Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse: Contemplating the Future with Noam Chomsky, George Carlin, Deepak Chopra, Rupert Sheldrake, and Others (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: experience with psychedelics, media virus, abduction phenomenon, New York, Robert Anton Wilson, Las Vegas (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Science fiction author (Brainchild; Virus) and journalist David Jay Brown is keenly interested in the future and what it forebodes for humanity in terms of our ability to navigate through our current world of uncertainties and its ongoing conflicts. To get a better idea of where we are going, he interviewed over 20 visionary and provocative thinkers, ranging from Deepak Chopra, Noam Chomsky, Edgar Mitchell, Ram Dass, and Rupert Sheldrake, to Douglas Rushkoff, Robert Anton Wilson, Peter Russell, and iconoclastic comedian George Carlin. Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse is the result. Instead of a predictable roadmap to the future, Brown and his interview subjects paint a provocative picture of possibilities both perilous and exhilarating. Along the way, they also repeatedly explore the essential role consciousness will play, and already is playing, in shaping the world we are collectively heading towards, as well as how it is impacting and being impacted upon by such factors as language, politics, chemistry (including consciousness-expanding drugs), emotions, psychic phenomena, robotics, spirituality, shamanism, art, and alien encounters. This is a book that will appeal to all readers interested in becoming more aware of current world developments, both positive and negative, and what can be done about them to ensure a better world tomorrow.--Larry Trivieri Jr.

From Publishers Weekly

The Big Questions addressed in these hazy, wearisome interviews-Is there a God? Does consciousness survive death?-are the kind of imponderables your Aunt Martha would know as much about as the thinkers showcased here. But these interviewees are more likely than Aunt Martha to invoke "nonlocality" and "quantum holography" to give their mysticism a pseudo-scientific gloss. Brown, author of interview collections like Mavericks of the Mind, has a rigid, checklist style of interviewing in which he invites discussion of his pet spiritual and New Age hobbyhorses, including parapsychology and extraterrestrials. Sheldrake, Dean Radin and Apollo-14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, all of the "Institute of Noetic Sciences," insist on the "vast abundance of compelling scientific evidence for psychic phenomena," while the late Harvard psychiatrist John E. Mack calls the alien abduction phenomenon "totally real," although he's "not sure how it's real-in other words, in what dimension it's occurring." Brown is especially interested in the interviewees' ubiquitous use of psychedelic drugs for consciousness-raising; predictably, they respond with vague dilations ("psychedelics helped me to see the vastness, the nondimensional, the altered dimensional... a tumbling of awareness," says medical marijuana activist Valerie Corral) that readers will find an inadequate substitute for dropping acid themselves. Brown also includes some skeptics, like the redoubtable Chomsky and sci-fi novelist Bruce Sterling, who pithily pours cold water on Brown's enthusiasms. On the whole, this is a dull, opaque and implausible commentary. Photos.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (April 21, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1403965323
• ISBN-13: 978-1403965325
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #132,256 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening perspectives, interesting read., June 13, 2005

By	Miriam Hill "Mimi Hill" (California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

After reading the Publisher's Weekly review of *Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse*, I decided to read the book to see if I agreed with the anonymous reviewer--because I just couldn't imagine how a collection of interviews with some of the greatest minds on the planet, about some of the most interesting questions that I can think of, could possibly be as "dull" as the reviewer claimed. It just looked too interesting. After reading the book, the big question that I now have about that review is: Why didn't Publisher's Weekly pay somebody to read the book who actually has an interest in exploring philosophical ideas? Since I have some questions about our approaches to the implausible, that go beyond clinging to normative standards, I found this book to be a fascinating gateway into a lot of fabulous minds.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Most interesting book I've read all year!, December 4, 2005

By	Sherry Hall "gifted underachiever" (Rocky Mountains, Colorado) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was delighted to find such a diversity of brilliant people interviewed in one book. Many of the ideas expressed give me tremendous hope for the future, which is something I've needed lately. I can't believe somebody found this dull...but then again, I can't believe republicans continue to hold office either. If you are so firmly set in your beliefs that there's no room for any questions or varying perspective, this is not a good book choice for you- it will probably enrage you. But if on the other hand you don't automatically scoff at open minded or liberal perspectives, this book is well worth reading.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mind expanding ideas on controversial scientific topics, August 11, 2005

By	T.V.Grendel - See all my reviews

This book contains interviews with experts about diverse subjects such as genetic engineering, neuroscience, robotics, psychic phenomenon and consciousness. Besides the regular questions there are some that are asked every interviewee. This way, the reader gets informed about topics from different viewpoints and ideologies. Questions such as:

- What do you think happens to consciousness after death?
- What is your perspective on the concept of God?
- Do you think that the human species is going to survive the next hundred years?

The well chosen questions, the extensive philosophic and divergent ideas of the interviewees make a fascinating, informative and mind-expanding book.