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Post by Padowan on Nov 12, 2016 18:23:23 GMT -6
Why take this to the level of evaluation by 4th way principles when it could have very well have been a rudimentary attempt at explaining evolution. Even worse, fictional entertainment devised to persuade.
I have missed what step you took that sent you on the 4th way trail from Lovecraft.
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Post by shawnhartnell on Nov 13, 2016 0:34:22 GMT -6
Why take this to the level of evaluation by 4th way principles when it could have very well have been a rudimentary attempt at explaining evolution. 1. This has nothing to do with evolution. If it were taken literally, it could be a rudimentary creationist explanation of the existence of "animal-men." 2. Knowing H.P. Lovecraft's views, it would be retarded to take it as a statement of creationism. Even worse, fictional entertainment devised to persuade. My point requires that it be exactly that, or at least, written in such a way as to not directly and consciously involving the occult. Here's a semi-conscious example, see if you can catch it. This is no doubt written as entertainment. Would you agree to that? The Hitchhiker's Guide is a fictional book existing in the world of the story, much like the Necronomicon was in HPL's fictional stories, as Douglas Adams is writing about it here. Essentially, he's saying that the style of the fictional book is to ramble on a bit before “telling you things you need to know.” That is exactly the structure of this particular passage. The passage rambles on a bit before it settles down and tells you some useful information: You may be wondering how that's useful. It introduces the concept that the human mind is limited to what it can perceive and comprehend. It's fundamental initiate work to realize fully the fact that the cosmos can't be understood. This of course, was a central theme of HPL's work as well. (Both DA and HPL were modern occultists, the primary difference between them is that HPL wrote horror and DA wrote comedy – however the overall themes are the same.) There's some other interesting things to note here about a particular mind as the “tool that leaves it's mark”. The Hitchhiker's Guide (the series itself, not the fictional in-world book) was first produced as a radio series starting in 1978. In May 1979 it was adapted for a stage show and an audio story for a vinyl record. In October of the same year, the first novel (which the passage was taken) was first published. Another example: Here's the beginning of the introduction to the novel: And here's a quote from the Chapter 8 passage: If you read the entire introduction, you find DA's trademark rambling to relevancy pattern: Also, you can see the the theme of limits to understanding. There will never be an ultimate answer or truth. The girl from the introduction understood , and never got to tell anyone. Structure over content. That's occultism in a nutshell. Extra credit: note the two uses of the word "peanut" in the Chapter 8 passage.
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Post by Nyrlthtp on Jan 11, 2017 22:49:43 GMT -6
Its 'truth' is only a matter of differentiation from the apparent. Their bludgeoning is comparable to requiring that surgeons wash their hands, or exercising strict control over radioactive isotopes or terribly virulent diseases.Even worse, fictional entertainment devised to persuade. My point requires that it be exactly that, or at least, written in such a way as to not directly and consciously involving the occult. ....these works were the creation of {occultists},.... I'm not convinced based strictly on your say-so or evaluative expression here, but we probably use the term 'occultist' in different ways (as a fairly new term). By it, i refer to those who employ symbolism to attempt a manipulation of the world through unseen means (divination resulting in derivation of knowledge using unseen, unknown, even 'intuited' inferences or receptions; magic employing symbolism or 'connections at (an ordinary) remove'; or employing devices such as talking boards, or manuals containing methods such as ceremonies and name-keys, for summoning, interaction, and control with non-physical intelligences such as demons, ghosts, fairies, elementals, spirits, saints, or gods).It tweaks the minds of readers by recursion. Cervantes employed the same effect in "The Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha, Don Quixote". It doesn't make someone an occultist, but potentially a visionary or one who has 'insight' into levels of discernment.
Quoting the book it describes and/or which contains it:This is ...written as entertainment. And it plays with the backdrop of the real world to do so in both political and philosophic ways.True, but both have also become actual books, albeit with different contents than portrayed, strictly speaking. "The Necronomicon" could be created so as to solely conform to what Lovecraft described, and yet no one has seen fit to publish one.This isn't strictly accurate, since he gave the impression that it arose "by chance" and therefore might again. No overarching force inhibiting such an ultimate answer or truth (whatever this means) is described as existing. DA even plays with this a bit, beyond, describing the planet Earth as a means of attempting to provide such an answer (to "the meaning of life, the universe, and everything") and constructed by white mice, as i recall....what step you took that sent you on the 4th way trail from Lovecraft. Recursion and the possibility of transcendence?Too small a nutshell, though i know since the term was only invented by Blavatsky in the 1800s it has barely reified into anything identifying. My proposed significance relates to observation and usage. I can totally understand your connecting this to mysticism and the achievement of insight, gestalt, gnosis, or enlightenment. As such, connecting all of this with 4th Way and Gurdjieff is wholly sensible, though occultism only contains that, and only within certain limited Hermetic strains does it focus on it (as from the Golden Dawn, Crowley and their restricted aims).
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Post by Nyrlthtp on Jan 11, 2017 23:09:56 GMT -6
...I don't see any explicit system of occultism described in {HPL's} works. ... Lovecraft{'s} ...fictional works contain themes and commentary on occult thought and subjects of study. ...the most obvious yet unfortunately ignored example of occult principles in his fictional work: On The Creation of Animal-Men. ... I can understand your proposition here, yes. I'd use different terminology, but the connection by structure to mysticism is obvious to me.If you've studied The Fourth Way you are familiar with the octave and the Law of Seven {snip} Would you elaborate on what i regard as the important aspect of this occult principle? I'd ask you to describe the methodology of progress or improvement (even if by chance or incited to randomly occur). Do the Animal-Men catalyze a transformation in mystics by their encounter, contemplation, or possessory engagement? Or is some portion of this simply implied?
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Post by shawnhartnell on Jan 11, 2017 23:58:11 GMT -6
Only the first fraction of the entire series happens on Earth. Then it is destroyed, leaving Arthur and Trillian as the only remnants. So, I'm not for sure what you mean by "backdrop." DA's only political viewpoint was that the whole business is absurd, as was anything else regarding humans and anything they could have an opinion about. Philosophically, DA could easily be considered a cynical nihilist if it wasn't for the fact that he liked poking fun at the absurdity of it all. I do recognize it as an objective commentary on the human condition: the human condition being ignorant, self-important, and absurdly lacking in not only self-awareness of this fact, but lacking awareness of our itty-bitty little insignificant place in the universe. The very first lines in the book are: Get it? My point here was to distinguish to Padowan the difference between the in-world book being referred to from the novel of the same name so she wouldn't mistake one for the other. Ergo: and your point is... ? What you're referring to is another repetition of the theme! Actually, a computer named Deep Thought was created to come up with the answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Deep Thought itself, when given this task admitted it was "Tricky". And, after agreeing to try, Deep Thought took eons upon eons to arrive at the answer. The answer was 42. Among HHGTTG fans, the number "42" is significant precisely because it is equally as meaningful as any other. Anywhoo... After Deep Thought produced his answer, he pointed out that no question had ever been asked, and being smart enough to know he wasn't smart enough, designed a computer that would be smart enough to calculate the question, which, once known, would reveal the meaning of the answer 42. So the Earth was built according to specification, was turned on and calculated for billions of years and in the moment just before it was to output the question -- it was destroyed. Here's yet another repetition of that theme: I didn't say it was a force. I said it was a theme, intentionally written into the series by DA himself. The series itself is a macrocosm of this theme. It ends in the total destruction of the universe (obviously implying the immediate deaths of all major characters as well), with absolutely no answers provided. What DA was getting at was that it's beyond human capacity to come up with any kind of ultimate answer that explains everything and that the search, with our stupid brains and counterproductive human nature, is futile. Thus the phrase stamped right on the cover of the novel and described as being printed on the fictional book as well: "DON'T PANIC."
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Post by shawnhartnell on Jan 12, 2017 1:02:42 GMT -6
I understand all those things as different models of the same underlying system, like facets of a diamond. Regarding what you quoted, there's the principle: you can't not communicate. Recursion? What do you mean? Structure over content. How do I explain this... Imagine the human mind as a rubix cube. If you take all of the colored square stickers off what you have is a rubix cube that's all black. Even so, it has a certain identifiable structure and moving parts that interact in stable and predictable ways. The stickers are the content, which is the entirety of what most people notice. However, the stickers couldn't be arranged in any configuration whatsover without it's underlying structure. So, structure over content means paying attention to the black plastic structure of the cube primarily to give context to the content of the colored square stickers. Does that make sense? Meh, it's just a metaphor anyway. From my perspective, the occult includes any penetration beyond the realm of mere appearances. For example, many political people never understand their beliefs from a psychological perspective. They fail to see the "us vs them" ingroup/outgroup bias implicit in the structure of their own beliefs, and at best will point it out on the other side. They fail to realize that the structure of their thinking is exactly the same as the other side, with only the slurs they throw at each other being different. The structure I believe HP Lovecraft is talking about is the base structure imposed on information by the human mind. These are the buckets which the water of experience is shaped. One example is the structure of self / world, which relates to identification in the Fourth Way sense and is really fun to fuck with. Here's a short article about it I wrote, if you want to get a solid idea of the kind of thing I mean: forbiddenknowledge.wikidot.com/blog:self-and-not-self
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Post by Nyrlthtp on Jan 18, 2017 22:33:02 GMT -6
Recursion? What do you mean? In the Cervantes novel, the character Don Quixote acquires a copy of the novel in which he appears by Cervantes and reads about himself, his sidekick, and their adventures. In Adams' book by the name, he refers to the book but it is an imprecise recursion in that all that is described of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" does not appear to be contained within the book by Adams. Adams does not describe the book as authored by Douglas Adams, etc. Recursion is self-reflective, orienting to itself, which is the quality of consciousness which might relate to your notion of Lovecraft-to-4th-Way (i'm still unclear on that, whether you're just referring to The Necronomicon, or the structure you mean has to do with elements of Lovecraft's writing and if so which elements and how they reach to 4th Way; you remark on that below, i try to follow you out with my best esoteric guesses.)I replied in our conversation: Structure over content. ... {rubix cube over colour stickers metaphor} ... paying attention to the black plastic structure of the cube primarily to give context to the content of the colored square stickers. ... The structure I believe HP Lovecraft is talking about is the base structure imposed on information by the human mind. Indeed, the more structured and simplified the scientific thought approaching the quandries posed in Lovecraft's fiction, the more difficulty, terror, and struggle ensued. I'd suggest that Lovecraft's fiction implies the natural outgrowth of what you're suggesting: NIHILISM. This is at base irreconcilable with most spirituality and mysticism (absent certain trans-conceptual styles such as Taoism and Zen Buddhism), though i notice that many who like horror mixed with their mysticism use it as a supplement for how non-literal, non-dual, and ultimately irrational things seem to be (the very thing that attracts intellectuals to Zennish valence).These are the buckets which the water of experience is shaped. One example is the structure of self / world, which relates to identification in the Fourth Way sense and is really fun to fuck with.... {From the site to which you point: "you can be tricked into thinking something that isn't you is you. (Rubber hand illusion) but the reason we can do this is to better handle things like tools which are more easily processed as a direct extension of ourselves automagically rather than having to consciously fumble around with them."} Because perception is tricky, malleable, and shifting, this does not mean that it implies what is real or accurate. What it does tell us is that we won't necessarily be able to determine what we are, strictly by appeal to experience (on account of this perpetually being perceived).
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Post by shawnhartnell on Feb 8, 2017 23:03:15 GMT -6
Recursion has a special meaning to me, most likely because I'm a crappy programmer and recursion is one of those programming concepts and such. Anyway, I do believe that what you're talking about as recursion is better known as "Breaking the Fourth Wall." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_wallNo, Hitchhicker's Guide within the novel isn't the novel itself, but it does sort of break the fourth wall as a allegorical reference (? not sure if that's the right term.) Douglas Adams intended the novels to be a sort of guide in of itself with himself being the primary author. It's not only his commentary on the human condition, it's chock full of things that are useful to know (but not necessary) in your own "journey", like for example, it's certainly and unavoidably going to end much in the same way it will for a whale created in the atmosphere of a planet. Memento mori.
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Post by shawnhartnell on Feb 8, 2017 23:04:59 GMT -6
Nyrlthtp: If I've missed anything in this thread you want me to address, let me know, and I'll address it. I seem to have skipped over some of your points and if you still think they're worth discussing at this point, I'm all for it.
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Post by Nyrlthtp on Mar 8, 2017 11:27:42 GMT -6
I'll focus on what you sustain and leave the rest for others. Here's your Fourth Wall Break notion: "... The actors ignore the audience, focus their attention exclusively on the dramatic world, and remain absorbed in its fiction, in a state that the theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski called "public solitude"[citation needed] (the ability to behave as one would in private, despite, in actuality, being watched intently while so doing, or to be 'alone in public'). In this way, the fourth wall can be created regardless of the presence of any actual walls in the set, or the physical arrangement of the theatre building or performance space, or the actors' distance from or proximity to the audience. "Breaking the fourth wall" is any instance in which this performance convention, having been adopted more generally in the drama, is violated. This can be done through either directly referencing the audience or the work they are in, or referencing their fictionality. The temporary suspension of the convention in this way draws attention to its use in the rest of the performance. This act of drawing attention to a play's performance conventions is metatheatrical. A similar effect of metareference is achieved when the performance convention of avoiding direct contact with the camera, generally used by actors in a television drama or film, is temporarily suspended. The phrase "breaking the fourth wall" is used to describe such effects in those media. Breaking the fourth wall is also possible in other media, such as video games and books." -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_wall"Recursion occurs when a thing is defined in terms of itself or of its type. Recursion is used in a variety of disciplines ranging from linguistics to logic. The most common application of recursion is in mathematics and computer science, where a function being defined is applied within its own definition. While this apparently defines an infinite number of instances (function values), it is often done in such a way that no loop or infinite chain of references can occur." -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursion See and
but particularly
The adjective 'recursive' is being applied to 'awareness' to help to describe consciousness. This is a mathematical concept but it transcends math and logic and applies to process and consciousness. This is to what i was referring above, and the URLs i have provided are from professors attempting to explain Hofstadter's book's content, which see.
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