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Pro Evolution - Guideline For An Age Of Joy
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 22, 2021
I found this book while organizing our home library. No idea how I ended up with it or where it came from. I hope past Jeff didn't spend money on it.
The author claims that the book "sets forth a new view of the world and of life" and "presents a new guideline for human thought and action". He refers to the harmony of the behavior of energy forms (life) as "pro-evolution-ness" (pro-evo) and, vice-versa, "anti-evolution" is the obstructing of cosmic evolution based on negative thoughts and actions. It feels very new-agey, and to bring it down to earth there are a number of quotes thrown in here and there from the likes of Julian Huxley and Lao Tzu and references to the works of Einstein, Heisenberg, Plato, and many other well know scientists and philosophers.
This feels like someone's woo-ey interpretation of an ethical system which isn't that different from any other. Follow your conscience, be a good person, do the right thing. Nothing new, just new terminology. Most of the book was very skim-worthy with just quick hits on a number of different subjects.
The blubs on the back of the book are questionable:
"The author should make the book available everywhere-so many people would be helped." - A large country's institution for press, books, films, television, and radio.
What?!
"The book may be a catalyst for the process of human renewal." - Dr. H.D.W., physics.
"The principle to guide human thought and action is convincing." - P.H., Chinese scientist
No names given on all seven blurbs. You can't make this stuff up! Or can you?
The author claims that the book "sets forth a new view of the world and of life" and "presents a new guideline for human thought and action". He refers to the harmony of the behavior of energy forms (life) as "pro-evolution-ness" (pro-evo) and, vice-versa, "anti-evolution" is the obstructing of cosmic evolution based on negative thoughts and actions. It feels very new-agey, and to bring it down to earth there are a number of quotes thrown in here and there from the likes of Julian Huxley and Lao Tzu and references to the works of Einstein, Heisenberg, Plato, and many other well know scientists and philosophers.
This feels like someone's woo-ey interpretation of an ethical system which isn't that different from any other. Follow your conscience, be a good person, do the right thing. Nothing new, just new terminology. Most of the book was very skim-worthy with just quick hits on a number of different subjects.
The blubs on the back of the book are questionable:
"The author should make the book available everywhere-so many people would be helped." - A large country's institution for press, books, films, television, and radio.
What?!
"The book may be a catalyst for the process of human renewal." - Dr. H.D.W., physics.
"The principle to guide human thought and action is convincing." - P.H., Chinese scientist
No names given on all seven blurbs. You can't make this stuff up! Or can you?
December 12, 2009
Although the obscure author attempts to outline the simplicity of existence, and how energy can coallesce into conscious beings, given the right factors in play (not just by chance) it does little in the way of altering one's perceptions of the universe at large. At least for me, anyways.
I advocate a similar philosophy, but I believe that there is no need for anyone to change their mind about anything. You can believe whatever you want to believe, do what you wish. The reward and punishment does not lie in some other realm. It's all here. With us. Things are the way the are because they are. If there is a God who has segmented everything to His desire, than He is just a being who wishes to shape the energies to suit His fantasy. Existence just is. We happen to be. Even the gods are mortal, and the only immortality we will find is in moments. Those moments last, but we pass right through them. Consciousness is itself limit. Existence doesn't need anything. We do. A being does. If God were ominipotent He wouldn't be conscious. You can't know all. We require something to facilitate the function of consciousness, intelligence, etc.
Therefore, existence is always around, and with eternity, the odds are we keep popping up. But we cannot know all that. We are limited by the magnification of present circumstances. An identity and all their perceptions, and feelings are incidental. People may not like this, but what if this is how it is? People didn't like the fact that someone had figured out the force behind things falling to ground, but whatever name you give it, gravity is just there. It does not require belief to be. Belief does not prove a thing; nor does proof lead to belief. Whatever lives are lived however they are lived, those are their moments. Those are what we cling to. Are brief brush with immortality, every second of every day. Here, there, or elsewhere.
There is no need for a God. There is no facilitator for one. At least not in our universe. All this has come about on its own, without guidance. You would not want there to be a God, because a God means one of us. Not human, but a being. Someone who is fallible, and desires, and has great abilities to manipulate energy, and is subject to consequence, the alchemy of conscious existence. How long do you think any being is going to stay in one mood, on one task. Even a god would get fed up, would intervene and to hell with us. What does an omnipotent being need with us? With anything? What plan could He possibly have that requires anyone to help Him with? All this God stuff is us, here, with what we have experienced, and have shaped in our fantasies. Someone gives shape to a collective feeling, a place to rally around. Fire. We rally around fire, not facts. Though facts are our approximation of what is going on around us. The only significance any of our beliefs and certainties, and institutions and behaviors is in their consequences. How they shape us, with or without our direct manipulation or knowledge. That's what chaos theory tackles. All the variables that we strive to incorporate into our formulas to come up with a solid "prediction" of what is to come. Trends. A forecast. That's all we can do, guess.
Fantasy. That is our connection to the All. A place where magic is possible, where the only give and take is the energy from your body it takes to power your mind. But in those images and stories and fantastic happenings, those dreams, anything can happen without consequence out here. Unless we try to bring that fantasy out here, where it takes far more effort to shape our environment to suit our fancy. That is our limit.
We are forever tempted by the prospects of our imaginations (specific reality), but find plenty of obstacles in our (general) reality. It doesn't always match up, and comes into conflict with others. That is the crux of existing. And consciousness is just one hell of a schizophrenic. We are One. We are Consciousness. There is not, the Other Consciousness. You are either energy that is conscious, aware, able to manipulate with purpose and direction and desire, or you're the chair you're sitting on. Consciousness is imprinted, interweaved, but not everything. All energy has the potential to be anything and everything, but if your conscious, you are readily aware of what you are now. Which in the context of eternity only makes sense in each individual moment, slices of passage we call time. But existence is all at once and forever. It makes no difference. We are difference. We point it out. We require that. We are local, with need for reference. It is only when someone is around to things take shape, have meaning, direction, purpose, consequence. Sorry for rambling on, but this is what I think about and hope to incorporate into a novel one day.
I advocate a similar philosophy, but I believe that there is no need for anyone to change their mind about anything. You can believe whatever you want to believe, do what you wish. The reward and punishment does not lie in some other realm. It's all here. With us. Things are the way the are because they are. If there is a God who has segmented everything to His desire, than He is just a being who wishes to shape the energies to suit His fantasy. Existence just is. We happen to be. Even the gods are mortal, and the only immortality we will find is in moments. Those moments last, but we pass right through them. Consciousness is itself limit. Existence doesn't need anything. We do. A being does. If God were ominipotent He wouldn't be conscious. You can't know all. We require something to facilitate the function of consciousness, intelligence, etc.
Therefore, existence is always around, and with eternity, the odds are we keep popping up. But we cannot know all that. We are limited by the magnification of present circumstances. An identity and all their perceptions, and feelings are incidental. People may not like this, but what if this is how it is? People didn't like the fact that someone had figured out the force behind things falling to ground, but whatever name you give it, gravity is just there. It does not require belief to be. Belief does not prove a thing; nor does proof lead to belief. Whatever lives are lived however they are lived, those are their moments. Those are what we cling to. Are brief brush with immortality, every second of every day. Here, there, or elsewhere.
There is no need for a God. There is no facilitator for one. At least not in our universe. All this has come about on its own, without guidance. You would not want there to be a God, because a God means one of us. Not human, but a being. Someone who is fallible, and desires, and has great abilities to manipulate energy, and is subject to consequence, the alchemy of conscious existence. How long do you think any being is going to stay in one mood, on one task. Even a god would get fed up, would intervene and to hell with us. What does an omnipotent being need with us? With anything? What plan could He possibly have that requires anyone to help Him with? All this God stuff is us, here, with what we have experienced, and have shaped in our fantasies. Someone gives shape to a collective feeling, a place to rally around. Fire. We rally around fire, not facts. Though facts are our approximation of what is going on around us. The only significance any of our beliefs and certainties, and institutions and behaviors is in their consequences. How they shape us, with or without our direct manipulation or knowledge. That's what chaos theory tackles. All the variables that we strive to incorporate into our formulas to come up with a solid "prediction" of what is to come. Trends. A forecast. That's all we can do, guess.
Fantasy. That is our connection to the All. A place where magic is possible, where the only give and take is the energy from your body it takes to power your mind. But in those images and stories and fantastic happenings, those dreams, anything can happen without consequence out here. Unless we try to bring that fantasy out here, where it takes far more effort to shape our environment to suit our fancy. That is our limit.
We are forever tempted by the prospects of our imaginations (specific reality), but find plenty of obstacles in our (general) reality. It doesn't always match up, and comes into conflict with others. That is the crux of existing. And consciousness is just one hell of a schizophrenic. We are One. We are Consciousness. There is not, the Other Consciousness. You are either energy that is conscious, aware, able to manipulate with purpose and direction and desire, or you're the chair you're sitting on. Consciousness is imprinted, interweaved, but not everything. All energy has the potential to be anything and everything, but if your conscious, you are readily aware of what you are now. Which in the context of eternity only makes sense in each individual moment, slices of passage we call time. But existence is all at once and forever. It makes no difference. We are difference. We point it out. We require that. We are local, with need for reference. It is only when someone is around to things take shape, have meaning, direction, purpose, consequence. Sorry for rambling on, but this is what I think about and hope to incorporate into a novel one day.
December 22, 2021
Like some other reviewers, I tripped over this book in my home, and have no idea how it got there. Whether Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, or Pod People from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" snuck in and dropped it off, I'll never know. I'd be inclined to think the last based on the book's vapidity, but it was on my nightstand while I slept, and I don't think I've been changed or replaced.
In short, pure tripe.
A monotonous mixture of pseudo-science, positive thinking (new agey "woo," as some others have termed it), and circular reasoning. Presumes wrongly that evolution has a direction, but builds on that concept to get the not necessarily wrong idea that we are all part of the universe-as-an-organism (Everybody sing, "Kumbaya."), coming to know itself, and should strive to progress "evolution" along that path. There are also intimations of engram-like concepts ("regulatory structures") reminiscent of the pseudo-science Dianetics. (Maybe the book was dropped off by some secretive Scientologists?) Exactly what promotion of "pro-evolution" entails is vague at best. It's what improves the living conditions of the most people and causes the least harm. Pro-evo is good, what is good is pro-evo, pro-evo promotes joy, joyful things are "pro-evo," lather, rinse, repeat.
There's nothing inherently bad about the book's philosophy of "do no harm" and strive for what is best for all, but it is trite.
In short, pure tripe.
A monotonous mixture of pseudo-science, positive thinking (new agey "woo," as some others have termed it), and circular reasoning. Presumes wrongly that evolution has a direction, but builds on that concept to get the not necessarily wrong idea that we are all part of the universe-as-an-organism (Everybody sing, "Kumbaya."), coming to know itself, and should strive to progress "evolution" along that path. There are also intimations of engram-like concepts ("regulatory structures") reminiscent of the pseudo-science Dianetics. (Maybe the book was dropped off by some secretive Scientologists?) Exactly what promotion of "pro-evolution" entails is vague at best. It's what improves the living conditions of the most people and causes the least harm. Pro-evo is good, what is good is pro-evo, pro-evo promotes joy, joyful things are "pro-evo," lather, rinse, repeat.
There's nothing inherently bad about the book's philosophy of "do no harm" and strive for what is best for all, but it is trite.
February 5, 2015
This was in the bathroom (the perfect place for it), so I read it. It started off pretty common sense: (sing along with me) ac-cen-tuate the positive, e-li-minate the negative.... and then it degenerated into woo and further into ludicrously simplistic prescriptions for the betterment of society.
One fascinating gem: people will naturally cure themselves of depression once you explain to them how they're one with the universe.
This is the result of believing that knowledge is gained and problems are solved by sitting and thinking very hard about something, ignoring any pesky real-world facts.
One fascinating gem: people will naturally cure themselves of depression once you explain to them how they're one with the universe.
This is the result of believing that knowledge is gained and problems are solved by sitting and thinking very hard about something, ignoring any pesky real-world facts.
June 3, 2010
Ha, this is awful and rather excellent at the same time. So many wonderfully anonymous quotes on the back of the book:
"What the author has perceived has the character of a natural law." (Dr. W.S., university professor)
Read
September 15, 2008Very interesting literature, I started off doubtful but turned out to agree with much of what it said.
Read
December 15, 2009Good idea overall-
December 22, 2009
This is the worst book I have ever read (and one of the most poorly written). It reads like the philosophy of a 13 year old.
December 17, 2012
What a horrible waste of paper. Best thing to do is toss it down a razor-lined bottomless pit.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews