Customer Reviews

Consciousness Explained Better: Towards an Integral Understanding of the Multifaceted Nature of Consciousness (Omega Books)

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Consciousness is not a simple thing to understand, but in "Consciousness Explained Better", Allan Combs has done a fine job of simplifying the integral view of mind. The integral view posits that consciousness is multi-faceted, multilayered, cannot be easily reduced and explained, and changes according to the perspective of the perceiver. Largely following the integral philosophy of Ken Wilber, Allan Combs does not argue that consciousness is relativistic and culturally defined, however. There are universal states and streams in the evolution of consciousness.

The title "Consciousness Explained Better" is a reference to Daniel Dennett's 1992 book, "Consciousness Explained", which took a more mainstream scientific view of consciousness. Readers looking for a critique of Dennett will be disappointed. Combs makes just one short reference to Dennett in the introduction, describing Dennett's book as "over 500 pages of tortuous symbolic reasoning" (p. xvii).

Combs prefers to approach the subject with "quite a different spirit", more in the style of William James and Mark Baldwin, attempting to "recapture afresh the mystery, excitement, and wealth of its study..." (pp.xvii-xviii). The second purpose of "Consciousness Explained Better" is to serve an introduction to the thinking of Ken Wilber, whom Comb's describes as a personal friend.

Combs' angle is unashamedly mystical, in that mind is not merely viewed as epiphenomena, emerging from the material stuff of brains. Rather it is an integral part of cosmos itself. Like Wilber, Combs' develops a map of approaches to consciousness, following Wilber's Four Quadrant model, comprising the empirical, social, cultural and subjective aspects of mind (although more complex than these terms can convey here).

The great strength of this book is its simplicity. It takes the sometimes complex and long-winded arguments of Wilber and the integralists, and condenses them into a concise 150-page volume. For those who have found Wilber too wordy, to verbose, and just too deep, this book offers a great opportunity to get your teeth into the world of the integral philosopher. The vocabulary if easy on the brain, too! Thankfully, it is also free of the long lists of names that tend to dominate Wilber's books. "Consciousness Explained Better" also features nice potted summaries of important thinkers such as Sri Auribindo, James Marc Baldwin, Teilhard de Chardin, Henri Bergson, Jean Gebser, and more.

In particular, students of consciousness studies (formally, or informally) will find this an invaluable introduction to the integral view. For those accustomed to mainstream reductionist views of consciousness, it may well broaden the mind.

An important clarification that Comb's (following Wilber) makes is distinguishing amongst lines, streams, stages and structures of mental development. This is something that many books on spiritual intelligence and spiritually-inclined models of consciousness often fail to make. For example, David E. Hawkins books such as "Power Vs Force", suggest that consciousness development is a linear progression from the rational to the trans-rational.

Lines of development are the specific skills and areas of knowledge that we acquire as we develop into adulthood (p.35). These lines include the cognitive, interpersonal, emotional, aesthetic, moral, psychosexual and so on.

States of consciousness, (which Combs does not define), are described as a consistent overall experience, and include dreaming, meditative, and normal waking states. Combs makes the analogy of attractor fields in physics, suggesting mental states have a self-organising function.

The term "structures" of consciousness refers to the way in which the mind "takes hold of experiences and makes them its own" (p. 58). Structures are the way the mind interprets its experience. Piaget's four categories are examples - formal operational, concrete operational, preoperational, and sensory-motor. Interestingly these structures mirror certain worldviews, such as Jean Gebser's Mental, Mythic, Magic and Archaic (p. 61).

Where Combs expands beyond Piaget and much of mainstream cognitive science, is in the way he goes on to discuss the integral or postconventional structures of consciousness. Here Combs draws upon the ideas of Mark Baldwin, Indian yogi Sri Auribindo, and of course Wilber himself. Wisdom and spirituality come into play - to make the distinction with cognitive skills and human intelligence (p.80). Combs (and Wilber) find that there are several levels to the integral, including the illumined mind (psychic), the intuitive mind, the causal, and the nondual (supermind) levels.

The intelligence/consciousness distinction is particularly interesting. I've argued that there is a kind of intelligence inherent in transpersonal stages (Anthony, "Integrated Intelligence"). It all depends upon how we define intelligence. If we say that intelligence is the ability to successfully solve problems and apply the understanding to specific situations, then the integral does constitute a higher intelligence, for it assists us in seeing the big picture, and contextualising the so-called "lower" stages of cognitive development. Of course, the intuitive prompts of the "psychic" realm can also be used to make "intelligent" decisions.

A key in moving into the transpersonal realms, writes Combs, is in "acquiring flexible perspectives that are open to many facets of experience" (p. 89). My personal experience is that it also requires an openness to other ways of knowing and non-ordinary states of consciousness. Trying to be "clever" actually impedes the development of the integral, because the individual will tend to develop an ego attachment to "rationality", and the journey is unconsciously thwarted by the ego.

There are certain criticisms that can be made of "Consciousness Explained Better."

You won't find too much on the mechanics of consciousness here. This is not a book of science, but a book of philosophy. As with Wilber, Combs doesn't say much about the science of consciousness from the right-hand quadrants, the material and empirical. This will no doubt frustrate enthusiasts of the subject with a more mainstream science background.

Another point is that Combs follows Wilber in predicating the essential stages of cognitive development on the ideas of Swiss researcher Jean Piaget. Piaget made a crucial contribution to our understanding of developmental psychology, but there have been many critiques of his work, and some researchers have questioned the entire basis of the idea of developmental stages (see Wilber's "Sex, Ecology, Spirituality" and Sternberg, Lautry, & Lubart's "Models of Intelligence".

As with Wilber, "Consciousness Explained Better" does get a little confusing with the numerous terms to describe different aspects of mind. We have stages, lines, levels, and structures; then horizontal and vertical evolution of mind; and the four quadrants. Even though I've read quite a few of Wilber's books, I still find myself at times being unclear on the distinctions.

Further, for the uninitiated the book may confuse; because for the sake of brevity, Combs gets right into his view of things. It's straight into the deep end, albeit with water wings firmly attached. This book will be criticised for the same reasons that Wilber is critiqued. It is not so much interested in bringing forth data, as in situating data, ideas and thinkers into pre-existing categories. However, I might point out that this is what mainstream science and psychology inevitably does as well - just less explicitly. What Comb's does is make the categories, and the worldviews, clear.

A minor point is that Allan Combs states that an idealised enlightenment may stifle the urge towards further change. Yet there is evidence that in these higher stages, there is cessation of desire. And as mystic Leonard Jacobson says in "Journey into Now", one cannot seek the peak experiences which open the doorway into higher consciousness. They occur independently of the will of ego.

This leads me to a final "criticism" - or perhaps I should call it a limitation. Any book which tries to explain transpersonal levels of mind is unavoidably employing a "rational" medium (the written word) to comprehend and explain a trans-rational realm. The very process may be inadequate to understand the problem deeply. Perhaps all this intense intellectualisation of the higher stages of consciousness actually retards its development, because it ensnares the thinker within the "rational' mind. An important distinction is that between books ABOUT consciousness by academics and philosophers, and those BY genuine mystics who live these higher states. Leonard Jacobson writes that only when the mind is fully present can these higher stages emerge - only when the mind is fully present, when there is no "thinking". Only silence. Where does that leave the philosophers of mind?

Finally, I agree with Combs that the future of the human species may be dependent upon the development of a more refined and advanced consciousness. Just getting smarter - in the sense of being more rationally intelligent - may not move us beyond the limitations of consciousness as currently experienced by most people on the planet today. As Einstein once famously stated, the solutions to our greatest problems are never made at the level of consciousness at which they were created.

These criticisms and reflections are in no way suggestive that "Consciousness Explained Better" is not a valuable read. This concise book lives up to its name, albeit somewhat ironically. It's not too hard to expand upon Daniel Dennett's one-dimensional view of mind, another entirely to better Wilber's own work. I highly recommend the book, and commend Allan Combs for making these ideas more publically accessible.

Marcus T. Anthony, author of "Sage of Synchronicity" and "Integrated Intelligence".

With at least two other category leading titles under his belt (Synchronicity and Radiance of Being), Professor Combs has done it again. Synchronicity is probably the best book written on the subject. Radiance ranks among the most important and influential books I've read. This work is similar to Radiance in that it covers a broad swatch of material relating to human potential and developmental psychology, and powerfully integrates it into a revealing roadmap as they relate to consciousness. **Highly recommended**

Daniel Dennett's book, "Consciousness Explained," should have been entitled Consciousness Fudged. Using that lame benchmark, the title of Consciousness Explained Better is fine. Five stars all the way. The only glitch is that there is a brilliant pandit called Ken Wilber whose work is the standard in 2009. All we get in Allan's book is something that should be entitled "Allan combs Wilber" or possibly "Ken Wilber for Dummies." If someone has never read Wilber this book is as good as any, but IMO Ken has some easily accessible books also. If you have read Wilber and it is not too heavy going, then this book is a waste of money. Zero Stars. Possibly this book would be useful for first- or second-year undergrads who are coming with no prior preparation. I guess we expect blurbs on the back of books to exaggerate but Wilber preens Combs on the back cover is over the top. A good example of the lower-left quadrant (dealing with intersubjective experience) narcissism. May integral studies involve a level of integrity worthy of its stated aspirations.

Even though this book does a great job in explaining consciousness from an Integral perspective, it is even better as a summary of Ken Wilber's and Allan Combs's latest thinking.

Wilber's last major book, Integral Spirituality, was published in 2006. In it he introduced the Wilber-Combs Lattice and the eight zones, which are crucial additions to the Integral model. But unless you are a hardcode Wilber Fan, Integral Spirituality is not easily accessible and quite convoluted. Consciousness Explained Better on the other hand covers the same territory--including the four quadrants, lines and levels of development, states, and types--but does so on 148 easy to read pages. Allan Combs is a professor and has a way of explaining complex matters in clear and simple language, without ever being simplistic. In a tour de force, he draws from a wide range of seminal thinkers, spanning from the Greek Philosophers to modern day researchers from the East and West, and includes art as an element that is neglected by Wilber.

If you are looking for the best introduction to Consciousness AND the latest in Integral thought, Consciousness Explained Better is without an alternative. If asked which book I recommend to get familiar with Ken Wilber's work, Consciousness Explained Better is my first pick.

I bought this book in the belief that it contained an interesting, new angle on the mind-body problem. And yes, I know that Allan Combs is a friend of Ken Wilber, the "pandit" of Integral Theory. The book does have a promising start, quoting and discussing William James, attempting to explain (or explain away) the problem of consciousness from some kind of phenomenological stance. Nothing wrong with that, per se.

And then there's the rest of the book...

Allan Combs turns out to be an old hippie with almost stereotyped Love Summer/New Age values, and a truly comic chela complex towards Ken Wilber. Every time the author quotes Wilber, he is at great pains pointing out that it's "quoted by permission from Ken Wilber". Since Combs and Wilbie seem to be litter buddies, I really don't get it.

Combs' main message is simple: you aren't spiritually developed unless you love Picasso, Manet's nudes, modern art in general, postmodern urban subcultures, and (I presume) hippies. To take morals seriously is another sure sign of arrested development. Interestingly, Combs repeats Wilber's remarkable admission that a truly "enlightened" person might be a social or moral wreck. But if so, "enlightenment" simply means that you have a certain ability to space out. It's unclear why anyone would want to spend 20+ years meditating like crazy for *that*, unless it also leads to some rather heavy social and moral transformations. If these people cannot even save themselves, why on earth should we follow them?

Still, as a product of Non-Dual Mindlessness, I suppose "Consciousness explained better" does have a certain entertainment value.

Hmm... Ok again we have a book that "suggests" (by its title) it makes a serious dent in the mind body problem.

In my view, this book went no where near the mind/body problem and so I personally am very dissappointed.

It is yet another work from the narrow persective of psychology. Its greatest weakness is that it is not multidisciplinary in its approach and so has no where interesting to go after it exhausts developmental psych. I enjoyed it up until chapter 7, after which it seemed to dive completely into abstraction, abandoning what felt like a lengthening chain of logic.

I tried very hard but could not find anything appealing about 'integral consciousness.' It just gave me the feeling that I was surveying undeveloped lots in the Arizona desert. An entire framework, outlining the next few centuries of consciousness studies. Sure the message in art evolves with our expanding central nervous system, but I cannot see how we get from that to our promised explanation of consciousness.

I loved the survey of Piaget's developmental psych and the subsequent 'evolution of consciousness' sections, particularly the latter.

I don't like how Comb wound up Dennett's in the introduction: not with arguments, but only by means of side defamations. That's why I'm not going to read this "better" book.

This book explains things better only if you are already prone toward flights of superstitious fantasy. This book is an excuse to spread the festering disease of religion and to rationalize and justify the continuation of beliefs that have kept man separate from both himself and others by propagating the "in-group" and "out-group" dyad. Think for yourself, question authority. In order to think for yourself you must question authority.