals with racial issues. Examples from E.O. Wilson's sociobiology and his critics are also included, together with material from Chomsky and from recent evolutionary psychology. This new edition includes more substantial selections from the Hindu, Confucian, and Christian traditions and provides more accessible extracts from Marx, Sartre, and Lorenz. An excellent reader for introductory courses in philosophy, religious studies, human nature, and intellectual history, The Study of Human Nature, 2/e, is also an essential resource for anyone interested in ancient, modern, and contemporary perspectives on human nature.
Customer Reviews:
Must Have.......2000-04-27
This fascinating book consist on a compilation of the best writing on the subject of what is to be human. Since the books included here are the bible , other sacred books, Decarte, etc, it is absurd to rate the writer's talents. They have been established a long time ago. Therefore all merit goes to the editor who has done a briliant job selecting what was worth showing.
Book Description
In this thoroughly rewritten, newly illustrated edition of his classic work, The White Hole In Time, Peter Russell powerfully demonstrates the need for a spiritual renaissance in the face of the dangers of ever-accelerating change. Here is an extraordinary vision for the new millennium, one that integrates the evolving nature of civilization with humanity's timeless quest for harmony and inner peace.
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Another Gem.......2005-01-09
Along with "From Science To God" Mr Russell establishes himself as one of the masters of spiritual reawakening. Although this piece has more doomsday in it than his later work, it has the same hopeful message and the same readability.
In both books Mr Russell never seems to lose the reader in scientific mumbo jumbo, even when discussing very complicated subjects. That isn't a statement on his intelligence or research, but rather on his ability to communicate on all levels. Neither does he offend when he deals with the spiritual aspects of his writings. In short everyone can sit around his table (well, almost everyone).
Read'em twice.
PARADIGM-SHIFITING/LIFE-CHANGING EXPERIENCE!.......2003-06-22
I love this book so much that I have already bought 3 and still planning to buy more to give out to my friends. This book combines science and spirituality so beautifully. What he describes in this book make logical sense. I have never been a believer of "God" in a form of superior being. And I have never been comfortable with organized religion. This book really confirmed and went further into the world of "consciousness." HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
A rare masterpiece.......2000-04-26
This book is one of those rare books that stays with me long after I've read it. I find myself frequently referring to it in conversations about how fast things seem to be changing these days. I was moved by the wisdom I gleaned in these melodic passages -- and impressed at how Russell can convey such intense feeling and truth in so few words. Difficult and challenging issues are presented and discussed with clarity that provides just the right amount of tension, just as the most beautiful music creates moments of stress which are then relieved with passages of exceptional grace. Rare is the book that can aim to briefly summarize such topics as Materialism, Fear, Stress, Enlightenment, Meditation and Love... and succeed to touch one's heart, mind and soul so completely without ever hitting a sour note. I give this masterpiece of a book my highest recommendation for anyone interested in discovering what they can do to make their life (and life for all of us) the very best it can be.
Heaven Or Hell?.......2000-03-24
Are we hurtling toward heaven or hell? Russell leaves both possibilities open. We may be accelerating ourselves toward annihilation or toward the climax of evolution. The answer is within us. It will be our success or failure to develop inwardly that will determine which path we take. Russell writes short, pithy chapters that will move you from exhiliration to despair. This book will have you thinking, and probably differently than you did before you read it.
Unfolding Possibilities for Humankind.......1999-05-07
In his latest book, Peter Russell again lights the way for his readers to envision the "big picture" and the part we all play in our own, and in a global evolution. He looks at societal transformation, at the covergence of knowledge from various, even seemingly unrelated disciplines such as physics, theology, business, biology, cosmolgy and systems theory, and the notion that just as we reach "critical mass" in, let's say the world of consumerism, the same occurs with human belief systems __and this emerging consciousness can change the way society views its own capability and destiny.
We are all looking to inspire greatness __in our organizations, communities, families __and in our own lives. Russell shares *information* and the wisdom gleaned from a path he has walked with integrity to help his readers discover breakthrough opportunities. jn
Book Description
The fullest expression of the distinguished French philosopher's ideas about the meaning of life. In propounding his distinctive theory of evolution, Bergson considers nature and intelligence, examines mechanisms of thought and illusion, and presents a criticism of philosophical systems from those of the ancients to those of his 19th-century contemporaries.
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Recommended for fans of Rupert Sheldrake's theories.......2007-08-13
Bergson's thesis is that Darwinian and Lamarkian evolution are only half the story and that there is a creative urge inherent in life that defines the direction of evolution. It is distinguished from Creationism in that his system does not posit and eschaton or final perfect form, nor an external agent (God).
It has some similarity with biologist Rupert Sheldrake's theory of morphic fields. In his theory, there is an energy field (as yet undetected by modern physics) that controls the shape of organic molecules, i.e., one protein is shaped one way and the same collection of atoms gets shaped another way under the same pH and temperature.
Aldous Huxley mentions Bergson's theory of consciousness several times in his writings. Bergson thinks that consciousness pervades everything, and that intellect serves as a filter that presents only what is comprehensible to mental categories. This has several implications. One is the possibility for a monistic metaphysic. The other is that it leaves open the possibility of perceiving an alternate reality (what excited Huxley).
Chapter 3 is about his metaphysics, which are not very clearly expressed. There appear to be avenues unexplored by him. What are the consequences of matter being infused with consciousness? Magic? Why is it that intellect and geometrical thinking is what produces objects in perception? What is the mechanism.
What does have value is his theory that chaos is not the absence of repeatability, but is a stochastic process that can be understood as an aggregate of individual "wills." This is used to support his vital theory of evolution. That each organism "wills" its variation in seemingly random fashion, but at a higher order, it produces the regularity of genera.
Chapter 4 is a critique of various philosophic systems after establishing his "cinematographic" theory of perception. His basic point is that matter is in continual flux, yet we are only able to perceive it as a sequence of discrete states, hence the illusion of permanence.
inspiring.......2005-12-23
this book is beautifully written, which is only fitting given the beautiful ideas contained within. philosophy that tries to find meaning in life rather than complicate it.
A work of monumental importance.......2005-12-20
Creative Evolution is not so much a work, but a milestone in print of a new direction of thought. It is a book that is of immense importance to anyone who wants to understand the mystery of humanity.
From Miller to Ibsen.......2001-01-14
I first came across Ibsen's monumental work when reading 'Tropic of Capricorn' by Henry Miller. Despite my complete lack of evolutionary and biological knowledge, I found Ibsen's eschatology mind blowing. Several times I was forced to leave the book for days in order to fully contemplate the philosophical ramifications of his insights. From this great stride forward into the fringes of human understanding Ibsen states: 'A conduct that is truly our own, on the contrary, is that of a will which does not try to counterfeit intellect, and which, remaining itself - that is to say, evolving - ripens gradually into acts which the intellect will be able to resolve indefinitely into intelligible elements without ever reaching its goal. The free act is incommensurable with the idea, and its "rationality" must be defined by this very incommensurability, which admits the discovery of much intelligibility within it as we will. Such is the character of our own evolution; and such also, without doubt, that of the evolution of life." No one, despite their educational backgrounds or lack thereof, should feel intimidated by the possibility of transcending one's very own intellect.
the opus of the advocate of vitality...........2000-05-17
Despite Lord Russell's criticism that "intuition works best in bats, bees, and Bergson," in this work Bergson not only finishes the uprooting of the Western and Platonic disembodied intellect (a deconstruction taken only so far by Kant), he presents us with the spectacle of unbridled life creatively shaping, not only its world, but itself in accord with its own telos: the need for eyesight creating the eye, so to speak. Difficult in places but a treasure, although one could wish he gave more credit to Nietzsche's obviously great impact on him. Jungians would do well to peruse Bergson too.
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Grow or Die: The Unifying Principle of Transformation
George T. Ainsworth-Land
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- Personally I found this brilliant beyond words - but I'll try
- Highly recommended
- Good ideas but buried in the past and ignores biology
- For all who have undertaken the search...
- Uses alot of "buzz" words to give you a mind buzz...
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Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution, Second Edition
Ken Wilber
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ASIN: 1570627444
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Book Description
In this tour de force of scholarship and vision, Ken Wilber traces the course of evolution from matter to life to mind and describes the common patterns that evolution takes in all three of these domains. From the emergence of mind, he traces the evolution of human consciousness through its major stages of growth and development. He particularly focuses on modernity and postmodernity: what they mean; how they impact gender issues, psychotherapy, ecological concerns, and various liberation movements; and how the modern and postmodern world conceive of Spirit. This second edition features forty pages of new material, new diagrams, and extensively revised notes.
Customer Reviews:
Personally I found this brilliant beyond words - but I'll try.......2006-11-11
We all love it when a book comes along that shatters our world apart, in the best sense, and provides meaning a coherence where there was only confusion and a lack of ability to articulate our experience of the world.
Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, by Ken Wilber, is such a book for me. More than any book I have ever read this book has changed my life profoundly, and certainly for the better.
There's no doubt that this is an intimidating read, over 800 pages and a fair portion of them are technical endnotes. However, even without the endnotes, I have to disagree with the editorial reviewers, that the contents of the book are confusing. Far from frustrated, I was in fact delighted at the extraordinary amount of synthesis in this work, and while he has been criticised for his use of sweeping overgeneralisation (although he explicitly states that his approach uses broad orienting generalisations), no one has come out with a better set of generalisations and metatheoria to replace the ones he outlines here, and in subsequent books.
Wilber begins by looking at the state of the world in terms of the physical sciences, which somehow see the world as both winding up and down and how we can believably put together a theory (or metatheory - a theory of theories) that embraces the main orienting generalisations from the main areas of human enquiry AS WELL AS, and this is the important part, putting it into an evolutionary, developmental context that explicitly takes account of higher states of consciousness than just rational (Western, rational, reasonable mind that is the basis of Western society, mostly), into the transrational and the genuinely mystical or spiritual stages. If the second part of that sentence just put you off the book, well so be it, but the main reason for my love of this book is that it quietly tries to best explain how genuine spirituality (higher spiritual states and stages) can be logically, or we may so translogically, incorporated into what we know of the world through science and the various other knowledge disciplines - the humanities, systems theory, phenomenology, hermeneutics etc. That is, that spirit transcends and includes atoms, molecules, cells, theories, concepts, systems, institutions, dogma, religious traditions, etc, etc.
In the process he conceives of what he calls the four quadrants (the inner and outer perspective of the individual and collective) and outlines in some detail the nature of the basic unit of the universe as being a holon (a whole which is also part of a larger whole), which have become a major part of the increasingly popular and widely-used Integral model, aka AQAL (All Quadrants, All Levels, All Lines, All States, All Types).
Along the way - hence the book title - he looks at how this new conception of reality would influence our approach to gender/feminism and ecology and in both cases, I think, his insights are extraordinary and both of these have seriously refocussed my whole view of the world.
For those of you who are interested in genuine transcendental spirituality in whatever form, you may just find this book an excellent antidote to the serious anti-intellectualism that is rife in spiritual circles, and may even find that these ideas form a kind of reorienting contextual framework in which a healthy spirituality can exist alongside every other thing in the kosmos.
Highly recommended.......2005-05-09
There is no question that Ken Wilber is a brilliant person who, although it is "his" vision, has a great vision for humanity. His intentions for the most part are very sincere and his ability to integrate such vast amounts of literature is unsurpassed. Most readers will agree that this is Wilber's most comprehensive work to date. If you have ample knowledge in the field of philosophy, spirituality, psychology, sociology, biology, physics etc, this book is certainly worth reading and the ideas put forth in this book are well worth contemplating. The only thing I didn't like too much about this book is that his writing is too one-sided. There is a place for these kinds of people who push for change with strong and convincing arguments. They serve as catalysts for social change in history. However, he seems so caught up in convincing the readers of his worldview that it actually takes away from his story. When people are truly confident in their views they usually are not so motivated to convince others to agree with them. The fact that other people may disagree or may not understand is also understandable to them. Despite this, I believe this book is a one of the best attempts to integrate many topics into one framework. Another absolutely fabulous book that does this on a small scale mostly in the field of psychology is Toru Sato's "Ever-Transcending Spirit". In contrast to "Sex, Ecology and Spirituality" it is actually readable for almost anyone without any expert background knowledge. In some ways, it goes beyond Wilber in that Wilber separates the four quadrants and Sato tries to integrate the four quadrants by using everyday experiences that relate to these quadrants and explaining how they go together. It is also an excellent book so I'd highly recommend it too! If you want to understand Wilber though, I found this to be the most satisfying.
Good ideas but buried in the past and ignores biology.......2005-05-05
'Anything that can be said can be said clearly` Ludwig Wittgenstein
`Heaven and Earth are inhumane--they view the myriad creatures as straw dogs` TaoTe Ching
It is both amazing and fitting that this huge, jargon-laden (this book really needs a glossary!), heavily academic work has become a best seller in the world of the educated. One has to be dedicated to learn the jargon and then plow through 551 pages of text and 238 pages of notes. Meanwhile, we are told time and again that this is just an outline of what is to come!
This book and most of its sources are psychology texts, though most of the authors did not realize it. It is about human behavior and reasoning-about why we think and act the way we do and how we might change in the future. But (like all such discussion until recently) none of the explanations are really explanations and so they gave no insight into human behavior. Nobody discusses the mental mechanisms involved. It is like describing how a car works by discussing the steering wheel and metal and paint and the wheels without any knowledge of the engine or drive train. In fact, like most older 'explanations` of behavior, the texts quoted here and the comments by Wilber are often more interesting for what kinds of things they accept (and omit!) as explanations, and the kind of reasoning they use, than for the actual content.
As with all reasoning and explaining one now wants to know which of the brains inference engines are activated to produce the results. It is the relevance filters which determine what sorts of things we can accept as appropriate data for each engine and their automatic and unconscious operation and interaction that determines what we can produce as an answer.
Cognitive and evolutionary psychology are still not evolved enough to provide full explanations but an interesting start has been made. Boyer's `Religion Explained` is a good place to see what a modern scientific explanation of human behavior looks like (though it completely misses enlightenment!). Pinker's `How the mind Works` is a good general survey and his `The Blank Slate` (see my reviews) by far the best discussion of the heredity-environment issue in human behavior. They do not explain all of intelligence or thinking but summarize what is known. See several of the recent texts (ie, 2004 onwards) with evolutionary psychology in the title or the web for further info.
We now recognize that the bases for art, music, math, philosophy, psychology, sociology, language and religion are found in the automatic functioning of templates or inference engines. This is why we can expect similarities and puzzles and inconsistencies or incompleteness and often, dead ends. The brain has no general intelligence but numerous specialized modules, each of which works on certain aspects of some problem and the results are then added, resulting in the feelings which lead to behavior. Wilber, like everyone, can only generate or recognize explanations that are consistent with the operations of his own inference engines, which were evolved to deal with such things as resource accumulation, coalitions in small groups, social exchanges and the evaluation of the intentions of other persons. It is amazing they can produce philosophy and science, and not surprising that figuring out how they work together to produce consciousness or choice or spirituality is way beyond reach.
Wilber is a bookworm and he has spent decades analyzing classic and modern texts. He is extremely bright, has clearly had his own awakening,and also knows the minutiae of Eastern religion as well as anyone. I doubt there are more than a handful in the world who could write this book. However, this is a classic case of being too smart for your own good and his fascination with intellectual history and his ability to read, analyze and write about hundreds of difficult books has bogged him down in the past.
Though he severely criticizes the excesses of the three movements, this is a deconstructive and New Age Mystical and postmodern interpretation of religion, philosophy and the behavioral sciences from a very liberal,spiritual point of view--ie, without the worst of decon, pm and NAM jargon, rabid egalitarianism and antiscientific antiintellectualism. As Boyer points out( p20), when fear and poverty give way to security and wealth, the results of the inference engines change and you find religion changing from appeasement rituals for the powerful gods in a hostile universe to self empowerment and control in a benevolent one (ie, New Age Mysticism).
He analyzes in some detail the various world views of philosophy, psychology, sociology and religion, exposing their fatal reductionistic flaws with (mostly) care and brilliance, but most of the sources he analyzes are of questionable relevance today. They use terminology and concepts that were already outdated when he was researching and writing 15 years ago. One has to slog thru endless pages of jargon -laden discussion of Habermas, Kant, Emerson, Jung et.al. to get to the pearls. He immerses himself in Freud and the psychoanalytic interpretation of dreams (eg, p92), though most now regard these as merely quaint artifacts of intellectual history.
If one is up on philosophy and cognitive and evolutionary psychology, most of this is archaic. Like nearly everyone (scholars and public alike--eg, see my review of Dennett's Freedom Evolves), he does not understand that the basics of religion and ethics-- in fact all human behavior, are programmed into our genes. A revolution in understanding ourselves was taking place while he was writing these books and it largely passed him by.
If one has a good current education, it is doubly painful to read this book (and most writing on human behavior). Painful because it's so tortured and confusing and then again when you realized how simple it is with modern psychology and philosophy. The terminology and ideas are horrifically confused and dated (but less so in Wilber's own analysis than in his sources). We now think in terms of cognitive templates which evolved about 100,000 years ago (in most cases several hundreds of millions of years earlier in their original forms). They operate automatically, are not accessible to consciousness and there is abundant evidence that they severely limit the behaviorial options for individuals and for society. His new preface notes (p XV11)one such study, but the book needs a total rewriting
There is an enormous resistance to accepting ourselves as part of nature and in particular, any gene based explanations of behavior. Like all our thinking, these feelings are due to the operation of the cognitive templates, so perhaps it is the conflict between biological explanations and our automatic intuitive psychology or social mind systems that is responsible. These genetic systems have probably operated for hundreds of thousands of years and the new data from science is telling us the results of their operations (our feelings about what to do)are wrong. There is much interesting work to be done explaining social, economic and political behavior from this new viewpoint.
Some jargon you will need is on pg X of the new preface where you find that the constantly used vision-logic is postformal cognition or network-logic or integral-aperspectival (all points of view are equal and must be considered). He also states the postmodern manifesto here:all views equal, dependent on limitless contexts, and merely interpretations. As he notes in great detail, this puts one on the slippery slope leading to much irrational and incoherent rant and there are very basic flaws in it. Nevertheless it virtually took over US and European universities for several decades and is far from dead. You will also need his definition of eros from p528.
You get a terrific sampling of bad writing, confused and outdated ideas and obsolete jargon. On p52 there is a quote from Jakobson which can be replaced by `the inference engines for psychology and language develop as we mature'; and paragraphs from Jantsch(p58) which say that evolution is evolution and cells are cells and (p71) the environment changes as organisms evolve. There is a quote from Foucault to open Book Two (p327) which, translated from deconstructese, says `knowledge helps to understand the world`. There is a long quote (p60-61) from Rupert Sheldrake which, when it is intelligible at all, says things that translate as 'proteins are proteins' and 'cells are cells'. There are numerous linguistic disasters from Habermas(eg, if you have time to waste, try figuring out the quotes on p77 or 150), but some are actually translatable, such as those on p153-4, which say that people have morals so society has laws and language evolved so society evolved. And lots of this from Wilber himself, as on p109 where he spends most of the page to say most mutations and recombinations fail and the surviviors are compatible with their evirons.
In spite of his acquaintance with Searle's work, he is often confused about consciousness. He says (p117-8) that we can regard whatever we want as conscious, but clearly, once we leave the realm of animals that have eyes and a brain and walk around, it becomes a joke. Likewise he is on very thin ice when discussing our interior and the need to interpret the minds of others. This is very far off the mark if one knows some Searle, Wittgenstein and cognitive psychology. Likwise with the `explanations' of Wolf on p742 which are wrong for the same reasons that 'explanations' of consciousness are wrong. It must be true that mind and spirit are based in physics (at least there is no intelligible alternative) but we don't know how to conceptualize this or even how to recognize such a concept. Many suspect we will never understand this, nor any of the fundamentals of the universe (eg, see my reviews of Kaku and Dennett).
His notes (p129) that cultural studies have made little headway but neither he nor his sources understand that they lacked any framework to do so--usually because they embraced the sterile idea of the blank slate. They want to be factual,even scientific, but they constantly veer off into fantasy. He delineates the integration of art, science and morality as the great task of postmodernism and he and others go to immense lengths to make connections and organize it all into a coherent plan for thinking and living. However, I wonder if it's really sensible or even possible. Life is not a game of chess. Even in the limited realm of art or morality it is not at all clear that there is anything other than that these are parts of human experience which draws them together. One can put paintings and sculpture and clothing and buildings and stick figures in an art book but is this really getting us anywhere? Please see my review of Hofstadter's `Godel, Escher, Bach' for much more on this. Boyer shows in detail how religion is due to a complex of brain systems that serve many different functions which evolved long before there was anything like religion.
The brain has numerous templates that take in data, organize it and relate it realtime to other data, but they each serve a specific purpose and those purposes are not ART, MORALITY, RELIGION, and SCIENCE.
Cognitive psychology shows that we have many modules working simultaneously to produce any behavior and that we relate to people in many ways for many reasons. One basic function is coalitional intuition. This gives us feelings that guide our entrance into groups and our interactions with other groups. We automatically and immediately overestimate the qualities of those in our group even if it's composed of randomly chosen total strangers we met five minutes before. Likewise, we immediately underestimate the good qualities of those in other groups. This and many other automatisms guide and commonly rule individual behavior, groups, nations and the world, but hardly anyone had a real understanding of this until quite recently. So, it is not surprising that almost all of his sources from Plato to Kant to Habermas have been wandering around in the dark and that Wilber is frantically running from one to the other with a flashlight trying to help them find their way out of the woods.
He notes (p199) that the only serious global social movement to date was Marxism but thinks its fatal flaw was reductionism. It seems far more cogent to note that, like virtually all of modern society (and most of his sources and to a significant extent this book), it denied (or ignored or failed to understand) human nature and basic biology. Nobody seems to notice that most social institutions and ideals, ( including equality and democracy)have this same flaw. Debate on human nature, the environment and the future is endless,but reality is an acid that will eat through all fantasy. To paraphrase Lincoln, you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't fool mother nature anytime.
He details intellectual history (philosophy, psychology, religion, ecology, feminism, sociology, etc) and shows where nearly everyone went too far in the direction of Ascent(to the spirit or religious life only) or Descent(to science,materialism, reductionism or Flatland). He trys to show how to heal the rifts by combining sense and soul(spiritual and material life,science and religion, internal and external, individual and social). Everything is related to everything else (holons in holarchies--ie, things in nested hierarchies--see p26,135 for his definition).
The Age of Enlightenment denied the the spirit, the individual and the interior life but developed art, morals and science and led to democracy, feminism, equality and ecology. This reductionism compressed the intellect and the spirit into the Flatland of science, rationality and materialism. He sees the loss of the spiritual point of view with the Age of Enlightenment as the major factor responsible for the malaise of modern times, but `true spirituality` or `advanced religion`--my terms--(ie., the quest for enlightenment), as opposed to `primitive religion`(everything else-see Boyer) was always rare. It is advanced religion he sees as the panacea, but it is primitive religion that the masses understand, and it too has only materialistic goals(money, power and all else serving to replicate genes).
He understands that Jesus was a mystic in the same sense as Buddha and many others, and that what was to become the Catholic church largely destroyed his mystical aspects(personal search for enlightenment) in favor of primitive religion, priests, tithes and a structure seemingly modeled on the Roman army ( p363). But, for the early Christian church,as for most religion, the cognitive templates were servants of the genes and enlightenment was not on the menu. Jesus was not a Christian, he had no bible (that we know of) and he did not believe in a god any more than did Buddha. We have Christianity without the real intelligence of Jesus and this, as he explains in detail, is one cause of the West's extended stay in Flatland. I am not a Christian nor even a theist but it is one of the saddest things in history that the enlightened master who was to serve as the model of spirituality for the West had his vision of personal enlightenment destroyed and distorted by his own followers (but of course they are not really HIS followers).
Though he has read some of John Searle's superb philosophy,and has passing references to research in cognitive psychology, it is amazing that he could do 20 years research in philosophy without studying Wittgenstein, religion without reading Osho and psychology without Buss, Tooby, Cosmides et al. Much of cognitive and evolutionary psychology was only published in journals at the time he was writing and Wilber has almost no references to journals. But , Wittgenstein is the most famous philosopher of modern times and Osho the most famous spiritual teacher. It is remarkable that although he spends much time in his books discussing the intellectual aspects of therapy (Freud, Beck, Maslow etc) and clearly understands that the spiritual path is the ultimate therapy, he totally ignores Osho, who had the most advanced therapeutic community in history functioning worldwide for the last 30 years. Osho never wrote a thick book containing a theory of human behavior, though his 200 books and many DVD's explain it as beautifully and clearly as has ever been done.
Though he tries hard to heal the world, Wilber spends too much time in the airy realms of intellectual debate. As a postmodernist, and holist new age mystic, he wants to unite art, morality and science, but science gets the short straw. As in some of his other books (eg, A Brief History of Everything-see my review), by far the worst mistakes he makes(along with nearly all his sources and most of the planet) are ignoring and misunderstanding basic biology. This is apparent thoughout the book. He starts chapter 7 with a quote from Aurobindo, who had the same failing. They have no grasp of the fact that the eugenic effects of evolution are driven by natural selection and when society became firmly established, this ceased and it's been totally dysgenic ever since. Genetic engineers have been at work and they have released on a helpless world the most horrifically destructive mutant imaginable. Society is the engineer and we are that mutant. If one gets the big picture, preoccupation with the possible destructive effects of GMOs (genetically modified organisms)-- other than ourselves-- is simply stupid and is perhaps a result of the operation of the contagion templates discussed by Boyer. That is, the potential destructive effect of all the GMOs we will ever make is unlikely to approach what humans have already done themselves.
He says (p 508, p519)that Darwin does not explain evolution, supposedly well known before him, and accuses him of `massive obscurantism'(he should be saying this about most of his sources!) . The truth is that nothing in human behaviour or the world or the universe makes sense except in the light of evolution and no person did more to make this clear than Darwin. The work before him was little more than idle speculation and did not even approach a serious scientific treatment. This is why it had NO EFFECT on science or society. Of course Darwin did not know genetics nor plate tectonics,and modern Neodarwinism adds many refinements, but it shows a total misunderstanding of science and history to say that this invalidates or diminishes his contributions. Wilber is clearly sliding sideways into the Creationist camp and one can only speculate as to which of his inference engines produce this. He shows in many places that he has a poor grasp of genetics and evolution. Eg., on p561--as Dawkins has so patiently explained, the unit of evolution is the gene, and none of the other things Wilber mentions work as a genetic unit. Though he lists `The Selfish Gene` in his bibliography, it's clear he has not understood it, and it's 30 years old. Dawkins has written half a dozen superb works since and there are hundreds of others.
Wilber seems to have an allergy to good biology books--most of those he quotes are very old and others are classics of confusion. He wastes a page (p51) on the idea (mostly due to Gould and Eldredge) of punctuated evolution, which is likely of no interest. Gould loved to make a big fuss about his `discoveries` and his energy got him alot of airtime, but when all was said and done, he had nothing new to say and dragged millions into his own confusions (as Dawkins,Conway Morris and many others have noted). Yes, evolution is sometimes faster but so what? Sometimes it rains a little, sometimes a lot. If you zoom in, in time or space, you always see more detail, and if you zoom out it starts to look the same. Gould was also responsible for the `spandrels of San Marcos` debacle and, with his Marxist colleagues Lewontin and Rose, for endless insipid attacks on `determinist biology`, including the scandalous verbal and physical assaults on E.O Wilson (who, unlike themselves, made numerous major contributions to biology). Modern research(eg, see Pinker and Boyer) makes it clear that Wilson was right on the money.
It is quite careless to say (p775) that there is no single pregiven world. Perhaps he only means we ought to be multicultural,egalitarian etc., but if there really were none,then how can we live and communicate? This is the ugliness of postmodernism creeping in. A large dose of Wittgenstein and cognitive psychology is an appropriate cure. Neither Wilber nor Derrida nor Foucault ( nor most people)understand that there MUST be a single point of view or life would be impossible. This single point of view, resident in our genes, is integral to how we think and behave and largely dictates the vagaries of philosophy, politics and religion. The cognitive templates that underlie language, thought and our perception of reality logically must be the same and the evidence for this is overwhelming. Even the smallest changes, a few genes gone wrong, and you have autism, imbecility or schizophrenia.
The brute fact that Wilber (and most of the world) largely ignores, is that there are 6 billion sets of selfish genes carrying out their programs to destroy the earth. They are an acid that will eat through any intellectual conclusions, egalitarian fanatasies and spiritual rebirths. Selfishness, dishonesty, tribalism and shortsightedness are not due to accidents of intellectual or spiritual history. He says that the lack of spirit is destroying the earth, and though there is this aspect to things, it is much more to the point to say that it is selfish genes that are responsible. Likewise, he says `Biology is no longer Destiny`, but it is an easily defensible point of view that the reverse is far more likely. The attempt to understand history in terms of ideas ignores biology and denies human nature. Selfish genes always live in Flatland and less than 1000 people in all of human history have escaped the tyranny of the monkey mind into enlightenment.
Most of chapter 6 on myth and magic is outdated, confused or just wrong. To give just a few examples, we now understand that most of a child's psychological and social development is built in and does not have to be learned (eg, pg 233-4). The child does not have to deconstruct anything--the inferences engines do it all (p260). Joseph Campbell is quoted extensively and he too was clueless about how we develop and how to explain the differences and similarities in cultures (p245-50). Eg, Campbell says mythology can only lay claim to childhood, but a look around the world shows how false this is and a reading of Boyer tells why. His discussion of thinking about the nonfactual on pg 279 to 80 is now referred to as running the inference engines in decoupled mode. To his contorted comments in the middle of pg 560 (and finally....) I want to say `explanation ends with the templates! . P580-4 and 591-3 are so full of dubious and plain wrong statements I don't even want to begin but suggest that Wilber and the reader start with Searle's `The Mystery of Consciousness`. Time and again it is clear he shares the lack of a scientific viewpoint with most of his sources. What info or procedures can solve the questions of consciousness or of any social science and philosophical theories? How do you recognize an answer when you see it? He and they go on for pages and whole books without ever having any idea(eg, see my review of Dennett's Freedom Evolves).
On p702- bottom- he talks about the fulcrum driving development but if one understand templates (and I mean here and elsewhere the entire corpus of cognitive and evolutionary psychology) then one either needs to rewrite this or eliminate it. Ditto for most of pgs 770-77. The tortured prose on pg 771-2 is only saying that the templates are probed by drugs or other input but not changed and that nobody knows (in a way they can clearly convey) what these are. The background or intersubjective worldspace is the templates and they develop very early in children and then stay fixed for life. The deliberate destruction of Jesus` mysticism has created a powerful bias against higher consciousness in the West. Though he does not understand or discuss enlightenment, Boyer gives the basis for understanding how and why this happened.
Wilber embraces a simple utilitarianism (greatest good for greatest number)--ie, the greatest depth for he greatest span (p334). This basic principle of much philosophy, religion and economics has serious problems and is probably unworkable. Which people should we make happy and how happy and when (ie, now or in the future)? On what basis do we distribute resources now and how much do we save for the future population, and who decides and how to enforce this? He calls upon our Basic Moral Intuition (ie, the operation of our templates, as we now know), but our BMI is not really to help others but to help ourselves, and the few thousand (or let's be very optomistic and say few million) who are spritually advanced do not run the world and never will. The BMI-- eg, social exchange, coalitional intuitions, intuitive psychology, etc, evolved to serve our own interests (not those of the group--if, like Wilber, you think this way please read some of Dawkin's books) and in any case is hopelessly at sea in the modern world with it's advanced education, instant communications, firearms, mood altering drugs, clothes and cosmetics, a huge and mobile population and vanishing resources.
Instead of the intellectual or spiritual approach Wilber takes to history, others take ecological,genetic or technogical approaches (eg,Diamonds 'Guns, Germs and Steel' or Pinkers 'The Blank Slate'). In the long run, it appears that only biology really matters and we see daily how overpopulation is overwhelming all attempts to civilize the masses. The democracy and equality which Wilber values so highly are means created by selfish genes to facilitate their destruction of the planet. In spite of the hope that a new age is dawning and we will see the biological and psychic evolution of a new human, the fact is that we are the most degenerate species there ever was and the planet is nearing collapse. The billions of years of eugenics (natural selection) that thrust life up out of the slime and gave us the amazing ability to write and read books like this is now over. There is no longer selection for the healthier and more intelligent and in fact they produce a smaller percentage of the children every year. Nature does not tolerate physical and mental aberrations but society encourages them. Our physical and mental peak was probably CroMagnon man or maybe even Neanderthals (who had larger brains-yes I know they seem not to have been our ancestors) about 100,000 years ago. It seems plausible that only genetic engineering and an enlightened oligarchy can save us.
He thinks (eg, p12 etc.) that it is our fractured world view(ie, denial of the spirit) that is responsible for our ecological catastrophes and preoccupation with material goods but this is another example of the denial of human nature. Nobody views heart conditions or Alzheimer disease as due to a fractured world view, but few seem to have any problem thinking you can change the fundamentals of behavior just by education or psychological manipulation. Modern science refutes this view conclusively (see Pinker, Boyer etc). The intuitive psychology templates tell us that we can manipulate the behavior of others, but these templates were evolved hundreds of thousands of years ago, and they often fail to give correct results in modern contexts. Nearly every parent thinks they can profoundly influence the adult character (patience, honesty, irritability, depression, persistence, compulsiveness etc.) of their children in spite of clear evidence to the contrary (eg,Pinker).
Wilber defends Piaget, but like him he shows many places that he does not understand that the child does not have to learn the important things--they are built in and it only has to grow up. There seems to be no evidence that any of our templates change with time. The things that we learn are mostly trivial in comparison(ie, even a computer can learn them!).
His sources are mostly lost in confusion and jargon but he is brilliant and if one bothers to read his explanations and translate Wilberspeak into English, it usually makes sense. On pg 545- 7 he explains holonic ecology. Here is a translation. All organisms have value in themselves and are related to all others in the ecosystem and we must wake up spiritually. There is a web of life(ie, Gaia or ecosystem) and all have intrinsic value but higher organisms have more value, which requires a spiritual point of view. Neither the spiritual or scientific approach works alone(ie, dualism is bad). Translated, it loses most of it's appeal but it is not fair to deny the poetry and majesty of his vision. But this does not excuse him from writing clearly. Opacity is a nearly universal characteristic of the books he treats here. However, when Katz wrote a book denigrating mysticism Wilber took the time to do a `Searleian` analysis to show how incoherence has passed for scholarship (p629-31). Unfortunately, he does not continue this throughout the book and uses the jargon-laden incoherence of Habermas and others to explain other vague or incoherent texts.
In the USA, fundamentalist Christians and the Republican party are now the most powerful single force for planetary destruction. They are against population control and for environmental devastation in order to maximize the number and resource use of their genes. This was a rational strategy when it was fixed in the genes but it is suicidal now. The spiritual rebirth he talks about is not that of born again Christians.
His view is that it is the poor and ignorant who are the major environmental problem and that this is somehow due to our Flatland approach, so if we just wake up, get spritual and help them out this will solve it. However, the rich destroy as much as 20 times more than the poor per capita and the third world will only pass the first in C02 production about 2025. Everyone is part of the problem and if one does the math (vanishing resources divided by increasing population) it's clear that a drastic reduction in population is necessary. Like so many, he suggests living lightly on the earth, but to live (and above all, to reproduce), is to do harm and if reproduction remains a right then it's hard to see any hope for the future. As is politically correct, he emphasizes rights and says little about responsibilities. It is a reasonable view that if society is to accept anyone as human, they must take responsibility for the world and this must take precedence over their personal needs. It is unlikely that any government will implement this, and equally unlikely that the world will continue to be a place any civilized person will wish to live in
For all who have undertaken the search..........2005-04-26
If you have come of age and decided that no one tradition can claim a monopoly on absolute truth, you will find yourself in a real conundrum. You will be faced with thousands of years of unfolding history, philosophy, science, and knowledge. You will be faced with billions of years of unfolding existence. Thanks to this book, you will not have to face it alone.
Sex, Ecology, Spirituality is a true masterpiece of unification, synthesis, and brilliance written by America's most enlightened philosopher. Ken Wilber wrote his first major work at the age of 23 and has since written nearly 20 books addressing the pressing issues of the body, spirit, and mind. This book stands as a masterwork, laying out in detail a development framework for understanding the unfolding evolution of life, society, human development, and spirituality. Wilber's Brief History of Everything covers much of the same territory in less detail, but in a more accessible format.
Those who refuse to close their minds to the wisdom of the traditions and the science of the world, but would hope to have a framework to comprehend without deriding others will find in this book something truly remarkable.
Who is right Freud or the Buddah? Who is right science or religion? Wilber's work allows the reader to respect and regard the work of all those in the history of mankind who chose not to live unexamined lives.
I would recommend Wilber's "A Brief History of Everything" as an introduction. If you find something wonderful there, take up the challend of "Sex Ecology Spirituality". Wilber's work is a gift to mankind.
Uses alot of "buzz" words to give you a mind buzz..........2005-04-24
The author should have called this book "just say it would ya'". In my opinion Wilber mixes a little too much too quickly. Ya know? Come on man... He is the ultimate psychologist who has no patients or patience. I like his stuff a whole lot, but if he had a set he would take his brilliant left/right brain little conversation and start applying it to the real world. Let me explain what I mean. Take one thing that went wrong with modernism (an actual thing(a real person with a neurosis or an organization with a problem) not just a virtual/historical idea from a book shelf). Now reconstruct how the development and misdevelopment of that one entity/error went wrong with respect to the Wilberian ultimate worldview map in painstaking detail. This is what Wilber basically does, but only in terms of other ideas- not in concrete reality. He does not need his newly formed integral institute to do that, just a little more committment to doing good work... And a little less of a penchant for passive aggressive world domination.... If Wilber ultimately want to influence someone then he needs to give up his dream of the ultimate discourse and start getting real!
Book Description
When the whole is greater than the sum of the parts--indeed, so great that the sum far transcends the parts and represents something utterly new and different--we call that phenomenon emergence. When the chemicals diffusing in the primordial waters came together to form the first living cell, that was emergence. When the activities of the neurons in the brain result in mind, that too is emergence. In The Emergence of Everything, one of the leading scientists involved in the study of complexity, Harold J. Morowitz, takes us on a sweeping tour of the universe, a tour with 28 stops, each one highlighting a particularly important moment of emergence. For instance, Morowitz illuminates the emergence of the stars, the birth of the elements and of the periodic table, and the appearance of solar systems and planets. We look at the emergence of living cells, animals, vertebrates, reptiles, and mammals, leading to the great apes and the appearance of humanity. He also examines tool making, the evolution of language, the invention of agriculture and technology, and the birth of cities. And as he offers these insights into the evolutionary unfolding of our universe, our solar system, and life itself, Morowitz also seeks out the nature of God in the emergent universe, the God posited by Spinoza, Bruno, and Einstein, a God Morowitz argues we can know through a study of the laws of nature. Written by one of our wisest scientists, The Emergence of Everything offers a fascinating new way to look at the universe and the natural world, and it makes an important contribution to the dialogue between science and religion.
Customer Reviews:
"Emergence" explained and applied.......2007-06-20
This is a splendid book which will be accessible to readers with relatively moderate technical and scientific background. Morowitz was a professor at Yale, now at George Mason U. in Virginia. An emergence occurs when something unexpected and unpredictable occurs out of a stable substrate condition or state. It is a "wow" moment. Morowitz's research has focussed on "emergence of metabolism" which is one of the topics in the book. The author proposes 28 "steps" or "emergences" beginning with the Big Bang and ending with the anticipated emergence of "spirituality" in the human consciousness. The middle fifteen or so "emergences" relate to "life." It becomes clear that the process of going from "no life" to "life" involved a series of emergences, each so remarkable in itself that their concatenation seems incredible. Indeed, proponents of "intelligent" design by a superior being may find support here for their views. However, the author's reasoning and speculations are based on a broad understanding of both physical and life processes and the resulting story is quite persuasive that the complexity of nature can have arisen spontaneously given the passage of enough time.
Religion and social politics aside..........2006-04-17
this book is a great read. Adoption of any religious/spiritual/philosophical-social aspect, of course, is not completely irrelevant to a treatise, but neither 
Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World
Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life
About Time: Einstein's Unfinished Revolution
God and the New Physics
The Last Three Minutes: Conjectures About the Ultimate Fate of the Universe (Science Masters Series)
