Reviews the battle between materialist and spiritual versions of the cosmos, explaining why so many people still cling to belief in supernatural forces - an immaterial soul, universal connectedness and life after death.
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Nicholas Humphrey is a theoretical psychologist, based in Cambridge, who is known for his work on the evolution of human intelligence and consciousness. His interests are wide ranging. He studied mountain gorillas with Dian Fossey in Rwanda, he was the first to demonstrate the existence of "blindsight" after brain damage in monkeys, he proposed the celebrated theory of the "social function of intellect, and he is the only scientist ever to edit the literary journal Granta.
His books include Consciousness Regained, The Inner Eye, A History of the Mind, Leaps of Faith, The Mind Made Flesh, Seeing Red, and Soul Dust. He has been the recipient of several honours, including the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, and the British Psychological Society's book award.
He has been Lecturer in Psychology at Oxford, Assistant Director of the Subdepartment of Animal Behaviour at Cambridge, Senior Research Fellow in Parapsychology at Cambridge, Professor of Psychology at the New School for Social Research, New York, and School Professor at the London School of Economics.
His books include Consciousness Regained, The Inner Eye, A History of the Mind, Leaps of Faith, The Mind Made Flesh, Seeing Red, and Soul Dust. He has been the recipient of several honours, including the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, and the British Psychological Society's book award.
He has been Lecturer in Psychology at Oxford, Assistant Director of the Subdepartment of Animal Behaviour at Cambridge, Senior Research Fellow in Parapsychology at Cambridge, Professor of Psychology at the New School for Social Research, New York, and School Professor at the London School of Economics.
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5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not what I had hoped.,
By
This review is from: Soul Searching: Human Nature and Supernatural Belief (Hardcover)
I discovered this title in a bilbliography while I was doing some research on the nature of the human soul. I was hoping to find some modern material discussing the existence of the soul and what it is exactly--recent material following in the footsteps of Plato and Descartes, for instance. The title of this book misled me. It should simply ready "How Silly it is to Believe in Paranormal Activity of Any Kind," which is really far more descriptive of what is covered in this book.In the first few chapters Mr. Humphrey exhaustively discusses what some other people have thought about the existence of the human soul, from Isaac Newton to William Blake. He includes a chapter that briefly talks about Harry Harlow's experiment with baby monkeys and his own experiences as an English schoolboy to point out that it's human nature to seek out love and reasssurance. The rest of the book is then taken with discussing the search for scientific proof of ESP as the search for proof of a soul and its capabilities, and how all the experimenters have really failed, and yet so many people insist on believing anyway. Mr Humprey is obviously well-read and well-educated, but his writing style makes for a difficult read. He seems to ramble on and then insert what he sees as humorous commentary into the text. This often had me shaking my head and wondering when he'd get to his point, which comes out only in the very last chapter, where even there it is not clearly stated. I take what he says to mean that he doesn't believe in a soul, and that if we had one we'd be worse off for it. *If* Mr Humphrey had stated his own hypothesis earlier and *if* he had then used his research and exhaustive quotations in a cohesive manner to address his position and lead us to his conclusion this book would have been of far greater value to me. This book is not useless, it's just not a very good read and does not address what I had imagined it would.
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