William Irwin Thompson Quotes

A collection of quotes by William Irwin Thompson.

William Irwin Thompson is a cultural historian, philosopher, and poet. He was born in 1938 and is known for his interdisciplinary approach to understanding the evolution of human consciousness and culture. Thompson has written numerous books, including "The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality, and the Origins of Culture" and "Coming into Being: Artifacts and Texts in the Evolution of Consciousness." He has also founded the Lindisfarne Association, a network of scholars and artists exploring the relationship between science, spirituality, and ecology. Thompson's work has had a significant impact on the fields of cultural studies and the philosophy of science.

The conscious purpose of science is control of Nature; its u

The conscious purpose of science is control of Nature; its unconscious effect is disruption and chaos.

William Irwin Thompson

One way to find food for thought is to use the fork in the r

One way to find food for thought is to use the fork in the road, the bifurcation that marks the place of emergence in which a new line of development begins to branch off.

William Irwin Thompson

With the emergence of civilization, the rate of change shift

With the emergence of civilization, the rate of change shifted from hundreds of thousands of years to millennia. With the emergence of science as a way of knowing the universe, the rate of change shifted to centuries.

William Irwin Thompson

Change Science

Idealistic reformers are dangerous because their idealism ha

Idealistic reformers are dangerous because their idealism has no roots in love, but is simply a hysterical and unbalanced rage for order amidst their own chaos.

William Irwin Thompson

Love Order Chaos

The more chaos there is, the more science holds on to abstra

The more chaos there is, the more science holds on to abstract systems of control, and the more chaos is engendered.

William Irwin Thompson

Science Chaos System

Not all intelligence can be artificial now, so if we make a

Not all intelligence can be artificial now, so if we make a mistake, the consequences are no longer simply located within an institution or a national culture.

William Irwin Thompson

Intelligence

The conscious process is reflected in the imagination the un

The conscious process is reflected in the imagination the unconscious process is expressed as karma, the generation of actions divorced from thinking and alienated from feeling.

William Irwin Thompson

Imagination

The teacher of history's work should be, ideally, not simply

The teacher of history's work should be, ideally, not simply a description of past cultures, but a performance of the culture in which we live and are increasingly taking our being.

William Irwin Thompson

Teacher

The conscious purpose of science is control of Nature its un

The conscious purpose of science is control of Nature its unconscious effect is disruption and chaos.

William Irwin Thompson

Science

Catastrophes are often stimulated by the failure to feel the

Catastrophes are often stimulated by the failure to feel the emergence of a domain, and so what cannot be felt in the imagination is experienced as embodied sensation in the catastrophe.

William Irwin Thompson

Failure