I am surprised that both the author and the book reviewer take opposite and extreme positions (rational<–> emotional) on the question of mesoscopic existential reality, criticizing in the process the time honored analysis of Emmanuel Kant in “Critique of Pure Reason.” and “Critique of Practical Reason.” respectively. What is lost in the review is a clear perspective on the required need of a living human narrator -in an adopted language- that communicates the sense-phenomenal (audio-visual, tact, etc.) perceptual content of either/or a material object or event in a real-time ecosystem environment. What is ignored is the tacit presumption that several cognitive levels are interactively involved, an unconscious, genetically determined, a subconscious learned component describing the individualized ecosystem and a conscious conceptual component transcending the perceptual limitations of the species and taking into account the invisible but probable presence of smaller objects/events based on their consistent measurable effects. At the individual biological imperative level of survival we thus identify the participation of genetic, learned and intuitive elements allowing the results of an unconscious reproductive activity sustained by neuro-hormonal controls to subconsciously survive the particularities of an ever changing environment such that only the human species could consciously, introspectively discover the social need for the individuals to band together and collectively survive. This introspective discovery of self and others requires a living brain and the ability to transcend sense-phenomenal perceptual ‘descriptions’ and make virtual mathematical logic representations of the probable presence of smaller objects/events beyond the human species sensory resolution. This particular level of analysis required the elaboration of both symbolic and sentential languages by academics. Interestingly, for the common people sharing communal living a different level of psycho social communication was required for their common survival and defense, the theosophies. Besides the convenience of a peaceful, healthy, happy collective conviviality there was a powerful falsifiable fact that could not be described/explained/speculated by the most sophisticated of individuals, technology in the most respected centers of learning: the most sophisticated cognitive temporal complex evolution of the human species when all other known natural systems degrade to much simpler structural/functional organization.
Consequent to the brief argument above based on other published material it is unclear why known academics like the author and the book reviewer above insist on the exclusively ‘rational’ or the exclusively ‘theological’ interpretation of existential reality. It is easy to see that, taken all relevant factors and variables into consideration, especially the intrinsic perceptual/conceptual cognitive limitations of the human species, all BioPsychoSocial elements of mesoscopic reality must be incorporated as a single dynamic hybrid unit because the human species must be alive with a functional brain in a changing environment before he can adapt and survive before s(he) can write books or review them, first things first.
Dr.d Ref. See updated edition of “Treatise on the Neurophilosophy of Consciousness.” A Multidisciplinary Biopsychosocial (BPS) Model. Penguin Books/Trafford Publishing, Inc. ISBN 978-1-4669-4900-3
Neurophilosophy of Consciousness 