Sunday, September 11, 2022

Humanity's Reification Redemption Challenge


 You live in a deranged age—more deranged than usual—because despite 
great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea
of who he is or what he is doing. — Walker Percy

As a baby-boomer of post world war two conception this image reminds me of Pink Floyd’s song Another Brick in the Wall and contemplating how my beliefs were built up from infancy. Along with the memory of an old monk saying “words are not reality and only experience reveals the nature of being.” As well as Socrates’ “true knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.” And writing this paragraph I'm singing “we need education to thrive, not just survive,” in harmony with the remembered melody of Pink Floyd’s song.

The Walker Percy quote heads the list of quotations opening the epilogue of Iain McGilchrist’s challenging book with its apt subtitle; Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World. While this chapter/post title, Humanity’s Reification Redemption Challenge reflects the idea that human history will repeat itself until we all notice how our unmaking of the world is caused by a conscious reification-fallacy.

Suggesting we need a synthesis of knowledge to increase our depth of understanding and awareness of the unseen reality of our body and the cosmos we inhabit. While inside my skull Pink Floyd song-line “we don’t need no education” has become “we don’t need no reification.” As I build on the last chapter/post idea that humanity needs a perceptual wisdom revolution to face mounting global challenges and save itself from itself.