WEB OF LIFE II

Courtesy of Wikimedia
Illustrations to the Book of Genesis
2nd Title Page

The mechanistic view of the world which was common in Blake's day was revisited when computers were proposed as the metaphor for the operation of the human brain. However the metaphor of the brain as a computer was found to be deficient. "Brains seem to operate on the basis of massive connectivity, storing information distributively and manifesting a self-organizing capacity that is nowhere to be found in computers."  (Page 71)

Fritjof Capra in, The Web of Life demonstrates the limitations of using the computer as a model for the human brain. We find similarities to Blake's objections to allowing Urizen to assume control of the human psyche supplanting the emotions, the imagination, and the intelligence of the body. 

Page 68
"Recent developments in cognitive science have made it clear that human intelligence is utterly different from machine intelligence. The human nervous system does not process any information (in the sense of discrete elements existing ready-made in the outside world,to be picked up by the cognitive system), but it interacts with the environment by continually modulating its structure. Moreover, neuroscientists have discovered strong evidence that human intelligence, human memory, and human decisions are never completely rational but are always colored by emotions as we know from experience. Our thinking is always accompanied by bodily sensations and processes. Even if we often tend to suppress them,we always think also with our bodies; and since computers do not have such a body, truly human problems will always be foreign to their intelligence.
These considerations imply that certain tasks should never be left to computers...These tasks include all those that require genuine human qualities such as wisdom, compassion, respect, understanding and love. Decisions and communications that require those qualities will dehumanize our lives if they are made by computers."

Page 70
"As Theodore Roszak shows in detail in The Cult of Information, information does not create ideas: ideas create information. Ideas are integrating patterns that derive not from information but from experience."

Page 296
"To regain our full humanity, we must regain our experience of connectedness with the entire web of life. This reconnecting, religio in Latin, is the very essence of the spiritual grounding of deep ecology."  


The battles among Urizen, Los, Luvah and Tharmas will continue to appear in various forms among philosophical approaches to epistemology until all are brought together and see ourselves reflected in every face.

Jerusalem, Plate 98, (E 257)
"And every Man stood Fourfold, each Four Faces had. One to the West
One toward the East One to the South One to the North. the Horses Fourfold
And the dim Chaos brightend beneath, above, around! Eyed as the Peacock
According to the Human Nerves of Sensation, the Four Rivers of the Water of Life

South stood the Nerves of the Eye. East in Rivers of bliss the Nerves of the
Expansive Nostrils West, flowd the Parent Sense the Tongue. North stood
The labyrinthine Ear. Circumscribing & Circumcising the excrementitious
Husk & Covering into Vacuum evaporating revealing the lineaments of Man
Driving outward the Body of Death in an Eternal Death & Resurrection   
Awaking it to Life among the Flowers of Beulah rejoicing in Unity
In the Four Senses in the Outline the Circumference & Form, for ever
In Forgiveness of Sins which is Self Annihilation. it is the Covenant of Jehovah

The Four Living Creatures Chariots of Humanity Divine Incomprehensible
In beautiful Paradises expand These are the Four Rivers of Paradise   
And the Four Faces of Humanity fronting the Four Cardinal Points
Of Heaven going forward forward irresistible from Eternity to Eternity

And they conversed together in Visionary forms dramatic which bright
Redounded from their Tongues in thunderous majesty, in Visions
In new Expanses, creating exemplars of Memory and of Intellect  
Creating Space, Creating Time according to the wonders Divine
Of Human Imagination, throughout all the Three Regions immense
Of Childhood, Manhood & Old Age[;] & the all tremendous unfathomable Non Ens
Of Death was seen in regenerations terrific or complacent varying
According to the subject of discourse & every Word & Every Character
Was Human according to the Expansion or Contraction, the Translucence or
Opakeness of Nervous fibres such was the variation of Time & Space
Which vary according as the Organs of Perception vary & they walked
To & fro in Eternity as One Man reflecting each in each & clearly seen
And seeing: according to fitness & order. And I heard Jehovah speak 
Terrific from his Holy Place & saw the Words of the Mutual Covenant Divine
On Chariots of gold & jewels with Living Creatures starry & flaming
With every Colour, Lion, Tyger, Horse, Elephant, Eagle Dove, Fly, Worm,
And the all wondrous Serpent clothed in gems & rich array Humanize
In the Forgiveness of Sins according to the Covenant of Jehovah. They Cry

Where is the Covenant of Priam, the Moral Virtues of the Heathen
Where is the Tree of Good & Evil that rooted beneath the cruel heel
Of Albions Spectre the Patriarch Druid! where are all his Human Sacrifices
For Sin in War & in the Druid Temples of the Accuser of Sin: beneath
The Oak Groves of Albion that coverd the whole Earth beneath his Spectre
Where are the Kingdoms of the World & all their glory that grew on Desolation
The Fruit of Albions Poverty Tree when the Triple Headed Gog-Magog Giant
Of Albion Taxed the Nations into Desolation & then gave the Spectrous Oath

Such is the Cry from all the Earth from the Living Creatures of the Earth
And from the great City of Golgonooza in the Shadowy Generation 
And from the Thirty-two Nations of the Earth among the Living Creatures

PLATE 99
All Human Forms identified even Tree Metal Earth & Stone. all
Human Forms identified, living going forth & returning wearied
Into the Planetary lives of Years Months Days & Hours reposing
And then Awaking into his Bosom in the Life of Immortality.

And I heard the Name of their Emanations they are named Jerusalem"