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wolven7This is a small part of a long conversation I've been having with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
necrophonic. I'm posting it, here, with a follow-up question:
[Understanding Magic] starts with the idea that there is, as I've said a few times, more than a single way to approach the reality in which we exist. I think that this is perhaps the most fundamental disagreement in any of our discussions.
The criteria you are using to make your judgments about these things are, in the end, exclusionary to their existence. A model of the universe in which something like emotional state can affect something like local temporal experience is simply precluded At The Outset, by the very tools you're using to investigate their potential existence.
It makes it very, very difficult to present criteria by which someone else may investigate something.
I have seen, and have worked with reproducable conjunctions of timing and belief, to produce results, changes in perception and understanding, in effect in reality. The problem, here, comes when you say, "Now do it for science." It's not necessarily For science, and demanding that the system and its operations conform to another system and its operations is... counterproductive, at the least.
Now, I am not saying that science can never understand the operations of magic, but I AM saying that, before it will, it will have to recognise other inputs and methods as valid.
To put it another way, the experiential quality is one of the key components to understanding magic. Not THE key, and, again, it's not a "you can only know it if you experience it" kind of thing, but it helps.
Think about the way in which so much reason begs the question of itself, think of the the fact that the selfsame criticism is leveled against other things like magic. Now, put yourself within a system of magic. Accept the components of it, the necessary criteria, inside of it. Use the arguments and bits, within it.
My point is this (and this is what I tried to say in my thesis): Science and magic are two different ways of approaching the reality in which we live, to try to make sense of the Whateverthefuck, around us. From within a system of magic, science does something else, not necessarily directly connected to magic. From within science, magic is wrong, and needs to conform to science. Science, reason, logic, mathematics (to a lesser extent) has a tendency to let things like literature, linguistics, and each other slide, as long as they stick to their areas, and don't try to look too much like science.
But when something comes along that tries to deal with "What Things Are And How They Work And What We Can Do With Them," the rules of the systems lock down and say "No! Those have to do what we do, how we do it! Nothing else works!" And it's not just that they're mutually exclusive, it's that they're mutually exclusive, only from within one system or the other.
This is not as coherent as I want it to be.
I think that, unless and until you can completely change the criteria by which you are willing to scrutinize a thing-- be it a supposed system or the claims thereof-- there will be certain things which will simply not make as much sense to you. Will not Work, in your worldview, and your understanding of what is Right, and True. You shouldn't be forced to do that, to change and believe in something that doesn't align with the way of the world that makes sense to you, but it will cause frissons. This is true of everyone, everywhere.
But even from within the system, it may not hold, and may make predictions and judgments which aren't even internally consistent. I think there are quite a few systems that fail, in this regard. But I DO NOT think that those judgments can be made, from a perspective which is initially external and even antagonistic to the system under investigation.
Approach it on its own terms, completely, and then move from there.
I hope this made Any Sense At All. I may have lost the thread, somewhere, in there.
------------------------
Magicians, in the audience, does this make sense to you?
Non-Magicians?
People on the fence?
Bueller?
People who don't care may continue not caring.
For now.
necrophonic. I'm posting it, here, with a follow-up question:[Understanding Magic] starts with the idea that there is, as I've said a few times, more than a single way to approach the reality in which we exist. I think that this is perhaps the most fundamental disagreement in any of our discussions.
The criteria you are using to make your judgments about these things are, in the end, exclusionary to their existence. A model of the universe in which something like emotional state can affect something like local temporal experience is simply precluded At The Outset, by the very tools you're using to investigate their potential existence.
It makes it very, very difficult to present criteria by which someone else may investigate something.
I have seen, and have worked with reproducable conjunctions of timing and belief, to produce results, changes in perception and understanding, in effect in reality. The problem, here, comes when you say, "Now do it for science." It's not necessarily For science, and demanding that the system and its operations conform to another system and its operations is... counterproductive, at the least.
Now, I am not saying that science can never understand the operations of magic, but I AM saying that, before it will, it will have to recognise other inputs and methods as valid.
To put it another way, the experiential quality is one of the key components to understanding magic. Not THE key, and, again, it's not a "you can only know it if you experience it" kind of thing, but it helps.
Think about the way in which so much reason begs the question of itself, think of the the fact that the selfsame criticism is leveled against other things like magic. Now, put yourself within a system of magic. Accept the components of it, the necessary criteria, inside of it. Use the arguments and bits, within it.
My point is this (and this is what I tried to say in my thesis): Science and magic are two different ways of approaching the reality in which we live, to try to make sense of the Whateverthefuck, around us. From within a system of magic, science does something else, not necessarily directly connected to magic. From within science, magic is wrong, and needs to conform to science. Science, reason, logic, mathematics (to a lesser extent) has a tendency to let things like literature, linguistics, and each other slide, as long as they stick to their areas, and don't try to look too much like science.
But when something comes along that tries to deal with "What Things Are And How They Work And What We Can Do With Them," the rules of the systems lock down and say "No! Those have to do what we do, how we do it! Nothing else works!" And it's not just that they're mutually exclusive, it's that they're mutually exclusive, only from within one system or the other.
This is not as coherent as I want it to be.
I think that, unless and until you can completely change the criteria by which you are willing to scrutinize a thing-- be it a supposed system or the claims thereof-- there will be certain things which will simply not make as much sense to you. Will not Work, in your worldview, and your understanding of what is Right, and True. You shouldn't be forced to do that, to change and believe in something that doesn't align with the way of the world that makes sense to you, but it will cause frissons. This is true of everyone, everywhere.
But even from within the system, it may not hold, and may make predictions and judgments which aren't even internally consistent. I think there are quite a few systems that fail, in this regard. But I DO NOT think that those judgments can be made, from a perspective which is initially external and even antagonistic to the system under investigation.
Approach it on its own terms, completely, and then move from there.
I hope this made Any Sense At All. I may have lost the thread, somewhere, in there.
------------------------
Magicians, in the audience, does this make sense to you?
Non-Magicians?
People on the fence?
Bueller?
People who don't care may continue not caring.
For now.
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no subject
Date: 2008-12-15 04:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-15 06:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-15 05:26 am (UTC)Much like I don't really grok theirs. If I'm next to someone, and we're sharing an experience, and trading notes through our personal filters that's one thing. But sitting about and reading these kinds of things in books or computer screens is just not my realm.
I don't understand who your audience is here. Either one has had such experiences, and is therefore already the choir, or they haven't, and you just sound insane. You can't explain experiences to people, not ones that ultimately cause paradigm shifts. That's not to say that ideas are useless (I am, after all, a motherfu*king INTP), but I don't understand why you're trying to talk about these things. I'm fairly certain you've told me before, but it never makes sense to me, so it never really sticks...
no subject
Date: 2008-12-15 06:04 am (UTC)For you, it is wholly experiential. For someone else, they may have to first do some really strange mental contortions to even allow that this kind of experience can be had and "Mean" anything. I think of these writings as very small bends in those contortions.