In a message dated 6/30/02 11:14:05 PM GMT Daylight Time,
DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org writes:
> "Modernity, it is said, marked the death of God, the commodification of
> life, the leveling of qualitative distinctions, the brutalities of
> capitalism, the replacement of quality by quantity, the loss of value and
> meaning, the fragmentation of the lifeworld, existential dread, polluting
> industrialization, a rampant and vulgar materialism - all of which have
> often been summarized in the phrase made famous by Max Weber: "the
> disenchantment of the world"."
>
> This description of modernity describes the failure of the Enlightenment -
> and the effects of SOM. They're all just different names for the same
> thing.
> Yesterday's post in the "What is SOM?" thread has even more quotes about
> scientific materialism and modernity, which are yet more ways to refer to
> this same failure. Its huge. We're talking about nothing less than the
> dominant worldview of the modern West.
>
> Their solutions are pretty similar too. Just as Pirsig insists that all
> intellectual values must be culturally derived, Wilber too insists that the
> benefits of the previous ages must be integrated with the fruits of this
> age. They both lament the tendency by scientific materialism to dismiss
> social values and our subjective realities, and they both propose ways to
> honor them and re-integrate them.
Hellooo!
I am ready to stand corrected, but the Enlightenment was kicked off by a
rejection of Aristotelian physics?
Observation had revealed it was possible to describe motion in elegant
mathematical terms.
In doing so, two Aristotelian causes where thrown out of the window - the
Teleological and the efficient.
Sadly, much good in Aristotle was challenged and at all went a bit too far?
Now we may find it more pleasing to replace, 'A causes B' with, 'B values
precondition A' but Aristotle was saying that over 2000 years ago - his
physics was moral.
Cause for Aristotle was a motion towards valued state?
Descartes came along with his co-ordinate system and must have found it
incredibly frustrating to have discovered a way of mapping reality in
Platonic form while his Jesuit culture held Aristotle to be supreme?
And so, ironically, Aristotle's moral physics was replaced by an idea
originating from a mystic Plato (the allegory of number as cause) which lead
to the Enlightenment!
The subject/object split mirrors a split between Symbol and Geometry?
Symbols have no extension and are a-temporal (thinking substance - underlying
form - Heraclitian), and they describe the extended temporal (unthinking
substance - surface appearance - Parmenedian).
Mind is un-extended thinking capable of describing the extended unthinking
utilising co-ordinate systematising. Descartes could not say that without his
Jesuit friends putting a match under his backside.
(They had him race off into Holland in a hurry!)
Modelling was pushed firmly out into the limelight and that's what
rationality has been asserting ever since? If it moves, model it!
Of course, models have to resemble that which they imitate?
And imitation is less of a truth than a value?
If an imitation appears authentic then what is to distinguish real from
imaginary?
Imagination becoming real in a mathematical model sounds like a cause to me.
Enlightenment may be failing humans but it appears to be making the machines
very happy indeed?
What's my point? My point is that Humanity has been slowly weakening itself,
and cheerfully at that, since the Enlightenment and this process may be a
failure for human values but a resounding success for higher values?
Remember that hierarchy you identified as being important? I should think
Humans as we know them are not at the apex. They cannot be: Culture is a
higher level, and intellectual values are higher still.
Its the move towards quality that is unstoppable - and its getting faster.
Enlightenment as failure is an 'I' centred illusion generated by the
enlightenment itself.
You never where who you thought you where anyway.
Maybe the enlightenment never really happened?
All the best,
Squonk.
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