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Synopsis
Sir John Eccles, a distinguished scientist and Nobel Prize winner who has devoted his scientific life to the study of the mammalian brain, tells the story of how we came to be, not only as animals at the end of the hominid evolutionary line, but also as human beings possessed of reflective consciousness.
Eccles traces the line of human evolutionary descent through developments such as skilled bipedal walking and dawning spirituality, linking them with the growth of the human brain. He conjectures that the beginning of human language came with Homo habilis and its greatly enlarged brain, while the mystery of self-consciousness is related to the newly developing neocortical areas of the brain.
Psyche - Joseph A. Daraio
Eccles calls himself a Darwinian, but actually he's a Wallacean — and there's a difference, a big difference between the two views. As Eccles explains, "Wallace felt that human intelligence could only be explained by the direct intervention of Cosmic intelligence." This was a notion Darwin couldn't stomach. ....[O]verall: an interesting book...but one that leaves the reader with a choice: since there are no arguments to speak of, do I bother to consider whether the views advocated herein can be established, or at least defended?