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Future Consciousness: The Path to Purposeful Evolution
How do our unique conscious minds reflect and amplify nature’s vast evolutionary process? This book provides a scientifically informed, psychologically holistic approach to understanding and enhancing our future consciousness, serving as a guide for creating a realistic, constructive, and ethical future. Thomas Lombardo reveals how we can flourish in the flow of evolution and create a prosperous future for ourselves, human society and the planet.
835 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 27, 2017
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March 21, 2018
In his latest book, futurist Tom Lombardo explores the question “How can humans best apply our powers of foresight?” Humans are always conscious of the future, and the question “How do we create a good future?” constantly orients human activities on every time scale ranging from “What will I have for breakfast?”, “What should I do?” to “How can things be 50, 100, or 1,000 years from now?” We are all futurists.
Because humans have the opportunity, indeed the responsibility, to embrace our powers of foresight, Lombardo suggests that we dedicate ourselves to “Flourishing in the flow of evolution.” Throughout this big book he draws on the work of a wide-range of reliable researchers, thinkers, and authors to construct his arguments carefully and convincingly. He connects the dots among many psychological processes of the human mind, including emotions, motivations, and activities such as the following: goalsetting, imagination, creativity, developing character virtues, evolving personal narratives, and the journey toward wisdom.
What would happen if new age fantasizing met real world rigor? This book might result. It encompasses the range of possibilities aspired to by starry-eyed new age promoters of woo while adhering to the most rigorous standards of academic research.
We learn about topics including: future consciousness, cosmic consciousness, the evolution of evolution, self-evolution, flourishing, self-control, willpower, character virtues, creativity at the tenuous border of order and chaos, reciprocity, destruction and emergence, paradigms, scenario building, grand narratives, wisdom narratives, affordances of the environment, wise cyborgs, flow, authentic happiness, well-being, thinking about thinking, critical thinking, imagination, learning to learn, deep learning, deep purpose, self-narratives, the evolution of epistemology, and wisdom. We learn about these topics not as poppycock, but as real, rigorously-explored concepts, processes, exercises, and goals we can use to guide us throughout our lives.
On its long journey the book derives many intermediate conclusions including:
• “Heightened future consciousness is essentially the desire and capacity to create the best possible future.”;
• “…a theory of the good future needs to be grounded in a sound theory of reality…”;
• “…we see a creative and transforming reality, rather than a static one”;
• “Evolution provides the best contemporary understanding we have of reality.”;
• “The future is an act of creation and we are all participating in it.”;
• “The basic moral imperative is to contribute to evolution.”;
• “Future consciousness is the engine powering the evolution of evolution within the human mind.”;
• “…we are ‘evolution become conscious of itself’”;
• “Flourishing in the flow of evolution is the good future, and wisdom is the means to create it.”;
• “Well-being is understood as a verb and process, rather than a noun or a static state.”;
• “A central hypothesis presented in this book is that the conscious human mind is an evolutionary phenomenon, showing an ongoing collective developmental history across the ages.”;
• “Wisdom is excellence in creating a good future….”;
• “Humanity needs and should be guided in the future by a wisdom grand narrative.”;
• “The saga of the cosmos is the evolution of evolution and we are evolved expressions of this fundamental process within nature.”;
The book opens with the question “How do we create a good future?” After a wide-ranging exploration of the human condition, a simple answer emerges: We create a good future by developing a core set of character virtues, most notably and centrally wisdom. This may seem simple, but it is not easy.
This important book is well researched, well argued, and well written. Sound arguments based on valid logic and representative evidence are presented with a narrative style resulting in a substantial read. Interesting quotations, excursions through science fiction, and rigorous academic research meld into this readable and authoritative treatment of an important and enduring topic.
Because humans have the opportunity, indeed the responsibility, to embrace our powers of foresight, Lombardo suggests that we dedicate ourselves to “Flourishing in the flow of evolution.” Throughout this big book he draws on the work of a wide-range of reliable researchers, thinkers, and authors to construct his arguments carefully and convincingly. He connects the dots among many psychological processes of the human mind, including emotions, motivations, and activities such as the following: goalsetting, imagination, creativity, developing character virtues, evolving personal narratives, and the journey toward wisdom.
What would happen if new age fantasizing met real world rigor? This book might result. It encompasses the range of possibilities aspired to by starry-eyed new age promoters of woo while adhering to the most rigorous standards of academic research.
We learn about topics including: future consciousness, cosmic consciousness, the evolution of evolution, self-evolution, flourishing, self-control, willpower, character virtues, creativity at the tenuous border of order and chaos, reciprocity, destruction and emergence, paradigms, scenario building, grand narratives, wisdom narratives, affordances of the environment, wise cyborgs, flow, authentic happiness, well-being, thinking about thinking, critical thinking, imagination, learning to learn, deep learning, deep purpose, self-narratives, the evolution of epistemology, and wisdom. We learn about these topics not as poppycock, but as real, rigorously-explored concepts, processes, exercises, and goals we can use to guide us throughout our lives.
On its long journey the book derives many intermediate conclusions including:
• “Heightened future consciousness is essentially the desire and capacity to create the best possible future.”;
• “…a theory of the good future needs to be grounded in a sound theory of reality…”;
• “…we see a creative and transforming reality, rather than a static one”;
• “Evolution provides the best contemporary understanding we have of reality.”;
• “The future is an act of creation and we are all participating in it.”;
• “The basic moral imperative is to contribute to evolution.”;
• “Future consciousness is the engine powering the evolution of evolution within the human mind.”;
• “…we are ‘evolution become conscious of itself’”;
• “Flourishing in the flow of evolution is the good future, and wisdom is the means to create it.”;
• “Well-being is understood as a verb and process, rather than a noun or a static state.”;
• “A central hypothesis presented in this book is that the conscious human mind is an evolutionary phenomenon, showing an ongoing collective developmental history across the ages.”;
• “Wisdom is excellence in creating a good future….”;
• “Humanity needs and should be guided in the future by a wisdom grand narrative.”;
• “The saga of the cosmos is the evolution of evolution and we are evolved expressions of this fundamental process within nature.”;
The book opens with the question “How do we create a good future?” After a wide-ranging exploration of the human condition, a simple answer emerges: We create a good future by developing a core set of character virtues, most notably and centrally wisdom. This may seem simple, but it is not easy.
This important book is well researched, well argued, and well written. Sound arguments based on valid logic and representative evidence are presented with a narrative style resulting in a substantial read. Interesting quotations, excursions through science fiction, and rigorous academic research meld into this readable and authoritative treatment of an important and enduring topic.
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