THE EVOLVING MIND: CONTENTS

Introduction
A personal preamble  --  Buddhism and evolution  --  Lower and higher Evolution  --  Evolution's four dimensions  --  The evolving mind

Chapter 1 The Scope of the Evolutionary Vision
Beyond the status quo  --  Choice, self-transcendence, and Buddhism  --  Self-transcendence in animal evolution  --  Self-transcendence in human beings  --  The evolutionary vision  --  Buddhism and evolution  --  Evolution and the Wheel of Life  --  The thread of consciousness  --  Two discoveries  --  Origins of the two discoveries

Chapter 2 Natural Selection and the Evolution of Life
The unity of nature and natural selection  --  Natural selection in action  --  Organisms evolving --  Human ancestors  --  The appearance of humans  --  A direction to biological evolution? --  The enlargement of life

Chapter 3 Mental Evolution
`Inside', `outside', and behaviour  --  Animal minds  --  The evolution of minds: simple organisms  --  Animals with a central nervous system: perception  --  Animals with a central nervous system: association  --  Mammals and birds  --  Mental representations  --  Intelligent minds  --  Animal consciousness  --  Concepts and thinking  --  The human mind and language  --  The nervous system  --  Mind in evolution

Chapter 4 Behaviour and the Direction of Evolution
Adapting to niches  --  Niche change  --  The origins of new species  --  Behaviour-led selection: an example  --  Behaviour and niche-change  --  The origin of new behaviours  --  Mind and the direction of evolution  --  Do minds cause better minds to evolve?  --  Behaviour-led selection, genes, and evolution  --  Cultural traditions in animals  --  Transmission by learning  --  Cultural innovation and evolution

Chapter 5 Self-reflective Consciousness
Four-dimensional evolution  --  Rising consciousness  --  The centre of experience  --  Self-reflective consciousness --  The effects of self-reflective consciousness  --  Self-reflective consciousness and the development of human culture

Chapter 6 Civilisation and the Axial Age
History starts  --  The first civilisations: Iraq and Egypt  --  The first civilisations: India, Crete, China, and America  --  Consciousness in the traditional age --  The beginnings of religion  --  The axial age  --  The axial areas  --  The axial sages  --  Self-reflective consciousness in the axial age  --  The Buddha and self-awareness  --  A rude awakening and the ego

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