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CONATUS
Traveling in the company of Giants
with Benedict Spinoza & Charles Darwin (in mind)
Has Darwin studied Spinoza? Did Spinoza have visions of evolution...?
How can these great scientists and philosophers impact 21st century worlds? And what is, essentially, this force of Nature that drives evolution?
Throughout his short life Spinoza has had the dream of writing a philosophy - a system - that would explain our world, our universe with its objects and its beings, in one giant logical sweep. Ambitious it was, arrogant according to some. His diligent effort still stands in front of us till this day; after his death "ETHICA" was finally printed: a whisper that created a storm.
Amid all the ingenuity and splendor in his comprehensive philosophical system, there is one force that stands out, the force that carries everything forward: CONATUS.
Within Spinoza's writings, CONATUS is the force that drives every essence to the realisation of its self, to its culmination. It is, in a way, the "Force of Life". It is the energy, untrappable and untrapped, that progresses everything and everybody to its ultimate goal. Where is the Origin? Where is the End? What evolves and why? CONATUS is also implicit in Darwin's theories: all species thrive on it, from their fortuitous Origin till their unescapable Destination.
After a circumnavigation of South America, Rebadour undertakes to cross Eurasia, overland. The Silk Road offers him another opportunity to reflect on how these philosophical systems and scientifc theories apply to the everyday life that he observes around him, and within him. You can follow his humble murmurings when you go to the blog and click here: conatus
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Rebadour, a Rebel joined to a Troubadour, wonders aloud about the essence(s) in, and of, life as we know it! Under the influence of all kinds of exotic places - warm and cold, quiet and noisy, lush and barren - he searches diligently for some existential comfort.
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