[Lonergan_l] EPIGENESIS, power, metaphysics and serendipity
Jaray...@aol.com
Joe F
It was thoughtful of you to bring up epigenetics. Before the holidays
I got inspired to purchase an article The history of...epigenetics by
Andrew P. Feinberg and Benjamin Tycko. It was published in 2004. The
science of epigenesis only goes back a few decades. It would be a
possible study for those interested in page 3 of MIT where bolder
spirits are described as going to the 'more successful sciences' and
establish an analogy of science and bring it home with them. Here we
have, as it were, a nascent science of epigenesis, particularly
relevant to the study of disease, and we can follow its temporal
development of only a few decades. I wonder what made you think of
it. I am interested in your spiritual genome idea. A gene is a
spiritual thing of course. I am trying to figure out if a 'type of
explanation' which is how Lonergan refers to Darwin's successful
rendering of natural selection can be discovered as a datum of
consciousness being a principle of explanation and all. Happy New
Year.
Joe
On 1/3/10, Jaray...@aol.com <Jaray...@aol.com> wrote:
> Joe,
>
> since you've been "hot" on Darwin's track, I thought I'd add
> "epigenesis" as a possible serendipidous way to broaden a GEM strategy.
>
> Epigenesis is the theory that an individual is developed by successive
> differentiation of an unstructured egg rather than by a simple enlarging of
> a preformed entity.
>
> If this occurs on the bio-genetic level, GEM differentiations may make
> an analogical (parallel) use of differentiating the unstructured not only
> on the physical level but on the ethical and spiritual levels as well. Just
> a thought that needs much unpacking--perhaps beginning with an exposition
> of how Mendel and genetics relate as an underpinning. Anway that is partly
> how I arrived at the notion of "spiritual genome"(a notion that I developed
> probably clumsily). Interrestingly, I just googled how Corless had
> unbeknownst to me previously developed the very same idea relating Eastern
> spirituality in Buddhism and Christianity as appears here:
>
>
> Article: Spirituality and Emptiness: The Dynamic of Spiritual Life in
> Buddhism and Christianity.(Brief Article)
> Article from:
> Theological Studies
> Article date:
> September 1, 1993
> Author:
> Corless, Roger J. _Copyright_
> (http://www.highbeam.com/doc/Common/Controls/#) COPYRIGHT 1993 Theological
> Studies, Inc.
>
>
>
>
> This is one of the more important books in the emergent discipline of
> Buddhist-Christian studies. Corless combines scholarly (etic) and practical
> (emic) knowledge of both his referents, and his discussion is careful,
> detailed, and professional. The Christian referent is God in Trinity
> understood,
> when a denominational distinction is required, from the Catholic viewpoint.
> The Buddhist referent is the Kyoto School, a modern Japanese philosophical
> family which suggests East Asian Mahayana Buddhist presuppositions as an
> alternative to the Christian presuppositions of much Western philosophy.
> The Kyoto School contains elements of Zen (meditational) and Pure Land
> (Buddhist "faith")
>
> John
> PS as I was writing this I noted Phil's response: " Lonergan's focus was
> to change history for the better, and he attended especially to the
> terrible lag of his "school", the Thomism of the Jesuits. John draws
> attention to
> the stuff on pages 286-87 of Method as, yes, what Lonergan pointed that
> school to. Lonerganism has not faced that challenge. One sub-focus that we
> might air, discomfortingly, is how we are
> inviting - or not - the next generations to face the challenge, to climb
> into the world of serious understanding, encouraging thus the emergence
> [see
> MIT 350-1] of an elite that is at the level of the times."
>
>
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