Product Description
PRAISE FOR THE SPIRITUALITY OF AWE
Schneider has produced a… work of passion, insight, advocacy, and public vision on perhaps the most important social topic of our time. Furthermore, it comes in a very readable package of short, digestible chapters, ideally suited for discussion in classrooms, book groups, and other platforms of learning. Like the work of our best public intellectuals, it is a scholarly treatise in which the scholarship supports the message without interfering with or obscuring the topic at hand.
~ Daniel Leichty, PhD, Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare
Kirk Schneider has done it again. One of the leading exponents of the existential/humanistic approach to daily living as well as to psychotherapy, Schneider brings a unique perspective to the study of robotics and artificial intelligence. Instead of claiming that these new technologies pose a threat to humanity, or that they represent an inevitable future to which humans must adjust, Schneider counsels that these challenges be faced with “adventure and awe.” Instead of succumbing to the lure of a “transhuman” era, Schneider insists that it is technological advances that evoke what makes our species “truly human.” In true existential/humanistic fashion, Schneider urges his readers to embrace what may seem to be “irrational” in the world [of the programmatic]. This is reminiscent of his previous writings on the “paradoxical mind,” and how “cross-cultural spirituality” has coped with what seems to be a split between the rational and irrational aspects of humans and their world. Schneider has a fine grasp of the pertinent literature and his citations of contemporary research add substance to what could have been a simplistic polemic. Existential thought emphasizes choice while humanistic thought focuses on experience; Schneider combines both in a book that could not have been published at a more appropriate time. It deserves to be widely read, debated, discussed. and applied.
~Stanley Krippner, PhD, Consciousness Researcher, Professor Emeritus, Saybrook University, co-author of Personal Mythology
Kirk Schneider’s [The Spirituality of Awe is a] provocative exploration of the dangers we face in an increasingly mechanized world…. Although clearly a…warning of serious moral, spiritual, and social danger, the book does not simply content itself with identifying problems and hand-wringing. Schneider provides a number of urgent rec-ommendations for responding thoughtfully and forcefully to the robotic revolution in ways that seek to maintain our humanity, our agency, and sense of spiritual awe in the face of ever-growing threats from reductionist science, consumerism, and materialist social philosophies.
~ Edwin Gant, Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology
This slender volume is a manifesto…spurring us to preserve life-affirming and humanistic/existential values and practices in the era of Robotics…. For this reader the real value of Schneider’s book…is in reminding us that the trans-human telos of technology is not inevitable. He reminds us that practicing the basic principles of phenomenology, taking time, paying attention…retaining a sense of the vast scale of our un-knowing and mastering the fear of our ignorance, will serve us well to guide our way to a future that is humane and not simply, post-human.”
~ Richard Swann, Existential Analysis: Journal of the Society for Existential Analysis
The Spirituality of awe is a new take on the ‘remorselessness of technology encroaching on our most intimate spaces.’ It is a fast paced, easy-read dash through our technological future with the impending dangers of transhumanism at its core. In the end, as we enter the age of robotics, we are given the human choice to decide if we want an awe-inspiring dawn or a dehumanizing nightmare. Buy it. Read it. It is original.”
~ Noel Sharkey, PhD, DSc, Emeritus Professor of AI and Robotics, Sheffield University, UK, Judge BBC television’s Robot Wars and Director of the Foundation for Responsible Robotics
Schneider’s ‘depth psychology’ approach casts new light on a classic dilemma in AI’s inevitable march—bringing us all the promise and peril that science fiction writers have warned about for centuries.
~ Mike Boland, Chief Analyst, ARtilliry, former reporter, Forbes
The dehumanization of life in the new computer driven society leads to a gradual death of feeling. When people are cut off from feeling they are more likely to act out in destructive and potentially violent behavior…. In this important book, the author offers an alternative in his conception of an awe-based psychology that emphasizes both the mystery and magnificence of existence. I am personally inspired by Schneider’s ethical approach to coping with the problem of maintaining one’s human heritage in the new society.
~ Robert Firestone, PhD, author of Overcoming the Destructive Inner Voice: True Stories of Therapy and Transformation, and (with Joyce Catlett) Beyond Death Anxiety: Achieving Life-affirming Death Awareness
In a world where many feel dehumanized and devalued, we need courage and clarity to widen our perspective and find new purpose. In this book Kirk Schneider offers a sensitive and incisive new narrative to help us reconsider what our lives are about today. He gathers wisdom from his long experience, and freely combines this with the insights of psychology, psychotherapy, philosophy, sociology, religion, literature and cinema to create a new vision of where we are heading and how we may change direction before it is too late. Fascinating and essential reading for therapists and lay readers alike.
~ Prof Emmy van Deurzen, PhD, Principal of the New School for Psychotherapy and Counseling, UK; author of Existential Psychotherapy and Counselling in Practice and Psychotherapy
and the Quest for Happiness.
An evocative and deeply human take on the coming AI and robotics age. You must read it.
~Gina Smith, PhD, Award-winning author of The Genomics Age and the NYT bestseller, iWOZ: How I Invented the Personal Computer
A cogent plea to neither reject nor embrace technology, but to try instead to look beyond it.
~ Kirkus Reviews, Featured Review
The Spirituality of Awe clearly brings to light deep concerns, positive or negative, many people share living in this age of robotic revolution. [This] revolution has brought about the ideology of transhumanism which blurs the human-machine divide. From the viewpoint of depth and existential psychology, the author counters it with neo-humanism. While admitting the seemingly extraordinary benefit of convenience and widening capacity to live, he asks what may have already been, is now and will be further lost by the uncritical dependence on products from the revolution. It is the core of humanity: adventure and awe without which one’s identity and dignity as a human being would be seriously threatened. Relying in part on his personal experiences, he concretely explores, without denying high technology altogether, an awe-inspired way of life.
~ Shoji Muramoto, PhD, Professor emeritus, Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, Japan, former editor-in-chief of the Japanese Journal of Humanistic Psychology, author of Buddhist and Jungian studies
The question of how we live is increasingly crucial in this age of technology, high-tech devices and robotics. In this timely and inspiring book, Dr. Schneider offers a fascinating and comprehensive analysis of the unique challenges and concerns of humanity in the face of such a reality. He perceptively and sensitively touches on enduring qualities that are at the core of our existence as human beings – spirituality, vulnerability, wonder, imagination, love, creativity and discovery – and identifies them as the delicate ingredients that have the potential to reconnect us with the beautiful, mysterious and awe-inspiring experience of being fully and meaningfully alive.
~ Pninit Russo-Netzer, PhD, Lecturer and Researcher, University of Haifa; co-editor of Meaning in Positive and Existential Psychology and Clinical Perspectives on Meaning: Positive and Existential Psychotherapy
