"There is no free will, but you have a choice! (And the role of memes in choice-creation)" in Handbags and Lingo (3 November 2013) http://anand.memesyslab.com/2013/11/there-is-no-free-will-but-you-have.html<!-- INKTalks -->
Context: The promise of survival beyond individual death or dispersion appeals to the most primal driving force of existence. Promises of transcendence have evolved out of the thriving desire to ward off the inevitable threat of individual death. Most systems propose a more or less perfect immortality – one where memories, hopes, desires, knowledge and even experiences survive the death of the physical body. An engagement and acceptance of this meme makes death particularly irrelevant. The upholding of the promise at the cost of individual sacrifice becomes acceptable. Individual sacrifices even become necessary in validating the promise.
Source: Nationalism and Culture (1937), Ch. 1 "The Insufficiency of Economic Materialism"
Context: The will to power which always emanates from individuals or from small minorities in society is in fact a most important driving force in history. The extent of its influence has up to now been regarded far too little, although it has frequently been the determining factor in the shaping of the whole of economic and social life.
“What appeals to you the most is the very thing that will drive you crazy”
Source: Love the One You're With
The Principles of Biology, Vol. I (1864), Part III: The Evolution of Life, Ch. 7: Indirect Equilibration
Principles of Biology (1864)
Context: It cannot but happen that those individuals whose functions are most out of equilibrium with the modified aggregate of external forces, will be those to die; and that those will survive whose functions happen to be most nearly in equilibrium with the modified aggregate of external forces.
But this survival of the fittest, implies multiplication of the fittest. Out of the fittest thus multiplied, there will, as before, be an overthrowing of the moving equilibrium wherever it presents the least opposing force to the new incident force.
“He had seen primal innocence in those eyes, and a promise of resurrection.”
Ch 29
A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), Fiat Voluntas Tua
Context: The image of those cool green eyes lingered with him as long as life. He did not ask why God would choose to raise up a creature of primal innocence from the shoulder of Mrs. Grales, or why God gave to it the preternatural gifts of Eden — these gifts which Man had been trying to seize by brute force again from Heaven since first he lost them. He had seen primal innocence in those eyes, and a promise of resurrection. One glimpse had been a bounty, and he wept in gratitude. Afterwards he lay with his face in the wet dirt and waited.
Nothing else ever came — nothing that he saw, or felt, or heard.
"Beyond Politics, Beyond Copenhagen, For Our Children" : Treatise, Travelling trilogy, Lectures and Films on Sustainable development by Manav Gupta (2009 -2010), as quoted in Hindustan Times (25 December 2009)
2000s
Source: Social Amnesia: A Critique of Conformist Psychology from Adler to Laing (1975), p. 26
“The most exciting happiness is the happiness generated by forces beyond your control.”
"The Anatomy of Happiness"
I'm a Stranger Here Myself (1938)
Life Without and Life Within (1859), The One In All
Context: Existence is as deep a verity:
Without the dual, where is unity?
And the "I am"" cannot forbear to be;But from its primal nature forced to frame
Mysteries, destinies of various name,
Is forced to give that it has taught to claim.
The Conspiracy Against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror (2010)
The Clint Eastwood Conundrum
The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History (1997)
