Who Were the Sea Peoples?

“It is only in recent times that human beings have come to see themselves as potentially godlike. Ancient thinkers were more intelligent as well as more honest. They knew that human action can change the world, sometimes for the good. They also knew that civilizations rise and fall; what has been gained will be lost, then regained and then lost again in a cycle as natural as the seasons.” --John Gray, The Soul of the Marionette , p. 161

“With the rise of artificial forms of life, the next phase of evolution may have already begun.” -- John Gray, The Soul of the Marionette , p. 148 But why should we think “artificial life” is anything but an analogy? We can simulate hurricanes, but these obviously only bear a very abstract resemblance to actual hurricanes, and in no way are about to become “the next phase” of the earth’s weather system. Is “artificial life” any different in this regard?

“Today those who peer into the future want only relief from anxiety. It is only natural that believers in reason, lacking any deeper faith and too feeble to tolerate doubt, should turn to the sorcery of numbers... the modern scientific scryer deciphers numerical augeries of angels hidden in ourselves." -- John Gray, The Soul of the Marionette , p. 100.

"And as the cosmos had spread into infinity, so he had seen his, everyone's position in it correspondingly reduced. For the first time in more than a thousand years, anyone with the learning to see (and there were still very few) beheld a universe that no longer revolved around the world, and a world that no longer revolved around humans." -- Benjamin Woolley, quoted in John Gray, The Soul of the Marionette , p. 99 What are we to make of this passage? First of all, why is Gray quoting a pop history writer describing Dee's situation, rather than quoting Dee? Perhaps because there simply is no quote in Dee that actually supports the above narrative? Secondly, what is this about the cosmos "spreading into infinity"? Heliocentrism does not equal an infinite universe, and the current cosmological consensus is that the universe is not infinite. Thirdly, what is this, "For the first time in a thousand years" business? As far as I know, there were ...

"There is one activity for which the 'Aztecs' were notorious: the large-scale killing of humans in ritual sacrifices. The killings were not remote, top-of-the pyramid affairs. If only high priests and rulers killed, they carried out most of their butchers' work en plein air , and not only in the main temple precinct, but in the neighborhood temples and on the streets. The people were implicated in the care and preparation of the victims, and then in the elaborate processing of the body: the dismemberment and distribution of heads and limbs, flesh and blood and flayed skins. On high occasions warriors carrying gourds of human blood or wearing the dripping skins of their captives ran through the streets, to be ceremoniously welcomed into the dwellings; the flesh of their victims seethed in domestic cooking pots; human side bones, scraped and dried, were set up in the courtyard of the households..." -- Inga Clendinnen, quoted in John Gray, The Soul of the Marionette...

"The crystallographer J. D. Bernal (1901-71) illustrates how Gnostic ideas infuse modern science. At one time ranked among Britain's most influential scientists… he was convinced that science could effect a shift in evolution in which human beings would cease to be biological organisms… Further in the future, he envisioned 'an erasure of individuality and mortality' in which human beings would cease to be distinct physical entities... 'consciousness itself might end or vanish in a humanity that has become completely etherealised, losing the close-knit organism, becoming masses of atoms in space communicating by radiation, and ultimately perhaps resolving itself entirely into light.'" -- John Gray, The Soul of the Marionette , pp. 14-15

"Yet being divided from yourself goes with being self-aware. This is the truth in the Genesis myth: the Fall is not an event at the beginning of history, but the intrinsic condition of self-conscious beings." -- The Soul of the Marionette , p. 167 I recall suggesting to some Nathaniel Branden acolytes that original sin is a mythical statement of a truth about the human condition; ooh, they did not like hearing that at all! But one does not have to be religious to understand this, merely willing to examine without presupposition what the Genesis story is trying to tell us. Albert Camus, like Gray a non-believer, understood this very well .

"Nothing carries so much authority today as science, but there is actually no such thing as 'the scientific world-view'. Science is a method of inquiry, not a view of the world. Knowledge is growing at accelerating speed; but no advance in science will tell us whether materialism is true or false, or whether humans possess free will. The belief that the world is composed of matter is metaphysical speculation, not a testable theory." -- John Gray, The Soul of the Marionette , p. 151 Gray is, by the way, an atheist, and a materialist of some sort or another, so this is certainly not a case of religious nostalgia resisting scientific advances, but simply a philosopher who correctly understands what science can and can't tell us about.

"When people are locked into local communities they are subject to continuous informal monitoring of their behaviour. Modern individualism tends to condemn these communities because they repress personal autonomy. But societies that pride themselves on their devotion to freedom dread disorder. The informal controls on behavior that exist in a world of many communities are unworkable in a world of highly mobile individuals, so society turns to the technology of surveillance... Near-ubiquitous technological monitoring is a consequence of the decline of cohesive societies that has occurred alongside the rising demand for individual freedom." -- John Gray, The Soul of the Marionette , p. 122

"By intervening in societies of which they know nothing, western elites are advancing a future they believe is prefigured in themselves -- a new world based on freedom, democracy and human rights. The results are clear -- failed states, zones of anarchy and new and worse tyrannies; but in order that they may see themselves as world-changing figures, our leaders have chosen not to see what they have done." -- The Soul of the Marionette , pp. 89-90