Conversations had, on a sunny day

[wolven7]

Nice day, today, of showing people things. Talking about Satan, a lot, today. People trying to making that connection between the Christian Church, and all the religions from which they stole their traditions and festivals. People talking about this shit like it was New.

Snake River Conspiracy - [Vulcan]--- This is fucking College people. There are much bigger fish to fry than "Christianity is Wrong! Let's all be 'Pagan,' whatever That means." And shit, yeah, whatever: No tradition develops in a vaccuum. Every tradition, Ever, is based upon those that came before it, and developed at least Partially in reaction to those around it. There are no "Pure" religious traditions. Period. Perhaps sun worshiping, but even that... not so much. It's like this: When the first people began to realise that there were other things in the world, that they needed to Live, and that they did not arise of nothingness, of their own power (so it seemed), they had to ascribe a protective element to many of the "More Powerful" things, in the world. Problem with that, was that they wanted power, too.

OhGr - [SunBurn]--- We place things into positions of power, and then seek to overthrow them. We needed challenges, i guess... Well, first of all, there are better challenges, out there, now. Grow the fuck up. But i digress. My point in this was that the things out of which they made their gods, the things to which they devoted power and sacraafice, and belief? Well they got results. They were always there, after we invented them as always having been there. And every single one of them did what they did, in the pasty, once we invested power in that being True. Gravity was always there, waiting for us to find it. It was one of the many permutations of probability, and, once we found it, and named it that, it could never have been otherwise.

That's how i view determinism and free will, to bring it around to philosophical terms. (Portishead& Moloko - [Fun For Me]). Until you Make a choice, all possibilities are open. After you've made it, it is made, and done. To change, regret, alter that, is to change who you are, and what life is. That's not your choice to make. Not for Everyone. Because that's who it would affect: Everyone. You change the past, you change everything. Not your Choice. That's insanely fucking irresponsible, to think that it Is your choice. It's childish. Regret is fucking childish.

Change into the future, affect what comes Next, and take what has gone before as a lesson and a point from which To change. (Faith & The Muse - [Sredni Vashtar]). It's not like variations on the theme won't happen again.

My point, here, is that change and choice and permutation happen in every field, every stage of life. Religion, science, day to day choices, all have this cycle, and the key seems to be in acknowleding that. And if you have a problem with the Way of Things, then Change them, as they Will be. Don't Bitch about what they Have Been. You dig?

I'm out. Later.

Comments

[paosparti.livejournal.com]

I put to you this: If it was your choise to begin with that set in motion the things that have come then how could it be irrisponsible of you to wish that you changed everything since that point. it was your choice int he begining, the universe offered you that. Regret is just the answer to a choice ill made.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

It's like God: Though you set things in motion, by Doing that, you've created many Other things, in life: Other People, who have their choices to make, as well. The best you can do is responsibly make your choices, in the future, and hope that they do the same, in regards to you.

Because they created you Too.

I don't think it matters What you choose, so much as That and How you choose.

[paosparti.livejournal.com]

I understand that the choice has affected and changed others, but what I was saying is that if the universe gave you the choice in the first palce then the affect it had on yourself and others is a result of something you did and therefor you have the right to regret it.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

I guess, but i always see regret as Wishing to change the past. And, while that may be the right of the Wisher, i think that the Actual Changing of the past Isn't their right... So what good is regret?

I can see using it as a learning tool, as well... But i'd still say it's better to eventually let it go..

[paosparti.livejournal.com]

I think if the universe gave them the right in the first place, they should not feel guilt over wanting to or if for some strange reason they actually got the chance to change the past. I mean they made it what it was, they were the starting pointn from which all others made their new choice so why would it be wrong of them to change that starting point?

[wolven.livejournal.com]

After it's made, it's not just them. It's everyone. Everyone and everything creates itself and everything else, so to unilaterally do that would be to deny everything else its say in the matter.

[paosparti.livejournal.com]

no it's just changing that one desicion and giving them a new starting point to make their decision from.

[paosparti.livejournal.com]

sort of like:

if my decision is A and that gives them choices of B or C. then if I go back and change my decision from A to b then they still have the same exact say in the matter it's just now changed to the choice between C or D, because orrigionally they did not have the right to make the starting point decision so they don't get to pick what thier choice is between they just get to decied what they choose.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

My point is that all options should be (and are) open to everyone, all the time. Removing or changing those options, by changing the past is cheating people out of their choices. My choices should be Infinite, in scope and means, and your changing and removing mine is as unjust as my changing and removing yours.

It's as if you were given a group of toys, and told told to pick the one you liked best, and other children would get to pick at the same time. Eventually a consensus is reached, maybe there is some crying, but choices are made. To take back the choice made, just because, later, you don't like your toy as much, is unjust, and cuel to the person who did have the one you decided to like better.

At the same time, if infinity Is infinity, then, your choices don't affect anyone else, at all. Multiversal theory states that, with each choice, we branch off infinite universes. If that's the case, then the key is to find the one with a you that wishes you were where you are, and vice versa. That way the past doesn't change. You do.

Which is the point i'm trying to make, really. Why change the past, ruining and removing from others, when changing the Self is more productive... More conducive to evolution.

Changing the Start circumvents Everyone else's First Choice

[momentai.livejournal.com]

I agree with you, Paosparti, in that regret is okay. To me, regret is simply reviewing your descion and wondering if you could have done it better. Of course it could be different, but most people want to know if another choice would have been Better. I don't think that is childish. However, if you continuously wonder about what may have been, then that is detrimental to yourself. You are now shutting yourself from new ideas and changes. You are stuck in the past, looking at what cannot be changed. It cannot be changed b/c it has already happened. The moment, the essence has moved on. You should, too. We have to keep walking with what we learned and apply the lessons and our regret to the next situation.

We have to go on to the next choice b/c the old choice is dead. You cannot alter it. Even if yu could, you should not, b/c as Wolven says, it is irresponsible. You would be effecting many other aspects of Life.

If you create, if you set in motion ideas, you allow others the freedom and power you just exercised. Now that you have decided to act, others can act as well. They can examine the facts, the information before them, and what is inside them, and act on it. They will make descions that open up new avenues of adventure, discussion, growth, whatever. Now, if you look back and regret and say

"Well, maybe I should have done that then and said this when..."

and then you actually have the ability to do so, that's wrong. You already had a chance to create and evoke changes. You opened a door for someone else and now they need their time with the knowledge to change and open another door. If you come back into the house and close that door and tell them that you have a better idea, you have stolen their chance at living, thinking, growing, changing. You are forcing them to remain stagnant b/c you feel the need to take another shot. It is not about having the same number of choices. It is matter of you deciding which choices they can have and cannot have when you had no such limitations.

You are imposing your will on another person when no one did this to you. You are abusing the system that you just created. On the large scale that Wolven was alluding to, that's terrible. To utterly and arbitraily deny all future choices just b/c you need a bit more time to fiddle with the machine is a gross misuse of power. Let the avenues you opend and revealed be explored by those that you opend them for. Do not dictate what they can and cannot choose to do.

That's my take on what he was saying, at least.

Re: Changing the Start circumvents Everyone else's First Choice

[wolven.livejournal.com]

And a fairly accurate take, at that.

I'll agree that regret, for a while, is fine, insofar as it doesn't block you from making future choices, and living your life. Unfortunately, all the regret i've seen tends to do exactly that :\

Re: Changing the Start circumvents Everyone else's First Choice

[paosparti.livejournal.com]

I think your both missing the point of what I was saying. It is denying no one anything to change something. it is simply giving them a new present to choose from. your suggesting that my changing the original options is like taking thier choice away, but it has not done that in if I had originally made the choice I was changing things too then they would never have had the choices they had.

But If I'm not explaining it well enough then so be it as it's all irelivent in that changing the past is as yet an impossibility.

Re: Changing the Start circumvents Everyone else's First Choice

[wolven.livejournal.com]

1) Nothing is impossible.

2) Yes, but You would know. Therefore the information of the removal and change would still exist, in the universe... Would possibly (probably) resonate out, and affect your workings in the world.

Maybe i simply take individual responsibility a little more... personally than most.

You'd still know...

Re: Changing the Start circumvents Everyone else's First Choice

[momentai.livejournal.com]

It's a powerful drug, hindsight, and not everyone wants to give it up or even understands they are alowed to give it up and move on. More so, just b/c they move that they don't have to leave the memory. I see the people who want to live in the memory, whether painful or joyous, as opposed to letting it remain filed away like a picture.

I am slowly putting everything away myself. Just wish it was easier...or at least more fun.

Re: Changing the Start circumvents Everyone else's First Choice

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Yeah.. But there are fun Parts... Hmm. Yeah, i'm done for the night.

Hindsight hurts, sometimes, but not always...

[wolven.livejournal.com]

See other response.

[unknownbinaries.livejournal.com]

Regret...is the Teaching, the pain of the fire that teaches the child to respect the stove's heat. You get burned, you learn to better use and control the thing. Being Life. Existence. Or, you continue to be hurt.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

I don't think of that as regret.. and maybe regret is a personal thing, then, to be defined by the individual... but i think Regret would be saying "I wish i never stuck my hand in that fire..." when, if you hadn't you wouldn't have that lesson, then, and would have had it, later... And possibly Worse.

Choice and change are complicated, and i'm arguing on so many fronts, right now. My head hurts, and no one is appreciating anyone else...

Fuck it. I'm tipping the chessboard over. Everyone's right and Everyone's wrong. Game over, go home... No, not directed at you, just that This is where i hit the realisation.

[tribeofone.livejournal.com]

No thank you, the pagan community has enough issues without all of the confused wantabes. However, if you insist, you should go play with the militant Budhists they are still around somewhere, and they are just as crazed as the christain/muslim/jewish extremists. That way you can still calm to be pagan to piss off your parents.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Feh. People suck.

[stress-rash.livejournal.com]

you're arguing as if the "original" chooser were actually the beginning of choice for everyone affected. Fallacy.

Whatever choices a person has before them can be the result of choices others have made HOWEVER that is not exclusive, note the use of plural.

ex: I choose A over B or C this leaves choices B, C, D XYZ waaatevah to person who come "after"

The choices "left" to the person after me are never just the leftovers of MY choices, they will always encompass more than that. Therefore, if I change my mind, wish to rechoose whaatevah, the person who comes "after" me is not necessarily affected by my change.
The supporting notion for this is your statement of "I believe all choices should be available at all times" - if that were so then regardless of affect and effect each person who has choices to make comes from their own personal place to do so and thus have "infinite" choices as much as the person who came before them.
Or do you actually believe there is some kind of heirarchal ladder for choices presented? That would infer that whatever choices you have (or anyone else) is only the dregs of thousands of years of choices made previous to your existance. If you believe in infinite possibilities for a person at every moment, then how can you believe that infinity ends the second someone makes a choice? How can you believe that infinity can be ended for someone else? Either everyone has infinity available to them or there is a heirarchy of choice, you can't have both unless you posit an "original chooser" in which case forget it for us all because humanity has been around a while yet.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

No, i'm not saying that there is a single "Original" chooser, at all. Everyone chooses at once, but the primary choices they make still affect.

And to change that would still ripple outward.

[stress-rash.livejournal.com]

exactly my point: it ripples, it doesn't negate. Every choice you make, is just that, a choice. If you change your mind later, that is ANOTHER choice. You can call it reversal, negation or whatever you want, by any other name... it is just another choice, much like the first. Stop looking at it like choices are concrete binary things and remember they are actually fluid planes of viewpoint. Recall also that at any time you are speaking in temporal framework, NOTHING is ever the same a heartbeat later, one could say every moment creates everything anew. If that is so, then changing your mind and attempting to erase or negate a choice already made is a fallacious idea: you are attempting to make a NEW choice - connection to previous choices notwithstanding.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

I was speaking in terms of going Back and Changing things. Not changing in the Future. I'm completely For evolution. I'm against devolution, as it tends to lead to stagnation, and continual loops of people trying to "fix" the past, instead of Building the Future.