Epiphany: an intuitive grasp of reality through something (i.e. an event) that is usually simple and striking.
Absurd: dealing with absurdism.
Absurdism: a philosophy based on the belief that the universe is irrational.
So put it all together and what do you get? An Epiphany of the Absurd (EOTA) is an event that reveals the wildly ridiculous nature of reality. It typically involves something that; is wildly improbable, undeniably true and reveals that reality as a whole (or some small part of it) is Absurd.
It's like escaping from the Matrix.
It's like finding out that Santa Claus isn't real.
It's like uncovering the Conspiracy you know you can't stop .
It's like a preacher losing his faith in God.
It's like seeing a dead body rise from the grave and realizing that vampires exist.
So have you ever had a moment like that? If so, what was it and how did it effect your life?
Sounds like Chapel Perilous.
Eh. I don't know anything about Chapel Perilous except for what I found on a google search and a wikipedia article but what I'm talking about appears to be different. The basic idea came out of a conversation I had with a friend about whether or not philosophers could have spiritual experiences. Another meaning of "epiphany" is an appearance of the Deity. So technically a Discordian epiphany would have to be an appearance of Eris (say in a bowling alley) but at the time we were talking about Nihilism. Then I sorta started thinking about Absurdism. And yeah, anyway the Chapel Perilous appears to have some sort of agnostic/occult overtones that are quite different from what I'm talking about here.
It's like rain on your wedding day,
A free ride, when you've already paid.
Quote from: Lord Quantum on January 01, 2010, 08:22:50 PM
Eh. I don't know anything about Chapel Perilous except for what I found on a google search and a wikipedia article but what I'm talking about appears to be different. The basic idea came out of a conversation I had with a friend about whether or not philosophers could have spiritual experiences. Another meaning of "epiphany" is an appearance of the Deity. So technically a Discordian epiphany would have to be an appearance of Eris (say in a bowling alley) but at the time we were talking about Nihilism. Then I sorta started thinking about Absurdism. And yeah, anyway the Chapel Perilous appears to have some sort of agnostic/occult overtones that are quite different from what I'm talking about here.
Chapel Perilous is simply a state of model shock that occurs when your reality maps suddenly don't work anymore, either due to a sudden and fundamental change in your reality or a sudden understanding of reality which renders your maps obsolete. You stay in Chapel Perilous until you have maps that work again.
QuoteAn Epiphany of the Absurd (EOTA) is an event that reveals the wildly ridiculous nature of reality.
2009 was this spread out through the entire damn year. One long Mindfuck.
Absurdism is bullshit.
Poisoned bullshit that kills flowers.
That said, epiphanies are ideally common occurrences. It's hard to maintain receptivity though.
Yeah, Chapel Perilous is definitely not what I'm talking about. That's just a temporary derailment. I'm talking about getting on a new train entirely. As for Absurdism being bullshit, eh, that's your opinion. I don't agree with the whole system entirely but I think it's a pretty accurate description of life in general and it's pretty close to Discordianism. The only problem is that in a way, it's kinda like Atheism. It's not really a belief all by itself and it gets in the way of building new beliefs (or maps).
I am opposed. Absurdity is rampant in life, but does that mean it has any particular value or personal context? No.
To me, the fact that we must exist in such a meaningless and irrational world means that we have to embrace the things that make sense to us, because they are rare. Absurdity is cheap, because it can be freely acquired. Things that have depth of meaning and significance are of far greater value.
Quote from: Felix on January 03, 2010, 06:57:05 AM
I am opposed. Absurdity is rampant in life, but does that mean it has any particular value or personal context? No.
To me, the fact that we must exist in such a meaningless and irrational world means that we have to embrace the things that make sense to us, because they are rare. Absurdity is cheap, because it can be freely acquired. Things that have depth of meaning and significance are of far greater value.
Interesting perspective. I see absurdism slightly different. To me, it is a world view that sees there /may/ be some fundamental meaning to life, but it's so obscured that we'll never possibly be able to know it, therefore we guess, and make whatever meaning we can and choose to. It's not nihilism, and it's not quite existentialism either.
And here I was thinking that a Discordian board would be flooded with Absurdists.
Quote from: Lord Quantum on January 03, 2010, 03:49:06 PM
And here I was thinking that a Discordian board would be flooded with Absurdists.
That'll teach ya to make assumptions.
Quote from: Kai on January 03, 2010, 03:54:42 PM
Quote from: Lord Quantum on January 03, 2010, 03:49:06 PM
And here I was thinking that a Discordian board would be flooded with Absurdists.
That'll teach ya to make assumptions.
Well, to be fair, we
are flooded with absurdists.
Constantly, in fact.
Fortunately they mostly either don't stick around too long or stop being absurdists.
Absurdism, to me, is a huge relief. Every single hour of the day, people are trying to cram narratives and meaning down our throats with a funnel. Christ, you can't even buy coffee without someone force feeding you some eco-green story about how your actions as an individual are relevant to the world theater. Fuck that noise! I make up my own holidays, and I vote by die roll.
PD is full of absurdists, they're just pragmatic about it. Sometimes you have to pick up some meaning and run with it. Fully embracing absurdism is kind of like throwing away all your goals. Sure, you'll never be disappointed, you'll never fail at anything, but you'll also never "get anywhere". We wouldn't be able to communicate if we weren't willing to take each other somewhat seriously.
Anyway, I had an event like what you're talking about, I think. It was in 2005 or 2006. I was living in the OBNOXIOUS JERK CABAL cabalhouse, which was like a year long experiment in how to become as insane as possible. I did meet eris, I badly embarrassed myself, and I lost about three weeks of memory. (other guests at the party would recount a story about me emerging from a closet naked, covered in strange glyphs, shouting stuff like "Avert thine eyes! Your plebeian eyes are unfit to view this body of Adonis!") In the end, I did not successfully cast off all meaning and reinvent myself as some kind of psychic superhero. Well I did, but only as long as I stayed inside my apartment. Even after I came down, it was difficult to make reality checks. So I think there are dangers to absurdism - discarding other people's realities can be really disorienting!
In the end, I've found pragmatism to be a bit more effective way to crowbar reality.
Quote from: Cramulus on January 03, 2010, 05:23:29 PM
Sometimes you have to pick up some meaning and run with it.
I totally agree, Cram. I don't fully agree with Absurdism (because I don't think that life is meaningless, it has meaning) but that's where I got in this crazy whirly-gig of fun and I was interested in hearing if other people had gotten on this bus at the same stop as I did. The second part of the Epiphany for me was figuring out how to react to the experience. For me, the solution was twofold; helping people out and creating chaos.
In and of itself, life is meaningless. We give it meaning. It's what people do.
Sometimes that causes problems. Hell, a lot of the time we end up more deluded for it. Other times it's not a delusion so much as a choice--figuring out what's important to you and building your life around it.
It might sound trite, but you just gotta go with whatever floats your boat. Insight and creative expression matter a lot to me, so I try to bring them into everything I do.
Quote from: Triple Zero on January 03, 2010, 05:01:23 PM
Quote from: Kai on January 03, 2010, 03:54:42 PM
Quote from: Lord Quantum on January 03, 2010, 03:49:06 PM
And here I was thinking that a Discordian board would be flooded with Absurdists.
That'll teach ya to make assumptions.
Well, to be fair, we are flooded with absurdists.
Constantly, in fact.
Fortunately they mostly either don't stick around too long or stop being absurdists.
I'm assuming Trip is being snarky here, but I don't think those people count so much as absurdists as rogue AI/spambots who've read 50,000 badly formatted .txt version of the PD and want to show off how well they've memorised it.
ITT Brotep and Cram have already said everything else I would have.
All right, LQ. I'll play.
From what I gather in the Original Post, you are describing a sudden trancendent moment when the underlying Chaos is revealed, and the Illusions of Eristic Disorder and Aneristic Order are silenced; the Absurdism you speak of isn't Python-esque non-sequitor humor, but the existentialist offshoot suggested by Camus and his ilk.
I would suggest that you look deeper into our Chapel Perilous allusions. A "quick look" around the web-o-sphere isn't enough to grasp what we're talking about, and you seem to understand our references to filter shifting a little too quickly.
To put it in Discordian terms:
1) The fundamentalist Discordian*, the Universe is Chaos, which is perceived as an infinite amount of random events. Using our Law of Five skills, we create patterns which we call Order, and if we see no pattern, we call it Disorder. Please note that because these are self-created patterns, they are referred to as "Illusions".
2) The various layers of Order and Disorder that we come up with create a filter through which we percieve the Universe, also known as Reality. Please note that this means we see Reality as a series of Illusions.
3) Sometimes, through our experiences, these Illusions drop away, and for a moment, we can see a part of the Chaos that underlies everything. At this momement, we can attempt to create new Illusions that ultimately change the way we see Reality.
From what I gather, your Epiphany of the Absurd relates to Point 3). And what we have been calling Chapel Perilous also relates to Point 3).
Hope this helps.
LMNO
-helpful in the new year.
*Please note that the Fundamentalist Discordian does not exist, and these theories are not wholly agreed upon; however, the theories do align with the Principia. Sort of.
Quote from: Cramulus on January 03, 2010, 05:23:29 PM
Absurdism, to me, is a huge relief. Every single hour of the day, people are trying to cram narratives and meaning down our throats with a funnel. Christ, you can't even buy coffee without someone force feeding you some eco-green story about how your actions as an individual are relevant to the world theater. Fuck that noise! I make up my own holidays, and I vote by die roll.
PD is full of absurdists, they're just pragmatic about it. Sometimes you have to pick up some meaning and run with it. Fully embracing absurdism is kind of like throwing away all your goals. Sure, you'll never be disappointed, you'll never fail at anything, but you'll also never "get anywhere". We wouldn't be able to communicate if we weren't willing to take each other somewhat seriously.
Anyway, I had an event like what you're talking about, I think. It was in 2005 or 2006. I was living in the OBNOXIOUS JERK CABAL cabalhouse, which was like a year long experiment in how to become as insane as possible. I did meet eris, I badly embarrassed myself, and I lost about three weeks of memory. (other guests at the party would recount a story about me emerging from a closet naked, covered in strange glyphs, shouting stuff like "Avert thine eyes! Your plebeian eyes are unfit to view this body of Adonis!") In the end, I did not successfully cast off all meaning and reinvent myself as some kind of psychic superhero. Well I did, but only as long as I stayed inside my apartment. Even after I came down, it was difficult to make reality checks. So I think there are dangers to absurdism - discarding other people's realities can be really disorienting!
In the end, I've found pragmatism to be a bit more effective way to crowbar reality.
What Cram said.
Also there are big-A Absurdists and little-a absurdists.
I had a shared epiphany of absurdity with my friend Pete (who is my permanent fiance... we have plans to run away to Mexico and start an emu farm someday) about eleven years ago. We basically lost our minds together over the course of several weeks (possibly months), had a bunch of shared hallucinations, and were permanently changed. She called me up one day in the middle of doing her calculus homework and informed me that the formula for calculating the volume of a cone proves the absurd nature of the universe, explained why, and then explained why :cone: is actually the fundamental formula for the universe itself. I wish I still had that message because it all made
perfect sense.Yet, like all religious experiences, is completely meaningless and even ridiculous to anyone who did not have that experience.
LMNO, I love you.
Sorry buddy, I'm married. But if it helps, I love you too.
Once, I found neurological proof in my Grade 12 Biology textbook that we cannot ever understand the universe as it really is and that the logic on which our minds work isn't even compatible with the Really Real Troof. I won't go into detail unless you prompt me, because it might take a bit of explaining. Anyway, bricks were shat.
Quote from: Shrunkenheadspace on January 06, 2010, 06:45:26 AM
Once, I found neurological proof in my Grade 12 Biology textbook that we cannot ever understand the universe as it really is and that the logic on which our minds work isn't even compatible with the Really Real Troof. I won't go into detail unless you prompt me, because it might take a bit of explaining. Anyway, bricks were shat.
Hahaha, go for it.
Quote from: Brotep on January 06, 2010, 06:55:13 AM
Quote from: Shrunkenheadspace on January 06, 2010, 06:45:26 AM
Once, I found neurological proof in my Grade 12 Biology textbook that we cannot ever understand the universe as it really is and that the logic on which our minds work isn't even compatible with the Really Real Troof. I won't go into detail unless you prompt me, because it might take a bit of explaining. Anyway, bricks were shat.
Heh, let's hear it.
Ok, I was studying neurons. Neurons have a threshold for stimuli. If the stimuli falls below the threshold, no impulse is produced by the neuron. If the stimuli is above it, an impulse is produced. The textbook refers to it as an all-or-none principle. Of course, what this means is that our neurons create a false dichotomy where there's really this whole range of intensity. Scale it up, and our entire consciousness, though unfathomably more complex than a single neuron, is based on this false dichotomy at its most fundamental level. We have no way of knowing how much stimulation a single neuron is receiving, and that isn't really essential information for our survival, but it still means there's this whole dimension of information that we can't even comprehend.
Of course, I might be wrong about this whole theory. It was jarring when I figured it out, though.
Ok. Yeah, it's kind of a stretch to go from neurons to thoughts.
Still, that must have been a beautiful moment.
Quote from: Brotep on January 06, 2010, 07:04:43 AM
Ok. Yeah, it's kind of a stretch to go from neurons to thoughts.
Yeah, I don't think I should call it proof so much as evidence.
QuoteStill, that must have been a beautiful moment.
It was.
reminds me of the time i "discovered" that there has to be infinitely many dimensions. took me about a week to get over it and at least a year to figure out why nobody else thought it was as awesome as i did.
Quote from: Lord Quantum on January 03, 2010, 03:49:06 PM
And here I was thinking that a Discordian board would be flooded with Absurdists.
we put the hamsters to work in the mines
Quote from: Shrunkenheadspace on January 06, 2010, 07:02:28 AM
Quote from: Brotep on January 06, 2010, 06:55:13 AM
Quote from: Shrunkenheadspace on January 06, 2010, 06:45:26 AM
Once, I found neurological proof in my Grade 12 Biology textbook that we cannot ever understand the universe as it really is and that the logic on which our minds work isn't even compatible with the Really Real Troof. I won't go into detail unless you prompt me, because it might take a bit of explaining. Anyway, bricks were shat.
Heh, let's hear it.
Ok, I was studying neurons. Neurons have a threshold for stimuli. If the stimuli falls below the threshold, no impulse is produced by the neuron. If the stimuli is above it, an impulse is produced. The textbook refers to it as an all-or-none principle. Of course, what this means is that our neurons create a false dichotomy where there's really this whole range of intensity. Scale it up, and our entire consciousness, though unfathomably more complex than a single neuron, is based on this false dichotomy at its most fundamental level. We have no way of knowing how much stimulation a single neuron is receiving, and that isn't really essential information for our survival, but it still means there's this whole dimension of information that we can't even comprehend.
Of course, I might be wrong about this whole theory. It was jarring when I figured it out, though.
I can't remember if you've read Godel Escher Bach... But if you haven't, the above makes me think you'd really dig it.
Quote from: Shrunkenheadspace on January 06, 2010, 07:02:28 AM
Quote from: Brotep on January 06, 2010, 06:55:13 AM
Quote from: Shrunkenheadspace on January 06, 2010, 06:45:26 AM
Once, I found neurological proof in my Grade 12 Biology textbook that we cannot ever understand the universe as it really is and that the logic on which our minds work isn't even compatible with the Really Real Troof. I won't go into detail unless you prompt me, because it might take a bit of explaining. Anyway, bricks were shat.
Heh, let's hear it.
Ok, I was studying neurons. Neurons have a threshold for stimuli. If the stimuli falls below the threshold, no impulse is produced by the neuron. If the stimuli is above it, an impulse is produced. The textbook refers to it as an all-or-none principle. Of course, what this means is that our neurons create a false dichotomy where there's really this whole range of intensity. Scale it up, and our entire consciousness, though unfathomably more complex than a single neuron, is based on this false dichotomy at its most fundamental level. We have no way of knowing how much stimulation a single neuron is receiving, and that isn't really essential information for our survival, but it still means there's this whole dimension of information that we can't even comprehend.
Of course, I might be wrong about this whole theory. It was jarring when I figured it out, though.
Now expand that a bit.
Consider that the neuron isn't just connected in a line, dendrites hooking up to the last axon and axon hooking up to the next dendrites. Consider that the dendrites are receiving neurotransmitters from hundreds, maybe thousands of other axons. Those neurotransmitters are interacting with ion channels in the dendrites releasing different ions into the cell, some inhibitory some excitatory, such that theres not only a threshold of stimulus that must be reached to fire the action potential, but theres also a battle of charge between the positive and negative ions to decide whether the charge at the hillock will be positive or negative and if the charge will break the threshold.
Now expand THAT a bit. Consider the axion does fire, but its not connected to only one neuron, but hundreds, and its synapses are all sending varied neurotransmitters instituting inhibitory or excitatory responses in the other neurons.
And on and on and on. Get the picture?
Quote from: Shrunkenheadspace on January 06, 2010, 07:02:28 AM
Ok, I was studying neurons. Neurons have a threshold for stimuli. If the stimuli falls below the threshold, no impulse is produced by the neuron. If the stimuli is above it, an impulse is produced. The textbook refers to it as an all-or-none principle. Of course, what this means is that our neurons create a false dichotomy where there's really this whole range of intensity. Scale it up, and our entire consciousness, though unfathomably more complex than a single neuron, is based on this false dichotomy at its most fundamental level. We have no way of knowing how much stimulation a single neuron is receiving, and that isn't really essential information for our survival, but it still means there's this whole dimension of information that we can't even comprehend.
Of course, I might be wrong about this whole theory. It was jarring when I figured it out, though.
Cool.
Reminds me a bit when, in
Fooled By Randomness I read the line "Our brains did not evolve for Truth, but for Fitness."
A very interesting thought
But of a stretch though. I wouldn't really describe a neuron's binary states a false dichotomy. It's sort of like saying that digital data, which are made of 1s and 0s, are based on a false dichotomy.
Perhaps, but that does explain why MP3s sound different than vinyl records.
Quote from: Cramulus on January 06, 2010, 02:16:09 PM
A very interesting thought
But of a stretch though. I wouldn't really describe a neuron's binary states a false dichotomy. It's sort of like saying that digital data, which are made of 1s and 0s, are based on a false dichotomy.
What he's saying is still basically valid though, even at the macro level. Think about dog whistles. A dog hears something that you'll never hear simply because the dog whistle doesn't generate enough energy to pass the threshold of excitation. That doesn't mean that the sound the dog hears isn't real it's just that you're like a guy that's 7ft tall and has his neck and waist in a cast. If you can't bend down to look, there's lots of things you'll never see.
Quote from: rong on January 06, 2010, 07:40:13 AM
reminds me of the time i "discovered" that there has to be infinitely many dimensions. took me about a week to get over it and at least a year to figure out why nobody else thought it was as awesome as i did.
You got over it? Maybe you should tell our good friends in the theoretical physics department how you achieved that. They've got this thing called the Multiple Universe Hypothesis and they haven't quite gotten over it yet.
Quote from: LMNO on January 06, 2010, 02:30:28 PM
Perhaps, but that does explain why MP3s sound different than vinyl records.
No. But it does explain why CDs could possibly sound different than vinyl records.
Quote from: Triple Zero on January 06, 2010, 02:37:09 PM
Quote from: LMNO on January 06, 2010, 02:30:28 PM
Perhaps, but that does explain why MP3s sound different than vinyl records.
No. But it does explain why CDs could possibly sound different than vinyl records.
Oh, come on. the MP3 compresses digital audio.
IT'S STILL DIGITAL AUDIO, WHETHER IT'S A CD OR AN MP3. Damn pedants.
Vinyl records?
Ain't that, like, book-keeping for fetishists?
-toa,
new to the whole pun thing
Quote from: LMNO on January 06, 2010, 02:54:02 PM
Quote from: Triple Zero on January 06, 2010, 02:37:09 PM
Quote from: LMNO on January 06, 2010, 02:30:28 PM
Perhaps, but that does explain why MP3s sound different than vinyl records.
No. But it does explain why CDs could possibly sound different than vinyl records.
Oh, come on. the MP3 compresses digital audio. IT'S STILL DIGITAL AUDIO, WHETHER IT'S A CD OR AN MP3. Damn pedants.
Well yeah but the main reason you'd find a difference in sound in an MP3 would be the lossy compression, the watery warbly sound you can hear in a 128kbps mp3 in the background, which is a different kind of information-loss than you'd get from digitization itself.
I was just pointing out that the difference you hear between an MP3 and vinyl will most probably be due to the compression algorithm, not because it is digital.
Which is why it's kind of real hard to actually hear a real difference between vinyl and CD. Except if you count the clicks of dust (which can be nice, I agree) (they can also be sampled for that exact reason btw), or some specifics about how the wave signal of vinyl gets carried to the speakers versus how that works with the wave signal encoded on the CD.
But if you get down to it, CD is 44KHz, 16bit stereo sound. 44KHz means the max frequency is at 22KHz, which is nicely above the human hearing range. And 16bit means there is a signal to noise ratio which, I don't know how much dB, but also expect to be below human hearing treshold. Maybe it's frequency dependent, I could imagine you might hear some zipper noise in really low frequencies maybe. That's where vinyl might be superior, but I'd really want to hear and find out for myself one day.
So, your dog might be able to tell the difference, but you probably won't.
Oh and there's aliasing, but that's a question of bad analog-to-digital conversion, you can prevent that and keep the phase-shfit to a minimum too.
LALALALA SORRY I WAS A PEDANT
Quote from: the other anonymous on January 06, 2010, 03:00:40 PM
Vinyl records?
Ain't that, like, book-keeping for fetishists?
-toa,
new to the whole pun thing
GO. AWAY.
A CD is just a string of binary information. Neurons are interconnected.
A more convincing argument might be made by saying we perceive our surroundings in terms of what we can do with them.
It's not just the limitations of having five senses, but being human-shaped and human-sized.
Our perception of a chair will be far more focused on sitting than a rhinoceros' perception of the same chair.
We're not really wired to understand the universe, then--just what we can do with it.
Quote from: Brotep on January 06, 2010, 07:53:52 PM
Our perception of a chair will be far more focused on sitting than a rhinoceros' perception of the same chair.
We're not really wired to understand the universe, then--just what we can do with it.
This is very interesting.
Ok, spin-off thread! (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=23628.0)
So yeah...I looked into the Chapel Perilous thing a bit more and I agree, it's very similar to what I'm talking about. But ,not surprisingly, I'm still more fond of my own terminology. But maybe that's because the experience isn't over yet. Wilson mentioned that one leaves Chapel Perilous with the help of some sort of "ally" and "then after that for the rest of your life you've got this question: Was that ally a supernatural helper, or was it just part of my own mind trying to save me from going totally bonkers with this stuff?"
As far as a pragmatist is concerned, is the difference important?
Quote from: Lord Quantum on January 06, 2010, 11:09:24 PM
So yeah...I looked into the Chapel Perilous thing a bit more and I agree, it's very similar to what I'm talking about. But ,not surprisingly, I'm still more fond of my own terminology. But maybe that's because the experience isn't over yet. Wilson mentioned that one leaves Chapel Perilous with the help of some sort of "ally" and "then after that for the rest of your life you've got this question: Was that ally a supernatural helper, or was it just part of my own mind trying to save me from going totally bonkers with this stuff?"
For Wilson, maybe that's true. But he cannot possibly dictate the experience of any human being other than himself.
Quote from: Lord Quantum on January 06, 2010, 11:09:24 PM
So yeah...I looked into the Chapel Perilous thing a bit more and I agree, it's very similar to what I'm talking about. But ,not surprisingly, I'm still more fond of my own terminology. But maybe that's because the experience isn't over yet. Wilson mentioned that one leaves Chapel Perilous with the help of some sort of "ally" and "then after that for the rest of your life you've got this question: Was that ally a supernatural helper, or was it just part of my own mind trying to save me from going totally bonkers with this stuff?"
Read moar ;-)
For Wilson that was true. For others, the experience differs. There are a number of ways to exit Chapel Perilous... and OFTEN it includes something which the person experiencing it experiences as an external 'helper'. But this isn't always the case... in fact, Wilson argues that the 'helper' aspect is probably heavily based on the archetypes and symbols most recognizable to the individual experiencing it. In our modern almost wholly materialistic world, that 'help' may establish itself as something completely different than it has in the past, since we've done a bang up job of knocking down all of our idols and all of our supernatural stories (Joesph Campbell would be so disappointed).
The most important aspect of Chapel Perilous is that it changes your worldview completely... whatever that worldview is.
Either we get the wide-eyed "
But then we can't know nothin no way!!!" ( the poor pseudo skeptic who did not successfully escape Chapel Perilous and instead was eaten by St. Toad);
or the "
That way was wrong, this way must be 100% right" (the poor fool who ran back out the front door convinced he found THE TRUTH rather than just exposing the lie in his own worldview);
or the "
I have no idea what is going on anymore" response (those people are still wandering around inside the chapel and haven't found their way out);
or "
But MY PREACHER SAYS!!!!" (which are the poor sods that are standing at the front door of the chapel and simply fail to realize it);
or those few that come out skeptical, agnostic and are able to cope with it "
I may not know what's going on, but I have some ideas and if they get proven wrong, I'll go get some more" (the people that actually get the fuck out of the chapel in one piece).
Quote from: v=1/3πr²h on January 04, 2010, 05:25:19 PM
Quote from: Cramulus on January 03, 2010, 05:23:29 PM
Absurdism, to me, is a huge relief. Every single hour of the day, people are trying to cram narratives and meaning down our throats with a funnel. Christ, you can't even buy coffee without someone force feeding you some eco-green story about how your actions as an individual are relevant to the world theater. Fuck that noise! I make up my own holidays, and I vote by die roll.
PD is full of absurdists, they're just pragmatic about it. Sometimes you have to pick up some meaning and run with it. Fully embracing absurdism is kind of like throwing away all your goals. Sure, you'll never be disappointed, you'll never fail at anything, but you'll also never "get anywhere". We wouldn't be able to communicate if we weren't willing to take each other somewhat seriously.
Anyway, I had an event like what you're talking about, I think. It was in 2005 or 2006. I was living in the OBNOXIOUS JERK CABAL cabalhouse, which was like a year long experiment in how to become as insane as possible. I did meet eris, I badly embarrassed myself, and I lost about three weeks of memory. (other guests at the party would recount a story about me emerging from a closet naked, covered in strange glyphs, shouting stuff like "Avert thine eyes! Your plebeian eyes are unfit to view this body of Adonis!") In the end, I did not successfully cast off all meaning and reinvent myself as some kind of psychic superhero. Well I did, but only as long as I stayed inside my apartment. Even after I came down, it was difficult to make reality checks. So I think there are dangers to absurdism - discarding other people's realities can be really disorienting!
In the end, I've found pragmatism to be a bit more effective way to crowbar reality.
What Cram said.
Also there are big-A Absurdists and little-a absurdists.
I had a shared epiphany of absurdity with my friend Pete (who is my permanent fiance... we have plans to run away to Mexico and start an emu farm someday) about eleven years ago. We basically lost our minds together over the course of several weeks (possibly months), had a bunch of shared hallucinations, and were permanently changed. She called me up one day in the middle of doing her calculus homework and informed me that the formula for calculating the volume of a cone proves the absurd nature of the universe, explained why, and then explained why :cone: is actually the fundamental formula for the universe itself. I wish I still had that message because it all made perfect sense.
Yet, like all religious experiences, is completely meaningless and even ridiculous to anyone who did not have that experience.
Is that why your avatar is a traffic cone?