Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe [Paperback]

 

 

Create your own review

Occasionally a person can read a book that parallels his/her most recent thoughts on a given subject matter. This was such a book for me. The author, in a clear and convincing manner, shows that evolution did not in time create consciousness. Instead, consciousness has always been in existence and was present during the 'big bang'. Being so, this phenomenon leaves us with a series of interesting questions. What was the original level of consciousness? Was it primitive or advanced? Did this consciousness guide the process of evolution itself? Is there an end point that it is aiming towards, or have we already reached it? Other intriguing factors include the anomaly that reality itself is solely created by the presence of an observer, space and time are nothing more than meaningless human guidelines and are simply tools of the mind, the universe, without an observer, would merely exist in an undetermined state of wave probability, the universe is fine-tuned for life because consciousness and life created it that way, and that there is no absolute reality that exists independent of life.

If you want a mind opening text that is easy to read and challenges your 'rock solid' view of particle physics this is the book for you. The answers of the questions of 'why and how' are out there and this book is a step towards finding the final answers to our age old queries.

Robert Lanza, the main author of this book is 54 years old (born the same year as me 1956!) and he certainly isn't dead!! The athiests still squawk about anyone that has the credentials and the superior intellect to challenge the current 'high priests' of science whose world view is so narrow as to almost disqualify them as scientests. A true scientest goes where the truth leads no matter where it goes and not what convention says it SHOULD be!! Dr. Lanza backs all his theories on hard scientific fact and not any religious world view. Quantum physics in particular states emphatically that Lanza's suppositions are correct. Materialist scientests will not accept anything contrary to their limited world view so there really is no point in trying. It's just so refreshing to hear from a veritable genius talk about these things in such a fasinating manner. This book is for the truth seeker who doesn't want to get bogged down by religious dogma. Excellent read

If a tree falls in a forest and you are not there to hear it; does it still make a sound? According to believers in "Biocentrism" the answer is a resounding no, because a forest cannot even exist if consciousness is not there to create it!

The author of this book Robert Lanza died on April 1, 2010 at the age of 93. He originally trained as an MD and spent part of his career working with the famous (or for some people, infamous) psychologist B.F. Skinner before getting involved in stem cell research. According to the blurb on the back cover he "is one of the most respected scientists in the world ... likened to Einstein". This of course is book publishing hyperbole, but there is no question that in this book Lanza does a very good job of describing the many outstanding mysteries and problems in the physical sciences such as the paradoxes in quantum physics, the lack of progress in developing a unified theory, the need for the existence of dark matter in cosmology, the nature of space and time and lastly but most importantly the nature of consciousness. The book was published the year before Lanza died.

Unfortunately it seems to be a fact of life that many scientists grow a bit "Wonky" as they age. This is probably due to the fact that science in many ways is a mild form of schizophrenia. As David Horrobin observes in his book "The Madness of Adam and Eve: How Schizophrenia Shaped Humanity":

"The schizophrenic individual often thinks in ways which at least initially appear incomprehensible to the normal person. Bizarre connections are made ... which to the patient appear rational and crystal clear. The sympathetic and concerned listener may with difficulty be able to discern some logic in the process but the thought patterns are rarely simple or direct. ... While extreme disorders of information are disabling, it does not require too much insight to appreciate that in milder forms these problems may bring creative advantage."

There are numerous examples of this happening in science, especially in those who create interpretations in areas of science outside their particular field of expertise. This is not a bad thing however, as all the sciences develop a sclerosis in their beliefs as they age, and the only way to shake them up is to have heretics like Lanza who question the truth of scientific Gospels. This questioning of belief is the main reason why I rated the book 4 out of 5 stars even though I do not agree with Lanza's explanations of science's mysteries. His descriptions of the conundrums in science are probably the best reasons for reading the book and his short biographical descriptions are especially poignant and certainly created an emotional resonance in my consciousness.

To cut through the Gordian knot posed by all the problems in science, Lanza, using the sword of reason, comes to the conclusion that "reality" does not exist! All the problems in science are only byproducts created when consciousness collapses quantum energy to form the "reality" which we experience. The only thing that has existence is consciousness, a quantum state of infinite probabilities independent of time and space, both of which cannot even exist until consciousness collapses the quantum state to form a space-time for us to experience!

Lanza takes pains to deny that such thinking is in any way similar to "New Age" views of the world, but it is hard to avoid the mystical message inherent in his rationalizations, especially when he describes the rapturous feelings he experiences on a winter morning as the "most convincing evidence I should ever need."

Being a septuagenarian, it is apparent to me that the older we get the easier it is for the emotions to have a greater impact on the ability to reason and I suspect that this problem is what ultimately has molded Lanza's final views on our existence, and although I understand how emotions have had an effect on his reasoning, and agree with many of his conclusions about the problems in science, I come to a different explanation for consciousness.

For me consciousness is simply an emergent property of our DNA that evolution has, through chance, produced in many life forms to enhance the ability of the senses to detect and extract from the universe the information needed for biochemical replication. We, as all life forms, are part of the universe but the need to know the "why" of existence is not necessary to carry out this biochemical imperative and it is for this reason that the nature of the universe will always be far beyond our comprehension. We do not create reality as Lanza believed but only detect enough of the universe that what we need for our existence.

Read this book, to see if you perhaps have a better idea. It is at the very least guaranteed to make you think.

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 3 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

 

Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

Search Listmania!