[ Sunday 12 June 1983 - Saturday 18 June 1983 ]
[notebook Creation - The Metaphysics of Peace = CMP : DB20]
[page 7]
Do you want to play with the Universe or see how it works?
As Popper rightly points out (Plato, Chapter 10) the tribal, rather than the open, society is best modelled by the concept organism.. Although my original approach was through a 'self creative organism', this seems to be too much of a contortion of the current meaning of organism. Next choices were Consciousness and Creation. These are not altogether satisfactory. Conscious creation might be ideal, but it seems that the theme of the book is best summed up in the notion CREATION. Hence this will become the working title. Popper: The Open Society and its Enemies: The Spell of Plato
The pattern of the book might be drawn from Hofstadter Goedel, Escher, Bach, which would be a good starting point, since it deal with much to do with the
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recursive nature of many systems without actually bringing us face to face with randomness, creation, etc. Hofstadter
Pushers of organism tend to fascism, eg Popper Plato [page] 173 and also the Roman Catholic Church, Mystical Body of Christ.
There are none so faithful as the freshly converted. At the age of 40 I have just managed to escape enough from my Roman Catholic indoctrination to view with pleasure the Universe around me. The spiritual awakening which has occupied most of my intellectual energy for the last twenty years has filled me with energy, hope and wonder, a feeling which I hope to capture during the two years which I plan to spend writing this book. This introduction is being written at the beginning of the job rather than at the end, as introductions mostly are. For the conventional introduction, I refer you to the postscript to be found after this but before the main text, which I hope will provide a more balanced picture of what I have actually achieved.
The first prerequisite in any intellectual endeavour is to ask the right questions. The principal medium of my
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indoctrination, as a child between the ages of 4 and 12, was the catechism, a book of questions and answers. . . .
In my awakening to human consciousness I am doing a lot of what Popper says the early Greeks were doing as they gradually made the transition into democracy and freedom.
We need a new moral freedom with regard to dope, homosexuality, pornography and any such victimless activity. This is a very basic requirement for social evolution. Society need only protect itself against dangers to itself. It is up to individual to protect him or herself - action through knowledge. Covenant must guarantee best information is available, eg whether or not to smoke dope: here's the pros and cons.
I see a direction in which I feel society must go, and I feel that I cannot fail to make that direction as well known publicly as I can manage - so Socrates. Socrates - Wikipedia