Peace between Magical thinking and science

[rock siles barcellos]

 In this video  this famous ex-comic book writer ( Alan Moore, creator of the V character in V for Vendetta which is originally a comic book story that later became the symbol for the anonymous movement after the success of the movie) talks about many interesting subjects and ideas, among them, he talks about his own idea of what magic, art and fiction are, and proposes a different meaning to the word magic ( jump to 27:35 if you want to go straight to that, although I personally suggest to watch it all, I think it’s really worth it) Also I think in this video is presented an idea that perhaps can help to settle at last the old issue between science and spirituality,  what it is and what role it may play in our lives in a way that I think can be very healthy and constructive

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xkw41UdPGY

 

 

What is interesting in the concepts and ideas he presents there is that I see finally a possible way that we can reconcile the basis of religious thinking and science, in a way that they don’t get mistakenly and unnecesseraly mixed together, or that one tries to eliminate the other,they both just have different perspectives and focuses on life that are valid  (look in 36:05 in the video)

 

I think we all can agree that we don’t need to think fictional stories and metaphors that are very moving and help us think about reality and have an emotional resonance for us needs to be scientifically accurate or real for us to think they are valuable.

Like any good poem that we can think of uses metaphors to express ideas without the need to be objectively real and yet touches us on a emotional level

 

Could we say there are two definitions or two ways we can talk about something being “true”? One being the objective reality proven by empirical scientific testing and another being what is true regarding our feelings about things?

 

They both seem to have fought against each other a lot in the history of the development of our thinking, I think they should both be valued properly without being too much of one in detriment of the other, wich generates imbalances and can generate abuse and violence between people, caused by an impossibility of understanding between them.

 

The main problem with the concept of religion is the necessity of infliction of the dogma in others, not necessarily in the reading of reality that  those beduines that created the many tales that eventually got compiled in the bible( using a common example,) did thousands of years ago(another problem of course is the morality of those societies that we clearly recognize today how primitive they were, and if we’re able to separate things we can sort out where we can see real value in those stories without the need to subscribe to that primitive morality).

    In the case of monotheism the necessity of trying to monopolize one view or limiting it to one single god not only limits the way you can see things through symbols  and concepts (see between 45:25- 50:43 ) but also generates conflicts and I think that is the reason why, as long as religion existed, there is this attempt to try to prove those fictional stories to be objectively real, to the point we get that even today with all knowledge that we have and advancement in science there is still this attempt to try to prove those stories to be scientifically true, even though there really is no necessity of that for people to see value in them, and also I think to be scientifically precise was never ever the point in creating any of  those symbols, they really were actually a form of emotional comforting for people, a way of coping with reality in the best way they could, it deals with one specific way of processing reality that has nothing to do with science but it is also important, being our emotional understanding of our own internal reality, wich you could argue is solved by self knowledge alone, but both of them are important for the processing of our world I'd argue.

 

 

And I think perhaps this has been forgotten these days by a lot of people, specially by statists atheists who thinks we only need science to deal with reality and nothing else, I also think this subject has not being addressed in any of the FDR shows I’ve seen yet.

 

I think in great part religion is actually the main guilty part for the increasing rejection by society about the importance of this form of reading reality, because they basically monopolized it and limited people to only serve these old dogmas and their priests, institutions and authority completely apart from any kind of truth with the goal of serving opportunists trying to control people for their own advantage.

 

 Another reason why people today is negligeable to the value of that form of looking at life is because art today is mainly used to numb us and accept our current reality as slaves to the state and just keep going with it (see in 29: 15 and 31:45)

 

he also talks about self knowledge( see in 36:25 ) like I said before, there's a lot of interesting ideas in the video

 

Hope you all like it and comment, enjoy!

[TheRobin]

Science already has a field that deals with and tries to understand emotions and feelings, which is Psychology.And if religions wouldn't continually make objective truth claims, then they'd die out pretty fast, as then they'd just be an inferior option to Psychology. (Plus, if you can't threaten children with eternal torture when they're young and dependant on you telling them the truh, then who's gonna bother with religion anyway?)

[rock siles barcellos]

Yes, it's true, but would you say then that because we have psychology we don't need art?

[TheRobin]

no, not at all. I'd assume art is a very good place to put and express a lot of emotional/psychological side of being a human being.I'm not sure, why you bring up art though, when I talked about religion. Is your claim that religion is not more than art?Maybe I should add, that I haven't watched the video, my response was purely to your comment, so it might not make much sense, when it's viewed in the context of the video.

[rock siles barcellos]

yes, exactly, perhaps I wasn't very clear too, english is not my first language, I'm sorry, but what I was trying to say in my post is that the basis of religious thinking and art are related, and that seing spirituality and religion as such would be a way to end the conflict between science and spirituality.

 

 like you said, and I also said it in my post, spiritual thinking goes completely wrong when it tries to make true objective statements regarding science

[Wuzzums]

Haha. Funny thing is Alan Moore was the one that long ago implanted the seed of doubt in the powers that be. He wrote a comic, Shadowplay: The Secret Team, it's about this reporter talking to and army general in a bar with an american eagle for a head. Full disclosure type of conversation. Gets really emotional towards the end.

 

Alan Moore is notorious for ambiguity, he lays down an obvious narrative and adds little clues along the way that by the end you're left with two different storylines. Like in V for Vendetta, in the movie it's pretty clear V is the hero but in the comics you slowly realize he's anyone but the hero. And by the end you feel like a dunce cause it's been staring at you all the way through, with V wearing a Guy Fawkes mask and all that. I wouldn't take anything he says at face value because he enjoys messing with the reader. The sense I get from him is that he's like a dream, there are the things he says with the words he chose, and then there's the symbolism of the words he chose that give another perspective.

[rock siles barcellos]

Yeah, he's great I haven't read the Shadowplay story, I'll look for it, thanks for the tip

 

I think my next post about him will be about the Watchmen story, I see there a sort of hidden statement about american international politics with the alien as a common threat to the world bringing peace among nations.... you know what I'm talking about perhaps? X)

 

Have you watched the documentary I've posted? If you haven't, take a look, it's really great, if you're a fan like me it will blow your mind 

[Wesley]

Haha. Funny thing is Alan Moore was the one that long ago implanted the seed of doubt in the powers that be. He wrote a comic, Shadowplay: The Secret Team, it's about this reporter talking to and army general in a bar with an american eagle for a head. Full disclosure type of conversation. Gets really emotional towards the end.

 

Alan Moore is notorious for ambiguity, he lays down an obvious narrative and adds little clues along the way that by the end you're left with two different storylines. Like in V for Vendetta, in the movie it's pretty clear V is the hero but in the comics you slowly realize he's anyone but the hero. And by the end you feel like a dunce cause it's been staring at you all the way through, with V wearing a Guy Fawkes mask and all that. I wouldn't take anything he says at face value because he enjoys messing with the reader. The sense I get from him is that he's like a dream, there are the things he says with the words he chose, and then there's the symbolism of the words he chose that give another perspective.

He also truly believed that none of his comics could be made into movies and resisted them being done so, because comics have the specific ability for the narrator or characters to be telling (or in thoughts, thinking) something and doing things that directly contradict and create these kinds of divergences.

 

I would say that the magical attribution to the "self" as in a soul-like thing inside you is a little weird. I also do not understand why he thinks magic would be how you would get it.

 

In general, I found the terms odd, but in general it was lacking substance to justify the terms and the things he was saying.

 

I also do not understand how this creates peace between superstition/magic and science as it does not have enough substance to make any real link. maybe you could explain it a bit more to me so that I can understand it.

[rock siles barcellos]

Well, in my understanding as Alan Moore puts it,  essentially magic is about the changing of conscience "through manipulation of words" and also concepts,  that can help us think about things in different perspectives and from there have new ideas that maybe can make us realize things more clearly,  think about for example a good metaphor that can make a confusing abstract idea become much more clearer and easy to understand. Essentially, magic has to do with that kind of connection in our minds between concepts that creates a change in our  conscience and our perception of reality, and gives us satisfaction for the realization and understanding that it brings 

 

A good and close example for us freedomainers is this: 

 

 

Here Stefan used the story of the Matrix movie as a metaphor to help us see what the state really is, wich is something that Alan Moore also touches on, our prison of words and concepts in wich we put ourselves. That is magic. Real magic.

 

Regarding peace between magical thinking and science what I meant by that is that they don't need to destroy each other, they are both important in their own fields, the problems really begin when one tries to invade the others territory, like religion has done trying to deny science. But considering magical thinking to be essentially art, I don't think is reasonable to deny the importance of art in the development of our minds. But Magical thinking as art in the way Alan Moore proposes can be more than any regular and mediocre artistical expression that we see for example in "our magic box called  Television" that only makes us more enslaved to our existence as live stock, true art/magic can make us realize what and where we really are, or at least give us a better perspective to try to look for it.

 

Also I think is healthy to create and have symbols, as long as you're aware that's what they are, and not physical existing things.

 

That you can also say about when he talk about the soul. I don't think he refers to it in the way you put it at all, the "soul" is merely a representation, another way in wich we can talk about the self. 

[Wesley]

Well, in my understanding as Alan Moore puts it,  essentially magic is about the changing of conscience "through manipulation of words" and also concepts,  that can help us think about things in different perspectives and from there have new ideas that maybe can make us realize things more clearly,  think about for example a good metaphor that can make a confusing abstract idea become much more clearer and easy to understand. Essentially, magic has to do with that kind of connection in our minds between concepts that creates a change in our  conscience and our perception of reality, and gives us satisfaction for the realization and understanding that it brings 

 

A good and close example of that for us freedomainers is this: 

 

 

Here Stefan used the story of the Matrix movie as a metaphor to help us see what the state really is, wich is something that Alan Moore also touches on, our prison of words and concepts in wich we put ourselves. That is magic. Real magic.

 

Regarding peace between magical thinking and science what I meant by that is that they don't need to destroy each other, they are both important in their own fields, the problems really begin when one tries to invade the others territory, like religion has done trying to deny science. But considering magical thinking to be essentially art, I don't think is reasonable to deny the importance of art in the development of our minds. But Magical thinking as art as Alan Moore proposes can be more than any regular and mediocre artistical expression that we see for example in "our magic box called  Television" that only makes us more enslaved to our existence as live stock, true art/magic can make us realize what and where we really are, or at least give us a better perspective to try to look for it.     

So are you saying that as long as magic or religion do not attempt to make truth claims of any kind (as this is the realm of science) then there can be peace between the two in their separate realms?

[rock siles barcellos]

Well, when you say truth claims of "any kind" actually that goes into my question in the original post, if you're talking about a truth claim that is provable by scientific method, then yes (and I argued that right from the beggining) magic has nothing to do with it.

 

But if you're talking about conscience itself for example, our internal worlds and all we create in our minds that results from our desires and impulses and are as real as any observable fact that science can measure(as far as brains processes going on in our heads I mean, though we can only know about its existence through expression and comunication between people exchanging ideas, being art one form of these expressions), then science really has no way to deal with it properly, because these things you can't measure or reproduce in a lab, it's something that happends and is shared only by each person communicating and understanding. 

 

 

Correct me if maybe I'm wrong, but as far as I know about it, science has not yet been able to define or prove what consciousness actually is or where and how it happends. Yet we all agree upon its existence since we all are here thinking and discussing about it.

 

So there is a truth claim that actually is not really covered by science, yet we all agree as being true. 

[TheRobin]

The existence of consiousness (I assume that's what you meant) is needed to make any claims whatsoever, so that's a priori true I think. BUt claims such as "I feel angry" can not be considered truth claims because there's no way to verifiy it. That doesn't mean it can't be true, but you have no objective way of figuring out whether I deceive you or not, which makes it not a truth-claim in the strict sense. As far as I understand it at least.

[rock siles barcellos]

The existence of consiousness (I assume that's what you meant) is needed to make any claims whatsoever, so that's a priori true I think. BUt claims such as "I feel angry" can not be considered truth claims because there's no way to verifiy it. That doesn't mean it can't be true, but you have no objective way of figuring out whether I deceive you or not, which makes it not a truth-claim in the strict sense. As far as I understand it at least.

 

(Yes, sorry for the mistake) 

 

Regarding the proof of existence of consciousness, the point still remains that science is currently not able to prove it's existence or even define it objectively. Perhaps someday it will, who knows, still we already know it exists even though they aren't able to prove it scientifically. Wich perhaps could be used to argue that science does not cover all truth claims.

[fridolutin]

Can magic and symbolism cohabit with science ?

 

When we talk about magic it is not illusionism of the type of pulling a rabbit out of a hat or David Copperfield and similar showman. Its about a field of phenomena that cannot be explained with rational and descriptive way’s.  In the ancient knowledge symbolism is presented as being superior to writing, it covers a wider range and depth impossible to render with words and phrases. Modern science is very limited and can be seen as the imperfect and insufficient language method, a degenerate form of communication for depicting the world.  It has many explanations and descriptions but cannot transmit the emotions. 

 

Some of you might have seen the TV show super humans (youtube), some of them are using what is explained as instinctual reflexes to accomplish apparently impossible things. When asked how they do it, they relate to a subconscious power where imagination is used and where mental discrimination is absent.  (See ultimate archer and samurai warrior ) Many of such examples can be found in old literature and It is mostly present in primitive and indigenous cultures as they are less polluted by the mental conditioning that brings the side effect of disconnecting from the magic and the power it offers. The ultimate archer guy said he discovered he was able to hit any target with his arrow when he was around twelve. He was first challenged to hit a target and said he was sure to get it and did so. The, he was sure he would hit the target, is the magic part science cannot explain, and the fact he was a kid gives an even more importance to the non discriminating mind children and primitive still have for being less educated by modern science. The non thinking act is faster and more effective than the process of mental reflection with all the delays it implicates. 

 

http://youtu.be/qsSa9PKv79U

 

 

Oriental cultures are ahead in this non action way of dealing with the flow of events man is challenged to master during his life. 

[rock siles barcellos]

 

When we talk about magic it is not illusionism of the type of pulling a rabbit out of a hat or David Copperfield and similar showman. Its about a field of phenomena that cannot be explained with rational and descriptive way’s.  In the ancient knowledge symbolism is presented as being superior to writing, it covers a wider range and depth impossible to render with words and phrases. Modern science is very limited and can be seen as the imperfect and insufficient language method, a degenerate form of communication for depicting the world.  It has many explanations and descriptions but cannot transmit the emotions. 

 

 

The non thinking act is faster and more effective than the process of mental reflection with all the delays it implicates. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Very well put!