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General Interest > Spirituality & Mysticism
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Skepticism and magical thinking * 1
    #12322155 -

Hey,

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I went from beleiving in psi energy, withcraft and 2012 conspiracies and other such phenomena when I was growing up as a teenager to becoming a hardnosed rational empiricist. I'm not sure how this happened, when I was younger I was so much more in 'tune' with these mystical mind states, perhaps it was a psychological reaction to dissociation and alienation experienced in younger days. Either way, I frequently experienced brief waking hallucinations and this reinforced my normal attitudes towards such events occuring.

Even so, I don't share the hypercritical attitudes of some skeptics, particularly materialists. I understand that the scientific method we have now is one of the best ways of understanding the world, but have seen ignorance written in papers which do not take into context the experential nature of conscious phenomena. Call it what you will, I consider 'magic' as thoughts, conjuring images and so forth which arrive not by conscious means but by the freedom to associate thoughts. They do not influence thunderstorms per se but the magic comes in the intuitive knowledge of predicting thunderstorms, which is from the human mind rather then the often unreliable predictions of machines.

However, this can be disheartening as fantasy is essentially amusing mental escapism. I would love to expand on this creative and mystical side but events in the real world force me to adapt a skeptical nature. I do not mind skepticism, but it has taken out the abstract wonder which you have in earlier days which is replaced by a mundane and concrete perception of the world.

I once used to gel with the alternative crowd but if a girl asks me 'what star sign are you?' I become uncomfortable with the question, or whenever an artists waxes lyrical about the power of intuition I have to bite my tongue that such intuitive thinking leads to delusional thought processes and that pop-psychology is not the same as true psychology.

In themselves, it is not a bad thing to be of a fantasy-prone and magical thinking disposition. I am most like this under the influence of substances and during meditative thought and nature. One can think magically of the world and not necessarily be delusional. However, it is harder to do so when you are presented with a mass of evidence which ultimately dehumanises and reduces the human mind to a series of processes in the brain.

The problem is I can no longer look at the world from a child's wondrous eyes so readily. The one downside and upside to having a rationalist temperament is the detachment of oneself from illusionary thought processes and situations - This in itself is a good thing but to others who are not informed you can be perceived as boring, narrow minded, methodical and uncreative. Albeit, this could be an anecdotal attribution but it is the case of my experience. However, it is deceitful to be foolish to one's own gnosis of the world, so I cannot pretend to be tolerant of religions or amazed by apparent miracles which are nothing more then orchestrations or coincidences.

It would be nice to find the balance but I become disheartened the longer I study.

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Re: Skepticism and magical thinking [Re: sonar]
    #12322276 -

we live immersed in a society where only the scientific facts are real

if it can't be rationally proven then it doesn't exists

this wasn't always the case, but most people think evolution means we're smarter than anybody that lived before, we understand reality :facepalm:

this was posted in this thread yesterday

Quote:
we have no tradition of shamanism, we have no tradition of journeying into this mental worlds. we are terrified of madness, and we fear it because the western mind is a house of cards.


:sun:


--------------------

                                                      psilohuasca is da wae
                                                                gnome sayin'?

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Re: Skepticism and magical thinking [Re: sonar]
    #12322704 -

I tend to fluctuate between the two.  Or more precisely, I allow myself to experience these things like etheric energy or other "New Age" stuff, without necessarily accepting the explanation given for them by either side.  There's a lot of stuff where it's all too easy to try to explain it away if you're not willing to try it yourself.  So I take any mystical or magical experience as an experiment, and I sometimes try to formulate models of reality that these kind of experiences can fit into, without fully believing in any of them.  Basically, I'm a skeptic in the same way that Robert Anton Wilson was a skeptic.


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Re: Skepticism and magical thinking [Re: Primal Glitch]
    #12323530 -

Tripleclick -> I will have to check out that thread later it sounds fairly epic, nice find with the Terrence McKenna clip. I've heard good arguments from both sides of the schizophrenia debate. The reality however is that schizophrenia does indeed have causal origins (namely dopamine dysregulation, most frequent trigger being amphetamine abuse) but there is a good argument, particularly in cities where there is a higher incidence of schizophrenia that the environment does play a significant role (as does genetics).

I like Terrence McKenna but some of his theories fall short of being falsifiable, nevertheless a very interesting personality.

the scientific method doesn't seek to prove the existence of phenomena, but rather disprove the alternative. Hypotheses are 'supported' and not 'proven', scientists are cautious of saying that there is causation preferring correlation (unless of course there is very strong causality, such as stable chemical reactions).

I guess my gripe is that once you become aware of the mechanisms which make up the world, the world is never looked at the same light. Once when man looked at the sun and saw a chariot or a god, now it is a ball of hydrogen gas. Doesn't make it any less interesting to read about the mythology, but the sense of mythology and intrigue is becoming stale.

Take the example of the horror genre and motels. Before there was no means for the victim to escape and contact help because the main powerlines were down. With the invention of the mobile phone, the victim can make a distress call very easily, thus the traditional motel-horror genre becomes more or less obsolete with each innovation.

Not sure how that analogy fits - but once you know the secret to a magic trick it ceases to appear special.

Edited by sonar (04/03/10 12:54 PM)

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Re: Skepticism and magical thinking [Re: sonar]
    #12323743 -

Same thing happened to me. It was compounded when I met my genius gf who actually is a very proficient scientist who does not specialize but seeks general knowledge of the world. She blew away all my mystical beliefs in a barrage of rational and logical explanations. She kicked my mystical ass and I've never really forgiven her for it.:satansmoking:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: Skepticism and magical thinking [Re: Icelander]
    #12325278 -

Quote:
The one downside and upside to having a rationalist temperament is the detachment of oneself from illusionary thought processes and situations - This in itself is a good thing but to others who are not informed you can be perceived as boring, narrow minded, methodical and uncreative.


believe me, never ever will one look at you as boring, narrow minded or similar when you are yourself. NEVER. really really never. find your true self and realize this. when you are true to yourself and find that by stoping to pretend to be something you'll actually be everything, you'll find what i say to be true. never never never never man. i don't know how to tell you, but what you predict will never happen. never will anyone look down to you when you're truly yourself. it's totally natural to look up to you in these moments, because you're with your true self. reality just likes this. it will never react negative to this. never.

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Re: Skepticism and magical thinking [Re: moi]
    #12325427 -

Don't be angry.:satansmoking:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: Skepticism and magical thinking [Re: Icelander]
    #12327361 -

everything is magic but try not to be excessively paranoid/delusional

hope this helps :sun:


--------------------
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

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Re: Skepticism and magical thinking [Re: deCypher]
    #12327454 -

:thaaannks:


--------------------

                                                      psilohuasca is da wae
                                                                gnome sayin'?

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Re: Skepticism and magical thinking [Re: sonar]
    #12327737 -

i think its important to not conflate alternative spirituality and conspiracy theory....

the best thinkers in the alternative spiritual traditions (like AC or RAW) emphasize skepticism and rational method ('the method of science; the aim of religion)....

while conspiracy theory seems to be based on rejecting skepticism, scientific rationality, and any consensual standard of evidence


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Re: Skepticism and magical thinking [Re: Taco Chef]
    #12327935 -

agreed

it's a fine line

:shineon:


--------------------

                                                      psilohuasca is da wae
                                                                gnome sayin'?

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Re: Skepticism and magical thinking [Re: Primal Glitch]
    #12333231 -

I think it's mostly subconscious desires and neuroses that make us cling onto beliefs that make no sense. But rationality itself can also morph into a dogmatic belief system, the major dogma being the false assumption that we can come to true understanding via rational thinking, when in fact ultimate truth can only be discovered by transcending rationality.

Yet, it all starts as a mental process. However, as your mind gets closer to the point of letting go and the point of realization approaches, you derive less satisfaction from holding beliefs of all kinds, you become less motivated to take part in cult activity, whether culturally mainstream or not, and become concerned solely with discovering the ultimate truth, while other concerns become mundane.

It's probably unlikely to occur while we have strong emotional ties to the matrix cult or its dualistic counterpoints.

Or this is how much I've gathered by reading some stuff and taking shrooms. IDK :shrug:

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Re: Skepticism and magical thinking [Re: Tony]
    #12348196 -

Tony said:
I think it's mostly subconscious desires and neuroses that make us cling onto beliefs that make no sense. But rationality itself can also morph into a dogmatic belief system, the major dogma being the false assumption that we can come to true understanding via rational thinking, when in fact ultimate truth can only be discovered by transcending rationality.

Yet, it all starts as a mental process. However, as your mind gets closer to the point of letting go and the point of realization approaches, you derive less satisfaction from holding beliefs of all kinds, you become less motivated to take part in cult activity, whether culturally mainstream or not, and become concerned solely with discovering the ultimate truth, while other concerns become mundane.

It's probably unlikely to occur while we have strong emotional ties to the matrix cult or its dualistic counterpoints.

Or this is how much I've gathered by reading some stuff and taking shrooms. IDK :shrug:


I have often been interested in how brains treat video games. Yes, we know for the most part that what is happening in a video game is not really happening, but it feels just as real, particularly if it is online with other players in a persistent and realistic virtual world.

I wonder if people discover their trueselves in a state of fantasy rather than reality? Which in itself is imperfect and inadequate, in a video game I can fly fleets of ships and own a lamborghini, while I can't do the same in real life.

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Re: Skepticism and magical thinking [Re: sonar]
    #12348208 -

sonar said:
Which in itself is imperfect and inadequate, in a video game I can fly fleets of ships and own a lamborghini, while I can't do the same in real life.


Who says you can't own a Lambo?


--------------------
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

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Re: Skepticism and magical thinking [Re: deCypher]
    #12348279 -

Mr. Cypher said:
sonar said:
Which in itself is imperfect and inadequate, in a video game I can fly fleets of ships and own a lamborghini, while I can't do the same in real life.


Who says you can't own a Lambo?


Well for a start I don't know how to drive, being a 21 year old male means insurance will be £1200 or something a year not including MOT tax, petrol, etc. I can't afford car/driving lessons at this point in time, theoretically there is no reason why I can't get a Lambo, but it's so much easier in fantasy!

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Re: Skepticism and magical thinking [Re: sonar]
    #12349894 -

sonar said:
I have often been interested in how brains treat video games. Yes, we know for the most part that what is happening in a video game is not really happening, but it feels just as real, particularly if it is online with other players in a persistent and realistic virtual world.


I guess I get what you're getting at.

I have gotten pretty strong emotional responses while watching certain movies, Avatar to name one, even though I know the whole thing is scripted. Silly. Yet that's how the mind works in "real" life too. It becomes emotionally attached to recognizable patterns of manifestation. "This is my (virtual) money because I earned it by sacrificing my (virtual) time."

Though you're probably right that virtual reality might be helpful toward realization. It shows how fleeting physical things really are. If your body dies, just resurrect it. If a virus deletes half your memories, retrieve the backups. The personality is just information arranged in a particular way.

Of course, the personality might seem immortal, but it would probably be more difficult to identify with it, because its just a copy of a copy of a copy. To an intelligent being it's logical to ask: who's witnessing the intelligence being copied.

It's already happening with genes and memes, but in virtual reality it should be more self-evident.

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