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Starseekers
Colin Doubleday & FIRST First Edition, First Printing. Not price-clipped. Published by Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1980. Octavo. Hardcover. Book is very good with light shelf wear. Dust jacket is very good light shelf wear and light edgewear. 100% positive feedback. 30 day money back guarantee. NEXT DAY SHIPPING! Excellent customer service. Please email with any questions. All books packed carefully and ship with free delivery confirmation/tracking. All books come with free bookmarks. Ships from Sag Harbor, New York.Seller 366855 Science & Nature We Buy Books! Collections - Libraries - Estates - Individual Titles. Message us if you have books to sell!
271 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1980
2 people are currently reading
78 people want to read
About the author
Colin Wilson
405 books1,291 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Colin Henry Wilson was born and raised in Leicester, England, U.K. He left school at 16, worked in factories and various occupations, and read in his spare time. When Wilson was 24, Gollancz published The Outsider (1956) which examines the role of the social 'outsider' in seminal works of various key literary and cultural figures. These include Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William James, T. E. Lawrence, Vaslav Nijinsky and Vincent Van Gogh and Wilson discusses his perception of Social alienation in their work. The book was a best seller and helped popularize existentialism in Britain. Critical praise though, was short-lived and Wilson was soon widely criticized.
Wilson's works after The Outsider focused on positive aspects of human psychology, such as peak experiences and the narrowness of consciousness. He admired the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow and corresponded with him. Wilson wrote The War Against Sleep: The Philosophy of Gurdjieff on the life, work and philosophy of G. I. Gurdjieff and an accessible introduction to the Greek-Armenian mystic in 1980. He argues throughout his work that the existentialist focus on defeat or nausea is only a partial representation of reality and that there is no particular reason for accepting it. Wilson views normal, everyday consciousness buffeted by the moment, as "blinkered" and argues that it should not be accepted as showing us the truth about reality. This blinkering has some evolutionary advantages in that it stops us from being completely immersed in wonder, or in the huge stream of events, and hence unable to act. However, to live properly we need to access more than this everyday consciousness. Wilson believes that our peak experiences of joy and meaningfulness are as real as our experiences of angst and, since we are more fully alive at these moments, they are more real. These experiences can be cultivated through concentration, paying attention, relaxation and certain types of work.
Colin Henry Wilson was born and raised in Leicester, England, U.K. He left school at 16, worked in factories and various occupations, and read in his spare time. When Wilson was 24, Gollancz published The Outsider (1956) which examines the role of the social 'outsider' in seminal works of various key literary and cultural figures. These include Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William James, T. E. Lawrence, Vaslav Nijinsky and Vincent Van Gogh and Wilson discusses his perception of Social alienation in their work. The book was a best seller and helped popularize existentialism in Britain. Critical praise though, was short-lived and Wilson was soon widely criticized.
Wilson's works after The Outsider focused on positive aspects of human psychology, such as peak experiences and the narrowness of consciousness. He admired the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow and corresponded with him. Wilson wrote The War Against Sleep: The Philosophy of Gurdjieff on the life, work and philosophy of G. I. Gurdjieff and an accessible introduction to the Greek-Armenian mystic in 1980. He argues throughout his work that the existentialist focus on defeat or nausea is only a partial representation of reality and that there is no particular reason for accepting it. Wilson views normal, everyday consciousness buffeted by the moment, as "blinkered" and argues that it should not be accepted as showing us the truth about reality. This blinkering has some evolutionary advantages in that it stops us from being completely immersed in wonder, or in the huge stream of events, and hence unable to act. However, to live properly we need to access more than this everyday consciousness. Wilson believes that our peak experiences of joy and meaningfulness are as real as our experiences of angst and, since we are more fully alive at these moments, they are more real. These experiences can be cultivated through concentration, paying attention, relaxation and certain types of work.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 18, 2018
Wilson has a real knack for biography and manages to bring what might otherwise be a dusty history of astronomy book alive with the characters behind the telescopes. The final couple of chapters of the book are a little dated now as he talks about the cutting edge astronomy of the early 1980s.
The first part of the book was what particularly gripped me as Wilson builds his theory of consciousness based on Jaynes' Bicameral Mind. He then goes on to treat the the human exploration of outer space as a kind of search for meaning which leads right back to the human condition and our search of meaning in a lonely universe.
An exciting read that showcases Wilson's erudite scholarship and way with words that keeps the pages turning.
The first part of the book was what particularly gripped me as Wilson builds his theory of consciousness based on Jaynes' Bicameral Mind. He then goes on to treat the the human exploration of outer space as a kind of search for meaning which leads right back to the human condition and our search of meaning in a lonely universe.
An exciting read that showcases Wilson's erudite scholarship and way with words that keeps the pages turning.
April 10, 2012
One of Wilson's more odd books, this one is a straightforward history of astronomy for much of the time and by contrast really shows how much sexier real science is than Wilson's own fringe theories. This contemporary review from New Scientist sums it up pretty well: http://books.google.co.in/books?id=b5...
May 21, 2017
This is a really fascinating book, in which Mr. Wilson applies his theory on bicameral vs. unicameral consciousness to the scientific and philosophical development of man through the ages. Those who've read Wilson's other, better-known works will already be familiar with many of the concepts dealt with here. Those coming to the man's work cold are in for quite a treat, as Wilson is arguably the most voracious autodidact of the 20th century.
"Starseekers" basically argues that ancient man was able to create scientific tools and astronomical instruments as good as our own (and sometimes better) because his consciousness was linked to some kind of intuitive-instinctive force that has animated all life since the creation of single-celled organisms (a subject Wilson deals with in the last chapter). As man found himself divided by his burgeoning sense of consciousness, culminating in the Enlightenment, he lost as much as he gained (according to Wilson).
Although some of the science in this book may be dated (it's more than thirty years old) Wilson's questioning of scientific materialism/scientism (sic) is as relevant now as it was then. Wilson traces scientific discovery and striving from neanderthal (some of this stuff may still be contentious) through the neolithic period on into the 20th century and Einstein's theory of relativity. A lot of this is recapitulation of history that even a layman is familiar with, but Wilson's sense of joy and wonder (leavened with the usual dose of the esoteric and unverifiable) makes this an enjoyable excursion with a man who (to paraphrase Bukowski on Huxley) knows so much it gives him headaches. The gorgeous illustrations don't hurt, either, ranging from the golden-hued paintings of William Blake to Hildegard von Bingen's rich oil and tempura works done while she was supposedly achieving ecstatic unity with the godhead. I forgot how much I liked Colin Wilson, and am grateful he wrote over one-hundred books. Recommended.
"Starseekers" basically argues that ancient man was able to create scientific tools and astronomical instruments as good as our own (and sometimes better) because his consciousness was linked to some kind of intuitive-instinctive force that has animated all life since the creation of single-celled organisms (a subject Wilson deals with in the last chapter). As man found himself divided by his burgeoning sense of consciousness, culminating in the Enlightenment, he lost as much as he gained (according to Wilson).
Although some of the science in this book may be dated (it's more than thirty years old) Wilson's questioning of scientific materialism/scientism (sic) is as relevant now as it was then. Wilson traces scientific discovery and striving from neanderthal (some of this stuff may still be contentious) through the neolithic period on into the 20th century and Einstein's theory of relativity. A lot of this is recapitulation of history that even a layman is familiar with, but Wilson's sense of joy and wonder (leavened with the usual dose of the esoteric and unverifiable) makes this an enjoyable excursion with a man who (to paraphrase Bukowski on Huxley) knows so much it gives him headaches. The gorgeous illustrations don't hurt, either, ranging from the golden-hued paintings of William Blake to Hildegard von Bingen's rich oil and tempura works done while she was supposedly achieving ecstatic unity with the godhead. I forgot how much I liked Colin Wilson, and am grateful he wrote over one-hundred books. Recommended.
February 28, 2008
Maravilloso libro. Primero que leí de Colin Wilson. Cinco milenios de la historia de la astronomía son recorridos página a página de la manera más amena que se pueda escribir sobre historia de la ciencia. Mucho tiempo estuve releyendo los primeros capítulos, que tratan sobre las civilizaciones antiguas y su relación con los cielos. Muy especulativos, si soy objetivo, pero a la vez muy inspiradores. Después de leer este libro, de inmediato simpaticé con las ideas de Colin Wilson. Ideas que me llevaron a The Outsider, el libro más famoso y conocido de Wilson.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews