If there was such a thing as collective consciousness...we'd be a smarter race. I personally believe in that "collective consciousness" however...not many are plugged in...or know its meaning.

Good article, Leland.
I always enjoy reading you...

Elizabeth

This we know in our bones, but not with our minds. It takes a fine article like yours to ease the journey of that knowledge.
CJ

Oh so much food for thought here Leland my friend!!

Thanks for sharing Your wisdom!!

Love Tinka

An irresistible theme at the basis of this very interesting article, my friend, and one which has fascinated me since my high school days and the study of the Theory of Cognition. I see that you follow, here, the "Tabula Rasa" perspective of John Locke and David Hume, according to which wisdom, or cognition - in the sense of aprehension of the reality - are not inate. The mind would be "empty" (like a clean slate) upon birth and would then gradually acquire all "information" (all knowledge, thus cognition) through the senses. In this sense, all knowledge about things, even that knowledge which "produces" universal laws, so to speak, would ensue from actual experience, and would therefore be valid only within the limits of the observable. This empirical perspective would thus reserve for Reason the function of a "data base" of the "sensitive (or maybe more correctly, sensorial) experience", the ideas or concepts of Reason being like "copies" or combinations of data issuing from such "source". Well... in this sense, dearest Leland, I can well picture a point, within human evolution, in which the mental (perceptive) slate will indeed become so "cluttered" with data inscribed therein, that it will become "unreadable" and the knowledge (cognition) acquired about the universe will therefore become a total "blur", inevitably bound to "tilt the balance" to the point of catastrophe - exactly where we seem to be heading, at a very fast pace indeed, as we keep "scribling upon the slate" and making it more and more confusing. Please correct me if I'm failing to grasp the sense of the message conveyed within this article, my friend. I've always been more inclined to a more "Platonic" or "Cartesian" (with further developments) perspective of the origin of cognition - and I believe that all perceptions (views, cognitions of the reality, or of the universe) are arguable, in that each individual "transforms" them "a priori", the Reason being that which "builds" reality such as we perceive it - thus not necessarily what one of us perceives about this or other element of the universe is what another one perceives, hence the relativity, among other concepts, of the concept named "truth". This would be why, dearest Leland, I have to be skeptical about the feasibility of "From Clean Slate to Clean Slate" - but if there weren't diverse approaches or understandings, our passage through this universe would be of a deadly monotony... ;0) I just love it that you always make me think!

(See how you are? ;0) Thank you, dearest friend!)

{{{{{{{{{{{{{hugs&love}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

Alexandra*

Much food for thought here Leland !
We must be a light unto ourselves, and a beacon of hope and direction to others grappling in the dark !
Peter

Excellent, indeed! Thanks!! 'Pea' <3

The progeny of the generations (of excessive population) who fail to cope with this fact may be as ill fated as the dinosaurs of sixty-five million years ago.

At this stage in the game, I might even say, 'more ill fated' than those dinosaurs.

Much Food for Thought here, Leland.

What an excellent article Leland. I hope that I leave as much to prosperity as has been left to me, and at the forefront is reading and learning from writers like yourself. Peace, love, and blessings. Mikii

Easy for YOU to say! Just kidding. Just kidding! Actually I hold with your belief that after we have cluttered up our clean slate with whatever wisdom, fallacy or brilliance we can muster, it is imperative that we leave this knowledge for prosperity by the simple act of living and speaking . . . and writing. Good.