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Like a muppet on a spring

  
 
Kobol Strom
09:19 / 12.08.01
At the point your wishes have become your reality,at that precise moment of coincidence or at the culmination of your best magickal efforts,does it not seem to you,does it not seem almost tangible,that you can for a brief second,see the universe as a game.And does it not seem to you,when you percive underlying patterns through consistencies and coincidences,that the nature of reality becomes malleable,in as much as those terms can describe the state of ones percieved existence on Earth as being partly manufactured by another higher reality.How does this make you feel,and why?
 
 
Rev. Jesse
09:19 / 12.08.01
quote:Originally posted by kobol strom:
At the point your wishes have become your reality,at that precise moment of coincidence or at the culmination of your best magickal efforts,does it not seem to you,does it not seem almost tangible,that you can for a brief second,see the universe as a game.

No
 
 
6opow
09:19 / 12.08.01
Yes. For several years I have tended to look at everything (at least, when I'm not distracted by being too serious about something) as a game. Currently, I'm playing the university game...

I have to give a mixed answer to your question, so I hope that is OK. Often, with synchronicities that are not mind-blowing (ex. I think, "So-and-so oughta' phone me, and then the phone is ringing, and guess who it is...) I simply keep on truckin' and don't really give it much thought: I know that the "cosmic switchboard" made the connection, and as they say, "c'est la vie."

However, in moments of pride or arrogance, I feel, well, powerful. "Aha, reality is at my whim (and that is typically when "reality" will give ya' a swift kick in the ass--as if to beg the question, "You were saying?")

Sometimes (especially upon realizing the first few occurrences of the, as you say, malleability) it is frightening. It can feel like the whole universe--the fabric of space-time that weaves you and the environment--kinda' does a crazy (Mobius?) twist around you as the desired synchronicity manifests itself. It can be disorienting and make you wonder, "Can I live up to this?" or "Was that the right thing to do?" or "What have I lost by gaining this?" or any host of other angst ridden questions.

Mostly, I suppose, it is wise to try to keep centred (which is also the undefinable circumference). However, I am curious as to what you are getting at by this:

quote:Originally posted by kobol strom:
...existence on Earth as being partly manufactured by another higher reality.

...because I'm not sure if it is a matter of existence here on Earth being somehow "produced" by higher realities, nor these higher realities being culled from an infinite collection of possible (from their own perception, actual) worlds. It comes back to the, "microcosom-macrocosom" connection: "higher realities" are no more or less than the reality. It is the interpretation that divides.
 
 
Kobol Strom
09:19 / 12.08.01
At the moment I'm playing at the Artist in a game company game.(There's a post-world order twist for you.)And,as a paradigm,I'm using the television static that is generated between channels on my set,in order to see chaos,and to try to discern other patterns,which co-exist with the chaos patterns but can only be seletively attended to separately.So on one level of 'attention',there is a discernable flat ground:a 2d flat plane,that shifts around in a roughly random way,(that say mercury might move if it was a consistent shape like a pancake in a frying pan.)Its surface is made of black and white noise,but to the perceptive organs(eyes),there are ,uncannily enough - repetitions in the noise.This is possibly some kind of discrepancy between the television image and my retina.Also,I can control the shifting of the image, as if I have control of the frying pan,if I can concentrate on the movement of the plane.The pattern conforms with will,but there is a slight momentum lag as my aspiration takes hold of the visual cortex and distorts the incoming information(only one possible theory).I am using this as a model of how we percieve reality because when I close my eyes,or sit in a dimly lit room,I can see the same spirals forming behind the normal perceptual noise.They are very fine spirals,and very dim,but they are there,and -can be shifted by concentration.In a sense,the ability to see something in reality and the ability to 'attend' consciously to that which we are seeing,can indicate our level of awakeness,awareness.So by using this analogy,and extending it (maybe too far),I would postulate that the percieved order manifested as repeated pattern underlying the form of reality,would show itself to us as,say,the 23 enigma,and it might indicate the functioning of a producing factor in reality.This is what I mean by 'A higher reality'.The hypothesis is taking a huge leap,I'll grant you,but if there is a process,underlying our lives,and even if this process is mindless and random,that it is a function of human consciousness to percieve order out of chaos,chaos itself,and malleable form chaos/order,and in doing so,mirror the function of reality.In a sense,by playing the game of 'magick',and bringing about coincidence,we are fucking with the television.The next step was,last night I thought,who controls the television?Who turns it on?And who,in our society,can turn it off,then on again?Us.We are the higher reality.We made the televison,but we've spent so long watching the channels,that we've forgotten what we can achieve between them.This,to me,is a forgotten art,and is similair to critical paranioa.But what is interesting to me,is how it makes you feel to see magickal changes in your reality,and whether you look to any other sources in reality which also mirror the same production of those feelings,in order to lead to other possible models of study.So,are there moments when you feel like you have seen something that is part of an underlying process,rather than a conscious entity,and how much do you feel that what you are seeing is a game?A self-oriented perceptual delusion?,and what is indicative of underlying process?-such as television static spirals and pancake planes?And if it is a delusion,why can we take hold of it and change it at will?

[ 12-08-2001: Message edited by: kobol strom ]
 
 
Mordant Carnival
19:52 / 12.08.01
Sometimes the universe looks like a game. Sometimes it looks like a machine. Sometimes it looks like a huge, inimical being, sometimes a mindless pool of random events. The mind seeks order, and creates its own interpretations which it then imposes.
 
 
01
22:45 / 12.08.01
Here's a coincidence. I've been thinking this exact thought over the last few days.
Universe = Game?
I dig it.
 
 
6opow
05:50 / 14.08.01
Kobol, I think you are hitting on something, but then trying to work to much into it. Mordant has a point about the mind as being a seeker of order, and this you discover through your play with the static on your tube. I think that repeated patterns are the mind's way of settling into a rut of sorts, and likely stems from our need to survive and coexist in a world divided by interpretation. Or to put it a different way, the underlying patterns that seem to point to a higher reality are simply a manifestation of the synchronicity required by the interpreting mind in order that there be an existence at all. That said, I think it is important to be able to recognize these patterns (interpretation then follows, but that is not the same as recognition). Perhaps, instead of thinking of it as a higher reality, you can think of it as a higher or more complex ordering.

The middle part of your post (from: "Us. We are the higher reality." to: "...similar to critical paranoia.") reminds me much of Phil K. Dick's outlook on reality where the creator has been lost in the artifact of his own making, and also, has forgotten that he created the artifact.

To answer some of your last few questions:
Typically, I tend to think that everything I experience is a part of an underlying process, although, this is often only an intellectual "seeing" as opposed to an emotional feeling. I also tend to think that there are no conscious entities, or in other words, that all things are part of a singular consciousness which is working on becoming self aware. On alternative days I assert (much to the chagrin of most of my peers) that everything is conscious, but this is a playful derivative of the "singular consciousness" idea: it really pisses off the analytic philosophers.
 
 
Kobol Strom
18:27 / 14.08.01
I understand your points,and although my head buzzes trying to take each sentence in,I'm taking it on board.
Do you think that percieveing chaos spirals in randomly generated t.v. static is actually the mind creating order?My theory is that there is no stationary point of interpretation for the mind,no point where the mind is truly satisfied to percieve one single unchanging pattern in the chaos,and that,through different levels of awareness,is it not possible to see our interpretation of the world the same way?.That pattern may shift and change,and you can mold the style of the change through will,you can make the pattern dance -on the 'spiral' level or the flat plane.How can it be?-if :'all things are part of a singular consciousness which is working on becoming self aware.' -that we can't make up our minds about any issue,any belief system,when we percieve the 'order',and suggest the possibility of universal law.There are more than two sides to every story,I was told,but there isn't an infinite level of interpretaion based on language. There are boundaries to possibility and I don't believe in the infinite.I remember saying a year ago,to my friends,'If the Universe is truly infinite,then anything is possible'.But now,it seems to me,however desparate I might sound,that I used to be in the habit of moulding my wordview around this axiom.But concerning the nature of my personal experience with trancendental awareness and magick,there are maybe ten or twenty theories as to why I get results,not one or two possibles-maybe twenty or so,and still growing,and this is just one example.
Thats what I think 'samadhi' is,amongst other possibles,-its a point of release for your mind,trapped as it might be, in dualistic thought patterns.
I believe you are right about the mind interpreting :
'be able to recognize these patterns (interpretation then follows, but that is not the same as recognition). Perhaps, instead of thinking of it as a higher reality, you can think of it as a higher or more complex ordering
I think that if we could construct a new language for our mental understanding,we would prove your hypothesis.If we could make up a word for 'has ten interpretations but we only know two'.What would that word look like?Surely there is an answer,if you believe in a universe of infinite possibility?

I don't mean to suggest that you are displaying dualism,only that through my interpretaion of the 'static',I can only think of two answers,but I get the feeling theres ten,or more,but not an infinite number,maybe.

[ 14-08-2001: Message edited by: kobol strom ]
 
 
6opow
08:45 / 15.08.01
Kobol, you make me think soooo damn hard about my responses to your posts...

Let's begin with the notion of infinity. In a strict sense, simply because there is an infinity does not mean that anything is possible. To use an analogy, the set of odd numbers is certainly infinite, but the possibility of finding the number two in this infinity is zero. Now this is not to say that I don't think that "anything is possible," but that this does not depend on the universe being infinite.

Now as far as universal laws go, I think that (again to use a mathematical analogy) we have a problem with what gets called an asymptote. This is merely a line that is unreachable by a given function. Put differently, there is no way to know the unknowable--by definition, it must always remain the unknown. Now this may seem too simple, too easy, or perhaps like a cop-out but I think it is like this: we as humans will always be less than perfect, and as such, our laws and rules shall always reflect this. We are like a line that goes to infinity along an asymptote, and this limit is a result of the fact that there is a reality to experience in the first place. However, this does not give us license to act as barbarians: we can attempt to get as close as we can to perfection--why not?

The problem then becomes, as you recognize, how do we assert that this way is the better way, or that this rule is the better rule? Now, like you (if I am reading you properly), I'd like to think that if we perceive the order*, then we can say that such and such is the better way. But at the same time, I think that it will never be universally generalizable. So we end up with a paradox of sorts. But then again, the idea that self is other is a paradox of sorts, and this is where the dualism comes in.

I tend to think that dualism is a necessary component to reality: without our dualistic world, there could be no world; however, the beauty and brilliance of being alive is to not only realize but also experience the fact that all binary pairs are but aspects of a singular thing. Thus, the notion you have of samadhi is an adequate one, as it reflects this. But, I'm not sure if we can have our samadhi and our reality too--it is like an uber-dualism: one is required as defined (or contrasted or complemented) with the other.

*this ties in to a discussion Wombat and I are having in the science section on a thread called "A Puzzle". It could be that the order we perceive is merely the structure, but the structure is not the content. The content would be the interpretation of the structure by an experiencing thing. So the order would be empty until its structure is given content by an interpretation.

And finally, considering the "footnote" above, it is likely a good thing that you can have several different theories as to "why?". Each theory would be a different way of fleshing out the structure, or in other words, each interpretation enriches the meaning that we impose upon the structure ex nihlo (fancy way of saying "from nothing"). If the structure is infinite, then perhaps there are infinite ways to interpret it...

"Argh...I don't know what I'm saying!"
 
 
Kobol Strom
19:29 / 15.08.01
The set of odd numbers is what I would temporarily call ,a 'static concept',it will exist tomorrow,and the day after,as long as someone is around who has the knowledge. Numbers impose a structure on reality,a structure,which,I argue,is at fault for the simple reason,that it presumes a fact that cannot be proven,except within its own mathematical language.Infinity.To believe that what we can accomplish through ordering,can lead to a full understanding of our universe or ourselves,is exactly that,a belief.It is my belief,that we can't understand the universe yet,because we can only make interpretations based on experience and acquired knowledge and language constructs that we personally created ourselves. Knowledge is a building of connections between 'agreed on' symbols.
'Four stones,laid out on the ground',may be a perceptual truth,but it would also be a descriptive lie.These are only arrangements of matter ,whose values we can communicate to others based upon an agreed,learned system.There is no 'four stones'.Could the god of stones tell you how many stones are in the universe?-It would depend on whether you believed in the God of Stones.Its all based on faith.
quote: considering the "footnote" above, it is likely a good thing that you can have several different theories as to "why?". Each theory would be a different way of fleshing out the structure, or in other words, each interpretation enriches the meaning that we impose upon the structure ex nihlo (fancy way of saying "from nothing"). If the structure is infinite, then perhaps there are infinite ways to interpret it...

I'm afraid I don't believe that will ever be possible,and even if we did get to our holy grail of possible permutations,to succeed with the language and understanding we have at the moment,is to fail to ever come close to understanding that which seemingly defies description,which to me would be an impossibility:I'd arrogantly make up a nonsense word and then expect everyone else to use it.
I'm pretty sure,that when someone cracks it,and works out why,no-one will ever believe them,and it would ,to me, be a natural consequence of the limitations of 'civilisation' as began by the greeks.Each interpretation is a new meaning,and,I think some meanings have to be dumped just as ,more importantly, some meanings need to be balanced against each other, for a deeper insight of all points of view-even when theres more than two possibilities,but not an infinite number!
 
 
6opow
07:48 / 19.08.01
Kobol, I should not have said this:

quote:I think you are hitting on something, but then trying to work to much into it.

...if what I wanted to express to you was more along the lines of, "I think you are onto something, but are getting caught up in the complexity of it." Upon reading (and re-reading--your posts are dense with ideas) what you've posted recently it appears (at least to me) that you have a better understanding of self/other than you think (reference to your second post here).

Anyway, I agree, the concept of a set is a static thing. It contains all and only the members it contains by definition, and this never changes; however, I was only commenting on the idea that infinity somehow allows for all possibilities--not necessarily...

Now, leaving the philosophic/function status of mathematics aside, I also agree that we create knowledge through agreed upon symbols, but I think these symbols are not merely our linguistic entities, but extend to the things that we encounter as "others." Our language arises to pick out the external events, but the raw data is still filtered through our bodies, and I tend to think this itself is a form of interpretation. "These...arrangements of matter," are,"...based upon an agreed,learned system." Which is to say that the four stones appear as stones for much the same reason that we think there is four of them, or that they are actually stones!

And when you say:
quote:I'm afraid I don't believe that will ever be possible,and even if we did get to our holy grail of possible permutations,to succeed with the language and understanding we have at the moment,is to fail to ever come close to understanding that which seemingly defies description,which to me would be an impossibility:I'd arrogantly make up a nonsense word and then expect everyone else to use it.

...to the idea of the possibility of infinite interpretations, I agree with the underlying sentiment. Some people call that which defies description "God," while others call it "Brahmin," or "Samadhi," or "Magick," or...but I think you get the picture. Our attempts at definitions and limits can not, uh...by definition , adequately represent--thus promoting our lack of the ability to fully understand--that which "...defies description."

[with reference to the previously mentioned post over there <waves hand in that direction>] By the way, I'm wondering if, in your conversion to the religion of the finite, you will no longer see spirals in the dim light? After all, spirals are infinite, and you wouldn't want to be a heretic!

But seriously, if you are thinking about undertaking the exercise of denying the infinite (which I'm sure will be good for you (BTW: really liked this line, "...all world views are like beds of needles"), then you run up against a contradiction to your theory about there being, "...no stationary point of interpretation for the mind,no point where the mind is truly satisfied to percieve one single unchanging pattern in the chaos." It seems (to me anyway) that if there is only a finite number of interpretations, then the mind will eventually have to see only one pattern in the chaos: the pattern that the interpretations weave. If there is a limited number, then this pattern would have to remain static, but if there is an infinite number, then this pattern can dance. However, this is not an argument for the infinite, only something for you to think about.
 
  
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