Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

"Pressure to evolve has never been greater. In interviews with leading-edge thinkers in genetics, neurobiology, linguistics, media, psychiatry and parapsychology, David Jay Brown asks the Big Questions: Will we survive? What is the effect of technology on the biosphere? What happens to consciousness after death? What gives reason for hope?...Despite their wildly varying concerns and views on specific questions, these thinkers show the power of intelligence and collective vision to change the present, reverse the past and influence the future...These short interviews offer so much to ponder and follow up on, not least of which are a fantastic reading list, new thinkers to watch, websites to check and reasons to reach beyond the boundaries of ordinary dreams. Most of all, this book offers positive visions of the future."
-- Susan Salter Reynolds, The Los Angeles Times

Wow! Beautiful! This book was given to me by a stranger (now a friend) immediately before a long flight, and I have been traveling with it ever since. Although each interview is carefully and masterfully woven together to create a whole, each interview is also an entity in itself and short enough to lend to an interested traveler for a brief trip of the mind.

So often we pass by or purposefully ignore those deep questions about our future. Not this book; this book spills it all out naked before you. I love the odd collection of interviewees. Each is a well-respected leader from a different field, giving a diverse yet surprisingly good conglomeration of thoughts. The author is not telling you what to think, he is simply putting forth the information from many different walks of life. I love to read such a blatant clash of viewpoints right next to each other.

Beware: The ideas contained within these pages are sometimes encouraging, sometimes frightening, but always thought-provoking.

David Jay Brown takes the reader on a stimulating odyssey through science, technology, and the mind -- a world that involves the future of humanity, the mystery of consciousness, the significance of hallucinations, supertechnologies, the afterlife, and alien life. No human being should pass up the experience of stepping through the portals of this beautiful book into fantastic new worlds that scientists, psychologists, and philosophers are now exploring at the frontiers of science and mind.

While this book is fairly interesting and offers some provacative, if inconclusive, evidence on a fair range of subjects, few of these subjects are really what the book leads you to believe it is about. David Jay Brown seems to be trying to further an agenda to widen awareness to paranormal and parapsychological events and research. This is fine, and these topics are interesting, but they are definitely not what you expect if you dont know who many of the interviewees are and just read the cover of the book. As an interviewer David Jay Brown often allows those being interviewed to stray to the point of distraction from the subject and sometimes it sounds like they are pitching for grants or making a TV commercial for their respective causes. This, of course, is why you interview a wide range of people for their varied points of view, but some of them are such a tangent that you have to look at the cover to make sure you've picked up the correct book from the nightstand! On the other hand, just when you start getting interested in whatever cause these people are promoting, David Jay Brown comes in with a new and completely disconnected question (from what was obviously a list of stock questions) without so much as a follow-up or a valid tie-in. Half of the interviews sound like the subjects filled out questionaires on the internet and had no interactive interaction with David Jay Brown at all. All this aside, I am not sorry to have read the book. There were some very interesting concepts in it, but I think that it has more to do with Psychic phenomena than what the immediate future holds for the human race or any of the "hard" sciences.

PS- To David Jay Brown: For Christs' sake man! Hire an editor!

This book is even better than I expected. There is a wide range of responses to various metaphysical questions. If you want to enrich and sharpen your critical thinking about the ultimate mysteries of life.... this is the book to get.

This book is a true intelectuals cornucopia of interesting points of view. And an in depth introduction to some of the forefront thinkers of our time. Overall a well questioned analysis of some of the most pressing issues facing the human race and the planet today.

The title may make a negative impression but the book is anything but. This book has given me a lot of hope in the future and humanity as a whole. Great read! Interesting and compassionate people at work!