Jeremy Lent > Quotes

“Integrative intelligence is one that draws from all the sources of wisdom available to us as living organisms on Earth.”
― Jeremy Lent, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe

“The sense of separateness that our culture foists on us is, in Einstein’s words, ‘a kind of optical delusion of consciousness … a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us’. This delusion of consciousness is not, however, our only available option. ‘Our task,’ he continues, ‘must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
― Jeremy Lent, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe

“Heaven is my father and earth is my mother, and I, a small child, find myself placed intimately between them. What fills the universe I regard as my body; what directs the universe I regard as my nature. All people are my brothers and sisters; all things are my companions.70”
― Jeremy Lent, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe

“Ap Dijksterhuis and Loran Nordgren, have helped to answer this question with what they call a ‘theory of unconscious thought’. Their theory indicates that the more complex the problem, the more you should let your unconscious decide.”
― Jeremy Lent, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe

“integration - a state of unity with differentiation. In a fully integrated system, each part maintains its unique identity while operating in coordination with other parts of the system.”
― Jeremy Lent, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe

“And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man; A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things.13”
― Jeremy Lent, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning

“The Blasphemy of Reason To understand the relationship between Islamic and scientific modes of thought, it's useful to contrast the emergence of Islam with that of Christianity. In its first four centuries, Christianity germinated gradually within the Roman Empire, with many of its leading theologians converting to the new religion only after having spent their formative years immersed in the classical learning of ancient Greece. Islam, by contrast, spread through military conquest, expanding mostly through conversion of conquered peoples. As a result, even when Muslim rulers welcomed classical Greek knowledge, it was perceived as something alien. Tellingly, Greek science and natural philosophy were known throughout Islam as the “foreign sciences,” in contrast to the “Islamic sciences,” such as the study of the Quran, which were considered to hold the highest place in Muslim life.9 In the early years of Islamic civilization, various groups vigorously competed for the hearts and minds of the Muslim community. Those who actively pursued the Greek classical tradition of knowledge were known as the faylasuf or “philosophers.” Another group, taking a more mystical approach to Islam, were the Sufis. However, the two principal groups that emerged were the Ash'arites, traditionalists who believed in the primacy of Islamic faith, and the Mu'tazilites, who believed in a rational explication of the Quran.10 The Mu'tazilites were devout followers of Islam, while applying rational thought to their interpretation of theology. When passages in the Quran referred to “the face of God” or described God sitting on his throne, the Mu'tazilites argued that these descriptions should be interpreted metaphorically. It seemed to them equally valid to use reason as theology to make important distinctions in their lives, such as between good and evil. The Ash'arites, on the other hand, based their viewpoint on the fundamental presumption that the Quran was the direct word of God transmitted through Muhammad. As such, they viewed the Quran as something eternal and uncreated, an indivisible part of God: it wasn't just the word of God; it literally was God. How, then, to interpret statements about God's face or God sitting on his throne? The Ash'arite position was to take these statements literally, and if reason were unable”
― Jeremy Lent, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning

“If we take Gould’s working definition of intelligence – ‘an ability to create a novel solution in the mind’ – and open to the possibility that mind could extend to all life as Thompson suggests, then we’re ready to begin exploring the world of animate intelligence. And in doing so, we may find that the original AI, developed over billions of years, leaves even the world’s most advanced supercomputers in the dust.15”
― Jeremy Lent, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe

“During his 1968 presidential election campaign, Senator Robert F. Kennedy denounced GDP in a historic speech, declaring: It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play…It measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. Kennedy, killed by an assassin’s bullet three months later, never got the chance to turn his critique into practice.”
― Jeremy Lent, Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All

“The Taoist Zhuangzi classic offers a fascinating story on this topic. A scholar named Zigong, while traveling, notices an old man working in a garden digging trenches, repeatedly going over to a well and returning with a jug full of water. “There's a machine,” Zigong tells the farmer, “which could irrigate a hundred plots like yours in a day. Would you, good sir, like to try one?” The farmer shows some initial interest, and Zigong explains to him how it works. Suddenly, the farmer's face flushes, and he retorts: “I've heard that where there are machines, there are bound to be machine worries; where there are machine worries, there are bound to be machine hearts. With a machine heart in your breast, you've lost what was pure and simple; and the loss of the pure and simple leads to restlessness of the spirit. Where there is restlessness of the spirit, the Tao no longer dwells. It's not that I don't know about your machine—I would be ashamed to use it!” This colorful story highlights a deep-rooted mistrust of technology, driven not necessarily by a reactionary fear of change but by a worldview that values, above all else, harmonization with the Tao in all one's activities.30 This ingrained distrust of technology permeated the mind-set of traditional Chinese peasantry throughout its history.”
― Jeremy Lent, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning

“The ancient Greeks also saw a split in the human psyche like the one we’ve been exploring, which, in their view, defined the very essence of humanity. For them, the split was between body and soul. The soul was the source of human reason and, they believed, was pure, unchanging and immortal, linking humans to divinity. The body, by contrast, was polluted, changeable, the source of feelings and emotions, and destined to die. In fact, they saw the soul as being imprisoned in the body, and only truly liberated after the body’s death. Since reason was the divine essence of the human being, they believed, it was only through rigorous intellectual thought and freeing oneself as much as possible from sensory distraction that one could arrive at true knowledge. This was the ultimate goal of the philosopher.39”
― Jeremy Lent, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe

“Wang Yangming noted, ‘There have never been people who know but do not act. Those who are supposed to know but do not act simply do not yet know.’ You know when you’ve reached the place of fully experiencing the Earth’s heartbreak, because you suddenly realize you are drawn to action – not because you think you should do something, but because you are impelled to do it.65”
― Jeremy Lent, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe

“Everything we do, every word we speak, creates li ripples in the fabric of existence”
― Jeremy Lent, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe

“This situation is deliberately exacerbated by planned obsolescence: creating products intended to require replacement within short time periods, thereby increasing sales and profits for corporations. General Electric pioneered this cynical ploy in the 1920s, when they formed a cartel to shorten the lifespan of lightbulbs by about 60 percent, leading to a surge in revenues. The lifespan of household appliances, such as refrigerators or washing machines, has dropped to less than seven years, not because of wear and tear but usually because a small electrical component fails, which has been designed to be prohibitively expensive to replace. Tech companies such as Apple have further intensified planned obsolescence through regularly updating operating systems that cause older devices to become too slow to use.”
― Jeremy Lent, Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All