Chaos Magic

[PixyMisa]

....

All sarcasm and facetiousness aside, please tell me that this is some kind of sick joke -- you're genuinely starting to concern me, Argent. If that was a serious query either you've got some severe cognitive deficiency or we've reached the limits of your integrity. In either case, having an honest, rational discussion with you on this issue is an exercise in futility.

I just went back and read that exchange again. Aku, you've misread what Pure Argent wrote. You made two claims in the original (highlighted) sentence. Argent denied the latter, not the former.

And after first misinterpreting his reply, you devolved into a stream of insults and logical fallacies rather than asking what he meant. If you are finding attempts at rational discussion to be exercises in futility, I'd suggest you look closer to home for the cause.

In any case, after reading the rest of your reply its become abundantly clear to me that we've far exceeded the limits of your ability to rationally carry on this conversation </sigh> I leave ya to it

Exit stage left, pursued by a bear.

 

[carlitos]

This thread does nothing to disabuse me of my hypothesis that non-traditional formatting on this forum is a "mark of woo."

 

[Sledge]

Has anyone done any chaos magic yet?

 

[AkuManiMani]

....

All sarcasm and facetiousness aside, please tell me that this is some kind of sick joke -- you're genuinely starting to concern me, Argent. If that was a serious query either you've got some severe cognitive deficiency or we've reached the limits of your integrity. In either case, trying to have an honest, rational discussion with you on this issue is an exercise in futility.

I just went back and read that exchange again. Aku, you've misread what Pure Argent wrote. You made two claims in the original (highlighted) sentence. Argent denied the latter, not the former.

And after first misinterpreting his reply, you devolved into a stream of insults and logical fallacies rather than asking what he meant. If you are finding attempts at rational discussion to be exercises in futility, I'd suggest you look closer to home for the cause.

I asked Argent if my memories were considered so unreliable as to render me an invalid witness to my own experiences, why were there repeated demands to recall more details? He denied that anyone claimed such then proceeded to continue insisting that my memories of the experiences in question are unreliable. If there was some misinterpretation there I'd like you to point out more specifically where it occurred.

In any case, I recommend that you heed your own advice and try understanding what my actual position is for a change, rather than repeatedly assuming that your lack of comprehension equates to incoherence on my part. You've flagrantly and repeatedly resorted to straw-manning my arguments in this and virtually every other discussion we've both participated in. If you actually took the time to step back from your reflexive prejudices you'd see that theres more overlap between our positions than you realize.

In any case, after reading the rest of your reply its become abundantly clear to me that we've far exceeded the limits of your ability to rationally carry on this conversation </sigh> I leave ya to it

Exit stage left, pursued by a bear.

Nice. So you do have an imagination

 

[PixyMisa]

I asked Argent if my memories were considered so unreliable as to render me an invalid witness to my experiences, why were there repeated demands to recall more details? He denied that anyone claimed such then proceeded to continue insisting that my memories of the experiences in question are unreliable. If there was some misinterpretation there I'd like you to point out more specifically where it occurred.

That's precisely the misinterpretation I just pointed out, and you did it again.

In any case, I recommend that you heed your own advice and try understanding what my actual position is for a change, rather than repeatedly assuming that your lack of comprehension equates to incoherence on my part. You've flagrantly and repeatedly resorted to straw-manning my arguments in this and virtually every other discussion we've both participated in. If you actually took the time to step back from your reflexive prejudices you'd see that theres more overlap between our positions than you realize.

No, I understand your position fine. Before you stated your position, all I could do is note that everything you said was a logical fallacy. Now that you have stated your position, I can note than this is because your entire epistemology is a logical fallacy. Specifically, it's the argument from ignorance, over and over. Even when we have specific, established facts, you reject those facts, insert ignorance that doesn't exist, and then argue from that point of ignorance.

At no point have I presented a straw man version of your arguments; given how illogical your arguments are, such an exercise would be pointless and perhaps impossible.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Much as I'm loathe to get in the middle of a bitchfest, I didn't see this addressed, and it stood out to me as incongruous:

Why waste energy presenting accounts I've no first hand experience of? You're dismissing my own reports out of hand, despite your lack of positive or negative evidence concerning their veracity. That is sufficient in itself to demonstrate your bias. [This is your cue to deny that you're dismissing my accounts out of hand ]

Aku, you said that people in this thread dismissed out of hand studies which contradicted their worldview. Your anecdote is not a study. If you could present a peer-reviewed scientific study which supported your argument and which wasn't hopelessly flawed, then people would either have to take you seriously or prove your point for you.

 

[PixyMisa]

No-one dismissed his anecdote out of hand. Indeed we noted that the details closely resembled well-known events like hypnagogia and partial seizures.

What we dismissed out of hand was his claim that it was caused by magical space octopi or... Whatever. And we dismissed that because it is really stupid unsupported by any evidence at all and flatly contradicted by the entire body of scientific knowledge.

And really stupid.

 

[AkuManiMani]

I asked Argent if my memories were considered so unreliable as to render me an invalid witness to my experiences, why were there repeated demands to recall more details? He denied that anyone claimed such then proceeded to continue insisting that my memories of the experiences in question are unreliable. If there was some misinterpretation there I'd like you to point out more specifically where it occurred.

That's precisely the misinterpretation I just pointed out, and you did it again.

I just recounted what was actually said. You repeating that there is a misinterpretation does not specify where it occurred.

In any case, I recommend that you heed your own advice and try understanding what my actual position is for a change, rather than repeatedly assuming that your lack of comprehension equates to incoherence on my part. You've flagrantly and repeatedly resorted to straw-manning my arguments in this and virtually every other discussion we've both participated in. If you actually took the time to step back from your reflexive prejudices you'd see that theres more overlap between our positions than you realize.

No, I understand your position fine. Before you stated your position, all I could do is note that everything you said was a logical fallacy. Now that you have stated your position, I can note than this is because your entire epistemology is a logical fallacy. Specifically, it's the argument from ignorance, over and over. Even when we have specific, established facts, you reject those facts, insert ignorance that doesn't exist, and then argue from that point of ignorance.

At no point have I presented a straw man version of your arguments; given how illogical your arguments are, such an exercise would be pointless and perhaps impossible.

And here I was thinking that you we're actually ready to give an honest effort at understanding where I'm comming from and what it is I'm actually saying. Instead you continue to fall-back on your presumptions and completely fail to recognize your own incomprehension and misinterpretation. I guess !Kaggen was right -- you're incapable of seeing so all you do is project. What a waste.

 

[Resume]

Has anyone done any chaos magic yet?

Not that I'm aware of. And if someone has, it hasn't worked, unless Dafydd is a frog.

You're not Dayfdd, are you?

 

[AkuManiMani]

Much as I'm loathe to get in the middle of a bitchfest, I didn't see this addressed, and it stood out to me as incongruous:

Why waste energy presenting accounts I've no first hand experience of? You're dismissing my own reports out of hand, despite your lack of positive or negative evidence concerning their veracity. That is sufficient in itself to demonstrate your bias. [This is your cue to deny that you're dismissing my accounts out of hand ]

Aku, you said that people in this thread dismissed out of hand studies which contradicted their worldview. Your anecdote is not a study. If you could present a peer-reviewed scientific study which supported your argument and which wasn't hopelessly flawed, then people would either have to take you seriously or prove your point for you.

I suggest that you start with the quote and the link I provided at the bottom of a post I made way back on page 31. If one has a genuine interest in investigating the kind of phenomena in question then they'll do their own legwork. In any case, I personally know that my "anecdotes" are clear, consistent, and accurate recollections of my own experiences, regardless of the [in]credulity of a third party(s) concerning them. Me bringing them up was to gauge the reactions of the participants and determine the direction of their biases in the absence any available hard evidence.

 

[PixyMisa]

I just recounted what was actually said. You repeating that there is a misinterpretation does not specify where it occurred.

Except that I already told you that, and you immediately repeated your mistake:

I just went back and read that exchange again. Aku, you've misread what Pure Argent wrote. You made two claims in the original (highlighted) sentence. Argent denied the latter, not the former.

Look at it again.

And here I was thinking that you we're actually ready to give an honest effort at understanding where I'm comming from and what it is I'm actually saying.

The sad thing is, that's what I've been doing the entire time.

Instead you continue to fall-back on your presumptions and completely fail to recognize your own incomprehension and misinterpretation. I guess !Kaggen was right -- you're incapable of seeing so all you do is project. What a waste.

Nope, sorry, the projection, like all the other fallacies, is on your side.

Let's try this again, since some of the posts got ditched to AAH. (I appealed that action, but nothing's come of it.)

My core position is that the unknown is bounded by the known.

Thus, for example, we don't need to examine your experiences closely to know that the suggestion that you were addressed by a non-corporeal mind is nonsense; there's simply no such thing.

Your core position is that the known is finite and bounded by the unbounded and infinite unknown.

The first problem with that is that it's mathematically absurd. If A is bounded by B, then B is bounded by A. It's commutative. Both A and B can be infinite but still bounded; or one can be finite and the other infinite; they are still bounded.

The second problem is that the assertions this lead to are always arguments from ignorance. We don't know X, therefore Y. That's a fallacy. It's always a fallacy. You keep doing it, and it's still a fallacy.

Are non-corporeal minds possible? No, absolutely not. They're ruled out by everything we know about physics, chemistry, biology, neuroscience, and computer science.

That we can't examine the exact parameters of your experience does not matter. What you are claiming cannot be true under the same laws of physics that allow this forum to operate.

Web forum -> no non-corporeal minds.

But we can't know what it was that you personally experienced? Argument from ignorance, irrelevant.
But we haven't honestly tried to understand? Appeal to motive, irelevant.
But this is your personal experience, you can't be expected to provide scientific evidence? Special pleading, irrelevant.

All any of those arguments are - and that's really all you ever say - all they are is excuses. You have no evidence for your claims, and your claims are prima facie absurd.

There are only a few rational and skeptical approaches here:

We can examine the details of your experience for signs of common neurological events like hallucinations. And indeed many elements of your story match common hallucinatory events extremely well.

We can examine your speculation about the cause of your experience, and show why it's wrong.

We can go meta and treat it as a discussion point for how people acquire counterfactual beliefs.

And that's about it.

We could also just reject your claims, but that would make the thread quite short.

 

[PixyMisa]

I suggest that you start with the quote and the link I provided at the bottom of a post I made way back on page 31. If one has a genuine interest in investigating the kind of phenomena in question then they'll do their own legwork.

We've done that. They're garbage.

I've done some experiments of my own (results: indistinguishable from chance) and I've analysed experiments run by others (results: positive results arise only in experiments that are (a) small, (b) poorly controlled, or (c) both, and never survive replication).

In any case, I personally know that my "anecdotes" are clear, consistent, and accurate recollections of my own experiences

No you don't. It is impossible for you to know that. The human brain does not work like that.

Me bringing them up was to gauge the reactions of the participants and determine the direction of their biases in the absence any available hard evidence.

And this demonstrated your own biases very clearly, so your experiment was half successful.

 

[PixyMisa]

Oh, and that earlier post demonstrates with beautiful clarity the fundamental and intrinsic fallacy of your position:

As of now, even from the position of an individual who has no first-hand experience of such phenomena, it is premature to disregard seemingly extraordinary accounts of "psi" as impossible or in contradiction with the laws of physics. Quite frankly, we do not know enough concerning the physics of consciousness [or physics in general, for that matter] to make such determinations.

Yes, we do know enough. The claims are impossible.

Whether we have first-hand experience or not is irrelevant; that's special pleading.
The rest of it is the argument from incredulity combined with the argument from ignorance.

That's all.

In the Monroe Institute thread in GS&TP I've noted (with respect to OoBEs) that there are only four fundamental forces that could mediate OoBEs, and it is impossible for it to be any of them.

This means that either (a) the laws of physics are so dramatically different from what we think they are that this web forum could not possibly exist, or;

(b) OoBEs are just dreams/hallucinations.

And I side with (b). Purely to protect my post count.

 

[dafydd]

Not that I'm aware of. And if someone has, it hasn't worked, unless Dafydd is a frog.

You're not Dayfdd, are you?

No,I am. Rivet.

 

[Craig4]

Has anyone done any chaos magic yet?

Great point. How about do some, get results and then post. Nothing succeeds like success.

 

[Sledge]

Just seemed like it might be a better way to approach the thread than batting AkuManiMani around like a mouse. I mean, Limbo in his OP said chaos magic can give one psychic ability. That seems like a testable proposition to me, so let's have one of our chaos magicians give themselves psychic powers and read a mind. Should be easy, right?

 

[carlitos]

No Sledge, you have to do it for yourself, or you'll never really see, man. (inhale, cough cough).

 

[dafydd]

Has anyone done any chaos magic yet?

Never in the history of the world has anyone ever done chaos magic. I see that Limbo has given up. Probably gone back to Hogwarts.

 

[dafydd]

Just seemed like it might be a better way to approach the thread than batting AkuManiMani around like a mouse. I mean, Limbo in his OP said chaos magic can give one psychic ability. That seems like a testable proposition to me, so let's have one of our chaos magicians give themselves psychic powers and read a mind. Should be easy, right?

Yes. Wizards,do your stuff!

 

[Nonpareil]

I just recounted what was actually said. You repeating that there is a misinterpretation does not specify where it occurred.

Except that he already told you exactly where it occurred.

But, as you have continually demonstrated that not only do you not understand my position but that you are unwilling to even attempt to do so, and instead prefer to continue strawmanning and spouting insults, I really see no point in continuing this conversation.

As for "wizards, do your stuff"... well, I would, except that I have no drugs. Anyone else?