1 result for (book:nome AND session:845 AND stemmed:reason)
(Although Seth didn’t call this session book dictation, Jane and I decided to show portions of it in Mass Events for two reasons: 1. The material in Note 1 can be taken as an extension of the discussion on reasoning and the intuitions that Seth gave in the 825th session. 2. We want to offer his comments on Jonestown and Three Mile Island in the order received, even if they don’t always come through within the context of “official” book sessions. This thinking also applies to anything Jane and I may want to add on either of those two mass events.
[... 16 paragraphs ...]
“Man thinks of acts, for example, and acting and doing, but he does not identify himself with those inner processes that make acting and doing possible. He identifies with what he thinks of as his logical thought, and the abilities of reasoning. These seem to suggest that he possesses an elegant, cool separation from nature, that the animals for example do not. He does not identify, again, with the processes that make his logical thinking possible. Those processes are spontaneous and ‘unconscious,’ so it appears that anything outside of his conscious control must be undisciplined or chaotic, and lacking in all logic.
“Both religion and science are based upon such beliefs. Anything that happens spontaneously is looked upon with suspicion. The word seems to suggest elements out of control, or motion that goes from one extreme to another. Only the reasoning mind, it seems, has any idea of order, discipline, or control.
[... 2 paragraphs ...]
2. Jane and I try to understand both the advocates of nuclear power and those who are against it. At the moment we’re sure of but one thing: A nuclear reactor meltdown, like that threatened at Three Mile Island, is just not acceptable in our society under any circumstances. The devastation for many years of a large portion of a state like Pennsylvania, say, should not be risked because of economics, fuel shortages, convenience, apathy, or any other reason. Jane and I passionately believe that instead of concentrating primarily upon nuclear power the United States should be making massive efforts to utilize many other sources of energy — at least until the risks and technologies involved with generating nuclear power are understood much more thoroughly. And there are numerous other sources of energy that can be developed. Among them are: cogeneration, the use of waste heat from manufacturing processes to generate electricity; solar radiation; ocean waves; new, more sophisticated methods of burning coal so that it’s much less polluting; subterranean heat; the production, from municipal solid wastes, of ethanol (alcohol) as an excellent substitute for gasoline; the burning of biomass — waste materials from the home and farm; various methods of deriving energy from the vast oil shale deposits in our western states; the establishment of “energy farms” of trees and hydrocarbon-generating plants; energy reservoirs of pumped water. We think such alternate sources should be pursued even if they cost more in economic terms than nuclear power, either initially or continually, for surely none of them could produce the horrendous results — and enormous costs — that would follow even one massive failure at a nuclear power plant.
[... 7 paragraphs ...]