Subject: Re: Percy and Triads
From: Robert G Eckert (robertgeraldeckert@JUNO.COM)
Date: Wed Oct 20 1999 - 18:12:30 EDT
--------- Begin forwarded message ----------
From: "Barranger, G. K." <nikkibar@WILD.NET>
To: Multiple recipients of list PERCY-L <PERCY-L@listserv.lsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Percy and Triads
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 15:25:46 -0500
Robert G Eckert wrote:
>
> Ken Armstrong
>
> 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.
"Barranger, G. K." <nikkibar@WILD.NET> wrote:
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
--------- End forwarded message ----------
To say that language is more than emotion is not to say that emotion is
not involved in language.
I have argued that the reticular formation energizes the triadic process.
The reticular formation energizes the limbic system also. When animals
communicate, the limbic system is about as far as it goes--as Percy says.
When poets express their thoughts in sonnets, they are most certainly
drawing upon their emotions. And it goes way deeper than that. The life
impulse expressed by the poet is quite basic. Each of the poets'
individual cells is contributing the symbiotic orchestra of their being
as they attempt that most sublime connection to insure the continuation
of their life force.
However, the LANGUAGE, the system of words, that the poet utilizes has
resulted by means of a process that simply can not be explained by means
of the principles of natural selection.
Robert Gerald Eckert
Rochester, New York
robertgeraldeckert@juno.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Thu Jan 11 2001 - 12:52:21 EST