Chaos Magic

[Nonpareil]

I would respond to annnnoid's latest batch of nonsense, but I'm not sure what the rules are on responding to AAHed posts.

As a general rule, it's wiser not to respond to them. Especially if they were sent there for breaking Rule 11. Either way, you are safer if you let them be.

Posted By: kmortis

 

[Sledge]

With the pounding that Pixy and Argent are dealing out I'd feel a little guilty piling on.

I have never understood the "Appeal to the Lurker". Do they really think there's a silent majority of members secretly cheering for them?

On a few occasions, I've responded to that approach by asking people who are reading but haven't commented yet to post and say which, if any, side they come down on. To the surprise of exactly one person (the person insisting the lurkers side with them), the people who respond never side with the person who thought they had a massed invisible army behind them. Strange that.

 

[dafydd]

So no demonstration of chaos magic? I am disappointed.

 

[Mirrorglass]

Well, since there's apparently a quiet moment in discussion, I do actually have a thought on the topic I'd like to share.

Now, I'm not very familiar with the concept of Chaos Magic, but from what I've read in this thread, it appears to be something like meditation, free association and doodling, combined with drugs and rigorously searching for anything that could be called an effect of the magic. Apparently it was employed by at least a couple prominent artists in the past few decades.

I find the idea somewhat interesting, as it just happens that lately, I have once again gotten into meditation, free association and writing stuff on paper, in an attempt to focus on things better and maintain a mental state conductive to work. And, in my personal anecdotal experience, they do seem to work. After a tiring day, I generally feel better after writing in my journal before bed, and if I write a task down in a notebook, I'm more likely to complete it on time. Meditation might do something, or not, but it usually improves my mood. And there certainly are times when free association helps solve problems.

There are clear differences, but in some ways, those things appear to be similar to the exercises suggested in the salad days of the thread. Considering they're things I use and appreciate, I'm not surprised to hear that these chaos spells could appear to do some good to people. And it's really not that surprising a thing, anyway. If you strip away the magical explanations tacked on by people with a paranormal agenda, the core of the proposed ideas appears to be just focusing on a goal while allowing lateral thinking - and it's not really a secret that those are generally useful things to do.

 

[Robin]

Well, since there's apparently a quiet moment in discussion, I do actually have a thought on the topic I'd like to share.

Now, I'm not very familiar with the concept of Chaos Magic, but from what I've read in this thread, it appears to be something like meditation, free association and doodling, combined with drugs and rigorously searching for anything that could be called an effect of the magic. Apparently it was employed by at least a couple prominent artists in the past few decades.

I find the idea somewhat interesting, as it just happens that lately, I have once again gotten into meditation, free association and writing stuff on paper, in an attempt to focus on things better and maintain a mental state conductive to work. And, in my personal anecdotal experience, they do seem to work. After a tiring day, I generally feel better after writing in my journal before bed, and if I write a task down in a notebook, I'm more likely to complete it on time. Meditation might do something, or not, but it usually improves my mood. And there certainly are times when free association helps solve problems.

There are clear differences, but in some ways, those things appear to be similar to the exercises suggested in the salad days of the thread. Considering they're things I use and appreciate, I'm not surprised to hear that these chaos spells could appear to do some good to people. And it's really not that surprising a thing, anyway. If you strip away the magical explanations tacked on by people with a paranormal agenda, the core of the proposed ideas appears to be just focusing on a goal while allowing lateral thinking - and it's not really a secret that those are generally useful things to do.

"Paradigm manipulation" mentioned as part of chaos magic is, itself, quite a useful way of priming lateral thinking or getting a new perspective on things.

 

[PixyMisa]

Okay.

Chaos magic is confirmation bias... Plus muddying the waters as much as possible so that you won't know it's confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is real.

Drugs do reduce mental acuity.

Case closed.

Next!

 

[The Man]

Well, since there's apparently a quiet moment in discussion, I do actually have a thought on the topic I'd like to share.

Now, I'm not very familiar with the concept of Chaos Magic, but from what I've read in this thread, it appears to be something like meditation, free association and doodling, combined with drugs and rigorously searching for anything that could be called an effect of the magic. Apparently it was employed by at least a couple prominent artists in the past few decades.

I find the idea somewhat interesting, as it just happens that lately, I have once again gotten into meditation, free association and writing stuff on paper, in an attempt to focus on things better and maintain a mental state conductive to work. And, in my personal anecdotal experience, they do seem to work. After a tiring day, I generally feel better after writing in my journal before bed, and if I write a task down in a notebook, I'm more likely to complete it on time. Meditation might do something, or not, but it usually improves my mood. And there certainly are times when free association helps solve problems.

There are clear differences, but in some ways, those things appear to be similar to the exercises suggested in the salad days of the thread. Considering they're things I use and appreciate, I'm not surprised to hear that these chaos spells could appear to do some good to people. And it's really not that surprising a thing, anyway. If you strip away the magical explanations tacked on by people with a paranormal agenda, the core of the proposed ideas appears to be just focusing on a goal while allowing lateral thinking - and it's not really a secret that those are generally useful things to do.

Certainly when I write some task down it seems that I’m more likely to complete it (unless I just forget where I wrote it down) and I’ll remark more on a related issue about writing stuff down later.

Also I can see how writing the days events in your journal helps you put them in perspective and it is kind of like you’re closing the book on the day when you close the journal.


It can be important and very helpful to write stuff down. I had automated (for the most part) the data collection in an engineering lab I used to work at. No longer did technicians need to write down the data on paper and then enter it into the computer system, they could just click the mouse and the data would be captured. What we found was that people would just keep clicking the mouse and an anomalous reading would end up in the data. The test would continue and we might have to redo the test because of some flaky reading. Before when people had to actually write down the data they were more prone to being aware of some problem and correcting it (loose wire or bad sensor whatever) before the test continued. We found that it didn’t matter how many bell and whistles we added to the system there were just so many data point to collect and most of them normal, that the tendency was just to click right by the abnormal ones. I found myself even doing it so we started making people write down the numbers again before the accepted them into the database. That slowed things down again but gave people both the chance (by not just flying through the data) and also forced them to be somewhat cognoscente t of each data point so we were able to chance and corrected the occasional hookup or sensor problem before the test continued and it became more of a problem. So in some cases just writing something can make someone more cognoscente of what’s going on.

 

[kmortis]

To be fair though, Pixy, what isn't confirmation bias? Besides my own philosophy, of course.

 

[AkuManiMani]

Okay.

Chaos magic is confirmation bias... Plus muddying the waters as much as possible so that you won't know it's confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is real.

Drugs do reduce mental acuity.

Case closed.

Next!

LOL!

I take it this means you believe you're not under the influence of any confirmation biases? I really wish you could observe yourself from the outside, PixyMisa...

>_>

 

[AkuManiMani]

Well, since there's apparently a quiet moment in discussion, I do actually have a thought on the topic I'd like to share.

Now, I'm not very familiar with the concept of Chaos Magic, but from what I've read in this thread, it appears to be something like meditation, free association and doodling, combined with drugs and rigorously searching for anything that could be called an effect of the magic. Apparently it was employed by at least a couple prominent artists in the past few decades.

I find the idea somewhat interesting, as it just happens that lately, I have once again gotten into meditation, free association and writing stuff on paper, in an attempt to focus on things better and maintain a mental state conductive to work. And, in my personal anecdotal experience, they do seem to work. After a tiring day, I generally feel better after writing in my journal before bed, and if I write a task down in a notebook, I'm more likely to complete it on time. Meditation might do something, or not, but it usually improves my mood. And there certainly are times when free association helps solve problems.

There are clear differences, but in some ways, those things appear to be similar to the exercises suggested in the salad days of the thread. Considering they're things I use and appreciate, I'm not surprised to hear that these chaos spells could appear to do some good to people. And it's really not that surprising a thing, anyway. If you strip away the magical explanations tacked on by people with a paranormal agenda, the core of the proposed ideas appears to be just focusing on a goal while allowing lateral thinking - and it's not really a secret that those are generally useful things to do.

This is actually a very thoughtful and reasonable take on what was presented in the OP. If more posters actually took the time to approach the topic this way the discussion so far would have been a lot more productive and informative

 

[!Kaggen]

LOL!

I take it this means you believe you're not under the influence of any confirmation biases? I really wish you could observe yourself from the outside, PixyMisa...

>_>

I am reading The Black Swan-The impact of the highly improbable. Nassim Nicholas Taleb right now. It is all about confirmation bias and I have been thinking how Pixy and the computationalists are doing exactly this with regards consciousness.

All we hear from them as an argument is that " all the evidence confirms consciousness is computational" .

So it is ironic that in one instance they are vehemently skeptical about confirmation bias and in the other they embrace it at all costs.

An indication of Pixy having feelings?
Dreams of silicon immortality perhaps due to the the dreaded fear of death?
In Pixy' s case though it may just be because he might miss out on a few train set builds in this lifetime ;-).

Carry on....

 

[PixyMisa]

I am reading The Black Swan-The impact of the highly improbable. Nassim Nicholas Taleb right now. It is all about confirmation bias and I have been thinking how Pixy and the computationalists are doing exactly this with regards consciousness.

All we hear from them as an argument is that " all the evidence confirms consciousness is computational" .

No.

So it is ironic that in one instance they are vehemently skeptical about confirmation bias and in the other they embrace it at all costs.

No.

 

[PixyMisa]

Of course all the evidence does confirm that consciousness is computational, but that's hardly the entirety of the argument.

 

[!Kaggen]

Of course all the evidence does confirm that consciousness is computational, but that's hardly the entirety of the argument.

Sure the rest of the argument consist of strawman arguments such as " what else is required for consciousness: magic, souls, God , elves ?"

 

[punshhh]

LOL!

I take it this means you believe you're not under the influence of any confirmation biases? I really wish you could observe yourself from the outside, PixyMisa...

>_>

The Rubicon

 

[punshhh]

Sure the rest of the argument consist of strawman arguments such as " what else is required for consciousness: magic, souls, God , elves ?"

My avatar is a photograph of a goblin, keep it under your hat though, or I'll never live it down


Oh and I've found Pixy in the same photo that I took this from, about 1cm diagonally up to the right from the centre.

 

[Nonpareil]

I am reading The Black Swan-The impact of the highly improbable. Nassim Nicholas Taleb right now. It is all about confirmation bias and I have been thinking how Pixy and the computationalists are doing exactly this with regards consciousness.

All we hear from them as an argument is that " all the evidence confirms consciousness is computational" .

So it is ironic that in one instance they are vehemently skeptical about confirmation bias and in the other they embrace it at all costs.

Um, quick question: if all the evidence confirms that consciousness is computational, how is it confirmation bias to accept that consciousness is computational?

 

[AkuManiMani]

I am reading The Black Swan-The impact of the highly improbable. Nassim Nicholas Taleb right now. It is all about confirmation bias and I have been thinking how Pixy and the computationalists are doing exactly this with regards consciousness.

All we hear from them as an argument is that " all the evidence confirms consciousness is computational" .

So it is ironic that in one instance they are vehemently skeptical about confirmation bias and in the other they embrace it at all costs.

An indication of Pixy having feelings?
Dreams of silicon immortality perhaps due to the the dreaded fear of death?
In Pixy' s case though it may just be because he might miss out on a few train set builds in this lifetime ;-).

Carry on....

Maybe the real motivation is so he can rationalize away his own [presumably unpleasant] emotions. Hes conspicuously silent and evasive whenever the topic of his own feelings is brought up. Usually if a person is asked "What are you feeling right now?" they simply answer with something along the lines of "I'm feeling X, why do you ask? or "I don't wish to discuss that, its none of your business". Pixy, however, seems to be extremely reluctant to even acknowledge the question. It can't be a coincidence that he also seems to have an extreme aversion to the concept of qualia, which riefies things like emotions, feelings, and the like. Of course, this is all just idle speculation than could easily be resolved by a strait-forward admission from a particular party...

>_>

 

[AkuManiMani]

Um, quick question: if all the evidence confirms that consciousness is computational, how is it confirmation bias to accept that consciousness is computational?

Serious question:

What, in your opinion, does it mean for something to be computational or non-computational?

 

[punshhh]

I'd come to it through Paganism, so I was already in the midset that magick did...something. I credit CM for my atheism. One of the things that Peter Carroll talks about (I can never remember if it's in Liber Null/Psychoanut or The Psychomicon) is keeping a detailed magick journal (ya know, collecting evidence ). When I did that, I found that no matter how strong I felt my gnosis was, it didn't seem to have an effect on the outcome. If I tried predictive magick, unless I kept the time frame ridiciously short (e.g. half-day or sooner) I'd be no better than chance. After about five years of that, I decided to drop all those trappings (with the exception of Discordianism, which fits nicely with atheism anyway) and go my own way.

I'm not sorry I spent all that time doing that silliness. It taught me how to examine my own practices to see how silly that can be at times.

I am one of these mystics refered to (or at least who he should have refered to) in the OP.
It seems rather absurd that sceptics should be investigating or even trying to perform 'magic'.
Its rather like saying lets make some wings out of feathers, get some powerful microphones and night vision binoculars and go out into the fields to catch some mice like an owl! Or some of the first attempts to fly with wings made of feathers or the like.

Even geniune mystics can't perform 'magic', they merely notice subtle clues of the nature of reality, rather like the owl sees and catches its mice.

There is only one form of 'magic' that is even worth attempting and that it is well documented in teachings on 'Raja yoga'.

I hope you have fond memories of these times, I have a few myself of my early years on the path.