I agree that it takes its sweet time to make its actual point, and most of the conclusions felt speculative at the end. But ultimately, Feedback excels in equipping its reader with great insights into the path that we—our planet, all the different species that inhabit it, and us humans—had to take on our way up to here and now.

In a scientific sense, feedback can make systems stable. An example would be a thermostat. It can also generate loops that turn into upward or downward spirals and accelerate a process (eg. climate change), or dampen it. In his wide-ranging book, Nicholas Golledge applies these modalities to Earth, Life, Climate, Humans, Society, and Self.

There is an excellent discussion of how feedback was an essential process in forming our planet, followed by the evolution of increasingly complex life and a cyclically changing climate (that is now being pushed off kilter). Golledge then turns to the much more complex areas of humans, society and self. He gives some very interesting examples, such as feedback involved in babies learning to speak, as well as brain physiology in the arising of consciousness. Many of these ideas are speculative, but reference is made to supporting academic articles.

In the final part of the book, the author enters the realm of mysticism. Discussing new treatments of depression, he says that they:
“…all largely separate the physical self from the nonphysical self… To see ourselves with clarity, removed from the demands, expectations, and inner reflections of the social environment in which we live, requires more than these physical interventions, however. To harness the power of a genuinely mind-altering feedback that truly speaks to our sense of self, we need to embrace the “void and cloudless sky” and the clear light of illumination that can bring calm understanding and growth, adaptation and optimization.”

This is an instance of the poetic language that occurs often in the book, which at times is overly verbose. But Golledge has clearly been inspired by his finding of feedback mechanisms at macro and micro scales that have created humans and our world.