Today's Topics:
Blake and Science
Blake and Science -Reply
Re: Blake and Science Again... -Reply -Reply
Fearing Science and loving fractals.
Re: Blake and Science
Welburn?
Re: Fearing Science and loving fractals.
Re: Blake and Science
Re: circles and spirals
Re: Orc, Orc
Fearing Science and loving fractals. -Reply
Science
re: out of print books
Re: Blake and Science -Reply
David and the tent
Lawrence as Prophet and Its Reflection on Blake
Corrections...
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 15:54:20 +0000
From: "Steve Perry"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Blake and Science
Message-Id: <199702192346.PAA20439@surf.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
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David,
I am sorry, I pulled Randall's quote and not yours.
However, I still think that you are overstating Blake's view on
science. Blake saw that Newton's mechanistic vision of the world was
one dimesional, however, he can't really reject it as being not true,
but only as a partial or impercise truth. For Blake the fall from
grace is the limiting of perception. Satan/error is the limits of
contraction, inspiration stripped from the immortal eye. However,
Blake himself lives, works and creates inside of the fallen world
using the tools, the infernal hammers and wheels to eek out his
living, occasionally glimpsing the eternal world which is best
described and arrived at by Art, the creation of Golganooza. In so
far as Newton, Bacon and Locke are describing the natural world they
(can) provide the infernal tools, technology, but their
single-sighted investigations are more like Urizen scouring the
Abyss.
>Yes, that is why I think Blake feared and hated science. I am
surprised that everyone is so reluctant to just admit it. Blake
hated Newton and Lock like the Church hated Darwin and Galileo. Blake
saw Newton as a threat to his perception of the world, and he saw
Lock as a threat to his perception of the human mind. <
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 20:18:51 -0600
From: David Medearis
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Blake and Science -Reply
Message-Id:
Steve Perry wrote:
>>However, I still think that you are overstating Blake's view on
science. Blake saw that Newton's mechanistic vision of the world was
one dimensional, however, he can't really reject it as being not true, but
only as a partial or impercise truth. For Blake the fall from grace is the
limiting of perception. Satan/error is the limits of contraction, inspiration
stripped from the immortal eye. However, Blake himself lives, works
and creates inside of the fallen world using the tools, the infernal
hammers and wheels to eek out his living, occasionally glimpsing the
eternal world which is best described and arrived at by Art, the
creation of Golganooza. In so far as Newton, Bacon and Locke are
describing the natural world they (can) provide the infernal tools,
technology, but their single-sighted investigations are more like Urizen
scouring the Abyss.<<
Yes, I see your point, Steve, perhaps hate is too strong a word. I think
you have said it nicely. But Blake was such a passionate man, that I
think his feelings really do border on hate when he see's the influence
of empiricism slipping into art.
Ironically, however, many of Bake's finest visual art seem, to me, to
actually depict a sort of geometric, mechanistic world, which Newton
described. I don't mean this pejoratively; I love his art, but I really think it
has these qualities to it.
David
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 20:22:38 -0600
From: David Medearis
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake and Science Again... -Reply -Reply
Message-Id:
I am sorry Mr. Linnell. I did not mean to allude to your earlier post by my
comment about pop science books on quantum mechanics. I just saw
Depak Chopra on television the other night, and it made me think of him. I
did not realize that it sounded like I was alluding to your earlier post.
David
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 21:38:58 -0500 (EST)
From: bouwer
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Fearing Science and loving fractals.
Message-Id: <199702200238.VAA10515@host.ott.igs.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Bravo,Tim Linnell. I would not go so far as to accuse
David Medearis of airing his "personal prejudices." But
David must realise that when he says: "Science should
insist that only what is demonstrable exists" he is
already talking as a disciple of a pseudo-religion called
"Science" and not as a scientist. When he insists that
Blake "feared and hated Science" David sounds like he has
an emotional stake in proving that true, and that makes
him suspect. David says: "If I want to understand how the
world works, I would rather get my information from Physics,
Chemistry and Calculus." You won't get far understanding
Einstein using Calculus. And by the way, what do you mean
by "the World" - that unscientific pseudo-religious
construct (probably one of the creations of Urizen, the
energy of cognition, after he fell)? And what do you mean
by "Spirituality"? I feel you have a hidden agenda, David
Medearis. What are you trying to prove?
Now, Marcus Brownell, I had hoped that somebody else that
knew more about things like fractals would answer you.(I had
to ask my husband what a fractal was!) So I just want to
encourage you to keep on talking about fractals and whirlwinds
and vortices. For me there is an element of organization and
predictability in the concept of the vortex, an element of
unpredictability and disorganization in the whirlwind. This of
course makes it a very potent model. However, at the moment
I find the model of the vortex extremely useful to interpret
the multiple levels of being in the microcosm of my day by
day existence. I am also fascinated by the concept of Teilhard
de Chardin of a "spindle-shaped universe."
Gloudina Bouwer
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 22:48:16 -0600
From: tomdill@wc.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake and Science
Message-Id: <97021922481674@wc.stephens.edu>
It is dangerously reductive to suggest that Blake "hates" science or
religion or even the state (though he may well have hated the king).
This reduces Blake to another cranky opinionated village explainer
rather than the brilliant thinker he was. Blake rails against
*scientism*, not science--the simplistic assumption that only
a natural science gives access to truth about existence is "scientism"
and Blake is fiercely opposed to it; but it makes no more sense to
extend that opposition to a hatred of science than it does to make
his rejection of moralism an indication that he hates morality or
ethics, or even, though this one is trickier, to suggest that his
criticism of religiosity means a rejection of religion (though
he is highly critical of churches and clerics--does that make
him reject religion as part of human experience? surely not).
Some weeks ago I argued that people make a serious error by
demonizing Urizen and allowing the "urizenic" forces to be
equated with Urizen as a component of the Four Zoas. AGain,
Blake is not so simple-minded nor so single-minded as many of
his "admirers" who seem insistently to miss the complex dialectic
of his thought. This is an analogous situation--why reduce
Blake to the status of a crank when it should be obvious that he
could not have created what he did, could not, for example, have
written *both* the Songs of Innocence and the Songs of Experience
if he were actually a single minded soul with his feet firmly
planted on one side or the other?
Blake's mind is large enough to encompass and comprehend all
four zoas, as well as their emanations and spectres (which are the
reduced and simplistic versions and variations--scientism, prudery,
greed, corrupt art), and he explores the consequences of dividing
and reducing these human forces as a way of creating his own
art and showing the need to avoid simplistic reification of
"ideas" or "feelings" or "impulses" or "physical sensations"
as though one or another of them accounted for everything.
Of course he denounces (and also exalts) Bacon, Locke, Voltaire,
Rousseau--Blake was no fool. He knew great thought when he saw
it and though he was opinionated and inclined to make extreme
statements, attention to the full context of his writings and
ideas would prevent confident assertions that serve only to
degrade him into one of us.
(And by the way, the quotations from Frye do not suggest that
Frye believed Orc "graduated" into Urizen--but that is another
issue.)
[Yes, I'm back, more's the pity. I notice Albright is still
prancing and posturing in his yellow vinyl suit and platform
shoes, the veritable Barry Manilow of the internet, him what writes
the songs. Gimme shelter.]
Tom Dillingham
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 11:47:11 +100
From: "VLADIMIR GEORGIEV"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Welburn?
Message-Id: <1D4681C27AD@picasso.ceu.hu>
Dear friends,
Does anybody know the whereabouts and, hopefully, E-mail of Andrew J.
Welburn, author of studies on Blake?
Thanks a lot.
Cheers,
Vlado.
vladimir Georgiev
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 12:26:55 +100
From: "VLADIMIR GEORGIEV"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Fearing Science and loving fractals.
Message-Id: <1D514E01CEB@picasso.ceu.hu>
> I am also fascinated by the concept of Teilhard
> de Chardin of a "spindle-shaped universe."
>
> Gloudina Bouwer
>
Dear Gloudina,
Teilhard was a prophet in many respects but I do not think that he is
right here. The model of the existing universe must be an expanding sphere
like a baloon because all of its parts are running away from an imaginable centre
after its sudden appearance or creation 15 billion years ago.
God bless,
Vlado.
vladimir Georgiev
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 12:42:41 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake and Science
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Steve Perry:
I'm glad you point out what that magical "city" of Golgonooza is all about: ART.
- Randall Albright
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 12:42:10 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: circles and spirals
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hi, Marcel:
The reason for my post title, "circles and spirals", is multi-fold. Let me
reductionistly name two reasons:
1) n reply to your question in your post: Yes and No, Blake identifies
circles and spirals. At the end of the "Mental Traveller", for example,
does he offer a spiral OUT of the cycle, or merely set us back to where it
began? Repetition and knots are a fascination for Blake, and yet so is
change. He identifies patterns, the patterns change, and circles never come
the same way exactly twice. Time is cyclical, which involves both
recognition of recurrent themes as well as new articulations and variations
on them. You can read the "Tyger, Tyger" poem in a number of ways, for
example. How do you finally come to terms with it? Or do you leave it
open-ended, like a living system should be? Similarly, just because Blake
identifies Urizen as a kind of evil tyrant in one instance, it doesn't mean
that Urizen isn't used in another instance as an aspect of what one might
call "a good guy". Mr. Dillingham addresses this eloquently in a post that
I saw from him today before he ends it with a personal insult to me.
Thanks, Mr. Dillingham. I appreciate that NOT.
2) I have had a number of disagreements with people in this group. It
doesn't mean I'm right and X, Y, or Z is wrong, as much as that we have
different views on Blake. I was responding in the original post
particularly to Pam Van Schaik's complaint that she felt like she's been
going around in circles on a particular subject. I feel, in contrast, that
each time I re-address a subject, go back to Blake, reassess a
disagreement, I am in a "spiral" of further articulating or udnerstanding
either the disagreement or coming to an appreciation of another's point of
view.
For example, Jennifer Michael's historical context information about the
"Chimney Sweeper" is interesting. It adds to my view, although it doesn't
really change how I feel toward the poems. What it made me do, however, was
to read the poems again to see if my view that these are archetypally GREAT
poems against science/technology/cogs-in-a-machine, as well as a BLAST at
Christianity's claim of "don't worry! there's always the afterlife!"
Although I can never entirely "stain the water clear" (from Intro to _Songs
of Innocence_) of what my previous readings of the poems were, I tried to
look at them with a fresh view, and pulled quotes based on this new reading
to reassess my view.
Now let me to reply to what I think YOU are onto with Blake that sound good
to me:
>I'm very much interested in this circle-spiral distinction.... it would
>seem here that the circle (cog? wheel? hermeneutic?) is an icon of
>technological oppression and that the spiral (whirlwind? oz-invoking
>tornado?) is a vehicle by means of which freedom is achieved.>>>
That's a nice thought. If I was a catalyst for you articulating it, great.
Yes, I would agree with much of what you're saying. Keep going with it!
>by the way, i am new to the list...a phd. student at the university of
>florida...passive observer for the past few weeks.
I'm an artist with a BA. I majored in English. I write, but also work with
visual and musical forms.
-Randall Albright
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 12:42:28 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Orc, Orc
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Hugh Walthall:
My my. You and I disagree on Orc, that blessed first son of the one and
only Los and Enitharmon, as he is described in "America" and "Europe"!
Although Orc is a fiery anarchist, he is not a mere Mars. He is the leading
soldier for righteousness on the supra-human plane against Urizen's
tyranny. Do you think he should have let the Prince of Albion's pestilence
just WRECK America? Sure, like karma, when he turns it back, it hurts the
citizens of Albion. But this is the Prince's fault for firing those
weapons, not for Orc doing a Star-Wars-like repulsion!
Orc is the leading agent of liberation, which just happens to coincide with
his own coming of age and 2000 years of the Western World being led around
by blindness such as "the divine right of kings" in each of those poems,
respectively.
-Randall Albright
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 12:40:48 -0600
From: David Medearis
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Fearing Science and loving fractals. -Reply
Message-Id:
Gloudina Bouwer wrote:
>>David must realise that when he says: "Science should insist that
only what is demonstrable exists" he is already talking as a disciple of
a pseudo-religion called "Science" and not as a scientist.<<
Perhaps my use of the word "exists" is ambiguous; I do not mean exists
in a literal sense, but only in so far as, to say that the assumptions that
we base our arguments no must be well grounded. These same
assumptions, however, are always changing and being redefined as
new data replaces old. And because the these assumptions always
are changing, and new theories are developed to account for these
changes, I hardly thing that science should be considered a religion.
Truth in religion is, for the most part static and unchanging.
And by the way, what do you mean by "the World" - that unscientific
pseudo-religious construct (probably one of the creations of Urizen, the
energy of cognition, after he fell)?
I do not understand what you mean by "that unscientific
pseudo-religious construct," please explain further. By the world, I
mean the world within the tent, as Blake explained it. I thought that I
made this clear in one of my earlier posts, when I offered my operational
definition of Science.
>>And what do you mean by "Spirituality"?<<
That one is more difficult to define, but I keep my definitions consistent, I
would say that Spirituality has something to do with the realization of the
world outside of Urizens tent, or perhaps outside of Kant's categories
of reason.
>>David sounds like he has an emotional stake in proving that true, and
that makes him suspect. <<
I have tried to proceed as logically as possible in presenting my
arguments. I have attempted to defined my terms, and tried (at least) to
clearly delineate my conclusions. I have even changed my position to a
small degree based on what others have presented. I am sorry if you
are offended by what I have to say. I am not trying to bash anyone, and
I have no emotional real stake, anymore than anyone else does when
debating a position.
David Medearis
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 20:43:58 +100
From: "VLADIMIR GEORGIEV"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Science
Message-Id: <1DD5DB24749@picasso.ceu.hu>
Dear adepts of Blake:
Have you read:
The Rape of Man and Nature : An Enquiry into the
Origins and Consequences of Modern Science
by Philip Sherrard
Rei Edition
Hardcover
List: $20.00 -- Amazon.com Price: $20.00
Published by Paul & Co Pub Consortium
Publication date: July 1995
ISBN: 9559028006
???
vladimir Georgiev
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 21:11:56 -0500
From: "Elisa E. Beshero"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: re: out of print books
Message-Id: <199702210156.UAA50980@r02n02.cac.psu.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Charlie, you asked:
>Would anybody be able to direct me to a place where I might find the
>following books for sale?
>
>I'm looking for copies of...
>
>Blake Records
> by G.E. Bentley, Jr. (1969)
>
> *and*
>
>The Notebook of William Blake: A Photographic and Typographic
> Facsimile
> by David V. Erdman, ed. (1973, reprinted in 1977)
>
>Thanks for any help,
>
>Charlie
I forwarded a copy of your note to my prof, Paul Youngquist, who responded with:
> the easy place to start would be with the Strand in NYC. There's
>also a bookstore in Santa Fe, NM that, oddly enough, gets some interesting
>Blake stuff. It's called The Sante Fe Bookseller. But trolling the web
>would probably be just as easy. I wonder if the Blake Archive has a query
>line.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 21:57:59 +0000
From: "Steve Perry"
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake and Science -Reply
Message-Id: <199702210550.VAA04594@surf.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT
> Yes, I see your point, Steve, perhaps hate is too strong a word. I think
> you have said it nicely. But Blake was such a passionate man, that I
> think his feelings really do border on hate when he see's the influence
> of empiricism slipping into art.
>
> Ironically, however, many of Bake's finest visual art seem, to me, to
> actually depict a sort of geometric, mechanistic world, which Newton
> described. I don't mean this pejoratively; I love his art, but I really think it
> has these qualities to it.
>
> David
Again, it is not empiricism per-se that Blake is railing against.
His problem with Wordsworth for instance is that Wordsworth is
looking for some type of spiritual redemption in Nature. Blake is
saying, its not in Nature, but in the human spirit of inspiration and
imagination. Looking around at nature is not especially imaginative
or creative. Being a technologist is not particularly creative.
Looking at the sun and seeing a Guinea is creative for a beggar or a
miser. I think that Blake must have had tremendous admiration for
the system that Newton created, but left it at that, admiration for
the creation of the system. After all, Art is the process not the
thing in itself. Looking at art should have the soul purpose of
inspiration. The buying and selling or even acquisition of Art in
and of itself is an abasement. Creating Art is of course the
ultimate act in that it bring inspiration into the concrete, into
generatiion, Enytharmin looms.
By the way, take a look at the neo-classic artisits of Blake's time.
Blake is into a firm lineament, which I think is platonic, but his
inspiration is Gothic, which I find is ironically compeletely
non-platonic. (Here is a thread in itself)
Steve Perry
"Did He who made the Lamb make Thee"?
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 09:17:59 -0500 (EST)
From: bouwer
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: David and the tent
Message-Id: <199702211417.JAA10011@host.ott.igs.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
David Medearis, you say: "I have tried to proceed as logically
as possible in presenting my arguments. I have attempted to
define my terms..." You say: "By the world, I mean the world
within the tent.. " What a scientific explanation! Are you
a Bedouin, or what?
No, when we think of the discoveries of science and the many
conjectures that scientists make, we do not call that a religion.
But when somebody is trying to win disciples for a quite limited
and often naive brand of "Science" I call that a pseudo-religion.
Your missionary zeal gives you away.
I find it hard to follow trains of thought based on concepts
that are totally unscientific. Such a concept is "the World."
I think that concept is a creation of the energy of cognition
(Urizen) after he fell, and should be seen for what it is.
I would like to see on this list group a serious
discussion of Urizen, the Zoa of cognition. A while ago I
asked for help in understanding the unfallen Urizen, Lucifer
before the fall (therefore: when is cognition done the right
way and in its proper place?)
I would like to see us look at the constructs of the fallen
energy of cognition also and try and figure out why it was that
Blake spent so much time describing the travails of Urizen.
Are we making value judgments about the fallen Urizen without
properly trying to understand the urgency with which Blake
describes these constructs of Urizen? Maybe Tom Dillingham could
lead us in such a discussion.
Gloudina Bouwer
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 09:28:27 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk, blake@albion.com
Subject: Lawrence as Prophet and Its Reflection on Blake
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
D.H. Lawrence "is amazing; he sees through and through one... He is
infallible. He is like Ezekiel or some other Old Testament prophet..."
---Bertrand Russell,
quoted on page 190 of _D.H. Lawrence, Triumph to Exile_
by Mark Kinkead-Weekes, Cambridge University Press, 1996
Thus ended my little quote on Bertrand Russell's view, at one point, of
Lawrence. But what if I had continued with how their relationship
degenerated to the point that their planned series of lectures, on which
Lawrence was to discuss Immortality and Russell was to discuss Ethics, was
cancelled?
And how does that final divergence compare to, say, someone like Kant, who
had a strong influence over Coleridge and Wordsworth after the French
Revolution literally burnt out, but not on Blake? (Or am I wrong here,
Blake scholars?) How does Nietzsche, whom some could call a poet as much as
systematic philosopher, seem to be more a kindred spirit of Blake than the
seemingly rational dialectic spin-doctor, Hegel?
What is the difference between acting rationally and acting from impulse--
the divine inspiration?
Russell on Lawrence's belief of an "impulse towards truth", quoted on p.
243 of _From Triumph to Exile_ by Kinkead-Weekes, is:
"merely an impulse to mistake his imagination for the truth. He
talks of a desire for oneness with others which he believes to be the same
as 'the impulse to truth'. I don't believe these things exist in most
people. But I find those who have a strong imagination generally read their
own natures into other people, instead of getting at other people by
impartial observation. Lawrence is just as ferocious a critic as
Wittgenstein, but I thought W. right & I think L. wrong."
This might help explain frustrations that David Medearis has with Blake, as
well.
And to say, as Steve Perry suggests in today's post, that Blake's problem
with Wordsworth is that he thinks Wordsworth puts too much trust in the
redemptive capability of nature, whereas Blake puts it in the human
imagination, comes back to this dilemma, doesn't it? Whose imagination?
Blake's. Whose nature? At least Wordsworth tries to get outside of himself
in his attempt to place nature out there, something higher.
On another note, Gloudina is pondering tornadoes and Vladimir is responding
with spheres. But tornadoes are often temporary mutations out of
hurricanes-- a brief shining moment in *eternity*, my friends-- which then
dissipate. Spheres... well the earth is a sphere, pretty much. It's
actually a little squished. The Milky Way is more like a plate. Maybe the
universe as we know it is all like a rubber band, and it's expanding now,
but will contract later, right? As long as we realize that these things are
either manifestations, or constructs of manifestations... of something
which is itself is part of the LIVING universe......... then whatever
particular manifestation of Brahma it takes on, as Hindu mythology would
describe it, it is simply an aspect of the divine or an attempted
articulation by people to describe the divine. Tornadoes, turbulent seas,
knots, and moody men... or moody men trying to describe tornadoes,
turbulent seas, and knots through art... history is always revising itself,
too.
-Randall Albright
http://world.std.com/~albright/
Where the Marriage of Arts and Sciences has already been made.
And it's not an easy one!
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 09:34:51 -0500
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: rananim@rananim.prestel.co.uk, blake@albion.com
Subject: Corrections...
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
I meant to say:
Nietzsche is MORE of a poet than a systematic philosopher like Hegel
and
I meant to erase the whole thing on "Marriage of Science and Art" at the
end. Since I didn't, I at least want it amended to: "Where the Marriage of
Science and Art is an act in progress, and a difficult one at that."
-R.H. Albright
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End of blake-d Digest V1997 Issue #22
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