Unextinguishable

Imbolc and the 3/4 Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Vince. What a good guy. Kristine Gonzalez. What a good and thorough doc. Maren, for getting me past the electronic gates of the patient portal. Finally, a good medical practice. And, local. Cheryl, too, at Quest in the practice. A good phlebotomist. A local team for medical and Snowplowing/handyman needs. Jodi and Bowe. A good team for the kitchen. Ruth, Jon, Gabe. Coming up at 3 pm. Safeway pickup. Alan and the Bread Lounge this morning.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Irreducible Mind, Edward Kelly, et al

Tarot: Nine of Vessels, Generosity

 

Digging into the books written by Ed Kelly and his collaborators. Many flashes across the dark desert, a storm coming that will bring rain to the arid behaviorism of the Watson-Skinner crowd.

These books, there are three: Irreducible Mind, Beyond Physicalism: Toward Reconciliation of Science and Spirituality, and Consciousness Unbounded: Liberating Mind from the Tyranny of Materialism, fat ones, heavy on my sturdy Stickley chair, reflect the work and interaction of a multidisciplinary team. Ed says in the preface to Irreducible Mind (IM) that the purpose of these volumes is to get to advanced undergraduates and early graduate students in disciplines like philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology before they experience, and I love this phrase: hardening of the categories.

Guilty. I am guilty of a hardening of the categories on just these issues. Skepticism has its place, oh yes, but when it turns, it turns bad. It creates walls that can’t be breached even by new data, creating the very situation that it purports to avoid. Ed offers several antidotes to this rotten form of skepticism.

Francis Bacon, 1620: “The world is not to be narrowed till it will go into the understanding…but the understanding to be expanded and opened till it can take in the image of the world as it is in fact.” p. xxii, intro to IM

Also, and you’ll like this Bill, by Philosopher F.C.H. Schiller: “For the facts to be ‘discovered’ there is needed the eye to see them.” ibid.

Gotta lot more good quotes. Ed is a funny and acerbic guy. Here’s my favorite: “chess-playing computer programs represent real progress toward real intelligence in roughly the same sense that climbing a tree represents progress toward the moon.” xxv, intro.

This feels like a spot I could have inhabited a long time ago if I had not allowed my flat earth empiricism (a variety of rotten skepticism) to keep me on a conventional and conservative line of thought about these matters.

Combining this work with kabbalah, tarot, and astrology should be enough to keep me busy for the next quarter of a century if the docs can keep me kicking that long.

This kind of stuff excites me, makes me eager. I’m getting this house set up for good eating, good exercise, good study, good thought. Now I have subject matter that actually conforms to my old reimagining faith project. Wow.

A strong and unextinguishable part of me is an academic, episodically trained in esoteric fields like philosophy, theology, kabbalah, and now the war between physicalism and idealism. I like that part of me and want to feed him over the next few years. Feed him better, more consistently. The Hermitage. A good spot for all of this. And, for conversation about it.

Thanks to Ode for putting me on this path.