From: markk@sagredo.West.Sun.COM (Mark Kampe)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: Long excercise in theory (cosmology)
Date: 1 Sep 1992 01:19:13 GMT
Organization: SunSoft South
NNTP-Posting-Host: sagredo.west.sun.com

Your proposition stirs two intertwined thoughts:

	the notion of rules is not a cogent one

	the notion of real-world/mind is not a clean one

The Universe is.  Its existance is (to the greater extent) indifferent
to us, our minds and our rules.  The Universe does not have rules.  Rules 
are things that minds fabricate to try to bring order to what they have
observed.  Since "the rules" only exist in minds that conceive them, the 
notion that we are forced to contend with them (to follow them, circumvent 
them or change them) is somewhat commical.  It is not the rules that limit
us, but our belief in them.  To talk about "following" or "not-following"
rules is to accept the restrictions those rules imply in our world view.


As to the matter of "real-world" vs "in the mind" reality:

(I submit without proof that) creatures from this planet have traveled to our
moon and back.  This is a relatively real-world and objective event.  Yet
this unprecedented "real-world" event was only made possible by a phenomenal
focus of "in the mind" events.  All of the theory that made it feasible and 
the focus that made it happen were the result of cultural and individual
mental/psychological/spiritual development.  Human beings are capable of
acting to change the Universe.  As such, changes "in the mind" are capable
of having significant effects on the "objective universe".

Physicists, mathemeticians and engineers are schooled in a world view, and
as a result we can send our eyes and hands to other planets.  Judges and
politicians are schooled in a world view, and as a result thousands of people
are executed as heretics.  In the first case the acquired world view was "TRUE".
In the second case the acquired world view was "FALSE".  This difference in
"objective truth" seems to have very little effect on the extent to which the
world view can be translated into reality.  The importance of "objective 
reality" may have been much over-stated.

How many people have succeeded because they didn't know that their feat was
impossible?  How many people have failed because they didn't know they had
an alternative?

Things that affect peoples' minds can affect the real world.  In fact, things
in peoples' minds are likely to have a greater effect on the world than
most aspects of "physical reality".  The potency of things that exist "in 
the mind" is readily obvious.  If anything, it is the potency of things "in 
the real world" that must be called into question.  

	The law of gravity may be objectively valid, but this does not
	have much effect on our ability to fly.

	The law of entropy may be objectively valid, but this does not
	have much effect on our ability to evolve, purify and build.

	The incompleteness theorem may be objectively valid, but this does
	not have much effect on our ability to discuss arbitrary systems
	of truth and expression.

	Death may be final, but this does not have much effect on the
	ability of a philosopher to speak to and influence people who
	will be born thousands of years after their death.

The laws of physics are not "laws of behavior", but merely "conclusions drawn
from observed behavior".  Observations and conclusions can be in error.  Even 
a valid observation can still be irrelevent.

The world we live in is fundamentally a product of human consciousness, and
so to assert that something is "purely in the mind" is not to deny its potency.
Newsgroups: alt.magick