How Far Has Mankind Progressed?

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The philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) lived the quiet life of a scholar, his interest in the political events of his time was intense. He sympathised with the American and French Revolutions and was a believer of democracy. In one of his lectures on ethics Kant argues than the human race is destined to achieve the highest moral perfection; however, when he looks around him at the world he sees humanity's noble destiny being thwarted by constant warring between nations. The solution, he says, is for rulers to be properly educated to pursue peace. It is a perfect illustration of the Enlightenment faith in the perfectibility of mankind.

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One who fails to know what is true or false, cannot know what is right or wrong, or what is good or evil. Yet needs that knowledge in order to live

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OEDIPUS COMPLEX - Sigmund Feud

Sigmund Freud's first mention of the OEDIPUS COMPLEX was in a letter written in 1897 while he was reviewing his relationship with his father, who had recently died six months before. In The Interpretation of Dreams, written at about the same time, he spoke of 'being in love with one of one's parents and hating the other' as being 'among the essential constituents of the stock of physical impulses' formed in childhood, and as important in determining the symptoms of later neuroses. These physical impulses, which he called the OEDIPUS COMPLEX, retain their power to determine neurotic symptoms, he supposed, only when there is a fixation at the Oedipal level of development. This occurs when the rivalry with the parent of the same sex is not resolved through identification with this parent or when sexual feelings for the parent of the opposite sex are not transferred to a sexual partner outside the family.
In the story of Hamlet, in Shakespeare's play, is regarded as similar to that of Oedipus, the stepfather, not the son, is the agressor

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There is a celebrated philosophical debate about whether statements about essence reflect the real nature of things or merely human linguistic convention. Questions about essence ('what is X?' 'what is to be X') have been distinguished from questions about existence ('does X exists?'). JEAN-PAUL SATRE (1905 - 80) maintain that, in the case of human beings, 'existence precedes essence'. On this view, the first truth of which a human is aware is simply that he exists, his freedom to choose how to live is not constrained by any predetermined 'nature' of essence.

S. Kripke (1980). Naming and Necessity. Oxford.

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Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). Born in London and educated at Westminster School, he entered the Queen's College, Oxford, at the age of twelve. Studied law, and was called to the Bar in 1772. He believed that laws should be socially useful, and should and not not merely reflect custom, that men are hedonists pursuing (pleasure and avoiding pain). His famous dictum is that all actions are right and good which promote 'the greatest happiness of the greatest number'. For Bentham, pleasure was a purely quantitative notion, and the ability of an act could be calculated by measuring the amount of pleasure it produced in terms of intensity, duration, etc.
J.S. Mill (1806-73) by contrast, distinguished between higher and lower pleasures, and argued that certain types of pleasure (notably those of the intellect) are qualitatively superior, irrespective of the actual amount of pleasure they produce. Of course it is a matter of common sense people pursue a wide variety of goals in life (e.g. scientific truth, justice, religious enlightenment), and it does not appear that the pursuit of pleasure-unless the concept of pleasure is defined so widely that the claim that only pleasure is pursued becomes trivially true.

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Aristotle was born in an obscure village far from the intellectual centre of Greece. His father was a court physician , and it is pleasing to speculate he encouraged his son to take an interest in matter scientific and philosophical. In 367 Aristotle migrated to Athens, where he joined the brilliant band of thinkers who studied with Plato in the Academy. He soon made a name for himself , as a student of great intellect, acumen, and originality. On the death of Plato, Aristotle moved to Asia Minor where he spent some years devoted principally to the study of biology and zoology. Aristotle was a polymath, his researches ranged from abstract logic and metaphysics to highly detailed studies in biology and anatomy, with the possible exception of the mathematical sciences, no branch of knowledge was left untouched by him. His contributions were both innovatory and systematic: no man has achieved more, no one man has had a greater influence, and Aristotle remains in Dante's phrase,
the master of those who know

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Plato (427 -347BC) Plato was born into a distinguished family whose members played a prominent part in the political life of Athens. It is probable that he himself expected to to follow a political career, but a some point he came under the influence of that charismatic talker. 'Socrates': Socrates was put to death in 399 BC, and it may have been this which which changed the course of Plato's life, and turned him to philosophy. His celebrated school the Academy, probably opened its doors in about 385. and it soon attracted the brightest of intellectual Greece, among them 'Aristotle'. Plato himself must have spent most of him in teaching and lecturing to his disciples and colleagues, and there are stories of a public lecture in which he managed to bemuse most of his audience. Plato left behind a body of philosophical writings, in dialogue form, unsurpassed for their literary elegance and their profundity. The primary source for his psychological theories are thePhaedo,theRepublic, the Phaedrus,and the Timaus.

For an introdductory discussion, see Hare, R.M (1982) Oxford

[mammadon]

technologically, socially we have progressed. But in terms of our basic nature, i doubt we have.

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In ordinary everyday affairs we are sometimes concerned with questions of personal identity. Conceptual questions about personal identity may arise either from philosophising which throws in doubt our ordinary practice with
Is this the same person? question, or from extraordinary cases , real or imaginary, where the '
Is this the same person?on the basis of our ordinary practice. It is not unusual for philosophers writing on personal identity to refer to extraordinary cases with a view of persuading one that one sort sort of consideration should be treated as decisive. 'Is this the same person' question is that of DESCARTES, though the question about personal identity to which his philosophy gave rise came to the fore only in the writings of his successors, in particular John LOCKE ( Essay concerning Human Understanding, bk, II, ch.xxxvii) Now, Descartes thought that someone who thinks 'I am, therefore, I am' is certain not only that this thought is occurring but also that there is a being which thinks the thought.

S. Shoemaker and R. Swinburne. (1984) Personal Identity. Berkeley, California.
B. Williams. (1973). Problems of Self. Cambridge.

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KNOWLEDGE, may described as a representation of facts and concepts organised for future use, including *product-solving. Of course, there is 'useless' knowledge, such as which is the third or longest river in the world, on the other hand there is also knowledge that far transcends even what is necessary for immediate survival. It is on this latter that civilization's future depends, and in our possession of it we are surely, outside the biological stream of natural selection. It is also useful to distinguish 'knowing how' from 'knowing what' for knowledge includes the skills of knowing how to make effective use of individual facts and generalisations. When appropriately organized, it allows us to transfer experience from the past to the future, to predict and control events, and to invent new futures. It is thus, a crucial component of *intelligence.

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LATERALTHINKING. There may not be a reason for saying something until after you have said it. Now this statement may not make sense in the world of logic, where each step rest securely on the preceding step: reason must first come before a conclusion, not after it. Yet the statement makes perfect sense in the world of lateral thinking, of perception, of patterning systems. The first stage of thinking is the perception stage: how we look at the world, the concepts and perceptions we from. The second stage of thinking is the processing stage. Logic can only be used in the second stage since it requires concepts and perceptions to work upon. Lateral thinking is concerned with changing concepts, and perceptions. A young toddler is upsetting granny's knitting, by playing with the ball of wool. One suggestion is to put the child into the playpen. Another is to leave the child outside and put granny into the playpen.

E. de Bono. (1977). Lateral Thinking, 2nd edn. London

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IDEAS might be called 'the sentence of thought'. They are expressed by language, but underlie language -for the idea comes before its expression. (Though it is sometimes said that one knows what one thinks only after one has said it!) Philosophers have traditionally distinguished between 'simpler ideas and complex' ideas'. Simply ideas are supposed to be directly derived from sensation. When combined, they can produce complex and abstract ideas far removed from sensory experience and expressed in shared language. Simple ideas are the 'atoms' of associationist accounts of the mind. In common speech, 'one idea leads to another': and it is this which was formalised by the eighteenth and nineteenth-century associationists such as John *Locke, David *Hume, James *Mill, J.S. *Mill, and Alexander *Bain. But how does one have a new idea, if ideas can only follow from others, or from sensations? It is by the 'emergence-as in chemistry-of new surprising properties of combined elements? This lead to considerations of *intelligence, *creativity, and *genuis.

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A person representing the lowest grade of feeble-mindedness. An adult is technically a person having a mental age of not more than two years, or an IQ not above 25. An idiot savant may have remarkable specific abilities (such as mental arithmetic), though otherwise he fits this classification.

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OUT-OF-THE-BODY EXPERIENCE, or OBE may be defined as an experience in which a person seems to perceive the world from a location outside his physical body. OBE's have been reported from diverse ages and cultures, by old and young, educated and uneducated, and those who have prior beliefs about experiences and those who know nothing about them. Some of the most dramatic OBE's have been reported as part of the near-death experience, for example in those who are resuscitated from cardiac arrest or who survive life-threatening accidents. However, very similar experiences can occur during resting, meditation, when taking certain drugs or even during normal every day activity. OBE's have been investigated by case collections, surveys, experiments, and personal experience. Experiments have mostly been of three types. First were attempts to detect the double during the OBE, which began early in the last century. The second type aims to determine whether a person having OBE can actually bring back information from distant location. The third type of experiment is studies of the physiological state associated with the OBE. A popular modern version is the doctrine of 'astral projection'. according to which the astral body is capable of separating from the physical body and travelling without it on the astral plane. All the evidence suggests that rather than hunt down the elusive 'other body', we shall get closer to understanding OBE by treating it. What we need is a better understanding of subjective experience-including mystical experience and other altered states of consciousness-within which the experience of seeming to be outside one's body makes sense.
S. J. Blackmore (1982).Beyond the Body. London.
C. E. Green (1982) Out-of-the Body Experience London
D. S. Rogo (1983). Leaving the Body. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

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Mental abilities usually distinguished from feelings, *emotions, and also *perception-though perception, we now generally believe (following Hermann von *Helmholtz), in fact depends upon unconscious influences. The word intellect is seldom applied to animals; and an 'intellectual' person means someone concerned with problems requiring high *intelligence and much learning. The intellect is associated with cortical brain function.

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Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-94) German physiologist, became the founder of the science of perceptual physiology. Wrote on visual illusions, in his last paper on perception. Knowledge gained through daily experience, with all its accidents, does not usually have the range and completeness which it is possible to obtain with experiments....Usually refer to incorrect inducive interferences concerning meaning of our perception as illusions of the senses.For most part hey are the result of incomplete inducive inferences. Their occurrence is largely related to the fact that we tend to favour certain ways of using our sense organs - those ways which provide us with the most reliable and most consistent judgement about the forms, spatial relations, and properties of the objects we observe.........Unusual perceptions, concerning whose meaning for which we have no trained knowledge, occur with unusual positions and movements of our sense organs, and incorrect interpretations of these perceptions may result. We can, in fact, lay down the general rule that with abnormal positions and movements of the eyes, the intuitions which occur are those of the objects which would naturally have to exist in order to produce the same perceptions under the conditions of normal vision.

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GENERALISING. The deriving of general statements from individual instances. Generalising occurs in learning, and is essential for deriving knowledge from experieinces and for skills of all kinds. It is the basis of predicting future situations from past experiences and for drawing analogies

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Induction is a term encompassing a variety of forms of inference, commonly, but not always, in contrast to *deduction. If 'proposition' is defined as a thought expressible by a grammatical sentence having either prescriptive or descriptive force, thought between one or more prepositions and a further proposition (conclusion), where the premises purport to be reasons for the conclusion. The conclusion of deductive inferences cannot be rejected without contradicting the thoughts contained in the premises. The root idea of a movement in thought from particular to general has given rise to the practice of applying the term 'induction' to two form of inference which is in fact deductive. The first of these is complete induction (in Aristotle, 'deduction from induction, ex epagoges sullogismos'), where the premises are all less general than the conclusion, but collectively exhaust the instances covered by the conclusion. Francis *Bacon rejected the procedure of applying a global principle as 'childish', insisting that induction must proceed by 'proper rejections and exclusions'. J. S. *Mill's 'four methods of experimental inquiry' were designed to help identify the laws and casual factors governing phenomena. David *Hume, who is the classic source for this problem (although he did not formulate it using the word 'induction') considered whether a global principle such as uniformity of nature could serve cases.
F. Bacon (1620) The New Organon (especially bk. 1) 1960 edn. New York
D. Hume (1739-40). A Treatise of Human Nature, bk. 1. pt.iii. 1888 edn., Oxford.
J.S. Mill (1843). A System of Logic, bk.III. 1879 edn. London

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The idea behind the notion of an analytic proposition is that at least some of our concepts can be represented as complexes of simpler concepts and that a proposition may state nothing more than what an analysis would reveal, namely relation between a simple concept and a complex complex of which it forms a part . 'Kant', taking judgements expressed by propositions to have the form 'A is B' defined an analytic judgement as one where the 'predicate B belongs to the subject A as something which is (covertly) contained in the concept 'A'. In the more linguistic terms, if the criteria for calling something 'a body' include the criterion, being extended, then the latter is 'contained in' the former and the proposition 'a body is extended' is analytic. An analytic statement thus cannot be defined without contradiction and is logically necessary (*possibility). That is necessity can be seen simply from a grasp of the concepts or words involved leads to speaking of analytic propositions as true in virtue of the meaning of the words.
I. Kant (1929) The Critique of Pure Reason

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Time reveals the truth.

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Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man.
Placed on the isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubts to act or to rest,
In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer,
Born but to die, and reas'ning but err,
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much.

An Essay on Man Epistle 2(1733) 1. 1. cf. Charron
192:2

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Providence has not created mankind entirely
independent or entirely free. It is true that around
every man a fatal circle is traced, beyond which he
cannot pass; but within the wide verge of that circle
he is powerful and free.

translated by H. Reeve 1841

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The belief common among most primitive people is that all things in the world (including stones, plants, the wind, etc.) are imbued with some kind of spiritual or psychological presence; this may imply that most things are 'ensouled' or 'animated' by a universal 'world soul', or by individual spirits of various kinds. The philosophical doctrine, sometimes known as 'panpsychism' , that there is some spark or germ of consciousness present in all things. A version of this views was developed by the German philosopher G.W. Leibniz.

(See LEIBNIZ'S PHILOSOPHY OF MIND)

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According to Sigmund *Freud a large part of the mind is unconscious - though essentially similar to the conscious mind in having wishes and fears and so on. This Freudian theory is very different from the notion which forms a part of many, more recent psychological theories, that the brain processes accept and analyse information unconsciously, as one might expect of a computer - lack of *consciousness is not the same as the unconscious. Opinion is probably moving away from the Freudian view, to something closer to this *artificial intelligence notion that unconscious processing is basic to behaviour. This view, however, is that of extreme *behaviourism which claims there is no unconsciousness whatever. The notion of unconscious inference was developed by Herman von *Helmholtz, when he considered perception as given by inferences ('Unconscious Inferences') from features of the world as signalled by the senses, This gave rise to a very complex historical controversy, with Helmholtz and /Freud as major figures, when even now has not been resolved in detail.

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As human beings our predicament is like that of a dog leashed to an unpredictable cart: reality grants us a certain amount of free rein but prevents us from wandering where we please. When we struggle against events over which we have no control, our suffering increases. In such instances the only wise option is to resign ourselves to fate.

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A peaceful heart is essential for well-being. As long as we feel to defend ourselves, the inner battle will continue. But when we can be peace - drop feelings of "us-versus-them" and live from a place that sees no separation from others - we can make peace with everyone, ourselves included.

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Nothing happens to any man that he
is not formed to bear,
Marcus Aurelius (121 - 180)

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Throughout our lives we perform various
social roles. If we're not careful, we find ourselves identifying
too closely with a particular role, which then becomes limiting.
What are the roles you currently associate with?
What mask and manners do
you adopt? What lies behind 'these masks.
Who are you really?

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Mankind always sets itself only with such problems as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely, it will always be found that the tasks itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution already exist or at least in the process of formation.

A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. (1859)

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You seek too much information and not
enough transformation,

Shirdi Sai Baba (1856-1918)

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Everything we do or say has effects that ripple outward into the world - However solitary or private our actions. Try to live your life in such a way that whenever you stop and look back at the footprints you've made, you see a path that you are happy to call your own - and one that feel others might benefit from following.

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The criterion which we use to test the genuineness of apparent statements of fact is the criterion of verifiability. We say that a sentence is factually significant to any given person, if, and only if, he knows how to verify the preposition which it purports to express - that is, if he knows what observations would lead him, under certain conditions to accept the preposition as being true, or reject it as being false.

Language, Truth, and Logic. (1936) ch. 1

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We offer the theist the same comfort as we gave to the moralist. His assertions cannot possibly be valid, but they cannot be invalid either. As he says nothing at all about the world, he cannot justly be accused of saying anything false, or anything for which he has insufficient grounds. It is only when the theist claims that in asserting the existence of a transcendent god he is expressing a genuine proposition that we are entitled to disagree with him.

A.J.Ayer (1910-89)

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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
(1903)

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By going to the moon....

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The mystery of life is not solved by success,
which is an end in itself, but in failure, in
perpetual struggle, in becoming.
Voss (1957) ch.10

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...Progress, man's distinctive mark alone
Not God's, and not the beasts': God is, they are,
Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.

Robert Browning (1812-89)

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The movement of the progressive societies has hitherto been a movement from Status to Contract.
Henry Maine (1822-88)

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Laws of thought have traditionally been linked with, and sometimes identified with, laws of logic. (Sigmund *Freud, who held there are highly irrational, powerful laws determining behaviour and how we perceive the world and ourselves.) Thus that which renders Logic possible, is the existence in our mind of general notions - our ability to conceive of a class, and to designate its individual members by a common name. The theory of Logic is thus intimately connected with that of language. A successful attempt to express logical propositions by symbols, the laws of whose combinations should be founded upon laws of mental processes which they represent, would, so far, be a step toward a philosophical language. At present, it seems that we shall not be able to specify effective laws of thought in detail before there are adequate computer programmes for solving problems - including problem solving that is not explicitly logical.
Boole. G. (1847).

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Moderation in all things.

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"The Self exists both inside and outside the physical body, just as an image exists inside and outside the mirror."
Ashtavakra Gita (c.200BCE - c.200CE)

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Having a Black President of the United States of America...

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You cannot fight against the future. Time in on our aside.

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In this century, which is the century of light and the revelation of mysteries...it is well established that mankind and womankind as parts of composite humanity are coequal and that no difference in estimate is allowable, for all are human

Abdul Baha (1844-1921)

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The Great Path has no gate. Thousands of road enter it. When one passes through this gateless gate, one walks freely between heaven and hell.
MUMON (1900-1988)

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As the Russian novelist Dostoevsky wrote:

"Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear
most."
If you find yourself in this position, quailing on the
threshold of something new, take heart, for you are not alone
in your fear. Be inspired by the knowledge that others have
conquered fears before you.

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When in doubt just live the question, and some day you will grow into the answer:


Without contraries is no progression. Attraction
and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate,
are necessary to human existence.
'The Argument'

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In history, we are concerned with what has been
and what is; in philosophy, however, we are
concerned not with what belongs exclusively to
the past or the future, but with that which is,
both now and eternally - in short, with reason. (GWF Hegel) 1770-1831

All generalisations are dangerous,

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What we call progress is the exchange of
one nuisance for anothernuisance.

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Change is inevitable but in a progressive country
Change is constant.

(The Times)1867

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Man is only great when he acts from the
passion. (coningsby)
(The Times)1867

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As to the ritual dimension, there is a strong emphasis on personal prayer, and preaching is probably the prime form of rite, with hymn singing and Bible reading. People switch congregations because A is a superior preacher to B, and gathering congregation is a vital task. As to the social and institutional dimension, there is a tendency for hardline fundamentalists to separate themselves of from evangelicals who are in their view too soft, or who cooperate with the wrong people, such as liberal Christians, Roman Catholics, and Jews. But we have observe, there is a wider cooperation of the political front, through the so-called Moral Majority. As to ethics, there is a strong affirmation for what we may be called conservative individualism. Society is made up of individuasl, and its quality will reflect the life of individuals - who should be sober, hardworking, sexually faithful, patriotic, and so on. Some fundamentalists particularly dislike certain fashions which they identify with permissiveness - long hair, beards, and so ... Finally, in material terms, believers are not much committed to the visual side, being heirs to the old iconoclastic tradition, yet, it is characteristic for them to be keen on-up-to-date methods, disseminating their message. In many way Christianity can be be non traditional, but at the same time it claims to stand for older values. How far have we progressed, in relation of modern knowledge to the Bible.

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Learn to wish that everything should
come to pass exactly as it does. (Epictetus (55-c.135)

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What can be said at all can be said clearly; and
whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be
silent.

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922) preface.

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Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where
none come to buy.

The Four Zoas 'Night of the Second'

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Renew your brilliance. It is the privilege of the
Phoenix. Excellence grows old and so does fame.
Custom wears down our admiration, and a
mediocre novelty can conquer the greatest
eminence in its old age. So be reborn in
corsage, in intellect, in happiness, and in all else.
Dare to renew your brilliance, dawning many
times, like the sun, only changing your
surroundings. Withhold it and make people miss
it; renew it and make them applaud.

The Art of Wordly Wisdom (1994)

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Easy is right. Begin right and you are easy
Continue easy and you are right
(Chuang Tzu (c.369-286BCE)

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'Change' is scientific, 'progress' is ethical; change
is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of
controversy. Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

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The door to the human heart
can only be opened from the
inside

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Be still and cool in thy own mind and spirit
from thy own thoughts, and then thou wilt feel
the principle of God to turn thy mind to the
Lord God.


George Fox (1624-91)

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In history, we are concerned with what has been been
and what is; in philosophy, however, we are
concerned not with what belongs exclusively to
the past or the future, but with that which is,
both and eternally - in short, with reason.


G.W.E. Hegel (1770 -1831)

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Know that for the human mind there are certain
objects of perception which are within the scope
of its nature and capacity; on the other hand,
there are, amongst other things which actually exists,
certain objects which the mind can in no way
and by no means grasp: the gates of perception
are closed against it.






Maimondides (1135-1204)

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Ours is an age of substitutes: instead of
language, we have jargon; instead of principles,
slogans; and, instead of genuine ideas, Bright
ideas.



in New Republic 29 December 1952

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The significance of man is that he is that part of
the universe that asks the question, What is the
significance of Man? He alone can stand apart
imaginatively and regarding himself and the
universe in their eternal aspects, pronounce a
judgement: The significance of man is that he is
insignificant and is aware of it.


Carl Becker (1873-1945)

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The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious
encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but
without understanding.

dissenting opinion
Louis D, Brandeis (1856-1941)

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A belief in a supernatural source of evil is not
necessary; men alone are quite capable of every
wickedness.


Under Western Eyes (1911) pt. 2. ch. 4

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A man that is born falls into a dream like a man
who falls into the sea. If he tries to climb out
into the air as inexperienced people endeavour to do,
he drowns.


Lord Jim (1900) ch. 20

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I am a woman and a woman of Africa. I am a
daughter of Nigeria and if she is in shame, I
shall stay and mourn with her in shame.

Buchi Emecheta 1944-

Destination Biafra (1982)

[letric]

The whole world seemed so unequal, so unfair.
Some people wee created with all the good
things ready-made for them, others were just
created like mistakes.
Second Class Citizen (1974) ch. 9



Buchi Emecheta 1944-

Destination Biafra (1982)

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It is neither death, nor exile, nor toil, nor any
such thing that is the cause of our doing, or of
our not doing, anything, but only our opinions
and the decisions of our will.

often quoted as 'Not things, but opinions
about things , trouble men.
Epicetus c.AD 50-120

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Of all means which wisdom acquires to
ensure happiness throughout the whole of life
by far the most important is friendship.


Lives of Eminent Philosophers bk. 10, sect.

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There is freedom... For it would be impossible for any rational nature
to exist without it. Whatever by nature has the use of reason has the
power of judgement to decide the matter.

[letric]

The closing pages of Consolation are a presentation of the mind of God ;
and, like a full circle referred in Book Four, Boethius' light goes full circle.
His language here is sometimes that of philosophers who preceded him, with
phrases like 'the inescapable nexus of causation', 'eternal prescience'
'God's foreknowledge', etc. But set against this language of theological
enquiry, Boethius adopts the language of scientific and psychological exploration:

Similarly man himself is held in different ways by sense-perception,
imagination, reason and intelligence which passes beyond the sphere of the universe
to behold the simple form itself with the pure vision of the mind.

The Consolation of Philosophy (Boethius)
Translated by VE Watts

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The gods of both Egypt and Babylonia were credited with speech,
and with at least human intelligence, and human passions, and morality.
The Egyptian judgement at death was not, however, entrusted ether
to gods or to men - but to a great mechanical balance on which the heart
was weighed against the feather of truth. This balance in the hall of judgement
was served by many gods, including the god of wisdom, learning, language and number.
Egyptian literature is surprisingly unphilosophical , perhaps because unlike the Greek
their society was dominated by priests. But Egyptian scholarship has done much to
interpret their strange (to us) ideas on the universe and mind. Whereas the people
of other civilisations believed they were created by gods from matter, the ancient
Egyptians saw themselves as created directly out of nothing by the god who created
the universe. They saw themselves as a divine nation, and their king as a god, though
with mortal body. They were uniquely religious.

Budge, E.A. Wallace (1891) Egyptian Magic.

[letric]

Just as medicine is pointless unless
drives away our illness or our pain, so
too virtue is useless unless we exercise
it in situations where it is challenged.

[letric]

Any vision can exists and can only be perceived under conditions of harmony, just as most
philosophies are about systems of thought.

[letric]

We cannot avoid taking risks in our lives. We have all inherited
houses on the slopes of the volcano Vesuvius. That is where we
tend our lovely gardens.

[letric]

We often judge ourselves much more harshly than we judge our friends. Yet when we are loving toward ourselves, we flower into the essential compassionate beings that we really are. Close your eyes and imagine that you are your own best friend - a warm, caring person who sees you and thinks of you in a loving and supportive way. Acknowledge your good qualities to yourself and praise your recent successes, no matter how small. To finish, give yourself a hug. Enjoy the feeling of being truly loved for who you are.

[letric]

A comb life gives you after you lose your hair

[letric]

Love is infallible; it has no errors, but all errors
are the want of love


Andrew Bonar Law (1858-1923)

[letric]

The first stage of thinking is the perception stage: how
we look at the world; the concepts and perceptions we
form. The second stage of thinking is the processing stage
what we do with the perceptions that have been set up in
in the first stage. Logic an only be used in the second stage
since it requires concepts and perceptions to work upon.
So what can we do about the first or perception stage?
We can rely on chance, circumstances, experiment, or
mistake to change our perceptions, or we can try to do
something more deliberate. That is where lateral thinking
comes in.

[letric]

One might perhaps say that this very thing is
probable, that many things happen to men that
are not probable


Aristotle

[letric]

In history, we are concerned with what has been
and what is; in philosophy, however, we are
concerned not with what belongs exclusively to
the past, or to the future, but with that which is,
both now and eternally - in short reason.


G.W.F.

[letric]

What is rational is actual and what is actual is
rational


We often judge ourselves much more harshly than we judge our friends. Yet when we are loving toward ourselves, we flower into the essential compassionate beings that we really are. Close your eyes and imagine that you are your own best friend - a warm, caring person who sees you and thinks of you in a loving and supportive way. Acknowledge your good qualities to yourself and praise your recent successes, no matter how small. To finish, give yourself a hug. Enjoy the feeling of being truly loved for who you are.

[letric]

In every system of morality, which I have
hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that
the author proceeds for sometime in the
ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the
being of god, or makes observations
concerning human affairs; when of a sudden
I am surprised to find that instead of the usual
copulations of propositions, is and
is not, I meet with no proposition
that is not connected with an ought or an
ought not. This change is
imperceptible; but it is, however, of the
last consequence.


D.H.

[letric]

It is the province of knowledge to speak and it
is the privilege of wisdom to listen.


O.W.H.

[letric]

Nothing is more surprising to those who
consider human affairs with a philosophical eye,
than to see the easiness with which many
are governed by the few, and to observe the
implicit submission with which men resign their
own sentiments and passions to those of their
rulers.



D.H.

[letric]

Man has but three events in his life: to be born,
to live, and tio die. He is not conscious of his
birth, he suffers at his death and he forgets
to live.


Jean de la Bruyere (1645-96)

[letric]

A man travels the world in search of what he
needs and returns home to find it.


Edward Moore.

[letric]

I should love to think of a black Archbishop of
York holding a mission to the University of Oxford, and
telling a future generation of the scandal and glory of
the Church

Michael Ramsey (1904-88)
Archbishop of York (1956-69)

[letric]

well here I am, and you have already
acknowledged that fact!

Uganda-born Anglican clergyman, Archbishop of York
from 2005.


Michael Ramsey (1904-88)
Archbishop of York (1956-69)

[letric]

Intellect usually distinguished from feeling, *emotions, and *perceptions - though
perception, we now generally believe, in fact depends upon unconscious inferences.
The word is seldom applied to animals, and an 'intellectual person' means someone
concerned with problems requiring high *intelligence and much learning.




The first stage of thinking is the perception stage: how
we look at the world; the concepts and perceptions we
form. The second stage of thinking is the processing stage
what we do with the perceptions that have been set up in
in the first stage. Logic an only be used in the second stage
since it requires concepts and perceptions to work upon.
So what can we do about the first or perception stage?
We can rely on chance, circumstances, experiment, or
mistake to change our perceptions, or we can try to do
something more deliberate. That is where lateral thinking
comes in.

[letric]

Belief in a world of spirits has been a constant
feature of all human societies. However, systematic
communications with world through spirit medium-
ship and possession is a central feature only of
certain peripheral cults in primitive societies, and
of spiritualism in the Western world since the middle
of the 19th century, in preliterate societies, spirit
possession cults, attracting women and other down-
trodden and depressed categories of person. In
Western society communication with the spirits of
the departed has been spasmodic. The voice of
God, and intimations of divine presence, though
central to the tradition of Christian mysticism,
fall outside the province of strictly spiritualist
experience.

Lewis, I (1971) Ecstatic Religion.

[letric]

Creativity, (*intelligence is another) is a term used as though is a single human characteristic,
by which direct most in practice to a number of concerns that are rather separate. Some these,
like innovation and discovery, have a bearing on the ideas or objects that people
produce. some like self-actualisation, refer more to quality of the life an individual leads;
and some, like imagination and fantasy, points us, in the first instance, to what goes
on inside a person's head. Despite its air of vagueness the notion of creativity has none the
less served an important function among teachers and psychologists, acting as a banner under
which ideological battles have been fought, and indicating, too, a somewhat disparate body of
research, some of which is of real value. In a sense, the evidence of the biological studies has
been largely negative. It has found, time and time again, that those who display great
originality as adults were often, like Charles *Darwin, only mediocre as students. British
scientists who become Fellows of the Royal Society shown roughly the same distribution
of good, mediocre, and poor degree results as do those who go into research but achieve
little. The same holds for intelligence-tests scores: above a surprisingly low level, there is
little or no relationship between IQ and achievement in any sphere of adult endeavour
yet studied. As a result, we would expect future Nobel Prize winners to show
roughly the same distribution of IQ scores as their fellow students at university.
In the American context, the budding scientist of high renown seems typically to be
a B+ student: one who works hard when a topic captures his or her imagination,
but otherwise does the bare minimum. Science springs to life for such individuals when
they discover that instead of assimilating knowledge created by others, they can create
knowledge for themselves - and are hooked from that moment onwards.

Getzels, J.W. and Jackson, P.W. (1962) Creativity and Intelligence,

[letric]

*Descartes famous method of doubt involved withholding assent
from all matters that allow even the smallest possibility of doubt.
The questioning of accepted beliefs or opinion was erected into
philosophical system by the skeptics, such as Pyrrho of Elis (fl.c.300 BC)
who argued that all truth is unknowable and that it is only appropriate
attitude for life is one of total suspension of belief. Thus all
information derived from the senses is potentially unreliable: further,
we cannot know whether we are awake or asleep, so that even
such a simple statement as I am holding this piece of paper is
open to doubt, and finally,there may be a malicious all-powerful
demon who is bent on deceiving us, and so the earth, sky, and
external things may be merely delusions.

[letric]

Kant's metaphysical philosophy - idealism - sought to explore
the nature and boundaries of human knowledge, while his
system of ethics placed moral duty above happiness and asserts
that an absolute moral law - the categorical imperative -
exists. He was a strong supporter of the ideals of the
individual.


Enlightenment is man's first emergence from self-incurred
immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own
understanding without guidance of another. This immaturity
is self-incurred in its cause ... is lack of resolution and courage to
use it understanding without guidance of another.
The motto of enlightenment is therefore ...
Have courage to use your own understanding!


Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
Spent his entire working career
at the University of Konigsberg.

[letric]

Surely, as there mountebanks for the natural body, so are there
mountebanks for the political body; men that undertake great cures, and
perhaps have been lucky, in two or three experiments, but want the
grounds of science, and therefore cannot hold out. You shall see a bold
many tie do Mahomet's miracle. Mahomet's made the people believe that he
would cal an hill to him, again and again; and when the hill stood still, he was
never a whit abashed, but said,

[I]If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.

So these men, when they have promised great matters, and failed most shamefully,
yet (if they have the perfection of boldness) they will but slight it over, and make a turn, and no more ado.


Francis Bacon was a leading politician of his day and was both Lord Chancellor
and Attorney General. His public career was ruined in 1621 when he was accused
of corruption for accepting gifts when he was a judge. It was actually a political
manoeuvre by the parliamentary opponents. Bacon essays published in 1625,
discusses political philosophy. The tale of Muhammad and the mountain originally
comes from the Hadith, the oral traditions of the deeds of the prophet. In the
original Muhammad uses the episode to point out God's mercy, bvecause if the
mountain had come to him, thye all would have been crushed.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
Adherents to the Baconian Theory
think that Bacon wrote plays that
most other scholars attribute to
William Shakespeare.

[letric]

In early 1930, Gandhi and thousands of his followers
undertook the now famous Salt March to the sea.

Like many basics, salt in India was produced under a monopoly by
the British Government. Gandhi's followers walked the 248 miles
from Ahmedabad to Dandi in just under four weeks, and after their
arrival Gandhi evaporated some water in a dish to produce salt, thus
breaking the law. On the way he hasd also spun thread every evening
another banned activity as all cotton grown in India had by law to be
sent to the UK for manufacture and then re-imported at great cost.
After being released from prison, he was invited to London for a
conference. As he disembarked at Southampton, a reporter asked
him what he thought about Western civilisation.[/I]

He responded:


I think it would be a good idea.

Mohandas K Gandhi (1869-1948)
Gandhi was repeatedly imprisoned for
sedition in both South Africa and India

[letric]

If some great Power would agree to make me always think what is
true and do what is right, on condition of being turned into a sort of
clock and wound up every morning before I got out of bed, I should
instantly close with the offer. The only freedom I care about is the
freedom to do right; the freedom tio do wrong I am ready to part
with on the cheapest terms to any one who will take it of me.

Huxley's descendants include Julian,
the first Director of UNESCO, and
Aldous, the author of Brave
New World.

[letric]

When I tell the truth, it is not for the
sake of convincing those who do not
know it, but for the sake of of defending
those that do.




WB

[letric]

Perhaps the most fundamental question in ethics is that posed by Socrates:


How should one live?

But this question covers not just the moral aspects of our conduct,
such as observance of duties, or our contribution to the general welfare, but also
those other more personal and individual aspects of a life which may make it worth
while, or give it meaning. The importance of character, self-reflection, the nature
of the self, and the relationship between the intellect and the emotions. As in the
Delphic motto:


Know thyself

the descent of man into the inner self was also a fundamental theme
of St Augustin e famous ethical and religious work Confessions.

Finally, a good human life is often supposed to be one that has meaning;
it may be asked whether this simply refers to the fact that a life contains various
individually worthwhile ingredients, or whether it implies going over- arching purpose
or goal.
J.COT

Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self Cambride, Mass. 1989

[letric]

People enjoy mental stimulation of a good problem,
and for some it becomes a powerful need. - a cerebral
restlessness epitomised in fiction. It makes little odds
whether the problem is trivial or profound, vague or
precise, so long as it tempts us to resolve a state of
puzzlement. The challenge of the problematic is
manifested in a wide variety of forms. The solution
to a formal problem generally demands the postulation
of a a hypothesis, the assumption that something is true
without knowing whether it is true. Its consequences can
be tested to see whether they fit the facts.

Wertheimer, M. (1969) Productive Thinking

[letric]

Albert Einstein


AN UNLIKELY GENIUS

He made his name in physics, but Albert Einstein's fame
extends far beyond that challenging realm of study. In his
lifetime he was the symbol of scientific brilliance, the archetype
of a nutty pprofessor, known for his comical absent-mindedness
(he claimed he could not remember his own phone number)[/]
and for many professorly eccentricities such as an intense
dislike for socks.

Einstein's life was also a kind of fairytale, since he was an
intellectual ugly duckling who showed absolutely no
promise at school. His early years in Germany left him
with a lifelong distrust of formal education, and a
modesty about his own gifts that constantly astonished
people. In later life, his self-effacing manner and warm
humanism helped to make him a kind of secular saint in
the eyes of his admireres.

[i]The great theory associated with Einstein, relativity, went
almost unnoticed when it was published in 1905. He was at
that time a lowly 26-year-ol-clerk in the Swiss patent office.
Though everyone now knows the idea belongs to Einstein,
few could say what relativity is - and somehow this adds tom
Einstein mystique.

[letric]

Judah Benjamin (1811-840) Caribbean-born Confederate statesman
and lawyer. Replying to a US senator of Germanic origin who had
made an anti-Semitic remark. (Attrib)


The gentleman will please remember that when
his half-civilised ancestors were hunting the wild boar
in Silesia, mine were princes of the earth.

[letric]

Babur (1483-1530), Humayun (1508-1556), Akbar (1542-1605),
Jahangir or Salim (1569-1627), Shah Jahan or Khurram (1592-1666)
and Aurangzeb (1618-1707). These are the great Mughals whose
lineage was awesome. On Babur's paternal side, he was the grandson
of the Sultan Abu Said Mirza of Herat, a great- grandson of Tumur,
the legendary Tartar hero. On his mother's side, his grandfather
was Yunus Khan of Tashkent , the Great Khan of the Mughals, the
13th in the direct line of descent from Chingis Khan. Babur was
thus a Turko-Mongol. as were most ruling class in the racial cauldron
of Central Asia. The Mughal rule marked the late golden age of India,
epitomised by the peerless grandeur and beauty of the Taj Mahal.
The Mughal rule was complex and talented , building a great
empire, raising the elite urban culture of India to its pinnacle. Yet
the end of the Mughal Rule would be as chaotic and ruinous as its
dramatic rise.

[letric]

In the days when Kings and Queens were absolute rulers
and could behave more or less as they liked, the splendour
and pageantry of their public faces often concealed a
determination to survive in power regardless of the
consequences for other people. For example, in the
15th and 16 centuries, Elizabeth Bartholdy of Hungary
and Giles de Rais of France were mass murderers,
Louis XV was a womaniser and the Spanish Habsburgs
suffered morbid fears and hallucinations. 20th century
rulers may not have been as despotic as their forebears
but they still had problems. Form example, one tendency
of the Dutch monarchs was to abdicate when the going
got tough. There is also of the Grimaldis of Monaco
and the marriage of Prince Rainer lll to the American
actress Grace Kelly.

[letric]

The British establishment despised Ghandi, Winston Churchill Hill dismissed him
as a


a seditious middle temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the east.

The authorities in India repeatedly threw him in prison, but could not dent his
moral authority. Gandhi's own people, India's poor and dispossessed millions,
revered him, as a Bapu - Father and the poet
Rabindranath Tagore endowed him with the epithet Mahatma or Great Soul

After the Second World War it fell to Gandhi to lead
India to independence. But he was appalled by the
unstoppable violence that the process unleashed
between India's faith communities, particularly Hindus,
Muslims and Sikhs. He himself became a victim of re-
religious fanaticism: a Hindu extremist shot him dead in
1948.


What I have done will endure, not what I have said or written
said Ghandi.

[letric]

You must be the change you want to see in the world.

Gandhi

[letric]

Who does nothing, makes no mistakes; and who
makes no mistakes, never make any progress.

PW

[letric]

Who does nothing, makes no mistakes; and who
makes no mistakes, never make any progress.
PW


If there is no struggle there is no progress.
Frederick Douglas

[letric]

The people who live in the past must yield to the
people who live in the future. Otherwise the
world would begin to turn the other way

(Milestones) 1912

[letric]

Examine the history of all nations and all
centuries and you will always find men subject
to three codes: the code of nature, the code of
society, and the code of religion ... these codes
were never in harmony.

Supplement au Voyage de Bougainville(1935)

[letric]

If all mankind minus one were of one opinion,
and only one person were of the contrary
opinion, mankind would be no more justified in
silencing that one person, than he, if he had the
power, would be justified in silencing mankind.


On Libertyt (1859) ch, 2

[letric]

You must be the change you want to see in the world.

Gandhi

Change your thoughts and you change your world

NVP

[letric]

If there is no struggle there is no progress.
Frederick Douglas


Both tears and sweat are salty,
but they render a different result. Tears
will get you sympathy: sweat will get you
change
JJ

[letric]

Examine the history of all nations and all
centuries and you will always find men subject
to three codes: the code of nature, the code of
society, and the code of religion ... these codes
were never in harmony.

Supplement au Voyage de Bougainville(1935)

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not
due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this
you have the power to revoke at any moment.

Marcus Aurelius

[letric]

The people who live in the past must yield to the
people who live in the future. Otherwise the
world would begin to turn the other way

(Milestones) 1912

I have examined myself
thoroughly and come to
the conclusion that I don't
need to change much.

Sigmund Freud

[letric]

The universally structured realm of beliefs, assumptions, feelings,
values, and cultural practices that constitute meaning in everyday
life. In criticism of the classical theory of knowledge (Descartes to
Kant), the concept of the life-world is first introduced as the insur-
mountable basis for scientific experience. Scientific theories are
seen as idealised constructions (Husserl), dependent on
immediate sense-perception which itself,however, is part of the
human everyday world that is taken for granted. Accordingly,
the life-world as such is understood as the unproblematic and
pre-scientific pre-supposition of any understanding and meaning,
providing an implicit background of once explicitly held or
intended and now sedimented beliefs, assumptions, and
practices. Whereas the life-world has first been conceptualised
as the world of the subject (Husserl, Schutz), more recently
its genuinely social character has been emphasised.
(Gadamer, Habermas)
H.-H.K.

[letric]

The people who live in the past must yield to the
people who live in the future. Otherwise the
world would begin to turn the other way

(Milestones) 1912

Some philosophers have argued that liberty and equality
these two values are bound to conflict with one another.
Given the differences in people's abilities, they say, there
will be an inevitable tendency for some to be more suc-
cessful than others. Inequalities can therefore be prevented
only by strict exercise of authority to limit the prosperity
of the more successful. To this others have replied that
all members of society need to share equally in the mater-
ial wealth and political power which are the preconditions
of effective freedom; liberty and equality are therefore
not conflicting but complementary values.

Richard Norman, Free and Equal (1987)

[letric]

If all mankind minus one were of one opinion,
and only one person were of the contrary
opinion, mankind would be no more justified in
silencing that one person, than he, if he had the
power, would be justified in silencing mankind.


On Liberty (1859) ch, 2


The theory about freedom that despite what has happened in the past,
and given the present state of affairs and ourselves just as they are,
we can choose or decide differently than we do - act so as to make the
future different. Libertarianism asserts the freedom of the will
or origination, and is contrasted with determinism.
Contemporary libertarians may cite quantum mechanics as evidence
that determination is false. Even if this is so, the random behaviour of
atoms certainly does not make for the freedom and moral responsibility
asserted by libertarians.
R.C.W.

[letric]

Philosophers often point out that absolute freedom is neither
possible, because human beings are always conditioned to a
degree, nor desirable, because it would take no account of
others. A better understanding of freedom is, therefore, the
choice to pursue those courses in life that lead to wards a
good life. This will actually involve the choice not to pursue
bad courses, which is to say it leads to a restriction on absolute
freedom, and will require a degree of discipline and training so
as to enable the good life to be pursued.

[letric]

Aristocracy means ruled by the best. For 900 years. the British aristocracy
considered itself ideally qualified to rule others, make laws and guide the nation. Its
virtues lay in its collective wisdom, its attachment to chivalric codes and its sense of
public duty. The aristocracy survived and, in the age of the great house and the
Grand Tour, governed the first industrial nations while a knot of noblemen ruled its
growing empire. Under pressure from below, this political power was slowly
relinquished and then shared. Yet Churchill himself was the grandson of a
duke and presided over a wartime cabinet that contained six hereditary peers.

[letric]

If we find the answer to that, it would be the
ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we
would know the mind of God.

Stephen Hawkins answer to the question

Why do we and the universe exist?
A Brief History of Time (1988) ch 11

[letric]

Homogeneity is a form of denial ... because
diversity, the difference between groups, is still the
excuse for discrimination, disempowerment and
even genocide. We have been taught to hate or
deny our differences rather than welcome them.
N.K.

[letric]

The concept that the dead require specific
incantations, spells and rituals to prepare
and guide them through the afterlife has been shared
by a number of beliefs systems. Collections of texts
detailing these rituals and spells are known to have
existed in Aztec and Maya cultures. But the best-known
as Books of the Dead, are the two which set out
the Egyptian and Tibetan rituals for those who have
recently died. It is believed that as soon as physical
death takes place, the spirit goes into a trance state
during which it is disoriented and the person is not aware
that they have died. The Book of the Dead is recited
over a dying or recently deceased person to enable them
to recognise the nature of their state, and either escape
rebirth altogether, or to achieve a calm and successful
passage into the next life.

[letric]

In almost every part of the world before the advance of the scientific age
(even today in those societies where institutionalised medicine has not yet
become the norm) people have sought cures for their illnesses in the
traditional methods of folk medicine and magical healing. In some cultures,
illnesses may be believed to result from from the actions of evil spirits or
the effects of harmful spells. Plants and herbs have always been used
for healing, whether drunk as infusions and potions, applied as poultice,
worn as an amulet or inhaled. If such precautions are not enough, a
spiritual leader or medicine (obeah) man may be called in to fight the evil with
his own magic. However, the physical mechanism by which many herbal
remedies work is now understood, and much herbal lore has made the
transition from healing to modern medicine.

[letric]

Early 19th century writing on insanity was dominated by the
work of the moral managers. Their ideas developed from
faculty psychology, according to which man possessed
three souls: the rational, the sensitive, and the vegetative.
The rational soul is concerned with understanding and the
will; the sensitive soul is concerned with imagination,
memory, and perception; and the vegetative soul is
concerned with growth, nutrition, and reproduction. Health
depends upon the right relationship between the rational
and the sensitive soul, namely one of dominance and
control. The moral managers held that insanity was a
lesion of understanding and that the will could be
trained to cope with the possibility of madness. In
Essay Concerning Human Understanding. John Locke
wrote that:

madmen do not appear to have lost the capacity of reasoning,
but having joined together some ideas very wrongly they mistake them for
truths ...as though incoherent ideas have been cemented together so
powerfully as to remain united. But there are some degrees of madness
as of folly; the disorderly jumbling ideas together in some more, less. In
short, herein seems to lie the difference between idiots and madmen.
That madmen put wrong ideas together, and so make wrong propositions,
but argue and reason right from them. But idiots make very few or no
propositions, but argue and reason scarce at all.
VS

[letric]

Out-of-body experiences are commonly reported to occur as part of near-death experiences.
They can also apparently be brought on by a traumatic experience, and are sometimes said
to occur to people while they are in comas, under anaesthetic or under the influence of certain
drugs. Some even claim to be able consciously to induce them. A common feature is the apparent
sensation of looking down on one's own body. The period during which the experience is said
to have occurred is typically only minutes; however, the subject often reports the sensation
of snapping back into their body. Proposed explanations include the suggestion that they
are experiences manufactured within the brain when it is cut off from external stimuli, and
that they resemble dreams or hallucinations, although a significant number of people accept
the objective reality of such experiences and of spiritual explanations involving the soul
leaving the body.

[kemist]

Just to go off-topic a little.....My dad tried to encourage me to read "The Critique of Pure Reason" by Immanuel Kant. At the time i was rather young and didn't appreciate what it was about. Looking to get a copy soon.

[letric]

Just to go off-topic a little.....My dad tried to encourage me to read "The Critique of Pure Reason" by Immanuel Kant. At the time i was rather young and didn't appreciate what it was about. Looking to get a copy soon.

Suggest reading: Alvarado, C.S. (1992) The psychological approach to out-of-body experiences
Blackmore, S.J. (1992) Journal of Psychology
Gabbard, G.O., and Twemlow, S.W. (1984). With eyes of the Mind.
Irwin, H.J. (1985). Flight of Mind: A Psychological Study of Out-of-body-Experience

[letric]

Presumably no society could survive unless it had some restrictions
on its members killing each other. But the prohibitions that societies
have on killing vary greatly. The coming of Christianity brought a new
insistence on the wrongness of killing all born of human parents, in part
because all human were seen as having an immortal soul, and in part
because to kill a human being is to usurp God's right to decide when we
shall live and when we shall die. Some contemporary philosophers have
challenged this orthodoxy, arguing that members of a given species
cannot in itself determine the value of a being's life, or the wrongness
of killing that being. The effects of these arguments is to distinguish
a class of being whom it is especially wrong to kill. The term person
is often used to distinguish this class from the class of human beings as
a whole, for not allhuman beings persons are autonomous, or capable
of seeing themselves as having a past and a future. Infants, and the
profoundly intellectually disabled, for example, are not. Chimpanzees,
on the other hand, appear to be persons in this sense. Hence it is an
implication, other things being equal, it is worse to kill a normal chimpanzee
than a profoundly intellectually disable human being. Of course, to arrive
at a final judgement about the wrongness of killing any human being, we
need to consider also the effect of the killing on relatives and friends, and
on the community as a whole.
P.S.
Peter Singer, Practical Ethics (Cambridge, 1993)

[letric]

The suggestion that intelligence is complex and requires
imagination, judgement, and reasoning will surprise no
one. But insight from the information science leads to
two novel conclusions: first, the part concerned with
statistical judgement can in principle be measured on
an absolute scale, using theoretical limits as references
rather than population norms; and second, the basis for
efficient use of information in guessing right comes from
processes that are part of perception, rather than learning.
The diversity of minds and their aptitudes should not
conceal the fact that there is a recognisable unity behind
all manifestations of intelligence, namely the goal of
improving the reliability of predictions by exploiting the
redundancy of sensory messages - in other words intel-
ligence helps us to guess right.
HBB

[letric]

Since the discovery of the magnificent tomb of Tutankhamun
at Thebes in 1922, the name of the young Pharaoh has become
famous throughout the world. he came to the throne age 12
during one of Egypt's most turbulent periods, when religious
dissent threatened to destroy a mighty empire. He should have
lived through a long and prosperous reign but mysteriously died
six years after his accession. Was he secretly assassinated by
the powerful cartel that ran the court and the country? What
part did Ay, Tutankhamun's ambitious first minister, play in his
master's death? There are many thought-provoking account,
resolving many contentious issues, offering important theories
and explaining the dark intrigue that surrounded Tutankhamun's
untimely death. Hopefully time would reveal.

[letric]

The law of effect is a kind of hedonism of the past:
actions that lead immediately to pleasure are learned,
remembered, and repeated as babies, whereas actions
leading to pain are not remembered, or are suppressed
so that painful later painful behaviour is avoided.
This is a reversal of the moralist's hedonism which
suggests that we seek pleasure in the future. The
concept of the law of effect is a basic tenet of
behaviourism, which eschews purpose or intention.
It is now hjeld correct, although not to accepted as
accounting for all learning and behaviour
RLG

[letric]

The field of learning has consistently been one of the
most active areas of experimental psychology. The
empirical data which has been produced has consis-
tently demonstrated the power of experimental
and comparative methods in psychology. In turn
it has given rise to theories which, though designed
primarily to accommodate the phenomena of animal
learning, have implications for psychology in general,
in terms of human as well as animal behaviour. These
theories have therefore reflected changing perspectives
in psychological science. Learning and learning theory can
be said to offer an insight into the empirical and theoretical
development of psychology as a whole.
DEB
Colman, A.M.Learning and Skills (1995)

[letric]

The great achievements of the 19th century seemed to be unfolding a picture of a universe
of a depressingly materialistic kind, a vast and rather pointless cosmos made up of tiny billiard
balls known as atoms and with no trade of souls and spirits. But most Victorian scientists brought
up on the ethos of orthodox Christianity were expected to believe in the reality of an immortal
soul, non-physical soul. For this reason a substantial body of them became involved in the minority
religion of spiritualism, taking the line that if souls or spirits survived the death of the physical
body then these spirits must exists somewhere in the universe, and should, in
principle, be contactable. This remarkable period of science saw some of the outstanding
brains at that time - solemnly attempting to induce spirit forms to materialise in their laboratories.
No better testimony could be offered of the simple logic and unbounded optimism of Victorian
scientists, but their unbridled enthusiasm for their findings led other, more critical and sceptical
colleagues to conduct their own experiments. The result was that medium after medium was
exposed as fraudulent, the pioneers were shown up to be gullible, incompetent, or both, and
this phase of physical research which had fleetingly looked as though it might have almost
revolutionary importance, came to an inglorious end.

[letric]

Functionalism emphasised learning by adapting to
situations, and incorporating skills from largely un-
conscious learned behaviour. It introduced some
evolutionary idea into psychology because innate
behaviour could be included. Consciousness was
introduced when behaviour was not sufficiently
functional to perform tasks unconsciously.
Functionalism became swamped by 'behaviourism'
which quite recently gave way to cognitive
psychology.
OLZ

[letric]

Did God have any choice when He created the universe

Einstein once asked his assistant Ernst Straus.

Stephen Hawking tackles time itself, unlike his best seller A Brief History in Time,
which was in fact a history in quantum mechanics. His new book The Grand Design
is about time; in particular, the nature of time at the moment of the Big Bang.
Hawking answer to Einstein question is a resounding no:


Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing,
why the universe exists, why we exists. It is not necessary to invoke God to light blue
touch papers and set the universe going

The Grand Design
by Stephen Hawking

[letric]

In Europe the collapse of the Carolingian Empire saw France
and Germany go their separate ways, with Otto the Great
becoming German emperor and Hugo Capet the king of
France, the start of a royal dynasty that would last for 800
years. The Normans reached their peak as William 1 took
England from the Anglo-Saxons, Roger 1 took Sicily and
Norman Crusaders seized Jerusalem. Byzantium reached its
zenith before falling to the Seljuks and in Andalusia,
Cordoba's golden Islamic age ended with the Moors assailed
by Christians to the north and radical Muslims to the south.
In Africa trade flourished for the Hausa and art blossomed in
the hands of the Yoruba. In the Far East the Song dynasty
rebuilt the Chinese empire, while Japan was in control of the
Fujiwara. In Oceania was seen the final wave of Polynesian
expansion across the Pacific with the settling of New Zealand.
Across the Atlantic, the Vikings found America rich but not
particularly friendly, and in Central America the civilisations of
the Toltecs, the Chimu and Anasazi were thriving.

[letric]

All around the world ancient people fixed the location of heaven - the source of
cosmic life and death - in the the same segment of sky, the constellation of Cygnus
the Swan. But why? Cygnus is at the root of all world's religions, revealing our
ancestors knew what science is now telling us, that life did not originate among the
stars. Reference is made to the origins of astronomy, literature, ancient cosmo-
logies and even transoceanic sea voyages, all of sudden, striking change for
humanity some 17,000 years ago. The very DNA of life is traced from shamanic
art in Paleolithic caves to the foundations of the Great Pyramid and from psychedelic
journeys in the Peruvian Amazon to discovery of the double helix. Compelling
evidence also revealed that high-energy subatomic particles in the walls of ancient
caves from a binary star known as Cygnus X-3 - source of powerful cosmic rays likely
to have reached Earth and accelerated human evolution during the last Ice Age.
It makes you think...

[letric]

The Universe is made up of bits of information and it has been
known for more than a century that every piece - every
electron, atom and molecule - registers these bits and that
information. It is only in the last ten years however, with
the discovery and development of computers, that
scientists have gained a fundamental understanding of just
how that information is registered and processed. Building
on recent breakthroughs in quantum computation, shows
how the Universe itself is one big giant computer. Every atom
and elementary particle store these bits, and every collision
between those atoms and particles flips the bits into new
arrangement, and effortlessly spins out complex and beautiful
systems, including galaxies, planets and life itself. But every
computer needs a programme, the set of instructions that tell
it what patterns to create. Now the question is, where did the
bits of come from and who, or what, is programming the Universe?

[letric]

The classic study of mythology, religious beliefs and scientific theory
on the origins of the Universe, in the search for [parallels between
creations fables, one has to examine a range of texts such as the
Old Testament, the Upanishads and the Epic of Gilgamesh. It has
been estimated that 500 flood legends have been told by more than
250 tribes and peoples from around the world, and poses the interesting
question: Why should a Polynesian have a legend which is almost exactly
like one told by a Nordic nomad tribe? Are myth primitive history based
on literal fact, or a means of expressing profound tribal wisdom and
psychological and sexual truth? Or do they represent a search for kin-
ship with the animal and vegetable world? Interesting.....

[letric]

Revolutionary icon, cosmopolitan, theorist, leader, writer, lover,
philosopher, enemy, Jew, husband, father, and hunted victim,
Leon Trotsky led a brilliant life in extraordinary times. Born to
a wealthy farmer in Southern Ukraine in 1879, the young Marxist
writer and agitator came to prominence in 1905 revolutionary
crisis and co-organised the October 1917 revolution. Trotsky
moved like a bright comet across the political sky and by all
accounts he was the finest orator of the Russian Revolution.
The whole world attributed the impact of the October Revolt-
ution to his partnership with Lenin. After Lenin's death in
1924, Trotsky battled for power with Stalin, before being
defeated and deported in 1929. He continued to lead a
decreasing number of supporters in exile before being
assassinated in 1940. he was an immensely colourful and
complex character who played a pivotal role in the creation
of the USSR but who has been overlooked in comparison
to fellow Soviet leaders.

[letric]

Attitudes are sometimes characterised, more narrowly, as thoughts or feelings
possessing an affective tone or encompassing desire, in a broad sense, any
mental propositional content. Attitudes in this sense , include beliefs, desires,
hopes, and wishes. On one view, the content of any attitude is traditional
(declarative) proposition, or a corresponding mental representation. A person
may believe that AIDS is curable, desire that AIDS is curable, hope that AIDS
is curable, and so on. In each case, the content is the same. On another view , some kinds of
attitude have different kinds of content. The contents of desires, for example, might be 'optative
propositions' (e.g. 'Would that AIDS were curable'), whereas the contents of beliefs are declarative
in form. Some accounts are sometimes characterised more narrowly, as thoughts or feelings
possessing an affective tone and encompassing desire.

[letric]

It was Karl Jung in 1930 who coined the term 'synchronicity'
for any apparent coincidence that inspired the sense of
personal meaning or a perceived connection between
two or more objects, events or persons without any
recognisable cause. Many of us can suddenly remember
a friend you have not thought of or heard of for many
years just when the phone rings and the voice at the
other end belongs to that recollected person. Did you
experience mental telepathy or was something else
more inexplicable?

[letric]

The world strives on co-operation. Just having a cup of tea depends on
the help of dozens of people in many countries and hundreds of ideas
passed down the generations. But because we all make mistakes, one slip
can generate endless retaliations. The winning strategies of two key
mechanisms of co-operation - direct and indirect reciprocity - are being
helpful, generous and forgiving. If I meet a stranger, I hope to establish
the basis for co-operation with them by making an effort to co-operate.
If someone lets me down, I forgive them, and work to re-establish a co-
operative relationship. If I see someone getting more of the cake than me,
I do not moan. Instead, I'm generous, content with equal or even slightly
smaller shares but enjoy many productive interactions overall.

[letric]

Based on the fossil evidence, researchers have long suspected Australopithecus afarensis, the species whose most famous member is 3.2-million-year-old Lucy, was among the first to spend the majority of its day on two feet. Problem is, Lucy's skeleton is missing key foot bones, which left researchers to debate how much time Lucy spent upright - most of the time, like us, or only periodically, like the apes?

Source: Science; Cochrane Library; American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons presentation.

Being fully upright likely gave Lucy and her ilk an advantage over other hominids some 3 million years ago,
particularly as the cooling planet caused the dense, lush forests of eastern Africa to give way to grasslands,
where walking and running - would have been more useful than climbing.

[letric]

One of the attributes that make us human is that we try to make sense of
things that do not make sense. We often impute order where there may be
none. These traits can lead us to form conclusions that do not correspond to
reality. For most people, that is not a problem. But as a human being, trying
to find meaning is what defines us. At the same time, I would never put
restrictions on what people can say, no matter how violent the rhetoric - as
long as it remains rhetoric. And that makes sense. Words do not kill people;
guns do. In an open and free society, we do not police speech, but we do
police those who violate the law by committing violent acts. That being said,
have we been able to find a meaning where there may be none?
You be the judge.

[letric]

Public life in towns began very early, at dawn with the ringing of the Angelus bell at five or six o'clock. This was the signal for the first mass of the day. Early travellers who wished to hear a mass before setting off on dangerous business of travel. At about the same time the town gates were opened to allow in traders and early morning country dwellers. Non-citizens would usually have to pay a toll, cattle and geese were driven in. For a town with a population of 8,000 as many as 6,000 sheep and 30,000 pigs per year would be needed and large amounts of grain in carts would be driven through the streets or delivered by river if there was one nearby. Sometimes butchers tried to begin work before daylight which had to be forbidden by regulation - slaughtering beasts would inevitably have caused considerable noise! Most shops and small businesses began work at around 6am. At the end of the day, the curfew bell rang around 9 o'clock when the town gates were closed and no-one allowed in or out. Townsfolk now felt secure and safe in their beds. They rest until the whole noisy cycle started again in the morning. Remniscent of ....

[letric]

The first Egyptologists were the Romans, primarily interested
in Egypt's grain resources but also captivated by the ancient
monuments. Having annexed Egypt in 30B.C, they were free
to take what they liked and did not hesitate to do so. The
Emperor Theodosius imposed Christianity and in 640 A.D the
Arab conquestr imposed Islam. Cairo became a sophisticated
centre of Muslim culture, cut off from the world for several
centuries, until finally Napoleon's conquest of the region led
to the opening up of Egyptians antiquities to the French
Commission of Arts and Sciences. Among their discoveries
was the Rosetta Stone, central to the task of deciphering
hieroglyphs. Of course, the ill-fated Carter and Carnavon
project followed.

[letric]

There's a growing trend in Europe of 'believing without belonging' and spirituality is alive in many forms.
For example, we are exploring angels, gurus from the East, meditation, reincarnation theories, as well
as fresh forms of Christianity. So why so many of us continue to believe? I would say humans are
inherently faithful - they have faith in something, now this might be faith in their group, in technology, in
a social-political system or whatever, but they're going to have faith in something. Humans do have the
capacity for self-awareness, and we are concerned wirh finding meaning in our existence. Evidence has
shown that faith has a key part to play in making meaning and can, in turn, bring benefits.

[letric]

Neurotics get a bad name, but being on the neurotic end of the personality scale
can have some surprising benefits - they're more likely than other personality
types to get absorbed in most things. While this means they enjoy other things
far less they get enjoyment (neurotics usually have a highly reactive sympathetic
nervous system, making them sensitive to environmental stimulation) they get to
enjoy and feel-good about most things than the rest of us. That is why the love a
good laugh.

[letric]

The most precious treasures are often the simplest...

[letric]

Of all the dynamic royal families in European history, the Bourbons were probably the most remarkable, and certainly the most tenacious. They ruled three kingdoms, France, Spain and Italy simultaneously, and in the 18th century almost controlled much of the Netherlands, all of South America bar Brazil, immense swathes of southern and western North America, all the West Indies bar Jamaica and the Philippines, as well as possessing considerable interests in Africa and India. All The royal Bourbons from Louis 111 onwards were descended from Juana the Mad of Castile and of over half of the latter Bourbons were officially declared as mentally defective, and the rest exhibiting varying forms of physical and mental abnormalities. It really helps greatly in understanding key events in European history.

[letric]

The British ruled Iraq from World War 1 until 1932, instituting a model of rulership which consisted o f a
mandate from the League of Nations to exercise authority through a network of officials and to control the
country's oil resources. The ruling Sunni urban majority represented less than a quarter of the total
population, resented by Shi'as and Kurds, though the sheikhs who benefited from the mandated and kept
the rulers in power were from both Shi'ite and Kurds communities. Britain's principal objectives were
secure communications with India and the protection of the Persian and Iraq oilfields. During the
1920s the imperial thinking underwent modification s , and it was felt that British interests could be
guaranteed equally well by more discreet form of control. This is a definitive account.

[letric]

For the Hellenistic period, probably the most profitable archaeological evidence came primarily from Athens,
Rhodes, Pergamon, Ephesus, Miletus and Al Khamun in Afghanistan. Only now is Alexander's empire beginning
to be interesting and valuable new techniques is landscape archaeology - the detailed contextual analysis of
regional terrain in all its aspect, both man-made and natural. Added to this is the layout of cities, beliefs and
customs detectable from graves and shrines and their contents, self images, taste in household objects,
decorated floors, the arrangement of living space and the size and nature of estates. The Hellenistic Age
flourished for only 300 years and was a rich and hedonistic era, characterised by bloody political and military
violence. It featured a colourful tapestry of characters - incestuous and ruthless monarchs glory-hunting
warlords, philosophers, courtesans, libertines and dramatists to name but a few, Alexander the Great, the
world's greatest conqueror, and Cleopatra the world's most legendary Queen. A complex and spectacular
story.

[letric]

The 500 years that followed the accession of Augustus were an era during which Rome reached
the height of economic prosperity and cultural achievement, but also plumbed the depths of
anarchy, cruelty and chaos. This history of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire is packed with
vivid accounts of the most celebrated and notorious Roman emperors including Julius Caesar,
Nero, Anthony, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Dimitian, Trajan, Hadrian, Marcus
Aurelius, Commodus, Diocletian and Constantine. One murdered is mother, another fought as a
gladiator, two were philosophers, another wanted desperately to be God when he died, and yet
an other is revered as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church ...

[letric]

From the arrival of Julius Caesar and the Roman Army in 55BC to the death throes of the Jacobite rebellion at Culloden Moor on 16th April 1746, warfare has regularly cast a deadly shadow over British history. It is also likely that warfare was present thousands of years before this,in Mesolithic and late Upper Paleolithic Archaeological sources indicate that warfare was a feature of life in prehistoric Europe and the number of prehistoric weapons including fortifications is huge and iconographic representations of war and warriors in art and supplement the earliest evidence of the occurrence of warfare in prehistoric Britain at Gough's Cove.

[letric]

Whatever exists has its character independently of its being perceived by human or divine minds;
it is opposed to verification and some versions of idealism and phenomenalism' Idealism the
philosophical doctrine, held by Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, and others. A theory about universals
held by Plato, which maintains that properties such as redness exists outside the minds; it is opposed
to nominalism and conceptualism. The philosophical thesis that scientific theories aim or should
aim to depict the way the physical world really is;it is opposed to instrumentalism, which holds that
theories should only be assessed on how effective they are as explanations and predictions.

[letric]

The notion, especially prominent in Indian religion that one is born not just once but many times in a
succession of lives according to one's deeds (Karma). If one deeds are good the next birth will be more
favourable; if they are not good, the next birth will be less favourable. The ultimate aim of life within this
world-view is to escape from the round of rebirths into the salvation of nirvana. The notion of rebirth,
absent from the early parts of the Hindu Veda, emerged in the Upanishads and the later Hindu and
Buddhist scriptures. It implied that one life was not enough to work out one's total destiny, and also
implied a just solution to the age-old problem of suffering: one is reborn just according to what one has
done and how one has lived. Hindus and Buddhists differ in that the Hinduism believe that there is a
permanent self that is reborn, whereas the Buddhists deny the notion of the self while retaining a belief
in rebirth.

[letric]

The belief that the body and blood of Christ are actually present in the bread and wine
at communion (Eucharist/Mass). The nature of Christ's presence became the subject
of great controversy at the Reformation,

[letric]

Reincarnation, the belief that following death, some aspect of the self or soul can be reborn in a new body
(human or animal), a process which may be repeated many times. This belief is fundamental to many
Eastern religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism , and is also found in more modern Western beliefs
systems such as theosophy. Alleged past-life regressions, where a hypnotised person appears to 'remember'
past lives, have recently fuelled Western interest in reincarnation, although such cases may only representthe
person trying to meet the implied demands of the hypnotist.

[letric]

Claims for miraculous cures which seem to be supernatural or to defy conventional science
have been made since ancient times. Miracle cures are now also associated with modern US
television evangelists, many of whom claim to cure afflicted people by faith health.