Biographies:
Columbia—EJ:Spinoza, EJ:Ezra and Nehemiah, EJ:Jesus, EB:Jesus, Durant:Spinoza, EJ:Graetz, EJ:Wolfson,
                 EJ:Einstein,
Elwes—Spinoza, Colerus:Spinoza, EB:Spinoza RH— — 1D6 = ONE
Script—EJ:Hirsch, Runes:Spinoza,
WST—EJ:Wolf.
Pollock—Spinoza: His Life and Philosophy.
 
 
 

Columbia: Hobbes, Ibn Ezra heresies, Praise or Blame, Durant Tribute [12], G-D, idea of G-D, Idea of God,                                     Hampshire—conatus, Hampshire—libido and conatus,

Durant—Herbert Spencer's words that I can't help, but think they apply to Spinoza: Whoever hesitates to utter
                  that which he thinks the highest truth, lest it should be too much in advance of the time, may reassure
                  himself by  looking at his acts from an impersonal point of view.

Durant's Tribute—Spinoza biography, final causes, Excommunicated, Leviathan,

Dutch Condemn—Condemning the TTP, Opera Posthuma, ,

English Translation of Dutch—Elwes: Condemning the TTP, ,

Ezra and Nehemiah:EJ—

Jesus:EJ—Spinoza serves as bridge between both (Judaism and Christianity) and the coming (in time)
              Universal Religion.

Jesus:EB—Spinoza serves as bridge between both (Judaism and Christianity) and the coming (in time)
               Universal Religion.

Spinoza:EJ—Spinoza,

Graetz:EJ—Jewish historian and Bible scholar.  {Graetz's Censure of Spinoza.}
               Midrashic, Masoretic Text, Septuagint, Tishri,  

Wolfson:EJ—Historian of philosophy.

Einstein:EJ—Discoverer of the theory of relativity, and Nobel Prize winner.

Hampshire—Spinoza and Descartes: Cartesianism—construed not as a set of particular doctrines or propositions,
                 but as a whole vocabulary and a method of argument—dominated philosophical and scientific thought
                 in seventeenth-century Europe (though less in England than elsewhere),-as Aristotelianism, similarly
                 construed, had dominated Europe in previous centuries.

Hampshire—EXTENSION AND ITS MODES. Motion and Rest: Everything which exists in the Universe is to be
                 conceived as a 'modification' or particular differentiation of the unique all-inclusive substance, whose
                 nature is revealed solely under the two infinite attributes, Thought and Extension. But we can and must
                 distinguish the all-pervasive features of the Universe, which can be immediately deduced from the
                 nature of these attributes themselves, from those which cannot be so immediately deduced. 

Hampshire—Affectus—Emotion:  ... The word affectus, although it comes the nearest to the word
                 'emotion' in the familiar sense, represents the whole modification of the person, mental and physical.
                 The 'affection' is a passion (in Spinoza's technical sense) in so far as the cause of the modification or
                 'affection' does not lie within myself, and it is an 'action' or active emotion in so far as the cause does
                 lie within myself. 

Hampshire—Confused ideas to the free man's life of active emotion and adequate ideas must be achieved,
                  if at all, by a method in some respects not unlike the methods of modern psychology; the cure, or method of
                 salvation, consists in making the patient more self-conscious, and in making him  perceive the more or less
                 unconscious struggle within himself to preserve his own internal adjustment and balance; he must be
                 brought to realize that it is this continuous struggle which expresses itself in his pleasures and pains, desires
                 and aversions.  

Hampshire—Good & Bad; Perfect & Imperfect: Spinoza can allow never-the-less that the moral epithets 'good'
                 and 'bad' are popularly and intelligibly used in this quasi-objective sense; so far they have the same use
                 as words like 'pleasant' or 'admirable'; they indicate the appetites and repugnances of the user, or what
                 happen to be the tastes of most normal men. But it is important to notice that in this popular use the epithets
                 must not be interpreted as referring to the intrinsic properties of the things or persons called good or bad;
                 they refer rather to the constitution and reactions of the persons applying the epithets. 

Hampshire—Abstraction: ..., 'the intelligent individual's first aim must be to persuade others to be equally
                 intelligent in the pursuit of their own security; he has a direct interest in freeing others from the passive
                 emotions and from the blind superstitions which lead to war and to the suppression of free thought.
                 But in fact the enlightened and the free are always a minority, and men in general are guided by irrational
                 hopes and fears, and not by pure reason. 

Hampshire—Religious Faith and Philosophy: The dividing-line between religious faith and philosophical truth
                 was, after metaphysics itself, Spinoza's greatest interest; it was a problem which not only involved the whole
                 intellectual history of the Jewish people; it had also dominated his personal life and his own adjustment to
                 the society into which he was born. 

Hampshire—Purpose of the Theological-Political Treatise: In the Preface to the Theological-Political Treatise
                Spinoza declares the main purpose of the book to be the defense of freedom of opinion; he will show that
                public order is not only compatible with freedom of opinion, but that it is incompatible with anything else.
                The argument is a now classical liberal argument, and is still invoked today. 'If deeds only could be made
                the grounds of criminal charges, and words were always allowed to pass free, seditions would be divested of
                every semblance of justification, and would be separated from  mere controversies by a hard and fast line.'  

Hall—Teleological Argument: There remains solidly the option of not going down this path of teleologically,
                 arguing from the structure of the design to the structure of the designer or designers or the designer and
                 the designer's adversary. You don't have to go that way.

Various Biographies—
 
   

Home Page— Encyclopedia Britannica Online, Jewish Encyclopedia Online, Sacred Texts: KJV, JPS, Koran,
              Ism Book, Kemerling, Google, MSN Search, The Virtual Library, 1911 Encyclopedia, Tickle the Fancy,

JBY—Spinoza defined "sorrow, boredom, joy" with one definition. Answer.

JBY—Spinoza also defined "hate, indifference, love" with one definition. Answer.

JBY—Introduction to "A DEDICATION TO SPINOZA'S INSIGHTS": I stumbled upon Spinoza after I studied Calculus
              in college. Spinoza's definitions of sorrow, boredom, joy; hate, indifference, love, seemed to me to lend
              themselves to Calculus expression. The more I studied these equations the more I realized how important
              they were in understanding roller-coaster emotions and everyday relationships—you love not out of altruism,
              but out of self-interest. As I kept studying Spinoza,  I was really hooked when what happened to me is what
              Elwes thought happened to Spinoza.  

JBY—Purpose of "A DEDICATION TO SPINOZA'S INSIGHTS":
                          We all want Joy. 
                          We all want Love. 
                          We all want Peace-of-Mind. 
              To get them, a profound understanding of them helps. 
              Spinoza's insights help provide such understanding. 
              Your understanding minimizes your loss of Peace-of-Mind.  

Spinoza's Dictum—I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule,
              not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them.

Suggestions—Do not read these Web Pages (and the electronic texts listed below) linearly as you would a
              novel, but rather follow all the links in turn. You will then be putting hypertexting to its fullest and best 
              advantage—the fuller discussion of  a thread. If you do not stick to one thread at a time, this Web Site will be
              very convoluted, confusing, and an annoying maze.

JBY WEB PAGES

SPINOZA  ELECTRONIC  TEXTS

Durant—Spinoza is not to be read, he is to be studied; you must approach him as you would approach Euclid,
              recognizing that in these brief two hundred pages a man has written down his lifetime's thought with stoic
              sculptory of everything superfluous. Do not think to find its core by running over it rapidly... Read the book not
              all at once but in small portions at many sittings. And having finished it, consider that you have but begun to
              understand it.

JBY—I am an eighty-three year old retired Structural Engineer who has for some sixty-odd years studied Spinoza.
 
Humbul Humanities Hub—"A Dedication to Spinoza's Insights—Joseph B. Yesselman's Home Page"—is a
              resource that investigates and participates in the philosophy of the seventeenth-century Dutch thinker
              Benedict de Spinoza (occasionally known as Baruch de Spinoza, or simply Benedict/Baruch Spinoza).
              The site's author is Joseph B. Yesselman, a retired structural engineer who has had a lifelong interest in the
              philosopher in question.

Glossary—holidays, Spinoza's Pantheism, Golden Rule, or else, salmon, Harbinger, ONE, Universal Religion,
              clearly and distinctly, confused, New wine in old  bottles, The Universal Religion, UN Analogous position,
              Sham, Theology, Constitution, Cash Value, Perpetuation-Emotion-Faith, Speculation, Scientific Method,
              religion, Idolatry, ibn Ezra, Organic, James's ONE, Breast, Cash Value: pedagogy, Study Constitution, 
              Love God, Knowledge of G-D—Link, know G-D—Lung, Highest good is to know God: WHY?, Garden of Eden,
              Law of Organisms, Heart and lungs, Catholic-Breast, adequate ideas, brother's keeper, Altruism,
              Specie fish, Nationhood--Symbols, Maimonides, Indivisible, Nationhood, anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism,
              Uzgalis - Hobbes—Spinoza shares with Hobbes a powerful negative analysis of popular religion and the
              view that individuals operate in their own self-interest. Posit and test hypothesis, Right Way of Living, 
              Praise and blame, species 'Man, fish, Synthesize, Posit, Religious Belief/Religious Faith, Paradigm shift, 
              Indivisible—Letter on the infinite, Immanent, Cause, Spinozism, Morality, Spinozism, Free-Choice, 
              better PcM—Whatever is, is, Passover, Holocaust and Dresden Firestorm, Sin, Pity, Spinozistic Hebrew, 
              Jewish Nationalism, Inseparable, World View, belief—hypothesis, Functionalism—Consciousness, 
              Kabbala, Mysticism, Buber's Mysticism, Altruism Does Not Exist—Dawkins:546, Pantheism,

JBY—EMOTION is a change in one's °PERPETUATION. Its intensity is proportional to the change:
              If the change is negative, it is SORROW.
              If the change is zero, it is BOREDOM.
              If the change is positive, it is JOY.

JBY—FAITH is belief that an external object will cause a change in one's °PERPETUATION. The intensity
             is proportional to the change.
             If the change to be caused is negative, it is HATE.
             If the change to be cause is zero, it is INDIFFERENCE.
             If the change to be cause is positive, it is LOVE.

ONE—Hear, O Israel, G-D our LORD is G-D the Only ONE:
              Foundation Rock for Jewish philosophy.
              Compare 1D6 - equivalent Foundation Rock for Spinoza's philosophy.
 
JBY—Organic: Scripture and Spinoza declare that G-D is ONE to establish that EVERYTHING is bound into one grand               ORGANIC interdependence; from this intuition, by deduction, "in working clothes", logically flows the Golden               Rule "love your neighbor..."  

JBY—Religion: Religion is an ever-evolving hypothesis designed to find PEACE-OF-MIND. As long as people have               non-understood wants, they will suffer loss of peace-of-mind. That is why religion, drugs, alcohol, opiates, etc.               persists throughout the world.

JBY—Idolatry: Idolatry is taking the infinite as finite. 
              Taking the finite as infinite is pantheism. 

Martin Buber—Mysticism: The unity which the ecstatic experiences when he has brought all his former multiplicity               into oneness is not a relative unity, bounded by the existence of other individuals. It is the absolute, unlimited               oneness which includes all others. .... 

JBY—Mysticism: .... 2. Imagine as you drive down a main arterial highway that you are part of the blood-traffic               —where each vehicle has its assigned task for the perpetuation of your society. When you stop at a red light,               feel you are a corpuscle of the blood stopping at a heart valve. FEEL the organic interdependence of the               Parts. .... 

Quantum Mechanics—The fundamental physical theory developed in the 1920s as a replacement for classical
              mechanics. In quantum mechanics waves {mind} and particles {body} are two aspects of the same underlying
              entity {substance}. The particle associated with a given wave is its quantum. Also, the states of bound systems
              like atoms or molecules {modes} occupy only certain distinct energy levels; the energy is said to be
              quantized. 

JBY—Religion: Religion is an ever-evolving hypothesis designed to find PEACE-OF-MIND.

Dimont—Constitution: The founding fathers and the American people had a steadfast belief in the {Hebrew Bible}.                The development of constitutional  law through the body of decisions by the Supreme Court has acted, in               a sense, like a Talmud in interpreting and clarifying the Constitution, and those decisions have come to               function in American  political  life  much  as: the Talmud has in Jewish life. 

Jammer—Spinozism: Rejecting the traditional theistic concept of God, Spinoza denied the existence of a cosmic               purpose on the grounds that all events in nature occur according to immutable laws of cause and effect. The               universe is governed by a mechanical or mathematical order and not according to purposeful or moral               intentions.

JBY—Idolatry: Idolatry is taking the infinite as finite.

JBY—Evolving Holidays:

                       PAGAN                                       JUDAISM                     CHRISTIANITY               UNIVERSAL RELIGION

          Pagan Winter Solstice Festival ------------> Hanukkah ------------------> Christmas-----------------> Nature Renewal Day

          Pagan Spring Festival -------------------------> Passover --------------------> Easter---------------------->  Man Renewal Day

          Pagan Free Time Festival --------------------> Shavuoth--------------------> Pentecost---------------->  United Nations Day

          Pagan Harvest Festival -------------------------> Sukkoth----------------------> Thanksgiving---------->  Thanksgiving

Shirley's—Linguistic play & Metaphors; This might be called its linguistic play and manipulation. Spinoza employs
               many of the same terms prevalent in traditional Jewish and Christian discourse, such as "G-D," "salvation,"
              "faith," "miracles," "divine law," "help of G-D," "election of G-D," etc., but he twists them and gives them new,
              unorthodox meanings that are compatible with his own philosophy.

James—Cash Value: He would seek the meaning of 'true' by examining how the idea functioned in our lives.  
              A belief was true, he said, if in the long run it worked for all of us, and guided us expeditiously through our
              semihospitable world.  

James's—Free-will: Free-will thus has no meaning unless it be a doctrine of relief. As such, it takes its place with
              other religious doctrines. Between them, they build up the old wastes and repair the former desolations. 

Disclaimer—I believe speculations and metaphysics, should be pursued; although at times covertly; at times
              overtly. Religious hypotheses and knowledge constantly evolve to elegant simplicity. It is just that my major
              interest is studying the implications of Spinoza's thought.

Quibble—Speculation (conjectural) consideration of a matter. A contradiction with the speculation (hypothesis) of
              a transcendent G-D: By positing that the universe is not part of G-D, G-D's attributes are limited; thus His Power
              is limited—a contradiction. 

Rabbinic Judaism—Talmud and Miracles: Rabbinic Judaism very rarely, if ever, concerns itself with speculative
              matters. It concerns itself with the study of the law and its observance; much as a lawyer does today. It posits
              G-D as an axiom and goes on from there with no further metaphysical discussion. A citizen accepts his
              constitution as an axiom and goes on from there. 

Chancellor Schorsch—Spinoza: For my father, Spinoza represented the fullest and finest expression of Judaism's               historic quest to understand the endless diversity of existence in monotheistic terms. On many a Shabbat I was               treated to a discourse that eluded the grasp of my inattentive mind. I remember only the stirring intensity of his               fascination. Spinoza provided a haven in which the rational bent  of my father's mind and the religious hunger               of his heart could both find comfort.  

Uzgalis—Hobbes' Leviathan: Spinoza shares with Hobbes a powerful negative analysis of popular religion and the                view  that individuals operate in their own self-interest. Spinoza, however, gives this last doctrine a               remarkable twist. 

JBY—Sin: The Hebrew word translated as 'sin' is khate, Strong:2399—a crime, sin, fault. The root of khate is             khaw-taw', Strong:2398—to miss, to err from the mark (speaking of an archer), to sin, to stumble. Implied in this             etymology is that there should be "no praise—no  blame" ever; crime and scarlet fever are in the same              category. ....

JBY—Charity, Pity: The Hebrew word which is often mis-translated as charity, mercy, pity, etc., is tsed-aw-kaw',               Strong:6666—rightness, justice, virtue, piety. The root of tsed-aw-kaw' is tsaw-dak', Strong:6663—upright, just,              straight, innocent, true, sincere; (the same root as for righteousness). Based on this etymology, it is what one              lung does when the other collapses; it does double-duty, not out of altruism, but for its very own survival. .... 

JBY—Charity, Pity: The Hebrew word which is often mis-translated as pity (compassion, love, is better) is rakh'-am,               Strong:7355—to  fondle, love, cherish, affection.  A related word is rekh'em, Strong:7358 —the womb              (cherishing the foetus). Based on this etymology, the compassion, forgiveness, and °LOVE we should feel for              each other is like that of a mother for the issue of her womb, perhaps varying in degree but not in kind; it  is  in               no way altruistic. ....    An 'I-thee' Relation.


Spinozistic Ideas: Eons, Din Medinah Din, Din Medinah Din, Ridley's Altruism, Religious language—
              Paradigm Shift, Uriel da Costa,  synthesis, evolving, I-Thou and I-It, I-Thou Buber, I-thee Buber, I-Thou Hillel,               Divisible for study purposes, PcM, PcM—Lose an Arm, PcM—Lose an Arm, PcM, Peace of Mind (PcM)
              overcome emotions, nationalism, Menorah, Leap of Faith, Quarantine, Craig, Theistic / Spinozistic-Theistic,            Duck or Rabbit, Slavery, What is Religion?, Real Religion, Hierachies, Love is need, love-loved, Gene & Meme,               Parasitism & Symbiosis,

Robinson—Perpetuation & Survival: Now, what's the ultimate motive? Ah, well, the ultimate motive is survival. Not               the ancient Greek eudaimonia, not eternal salvation—except in the sense of eternal salvation is ultimate               survival. On the earthly plane, it is corporeal survival, freedom from pain and suffering. What approximates or               typically leads to survival is that which promotes good feelings, and what puts a distance between life and its               survival is anything that causes pain and injury.

Robinson—Perpetuation & Emotion:
              II:E. Reality is physical reality, material reality. If we are to have a scientific understanding of man, then man                      must be accepted as a material entity. 
              II:F. Society, composed of such entities, is then understood as a complex system made up of (human) matter in                      motion.

Wikipedia—Meme: The term "meme" (rhymes with "theme"), coined by Richard Dawkins, first came into popular use               with the publication of his book The Selfish Gene in 1976. Dawkins based the word on a shortening of the Greek               "mimeme" (something imitated), making it sound similar to "gene". Dawkins used the term to refer to any               cultural entity, for example a song, an idea, {technology}, a religion which an observer might consider a               replicator.

Blackmore—Meme: To summarize, there is a memetic solution to the mystery of human language origins. Once               imitation evolved, something like two and a half or three million years ago, a second replicator, the meme,               was born. As people began to copy each other the highest-quality memes did the best—that is those with high               fidelity, fecundity, and longevity.

Blackmore—Evolution of Memes: .... Human brains and minds are a combined product of genes and memes. As               Dennett puts it—'a human mind is itself an artifact created when memes restructure a human brain in order to               make it a better habitat for memes'. .... 

Blackmore—Power and Beauty of Memes: .... We once thought that design required foresight and a plan, but we               now know that natural selection can build creatures that look as though they were built to plan when in fact               there was none. If we take memetics seriously there is no room for anyone or anything to jump into the               evolutionary process and stop it, direct it, or do anything to it. There is just the evolutionary process of genes               and memes playing itself endlessly out—and no one watching. 

JBY—Our real religion is our constitution: The  single most important hypothesis that people make for their               peace-of-mind is their constitution—government. Without it, there is no army,  no police,  no fire department,               no schools, no water  no garbage collection,  etc., etc., etc.  In truth, our real religion is our government—for it               brings us the major part of our peace-of-mind. 

Dennett—Our real religion is our constitution:  .... Unless somebody publishes a study that surprises us all, we               take for granted that the common lore we get from our elders and others is correct. And we are wise to do so;               we need huge amounts of common knowledge to guide our way through life, and there is no time to sort               through all of it, testing every item for soundness. And so, in a tribal society {us} in which "everyone knows"               that you need to sacrifice a goat {go to an obstretician} in order to have a healthy baby, you make sure that               you sacrifice a goat {go to an obstretician}. Better safe than sorry.

JBY—Hypothesis: 1. a provisional theory set forth to explain some class of phenomena (say, like gravity), either               accepted as a guide to future investigation (working hypothesis) or assumed for the sake of  argument and               testing for its cash value—example; all things are in G-D, therefore everything is organically interdependent;               you know then that you cannot harm one part without eventually harming yourself or your progeny.

Popkin—Spinoza dispensed with any appeal to the supernatural to account for the world and how it operates.
              His brilliant system developed a complete picture of the world based solely on definitions and axioms and
              sought to explain everything in terms of the attributes of a non-supernatural G-D.  

Durant—Individualistic Rebels: Most men are at heart individualistic rebels against law or custom: the social
              instincts are later and weaker than the individualistic, and need reinforcement; man is not "good by nature,"
              as Rousseau was so disastrously to suppose. But through association, if even merely in the family, sympathy
              comes, a feeling of kind, and at last of kindness. We like what is like us; "we pity not only a thing we have
              loved, but also one which we judge similar to ourselves"; out of this comes an "imitation of emotions," and
              finally some degree of conscience.

Durant—Natural and the moral order: All political philosophy, Spinoza thinks, must grow out of a distinction
              between the natural and the moral order—that is, between existence before, and existence after, the
              formation of organized societies. Spinoza supposes that men once lived in comparative isolation, without
              law or social organization; there were then, he says, no conceptions of right and wrong, justice or injustice;
              might and right were one.

Hall—Organic Interdependence: There's another motivational package in there, I think. This is subtler, but I think
              it's there—I want us to keep our eye on it—that is, in the context of the religious stories, and I think particularly
              of stories in the Judeo-Christian tradition (they're the ones I'm most familiar with), but I'll bet they're there in
              the Muslim tradition as well, I just don't know firsthand. I think of those stories that talk to us again and again
              and again about how we are all God's children, we are all brothers and sisters, that we are all part of a family,
              and I underscore "all—{in G-D}." {'in G-D' says that ALL things are organically interdependent.}

JBY Endnotes:

Russell—Good-Bad Emotions: RUSSELL: You see, I feel that some things are good. and that other things are bad.
              I love the things that are good, that I think are good, and I hate the things that I think are bad. I don't say that
              these things are good because they participate in the Divine goodness.   COPLESTON: Yes, but what's your
              justification for distinguishing between good and bad or how do you view the distinction between them?

Hall—A More Perfect Hypothesis: Now assume that we have two concepts identical in all respects save one: one of
              them has a counterpart in reality, the other does not. Given this, It is claimed that the designatum of the
              former concept is fuller (more complete and substantial) than that of the latter. The latter may be perfect and
              perfectly real "in intellectu," but the other one has all of that plus existence "in re." So, point three, an
              arguable assumption: to be perfect and real in-the-mind-and-in-the-world is greater than to be (merely) perfect
              and real in-the-mind-alone. 

Rosenberg—World views Synthesized: Now the word 'dialectical' has had many uses in philosophy, from Plato to
              Marx. What I mean by it is not unrelated to these historical roots. A pair of world views stand in what I call
              dialectical opposition just in case they are incompatible but nevertheless are both  tempting—there's an
              initial pull toward each of them; both pivotal—they serve as centers for ordering and regrouping families of
              beliefs; and both reformulable—they are expressible by a variety of different specific claims or theses.
              Consider, for example, what we might call the theistic and the non-theistic world views.

Thomas Kuhn—Duck or Rabbit: The subject of a gestalt demonstration knows that his perception has shifted               because he can make it shift back and forth repeatedly while he holds the same book or piece of paper in his               hands. Aware that nothing in his environment has changed, he directs his attention increasingly not to the               figure (duck or rabbit) {G-D or God} but to the lines of the paper he is looking at. ....

Stewart—World View: .... Yet there is still no doubt that the city in question means something very different to each
              of your friends; that the two saw very different things in their travels. Now imagine that your friends are named               Leibniz and Spinoza, and that instead of a particular city they are discussing the nature of the universe. The               question then is: Do they share the same philosophy? Or, in other words, is philosophy about what you see               {objective}, or the way you see it {subjective; what brings you Peace-of-Mind}? 

Hall—God's Worship and the Problem of Evil: What I want to start in on today is an argument to the effect that we
              can know that Divine existence does not occur. We can know that there is nothing in, of, behind, about, over
              the world reality that is deserving of worship. 

Galbraith—Economics and Religion: In consequence, among the poor, only religion, with its promise of a later
              munificence for those who endure privation with patience, had been competitive with economic
              circumstance in shaping social attitudes.

Wolfson—Dictates of Reason.: Man, however, is not left unprotected against his own emotions any more than
              he is left unprotected against the physical forces of nature. Reason, and the knowledge which springs from
              reason, is a means whereby man can not only master the adverse forces of nature but can also overcome
              the assaults of his own emotions.  

Langer—Aesthetics: More naturalistically inclined critics often mediate the comparison between the forms of
               music and those of feeling, by assuming that music exhibits patterns of excitation occurring in the nervous
               tissues.

Langer—Aesthetic Emotion: Aesthetics is the Peace-of-Mind brought by symbolized beauty.

Langer—Hypothesis: If and only if these crucial propositions do correspond to facts, a working hypothesis,
              is ranked as "truth," its premises as "natural laws".

Durant—Herbert Spencer's Opinion on the Evolution to One World: The growth of planets out of nebulae; the
              formation of oceans and mountains on the earth; the metabolism of elements by plants, and of animal
              tissues by men; the development of the heart in the embryo, and the fusion of bones after birth; the
              unification of sensations and memories into knowledge and thought, and of knowledge into science and
              philosophy; the development of families into clans and gentes and cities and states and alliances and the
              "federation of the world": 

Caro—The Constitution, Webster said, is the fundamental law of a people—of one people—not of states.
              "We the People of the United States made this Constitution." UN is in an Analogous position.

Ridley—Altruism: If you are nice to people because it makes you feel better, then your compassion is selfish,
              not selfless.

Durant—One World: All political philosophy, Spinoza thinks, must grow out of a distinction between the natural
              and the moral order—that is, between existence before, and existence after, the formation of organized
              societies. Spinoza supposes that men once lived in comparative isolation, without law or social organization;
              there were then, he says, no conceptions of right and wrong, justice or injustice; might and right were one. 

Lederman and Hills—Oil: Many of the challenges of paramount importance that are facing our civilization
              today {2005} revolve around the subject of energy. The reason for this is simple: energy is the primary
              commodity that we consume. Thus the causes of many wars and conflicts {such as Iraq} in which we find
              ourselves continually immersed have a basis in the need for an abundant and convenient form of energy.
              In modern times, this has been oil.

Mark Twain & Spinoza: Hard Problem, Self-determining, Wegner's Free Will, Spinoza-Descartes,
              Desolate Doctrine, Inflexible Master, Gospel of Self-Approval, Misleading Names, An unfaced truth,
              self-sacrifices, Outside influence, Exterior influence, NeoDarwinism, Meme, God Gene, no praise/no blame,
              Free Will, Free Choice, Damasio's cosmic religious feeling, Genome, Gene. Pineal Gland, Pineal Gland 1,

JBY Endnotes: 

Ridley—Free Choice: The reason the equation of determinism with fatalism is a fallacy is as follows. Suppose you are               ill, but you reason that there is no point in calling the doctor because either you will recover, or you won't: in               either case, a doctor is superfluous. But this overlooks the possibility that your recovery or lack thereof could               be caused by your calling the doctor, or failure to do so. It follows that determinism implies nothing about what               you can or cannot do. Determinism looks backwards to the causes of the present state, not forward to the               consequences. 

Dawkins—Machines Created by our Genes: .... The argument of this book is that we, and all other animals, are
              machines created by our genes. Like successful Chicago gangsters, our genes have survived, in some cases for
              millions of years, in a highly competitive world. This entitles us to expect certain qualities in our genes. I shall
              argue that a predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness. ....

Dawkins—Brains and Computers: Brains may be regarded as analogous in function to computers. 
              Statements like this worry literal-minded critics. They are right, of course, that brains differ in many respects
              from computers. Their internal methods of working, for instance, happen to be very different from the
              particular kind of computers that our technology has developed. This in no way reduces the truth of my
              statement about their being analogous in function. Functionally, the brain plays precisely the role of on-board
              computer—data processing, pattern recognition, short-term and long-term data storage, operation
              coordination, and so on.

Dawkins—[4] Cultural Evolution: Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of
              making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body
              to body via sperms or eggs {hardware}, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from
              brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation {software}.

Dawkins—Genes and Memes: .... Any island, if completely isolated, would exhibit some evolutionary change in its               language as time went by, and hence some divergence from the languages of other islands. Islands that are               near each other obviously have a higher rate of word flow between them, via canoe, than islands that are far               from each other. Their languages also have a more recent common ancestor than the languages of islands               that are far apart. These phenomena, which explain the observed pattern of resemblances between near and               distant islands, are closely analogous to the facts about finches on different islands of the Galapagos               Archipelago which originally inspired Charles Darwin. Genes island-hop in the bodies of birds, just as words               island-hop in canoes.  

Dawkins—Altuism: What is so special about humans that we have managed to overcome our antisocial instincts and               build roads that we all share? Oh, there is so much. No other species comes remotely close to a welfare state,               to an organisation that takes care of the old, that looks after the sick and the orphaned, that gives to charity.               On the face of it these things present a challenge to Darwinism , but this is not the place to go into that. We               have governments, police, taxation, public works to which we all subscribe whether we like it or not. ....

Dennett—Computer of Sorts: .... It turns out that the way to imagine this is to think of the brain as a computer of sorts.               The concepts of computer science provide the crutches of imagination we need if we are to stumble across the               terra incognita between our phenomenology as we know it by "introspection" and our brains as science               reveals them to us. By thinking of our brains as information-processing systems we can gradually dispel the fog               and pick our way across the great divide, discovering how it might be that our brains produce all the               phenomena. 

Robinson—Consciousness: There's a famous brief treatise by James on the question "Does consciousness exist?"               And, of course, the answer James serves up is "yes and no." It depends on what you mean by consciousness.

              Mind, however, is not going to be treated as some sort of Cartesian substance or entity. On James's account,               "consciousness" is not an entity, but a process. This is not to depreciate consciousness. Rather, it is a process               not only as real as anything else {a verb}, .... 

Sexton—Computer of Sorts: Just as a computer disk is essentially a long series of data split into different files, so a               single DNA molecule may have many functional genes encoded along its length. Unlike the binary system of               computers, however, in which every 'bit' of data is represented by a 0 or a 1, DNA uses four different chemical               compounds, called nucleotides. These are usually written A, T, C and G, using the first letters of their chemical               names. If you 'read' the sequence on a computer disk, you may get '10001001110', whereas a DNA sequence               would look like 'ATTCGATTCG'.

Ridley—Structure of DNA: .... they, {Watson and Crick,} had made possibly the greatest scientific discovery of all time,               the structure of DNA. Not even Archimedes leaping from his bath had been granted greater reason to boast, as               Francis Crick did in the Eagle pub on 28 February 1953, 'We've discovered the secret of life.' James Watson               was mortified; he still feared that they might have made a mistake. 

Dawkins—Electronic and Chemical Storage Mediums: ....The particular polymers used by living cells are called               polynucleotides. There are two main families of polynucleotides in living cells, called DNA and RNA for short.               Both are chains of small molecules called nucleotides. Both DNA and RNA are heterogeneous chains, with four               different kinds of nucleotides. This, of course, is where the opportunity for information storage lies. Instead of               just the two states 1 and 0, the information technology of living cells uses four states, which we may               conventionally represent as A, T, C and G. There is very little difference, in principle, between a two-state               binary information technology like ours, and a four-state information technology like that of the living cell. 

LeDoux—Functionalism: This is a philosophical position which proposes that mental functions (thinking,
              reasoning, planning, feeling are functional rather than physical states. When a person and a computer add 2
              to 5 and come up with 7, the similar outcome cannot be based on similar physical makeup, but instead must
              be due to a functional equivalence of the processes involved. As a result, it is possible to study mental
              processes using computer simulations. Cartoon.

Robinson—Functionalism and Problem Solving: Human beings just happen to be biological instantiations of              something that otherwise could be instantiated non-biologically; it can be instantiated by galenium sulfide              crystals, by popping diodes, printed circuits, all sorts of things made in the Silicon Valley and sold by Japanese              companies. ...  

             ... Now, one interesting consequence of this is that it's no longer necessary to reserve the domain of intelligent              life to the domain of brainy life, and so one thing I say that comes out of Turing's efforts here is what is              sometimes referred to as "machine functionalism within philosophy of mind."  

LeDoux—Neurons and Persons: A neuron (nerve cell) is composed of "dendrite—>cell—>axon". Neuron electrical              charges flow from dendrite to cell to axon terminal. An axon connects to the dendrite (or cell) of the next cell              down the line. Billions of axons connect to billions of dendrites.   Other analogies are the way knowledge is              propagated throughout the world;  hearing, reading, etc--->person--->talking, writing, etc. Thus billions of              people connect to billions of people.

LeDoux—Rom & Ram: In the spirit of viewing the mind in terms of computer-like operations, some
             cognitive scientists refer to executive functions as supervisory or operating system functions. A computer              operating system is responsible for controlling the flow of information processing, moving information from              permanent memory (ROM) to a central processing unit with active memory (RAM), scheduling tasks to be              preformed using the active memory, and so on. Similarly, executive functions are involved in the constant              updating of temporary memory, selecting which specialized systems to work with (pay attention to) at the              moment, and then moving relevant information into the workspace from long-storage by retrieving specific              memories or activating schemata pertinent to the immediate situation.

Dawkins—ROM & RAM: [2] DNA is ROM. It can be read millions of times over, but only written to once—when it is              first assembled at the birth of the cell in which it resides. The DNA in the cells of any individual is 'burned in',              and is never altered during that individual's lifetime, except by very rare random deterioration. It can be              copied, however. It is duplicated every time a cell divides. The pattern of A,T,C and G nucleotides is faithfully              copied into the DNA of each of the trillions of new cells that are made as a baby grows.

LeDoux—Brains and Other Parallel Computers: The brain is also sometimes described as a parallel computer,
             but it actually functions differently from an off-the-shelf connection machine.

Dennett—Language is Software: Looking at ourselves from the computer viewpoint, we cannot avoid seeing
             that natural language is our most important "programming language." This means that a vast portion of our              knowledge and activity is, for us, best communicated and understood in our natural language... One could say              that natural language was our first great original artifact and, since, as we increasingly realize, languages are              machines, so natural language, with our brains to run it, was our primal invention of the universal computer.

Wash. Post—Robot Rat: Scientists for the first time have managed to remotely direct the movements of rats by
              using implanted electrodes to control their behavior—in effect transforming living animal into robots.

Damasio—Robots: These distinctions are chronically glossed over whenever living organisms and intelligent
              machines, e.g., robots, are compared.

Robinson—Descartes' Error: 

I. Descartes drew a sharp distinction between himself as a thinking thing—res cogitans—and as an extended    thing—res extensa—drawing criticism from the likes of Thomas Hobbes and Pierre Gassendi. 

A. Both would surely have agreed with the broad scientific perspective according to which the physical     sciences are "complete." 

1. That term refers to the view that nothing in the domain of the "really real" falls outside the     realm of the "really physical," of physics. 
 
2. In other words, reality is not composed of two radically different kinds of stuff but of one kind     only—the physical. 

 Damasio—Descartes Error, Body and Mind Separation: This is Descartes' error: the abyssal separation
              between body and mind, between the sizable, dimensional, mechanically operated, infinitely divisible
              body stuff, on the one hand, and the unsizable, undimensioned, un-pushpullable, nondivisible mind stuff.

Stewart—Dualism - Descartes' Error: The mind-body problem manifested itself in other ways that kept                seventeenth-century thinkers awake at night. The strict Cartesian dualism left animals, for example, impaled                on the horns of dilemma: Do dogs, say, have minds like us or are they machines? To endow a dog with a                mind, according to Cartesian logic, was tantamount to giving it a place in heaven; so the Cartesians stuck to                the less theologically risky position that animals are indeed machines.

Robinson—Functionalism: .... What matters is that a given function is performed in such a manner as to yield               adaptive success. What matters not at all is the precise physical means by which the function is performed. If               the task is arithmetic, then, and only arithmetic, then a simple computer and a grade-school child will achieve               success with apparatus having nothing in common; one has a circuit board within which algorithms have been               programmed; the other has an evolved brain comprised chiefly of fat, protein, and water. 

Ryle—Descartes Error: One of the chief intellectual origins of what I have yet to prove to be the Cartesian
              category mistake seems to be this. When Galileo showed that his methods of scientific discovery were
              competent to provide a mechanical theory which should cover every occupant of space, Descartes found in
              himself two conflicting motives.

Ryle—No praise/no Blame: A second major crux points the same moral. Since, according to the doctrine minds
              belong to the same category as bodies and since bodies are rigidly governed by mechanical laws, it seemed
              to many theorists to follow that minds must be similarly governed by rigid non-mechanical laws.

Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy—Category mistake: the placing of an entity in the wrong category. In
              one of Ryle's examples, to place the activity of exhibiting team spirit in the same class with the activities of
            &nb