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HomeShop at BookSurgeBusiness & EconomicsHuman Resources & Personnel ManagementThe Final Paradigm: Tragedy, Religion, Knowledge and Folly in our Neuro-Mechanical Life |
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| Customer Reviews: | | Average Customer Review: ( 2 customer reviews )
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1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
A Clear View of the Past and for the Future Oct 18, 2009
By L. Evans Roth
"Evans Roth"
Eberhardt says we are self reproducing, some what intelligent bio-robots (biobots). What follows looks epoch-making.
By logical necessity, biobots need to have prime directives (instincts) that link with sixty years of ethological research. Also, in order to be intelligent, these directives need to develop a personal "virtual model" of current external reality, including the cultural and technological world in the neocortex of our brains. However, the prime directives remain in the primitive brain.
Neuro-psychological experiments show that consciousness is a "theater" showing what neural networks already have worked out. In this conscious "world within," we experience the virtual model as a "story" (ideology) that we have no choice but to act by, be it right or wrong, good or bad. The result is the bloody confusion that human history has always been.
The good news is that we can acquire the objectively correct model/story to act by. Or at least a story that, while being pre-scientific, can motivate us to act wisely. That is what functional religions of the past have partially achieved. Eberhardt's mechanistic synthesis does find important places for religion and philosophy, which, in the new scientific framework, can lead to a new Objective Humanism. Through this, a positive future for humanity can be envisioned. Also this is the final conclusion of the project of Enlightenment, which could not have been finished before present-day neuroscience had developed.
The second part of the book demonstrates the power of the new synthesis in analyzing religions, mysticism, and most of the leading ideological delusions of the twentieth century. This helps to convince us that western civilization is running on a very wrong and unsustainable track and that a radical change is overdue.
I found this book to be very stimulating. It is useful for individual study and would certainly result in vigorous discussion from a group of readers. Eberhardt has a keen intellect, summarizes years of study and broad reading, and synthesizes a clear view for new directions. Very provocative!
Evans Roth
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
are we using our intelligence? Jan 27, 2009
By Edith Huber
"voracious reader"
The author opens our mind to the startling question: are we using our intelligent autonomy or are we blindly following beliefs we were taught by parents and educators? Drawing on worldwide scientific research of human evolution, the author demonstrates the need for independent thinking. Where does storytelling end and where does independent thinking begin? We come to the startling realization that some of us stagnate when we ought to use our brain power. Our natural instinct might oppose the statements of an iconoclast, but the truth wins. This book should be a "must" in every institute for higher education.
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