Esoterics // Superstition

[leastwise]

It's bad luck to be superstitious.

[gunslinger_burrito]

LOVE JODOROWSKY.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm8xAlFF18c[/youtube]

Can someone subtitle this please?

You could always pick up his book, called "Psychomagic." It's a great read. Without ruining or spoiling it, it's basically about how everything we interact with has some kind of unconscious and individual/personal meaning to us, and how arranging those things into "acts" can produce profound effects on our minds.

It's been awhile since I've read Castaneda. The first four book are definitely worth reading. They're very confusing, especially in terms of the relationships he establishes. It only gets more confusing as his tale progresses. You pretty much have to suspend your disbelief. Whether it's actually fact or fiction, I couldn't tell you, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Pretty much IS fiction, but the kind that you can walk away from having a better insight into your mind and the world. Phenomenal.

[GardenoftheDead]

I seem to lack belief in anything anymore, whether it be esoteric, or much more real. Though, I don't consider myself an atheist. I don't consider anything.

I'm basically this, but rather than not considering anything, I'm a proud, outspoken atheist.

[devnulljp]

I keep thinking people are smart and rational despite all the evidence to the contrary that they're mostly delusional nutbars.

I'm inclined to agree but given that you're a natural scientist and/or read a lot in that field I have the suspicion that we might mean totally different things by the same words.

Could be. I just think the real world is so much more interesting than all the psychobabbledeepakchoprawoo that people fall all over themselves about. To quote NdGT: If you're scientifically literate, the world looks very different to you.

[gunslinger_burrito]

^^^I think that's the subject of a Richard Dawkins book; how once you learn what something really is and hows it works, came to be, etc....you're MORE amazed by it. The real world becomes more amazing than the imaginary. After all, your imagination is only the stuff between your ears, the sum of one human's perspective and experience....there's a whole planet (and maybe more?) out there.

[Derelict78]

The universe, by nature, HAS to be infinite. Think about it. What's outside the solar system? Ok. What's outside the galaxy? Now what? and After that? There can't be a true beginning or end. That wouldn't make any sense.

What i am getting at is this.
the universe does not HAVE to be infinite but its difficult to wrap our brains around something so big let alone ideas like infinite.
also there can be a beginning and an end.
Im not saying I believe one way or another just pointing it out.
I dont like beliefs, I like Ideas they are much easier to change.

[bigchiefbc]

The universe, by nature, HAS to be infinite. Think about it. What's outside the solar system? Ok. What's outside the galaxy? Now what? and After that? There can't be a true beginning or end. That wouldn't make any sense.

What i am getting at is this.
the universe does not HAVE to be infinite but its difficult to wrap our brains around something so big let alone ideas like infinite.
also there can be a beginning and an end.
Im not saying I believe one way or another just pointing it out.
I dont like beliefs, I like Ideas they are much easier to change.

It doesn't even have to have anything to do with belief if you don't want it to.

There are multiple different geometries that the universe could have that allow it to be finite in size, but unbounded (i.e. no edges). Just math and physics when you get right down to it. As for beginning and end, those terms only make sense when speaking about a specific reference frame. There is no absolute frame of time, each of us has our own timeline. There are certainly reference frames that can have a beginning and/or end of time (black holes are one such reference frame)

[Chankgeez]

... each of us has our own timeline.

We do?

I haven't gotten mine yet. Should I contact Strymon to see what the hold up is?

[bigchiefbc]

... each of us has our own timeline.

We do?

I haven't gotten mine yet. Should I contact Strymon to see what the hold up is?

[devnulljp]

... each of us has our own timeline.

We do?
I haven't gotten mine yet. Should I contact Strymon to see what the hold up is?

I think he means Facebook ...

I love when people make these 'that can't possibly be' / 'doesn't make sense' statements based on nothing but intuition. Our brains didn't evolve to think about things on scales larger or smaller than our immediate environment -- we don't intuit very well a bout things that occur on the scale of the Planck length or the light year, or the very fast or very slow. Even talking about what's outside the universe or the beginning or end of the universe based on everyday experience is just naive, as bigchiefbc kinda hinted at. And to have read nothing of the work that has been done in these areas before making grand statement about what does or does not make sense is unfortunate. It can be a good place to jump in and learn something though, but often I've seen people use it as a platform for vacuous prevarication.The physics of these things is mind bending and far more interesting than all the random waffling you get from gurus and priests. Even the concepts of zero and infinity have been argued for thousands of years, with Aristotle's personal dislike backed up by the enforcers of good old mother church together stifling western thought until we shook em off in the Enlightenment.

A Brief History of Time is a good place to start. Neil deGrasse Tyson's Origins is also very readable. Steven Weinberg's First Three Minutes, Lawrence Krausse's Universe from Nothing, Brian Clegg's Infinity ... lots of good accessible writing there. Even Brian Greene and the string theorists can be interesting and enlightening.

I'm with JBS Haldane: The universe is not only queerer tha nwe suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.

[Gozu]

i think tupac is still alive.... uh thats about it. i like peoples beliefs. i like what it gives them. i like that someone CAN believe and that they do. I just have few of my own

[wsas3]

i think tupac is still alive.... uh thats about it. i like peoples beliefs. i like what it gives them. i like that someone CAN believe and that they do. I just have few of my own

[alexa.]

GAHAAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA XD

[phantasmagorovich]

I believe there are certain states of entropy that create an order of higher magnitude.
I believe that most things are understandable by using a feedback loop as a metaphor. (at least it's a better metaphor than a circle or a spiral)


Stuff that would be considered esoteric and that I believe in almost exclusively belongs to the realm of psychology. I don't find much use in trying to understand the universe at all. Sometimes I try to think about subatomic space and the likes, but it's maddening to me.

There are multiple different geometries that the universe could have that allow it to be finite in size, but unbounded (i.e. no edges). Just math and physics when you get right down to it.

I met this guy once that worked on multi-dimensional donut shapes. He was one of the best explainers I ever met, even though I am shamefully illiterate when it comes to natural sciences and math he could explain to me what he was doing. And to top it off we had to speak english, cause he was french.
Then the motherfucker destroyed my baby guitar.

[Chankgeez]

... each of us has our own timeline.

We do?
I haven't gotten mine yet. Should I contact Strymon to see what the hold up is?

I think he means Facebook ...

Or Doctor Who.