Blake's 3 Great Errors

Posted by William Blake on 27 August 2010 | 4 Comments

Tags: William Blake

A passage from William Blake's "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell".

"All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following Errors.

1. That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body & a Soul.
2. That Energy, call'd Evil, is alone from the Body, & that Reason, call'd Good, is alone from the Soul.
3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.

But the following Contraries to these are True

1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that call'd Body is a portion of Soul discern'd by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.
2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body; and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.
3 Energy is Eternal Delight."

http://www.levity.com/alchemy/blake_ma.html

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Independent philosopher

Posted by Simon Raggett on 19 August 2010 | 1 Comments

Tags: consciousness, fundamentalist theories

Barbara Montero is an independent philosopher to the extent that she does not follow so many modern philosophers in acting as an under-labourer to a dated Newtonian view of science. Montero offers a shrewd analysis of the reasons why mainstream thinkers are unhappy with theories of consciousness that derive consciousness from the fundamental level of the universe. She asks why properties that are mental should be accounted as non-physical, rather than as being part of the physical universe. She suggests that properties related to the mental tend not to be regarded as acceptable parts of the physical universe, because if the mental were seen as fundamental, it would have emerged like that from the Big Bang. She thinks that for some this might hint at the existence of a god, and further than that a human or mental related purpose to the universe.

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The power of purpose and autonomy

Posted by Matt on 12 August 2010 | 1 Comments

Tags: purpose, animation

This is a beautifully illustrated presentation on the limits of monetary reward, and the power of purpose and autonomy to motivate.

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There is an unbounded main of thought...

Posted by Oliver Robinson on 7 August 2010 | 2 Comments

"There is an unbounded main
Of thought, beyond our wildest dream,
Through which arrives in every brain,
Imbued with ego, a tiny stream."

"The earth is ailing, water sick
And nations on the brink of war,
Air with the fumes of poison thick
Because mankind has wandered far

From her divinely ordered route
In search of pleasure, wealth and ease
Her passions and desires to suit,
Her fancies and her whims to please."

adapted from Gopi Krishna's last book, The Way to Self-Knowledge, published in 1987.

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