“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”
–Alfred North Whitehead
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What does it mean to be integral?
As of right now, I have no idea what I could end up saying about the essence of integral spirituality. You must of course trust that I have not edited the text and interfered with its temporal flow. I’ll admit I had to stop and reflect to gather my thoughts before I wrote each of Read more
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Am I my Words?
Learning to speak is learning to act. Verbal communication is reading the lines and putting them into character. That is, taking a text and giving it context: putting it with something else, making a connection (to something others will understand). The face, the gestures of the body: these are the instruments of meaning. It is Read more
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Marvin Minsky’s Emotion Machine and My Own Consciousness
Is higher immediacy not unlike satori? That is, to really get at the nature of the human being, to really “understand” what it means to be human, is it not required that the human that wishes to “understand” change the way they are in the world, that they somehow re-interpret the meaning of their experience? Read more
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That you are what you are.
Some have suggested that the human being can (and therefore ought to) live without God. I reject this claim. I propose that the human being is the spiritual animal, the organism that knows that it is. God is the “thatness” of existence, that transcendent quality of all that is but whose name cannot be spoken. Read more
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No Control
On a desert night beneath the moon, Cacti in full bloom, The little light that did reflect Off clouds fell into tune. It sang for me a song of smiles, Full of angels laughing, Enacting heaven’s holy joke: That even God has no control. The gagging subsided And the moon began to set. Darkness became Read more
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The Purpose of Words
The words, these words, appeared And since then, we hold them in esteem. More dear than the winter night’s breeze– Than any of the meaning we seem now unable to retrieve. The words, these words, have dissected, Labeled and laid claim. They have classified and cataloged What was once but mystery. They have caged and Read more
“In one sense philosophy does nothing. It merely satisfies the entirely impractical craving to probe and adjust ideas which have been found adequate each in its special sphere of use. In the same way the ocean tides do nothing. Twice daily they beat upon the cliffs of continents and then retire. But have patience and look deeper; and you find that in the end whole continents of thought have been submerged by philosophic tides, and have been rebuilt in the depths awaiting emergence. The fate of humanity depends upon the ultimate continental faith by which it shapes its action, and this faith is in the end shaped by philosophy.”
—Alfred North Whitehead
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© 2006-2024 Matthew David Segall
Footnotes2Plato 