In a message dated 7/1/02 1:39:50 AM GMT Daylight Time,
DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org writes:
> Squonk and all:
>
> Maybe the Enlightenment never happened? That statement expresses a level of
> skepticism that makes me uncomfortable. The evidence is just too
> overwhelming.
>
> Culture and intellect are higher than humans? I don't see how these higher
> levels can exist without humans.
>
> Yes, the machines are happy. And that's not the only upside to the
> Enlightenment. Wilber lists a few of the good things modernity has, but
> previous ages did not. The following is also from page 59 of Wilber's
> INTEGRAL PSYCHOLOGY. "But clearly there were some immensely positive
> aspects of modernity as well, for it also gave us the liberal democracies;
> ideals of equality, freedom and justice, regardless of race, class, creed,
> or gender; modern medicine, physics, biology and chemistry; the end of
> slavery; the rise of feminism; and the universal rights of human kind.
> Those, surely, are a little more noble than the mere "disenchantment of the
> world"." So, I'm not only convinced that something real actually happened,
> something we call the Enlightenment, I'm pretty damn happy that it
> happened.
>
> Thanks,
> DMB
>
> That's it from me, but, in part, Squonk had said...........
>
> >> 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?
>>
>
Hi DMB and all,
(By the way, DMB always reminds me of Dave Mathews Band! Great music!)
I see Wilber is happy about a shift in creativity since the Enlightenment.
This creative shift has given the higher value levels a boost, and its engine
i venture to suggest is mathematics and subsequent symbolic logic?
'Hey!' Folks may have thought, 'We are on the coat tails of God and catching
up fast!'
As for freedom?
Slavery has taken on new forms but in a sense there are more slaves.
The slaves are now happy and don't feel themselves to be slaves, but slaves
to culture non the less.
You are your culture.
Equality is just as pervasive an illusion as individuality.
If everyone were equal - that is to say had the same quality - then we would
be indistinguishable?
Ideals such as individuality and freedom are intellectual patterns and do not
stand up to cultural scrutiny.
The point in my initial post is that culture and intellectual patterns are
breathing life into patterns of value that have the potential to replace
humans as we now view them?
The ancients did this through culture when they built statues, pyramids,
henge and monoliths? All these attracted cultural patterns that overwhelmed
individuals.
We are doing something similar with technology but in this case the
technology has the potential to become more than its initial conditioning?
I don't want much to do with any of that.
But then, i'm not supposed to as the ones who DO are happy!
Culture and intellect may not exist without humans, but that's a bit like
saying a TV may not exist without protons.
All the best,
Squonk.
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