Indeed you have skewered me there. But really I'm not dismissing his work. I'm doing what slushpile readers might call editorial triage.
Based on his opening will I read this? No.
Based on his opening will I read this? No.
It's not a matter of merely "not liking a sentence", it's that the author makes false or misleading claims to bolster his own standing (like the one quoted), fails to display a mastery of the relevant material, and gives enough clues in style and substance about the kind of book this is for me to know, from past experience, that it won't be my personal cup of tea.
What really matters:
I won't be reading this book given what I've seen so far, but I don't intend this as a general criticism.
Writing like this is essentially therapy and different people respond to different treatments. It may well be that for many science-y/CS folk this is just what the doctor ordered! And I have no interest in undermining that! And even if it is, to my sensibility, messy and lacking in the forceful individual style truly soul nourishing books require, it can still be valuable. Lord knows there are many books which I can rationally pick apart every which way or which just mouth one platitude after another, yet which truly moved me and made me a better person and of which I wouldn't change a thing.
in particular he has written extensively about Buddhism and speaking personally I think he has a fascinating heterodox perspective on the subject.
But my personal taste in "meaning of life" stuff these days is more the free spirit and cutting judgements of "The Education of Henry Adams" than a heavy-handed ology of meaningness. I'm suspicious of how tidy all his little categories are, how little self-awareness is exemplified (as opposed to mentioned), the seeming lack of humor despite being about a topic as complex and open as the living of life. Again this is just from a skim and I could change my opinion quickly.
The commentators pointed all of them out though.