this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
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weird (adj.)
c. 1400,
• "having power to control fate", from wierd (n.), from Old English wyrd "fate, chance, fortune; destiny; the Fates," literally "that which comes,"
• from Proto-Germanic wurthiz (cognates: Old Saxon wurd, Old High German wurt "fate," Old Norse urðr "fate, one of the three Norns"),
• from PIE wert- "to turn, to wind," (cognates: German werden, Old English weorðan "to become"),
• from root wer- (3) "to turn, bend" (see versus).
• For sense development from "turning" to "becoming," compare phrase turn into "become."
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This makes me think you may be thinking about something different than what I’m proposing. I’m not thinking of the ‘energy’ as a mediating substance to act on to create magical events. Instead, I’m thinking of it as a ‘spiritual power source’ for ordinary beings to seek out, to allow them to do belief-shifting, intent-centered magic. The only function of this would be to (a) allow other beings magical powers while (b) preventing them from being able to arbitrarily alter your world in dramatic ways without limit when your back is turned. If there’s a different way to accomplish this without using the psychic-energy-source concept, then I’d gladly prefer it.
Well, first, you don’t have to ultimately compete with others. You can compete and contend with others a lot within the domain of some limitations to which you are committed. Second, if there are others at all, then unless you have a stranglehold on their actions they are probably going to be doing things you don’t like sometimes. Some of this is even potentially valuable and interesting. So the question is, how do you make sure these sprouting gods either (a) always use their magic the way you want or (b) die (“disappear from your reality”) if they diverge too far? What constitutes too far? How would you know? How is that line drawn? How does this work?
Well, the limit is that they use magic in a way you like or they die/disappear from your reality from your POV, right? The question is how far is far enough to make them diverge to their own reality from their POV and die from your POV?
Originally commented by u/AesirAnatman on 2017-09-21 04:39:01 (dn9tpuh)
I don't know how that would work. You might need to be the first one to develop something like that if you're interested in such things. To me it sounds strange and contradictory. I don't understand how one's ability to intend can be rationed by some external force/rule/etc. I mean if I believed that it was rationed, I guess I would experience that, but why would I believe such a thing? Maybe you can convince or create beings who believe such things for your own amusement or learning.
I think in some sense there is already a limitation to intent, and that is one's own prior intent in the form of prior habits and commitment. This limitation, however, does not square what one wants to do against what the others want to do. It only squares one's old world-habit against one's freshly intended world-habit.
It's easy for me. Do I have to spell it out? :) Can't you just think of it like in like 5 seconds? It's actually pretty simple.
Tell me, how do you draw the lines between trees and grass, the earth and the sky, and how do you determine how many and where to put the dream characters when you dream? Do you need to have a complex master plan every time you go to bed?
They don't necessarily die.
Think about the meaning of the word "die." It refers to an evolution of an identity that stops. However, if every possible version of an identity exists, what is "die"? Even if some evolutionary lines have stopped, there are versions that didn't stop. Every possibility exists in potential. So a would-be contending God exists in the form of having subdued me or having bent me to their will. There is another version of that God which exists in a condition of being bent to my will. And so on. There are infinities of these versions. I choose what I experience. If I believe I have to kill someone or something, I must believe that the identity lineage is something unique and solid. But if I don't believe in that, then killing either makes no sense at all, or it becomes a purely ornamental illusory word, like what happens in movies when characters "die". When a movie character dies, the most important consequence is that they're simply not mentioned again as something more than a memory.
It's like killing a thought. If you stop thinking it, it's a dead thought. But of course you conceivably could start thinking it again as well. So it's not dead. In truth nothing really lives or dies. To say something is alive or that it dies is purely a matter of convention.
All control is self-control. If I believe something is truly external or is produced by something that isn't me, then I cannot control it. But if I believe it's either myself or my product, I do with it what I do with say my thoughts or my arms. Then the only limit to this is former habits and commitments which may be to the contrary in some way.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-09-21 21:04:56 (dnawzku)
OK, so you are taking a very unilateral view here, as opposed to the multilateral view which would maintain independent, unitary, free apparent other personalities. That makes things a little clearer. But not entirely.
My question now is not particularly unique to personalities. It’s more general. And it’s two things. (a) The idea that the world will automatically on your own conform to your desires is a programmed subconscious model. Why pursue conscious magical power if you can just make everything come to you and happen automatically, subconsciously? In a way it’s almost the opposite of unilateralism where you make the whole world conscious instead of just changing the automatic programming, isn’t it?
Second, how do you make that stable or meaningful. You know, I have standardized expectations about how the world works that keep it stable. You’re suggesting that basically you would standardize the expectation that the world will manifest in ways that satisfy your desires (that they wouldn’t deviate too far from those desires, anyway) as your desires change. Seems like a highly volatile world. Somehow it seems problematic. Like there would be a lack of continuity or stability. And if you want continuity and stability, then it seems to me that those two may inherently be obstacles to others desires you may have (i.e. to have the world to manifest what you want often may require discontinuity and destabilization, creating contradictory intent and frustration). And I guess that’s what I’m saying. We are already manifesting what we want. It’s just that a big part of what we want is stability and continuity and identity and friendship. Also, like maybe I’m impulsive and can’t be trusted to have total power 100% of the time? Think of the damage I could do. Stable beliefs also protect that.
I mean, it’s hard to have any sense of the idea of a ‘world’ in either the all-conscious unilateral model or the programmed-everything-you-desire-world subconscious model. Do you disagree?
Right, so you’re looking at this through a unilateral lens, not a multilateral lens as I was. I get you now. The above thoughts are what are relevant.
Originally commented by u/AesirAnatman on 2017-09-22 11:18:24 (dnc3hpw)
Mind is one, and the conscious and subconscious aspect are actually one single process. Nominally we distinguish the conscious and the subconscious and experientially these can often be useful distinctions, but in my view it's critical to realize that such distinctions are not completely true. So it makes no sense to over-rely on such descriptions and take them as dogmas.
Conscious practice demonstrates how the mind works. If you know how your mind works subconsciously, it means you cannot make conscious use of that knowledge and that knowledge can then act as a rogue knowledge, not working in favor of your best vision.
However, through copious conscious practice one gains understanding of both the conscious and the subconscious aspect and then, after much enlightenment, one can repurpose the subconscious processing to make it fit their ideal vision better.
So everything is important and everything fits together nicely. There are no conflicts and no waste. Conscious practice doesn't go to waste, and subconscious activity is not overlooked or discarded or wasted. Nothing is wasted. Everything is utilized.
And how did you make those stable?
I think this calls for introspection, not discussion. I have no desire to try to shape your mind or to convince you. What you bring up is a challenging question and it has a surprising answer, but I don't want to lay it out.
I don't wrestle with Gods. I can entertain multilateral modes as game modes and not as truths, but in those game modes there are no Gods there. So there is nothing to worry about in the grand scheme of things. Of course to the extent one cherishes the body and wants to experience certain outcomes, in the context of there seemingly being experience beyond one's control, there will still be fears and so on. That's expected. That's why no matter how grand the concept, real practice is often gradual. The way to apply the grand concepts is not always so amazing. It can be, but not always.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-09-22 11:37:48 (dnc4dvw)
In a way my whole line of questioning here is not useful. I think I’m thinking about this in a clearer, more pleasant (for me) way now. Incoming for whatever seems like what I want to say.
The question at root here is the same one I’m grappling with in general. I see your perspective. You’re looking at total conscious power reclamation, unilateral absorption of all ‘othered’ subconscious reality into consciousness/ego. The reason I was discussing the psychic energy model is simple. I’m looking at ways to bring magic into my world while still maintaining some sense of a stable ‘othered’ subconscious world and also limiting the powers of others. Right? So, if I absorb people and the world more into my consciousness and become more of a divine magical/spiritual traveler like you envision between infinite dream realms, then yes I get more power over them but I also lose the stability and the connectivity to others. So I was looking for a way to allow a still stable world where others can still do magic. Of course the psychic energy model I mentioned would just be my little longer-term game I was playing on reality, much like physicalism is a longer term game I have been playing on reality (as opposed to something more like your unilateralism which would involve a lot more short games moving from one abstract structuring perspective to another rapidly). I mean, another option would be to just set a rule like ‘individuals can only do magic that broadly fits within my general desires and will, and other than that can only act like physicalists’ which would be a bit more authoritarian/controlling and put a bit more ‘godlihood’ on myself relative to others in the stable world. I guess I was also looking for something that would also allow me to at least ostensibly play as a member of the limited magical conventional so I could be a co-equal part of a group (egalitarian).
Originally commented by u/AesirAnatman on 2017-09-22 13:41:58 (dnc9wuv)
OK, but what I am doing is not a zero sum game. In other words, it's not that I reclaim all power. I only reclaim power that was previously used to slap my face. That's the power I return back to myself. In other words, if I gain power it doesn't mean you or someone else has to lose it. What if you're my ally? Maybe I want the both of us to gain power at the expense of whatever was slapping the both of us in our faces. It's not always so rigid. There is plenty of flexibility and while absolute firmness is an option, it is not always necessary to use that option consciously.
It's possible to have a conclave of Gods and not butt heads. However, if some head-butting develops, then to each participating God such head-butting is readily optional. This easily readily available optionality that covers a huge experiential range is why they're called "Gods." So it's not even that Gods cannot ever experience other Gods butting heads with them, it's just that if that's what they wanted, they'd have to explicitly sign up for that experience, assuming they're at the peak of their Godly powers.
Hehehe... Here you go again with losing stability. OK, here's why you think you will lose stability. You think stability is a feature of the world, and if you make the world more available to your conscious will, then it will lose stability. So either stability is in the world, or it's nowhere. The problem is that this conception of stability is not actually true. Should I go on?
Isn't there already, in a sense, a rule like that in your world? People cannot try to hurt you or rob you without facing significant consequences from both you (allowed by law as self-defense) and the law (in the form of cops, courts, prisons, and other bureaucracies). So in other words, that general desire to preclude the possibility of things getting too out of hand, that's already a heavily operating will in your world, right? Of course normally, as a physicalist (perhaps in your past) you wouldn't believe you did all that, and you'd think it was "just like that, luckily." But at the same time you've heard stories of your ancestors struggling for justice, so you know on some level it wasn't "just like that luckily" but something related to you (your ancestors) made it that way, volitionally, on purpose.
So what I am trying to say is, maybe, what you want is already being taken care of subconsciously. But perhaps you want to make it more conscious and decide on some magickal laws or magickal conventions. The sky is the limit. Insofar I am your ally, I myself may not be actively involved in such things. I would just assist from the sideline or non-interfere, or some such. Frankly my ideas in regards to such matters (like how to ration magick and how to settle the magickal disputes) might not even be any good anyway. It's not exactly a topic I think about every day. I have general clues about this sort of stuff, but to me the whole thing is a non-issue, but that's also probably because I'm practicing mostly alone now. If you're practicing in a group, maybe it's more of an issue for you.
My present feeling right now, which can change, is that conventionally I support science, even with some measure of physicalism, but not too crusty and not overly bombastic physicalism, because I don't want to be oppressed by the scientific views and their consequences too much. So to me magick is something I do and a tiny group of people, and since that group is so tiny right now, and for the most part should not participate in public policy (at least not as open mages), it's not a serious issue.
I think once I get much better at my own magick I may start getting bored doing magick alone. But I am not bored yet. I don't want to proselytize the views we're talking about and most of all I don't want anything I talk about to become a religion.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-09-22 14:35:48 (dncc0cq)
OK, but this conversation is coming out of the context of how to deal with multiple magical/divine/psychic beings with conflicting intent in your realm. Instead of any specific limitation that generally applied to all, you proposed that you would simply never see anyone do anything you don’t like with their magical abilities. i.e. they would simply never manifest in your realm. In order to maintain such a principle, you must strip yourself of the idea that individual beings are in any sense free or independent. They are not even ostensibly other in a significant degree if they don’t have the ability to think and want and act in ways contrary to your desires. That implies a dramatic removal of power from apparent others, all apparent others – either they can only use magic when it pleases you (so, interestingly, it would put everyone else in a position of having to pray/placate to you or your subconscious in order to perform magic, much like the Christian/Hermetic/Jewish ceremonial magic that calls upon the angels of god to request magical service), or they can use magic to do whatever they please, but what they please is always pre-structured to match the way you want them to think and feel and intend.
Right. So a group of gods is just a more complex version of the group of mages problem (as I’m calling it at this moment, lol). How do you deal with the potential for apparent conflicts of interest in the use of magic? I see four general options. (a) Others cannot use magic. (b) Others must pray to you as deity to access magic (or to ‘the universe’ if e.g. you program the apparent universe to have a limited magical energy source available to the magical others). (c) Others use magic freely but can never have motives in conflict with your own. (d) Others use magic freely and may have conflicting motives, causing major unwanted magical influence on your realm and even your own abstract beliefs and desires potentially.
I get that stability is a feature of my will. But that’s exactly what’s happening. By becoming more conscious of that aspect of my will, it’s going to be adjusted a lot more and much more flexible. Basically, the more conscious something is the more it is subject to our softer, everyday, fluctuating, weaker desires. It’s like a dream. Think about how unstable those are because so much of that power is so much more readily accessible. How often are your dreams, where so much magical power is available to you, of what appear to be the same people or the same places? What I’m saying is maybe at least part of me wants my mind to be this stable and rigid during waking time because I like to have the appearance of a stable, alive world (both people and environment) that can contradict me (within a limited set of rules). I mean, if you eliminate the potential for people or the environment to be set up in ways that you don’t like you eliminate the ‘aliveness’ or ‘contrariness’, as well as I expect disrupting some of the continuity (like there are situations where what I want to have happen most right now cannot be continuous with the past without completely abandoning all sense of there being a world that follows consistent, stable rules).
It’s not that I am myself practicing in a magical group right now. It’s just that I’m thinking through what it would look like and mean to introduce magic into my world right now. Like I said, the options I listed above seem like the vaguely general options for how you could conduct your attitude about the magical abilities of others.
Why do you think convention should be tolerant scientific physicalism? Why not have a convention with some degree of magic (or potentially a lot of magic?)?
What do you mean by religion? I mean, do you not want to encourage/help other people to become gods themselves? To spread this idea?
Originally commented by u/AesirAnatman on 2017-09-23 08:08:58 (dndiltq)
That's one way to think about it. Another way is like this:
Each intent produces a corresponding result.
If I hold an intent that I have a pleasant experience then that's what happens. Then what about an intent that I don't have a pleasant experience? Such an intent is also possible. But they're not both possible at the same time, since they are in conflict. So if we grant true otherness to others, then axiomatically they can never be suppressed or ended, because they are true existences. Instead what would happen is that because of their divergent intents, they wouldn't be resolved into the same world as me. From their perspectives all their intents succeed. From my own, the same is true. If all of us are true existences, then the meaning of this is that we each exist in separate universes which have the option of overlapping or interpenetrating and each can control the degree and the quality of this overlap as well.
So you described the possibility where others never had any independent existence to begin with. In your scenario they were subconsciously mine to control all along, and it's just that I can control them consciously now. So in this scenario others don't lose anything at all, because they never had anything to begin with. They never had independence or even something called "life" or "will" to begin with, and if they never had it to begin with, how can they lose it?
On the other hand, if they have wills, their wills should follow the principle of willing, and thus their wills should be as complete and as mysterious as my own, because even if a little bit of this mysteriousness and power were missing, my will wouldn't be called "will." In that case, they along with their universes diverge if their shenanigans go outside the level I agree to resolve into my experience.
We see small instances of this with dreaming. People who are dreaming leave their bodies "here" but their minds experience a world that isn't compatible with this world. However, since they retain the memory and the impulse of this world, they can return back, and that's when they wake up.
There is no middle ground here, because if others are not truly other, then at most I can play-pretend that they are, but this would be me engaging in what is essentially a lie and the one I am lying to is myself. I would have to deceive myself.
Part of the problem as I see it, is that you don't allow arbitrary creation of different spaces, and I do. So since you are thinking only in terms of a single space, then the conflicts have to be resolved. But since I allow arbitrary creation of different spaces, conflicts never have to be resolved. They can be, but never have to be. Every conceived possibility exists in potential. There is a situation where conflicts have to be resolved and a situation where they do not have to be resolved, because I can conceive of both scenarios. There is a situation where many different experiential spaces exist in a non-intersecting manner and for all intents and purposes those other spaces are possibly not even myths from all points of view outside those spaces.
I don't agree. You'll be doing all the same things then and now, but the difference is that you'll become conscious of them and begin taking responsibility.
And yes, stability is a feature of your own will, not the world. You're projecting what is really your feature onto the world. Regardless of how you manipulate anything, you are always stable because that is your nature. However, when stability is not owned, it doesn't seem that way. When stability is disowned the possibility of gaining and losing stability appears real.
Basically stability is your ability to always succeed. It has nothing to do with the rate of change. Stability simply means your plans cannot be shaken. Of course when you project so much onto the world, almost all your plans are involved with the world at that time. In that case you may be unable to distinguish between the world as a specific optional vision and your will in general.
This isn't an all or nothing. Explain why is it that I don't lack a sense of aliveness in my lucid dream while at the same time always having an amenable experience without fail?
There are interesting disagreements and boring disagreements. There are stupid challenges and fascinating challenges.
I don't have any sentimental attachment to it, but simply, it's because in the past I was a physicalist, so this convention seems like a friendly platform from which to jump off, in a sense. Once my powers develop sufficiently enough I may no longer want such a convention anymore.
I don't lack things to do or think about, so why should I think about this? If I avoid something it is not necessarily me rejecting that thing. I may have a certain order in mind. For example I have potatoes and strawberries and I first eat potatoes and then strawberries. When I am eating potatoes I don't have it in my mind that I am rejecting strawberries, but at the same time, I am also not yet eating them.
When for me it is the right time to think about magickal conventions, I will of course naturally know that. Until then, I also know what to think about and do.
I don't want to spread this idea at all. At the same time, I believe some people are destined to encounter this idea not because of anything I am doing, but due to their own volitional states. In that case, I and what I do can be an accessory from their POV on their path.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2017-09-23 09:34:55 (dndmdvn)