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Temple Forum Users – Explain Yourselves!

  
  

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Scrambled Password Bogus Email
08:03 / 25.10.05
Bespoke, provoke, have a toke. Then invoice. Charge by the hour, in quarter hour increments. Bleedin' cheapskates, they're good for it.
 
 
Evil Scientist
11:25 / 25.10.05
I think sHe is clearly a member of the "rationalist" cult. Apparently they believe that the universe was created by an explosion that "just happened", and they all think this makes us idiots for believing otherwise, despite the fact that they all believed something entirely different 50 years ago and none of them can agree on the details even today. I mean, imagine believing in magic, when the reality is clearly that there are an indeterminate number of other infinitesimal dimensions of which we can have no impirical knowledge! We must be insane!

I think you'll find that if you look at it, the explanations for Big Bang theory run a little deeper than "There was nothing and it exploded.". That is an oversimplification which is equivelent to someone saying that magic is nothing but standing around chanting.

It clearly isn't just that. Even if, like me, you don't believe that magic actually has any effect on the real world, one can clearly see that it affects the person who practises it.

As a member of the "rationalist cult" I don't think anyone is an idiot if they choose to follow a particular religion or philosophy (which magic appears from my POV to be). But do tend to demand proof that something works before they embrace it whole-heartedly. As one can see from the Talk To The Cynic thread I have tried magic and found it didn't work (for me).
 
 
Quantum
12:24 / 25.10.05
Some magical traditions (e.g. shamanism) are better regarded as a set of techniques than a religion.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
12:42 / 25.10.05
Even if, like me, you don't believe that magic actually has any effect on the real world, one can clearly see that it affects the person who practises it.

I tried to post before, but it has vanished...I'll try again, and hope the old ghostly version doesn't rematerialize...

At the risk of specious jokes, how do you divorce the 'real world' from the practitioner in this example? You seem to be defeating your own statement, unless I'm being thick (hey, it has been known...)

By which I mean, you seem to be saying 'Magic doesn't work, except for the person who practices it', or at best 'People who practice magic are not part of the real world'...clarify?
 
 
Evil Scientist
13:06 / 25.10.05
By which I mean, you seem to be saying 'Magic doesn't work, except for the person who practices it'

I suppose that would be one interpretation yes. Obviously if one person believes that an event occured as a result of them using magic then, from their POV, magic worked. However, from a rationalist (if you want to call it that) POV, another explanation for the event could be found that did not require a magical explanation.

'People who practice magic are not part of the real world'...clarify?

What particular part would you like me to clarify? It might be a better idea for you to tell me what you don't understand about my statement rather than putting words in my mouth. Obviously people who practise magic are part of the real world, being that they are people...in the real world. The above statement was not what I meant and I apologise if you mis-interpretted it.


how do you divorce the 'real world' from the practitioner in this example? You seem to be defeating your own statement,

In what way?

There is an obvious distinction for myself, a non-believer in magic, between a result that one person imagines to have happened and one that actually happened in that it affected the world on a percievable level in such a way as to leave little doubt that it was the sole cause.

I'm sure there are people here on the Temple who are able to argue that both points of view are valid modes of magic though. But there is a difference between magic as a philosophy and magic as a force capable of affecting the world in a supernatural manner.
 
 
Isadore
13:08 / 25.10.05
There's a certain stigma about magic being like mental illness -- 'all in our head', so to speak, when anything could be up there and if it can't be corroborated by independent evidence, then it doesn't count as 'real'.

Of course, one also wonders if this particular stigma is held primarily by those who have a hard time moving things from their head into consensual reality. I am reminded here of the Miracle of the Sun which was witnessed by thousands. Was that real?
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
13:21 / 25.10.05
Scientist - Gotcha. My bad. Didn't intend to put words in your mouth, just being dense.
 
 
Evil Scientist
13:28 / 25.10.05
No worries, Money.

There's a certain stigma about magic being like mental illness -- 'all in our head', so to speak, when anything could be up there and if it can't be corroborated by independent evidence, then it doesn't count as 'real'.

Of course, one also wonders if this particular stigma is held primarily by those who have a hard time moving things from their head into consensual reality. I am reminded here of the Miracle of the Sun which was witnessed by thousands. Was that real?

Good question. How many people have to witness something in order for it to be real? Arguably Christianity stems from eye-witness accounts of the work of the Son of God as he walked on the Earth. Thousands witnessed his miracles, is the Christian faith "more real" because of this?

People who profess a belief different from commonly held ones often experience prejudice. Belief in magic is no more a mental illness than belief in God. Of course there is often a prejudice towards non-believers that they are "unenlightened" or "not as open to reality".

Yet, it still stands that there is a concrete difference between someone believing they performed magic and it actually happening.
 
 
Quantum
13:35 / 25.10.05
As a member of the "rationalist cult" I don't think anyone is an idiot if they choose to follow a particular religion or philosophy (which magic appears from my POV to be). But do tend to demand proof that something works before they embrace it whole-heartedly.

I'm a member of the rationalist cult, and have a rational belief in magic. I believe I clearly see it's limitations and problems (apparent acausality for example) in the same way I see the limitations and problems of modern empiricism (the Victorian-style fallacy that we know almost everything for example). Behaviourism seems silly to me, and irrational.
I completely understand why people demand proof before belief, but there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio... proof is not a necessary prerequisite for belief, and the nature of proof itself is a thorny issue.

Many things appear silly before they become common sense. Once upon a time a spherical Earth was silly, a heliocentric system was heresy, relativity still is silly to a lot of people, quantum entanglement, antimatter and micro-wormholes are silly and yet proven true.

Let me draw an analogy to dark matter- we know it's there by observation*, we can't explain it, we try to devise theories to explain it which gradually get closer to the truth. It's my belief that a rational explanation of magic will be discovered/developed in the future, but I know of it's existence now by observation*.

*technically by inference from observation but you see what I mean.
 
 
Quantum
13:40 / 25.10.05
There is an obvious distinction for myself, a non-believer in magic, between a result that one person imagines to have happened and one that actually happened in that it affected the world on a percievable level in such a way as to leave little doubt that it was the sole cause.

What if it's a spell to affect someone's mental state? If I perform a charm to cheer myself up, or someone else, does that count? Are you conflating reality with physicality? Do you mean 'physical objects' when you say the real world?
 
 
Evil Scientist
14:05 / 25.10.05
What if it's a spell to affect someone's mental state? If I perform a charm to cheer myself up, or someone else, does that count? Are you conflating reality with physicality? Do you mean 'physical objects' when you say the real world?

Good question. But I'd suppose it's a matter of perspective isn't it? I would tend towards seeing it as a purely psychological affect rather than one that had been brought about by mystical means. But tomato/tomato, you might consider it to be magic.

As to magic to help someone's mental state other than your own. Again, if the person knew of it and then cheered up, did that happen because it gave them a placebo-style boost or because of actual magical forces making them happy?

I'm a member of the rationalist cult, and have a rational belief in magic.

Most magic-users I've met are rational people. My use of the term "rationalist cult" upthread was in irritation at the original use of it (i.e. that anyone who dares to question the validity of magic is part of some wrong-headed conspiracy to destroy magic). The person that started this thread was asking genuine question IMO and didn't need to be jumped on like that.

But heck, it's got me writing on Temple again.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
14:06 / 25.10.05
I think referring to a 'sole cause' is a bit of a stretch for any notion of causality as well...chaos and the butterfly effect are perfect examples of the mind-numbing connectedness of any given system, and what with there being only one system anyway (universe), when all is said and done, it seems highly unlikely to me that any action taken within that system doesn't somehow affect the entire (non)thing. Somebody mentioned the weather upthread...well, if a butterfly's wings can affect the course of a hurricane, why not an invocation or ritual designed for the same purpose? I'm not saying it does, just question any sense of certainty that it doesn't or can't...

Incidentally, I do not necessarily agree with a definition of magic as 'change effected in accordance with will' where such change is intended to work outside of the practitioner hirself. I haven't investigated it nearly enough to draw any meaningful conclusions, though I am moving towards a study of such, and I know many people absolutely do define it as such, and claim to have personal experience of such working. But as far as personal transformation goes, I know it works, and in quite radical ways.

What did you do, Scientist, to demonstrate to yourself that your conclusions are solid? Very interested to hear how your experiments were conducted.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
14:10 / 25.10.05
Aplogoes if its already in the Talk to the cynic Thread, I haven't actually had a look over there yet...

Back later.
 
 
Colonel Kadmon
14:12 / 25.10.05
My comments about the "rationalist cult" shouldn't be taken too seriously, Lepidopteran, they were an observation about conceptual framing (or whatever term you prefer - I've got a horrible feeling you're going to react angrily however I put it). It seems to me pointless to try and understand one worldview from within the terms of another. For example, an explaination of why I believe in Magic is going to seem just as subjective as Magic itself does to someone looking at it from within the normal Western headspace. For me, Western rationalistic humanism "doesn't work", either - the world doesn't seem any better than it was prior to the Enlightenment, from my point of view.

Asking why Jub doesn't believe in magic is perfectly valid; once we know what aspects sHe has problems with, we can address them.
 
 
Evil Scientist
14:25 / 25.10.05
What did you do, Scientist, to demonstrate to yourself that your conclusions are solid? Very interested to hear how your experiments were conducted.

Heh, I got this the last time I wandered into Temple asking questions. As I explain over in the Talk To The Cynic thread I have experimented with sigils and the like with no result. I decided not to progress any further.

Now arguably that's not very scientific of me, however lacking a grant or university backing, and having things in my life which I found more fulfilling to investigate I moved on. Like my brief flirtation with Christianity in my mid-teens, I'd tried it and found it an unsatisfactory explanation for the way things were.

But then, as with arguing the non-existence of God with a religious person, I'm backing a losing horse because the magic-user relies on faith and the scientist relies on evidence. It's very easy to criticise science, it can be as dogmatic as any other school of thought (including magic). Science gets things wrong to be sure, but differs from a great many other ways of thinking in that it is capable of admitting it.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
14:35 / 25.10.05
Intersting reading that Talk to the Cynic thread alongside this one, they could almost be the same gig, really...Much of what was discussed in there has currrency in this thread also, and I'd say it's fair to say from reading that thread that your investigation (Scientist) into magic and its veracity was pretty limited at best - a few sigils which you didn't get anything out of, right?

You mention Castaneda in that thread, that you were fascinated to read his tales of shamanic sacrament use around the time you read The Invisibles, and that the other worlds hinted at in those texts interested you...my own work is pretty close to this, so I'd definitely suggest to you that spilling your essence on a hand made diagram is not the be all and end all of engaging with otherwise not too obvious 'powers'.

It's sort of akin to saying 'Music is rubbish' because you heard a Cheeky Girls album, and didn't like it IMO.

If either you or Jub are interested, many of the suggestions in that thread are worthwhile...Ill mentions the I Ching, which is an awesome, relatively 'easy' but open ended and ripe for growth and exploration place to start...don't just dive in, really read up on the philosophy and background to it, what it is for, what it isn't for, and how to use it. It suits rationalist 'junkies' (sorry, can't think of a better bon mot) with an interst in physics and science cos, somewhat bizarrely, Daoism (and a lot of Hinduism for that matter) second guesses modern quantum mechanics by several millenia (although without all the greek letters and equations, and with far more elephant heads, multi-armed blue and pink humanoids and discussions of polar opposites), and is the guiding principle by which the I Ching 'works'...as an introduction to magic, it helps, if you work with it, to clarify just what magic is and isn't, and the subtleties of it as opposed to all the grandstanding myths that surround it...

Recommended by me, anyway.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
14:40 / 25.10.05
But then, as with arguing the non-existence of God with a religious person, I'm backing a losing horse because the magic-user relies on faith and the scientist relies on evidence.

Woah there, Tex! Sweeping! Apologies if you're not, but you seem to be getting a little defensive, and I ain't attacking. I'm not out to convince you, nor sell you anything. You're okay by me. Do as you please!

But your stated interest in the area in that thread, and perhpas this one, leads to suggestions for points of entry, which Jub also asked for.

Incidentally, i have no 'faith' in anything, I demand evidence and personal experience I can verify an ratify with my own senses and mind. I was, until recently, a rabidly fundamentalist atheistic, rationalist pig (not that all atheists or rationalists are pigs, but I certainly was), and took great delight in getting in loud, obnoxious arguments with believers and faith based schools of thought. I sympathise.

But vive la change. For me, anyway. I am Phoenix. And Joe Keternal. Heh.
 
 
Chiropteran
14:45 / 25.10.05
My comments about the "rationalist cult" shouldn't be taken too seriously...

Perhaps not, and I agree that your point about "conceptual framing" is definitely relevant to the discussion. The only thing I took exception to was your dismissive assertion that Jub was "joking" (and, by implication, trolling the Temple).

Further re: "conceptual framing," I recommend Ramsey Dukes' book SSOTBME as good reading both for "Sciencey types" hoping to understand what the magickers are on about, and "Magickey types" hoping to better articulate their "defense" of magic, or the distinction between magic and science (specifically as "ways of thinking" in Dukes' formulation). It's not a perfect model, or a perfect book, but it does directly tackle some of the difficulties in communicating between camps that we're seeing here.
 
 
Isadore
15:16 / 25.10.05
Good question. But I'd suppose it's a matter of perspective isn't it? I would tend towards seeing it as a purely psychological affect rather than one that had been brought about by mystical means. But tomato/tomato, you might consider it to be magic.

You will see it however you want to see it.

In many respects, I've found that the study of magic is learning to break the preconceived notions we enshell ourselves within, and instead truly experiencing the world in all its implicit possibility, without trying to impose our own indulgences thereupon.
 
 
sine
15:17 / 25.10.05
Jub, my post wasn't meant as an attempt to rigorously show the processes by which I've reasoned myself into magick, it was a suggestion on how you might go about finding an answer yourself. I merely meant that if you want to approach this subject in the Baconian spirit, that is, via the scientific method, it is possible to do so without a pre-existing affirmative bias. I did, and observed surprising results, and changed my beliefs accordingly.

It is interesting that you would dismiss me with the word "specious", if only because I frequently use an Ethel Albert quote about "the spurious inferences from obsolescent notions of causality" when I'm discussing this stuff, and I had been thinking you may have an acausality hangup.

Look into Albert, and when you're done, look into Alain Aspect's physics work from the early Nineties, and you'll quickly learn that acausality, hard as it might be to mentally grapple, is a necessary feature of any scientifically consistent worldview. It plays havok with conventional thinking, but it isn't going away, so we may as well get cozy. In any event, as almost everyone here has said, if you really want to know just what the hell we're doing and why, try it (it'll make you feel like you're flying).
 
 
Unconditional Love
15:32 / 25.10.05
Yoy become the labels you identify with, and the persona you hang from those labels, the more people identify with your labels,names, word etc, the more real it will all seem to you. The less people identify the harder it becomes to maintain such an identity. its really all very simple. The more time and effort you apply to an area the more you become like that area.

The more complex explanations are to draw people into certain areas so there identity is not so much in transition, but fixed by the various explanations, beliefs, philosophies they are choosing to associate with.

The greater the body of knowledge the more you have to identify with and play with, its all alot of conceptual lego really.

Practise being a scientist and you will identify as one, practice being a magician and you will identify as one, practice makes persona. But perhaps your not any body of knowledge, words, identification at all, who can say really, really.
 
 
gale
16:15 / 25.10.05
Or as a certain nutty "ontological terrorist" writer guy once said, "What the thinker thinks, the prover proves."
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
21:09 / 25.10.05
Could any of the scientific-rational-deterministic aherents reading this thread who know their math please explain the square root of minus one to me without sounding like a magician? Just the facts, empirical and rational.

Also, quantum theory, loosely, particularly the composition of the constituents of the nucleus of atoms...

And while we're at it, could somebody, an adult, please tell me what electricity is? I know I can use it and all that, and I've seen it, and heard it, and felt it, but what is it and how does it work?

Not being facetious, and maybe these are other threads more suited to Laboratory, but I'd like a brief precis here if possible, just to see if there is so much difference in the science/magic dichotomy...
 
 
sine
00:05 / 26.10.05
What dichotomy?
 
 
Logos
00:47 / 26.10.05
Could any of the scientific-rational-deterministic aherents reading this thread who know their math please explain the square root of minus one to me without sounding like a magician? Just the facts, empirical and rational.

For a good discussion of imaginary numbers, see this Wikipedia entry, and the related one on complex numbers.

What ought to really bake your noodle in terms of this thread is the following quote:

Are imaginary numbers "real"?

Despite their name, imaginary numbers are considered just as "real" as real numbers. (See the definition of complex numbers on how they can be constructed using set theory.) One way to understand this is by realizing that numbers themselves are abstractions, and the abstractions can be valid even when they are not recognized in a given context. For example, fractions such as \frac{3}{4} and \frac{5}{7} are meaningless to a person counting stones, but essential to a person comparing the sizes of different collections of stones. Similarly, negative numbers such as − 3 and − 5 are meaningless when keeping score in a football game, but essential when keeping track of monetary debts and credits.

Imaginary numbers follow the same pattern. For most human tasks, real numbers (or even rational numbers) offer an adequate description of data, and imaginary numbers have no meaning; however, in many areas of science and mathematics, imaginary numbers (and complex numbers in general) are essential for describing reality. Imaginary numbers have essential concrete applications in a variety of sciences and related areas such as signal processing, control theory, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, and cartography.

For example, in electrical engineering, when analyzing AC circuitry, the values for the electrical voltage (and current) are expressed as imaginary or complex numbers known as phasors. These are real voltages that can cause damage/harm to either humans or equipment even if their values contain no "real part".
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
07:44 / 26.10.05
QED.

Replace 'imaginary numbers' with 'spirits' or 'godforms' and the difference is not so great after all, is it?

Are spirits "real"?

Despite their name, spirits are considered just as "real" as real entities. (See the definition of psychic phenomena on how they can be constructed using a human nervous system.) One way to understand this is by realizing that entities or manifestations themselves are abstractions, and the abstractions can be valid even when they are not recognized in a given context. For example, spirits such as Tzadqiel and Michael are meaningless to a person doing their shopping, but essential to a person healing their mental and physical bodies in a shamanic ceremony....

Not perfect, but you get the idea...
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
07:54 / 26.10.05
This is a good link out of that Wikipedia entry which further serves to reinforce the notion of context when discussing any and all abstractions...You have to know what you want from your question before the answers can make any kind of sense...Douglas Adams, Rest In Peace.

What was the question again?
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
08:00 / 26.10.05
Oh, and more reading material for those interested in the 'Modern Science finally catches up with Ancient Wisdom' aspects of this thread (both a bit old now, but still worthwhile) :

Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics

and

Amaury de Riencourt, The Eye of Shiva

Recommended.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
12:03 / 26.10.05
Could any of the scientific-rational-deterministic aherents reading this thread who know their math please explain the square root of minus one to me without sounding like a magician? Just the facts, empirical and rational.

It's obscene to use that as an explanation for magic to someone who doesn't believe in it. High level maths of this sort is a language, if you are taught it you understand it and it's quite possible for anyone to be taught, it just takes longer for some people. I got a C at GCSE and I'm still aware that if I began now I'd understand it in 50 years. The same is not true of magic because it rests on faith and isn't systematised in the same way. Your comparison is false and frankly complete nonsense. There is no proof, there is no language, it is not interpretable (transferable) in the same way.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
12:33 / 26.10.05
'Obscene' huh? Ok.

It wasn't intended as an 'explanation for magic to someone who dosn't believe in it', it was an attempt to point out that science is not free of its own phantoms, spirits and godforms...the square root of minus one being just such a thing as far as I am able to ascertain, and no one has responded yet to demonstrate otherwise (though they perhaps might, given time. I'd love to undertstand it as something more tangible than 'the sound of one hand clapping', but to my ears and mind-so-far that's just what it seems to be...)

To say 'if you are taught it you understand it' is simply not the case at all anymore, I suspect. As Richard Feynman was so quick to point out "Nobody understands quantum mechanics. Don't waste your time trying to 'get it' - you can't. But it works".

Here is a quote about Richard Feynman:

"There are two kinds of geniuses: the 'ordinary' and the 'magicians'. An ordinary genius is a fellow whom you and I would be just as good as, if we were only many times better. There is no mystery as to how his mind works. Once we understand what they've done, we feel certain that we, too, could have done it. It is different with the magicians. Even after we understand what they have done it is completely dark. Richard Feynman is a magician of the highest calibre." - Mark Kac

And some more Feynman quotes:

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. "

"I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong."

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."

"You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something."

And lastly, and most beautifully :

"...far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?"

I'm not so sure that magic does rely on faith. Religion relies on faith. I think it depends on what your view of the defintion of 'magic' is. And, for that matter, what your definition of 'faith' is.

'Obscene'?
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
12:43 / 26.10.05
More of the same guff:

'Protons and neutrons are made of two types of quark. These quarks are said to have different flavours: up and down. These up and down quarks are the only quarks that are found in normal matter and they are known as first generation quarks.

A proton is made from two up quarks and a down quark. A neutron is made from two down quarks and an up quark. Table 1 shows the properties of these quarks and how they combine to give the charges of protons and neutrons.

Picturing properties
We can never see these tiny particles because they are smaller than the wavelength of visible light but we can look into their properties. For example, we can work out their charge and measure their mass. Charge and mass are familiar properties because we can also measure the charge and mass of everyday objects.

However, sub-atomic particles have other properties that do not appear in everyday objects. One of these is the flavour of a quark. This is nothing like the flavour of something we eat (like ice cream) but it is a word that means something particular to physicists, who know when they use it exactly what they are talking about. (There are some much crazier names that you will come across, such as strangeness and charm...)

From an educational piece randomly culled of the webnet.

This bit I particularly like :
"... a word that means something particular to physicists, who know when they use it exactly what they are talking about."

My arse do they. These little teaching ploys are known, henceforth, as Lies to Children, and are important when educating young minds, only so that later they can be torn down once the foundation is solid enough to face the uncertain truth...(Gravity as a force is another example of one of the many Lies to Children that is taught in school, before reaching General and Special Relativity, if one goes that far with physics.)
 
 
Quantum
12:53 / 26.10.05
Drawing Evil Scientist further into the Temple of Doom...

What if;
a) magic affected only the human mind (magic is psychology)

b) the human mind affected the world directly (the observer principle) and

c) conscious experience had ontological primacy over physical objects (we only experience phenomena)?


I'm popping over to the Headshop to start a thread on the philosophical basis of a magical paradigm, excusez moi.
 
 
Scrambled Password Bogus Email
13:32 / 26.10.05
Out of interest, has Jub benefitted any from this thread? Got what he was looking for? Gained anything at all?

Juuu-uuub!
 
 
Jub
14:29 / 26.10.05
Money $hot . Just got back to my computer today after a four day absence - but I've been following it - have printed off some gubbins to read on the tube home and will try and get back to you tomorrow with some more in depth comments.

For now though - yes, I'm finding it helpful - certainly the dialogue is delving into niggles I've had but expresses them much more eloquently - your exchanges with Evil Scientist in particular have been useful.

Am hesitant to explain more since I don’t want to go off half cocked. Hope this suffices for now.
 
  

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