Immortal Curiosity

Each moment I hope to apply pen to paper, to touch upon one of the currents flowing in my mind, finally to find it acceptable, and possess the unified awareness to divert its flow into ink. I hope it will pool into glyphs of sufficient ability to later remind of their progenitors. But my thoughts, my awareness, this world, these senses, this moment– each becomes, by unique turns, ever more faceted, allowing of ever more interpretations, re-considerations, contemplations. What was passed over as easily as a single step on level ground one year is revealed to be treacherous and filled with difficulty the next. This pattern is further reinforced by my thoughts on the past and my mind as it was, or seemed to be.

Our sun-like consciousness shines a single beam, intent on clarification, into the icy cavern of our thoughts, producing an endless series of reflections, diversion, refractions, and schisms. And the interference of this action is permanent, for even if the beam cases in failure, its warmth has melted some small portion of the cavern, dripping and re-solidifying, ensuring a second attempt will never reveal the same scene again.  Read more... (304 words, estimated 1:13 mins reading time)

Concerning Richard Tarnas’ “Cosmos and Psyche“–

Having not heard of the book before coming across it sitting on a shelf, I perfunctorily read the description on the back cover. The paragraph revealed what might be quite an interesting and informative philosophical and scientific work, as others I had come across. But the phrase “correspondence between planetary alignments and the archetypal patterns of human history” threw me for quite a loop. Astrology? From a “distinguished philosopher”? Something must be amiss. It did make me curious enough to purchase the work, of course.

I mention the above observation because it initiated a process in my mind as I started reading the work that I found quite interesting. Despite my initial surprise at what the book’s content might be, after I started reading I tried to put all astrological thoughts out of my mind, and simply read the work for what it was to be. However, I kept noting a tendency in Tarnas’ diction that coalesced into the conclusion that he either had read many works of a astronomical, cosmological, or astrological nature (or had a smaller number in his mind quite distinctly) or that he was perhaps purposefully trying to remind the reader of these subjects without discussing them directly. He used “constellate” at least three times in the first 25 pages [edit: Make that 5 in the first 37! [And more. I give up.]]. While a fine enough word, it is quite uncommon. One corpus search of several million words had it listed 13 times. Another term was “nadir”, and there were several others.

Section 1 – Transformation of the Cosmos

Tarnas begins with a sweeping and inspiring overview of the widespread impact of the Copernican Revolution. He focuses on the various philosophical and psychological shifts it implied in the minds of those who accepted it, and that must have been in place in the academic world at large for such a conception to have arisen and eventually gain acceptance. A particular lucid summary of the broadest strokes of this change comes within the second chapter (pg. 9):

For the Coperican hypothesis to be made reasonable, an entirely new conception of “reason” itself had to be forged: new ways of deciding what counts as truth, new ways of recognizing patterns, new forms of evidence, new categories of interpretation, a new understanding of causality. [...] The nature of the Copernican revolution was so fundamental that what had to be rethought was not only all the conventional scientific theories but the entire established hierarchy of humanity’s place in the universal scheme of things: its relation to the rest of nature and to the cosmos, its relation to the divine, the basis for its morality, its capacity for certain knowledge, its historical self-understanding.  Read more... (1086 words, estimated 4:21 mins reading time)

Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge is an inviting, informative work on several topics, primarily attempting to present what Wilson terms the “consilient world view”. He reviews a number of human investigations and endeavours, presenting how they variously show evidence for the effectiveness of consilience or have failed to utilize it, to their benefit or detriment, respectively. In addition, he present proposals for the inclusion of consilience in studies that have entirely or mostly neglected it, taking into account their current milieu.

One issue that became moderately annoying in this text is Wilson’s tendency to provide an overabundance of detail, leading to discussions within particular fields that I feel could have been entirely left out or summarized to the text’s benefit. In the end, while it does not feel overly taxing and is not that long of a work when one takes its subject into account, it could have had a much more unified and focused approach.

Assorted quotations and notes:  Read more... (721 words, estimated 2:53 mins reading time)

• Chapter 2-
  • After describing the development of the Enlightenment thinkers, he continues by claiming that their propositions and assumptions are borne out well and that they are not to be blamed for the fragmentary state of philosophy thereafter.

Originally written in February 2006. Taken from an older blog I do not keep up anymore, I am moving this here to be listed with my other philosophical writings. My thoughts on the topic may currently differ from when it was written, but I find it interesting nonetheless.

That natural biological evolution is progressive and goal-oriented, with man as its pinnacle, has been a common and influential notion. From ancient and learned sources such as Plotinus, to the widely recognized and copied illustration “March of Progress” by Rudolph Zallinger, the idea can be seen in scholarly literature and also in more quotidian descriptions of evolution and human development. Even up to the time of Darwin and up to the Modern Synthesis, the idea of there being a telos, or goal, of evolution was not uncommon. As biological explanations became more distant from theological sources, however, the idea of telos and of goals existing in the activity of nature began to wane.  Read more... (1197 words, estimated 4:47 mins reading time)