Mind and Matter, The Evolution of the Self

From the forward

In recent years, more and more attention seems to be focused on fundamental

questions about life, death and consciousness. Questions which, according to

many people, cannot be answered satisfactorily by current science. Many

people seem to be unhappy with the purely materialistic vision that prevails

in the Western world. People intuitively feel that surely there must be more

than just the visible and measurable aspect of our physical world. And it

seems that the more we think that everything is scientifically understandable

and explainable, the less we actually turn out to know, and the more new

questions have to be asked. Less than a decade ago we thought we could

understand most of the universe, and now physicists are realizing that we

know only 4% of the universe, because 96% appears to consist of unknown

black energy and black holes.

This book by Arie Bos is a very thorough and comprehensive account of his

search for answers to these fundamental questions, and he has certainly not

taken this lightly. What is life, and can we explain the origin of life on our

earth? Life requires metabolism, multiplication, continuous self-repair and

defense. How did that come about? There is no explanation for the fact that so

far we cannot synthesize life from inorganic material. There is only life in a

cell.

And what is dead? How to explain the whole evolution of the earth with all its

different inhabitants, from single-celled organisms to man? Evolution needs

death. What role does consciousness play in this evolution, and at the end of

this evolution in man, how did the relationship between consciousness with

the brain and with the whole body come about? Is there evolution organized

by the species itself, and what determined it? Arie Bos has not set himself an

easy task, but he takes you step by step through his philosophically and

scientifically well- founded argument.