title: The Radiance of Being: Complexity, Chaos and the Evolution of Consciousness
author:  Allan Combs 
description: From the introduction, the author states that his intent "is to serve as part guide and part fellow traveler on a quest into the labyrinthine realms of science and traditional wisdom in search of the roots of consciousness." The book is arranged into three sections: first is an introduction of ideas, beginning with the nature of consciousness and the mind; the second section reviews important theories of the evolution of consciousness; the third section begins with an evaluation of previous theories and goes on to examine consciousness and the higher reaches of human nature. Included is a glossary of technical terms.
zlib_text: I AM A
  STRANGE
  LOOP
  DOUGLAS
  HOFSTADTEI
  
  $26.95 US / $32.50 CAN
  What do we mean when we say 'T'?
  Can
  a self, a soul, a consciousness, an "I" arise
  out of mere matter? If
  it cannot, then how
  can you or I be here? If it can, then how can
  we understand this baffling emergence?
  Deep down, a human brain
  is a chaotic seething
  soup of particles, on a higher level
  it
  is a jungle of
  neurons, and on a yet higher level
  it
  is a network of
  abstractions that we call "symbols". The most central
  and complex symbol in your brain or mine
  is the one
  we both call "I". An "I"
  is a strange loop in a brain
  where symbolic and physical levels feed back into each
  other and
  flip
  causality upside down, with symbols
  seeming
  to have
  free
  will and
  to have
  gained
  the
  paradoxical
  ability
  to push
  particles around,
  rather
  than the reverse.
  For each human being,
  this
  "I" seems to be the
  realest
  thing
  in
  the
  world.
  But how
  can
  such
  a
  mysterious abstraction be real — or
  is our "I" merely
  a convenient fiction? Does an "I" ex