A rant : Magic (possibly Spirituality to)

[singer]

I've already written off most of this thread as Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc.



LMNO
-If I don't read this thread, it may not exist.

yeah, but as "pattern recognition monkeys" we cannot help but imbue correlation with significance.  Which, BTW, is often a correct interpretation, you know, from a survival standpoint.

singer
-who wonders why one would engage in a conversation that doesn't exist?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

-If I don't read this thread, it may not exist.

Goddammit.  Fucking cheatin-ass universe.  Grumble, grumble...

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Good discussion so far. I'll jump in with a few thoughts. I've been reading Peter Carroll's new book, Apophenion, and he has really condensed and laid out in simple terms the basis of his Chaos Magic paradigm (recently refined). Let's see if I can give the bullet points, and then I'll take responses and elaborate:

Chapter 1: Apophenia

-"Physics means no more than a set of ideas about how the world works; everybody has some sort of theory of physics, based on anything from simple experience and intuition to sophisticated experiential and hypothesis. As magic works, at least occasionally, it must form part of any complete theory of how the world works. I regard physics as that subset of magic that works fairly reliably. I regard magic, in the traditional sense, as a kind of physics that we strive to understand and render more reliable. So it all comes down to the same thing, a quest to understand and manipulate the world with a self-consistent and coherent theory." [Fr. Stokastikos here lays out the GAME RULES that the rest of the book should be read by. 1) Magic is a real phenomenon that does _something_, usually not reliably, 2) Physics is the magic that we have Named and Bound to repeatable circumstances and actions.]

-"If the word 'Magic' sounds too outrageous, then substitute psychological and para-psychological technology instead." [Here we have an echo to Arthur C. Clarke's quote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" which people tend to misinterpret all the time.]

-"Apophenia means finding pattern or meaning where others don't. Feelings of revelation and ecstasis usually accompany it. It has some negative connotations in psychological terminology when it implies finding meaning or pattern where none exists; and some positive ones when it implies finding something important, useful, or beautiful. It thus links creativity and psychosis, genius and madness." [Here we have a restatement of both the Hodge and the Podge sides of the Law of Fives.]

Chapter 2: Panpsychism - Philosophy

-"Metaphysics means the set of assumptions underlying the way we interpret the phenomena that we perceive. Big assumptions like the existence of mind, matter, gods, causality, and randomness fall into this category. The word phenomena (or phenomenon for singualr), merely denotes events that we perceive. By refraining from talking about the 'things' we perceive we avoid making too many initial assumptions, in particular we avoid the questionable concept of 'thing-ness'. [He goes onto elaborate the complete illusory nature of 'thing-ness' with an example of a simple stone. Stones are constantly in flux, simply less violent flux than say, water. Stones molecules vibrate, it leaks vibrations as waves of the electromagnetic spectrum. It constantly interacts with it's environment or matrix, exchanging energy through light/sound/kinetic energy/inertia/gravity/etc/etc. Yet because most of these details cannot make it through the censor of our physics senses, and our mental image is an abstraction of an already filtered sensory experience, we are taught not to think of a stone as a _process_ but as a _thing_. This is why I find Roger, et al's, invocation of Teh Quantum really amusing in these discussions. Our recent science has allowed us to examine such 'things' as stones(molecules, arraignments of molecules) with enough detail that this illusion of 'thing-ness' that we have built with language breaks down. All is transitory, all a process.]

-"We cannot really ask what a stone 'is', we can only ask what it does, or what it resembles, or how we feel about it. We have no reason to suppose that it consists of anything other than the totality of what it does." [He then goes into an overview of the current state of physics, with special attention to the use of _operational language_, basically E-Prime.]

-"Thus I conclude that I do not have any sort of 'being', I consist only of the totality of what I do. I proceed through time as a process."

-"If we want to philosophise with clarity we can not say that any phenomena 'is' any other phenomena. We can only speak of actions, resemblances, differences. .... When we speak of what any phenomenon 'does' we actually imply what we think it has done and what we think it will do. 'Being' exists only as a neurological and linguistic hallucination."

-"The concept of 'being' implies some kind of metaphysical essence or quality in a phenomenon which exists somewhat independently of what we actually observe it doing. This being-doing duality leads directly to the misconception of a spirit-matter dualism which underpins nearly all religious ideas, and to a mind-matter or to a mind-body dualism which gives rise to insoluble but illusory problems and paradoxes in philosophy, psychology, and in our ideas about consciousness."

-"The abandonment of the language and concept of 'being' leads to a strict Monism, which eliminates any kind of spirit-matter or mind-body dualism. If we assert the reality of both spirit and matter, or of mind and matter, we should only do so in terms of what these phenomena actually do, not what we suppose the 'are'." [He then sets aside 'spirit' as meaning 'the mind of supposedly superhuman creatures', and as our medical science gives us no reason to assume the body consists of anything other than matter, focuses on the mind-matter duality. After an overview of 'theory-of-mind' (i.e. when children realize that phenomena in the world can act with intentionality of their own) he concludes with, "Perhaps mind constitutes a fundamental property of matter, and all matter does mind activity of some kind, and we should not regard it as dead and inert."]

I'll stop here for a while. I'm still digesting this material myself.

An excellent book.. though I'm biased

[LMNO]

I've already written off most of this thread as Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc.



LMNO
-If I don't read this thread, it may not exist.

yeah, but as "pattern recognition monkeys" we cannot help but imbue correlation with significance.  Which, BTW, is often a correct interpretation, you know, from a survival standpoint.

singer
-who wonders why one would engage in a conversation that doesn't exist?

Sure you can help it.  Recognize you're doing it, then cut it the fuck out.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I've already written off most of this thread as Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc.



LMNO
-If I don't read this thread, it may not exist.

yeah, but as "pattern recognition monkeys" we cannot help but imbue correlation with significance.  Which, BTW, is often a correct interpretation, you know, from a survival standpoint.

singer
-who wonders why one would engage in a conversation that doesn't exist?

Sure you can help it.  Recognize you're doing it, then cut it the fuck out.

Erisesiastes 2

Wisdom and Folly Are Absurd

12 Then I turned my mind toward Wisdom,
   but found that wisdom was subjective
   and often depended on how well the person
   could argue in circles. I looked also at
   Madness and Folly and they didn't appear
   much worse for the wear. For many claim to
   have wisdom and few claim to be mad. Yet,
   from what I can see all are Mad and few are Wise.

13 I saw that wisdom and folly were like the Light and
   the Dark. Neither are bad, but unless you live
   in Alaska, you probably like your day to be split
   between the two.

14 Some may say that the Light is better for one can see.
   Another may say the dark is better for one can find
   peace. Yet, wisdom or folly or madness, leaves us
   equally dead in the end.

15 So why choose Wisdom over Nonsense, if you're dead
either way?
   Is the choice not absurd?

16 For both the wise and the foolish will live for a
   time and then die. Soon they will be forgotten,
   unless they were a real asshole and then they'll
   only be remembered in Internet Debates and as
   part of Godwin's Law.

17 One could hate life, and see it all as grievous and meaningless. Or one can get with the program and
  figure out what to do with the time they have. 18 For that which we create and that which we write
  will be passed on to future Spags, and who knows what fucked up ideas they'll have? 19 They will  
  interpret what you write as they see fit and not care what you thought. 20 After all, you are dead    
  and they live, that puts all the power in their hands... and even your Copyright material will be
  theirs, unless you have an estate. 21 If you have an estate, they'll probably rape your corpse anyway.

22 Eris gives to the Wise man as much shit as she gives to the Fool. 23 She throws apples at the man who
  toils under the sun and she throws apples at the man who relaxes on the riverbank in the shade. 24 To
  the one in the sun, she gives heat exhaustion; and to the other she trips him and he falls into the
  mud. 25 In the end, the only one really having a good time is Eris, the bitch. Embrace Sense or
  Nonsense, either way she'll screw with you.

Rage into the Maelstrom, if you're having fun doing it... but don't presume that the crazy shit other people are doing is any less fun.  

[LMNO]

I'll presume what I want to, old man.







Incidentally, I wasn't saying she shouldn't do it.  I was responding to her comment that you "can't help" doing it.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I'll presume what I want to, old man.

eh, sonny, ye young whippersnappers are all the same! *shakes his walker geriatricly*

Incidentally, I wasn't saying she shouldn't do it.  I was responding to her comment that you "can't help" doing it.

Well, even then, is that really true? I mean, we can reprogram ourselves to try to catch 'pattern recognition' and not confuse it with causation... in fact, I'd argue that's exactly why RAW used 23 & the Quarter Trick so often. Same for the Law of Fives...

However, as others have so intelligently pointed out to me in the past, we can never fully break free of the BiP... and invariably that means that we will confuse pattern recognition and causation... at least occasionally. We may immediately recognize it and modify our position, or we may not realize it until someone hits us with a stick.

Surely we, as monkeys, are no more capable of exorcising pattern recognition than shit flinging?

[singer]

I've already written off most of this thread as Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc.



LMNO
-If I don't read this thread, it may not exist.

yeah, but as "pattern recognition monkeys" we cannot help but imbue correlation with significance.  Which, BTW, is often a correct interpretation, you know, from a survival standpoint.

singer
-who wonders why one would engage in a conversation that doesn't exist?

Sure you can help it.  Recognize you're doing it, then cut it the fuck out.

But, what if the correlation I decide to ignore really is significant? What if it is only my present and presently limited knowledge that leads me to believe that the pattern I am recognizing is only correlative and not causative?   Wouldn't that be stupid?

[LMNO]

Seeing a correlation and calling it a correlation is one thing.

Seeing a correlation and calling it a causation is another.


Why is this so damn difficult for you people?

[singer]

Seeing a correlation and calling it a correlation is one thing.

Seeing a correlation and calling it a causation is another.


Why is this so damn difficult for you people?

Because sometimes what we "know" to be a causation turns out to be a correlation.  And sometimes what we "know" to be a correlation turns out to have some causative properties.  Every time we gain more knowledge... the whole balance of correlation/causation will seem to change, at least from our limited perspective.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

My old engineering mentor gave me the secret to understanding all systems. It's quite simple... in the words of Wayne Ely (a 300lb 6'3" Santa from Hell):

"Every system has three things. The GOESINSA the GOESOUTSA and the THING IN THE MIDDLE."

If you didn't know what the THING IN THE MIDDLE did, you can look at the GOESINSA and GOESOUTSA and figure it out. Now mostly we applied this to transmitters, recording equipment, animatronics etc. However, it applies to the brain as well, I think.

Pattern recoginition is a GOESOUTSA, the data you found patterns in is the GOESINSA... being able to examine both allows you to learn something about the THING IN THE MIDDLE (you).

Or at least, thats currently the line of Bullshit I'm selling if anyone is interested in buying it.

Seeing a correlation and calling it a correlation is one thing.

Seeing a correlation and calling it a causation is another.


Why is this so damn difficult for you people?

Pffft, correlation and causation are such mutable terms. Stupid fuckers these days still think we're dealing in a universe of cause and effect, as if anything were that simple!! We live in a universe of causes and effects swapping states back and forth in a cosmic feedback loop. Pattern Recognition sometimes correctly identifies some of these causes and effects. Sometimes it doesn't (or at least not in any way we can piece together with the available data).

Now, if you are saying that rather than 'calling' it something, they're really really for realz believing it 100% as ABSOLUTE UNDENIABLE TROOF... then yeah, thats just crazy. Ummm, but I don't think anyone said that.

[LMNO]

Screw you guys.

[singer]

Screw you guys.

Why?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Seeing a correlation and calling it a correlation is one thing.

Seeing a correlation and calling it a causation is another.


Why is this so damn difficult for you people?

This.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Screw you guys.

Hrmmm, how about at the party after your concert?