From: shaman@cix.compulink.co.uk (Leo Smith)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: JB
Date: 9 Apr 92 08:12:25 GMT
Reply-To: Leo Smith <shaman@cix.compulink.co.uk>
Organization: Gated to News by demon.co.uk


 twarren@vax1.umkc.edu writes ..

        I respond: This bit about the very large and very small is
        true in a certain sense, but the conclusion is simply absurd.
        It is based on the assumption that the study of physics is
        one, unified whole -- which it is not. Newtonian physics
        still describes the 'real' in our 'everyday lives' just as
        well as it ever did.

Hi twarren. There is a very fine distinction that I am trying to make
here - you might call it splitting hairs, but I think it is important
in its implications about hwo people relate to the world - and it is
my way of reconciling the opinions of the creationists with quantum
physicists - if you like.

What you say is quite true - Newtonian physicas *works well* BUT you
can use quantum physics to disprove its *absolute truth*. Thepoint I
wish to make is to be sure that people distinguish clearly between
what is a model, and what is real. I maintain that one cannot know
waht is real, one can only act through a model, and that
space-time-material is a model, not the reality. And because - to use
the language of science - that model is an artefact of the human mind
(i.e. spirit) I can claim that physical reality is an artefact of
spirit.

Now of course, what Tim probably means is that somewhere out there
beyond the models, is the real world which he calls physical.
However, in my usual arrogant and contentious way, I want tim to look
squarely at a proposition that I have looked at - namely that he
cannot say that because physics works, it is any proof that the
reality that lies out there is physical.

It might be that the reality is, in fact, the sum total of what
everybody thinks it is - i.e. the map IS the territory, in which case
we have an extraordinary implication.

i.e. Reality is physical, because everybody thinks it is
     Reality is mental, because it is the sum total of everything
     that is thought...

        This means that it allows accurate predictions and so allows
        engineering and so forth to be preformed. For the most part
        it doesn't matter to a mechanical engineer that there is a
        relativistic correction to the newtonian formulas. The
        correction is so small that it is invisible at this level
        without special apparatus.

As an engineer, I have to agree..

        Which is why newtonian physics worked in the first place.

Again, I split hairs. Prove that in fact (for example) quantum
physical effects existed before we noticed them :-)

Occams razor says that the Earth goes round the sun - it is merely a
shift in co-ordinates that simplifies the maths. It does *not* mean,
as some posters have recently asserted, that the earth *really* goes
round the sun, any more than it means the sun goes round the earth.

It just says that here is a picture and some math, which gives a
reasonably close approximation to certain aspects of perceived
reality.

What it does NOT do, I insist, is offer any help on the vexed matter
of real nature of that reality, or the perceiver of it.

        Why should relativity or quantum mechanics call into question
        the use of physics as a model of the world?

Occams razor. If the theory is *that* weird,  - try a different
theory.

        Sure, quantum mechanics gets very weird... but that is
        because it is describing weird things.

Rubbish! what's more natural than an atom bomb? :-)
Why should the very basic stuff of reality be weird? It is the most
ordinary stuff of all surely?

        So what? Are you proposing a magickal model to replace it?

Not necessarily. What I am trying to do is to decouple the notion of
reality, from the models we use to describe it - this allows three
freedoms:-

        (i) The freedom to use any model no matter how extemporary,
        to describe any experience, without feeling crazy or guilty
        because it doesn't fit into the 'normal everyday real
        physical model'

        (ii) The freedom to adapt and extend the current model if it
        doesn't cover experience. I would much rather talk of
        'paranormal' or 'psychic' events than 'spiritual' because
        that requires less reorganization of my worldview to
        accomodate these experiences than calling them 'religious' or
        somesuch.

        (iii) The freedom to question the basic tenets on which the
        current model is based. This is where I, and the language I
        can muster, will probably fail to get the point across.
        However here goes. The proposition is that *maybe* the
        'physical' reality that we sort of 'intuitively' feel is
        'real' - is a function of that peculiar, but not unique,
        state we call being alive, that perhaps if 'we' were to stop
        in some way considering 'ourselves' - those discarnate
        perceivers - as absolute distinct and separate observers of
        the 'physical' world (which of course Tim, who is intent on
        reducing the very thought processes that perceive to chemical
        physical processes....will tell you is all there is..) then 
        perhaps we might find that the real physical world was neither
        so real, nor so physical, as we  had supposed.

    >I'm sure that it has weirdness too.

    Judge for yourself. However Tim's view contains the classic
    paradox - the physical world, which is what we - the mind -
    perceives, gives rise to the thought (via all that brain chemistry)
    that does the perceiving.I.e. we have a self referential situation.

     All I am saying, is that it makes just as much logical sense to
     propose that we, the perceivers, construct a physical reality
     out of something which is nothing at all to do with our true
     natures. It is a subtle shift, it is analogous to moving from a
     earth centred to a helio centred view - i.e. it makes bugger all
     difference to our daily lives, BUT it does perhaps eliminate the
     paradox inherent in having an artefact of the physical world
     assessing the physical world. AND I believe that this is the
     underlying Judao Christian view which allowed man to view the
     physical reality as something separate and distinct from him in
     the first place.

Us shaman are all connected to it....in a different sort of way:-)

        Wrong way about in my book. If there is a physical world, its
        rules are the rules of Spirit...

> If it has no rules, then that principle of lawlessness is its
> physical law. --

        Agreed.

        I respond: A question though: how can you say that physics is
        not a good model of the world (implied by your first
        statement) and that the physical world (if any) is ruled by
        the rules of the Spirit, but then agree with him that if the
        spiritual world has no rules that that principle is its
        *physical* law?

Because in that one case I didn't see the adjective physical. Sorry.
I had to read that twice to see what you meant.

        In other words, the first two statements seem to be going in
        a completely opposite direction...

Sorry. I believe I have clarified what I meant.

        Disclaimer: I'm not saying that physics is or is not the best
        model of the world, but am differing with Shaman's post. And
        historically physics *has* been a very useful model of the
        world. Most every modern convenience is based on physics
        research (like computers? satellites? the list is very long)

Well, I would say that by adopting this *spiritual* model, whereby
the *spirit* - the abstract perceiver, is utterly distinct and
separate from the *physical* world, we end up with a long historical
chain of scientific development, culminating in the ultimate paradox,
that *spirit* is seen as a function of the physical world. Lets wrap
up the argument by not arguing the chicken and egg, but saying that I
think it is best to say that at some level, humanity decided to adopt
a dualistic approach to the world, and separate the spiritual, which
became the mental, from the physical. Science is the result of that
process. However that process has its downside as well, in the
alienation, the lack of a sense of belonging, and the loneliness
inherent in modern Western society. Science can only affect those
objects that it recognises, and to call the ills of the *spirit*
chemical imbalances, is IMHO to use entirely the wrong model for the
wrong reasaon.

To conclude. 
          Physical reality is only a model, and the flip side of the 
          coin is you can't have it without a 'spirit' to perceive it.

          Its is NOT reality, it is a useful way of looking at it for some
          purposes.

          Other models are MORE suitable for some human problems.

          Since there is nothing inherently 'real' about 
          'physical reality' you don't have to be cautious
           about transcending it - at least on this newsgroup:-)

         AND I believe that the physical reality model is due for 
         a paradigm shift anyway.

One last thing: Magick to me is not the manipulation of a ceremononial
symbol set within the overall context of a mind/matter model such as
I believe Tim adheres to: Such manipulations, by definition, cannot
have any effect on the physical world. Indeed one of the problems of
the mind/matter model is how the mind can affect matter - by definition 
it can't since it is an orthogonal axis - but yet somehow what we perceive
gets turned into actions within the physical context, using our bodies
as mediators. That is (I believe) what Tim calls magick. The mind/body 
interface, and the manipulation thereof.

I don't: To me the best magick is to be able to (and I wish I could do
it deliberately rather than haphazardly) undergo a really deep and 
fundamental paradigm shift, such that the very boundaries and relations
between the perceiver and the perceived are redrawn, or indeed dissapear
altogether. This gives access to many more models than the 
mind/space/time/matter model that we habitually experience. I am not 
adventurous - it was more important to me to understand the nature of the
change that gives rise to these models, rather than to go off exploring
mystico-religious and/or magickal models.

This is how I can reconcile - say - all beliefs and creeds. Each one will
take you to a different relationship between yourself and the world. Each
one has a contribution to make, or a pragmatic use. If an aborigine can
find a kanagroo to eat by dreaming where it is - that serves some purpose.

If Scientists wish to extrapolate the physical model backwards down one
of its axes - time - to an Original Event or Singularity - fine. I think
the latter is possibly less useful than the former. If a million people
go home on Sunday from church feeling more at ease with themselves as a 
result of some basic magickal ritual - prayer to an unprovable deity -
then thats fine too. What can science offer to change peoples moods?
Chemistry. Drugs. 

What I am *not* saying is that the reality=physical model is *wrong*, 
but that it as limited in a magickal perspective as Newtonian mechanics
is at relativistic velocites: To regard it as just one of many ways
of restructuring the self-world relationship, is to be free to explore
other worlds. The process by which this can be done I have called magickal
choice. - it is some innate equivalent to Occams razor, the reason why,
at any given point in a magickal transformation, you end up seeing it
as this way rather than that. Why some see Gods and Goddesses, and some
see natural forces, and some see vortices. 

If Tim's choice is to reduce everything to the physical, then that is
fine - but he should be aware that in my bok at least, that isn't the 
only choice, and provability and repeatability are not necessarily my
main criteria for choosing the primary way in which I view Life 
the Universe and Everything :-) In the end whether you call it 
manipulating the mind/body interface or changing your inherent 
relationship with the world probably amounts to the same thing - 
just as you can develop earth or sun- centred models to describe
planetary motion, and both will give accurate predictions.

A change of model is no big deal anyway for someone who recognises that
their reality is that - a model.

However it is a terribly upsetting and frightening thing (as Galileo 
found) when it happens to someone who has completely confused reality
with their model of it. 

Beware.

shaman