User:Abby Abergel/Evaluate an Article

Which article are you evaluating?
Third eye

Why you have chosen this article to evaluate?
The course mind body explores many aspects of the humans mind and it's capabilities. When looking through the topic names under philosophy-consciousness in the Wikipedia browser, Third Eye caught my attention. My preliminary impression of it would be that my mind went straight to spiritualism and the concept of perception. This topic matters as the third eye is a way of symbolizing a state of enlightenment through opening a state of higher consciousness. The topic explores how the belief of the mind's eye implies that there exists more than a single or unitary place in the mind or brain where visual consciousness occurs.

Evaluate the article
The lead section does a good job of giving an overview of what the third eye is. However, the very first sentence lacks some clarity, I think it could be improved by mentioning the fact that the third eye is what opens up new realms of consciousness. One specific critique about the lead is that it introduces with great detail the "pineal gland" idea without ever mentioning it in the content section. The third paragraph of the lead is entirely dedicated to explaining how it is hypothesized that through evolution, humans have lost their third eye but it has transformed into our pineal gland.

Secondly, when analyzing the content section, it is made evident that the authors of this Wikipedia page have not distributed the topics with equal about of focus. A good amount of information is provided by the "In popular literature" section which goes through numerous cultures and their views on the third eye. Whereas only a brief two sentences are provided for the "philosophy" section. I think that the authors could expand into more details of philosopher Daniel Dennett's critiques as he brings a theme of dualism into account. He introduces the idea that the mind's eye implies that the mind or brain isn't the only place where consciousness occurs.

This article is neutral, the article does not lead more towards one view over another. As previously mentioned the only critique here would be the lack of information given in the philosophy section.

As for the references, it is difficult to access the reliability since the four that are listed are all books. Though, from the titles, they are all related to the topic of the article (Third eye, Chakras). Teresa Hale, the first reference's author is a philosophy graduate. Dr. Samuel Sagan, another author, had studied medicine before publishing 15 books, one of which being the Awakening of the Third Eye (his most popular). Overall, the authors seem to have experience in their domains as well as their books all being published in the last 2-15 years. The webpage has also been updated very recently, it's most recent modification being September 8th, 2022.

The writing of the article is very clear and professional, the only change I would make is perhaps creating another content section exploring the aspect of the "pineal gland" theory which is explored in the lead. This can be introduced and briefly explained in the lead and then elaborated on in the content section.

This page includes one image of a Cambodian Shiva head showing the third eye, referencing to this being introduced in the lead. I think that the photo is well integrated into the text, well captioned, as well as visually appealing. This image does adhere to Wikipedia's copyright regulations.

In the talk page, people argue over the distinction between "mind's eye" and "third eye" and how they should not be confused as they are currently on the official page.

On critique is labeled "stupid" and displays another dispute about the origin of the third eye being Hindu and that the article shouldn't be referring to the Taoist viewpoint. However, this is challenged by the evidence of a third eye being displayed in Taoist sculptures and ancient scriptures.