Subject: Re: Percy and Triads
From: Barranger, G. K. (nikkibar@wild.net)
Date: Wed Oct 20 1999 - 16:25:46 EDT
Robert G Eckert wrote:
>
> Ken Armstrong
>
> --Darwin and Wallace?
>
> The_Encyclopedia of Philosophy_ tells us, "With regard to human evolution
> Wallace differed from Darwin in affirming that man's mental powers,
> especially "the mathematical, musical and artistic faculties," have not
> been developed under the law of natural selection. These faculties point
> to the existence in man of something that he has not derived from his
> animal progenitors, "something which we may best refer to as being of a
> spiritual essence."
>
> Wallace "contended that the brain is a specialized organ which has freed
> man from the dangers of specialization by vastly increasing his
> adaptability and that man's intelligence has allowed him to evolve
> without undergoing major somatic changes" [V.8p.276]
>
> This speaks to an ontological uniqueness--Plato's "second voyage"--
>
> The rate of change exhibited in this present "Ethereal Phase"[cf.--Henry
> Adams "purely mathematical"--[digital?]--phase] of Western culture defies
> an evolutionary explanation. The rapidity of change simply cannot be
> explained within the context of natural selection. Profound change within
> ONE generation obviously does not involve natural selection. Yet it
> occurs.
>
> Natural selection occurs within the realm of secondness.
>
> Human change occurs within the realm of thirdness.
Does this mean to imply that all those dead poets in the Society didn't
write all those sonnets to get chicks? I doubt it...
Nikki
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