1 result for (book:nome AND session:856 AND stemmed:action)
[... 16 paragraphs ...]
Both men and molecules dwell in a field of probabilities, and their paths are not determined. The vast reality of probabilities makes the existence of free will possible. If probabilities did not exist, and if you were not to some degree aware of probable actions and events, not only could you not choose between them, but you would not of course have any feelings of choice (intently). You would be unaware of the entire issue.
(9:03.) Through your mundane conscious choices, you affect all of the events of your world, so that the mass world is the result of multitudinous individual choices. You could not make choices at all if you did not feel impulses to do this or that, so that choices usually involve you in making decisions between various impulses. Impulses are urges toward action. Some are conscious and some are not. Each cell of your body feels (underlined) the impulse toward action, response, and communication. You have been taught not to trust your impulses. Now impulses, however, help you to develop events of natural power. Impulses in children teach them to develop their muscles and minds [each] in their own unique manner. And as you will see, those impulses of a private nature are nevertheless also based upon the greater situation of the species and the planet, so that “ideally” the fulfillment of the individual would automatically lead to the better good of the species.
[... 3 paragraphs ...]
(“As you learn to trust your natural impulses, they introduce you to your individual sense of power, so that you realize that your own actions do have meaning, that you do affect events, and that you can see some definite signs that you are achieving good ends. The idealized goal isn’t as remote, then, because it is being expressed. Even if that expression is by means of steps, you can point toward it as an accomplishment. Previously we distrusted our own impulses to such an extent that they often appeared in very distorted form.”
(Jane said: “That’s it as far as I got it. But the idea that each person tries to actualize the idealized good as much as they can through their daily lives — their work, social structures, and so forth — and in the meantime use certain criteria that will help them judge for themselves whether or not their actions are really in line with their ideals. The criteria are actually the ones given in the chapter. That’s all. A whole lot of it was coming to me. I don’t even know if it’s right.
[... 3 paragraphs ...]
There’s plenty of action outside the Three Mile Island, however, with all of the investigations into the accident underway or planned. Scary stories abound about our nuclear dilemmas, ranging from tales of poorly designed plants, control rooms, and instruments, to the failure to promptly report potentially serious accidents, to the fact that in 1978 every one of the country’s more than 70 nuclear power plants had at least one unexpected shutdown because of procedural errors, mechanical failures, or both. The increasing dependence of the United States upon nuclear power is being deeply questioned, even though that energy is supposed to help alleviate our growing reliance upon foreign oil. There’s worry about the plants emitting constant radiation, and about their vulnerability to damage by sabotage, earthquakes, and — more likely — fires. There’s debate about who’s to pay for expensive nuclear accidents. Suits and countersuits are inevitable, processes that can continue for years. There will be fines and many tighter industry rules and regulations. And in all of this concern for safety there’s much irony: for Three Mile Island, and the people of eastern Pennsylvania, were saved not by the plant’s emergency cooling systems, but by nonsafety-related equipment that plant operators finally used to improvise cooling of the reactor’s overheated core.
[... 2 paragraphs ...]