Rationality's not looking too good these days

From Eluminatus

March 2003: You shouldn't exist / Multiplicity / And you?

Yes, I’ve heard what it was like in the 60s and 70s, and I kind of know what it was like in the 80s and 90s, and ... it’s better now.

June 2003: Everything seems fractured

Everything seems fractured. Work, psytrance, sex, political issues, imagination; they're all important, they all intersect, but I just don't see a holistic picture. So fractured connotes the various pieces things have broken into, but it also connotes the jaggedness of edges. The jaggedness, in turn, means intensity – and that's what's in common with all of these, the intensity.

...

Choosing to view the world as a movie could be a very powerful thing; it might let you step outside the standard ways of viewing reality and discover new possibilities. On the other hand, the cuts between scenes could leave you disoriented and, for lack of a better word, fractured. If you thought you were in a movie, you'd be very conscious of all the watching going on. Oh, yeah, you'd also be nuts, but you could probably hide it relatively well.

October 2003: Can fantasy stand against hegemony?

conquer the fear and jump into chaos. no! its not a secret forbidden world that only a few fortunate transgressive people can/must participate in. its all of that but it is also a world anybody can enter. anybody can be sexy. anybody. its all how you define sexy, and so its all about how you want the fantasies to be.

reality will always respond to what you fantasize about and that can invert anything. and if you want, if you dare you can bring it into the daylight.

today, hierarchical organizations (consolidating corporations) and totalitarian states are even more powerful and hegemonic than they were. what can stand against them? religion: belief in something else translates to a different set of rules, so not only the ability to overcome fear to resist but also the non-linearity to avoid getting crushed by the power.

could fantasy – as in living out fantasies, not cute little books involving magic and unicorns – also fill that role?

there's power in unleashing fantasy. there's power in connecting people and finding shared fantasies. but fantasies – as with religion – are too often used as a tool of oppression: too many fantasies relate to things that are unachievable (being an anorexic model), and both the attempt to get there and the envy of those that have succeeded are harmful.

is it possible to construct fantasies that are liberating instead of repressive?

November 2003: Radically decentralized communications (yay, cyberspace)

I wonder how much of what's going on is due to cyberspace's ability to make distance less important. Most importantly, this allows people to find others with similar attitudes; and in numbers, there is strength. Once you discover others share your interests, it reinforces that this is okay; and so you're more confident – so for rare interests, that could previously attain critical mass only in major cities (or very liberal subcultures) (or very privileged individuals), there's now a chance at a broad base….

What, then, does that mean about people who grow up with this environment? I kind of sort of did just a little, but really not until early 20s; when I was a teenager (small town in Pennsylvania), and even a college student (Boston area) there was no escape from geography. By grad school, I had good net access and pervasive e-mail; and then of course by the time I had been at work for a couple of years, the pre-web "net" was in high gear (e-mail, BBSs, anonymous remailers, usenet, ...). Now geography became an additional opportunity ("munches" of people who tended to know each other online). But I was probably very largely "formed" already by that point.

I recently read a description of rave as "the first truly global youth culture"; same thing?

Throw in the fact that cyberspace's (current) ability to cross borders makes it harder to stamp these things out. We can't rely on this forever, of course (is the focus on spam a dry run for attacking other forms of speech?); but it's certainly the case right now. Now we have yet another reinforcing factor ...

How can we know anything when the sources of information (the media) have become instruments of propaganda? If we don't know the real facts, how can rationality really help us?

So: introduce some new variables ...

Radically decentralized communications (the internet, yes, but that's only one examples: there are cameras on cellphones, for heavens sakes) make it possible to access information that isn't controlled by others. But the people providing it may be biased (or co-opted); and how to go from anecdotal information to real conclusions?

January 2004: Hey man, is this a dream?

"What was Brittney thinking?" was the question on the front pages of the paper. A survey revealed that Tacoma, followed by Miami, was America's most stressed-out city. Hey, you'd be stressed too if you lived in Tacoma.

(((thump))) was incredible. "It's like 1999 all over again," Craig said. Or, as the sample Olli Wisdom started his set with phrased it, "To infinity – and beyond!" A woman dancing next to me, close to the stage, put on her glasses looked around and started laughing – not uncontrollably, but rather completely.

At 4 a.m., almost exactly, sirens were heard, and just as the music reached a peak, it cut out. A voice came on saying

"Ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention please.  I'm sorry, but the police are here, and they've asked us to stop the party."  

It seemed like an incredibly long pause where you could only hear murmurs building from the crowd before the music kicked in again just as intense as it had been before, with the echo "party, party, party, party" (although when I listened to it on the DNA Lounge's web site, it was only a second or two).

Everybody laughed, and I saw the guy dancing next to me wagging his finger at the DJ – oh, you naughty boy! A song built around the guitar part from Dire Straits "Money for Nothing" (with a minor change in the only lyric: "I want my LSD") had the whole crowd playing air guitar.

"You gotta be able to ask yourself ... hey man, is this a dream? .... Seems like everybody's sleepwalking when they're awake or wakewalking through their dreams."

When Olli played a song with a sample "Let's all travel at the speed of light!", it seemed remarkably plausible. At some point I started seeing people with drinks again, and realized that they had reopened the bar at 6 a.m.. We – and lots of others – stayed until they finally closed at 7.

How completely unexpected.

Update, five years later: See Notes from underground: Space Tribe at Geomagnetic.tv's Psyonesis (http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=972)

March 2004: A change is coming

April 2004: A message

As we talked, she asked me a question: "Do you ever find that you analyze things too much?"

"Yeah, maybe," I responded. "Sometimes. Not sure."

We parted. And then ...

The next day, I ran into her and said, "Remember that question you asked me? I couldn't sleep all night repeatedly analyzing and re-analyzing the question and why you asked it ..."

"Oh," she replied sweetly, "you're such a flatterer. And did you reach any conclusions?"

"Still not sure. I'll need to think about it some more."

She smiled. "You do that."}}

July 26, 2004: Ideas matter

"rationality doesn't seem to be working too well these days," i said to jeannette. "you seem to be doing ok" she noted. "yeah, i have other skills. i can fall back on those. i'm ok and people underestimate me which i am told can be an advantage. but still i don't like it. i realize it can be abused and i can even get to the point where i'm happy it's not the only thing going on but i frankly like a fair amount of rationality."

ideas matter.
sometimes strong enough ideas can shape reality.
every now and then art and beauty and philosophy and theory matter.
and maybe this is a time when bliss does too

the stakes feel higher than ever (maybe it can only happen in times when desperation opens us up) and there are so many variables that it is pretty damn freaky and i really really wish logic worked a little better but at the same time ... art and beauty unleash a lot of possibilities and that is a magic place to be. maybe adding in happiness or bliss or joy or whatever the right term is ... maybe that's the secret ingredient that makes it all different. even if not, it's hard to see how it can be a bad or even a neutral thing.

trust is scary.

love is powerful.

Aug 1, 2004: Tarot reading

• The Significator (that is, me): King of Swords (http://www.crystal-reflections.com/tarot2/rider/king_s.htm)
• Covering me (the present): Two of Wands, reversed (http://www.crystal-reflections.com/tarot2/rider/two_wr.htm)
• Crossing me (opposing forces, good or bad): Page of Cups (http://www.crystal-reflections.com/tarot2/rider/page_c.htm)
• The heart of the matter: Two of Swords (http://www.crystal-reflections.com/tarot2/rider/two_s.htm)
• Passing away: Four of Wands (http://www.crystal-reflections.com/tarot2/rider/four_w.htm)
• May happen in the future: Queen of Swords (http://www.crystal-reflections.com/tarot2/rider/queen_s.htm)
• The near future: King of Cups (http://www.crystal-reflections.com/tarot2/rider/king_c.htm)
• My fears: Eight of Swords, reversed (http://www.crystal-reflections.com/tarot2/rider/eight_sr.htm)
• What people around me think: Wheel of Fortune, reversed (http://www.crystal-reflections.com/tarot2/rider/wheel_r.htm)
• My hopes: 7 of Swords, reversed (http://www.crystal-reflections.com/tarot2/rider/seven_sr.htm)
• Final outcome: The Moon (http://www.crystal-reflections.com/tarot2/rider/moon.htm)

See also: Notes on the reading (http://www.achangeiscoming.net/e-luminatus/index.php?title=Talk:Aug_1%2C_2004:_Tarot_reading), Three readings

Aug 1, 2004: Scientists in an irrational world

It could be that the system's in equilibrium, that there is an n-way symbiotic synergy in which we all get what we want, a kind of perpetual multi-player 'scissors paper stone'. but that presumes rationality and i just don't see it. i had wandered around black hat talking to people about how 'rationality's not looking too good these days' something i thought would get a lot of pushback but instead got a lot of sympathetic "yeah's".

The analytical approaches I've taken in the past just aren't sufficient for me to understand what's going on. I've learned a lot, and now know how to temper analysis with empathy and combine it with experience; at what point does it become enough to understand?

you can be scientists in a somewhat irrational world. you just have to think about things at another level ...

it's a time to work on our skills and build our strength ("i think my role is probably to help you magnify your power," i told her) ... which is another way of saying that life was trying to teach me about the limits of analysis.

the world really does revolve around the high priestess. i always hoped (and liked to believe) I had the courage to accept it ... and i think that on the whole I am doing ok.

Aug 2, 2004: It could be the writing

when d said "it could be a message or a person" i thought to myself that this is a pretty good description of quite a few different people in my life right now. maybe it's just phrasing: it could be a message and a person. "this might have something to do with art," she said. "it was a while ago but maybe it's the remixing stuff when you were doing that."

"maybe the writing i'm doing these days?"

"it could certainly be the writing."

these women are so powerful i can't imagine anything more wonderful than being able to help them. in the abstract it hard to imagine that this is even possible -- they seem so far beyond me that it's hard to picture what useful i could do -- but i'm a rationalist dammit and can't deny the evidence.

is it any wonder i think i'm the luckiest person in the world?

Aug 3, 2004: Limits of analysis

OK, OK, I get it: limits of analysis.

Aug 5, 2004: In a vortex of possibilities

I'm pretty sure there's something going on.

Aug 8, 2004: A wonderful virtuous cycle

Maybe one of the most important things going on here relates to increasing the number and power of strong, independent, passionate women in the world -- the world in general, and also D's and my world. Perhaps my main role is to assist in this in various ways (most obviously helping and enabling), both directly and indirectly by supporting D. This is a pretty wonderful virtuous cycle, at least from my perspective.

Aug 21, 2004: End duality by worshiping diversity

The tarot is instructions on how to create the world. The Snake Sutra talks of how to transcend it. Art of Seduction and tantra describe how we can get beyond duality by having diversity and multiplicity instead – aka a multitude.

We’re trying to end duality by worshiping diversity.

A common thread in all of this (go, hackers, psytrance, theory) is awareness of the meta-levels – which just increases the intensity of everything.

We’re trying to hack the rules of the game. .

Aug 21, 2004: Technology is a two-edged sword

Acid and situationism and Paris 68 and then the Sex Pistols and post-modernism smashed the duality to pieces – but that doesn’t mean that unity is the right answer. Instead, it’s multiplicity … people can’t see that “rejecting duality” is itself a combination of dualities, and so any system founded on that principal will be logically inconsistent.

Technology is a two-edged sword: even though it enables new possibilities (http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=687) it complicates the situation and complexity must be respected even if not feared.

…

A quote from hooks: “ There are many choices, many kinds of logic. I could make those events mean whatever I wanted as long as I was honest.”

Aug 22, 2004: It's all about multiplicity / Which goddess gets the golden apple?

Duality is problematic; strive not for unity but for multiplicity and/or nothingness

   * two’s not the answer; neither is one; zero, many, or infinity (“to infinity, and beyond!”)
   * post-modernism is right about this
   * “there are any number of right answers” does not imply “all answers are right” 

”don’t think too much” doesn’t mean “don’t think at all”; D says “sometimes being really smart can get in the way” but doesn’t say that it’s a bad thing

There are multiple lenses, multiple maps .... I’m learning more about them and using them and thinking of the world that way – I’m not an expert in any single one but can recognize the experts and learn from them (and in turn help them in the other areas).

Nobody’s applied this kind of critical reading to many of these lenses. Post-structuralist post-colonialist, queer, feminist, connectionist … all these approaches to theory yield new insights.

…

D and I talked about unity and multiplicity. “With unity comes centrality,” she observed. “Potentially,” I said. “There might be some places where unity is right. The problem comes if you try to force it, you create an unnecessary unity.” But centrality is one of the costs that are easy to overlook.

Multiplicity: It will appear to be a choice between two things; there is almost always a third option to “reject the choice” or even “defer the choice” which means there are many options.

“It’s there in all the maps,” I finally said. “This, go, theory …” I tailed off and didn’t run through the entire litany again. Eventually I added, “It all just seems very abstract.”

“Well, you’re an abstract slash,” she said. I flipped through a book on the fool’s journey to the description of The Fool as “utterly abstract and unsubstantial in nature”/

“So I’m told.”

...

In the 20th Anniversary Edition of Goddesses In Everywoman, Chapter 13 is “Which Goddess Gets the Golden Apple?” This is indeed a false choice; the right answer is “all of the above” with a flouncy twist of “golden apples for the house”.

Starring me in a hyper-post-modernist intellectual farce and/or satire and/or documentary, revisiting the fable of golden apple Kallisti, “To the fairest”. They kicked the choice to Paris, who basically sold it on the eBay of his day – to Aphrodite, with Helen of Troy the eventual payoff. It was a mess. But suppose Paris didn’t choose? What would have happened then (http://www.achangeiscoming.net/e-luminatus/index.php?title=Eris_and_the_anomaly)?

Sakai would approve; chop chop chop on the golden apple leading to as many magical slivers as is needed, no cataclysmic distinction, the solution more than nothingness … but the least possible effort, magnified by nearly-infinite subtlety.

Continued in Eris and the anomaly