This bit of insight came from an anime episode, of all places.
So anyway, the character in the anime explains that life is a story. Life starts when a person can distinguish himself from the environment, and from that point on people live not in reality but in a story loosely based on reality, with themselves as the main character. The problem with this is that the world is fundamentally indifferent to people, and therefore people have conflict when they have to adjust the world so that it fits their story of themselves as an important character. The way out of this trap, the character says, is to regard yourself neither as a main character or a supporting character, but as the Author.
Thoughts?
And how would one go about adopting the Author archetype, anyway?
Isn't that just solipsism?
It sounds like self help talk, which generally turns my stomach.
I find this an interesting thought
It doesn't look like solipism for me, although it's near that. It doesn't say that everything out their is only you imagination, it says that your view is influenced and changed, the things are changed for you just because you think about them.
I agree to that.
The Author... maybe it means that you're acting and not only reacting (on enviroment and/or your feelings) ?
theres been two movies around this concept of breaking the third plane, one is coming out soon with Adam Sander about dreams coming true (Bedtime Stories). and there was another one where this lady was writting a book that some one paradox was this others guys real life (forget the name)
maybe this could be the Gonzo outlook of life?
Quote from: Abramelin on September 24, 2008, 09:45:39 AM
I find this an interesting thought
It doesn't look like solipism for me, although it's near that. It doesn't say that everything out their is only you imagination, it says that your view is influenced and changed, the things are changed for you just because you think about them.I agree to that.
The Author... maybe it means that you're acting and not only reacting (on enviroment and/or your feelings) ?
That reeks of THE SECRET®.
It reminded me a lot of the BIP concept. The statements "Don't be a character in your story, be the author!" and "Don't be a prisoner in your cell, be your own warden!" seem to have a lot of similarities. Just thought that a different take on the old metaphor might yield some new insights.
Your cell is internal. The bars are physical and psychological limitations of your own perceptions and thoughts.
Changing your bars doesn't change experiential reality. At least, not in the way you're implying.
What IS the author archetype anyway?
Surely it's more like narrating what's in front of you,
but it seems to imply that they are changing the world in front of them.
Although I guess just people watching you can write a lot of stories and be the author of their lives.
Unless you wanted something ridiculous in your story and decide that 'that man' was actually a dinosaur in disguise and that within a few seconds he will be chased by the anti-dinosaurs police squad.
This is interesting because it coincides with something I have been thinking about in the past few years. At some point I realized that true stories feel very different in retrospect from how it actually is to live through them... And this made me start trying to experience my life as a story... Sometimes this is an interesting perspective that can maintain morale during hard times... I just find myself thinking what a great story this will all make, and that somehow makes it more worthwhile to me (as an author-wannabe.)
I think this is a worthwhile view... and I think it may be very much like the BiP. While LMNO is correct, the BiP focuses mostly on the internal state of the individual, their perceptions and beliefs. However, thats what I perceived the OP as discussing as well, we perceive a reality that is based loosely on the Really Real Reality, with ourselves as the Main Character (We perceive reality through the Bars of our BiP, with ourselvess as the Prisoner).
The idea of Author, or Warden or my personal view of manipulating how we feel about the constraints in our perception and biology all seem to be similar to me. That is, by taking control of your Prison, or Story, or Black Iron Prison(/Golden Sphere of Possibility/Silver Spaceship of Exploration/Yellow Submarine of Introspection/Whatever) you can modify how you perceive reality... As Warden of your BiP, or Author of a third person story, or the Interpreter of your constraints, you interact with a different perception of Reality.
That doesn't mean its any more or less real that what you perceived before, just that its different and perhaps less darkly seen.
I think.
Ok, that I can get behind: An existence that's more active (writing the story), and less passive (reading the story).
Something from a totally different angle:
Have you ever solved chess problems? Chess problems are solitaire chess, with the board set in a specific (and often highly unusual position,) and the player solves the problem by forcing either an outright win, or just a huge swing in his favor. (E.g., white to mate in two, black to win a rook and a bishop in four, etc.) Most of the time, the board is set up so that it initially looks like the player is losing, and extremely creative (or outright bizarre) moves are required to turn the tables.
Here's the weird thing. When you set up a problem in front of a good chess player, they are usually able to solve it and win the game. If the position occurs naturally in a game, the odds are much lower that the player will recognize that a bizarre and unorthodox strategy will even be able to win the game, much less identify it. When they do, however, the game is the stuff of legends. It's now a story about the time Grandmaster Collier went from being behind three major pieces behind to forcing a win - by sacking his last rook and finagling a forced mate out of two pawns and a knight.
The difference, I think, is that when the player identifies the game as a puzzle that may be solved, he approaches the situation differently than as a game in which he is behind in board position. The reality is the same in either case, but by the player changing his orientation to the game, he can find different courses of action.
In the same way, could approaching life as a story, in which the extraordinary is par for the course, affect the way one acts? Could approaching life as a story of which you are the author affect the way one acts still differently?
Quote from: LMNO on September 24, 2008, 07:49:11 PM
Ok, that I can get behind: An existence that's more active (writing the story), and less passive (reading the story).
True enough!
Or, we could consider it in a model agnostic light... we can perceive ourselves as the Protaganist and see reality from that perspective, or we could see it from the perceptions of a side character, or the Author (detached and in third person).
I wouldn't argue that any of those positions are best, but it might be really useful to cycle through them... IN SOME SENSE
(Goddess, I'm parodying myself now)
Quote from: Ratatosk on September 24, 2008, 08:00:28 PM
Quote from: LMNO on September 24, 2008, 07:49:11 PM
Ok, that I can get behind: An existence that's more active (writing the story), and less passive (reading the story).
True enough!
Or, we could consider it in a model agnostic light... we can perceive ourselves as the Protaganist and see reality from that perspective, or we could see it from the perceptions of a side character, or the Author (detached and in third person).
I wouldn't argue that any of those positions are best, but it might be really useful to cycle through them... IN SOME SENSE
(Goddess, I'm parodying myself now)
I've definitely noticed that I'm a lot more aggressive than normal when I work from the perspective of the hero, and a lot more likely to say/do totally bizarre shit when I view myself as a side character to someone else.
If we divide reality into biological/physical (ie mediocristan) and sociological/constructed (extremistan) it actually does make a valid point.
How much of what we do is not a function of our physical world, but instead is convention and custom? How much could you change, ignore or replace?
Quote from: Cain on September 24, 2008, 08:09:36 PM
If we divide reality into biological/physical (ie mediocristan) and sociological/constructed (extremistan) it actually does make a valid point.
How much of what we do is not a function of our physical world, but instead is convention and custom? How much could you change, ignore or replace?
I hear a door opening...
Dammit, I need more time to explore this!
Quote from: Cain on September 24, 2008, 08:09:36 PM
If we divide reality into biological/physical (ie mediocristan) and sociological/constructed (extremistan) it actually does make a valid point.
How much of what we do is not a function of our physical world, but instead is convention and custom? How much could you change, ignore or replace?
In my current thinking, it's got to do with the strange loop in causality that arises when mere matter achieves consciousness.
Quote from: Doug HofstaderThe most central and complex symbol in your brain or mine is the one we both call "I." The "I" is the nexus in our brain where the levels feed back into each other and flip causality upside down, with symbols seeming to have free will and to have gained the paradoxical ability to push particles around, rather than the reverse. For each human being, this "I" seems to be the realest thing in the world. But how can such a mysterious abstraction be real--or is our "I" merely a convenient fiction? Does an "I" exert genuine power over the particles in our brain, or is it helplessly pushed around by the all-powerful laws of physics?
So it's probably a matter of how much consequential causality you want to take credit for as a semi-aware being. Once the strange loop is aware it's a strange loop, anything can happen.
Quote from: Felix on September 25, 2008, 04:46:32 AM
Quote from: Cain on September 24, 2008, 08:09:36 PM
If we divide reality into biological/physical (ie mediocristan) and sociological/constructed (extremistan) it actually does make a valid point.
How much of what we do is not a function of our physical world, but instead is convention and custom? How much could you change, ignore or replace?
In my current thinking, it's got to do with the strange loop in causality that arises when mere matter achieves consciousness.
Quote from: Doug HofstaderThe most central and complex symbol in your brain or mine is the one we both call "I." The "I" is the nexus in our brain where the levels feed back into each other and flip causality upside down, with symbols seeming to have free will and to have gained the paradoxical ability to push particles around, rather than the reverse. For each human being, this "I" seems to be the realest thing in the world. But how can such a mysterious abstraction be real--or is our "I" merely a convenient fiction? Does an "I" exert genuine power over the particles in our brain, or is it helplessly pushed around by the all-powerful laws of physics?
So it's probably a matter of how much consequential causality you want to take credit for as a semi-aware being. Once the strange loop is aware it's a strange loop, anything can happen.
Both GEB and The Mind's I should be required reading for all students ;-)
Quote from: LMNO on September 24, 2008, 03:13:02 PM
Quote from: Abramelin on September 24, 2008, 09:45:39 AM
I find this an interesting thought
It doesn't look like solipsism for me, although it's near that. It doesn't say that everything out their is only you imagination, it says that your view is influenced and changed, the things are changed for you just because you think about them.I agree to that.
The Author... maybe it means that you're acting and not only reacting (on environment and/or your feelings) ?
That reeks of THE SECRET®.
it does, or better the other way round, SECRET smells like this.
I think especially that's the point about THE SECRET, it isn't wrong really. Totally wrong is the way of explaining in THE SECRET, and how the people behind make money out of it.
I think the one big problem (r) with that kind of stuff like THE SECRET and other things in this area and round esoterism (also mental training) is, from my point of view, that it isn't wrong. But presented and teached in way which seems to me so wrong that because of it The Whole Thing (r) became pointless bullshit or even dangerous.
I will honor the 50-post suggestion, and ask that you explain yourself, and the idea that The Secret™ is based upon, comprehensively and thoroughly.
Including a section that explains the physical mechanics of this would be helpful as well.
Quote from: LMNO on September 30, 2008, 07:07:52 PM
I will honor the 50-post suggestion, and ask that you explain yourself, and the idea that The Secret™ is based upon, comprehensively and thoroughly.
Including a section that explains the physical mechanics of this would be helpful as well.
:lulz:
I see where this is going...
Hush, you.
Quote from: LMNO on September 30, 2008, 07:07:52 PM
I will honor the 50-post suggestion, and ask that you explain yourself, and the idea that The Secret™ is based upon, comprehensively and thoroughly.
Including a section that explains the physical mechanics of this would be helpful as well.
I look forward to this essay.
~~~Payne: Knows not The Secret™
Quote from: LMNO on September 30, 2008, 07:07:52 PM
I will honor the 50-post suggestion, and ask that you explain yourself, and the idea that The Secret™ is based upon, comprehensively and thoroughly.
Including a section that explains the physical mechanics of this would be helpful as well.
:popcorn:
Quote from: LMNO on September 30, 2008, 07:07:52 PM
I will honor the 50-post suggestion, and ask that you explain yourself, and the idea that The Secret™ is based upon, comprehensively and thoroughly.
Including a section that explains the physical mechanics of this would be helpful as well.
I was hoping this would go somewhere... the last post could be interpreted to support the general "filters" concept, but I'm not sure.
I do have a theory why The Secret™ seems to work, I just wanted to hear Abra's take on it.
Is that a theory of why The Secret works or why people think it works or why its such a successful sell?
Because I have ideas on all 3 of those, which I shall not repeat now.
Well, it's mainly a theory why it appears to work. But that can tie into the other points you bring up.
Quote from: LMNO on October 03, 2008, 03:27:54 PM
Well, it's mainly a theory why it appears to work. But that can tie into the other points you bring up.
I wonder how closely our theories align... ;-)
I'm still waiting for Abr, though.
Haven't you been waiting like a week?
Lets have the damn conversation already.
What was the actual Secret(tm)?
if you REALLY believe you want something, then the Universe will shape itself around your want.
Quote from: LMNO on October 04, 2008, 04:42:37 AM
if you REALLY believe you want something, then the Universe will shape itself around your want.
Sounds pretty close to the Golden Sphere of Opportunity to me.
Sounds nothing like it.
Cars and money do not come simply because you want them.
Not simply, no.
Quote from: LMNO on October 03, 2008, 04:16:38 PM
I'm still waiting for Abr, though.
He ain't coming back, alphaman.
Simplest reason why The Secret
appears to work is the same reason why people believe in prayer, prophecy and psychics: cherry picking. People selectively remember the few times that things coincidentally happened like they were supposed to happen and they conveniently forget the hundreds and thousands of times that nothing happened. Humans remember the miracles and forget the mundane non-events that happen everyday.
Quote from: LMNO on October 04, 2008, 04:42:37 AM
if you REALLY believe you want something, then the Universe will shape itself around your want.
Or put another way:
If you want something, and you really believe that you can get it, and really believe that you deserve to have it, then you'll attract it into your life. Your persistent thoughts and beliefs become your reality.
Oh, and the universe doesn't recognize your negative thoughts and beliefs as negative, only neutral. So if you're thinking and believing that you don't want something to happen, the exact opposite will happen instead.
I don't know if it's true or not. But for now, my persistent thoughts of being broke and in debt are matching my reality of being broke and in debt. :x
The Real Secret is that Advertisers, Politicians, Media, and now some 5GW nodes have leveraged The Secret to burden us all down with a bandoleer of attachments and desires, fears and lusts. We each carry around years of repeated exposure to ads for caffeinated beverages, ice cream, chocolate, nicotine, alcohol, guns, fast cars, and sexy people. And the Real Secret American Dream is You Can Have It Now!, and How Much Do You Want For It? They swirl there in the darkness of our subconscious, whispering sweet entropic death to our spare change and bank accounts.
So, welcome to Illumination, where Culture jacked our Wills over a millennia ago, so that the corn comes in on time, so that the trains run on time, so that we can bail out a 'free-market' to the tune of $700 Billion.
Have a Coke.
:lulz:
Quote from: Cain on October 04, 2008, 11:14:09 AM
Sounds nothing like it.
Cars and money do not come simply because you want them.
Well, indirectly and for concrete reasons. After wanting them, things tend to happen that lead to them.
Call "The Secret" a distant cousin of The Golden Sphere.
Wasn't here for some time, sorry LMNO.
Quote from: LMNO on October 04, 2008, 04:42:37 AM
if you REALLY believe you want something, then the Universe will shape itself around your want.
This is the key message of the SECRET and it's wrong, I agree.
But the opposite is wrong as well, if you negate your wishes and dreams you will probably do nothing to ever reach it or not realise it.
So I agree to the SECRET that you have to belief in your goals to reach them.
I admit that isn't such a big thing and paying someone to tell me that is crap, but on the other side I think there are a bunch of people which don't believing in be able to reach anything just standing still and trying to keep status quo.
THE SECRET seems to me a bit like selling the information that water runs downhill mixed up with some deception.
The old pattern is used: if the listener knows that one half of an statement is true the listener tends to take also the other half as proved truth.
One danger is that it is an illusion, an other which I tried to point out in my last post is that people who recognize it as illusion does also reject the hole thing and get possibly then from a too-positive beliefsystem to a too-negative beliefsystem.
A person in the second perspective is usually easier to control.
Quote from: LMNO on September 30, 2008, 07:07:52 PM
Including a section that explains the physical mechanics of this would be helpful as well.
There are, i think, no physical mechanics.
But believing causes motivation, and motivation causes actions, which can have physical consequences.
To go back to the topic with the "be the author"-idea:
Quote from: LMNO on September 24, 2008, 03:13:02 PM
Quote from: Abramelin on September 24, 2008, 09:45:39 AM
I find this an interesting thought
It doesn't look like so lipism for me, although it's near that. It doesn't say that everything out their is only you imagination, it says that your view is influenced and changed, the things are changed for you just because you think about them.I agree to that.
The Author... maybe it means that you're acting and not only reacting (on environment and/or your feelings) ?
That reeks of THE SECRET®.
What I meant is not that thing X (=a chair, or a person, or whatever you like to insert here) change physically if you think about it (X) (that sais THE SECRET and seems wrong).
but X changes in the perspective of the person who thinks about X, because you brain is interpreting whatever you sense of X
That's an other layer then in the SECRET.
And I guess with the initial post in this thread is meant that it is better if you are aware of this, it isn't absolute perspective.
Do you see my point now?
Welcome back. I think I know where you're coming from.
So, here goes:
The Secret™ is the Law of Fives wrapped up in the Quarter Trick, surrounded by narcissistic solipsism, and packaged by Marketing.
It is entirely Internal, but for people who have never tried Metaprogramming, it will appear to be External. The Secret™ counts on this fact to continue to manipulate people into buying more Stuff that will "help" them shape the Universe.
The big thing to note here is that the goal of The Secret™ is not to help people metaprogram their brain to bring happiness, it's to funnel them into a reality tunnel where, when things don't go their way, they blame themselves, and buy more Product to "help" them overcome their problems.
Much like Scientology. The basic rules and excercises reprogram your perceptions, but only so far as to put you in another cage, based around specific consumerism.
Quote from: LMNO on October 07, 2008, 02:27:13 PM
Welcome back. I think I know where you're coming from.
So, here goes:
The Secret™ is the Law of Fives wrapped up in the Quarter Trick, surrounded by narcissistic solipsism, and packaged by Marketing.
It is entirely Internal, but for people who have never tried Metaprogramming, it will appear to be External. The Secret™ counts on this fact to continue to manipulate people into buying more Stuff that will "help" them shape the Universe.
The big thing to note here is that the goal of The Secret™ is not to help people metaprogram their brain to bring happiness, it's to funnel them into a reality tunnel where, when things don't go their way, they blame themselves, and buy more Product to "help" them overcome their problems.
Much like Scientology. The basic rules and excercises reprogram your perceptions, but only so far as to put you in another cage, based around specific consumerism.
Yeah, that's it!
Nice explained!
Where you think I'm coming from? :lulz:
Switzerland, naturally.
catched :mrgreen:
Wasn't really hard if you had a look in my profile.
Or do you now me from the chat? :roll:
I don't chat.
Well, once; but it scared me.
I dunno this secret? I do know when reading this thread, my mind went off in mostly 2 directions. 1 being the book called
There Are No Secrets about Professor Cheng Man-ch'ing & his Tai Chi Chuan. Great man, great book.
The other tangent brought to mind something Michelangelo? said when asked about sculpting & how he did it. He said something like when he looked at a beautiful piece of marble & before he touched it with his hands or tools, he would imagine or see the life within. His job then was to remove the superfluous or extraneous to free the life within. A labor of love, softly, gently, masterfully,powerfully shaping the form within the substance.
Is that what we try to do when we're doing it right? Music? The sound waves are all there, removing some shapes or rhythms, adding others. Painting? Composition, colors, textures, & more to express the life, thought, moment, passage of time, creating images. Words? All there too, choosing, shaping, sculpting, removing here, adding or replacing there, inventing meaning. Making a meal? Blending tastes & smells to create something that sustains. Dance? Movement of the body, turning, air flowing all around, whirling, dissolving, silence.
& all we have is this. This moment, this taste, touch, sound, smell, sight, feeling thought.
& before I go off on another tangent & probably off topic to boot, 'scuse me while I go off to listen to Miles Davis,
Kind of Blue. This from the liner notes:
Quote"There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous. He must paint on a thin stretched parchment with a special brush and black water paint in such a way that an unnatural or interrupted stroke will destroy the line or break through the parchment. Erasures or changes are impossible. These artists must practice a particular discipline, that of allowing the idea to express itself in communication with their hands in such a direct way that deliberation cannot interfere.
The resulting pictures lack the complex composition and textures of ordinary painting, but it is said that those who see will find something captured that escapes explanation. This conviction that direct deed is the most meaningful reflection, I believe, has prompted the evolution of the extremely severe and unique disciplines of the jazz or improvising musician."
Yeah, but then you get that bit in the first 15 seconds of Miles' solo on So What.
ah, very true, is heavenly, gotta go now, bye
Quote from: GA on September 24, 2008, 07:54:51 PMHave you ever solved chess problems? Chess problems are solitaire chess, with the board set in a specific (and often highly unusual position,) and the player solves the problem by forcing either an outright win, or just a huge swing in his favor. (E.g., white to mate in two, black to win a rook and a bishop in four, etc.) Most of the time, the board is set up so that it initially looks like the player is losing, and extremely creative (or outright bizarre) moves are required to turn the tables.
Here's the weird thing. When you set up a problem in front of a good chess player, they are usually able to solve it and win the game. If the position occurs naturally in a game, the odds are much lower that the player will recognize that a bizarre and unorthodox strategy will even be able to win the game, much less identify it. When they do, however, the game is the stuff of legends. It's now a story about the time Grandmaster Collier went from being behind three major pieces behind to forcing a win - by sacking his last rook and finagling a forced mate out of two pawns and a knight.
The difference, I think, is that when the player identifies the game as a puzzle that may be solved, he approaches the situation differently than as a game in which he is behind in board position. The reality is the same in either case, but by the player changing his orientation to the game, he can find different courses of action.
yes! this is very similar to something that was written in the Black Swan afaik.
it was about how real inventions usually turn up, sometimes independently at several places at once, as soon as it has been shown that something is
possible.
it seems that as soon as people realize there
must be a solution, they are much, much more likely to find it than when they don't know whether there's a solution or not.
of course that makes sense, because you can afford to take more risks if you are reasonable certain of a payback, than when you are not. but still it's a cool obversation IMO.
It also seems to relate to the GEB bit about compartimentalizing thought processes. A chess master has conditioned their mind to look for common patterns and valid effective moves from a given board setup. If presented with a bizarre board, their pre-conditions don't work so well, and they might even have a harder time finding the solution.