So here's a thing: Mapping the Collective Unconscious?

[wolven7]

'Hey folks,

'Juts [sic] got this alert from futurist John Petersen at the Arlington Institute think tank. Their “Whether Map” project has been attempting to map global dream space for their clients as an early warning system for impending events, looks like they’re witnessing something congealing out there...

'[REDACTED]

'TAI Alert 15 - Impending Event Alert
'“Here at the Arlington Institute, we have worked with real precognizant dreamers who have had experience with intelligence services... in the last two days I have received four independent, explicit indications from far removed friends suggesting that something very substantial and disruptive is going to happen to the U.S. within the next 60 days or so. If these warnings manifest themselves in an event of the significance of something like 9/11 then people...”
'http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/tai-alert-15-impending-event-alert

'The WHETHER MAP
'“The Arlington Institute's project "WHETHER MAP" is predicated on the idea that before catastrophic, world changing events people have intuitional dreams that anticipate those events...”
'http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/tai/whether-map'

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Many other concerns, aside, let's keep in mind the self-fulling prophecy, and the fallacy of false cause, which is to say that if we go looking for these kinds of disasters, expecting them, "foreseeing" them, and they happen: Look! I Proved It!

Which is NOT to say that such things as prophetic dreams are unreal, or all faulty attribution cases, only that we have to be Very careful how we go about testing for them.

And that we should probably be making sure that, in focusing attention and thought on them, we don't increase their probability.

Don't think about pink elephants, as it were.

Comments

[unknownbinaries.livejournal.com]

I think I'm more interested in the mapping global dreamspace part of that.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Yeah, me and you both.

[sadistic-apollo.livejournal.com]

one: stay puft marshmellow man
two: you don't need any prognosticator to see that, just stick look around, it's been a collective year of shit. and the shitters are just gettin to the point of really stirrin the pot.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[necrophonic.livejournal.com]

I have a question, but honestly, every time I ask it in my head I think it sounds kind of snarky and I don't even want to ask. I feel like I'm nitpicking or something.

The concept of collective unconsciousness, and prophetic dreams-- these two concepts, seem to me to be in a more mythological, theological, magical, or otherwise non-science realm.

Creating a testable model for them, obviously, is science.

Your thesis states that magic and science seek to explain different things, not explain the same things differently.

I'm over-simplifying these concepts and their relationships, less to mirror my actual understanding of them, or your thesis, and I certainly don't think you have these concepts laid out so rudimentarily (is that a word?) in your own mind.

Obviously, my ultimate question is I'd like further explanation of the relationship between the magical properties of such things as prophetic dreams or collective unconsciousness, and the scientific testability of these things, as well as the scientific implications (if any) in the physical/atomic/neurological sense if we were to be able to test with any certainty that such things do in fact occur.

I know that's a big question, and I know it's something that you most likely aren't really enthusiastic in explaining to someone that sits so far on the other side of the philosophical spectrum, much as I wouldn't want to explain the non-existence of a human soul to a Buddhist monk... There's too much prep-work in constructing an underlying support system for the topic-specific arguments, in order to acheive any sort of rationale.

So to make things easier on you, just explain it as though everything you say is just a given. By now, you know I can fill in "approximately" and "theoretically" to every "this is _______ how it _____ works".

I'd like to understand all of this better, but I honestly am having some trouble at this point understanding your concept of magic overall (what it does, what it is, how it works, why it works, what effects you can expect out of it, and where it fits into reality as a whole)

I'm rambling. I just really don't want to be a nitpicker on this, I want to be constructive and learn if I can.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

You reminded me to upload something. Thank you.

As simply as possible (probably too simple to be useful), Collective unconscious works as follows: There is a shared store of conscious knowledge, by which we build and operate the world in which we live, day to day. This is built out of the things that we know and share, and about which we talk.

These ideas enter into the unconscious minds and integrated actions (things we don't even think about doing, though/because we do them, constantly) of the rest of the world, to varying degrees. Ideas build and gain strength, change and mutate, and they expand, into the world.

The collective unconscious is used to explain things like several people having the same idea, or making the same theoretical breakthrough, at the same time, continents apart from each other, with no conscious interaction, after having worked from completely different angles. It is, at it's most basic, the complete store of everything we don't consciously think about, but which affects us, and influences the actions and thoughts of everyone in the world.

See also "Zeitgeist," I guess...

As for prophetic dreams, they tend to fall under the combination of that, and backwards causation on a mental level.

All really weird, but potentially interesting.

[raidingparty.livejournal.com]

This ends up lending itself to the "don't covet", as well as any other number of sins wherein thinking is (almost?) as bad as doing.

The natural response, of course, is to criminalize thought.

I know I keep saying it, but still... think rain.