.Reason & Passion .Science and the Life Force There are those who suppose that passion is the enemy of reason. This is to suppose that passion is blind. I submit that passion is the subjective side of the life force, and, therefore, passion has its reasons. It is our challenge to search out and examine those reasons.
Modernism is virtually synonymous with the belief that life is an accidental, epiphenomenon of physics and chemistry. This belief is credible until one examines the mind-body problem. The possibility that mind is also an epiphenomenon of physics and chemistry is much less credible. A reasonable person is then obliged to reexamine the possibility that life is not an accident, and that mind is an essential aspect of the life force. If, indeed, passion is the subjective side of the life force, then passion is an essential, fundamental aspect of the mind, nay, of reality.
In fact, there is a current trend among cognitivists to ascribe a fundamental role to the emotions in human cognition. Does this surprise us? Rather than the mind being a calculational device, its most basic building blocks are felt meanings. This view is in good agreement with the findings of developmental psychology, and the absolutely crucial role of human bonding therein.
Let me finally and briefly switch the focus to religion. ‘Religio’ refers to the binding of the spirit as the basis of spiritual wisdom. Among religions, there is one which acknowledges the cosmological crux of the binding passion. I refer to the X-event or the passion of Christ. Consider that the original starship troopers were the Cathari Troubadours who spread their then heretical Gnostic gospel of direct experience of God’s love in the guise of romantic ballads, not unlike the Song of Solomon. They could not fool the Inquisitors for long. The romances of Tinseltown are but a distant echo of that crucial passion event felt ‘round the world.
Surely, the monadic singularity that is the grail of all wisdom is something more than a mathematical infinity. Is not the notion of a mathematical infinity just a dim shadow of the real thing? The cosmic attractor is the alpha and omega of the life force. It is the way, the light and the truth.
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rev. 5/5/00