this book is worth the price just for the writings on consciousness, of which
only i will comment, as an entire review would take pages and pages of
text.
james, in his articles on consciousness first points up the classic view, the radical divide between mind and matter. the world around us, subject to entropy and the arrow of time, works in one direction. there is a birth, maturation, and death in everything surrounding us. known through the senses, there is an objective world we shoud seek to grasp and understand as thinking human beings. however, one quickly discovers the mind is not as 'mechanical' and predictable as the world we observe. we know that fire burns, yet we can think strongly on a fire in the winter cold, and not be warmed. further, we can think strongly of a fire that does not burn us, and water that does not douse it's flames. finally, we can reverse the arrow of time, thinking strongly again, of an apple leaving the ground and floating to the stem of the branch of the tree. obviously the mind is separate from matter in it' operations and laws that govern it, correct?
well let us now behold something beautiful, truly beautiful to us and not be moved by it's beauty. here, james brillianty discovers, the mind merges with the object world to the point the experiencing subject is the same as the experienced object. we melt into the object of beauty, forgetting ourselves.....
this is but one expample of pure experience that destroys the notion of the dichotomy between the subjects and objects of normal consciuosness james points up.
interesting read, a bridge between the views that came before; either a radical distinction lying between mind and matter, that the universe is dual..or that of the unifying kind...that the world can at least tenuously during 'pure experiences' become One...
james, in his articles on consciousness first points up the classic view, the radical divide between mind and matter. the world around us, subject to entropy and the arrow of time, works in one direction. there is a birth, maturation, and death in everything surrounding us. known through the senses, there is an objective world we shoud seek to grasp and understand as thinking human beings. however, one quickly discovers the mind is not as 'mechanical' and predictable as the world we observe. we know that fire burns, yet we can think strongly on a fire in the winter cold, and not be warmed. further, we can think strongly of a fire that does not burn us, and water that does not douse it's flames. finally, we can reverse the arrow of time, thinking strongly again, of an apple leaving the ground and floating to the stem of the branch of the tree. obviously the mind is separate from matter in it' operations and laws that govern it, correct?
well let us now behold something beautiful, truly beautiful to us and not be moved by it's beauty. here, james brillianty discovers, the mind merges with the object world to the point the experiencing subject is the same as the experienced object. we melt into the object of beauty, forgetting ourselves.....
this is but one expample of pure experience that destroys the notion of the dichotomy between the subjects and objects of normal consciuosness james points up.
interesting read, a bridge between the views that came before; either a radical distinction lying between mind and matter, that the universe is dual..or that of the unifying kind...that the world can at least tenuously during 'pure experiences' become One...
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