Evolution of Consciousness

Evolution of Consciousness - Howard A. Jones PhD I picked this somewhat obscure book from my local library. How it got there I'll never know. The first half of the book is quite good. It's densely packed with information on how the universe and its relation to our consciousness has been perceived by great thinkers. In a Great Course on philosophy the lecturer said that "if Hegel were given a choice he would be buried with Fichte and Aristotle would be buried with his own wife". I love that quote. It's safe to say and from the philosophies this author emphasize, he too would choose one of the Hegelian philosophers to be buried with. The author just seems to assert that there is a holistic interconnected universe (think Hegel, Spinoza or Jung or a 100 others like them). The author does a nice job at eviscerating all revealed religions, but that's just low hanging fruit. I fully agree that the world we live in will be better served if we all have the holistic consciousness and reject the exploitation mindset that he claims Francis Bacon imputed to us. But wanting something and having it be true are separate things.

The second part of the book the author falls way short and seems to enter into woo woo land. There doesn't seem to be a New Age belief he doesn't just accept as is with what I see a total lack of data. I read your book; why did you not give me some data instead of just stating some ones book as proof. NDE (near death experience) by themselves show nothing beyond the fact that the brain behaves weirdly as it's dying. Past live regression is definitely not accepted widely for very legitimate reasons and so on.

Tis a pity. The author wrote a good half of a book and I would have liked a good second half, but I suspect when one enters the land of woo there is no coherence to be had.