Sunday 20 December 2015

Philosophical Fiction: Bergson And Hegel

Ilaloa says that life is:

"'...like a river, and you are a wave which rises and will sink back again, but the river flows on.'"
-Poul Anderson, The Peregrine (New York, 1979), Chapter XII, p. 106.

Trevelyan compares Ilaloa's ideas to those of:

"'Bergson...A philosopher of Earth, 'way back when.'" (ibid.)

Bergson follows Heraclitus, as does Hegel whom I referenced here and here. Anderson's Psychotechnic History presents further Hegelian processes -

Thesis: the Nomads;
Antithesis: the Coordination Service;
Synthesis: Coordinators becoming Nomads, directing and restraining without disrupting;
Antithesis: the Third Dark Ages;
Synthesis: a later civilization reaping seeds of knowledge borne by the Nomads;
Antithesis: interference between uses of cosmic energies;
Synthesis: peaceful coexistence of humanity and Hulduvians.

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