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novapsycheOur view of nature is largely a matter of changing intellectual and literary fashions, for it has become a world strangely alien to us. This estrangement is intensified in a time and a culture wherein it is widely believed that we must depart from the principles which have hitherto governed the evolution of life. For it is felt that the future organization of the world can no longer be left to the complex and subtle processes of natural balances from which life and man himself arose. When the process brought forth human intelligence, it introduced an entirely new principle of order. From now on, it is claimed, the organization of life cannot happen; it must be controlled, however intricate the task. In this task the human intellect will no longer be able to rely upon the innate and natural "wisdom" of the organism which produced it. It will have to stand alone, relying strictly upon its own resources. Whether he likes it or not, man--or rather the conscious intelligence of man--must henceforth rule the world.
This is an astonishing jump to conclusions for a being who knows so little about himself, and who will even admit that such sciences of the intelligence as psychology and neurology are not beyond the stage of preliminary dabbling. For if we do not know even how we manage to be conscious and intelligent, it is most rash to assume that we know what the role of conscious intelligence will be, and still more that it is competent to order the world.
-- Alan Watts, Nature, Man, and Woman (1958), p. 2.
This is an astonishing jump to conclusions for a being who knows so little about himself, and who will even admit that such sciences of the intelligence as psychology and neurology are not beyond the stage of preliminary dabbling. For if we do not know even how we manage to be conscious and intelligent, it is most rash to assume that we know what the role of conscious intelligence will be, and still more that it is competent to order the world.
-- Alan Watts, Nature, Man, and Woman (1958), p. 2.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-20 02:03 pm (UTC)just find the old editions, not the edited and drastically altered recent editions....
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-20 03:56 pm (UTC)human intellect doesn't enter into the natural flow except to disturb it. I rely on the innate wisdom of the planet that has brought us forth - it's invisible hands work tirelessly.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-23 05:36 pm (UTC)Taariel