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Chaos Magic

No, the word is just fine.


So it's just a general all-purpose irrationality?


No.

I don't use the word belief, it is surrounded with connotations. So you will have to find another word.

Not irrationality, more a general gibberish.

Do you have another definition of mind of God?
 
I don't 'believe' in a God, belief is a highly over rated word (I'm sure I don't need to explain this to you guys).

I have a faith (I am aware of scientific explanations of faith), however I don't often define what I have a faith in. Such a definition may not be easy in this thread, or understood.

"Mind of God", is a phrase refering to an assumed (for the sake of argument) source of principles/laws of nature, such as gravity for example and evolution.

So you use the phrase 'mind of god' even though you don't believe in god? Then you say that this god you don't believe in is the source of all natural laws.

Guess it doesn't matter to you what you believe as long as you believe something.
 
I don't use the word belief, it is surrounded with connotations. So you will have to find another word.

Not irrationality, more a general gibberish.

Do you have another definition of mind of God?

It's your phrase so why should anyone else have to define it for you?

Using words without knowing their meaning is gibberish.
 
It's your phrase so why should anyone else have to define it for you?

Using words without knowing their meaning is gibberish.

Perhaps we should agree on a definition/meaning of 'belief'.

Can someone be a believer without the use of the word belief?

To me the word suggests a kind of blindness or a condition of a closed mind in regard of that which is believed.

Any definitions of belief please?
 
Perhaps we should agree on a definition/meaning of 'belief'.

Can someone be a believer without the use of the word belief?

To me the word suggests a kind of blindness or a condition of a closed mind in regard of that which is believed.

Any definitions of belief please?

Buy a good dictionary. We seem to have strayed away from chaos magic,can we get back on topic. I want a chaos magician to draw a sigil and cast a spell on me,any takers?
 
So we now have not only Argent but Pixy claiming that we have detected everything on that list…either with or without my qualification, it is not really clear. An extraordinary claim if ever there were one. And then I am accused of being staggeringly ignorant for challenging the claim. And then, to substantiate the claim, we have:

“google it”

Yep. Because the evidence is so staggeringly obvious and easy-to-find that it's rather mind-boggling that you haven't seen it. And, as I have said, if you don't care enough to spend ten seconds searching Google, then I don't care enough to find it for you.
 
If my memory is presumed to be so faulty and inadmissible that I'm not a reliable witness to my own damn experiences why the repeated demands that I recall more details?

Who has said that? Certainly not me. I don't particularly care how many details you think you can remember. It doesn't make your memory any more reliable. You can't verify the details any more than you can verify the rest.

Absolutely incredible... In the same breath you deny the very presumption I spoke of while explicitly affirming it. Its fascinating how your personal integrity and logical self-consistency go out the airlock when a cherished belief of yours is on the line. Yea, I know, I know..."What 'cherished beliefs'?" :rolleyes:

[ETA: Answer this 'yes' or 'no': Do you consider me a reliable witness to my own experiences?]

Hell, why even the presumption that my recollection of the events in question must be faulty?

"Must"? Who said anything about "must"? Stop strawmanning.

Why would I need to straw-man? The position you're arguing from is flimsy enough to fall on its own, your cognitive dissonance notwithstanding. Just because you adamantly refuse to recognize this doesn't make it any less so.

No one said that you must be wrong. It's just that we - and you - have no way to know that you aren't.

Speak for yourself. In order to discount the validity of my recollections my memory would have to be so unreliable as to render me completely dysfunctional. The fact of the matter is that I directly know what I experience and how clear my memories of those experiences are, your presumptions notwithstanding.

And as we already know the memories are unreliable[/HILITE], your anecdote can't be used as evidence in and of itself. If you had some way to prove that your story is true, then it might constitute some form of evidence. But you don't, so all you have is an unsupported story which you can't even verify to yourself.

That makes for very convenient wiggle-room to sneak in special pleading. Whenever faced with reports of events suggestive of "the paranormal" memory is presumed so unreliable that even the firsthand observer hardly knows their ass from up. But when dealing with more "mundane" circumstances memory is considered reliable enough to give the benefit of the doubt. Very convenient.


The point in my previous post that you explicitly addressed and disputed. Don't play coy, Argent.

I'm not "playing coy". Your "point" was invalid. I was wondering if you were referring to another one, since that one was such an obvious straw man.

Lets check the record, shall we?

All knowledge is built on shifting sands, all understandings but waystation
In pursuit of knowlledge true, there is no final destination

Every answered question is a doorway to still more
Shedding light of revelation, transmuting answers of before

In retropsective view, staid conceptions fall to new
No matter how you try, the more you know the less you do

Behold! Confounding Law of The Catch
42... >:}
​

In more "grounded" terms...

You take far too much for granted in your conception of the world; in this, you're not the first and hardly the last. Like so many others before you, you've become so enamored and intoxicated by your vaunted understanding of the reality that you unwittingly mistake it for reality itself. You have become so fat and contented with the presumed sufficiency of your "knowledge" that you're blind to the manifold mysteries staring you right in the face.

This accusation only has merit if you can show that there is a mystery here which is beyond our understanding. You can't just give us an anecdote and say "explain that - oh, you can't? You must not understand reality", because, again, we don't know that the anecdote is even true. Not in the sense that we think you're lying, but in the sense that we have no way to verify that the anecdote is an accurate representation of what happened. Even if it is, we don't have enough data to come up with a solution.

But this doesn't mean that the anecdote constitutes proof of "manifold mysteries" beyond our understanding. It just means that we can't give an explanation for it without more information.

You need actual evidence that our worldview is incorrect before you can make this claim.

The post you decided to reply to was addressed to PixyMisa and was making a broader epistemological point on the fundamental limitations of knowledge and understanding. The point is that there really is no such thing as "sufficient" understanding of the world and presumptions of such are erroneous folly. The fact that you chose to dispute this demonstrates that you actually do hold to such a position and the argument does, in fact, personally apply to you. Quit falling back on the whole "straw-manning" defense; its not only silly and dishonest, its also getting pretty old.

Ostensibly, almost every poster has claimed that they dismiss studies/claims with positive reports on the basis of 'unreliable' methodology or some other presumably rational reason.

Yes. And that is the reason. If you wish to show that the methodology in the studies providing evidence for psi (which you still haven't presented) is not flawed, you are entirely free to do so.

All I aim to show is that you've a very powerful [and unrecognized] cognitive bias toward presuming that all such studies and reports are fundamentally unreliable.

Yes, our* reasons are presumably rational. They also are rational.

See what I mean?

[*There goes another one of those inclusive pronouns. It seems you're having a hard time pulling yourself out of that groupthink mentality, Argent :-/ ]

From where I'm sitting, it appears that you're willfully blind to your own biases and that of your cohorts.

From where I'm sitting, it looks like you're trying to play armchair psychologist with no supporting evidence.

Your behavior right now is all the evidence I need :)

I can honestly say I'm not biased against psi. I would love to find out that psi is real. How freaking awesome would that be?

But I'm also unable to lie to myself.

After observing your dissonant claims regarding the events in this on-the-record forum discussion, I find that statement highly dubious at best :(

I have never seen any concrete evidence for psi. Not a single iota. This isn't my bias speaking, even if I have one. It's simply fact. None of the studies presented to me, or the anecdotes told to me, have ever been valid as evidence, and only a few minutes' research is necessary to show that.

Of course, I don't pretend to think that I've seen every piece of "evidence" out there, so you are of course free to prove that there is valid evidence of psi, rather than simply insinuating that I'm ignoring it due to willful blindness. You haven't presented any evidence, so how can I dismiss it due to cognitive bias?

Let me ask you this: Do you feel that you subject counter claims and negative evidence to the same level of scrutiny that you do positive?


You spoke with such authority about the great strides they've been making in understanding consciousness. I assumed that you'd have some documented evidence of such understanding. Apparently you don't. Shame, that :(


You still seem to be missing my point.

I could definitely say the same for you.

We've made great leaps towards understanding consciousness. So far, there hasn't even been a single hint, let alone an actual piece of evidence, that consciousness arises from anything other than chemical interactions in the brain. That I myself am unable to answer these questions doesn't matter. Even if the leading experts in the field can't answer it, it doesn't even begin to prove that consciousness resides anywhere other than the brain, and there's no reason to think that we won't gain a more complete understanding of it in future.

And you haven't provided a single shred of evidence for us having a level of understanding concerning consciousness that would even allow us to answer questions as rudimentary as the ones I just presented to you. Ergo, my earlier statement that emphatic claims that consciousness must, in principle, be a phenomena confined to brains is an argument from ignorance still stands. Face it, Argent; your emperor has no clothes.

Our eyes don't "perceive" a damn thing.

If you want to be pointlessly pedantic in the hopes of "scoring points", go right ahead. I'll just wait here until you're done.

We were discussing the current paucity of scientific understanding regarding subjective experience and you submitted that our "knowledge" of how eyes perceive is evidence of such understanding. I don't see why my pointing out that this statement is fallacious should be considered "pedantic" unless, of course, you require more leeway in your flagrant hand-waving :covereyes

<snip insults and repetition>

Are you quite finished?

Its not my fault if you choose to take personal offence to posts I've not addressed to you. If you're going to go out of your way to personally identify with every other poster who shares your beliefs your experiences with me are going to be considerably more harrowing than necessary. As I told you before, I suggest that you drop the "we" and speak for yourself -- not as a representative of a cohort.
 
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Buy a good dictionary. We seem to have strayed away from chaos magic,can we get back on topic. I want a chaos magician to draw a sigil and cast a spell on me,any takers?

Sorry I don't subscribe to hocus pokus.

I know the dictionary definition of belief.

However for this kind of discussion I find it lacking. It presupposes the believer 'knows' something to be true. Or perhaps believes what he believes to be true.

When applied to the existence of God it becomes more problematic.
 
This is not meant to be snarky, but what is the success rate of your path?

It became pretty clear to me fairly early on that the vast majority of responders on this thread are not looking for an honest reasoned discussion. As per Hellbound's earlier ironic accusation, they're simply here to "score points" for their "side". The truth is not their primary concern -- if it even made the list at all.

My original intention was to draw out the foolish ghoulish gaslighting group-thinkers who are out to convert or burn any non-believers they come across, and maybe get a little amusement out of it in the process via cannibal trolling. In this sense I've been quite successful. If I managed to fish out some genuinely stimulating discussion in the process then all the better [I actually have gotten some thought provoking feedback, believe it or not :) ]. Either way though, I never maintained any illusions that I could somehow convince anyone of my accounts, regardless of whether or not I used honey or vinegar. Besides, if a person can only be persuaded by flattering their sensibilities, rather than reason, they really aren't worth the effort IMO.
 
Well, no. You don't use the word; you will need to find another word.


Not a huge improvement.


Define "God".

I can continue without 'belief', I am well used to it. However if you use it I may well shoot it down.

Gibberish may be rational while not understandable buy certain frames of reference.

You replied 'no' (post 1659) when I mentioned what I was refering to when using 'mind of God'.
Can you explain how you arrived at no.
 
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It became pretty clear to me fairly early on that the vast majority of responders on this thread are not looking for an honest reasoned discussion.

This became true once people realised they weren't going to get straight answers to simple questions out of you or Limbo. But if blaming everyone else for your shortcomings gets you through the night, you go for it.
 
It became pretty clear to me fairly early on that the vast majority of responders on this thread are not looking for an honest reasoned discussion. As per Hellbound's earlier ironic accusation, they're simply here to "score points" for their "side". The truth is not their primary concern -- if it even made the list at all.
Projection.

We asked for evidence.

We asked for reasoned argument.

It was not provided.

The ball remains in your court. Any time you want to pick it up, feel free.

My original intention was to draw out the foolish ghoulish gaslighting group-thinkers who are out to convert or burn any non-believers they come across, and maybe get a little amusement out of it in the process via cannibal trolling.
Ad hominem, appeal to motive.

In this sense I've been quite successful.
In the sense of spraying logical fallacies in all directions?

If I managed to fish out some genuinely stimulating discussion in the process then all the better [I actually have gotten some thought provoking feedback, believe it or not ].
Yes, you have. For all the good it has done.

Either way though, I never maintained any illusions that I could somehow convince anyone of my accounts, regardless of whether or not I used honey or vinegar.
Then why did you fly into a tantrum when your position was questioned?

Besides, if a person can only be persuaded by flattering their sensibilities, rather than reason, they really aren't worth the effort IMO.
Ad hominem, appeal to motive. You never tried reason.
 
Sorry I don't subscribe to hocus pokus.

I know the dictionary definition of belief.

However for this kind of discussion I find it lacking. It presupposes the believer 'knows' something to be true. Or perhaps believes what he believes to be true.

When applied to the existence of God it becomes more problematic.

Which god?
 
This became true once people realised they weren't going to get straight answers to simple questions out of you or Limbo. But if blaming everyone else for your shortcomings gets you through the night, you go for it.

Or any action. I'm still waiting for a spell to be cast on me. All the chaos magic websites say that is possible.
 
I can continue without 'belief', I am well used to it. However if you use it I may well shoot it down.

Gibberish may be rational while not understandable buy certain frames of reference.

You replied 'no' (post 1659) when I mentioned what I was refering to when using 'mind of God'.
Can you explain how you arrived at no.

That is close to gibberish,it almost makes sense.
 
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Absolutely incredible... In the same breath you deny the very presumption I spoke of while explicitly affirming it. Its fascinating how your personal integrity and logical self-consistency go out the airlock when a cherished belief of yours is on the line. Yea, I know, I know..."What 'cherished beliefs'?" :rolleyes:

[ETA: Answer this 'yes' or 'no': Do you consider me a reliable witness to my own experiences?]



Why would I need to straw-man? The position you're arguing from is flimsy enough to fall on its own, your cognitive dissonance notwithstanding. Just because you adamantly refuse to recognize this doesn't make it any less so.



Speak for yourself. In order to discount the validity of my recollections my memory would have to be so unreliable as to render me completely dysfunctional. The fact of the matter is that I directly know what I experience and how clear my memories of those experiences are, your presumptions notwithstanding.



That makes for very convenient wiggle-room to sneak in special pleading. Whenever faced with reports of events suggestive of "the paranormal" memory is presumed so unreliable that even the firsthand observer hardly knows their ass from up. But when dealing with more "mundane" circumstances memory is considered reliable enough to give the benefit of the doubt. Very convenient.




Lets check the record, shall we?



The post you decided to reply to was addressed to PixyMisa and was making a broader epistemological point on the fundamental limitations of knowledge and understanding. The point is that there really is no such thing as "sufficient" understanding of the world and presumptions of such are erroneous folly. The fact that you chose to dispute this demonstrates that you actually do hold to such a position and the argument does, in fact, personally apply to you. Quit falling back on the whole "straw-manning" defense; its not only silly and dishonest, its also getting pretty old.



All I aim to show is that you've a very powerful [and unrecognized] cognitive bias toward presuming that all such studies and reports are fundamentally unreliable.



See what I mean?

[*There goes another one of those inclusive pronouns. It seems you're having a hard time pulling yourself out of that groupthink mentality, Argent :-/ ]



Your behavior right now is all the evidence I need :)



After observing your dissonant claims regarding the events in this on-the-record forum discussion, I find that statement highly dubious at best :(



Let me ask you this: Do you feel that you subject counter claims and negative evidence to the same level of scrutiny that you do positive?



You spoke with such authority about the great strides they've been making in understanding consciousness. I assumed that you'd have some documented evidence of such understanding. Apparently you don't. Shame, that :(




I could definitely say the same for you.



And you haven't provided a single shred of evidence for us having a level of understanding concerning consciousness that would even allow us to answer questions as rudimentary as the ones I just presented to you. Ergo, my earlier statement that emphatic claims that consciousness must, in principle, be a phenomena confined to brains is an argument from ignorance still stands. Face it, Argent; your emperor has no clothes.



We were discussing the current paucity of scientific understanding regarding subjective experience and you submitted that our "knowledge" of how eyes perceive is evidence of such understanding. I don't see why my pointing out that this statement is fallacious should be considered "pedantic" unless, of course, you require more leeway in your flagrant hand-waving :covereyes



Its not my fault if you choose to take personal offence to posts I've not addressed to you. If you're going to go out of your way to personally identify with every other poster who shares your beliefs your experiences with me are going to be considerably more harrowing than necessary. As I told you before, I suggest that you drop the "we" and speak for yourself -- not as a representative of a cohort.

I don't think anyone doubts you heard voices in your head, the doubt is about the source of those voices. Many plausible mundane explanations have been proposed but you cling to your belief that it was not mundane.
 
Absolutely incredible... In the same breath you deny the very presumption I spoke of while explicitly affirming it. Its fascinating how your personal integrity and logical self-consistency go out the airlock when a cherished belief of yours is on the line. Yea, I know, I know..."What 'cherished beliefs'?" :rolleyes:

Care to explain what it is that you're objecting to? Your highlight doesn't appear to support your statement.

ETA: In response to your edit, you are presenting a false dichotomy. I consider you a reliable witness if there is evidence backing up your claim. For example, if you claimed that you had coffee this morning, I would have no issue, because I know that coffee exists and that people drink it in the morning very commonly. However, if you claimed that you had been abducted by aliens, no, I would not believe you, because there is no evidence that it occurred.

Why would I need to straw-man?

I didn't say you needed to. Just that you are. No one has said that you "must" be wrong. That is a blatant straw man. Attempting to dodge the accusation does not change this.

In order to discount the validity of my recollections my memory would have to be so unreliable as to render me completely dysfunctional.

No, it wouldn't. There are thousands of people like you all over the world who have faulty memories and who function perfectly normally. In fact, there are roughly seven billion people with faulty memories out there, myself included.

That your memory is faulty does not make you dysfunctional. It makes you normal. The disconnect is when you refuse to admit that your memory is likely imperfect, and that there are many mundane explanations for what you experienced which cannot be ruled out, and maintain that your memory is evidence of psi.

The fact of the matter is that I directly know what I experience and how clear my memories of those experiences are, your presumptions notwithstanding.

Well, no. The fact of the matter is you don't. Your memory is demonstrably imperfect. It's part of being human. Because the only thing you can compare your memory to is itself, you cannot know - without some form of outside evidence - whether or not your memory is unaltered.

There's no mental flag that says "WARNING: ALTERED MEMORIES AHEAD". You can only compare it to itself, which is why it looks unaltered.

This is not something which is up for dispute. It is irrefutable fact. No human has an absolutely perfect memory. The brain is not wired that way.

This does not mean that every single one of your memories is flawed (well, actually, they are, but not necessarily badly - fine detailing may get altered, but the substance will likely remain unchanged). But it does mean that your memory can be and has been altered. Memories of emotionally-charged events - like your experience - are even more likely to be altered.

Again, this cannot be disputed. It happens. We know it happens.

So why do you think your memory is correct?

That makes for very convenient wiggle-room to sneak in special pleading.

No.

Whenever faced with reports of events suggestive of "the paranormal" memory is presumed so unreliable that even the firsthand observer hardly knows their ass from up. But when dealing with more "mundane" circumstances memory is considered reliable enough to give the benefit of the doubt. Very convenient.

Yes. We've been over this before.

Entirely mundane claims have their evidence readily available. "I drove here" is trivially easy to prove, as it's too far to walk in such a time, the speaker isn't covered in mud and his car is in the driveway. However, if he said "I drove here" when there is no car in the driveway, he's covered in mud, he's carrying a dirty sleeping bag, and he's bleeding gently onto the carpet, you wouldn't believe him, no matter how certain he was.

This is why courts do not convict people based solely on witness testimony. There must be evidence to back up the accusation, because the accusation is not evidence in and of itself.

The post you decided to reply to was addressed to PixyMisa and was making a broader epistemological point on the fundamental limitations of knowledge and understanding. The point is that there really is no such thing as "sufficient" understanding of the world and presumptions of such are erroneous folly. The fact that you chose to dispute this demonstrates that you actually do hold to such a position and the argument does, in fact, personally apply to you. Quit falling back on the whole "straw-manning" defense; its not only silly and dishonest, its also getting pretty old.

I'll stop accusing you of making straw men when you stop doing it. Read my response again. You are mischaracterizing those who have responded to you. You are strawmanning.

All I aim to show is that you've a very powerful [and unrecognized] cognitive bias toward presuming that all such studies and reports are fundamentally unreliable.

Which you can't really do by repeating "you're biased skeptic jerks!" over and over. Repetition does not equal truth. If you want to show that we dismiss studies out of hand, present a study and watch us do so. Repeating "you dismiss any studies which contradict you!" doesn't work when you haven't given us any studies to dismiss.

See what I mean?

No. Not unless you actually have a study which cannot be dismissed rationally.

<snip straw men and repetition>

Let me ask you this: Do you feel that you subject counter claims and negative evidence to the same level of scrutiny that you do positive?

Yes. If I didn't, I wouldn't saying it to you.

You spoke with such authority about the great strides they've been making in understanding consciousness. I assumed that you'd have some documented evidence of such understanding. Apparently you don't. Shame, that :(

Did you even bother to read my response?

In addition, "great strides" does not mean "we understand every detail".

<snip repetition>

Ergo, my earlier statement that emphatic claims that consciousness must, in principle, be a phenomena confined to brains is an argument from ignorance still stands.

No, it doesn't, because no one has said that consciousness must be confined to brains. Stop with the straw men.

It isn't that consciousness must be the product of a brain, but that it is in the case of humans. I don't know of anyone here - except for perhaps yourself, Malerin, and annnnoid - who would say that it is impossible for a machine to be conscious. I do not argue that consciousness arises only from brains, as it is simply a byproduct of certain interactions, and I see no reason that this could not be recreated in another type of system, such as computers.

So stop strawmanning.

Face it, Argent; your emperor has no clothes.

Face it, Aku. You can't answer to what's actually being said to you, so you have to create these imaginary foes to duel against.

We were discussing the current paucity of scientific understanding regarding subjective experience and you submitted that our "knowledge" of how eyes perceive is evidence of such understanding.

No. We were discussing whether or not physics could explain subjective interpretation. You argued that there was nothing in physics which could explain the fact that we perceived certain wavelengths of light as "blue". "Blue" is simply the name we give to certain wavelengths of light as interpreted by our eyes. Because of the differences between different wavelengths of light, our eyes send different signals to the brain, thus giving us different colors.

You jumped on "our eyes perceive" because you were being needlessly pedantic. Physics very much does explain colors.

Its not my fault if you choose take personal offence to posts I've not addressed to you.

The lengths to which you'll go to contort and evade an obvious point is breathtaking, to say the least. There is no way that you're honestly this obtuse.

You might try to be a little less transparent with your lies.
 
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