[dropcap style=”font-size:100px; color:#992211;”]T[/dropcap]he Veracity Of Soul (Anima Mundi): An answer to the soul-denying metaphors of materialist reductionism.
Materialists, addicted to a reductionist view of the world, have placed themselves in a similar state of self-induced hypnosis as their religious fundie, shadow halves… albeit their dogma is not quite as toxic… but since their view of the world reduces the psyche to dead and dreamless bits, it does the world (and their own heart… which they, in a self-fulfilling fantasy, believe is simply a pump) no service.
At this time, our world can ill-afford Descartes et al’s arrogant, materialist dream.
Ergo, a person who believes they have no soul is as dangerous to our besieged planet, in their own way, as one who is out to save the soul of others.
Moreover, on a personal basis, I know a tree has a soul (and the (multi) universe itself is ensouled, because I possess one. And, as is the case with love and devotion, it makes little difference whether a reductionist mistakes hardware for software, thus proffers the claim that such states of being are merely a dreamless dance of molecules.
The materialist fantasist has trouble with the difference between hardware and software, because, in their conception of themselves, they believe themselves to be merely the sum of machine-like parts…. And that is a truly sad (and shallow) metaphor… one in which they believe as literally as religious fundies… who insist an angry, robed father figure rages in the heavens.
And materialists believe such things, because they are surrounded by machines and have grown addicted to mechanistic metaphors that aren’t up to the task of describing the “thoughts of the heart and soul of the world,” in the same manner the goat herders of the hill country surrounding what is now known as the Middle East were surrounded by robe-wearing patriarchs.
Ergo, as is the case with religious true believers, materialist take their imperfect metaphors literally.
And this gives rise the following reductionist fallacy: Simply because one cannot find the soul of a tree with a machine, appropriated as a mechanism of detection, does not mean the tree has no soul.
It simply means you’re using the wrong equipment.
[quote]I have all the equipment that
I need, beating in my chest,
to know the soul of a tree[/quote]
One’s heart is the means of knowing the soul of a tree… poets have been speaking to trees for ages. That’s the trouble with materialists: they would deny the fragrance (a form of speech, BTW) of jasmine held on the wind by holding a microscope up to air. Choosing the right equipment is essential. I have all the equipment that I need, beating in my chest, to know the soul of a tree.
In short: Materialists are speaking in wanting, soul-defying metaphors i.e., the reductionist’s lexicon (as is the case regarding all (human) verbal language – its very architectural underpinning) – is metaphorical; therefore, it is imprecise. Poets realize this. Religious fundies and (most) reductionists do not.
As I stated, the metaphors of the Old Testament involving their god were borne of images of angry patriarchs (the criteria they encountered every day) – as the metaphors of reductionism involve soulless allusions involving machinery (what we, at present, encounter every day).
Moreover, a soul exists as a connecting principle… yet it is also both the structure, and the beating heart of the world (animus mundi) – and by extension the soul of the cosmos…. It is organic and ecologically connected, like, for example, an interconnected rain forest.
Reductionism misses this, because of its myopic metaphors, therefore is locked in a struggle with other fundie true believers regarding the veracity of the metaphors of each distinct cult. Dawkins and Hitchens’ icy animus rising against some fuckwit fundamentalist death cult of the moment. Reductionists wielding sharp, glinting metaphors of mechanization at traumatized adult children looking hopefully at the heavens for love, yet fearing the fulmination of a cranky, cosmic father figure.
Illustration by Dan Booth not to be reproduced without his express prior permission
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City.
Yet a bio amounts to dharma for dimwits: It defines a human being in the same manner and degree of veracity as a restaurant menu describes the various slabs of meat offered … commodified things that were once living beings.
