It is not I who separates things into categorical bins, real and unreal, true and untrue, machine and non-machine.
I am the fighter against such compartmentalization, or I would not have sought to blur the distinctions between machine and "complex systems" with my analogy of the candle.
I celebrate a mental vision that encompasses a range from the sub-atomic to the span of galaxies and beyond, and a time-scale from sub-nanoseconds to billions of years. I find sufficient magic in such visions.
But this may be the first time that I, poet and writer, mathematical dunce and scientific dunderhead, renowned bon-vivant and celebrated raconteur, (Hey, it is "in my own mind", after all!), have been accused of having a place in my own mind that I would not go, a door that I would not open.
An interesting observation, but I think you are wrong.
snip: I celebrate a mental vision that encompasses a range from the sub-atomic to the span of galaxies and beyond, and a time-scale from sub-nanoseconds to billions of years. I find sufficient magic in such visions.
Spirited: If the universe is either nothing more than a massive machine or a living organism, and man nothing but an extension of either the machine or the living organism, man then is either ‘one with’ the machine or the organism. Philosophically, this is the very ancient doctrine of Monism, and in either case, man has no freedom whatsoever.
Imagine that rather than machine or organism, Naturalism’s closed system is a massive dog. Man being an extension of the dog, he would be nothing but the dog’s hair.
In this view, the vision you hold to be yours is not in fact yours because there is no independant objective thinker; there is no ‘you.’ The vision you mistakenly believe is yours is really from the inner and outer workings of the ‘dog,’ otherwise known as external forces of nature. The ‘vision’ is received into the brain of the meat-machine labeled “NicknamedBob.’ In this way, the ‘dog’ or external forces of nature speak ‘their’ thoughts-—and ‘poetry’— through the mechanical lips of Bob-the-robot.
This view of matter, forces, nature, determinism,and man was the invention of Karl Marx, positivist, materialist,and empiricist. Marx was also the teller of Big Lies. The author of many Luciferian poems, he also claimed to be ‘God.’ Obviously, he did not disbelieve in the existence of the great I AM, let alone the transcendant realm.
The so-called ‘modern isms’ that emerged out of the Enlightenment are neither scientific nor ‘new.’ They are nothing more than revamped pagan naturalism, revised and made palatable for Western man.
When Paul debated the Stoics (pantheists) and Epicureans (materialists), he was debating the Monists of his time.
Postmoderns are also pantheists, in their case, quasi-Buddhist ideal pantheists, meaning that the closed system is entirely impersonal, unknowing Spirit, also called The Force (Star Wars), and Overmind (2001 Space Odyssey), among other appellations.
snip: I am the fighter against such compartmentalization, or I would not have sought to blur the distinctions between machine and “complex systems” with my analogy of the candle.
Spirited: Your need to ‘blur the distinctions’ arises from your adherence to Monism. Monism is a relentless reducer of everything to ‘oneness.’ For example:
Rather than male and female, there must be ‘one’ transgendered being. This agenda moves forward in America by way of ‘gay’ rights. What is ‘gay’ but the negation of immutable distinction.
Rather than good and evil, truth and lies, there must be moral relativism. Consequently, many Americans can no longer discern between true victims and their victimizers. Hence, they have become apologists for evil.
Rather than Light and Dark, there must be grey. Everything becomes grey.
The logical consequence of this way of reasoning is cognitive dissonance; madness.
America is on a fast-track downward. Out of control, she spins ever-downward into madness.
That statement seems self-refuting.
Cordially,