MDMD: Back to Innocence-remembering the experiment

[Judy Panetta]

Thank you, Michel!

I marvel that these ideas form a sort of backdrop of the novel.

-----Original Message-----
From: Michel Ryckx [mailto:michel.ryckx at freebel.net]
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001 2:41 PM
To: judy at brandxinc.com
Subject: Re: MDMD: Back to Innocence-remembering the experiment


Thanks Judy.
[snip]

> The Enlightenment
> 1. believing that every natural phenomenon had a cause and effect
> 2. a belief that truth is arrived at by reason
> 3. believing that natural law governed the universe
> 4. progress would always take place
>
> OK folks...any reactions, comments?

See p.59 (Mason 'remonstrates') [. . .] the movements of the Heav'ns which
taken together form a
cryptick Message [. . .] we are intended one day to solve, and read."

One of the particularities of Enlightenment was the firm believe that
knowledge was not endless.
And so, the first Encyclopédie, by Denis Diderot, saw the light.  It is also
from this period that
the Masonic lodges originate, with their supreme being (I'd rather not use
the word god) being an
Architect.  The international community at the time worked together in many
fields and during
Enlightenment the mathematical conventions we still use (in calculus etc...)
were developed.

The most important idea of the period is, in my opinion, the idea that man
was good (or at least:
not bad) in principle.  This contrasted heavily with the idea of man born
under the burden of sin,
as most churches preached.  Of course, intellectuals were, as now, a
relatively small group of
people; but they generated a kind of optimism.

Michel.