Magic: Who thinks they can do it, and why otherwise intelligent people buy it.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

shut up, go to bed.

Oh for fuck's sake, the wallpaper has something to say.

You make a lot of posts but its rare that you ever say anything. I actively ignore this place whenever I am busy, call me wallpaper if you want.

Faust, I have a compliment for you. You are a pretty thing.

Go to bed.

Oh, did the pretty thing wake up for a moment?

[Cramulus]

It's been a few years since I've read it, but one flaw in the scientific process (not method) was documented in Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts by Latour and Woolgar.

long story short

Laboratory Life was written by people trying to understand science from a sociological point of view. One of the points they made is that when something is on its way to "Fact hood", there might be a lot of uncertainty. Maybe the data is off, maybe the results are skewed, maybe it's only accepted by 60% of the scientists.

Once that "fact" has been cited by other scientists and built upon, all the uncertainty surrounding its creation evaporates. The "fact", divorced from the environment which led to its "discovery"*, becomes something we are certain about.

They also discuss the cycles of credibility - they examine credit and credibility as a form of currency that scientists use in order to change the "facticity" of a hypothesis. One flaw in the scientific process may be that if a scientist who doesn't have a very good track record makes an amazing discovery, other scientists are less likely to cite it.




* or "creation", if you prefer

[Faust]

shut up, go to bed.

Oh for fuck's sake, the wallpaper has something to say.

You make a lot of posts but its rare that you ever say anything. I actively ignore this place whenever I am busy, call me wallpaper if you want.

Faust, I have a compliment for you. You are a pretty thing.

Go to bed.

Oh, did the pretty thing wake up for a moment?

not really, keeping it civil drunken wench, for your benefit.

[Faust]

It's been a few years since I've read it, but one flaw in the scientific process (not method) was documented in Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts by Latour and Woolgar.

long story short

Laboratory Life was written by people trying to understand science from a sociological point of view. One of the points they made is that when something is on its way to "Fact hood", there might be a lot of uncertainty. Maybe the data is off, maybe the results are skewed, maybe it's only accepted by 60% of the scientists.

Once that "fact" has been cited by other scientists and built upon, all the uncertainty surrounding its creation evaporates. The "fact", divorced from the environment which led to its "discovery"*, becomes something we are certain about.

They also discuss the cycles of credibility - they examine credit and credibility as a form of currency that scientists use in order to change the "facticity" of a hypothesis. One flaw in the scientific process may be that if a scientist who doesn't have a very good track record makes an amazing discovery, other scientists are less likely to cite it.




* or "creation", if you prefer

Unfortunately that seems the largest flaw in the system, if Joe the plumber comes up with a consistent unified field theory he would have a hard time getting anyone to read it because he doesn't have a string of letters after his name.

[Cain]

Dont some journals and institutions conceal the name for the purposes of peer-reviews?

Obviously it doesn't solve the problem entirely, but it can still help overcome some elements of groupthink and appeals to reputation.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Wow that's pretty circular.

So, science cannot falsify itself.

Does that make it flawless?

Guy Incognito said that hypothesis testing may be flawed. That is absolutely true, because science can neither prove nor disprove it.

Not meant to be a burden-of-proof trick. Just that any statement you make about whether science is flawed or not, is a scientifically meaningless statement.

If that's not a limit to the scientific method, I don't know what is.

Well thats not really fair either, its not a case of proving, its a case of proving beyond a reasonable doubt, which does give consistent results which more importantly are able to be applied to similar systems to get predicable results. That is not a flaw in hypothesis testing or the scientific method, its an acceptable margin of error.

What do you mean with fair?

Ever since I was 23 and read about Godel's incompleteness theorem, I've been reading up on this stuff in order to find the parts where the scientific method is incomplete.

It has to be. And that blew my mind at the time. Cause I had a Spock-like absolute faith in that thing. But I figured, well if that means there are things that are True, but are not covered by the scientific method, I want to know what they are.

I'm not sure whether I have found it or not, but among other things that search led to the occult.

About which, btw, there's yet quite a bit of science to do. I mean, it seems to me that the resistance against it must be mostly in, as ECH put it, "dangerous thought" or as Roger said "lying to yourself".

Because the other part, about which we seemed to agree a couple of pages back, that magic is basically mind-reprogramming or something. The cry against that was, you shouldn't need silly robes and chants to do that.

Well, that's an easy hypothesis to falsify, try it with the robes and without the robes, see what works best. Just that whether it "works" or not can only be determined subjectively, or in other words it can only be objectively determined by the subject.

So either everybody gotta test that for themselves, and if Roger and ECH say they don't need the robes, I can only take their word for it.

I haven't tried myself btw. Like Roger, I find it pretty hard to trick myself into believing something when I know I'm tricking me.

On the other hand you can also say, that's not Science cause it's not peer-reviewable!

Well in that case, we hit another limit of science. Is this one also unfair?

This is the correct motorcycle... I know I probably say this once a week, but its precisely WHY I like Model Agnosticism.

The MODEL ("It's only a model...*") defined by the Scientific Method is a great way of examining observable and repeatable 'objective' (to the best of our knowledge) phenomena.

However, if something is subjective, rather than objective we need a different MODEL... because the Scientific Method doesn't have an option for 'subjective data'... Subjective Data is meaningless in the Scientific Model. Yet, subjective data viz a viz personal experience is really THE ONLY KIND OF DATA WE INTERACT WITH WHEN WE'RE NOT IN A LABORATORY.

So, how do we model 'I had an experience where I spent 15 minutes perceiving myself as being a 7 headed wild beast with tawny fur' on a Scientific Model? We don't, because that's not what its useful for.

I also think that there exists a wide gulf between making use of models and really, really for sure 100% believing any Model as true. The godhatesfags and Mysticwicks appear to have that as their common problem, they really, really BELIEVE absolutely that their views are True.

"When Dogma enters the mind, all rational thought leaves" - RAW

However, most of the people 'defending' the 'mystical' paradigm here (at least) don't seem to be saying "This is 100% true" in fact, I don't recall seeing anyone claim that they could throw fireballs, levitate or anything else that would breech the laws of physics.

So, if you can't (or don't wish to) deal with models besides the simple scientific one, that's great. However, make sure you realize that it will inherently limit the kind of data you can examine. If it's not observable by more than one person, if its not repeatable in a lab environment (or repeatable in nature in a way that can be observed and documented), then it can't be usefully discussed with that Model, which means you either switch models, or take a pass on that information.

Finally, I really think we have some kind of communication error on this isssue of "fooling yourself'....

You do NOT need to 'fool yourself', in the 'formula' I mentioned earlier, the state of gnosis is precisely designed to trick your 'subconscious' (where we mean the automatic responses, imprints, beliefs, tendencies, reality tunnels, BiP bricks or whatever you want to calll them to make your Psych teacher happy).

So... GNOSIS... the state of 'No Mind', can be reached through 'fooling yourself', but this is not a preferred method. High Ritual (with the robes and the chanting and the knife, cup, etc) are props and a process which can consume your conscious mind while the ritual is happening (that is, it can move you to the state of Gnosis). However, you could reach that state as well through hysterical laughter for 10 minutes, or breathing/meditation for long periods of time, or drugs, or sex or ANYTHING which can reliably distract or absorb your conscious mind.

The only think you have to 'trick' is your "Psychic Censor (AKA BUllshit Detector) and you trick it by distracting your conscious mind and using the semantic connection between they symbols/props being used and the concepts already tied to those symbols and props. It may be possible for some people to make major changes to their imprints, psychology, etc etc just by deciding to, I can make small changes like that (I stopped biting my fingernails because I decided to)... However, ritualized reprogramming has been extremely useful for me in rebuilding a lot of the early imprints I got as a child, for ripping out old Dogma and repairing the 'brainwashing' that comes with growing up in a cult.

I struggled a lot with beliefs and responses that I didn't like or want... until I found "magic" as a way of making permanent changes to those beliefs and responses. Maybe, its just me, personally, because of a flaw in my mind... or because I was raised with the Super Daddy watching over my shoulder and honestly believed that there were invisible Angels and Demons everywhere... I dunno.

What I do know is that I have had a far more enjoyable and successful life than before, I feel extremely happy with who I am and how I got to be here... science, magic, psychology or fooling myself... whatever it was, it seems to have worked.

Home Life = AWESOME (beautiful, smart and funny partner/ shared interests/good friends/great hobbies)
Work Life = Could be better, I'm kinda bored lately, but I make lots of money and have relative freedom (I obviously can chat here all day and get paid).
Personal Life = Never been better, self-esteem, confidence and leadership seem to be second nature to me now... 10 years ago, I doubt any of you would have recognized me as the same person.

Is all of that because of Magic? Hell No. Did ritualized reprogramming help? As far as I can tell, it certainly seemed to.

Beyond that, I don't know that any of us can really say much more about  the topic.


*apologies for the Python quote

[The Good Reverend Roger]

shut up, go to bed.

Oh for fuck's sake, the wallpaper has something to say.

You make a lot of posts but its rare that you ever say anything. I actively ignore this place whenever I am busy, call me wallpaper if you want.

Faust, I have a compliment for you. You are a pretty thing.

Go to bed.

Oh, did the pretty thing wake up for a moment?

not really, keeping it civil drunken wench, for your benefit.

Wench?

Drunken and mean, yes, but...

Oh, fuck it.  Does anyone need any matches? 

Those bridges aren't going to burn themselves.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

Damn!

[Faust]

shut up, go to bed.

Oh for fuck's sake, the wallpaper has something to say.

You make a lot of posts but its rare that you ever say anything. I actively ignore this place whenever I am busy, call me wallpaper if you want.

Faust, I have a compliment for you. You are a pretty thing.

Go to bed.

Oh, did the pretty thing wake up for a moment?

not really, keeping it civil drunken wench, for your benefit.

Wench?

Drunken and mean, yes, but...

Oh, fuck it.  Does anyone need any matches? 

Those bridges aren't going to burn themselves.

I would have said a lot worse to anyone else who calls me "the wallpaper" or ordered me to shut up.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

shut up, go to bed.

Oh for fuck's sake, the wallpaper has something to say.

You make a lot of posts but its rare that you ever say anything. I actively ignore this place whenever I am busy, call me wallpaper if you want.

Faust, I have a compliment for you. You are a pretty thing.

Go to bed.

Oh, did the pretty thing wake up for a moment?

not really, keeping it civil drunken wench, for your benefit.

Wench?

Drunken and mean, yes, but...

Oh, fuck it.  Does anyone need any matches? 

Those bridges aren't going to burn themselves.

I would have said a lot worse to anyone else who calls me "the wallpaper" or ordered me to shut up.

Not gonna argue with that.  I wasn't talking specifically about you, and I should have made myself more clear.

Nigel made a good point yesterday about the more inane threads, but what she did in here this morning was out of line.  But tossing "wench" out there didn't help, any more than did her comments to you. 

This is fucking bullshit.  All the people I like are coming unglued at the seams or fighting like cats and dogs, and all the content on the board has gone into a dormant state.  I can't fucking stand it.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

shut up, go to bed.

Oh for fuck's sake, the wallpaper has something to say.

You make a lot of posts but its rare that you ever say anything. I actively ignore this place whenever I am busy, call me wallpaper if you want.

Faust, I have a compliment for you. You are a pretty thing.

Go to bed.

Oh, did the pretty thing wake up for a moment?

not really, keeping it civil drunken wench, for your benefit.

Wench?

Drunken and mean, yes, but...

Oh, fuck it.  Does anyone need any matches? 

Those bridges aren't going to burn themselves.

I would have said a lot worse to anyone else who calls me "the wallpaper" or ordered me to shut up.

Not gonna argue with that.  I wasn't talking specifically about you, and I should have made myself more clear.

Nigel made a good point yesterday about the more inane threads, but what she did in here this morning was out of line.  But tossing "wench" out there didn't help, any more than did her comments to you. 

This is fucking bullshit.  All the people I like are coming unglued at the seams or fighting like cats and dogs, and all the content on the board has gone into a dormant state.  I can't fucking stand it.

Meh, its just PD's 'time of the month'.

[Faust]

shut up, go to bed.

Oh for fuck's sake, the wallpaper has something to say.

You make a lot of posts but its rare that you ever say anything. I actively ignore this place whenever I am busy, call me wallpaper if you want.

Faust, I have a compliment for you. You are a pretty thing.

Go to bed.

Oh, did the pretty thing wake up for a moment?

not really, keeping it civil drunken wench, for your benefit.

Wench?

Drunken and mean, yes, but...

Oh, fuck it.  Does anyone need any matches? 

Those bridges aren't going to burn themselves.

I would have said a lot worse to anyone else who calls me "the wallpaper" or ordered me to shut up.

Not gonna argue with that.  I wasn't talking specifically about you, and I should have made myself more clear.

Nigel made a good point yesterday about the more inane threads, but what she did in here this morning was out of line.  But tossing "wench" out there didn't help, any more than did her comments to you. 

This is fucking bullshit.  All the people I like are coming unglued at the seams or fighting like cats and dogs, and all the content on the board has gone into a dormant state.  I can't fucking stand it.

Fair point, its not helping. I retract it.

[East Coast Hustle]

I WILL SHIT UNICORNS FROM MY VAGINA IF YOU WILL JUST FUCKING SHUT UP ABOUT PHILOSOPHY YOU INCOMPETENT SHITHOLES.

also...

[East Coast Hustle]

also also, anyone who wants to get PD to troll itself only needs to start a thread with the word "magic" in the title. this is nothing new, but now it's nothing that's particularly amusing either.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

also also, anyone who wants to get PD to troll itself only needs to start a thread with the word "magic" in the title. this is nothing new, but now it's nothing that's particularly amusing either.

Yeah, I'm kinda feeling a little dumb.