Chaos, the Ability to Perceive Options

hi... ... just a question. does it really matter. im not trying to say anything everyone has really good ideas... but. well, what does it matter. its here you know. i doubt it really contimplates itself. i think chaos is chaos and law is law. the yin doesnt worry about the yang and vice versa... but dont take my words for anything. i just think were all right and wrong. thats all.... um bye

WOW! i forgot about writing that lol i was so young and nieve lol um

okay i didnt read it all cuz im not a reading nut but what i read you all have good points. so, acid i think that the complete chaos cannot exist nor the complete order as you but only because we will always see the duality in them as al_zaine said. in the chocolate you eat can it not also have a little vanilla. the dog can have the essence of a cat in it. the woman might think like a man on certain occasions, everything imposes on itself.

as for perfection... a phrase and nothing more. perfection is nothing more than trying to fit the universe and all its concepts and notions we will never fathom if we lived for 10,000 gigaannums. the complexities is because we refuse to see the simplicity. the sky is blue because its blue the dog wags its tail because its happy. there is no complete biologics behind it. but we explore deeper always cuz we must know more. thus we delve into many THEORIES and ideas that shape our universe into something that it is and is not. we create our own universe as gods that we look up to. we give names to things that have no life and are shapeless. because we seek we create. because we assume we find. perfection is ever changing and thus does not have a definition.

neither does mankind, nor human, nor you or me or anything. nothing exists because for it to exist in our thoughts it must be defined in a way that we can depend on, the only thing that remains a constant in life as we all know is nothing remains and everything changes.

so really if we think on these standards there is order in this chaotic span of life that has reached back past what we fathom. the universe started... we know... or maybe it was always we think. the question will make us search forever and when we die off the next intelligent life forms will do likewise wondering where their origins span. we ask futile ? in search for answers that we don't need. thus we spend our lives not living as we should be doing but instead seeking the answer to life and its secrets never thinking... do we really need to know them. better ? if there are Gods out there or cognisant beings of the universe would they find us worthy of imposing upon the knowledge they protect for our own purposes when all we are capable of is destruction? everything that brings life and hope in this world is always converted to death at some point down the line. EVERYTHING!

freedom of speech= MLK, JFK, MALCOM X, JESUS CHRIST, GHANDI, TUPAC
birth= abortion, day after pill, etc.
etc.

there is a passage in the bible i dont know where that says:

"be grateful for what you are given and the kingdom of god will be given to you"

by those standards humans are a greedy self serving species no better than cockroaches, the only difference being we havent survived half as long as the little bastards. by that analogy we wouldn't be given nothing but the death we have plagued this world with. but enough of my tired rant...


in conclusion to round everything up... chaos is nothing more than an illusion, a concept, a pretty box with a bow of the intangible that we are always trying to control like a wild bronco that hasn't been tamed yet. and order is it's opposite since there "must always be an equal and positive and negative reaction" in order for anything to work in the universe. so says the humans so it becomes and the humans rise to the gods.
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/book.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/evil2.gif)

I promised this thread on another discussion thread and now...I have to deliver.
Just what makes Chaos Magic(k) chaotic?
We are beings with the ability to perceive many things but is Chaos one of them?
How, as organized life forms, are we able to conceptualize Chaos and then produce a 'system' of magic that utilizes this principle? (the idea of a 'system' implies order by its very nature)
A close friend and I are in the middle of this debate...he's a Molecular Biophysisist and I'm a dropout. He claims evidence of chaos exists in many ways and I've asked him to illustrate this. So far I've not heard of anything objective. True, we can say 'chaos' and write 'chaos' but we are doing so with the tools of order.
Let me bow out for awhile and let the over heated air cool and invite ideas from the Forum. Remember, this is a debate/discussion and we should agree to disagree rather than slinging shots! OK? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/huh.gif)

We say chaos because it is not a system in the traditional sense but rather an amalgam of parts from many different systems picked up or set aside by the magician as needed. As Peter Carrol says it is "metaparadigmal", a system beyond systematization, a system without rules, as in seeming chaotic but with a hidden underlying symmetry. Chaos is a system not of imposed order but of naturally emerging symmetry.

As Peter Carrol says it is "metaparadigmal", a system beyond systematization, a system without rules, as in seeming chaotic but with a hidden underlying symmetry. Chaos is a system not of imposed order but of naturally emerging symmetry.

My point exactly! Symmetry is the organization of something to form a pattern. We can reside on the very infintesemal 'edge' of Chaos but never cross lest we be overwhelmed by its be-ness. ANY cognitive thought begins the inception of Order. The very use of language to describe Chaos is still using Order...similar to defining negative space... From our vantage point you could say that if we enlarge the soup it can resemble chaos (again, in theory) but that is an illusion. But, I forget, All is illusion...
Another interesting avenue. What say you(all)?

. . . the beginning, middle, and end; the birth, growth, and perfection of all that we
see come from contraries, through contraries, into contraries, to contraries. And where there is contrariety, there is action and reaction, motion, diversity, number, order degrees, succession, and vicissitudes.


Giordano Bruno, Lo Spacio della Bestia Trionfante—which got him burned at the stake:
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/blowup.gif)

My point exactly! Symmetry is the organization of something to form a pattern. We can reside on the very infintesemal 'edge' of Chaos but never cross lest we be overwhelmed by its be-ness. ANY cognitive thought begins the inception of Order. The very use of language to describe Chaos is still using Order...similar to defining negative space... From our vantage point you could say that if we enlarge the soup it can resemble chaos (again, in theory) but that is an illusion. But, I forget, All is illusion...
Another interesting avenue. What say you(all)?

Yes but order still remains emergent from chaos, from the chaos of electrical activity in the brain emerges every cognitive organized thought. The symmetry of chaos is self organizing not acted upon by any outside force but blossoming from within being manifest of its own nature. Indeed we cannot cross fully into chaos but residing at the edge we constantly stand witness to the emergent principle that all arises from chaos.

Ah...perhaps semantics is the problem...we agree on so much but still maintain our different perspectives...
Yes, of course Order comes from Chaos! But we can only perceive Order AS it is 'precipitated' from Chaos. To say that 'symmetry' exists as a function or state inherent in Chaos is to deny the Chaos. We, as products of Chaos, are beings of Order. Even Mind has Order. We use language to help us conceptualize Chaos but that is merely illusion . IMHO! I must admit that my logic and understanding may be considered flawed or even too rigid in this discussion...I doubt that this will change in the near future unless an epiphany strikes me...(ouch!) I'll climb back into my cave for the nonce and see if you can lure another soul into this...besides, I talk entirely too much! *grin* (IMG:style_emoticons/default/i_triangle.gif)

Mmm... I am of the mind, after some meditation on the subject of Chaos and Chaos Magick to two momentary plateaus of cognizance.

The first is that, no matter how chaotic you imagine any aspect of reality to be - whether that's the apparently random development of an individual life form, the apparently chaotic electrical activity of the brain, or the apparently chaotic evolution of life and contained self-awareness - in fact everything that is, was caused by something. Effect is preceded by cause, which is in turn an effect preceded by a cause. It is the Yin and Yang. Multiple causes may produce one effect and one cause may produce multiple effects and in a rudimentary sense this can sometimes appear to be chaos - but cause and effect is the essential basis for order, and it is the most basic principle upon which we organize all 'laws' which define the shape of that order in any given era.

If Chaos is antithetical to order, then Chaos must be Acausal. I don't think I can really even say anything to elucidate that. Needless to say, a human being can't even have an acausal thought. You might think so - but if, for instance, you try and prove it is so by 'randomly' thinking about different, say, fruits; the cause of that effect was the instigation present in that original statement that it could not be done (and furthermore your unconscious mind supplies those concepts upon your demand for them based on a thousand sub-conscious processes which are the cumulative total of your experiences, recent mental activity, current fixations, etc.). Nothing you do is random, nothing you are is random. That isn't to say that it is pre-ordained, but that one cause elicited an effect, which caused another, and so on, and the point at which we label 'chaotic' is really nothing more than the isolated instance in a string of causes and effects.

As to Chaos in Chaos Magic(k)... first of all I haven't real peter carrol, and I've read Spare, well, sparingly... although I have read a few spin-offs and essays based upon, and so forth. But regardless the fact of the matter is, the magician may choose paradigms at 'random' and attempt to act 'chaotically' - but in the end (or, really, the beginning!) those choices are the result of psychological activity and impulses derived from a string of cause/effect chain reactions that are not really chaotic at all. A member here said very eloquently (forgive the lack of assigning due credit) "Order is the Chaos I comprehend, and Chaos is the Order I do not Comprehend".

Making a circle of power from shaving cream and cinnamon, for instance - You're still using a circle of power, still applying basic universal principles of ritual magic. A sigil is basically a talisman, substituting one 'charging' ritual for another, and one method of construction for another (method = systematic). Firing the sigil into the apparent 'chaos' of the subconscious mind is not doing that at all - the subconscious mind is not chaotic, just a more complex system than the portion of our 'waking' consciousness that we are immediately aware of, and one that we aren't cognizant of directly.

THe movement of bodies in space may seem chaotic, but really it's a series of gravity wells, torsion fields, (theoretically) dark matter masses, and celestial 'winds' that cumulated in this gracefully systematic dance of galaxies, black holes, stars, planets, and everything in between them.

If anything, then, can be called chaos, it may be the very first Cause, that which had no precedent. IN genesis doesn't it say something about God creating everything out of chaos and void or something? I forget the hebrew wording exactly, but kabbalistically the letters imply this. Chaos might have preceded everything, and everything might one day break down totally into chaos - but in terms of our 'reality' and our ability to percieve or utilize in any way, I must say that I personally cannot reason or anti-reason that chaos is present either to human perception in general, or that it is present in Chaos Magic.

What we can do, I think, is relegate these concepts to matters of Awareness and Comprehension - which on one hand sort of admits an almost willfull ignorance of the principles themselves on an individual scale of Consciousness; and on the other hand takes a general relativistic point of view on what constitutes reality anway.

That is to say - on the one hand cause-effect on a universal scale cannot be denied. If something appears to have happened for no reason, that is only because we do not comprehend the cause. That scale is a mass consciousness/awareness scale point of view and if your cognition is able to handle increasingly complex systems you will eventually comprehend a total order to existence (that's a hypothetical state of awareness of course).

However, we are of course to different degrees limited by our own Awareness and Comprehension so for the individual - if something appears to be chaotic in nature, and we do not attempt to reach a comprehension of the underlying order that is, on a universal scale, actually manifest there, and we treat it as chaos, will it not appear to act chaotically? Is that perception of chaos possibly a form of detachment from order? Even in small scales - we might understand the order in some things but not in others, but those small things in which we do not comprehend that order, maybe our own minds can impose order (relativistic order, that is, just as in relativistic chaos?)

This is akin to the shroedingers cat idea. Except in that case there are two scientists, and one of the them knows whether the cat is dead or not, but the two of them will never meet. The situation remains 'chaotic' to one of them and 'concrete' to the other.

Illustrated, say a wouldbe mage is attempting to affect a weather system. Where he is standing, the sky is clear and he wants it to rain, so he whips up some kind of spell to make it rain. In a few hours the sky gets cloudy and then it begins to rain. He didn't read any weather reports before hand, no one told him rain was coming, he hasn't developed some kind of observational ability to know that it was going to rain. From his ponit of view it was sunny, and then it was rainy, with no apparent chain of events to link the two except for his magical intervention.

However, one mile away another person checked the weather, saw that it was going to rain because air in the northern atmosphere was heated up by the sun, rose, and consequently resulted in a notherly wind which brought towards this previously sunny area a cloud front fresh of the warm atlantic ocean and ripe for a rain storm.

From the one point of view there was an element of chaos which could be manipulated to produce rain - from the other there was never any chaos to begin with.

Is chaos really just ignorance then? And if so what does that make Order? Are the two really antithetical in the first place or are we missing other elements - Like Bym suggested (maybe jokingly) a trine? Chaos... Order... and the thing which connects them? Two poles cannot exist alone with one another - two objects require the space between them.

Mmm, that's all I have right now - this subject is not one that I spend a great deal of time considering or studying. But, can you really study Chaos anyway?

peace

As an afterthought, possibly from an awareness point of view, chaos can really be 'percieved' when we are entirely present in this very moment, divorced totally from past experience and future consideration. Then we do not reason or comprehend cause and effect. If we divorce ourselves so completely from past and future based thinking - like a zen master or something - then everything that we observe simply is, with not precedent or similarity to other phenomenon, and is therefore an unfathomable mystery and completely chaotic. We are not so much discovering chaos as we are surrendering to a state of comprehensive oblivion and being-ness.

This post has been edited by Vagrant Dreamer: Jan 21 2010, 10:50 PM

I am much in accord with Vagrant. Chaos, technically speaking, is that which underlies Cosmos. Chaos is the Boundless (“the disordered state of unformed matter and infinite space that existed before the ordered universe [the Cosmos].” It is the hypostatis--or matrix or "divine ground." Cosmos is Chaos limited or made measurable by Nous (the Intellectual Principle or Divine Mind). Chaos magick principle is also informed by Chaos theory: “system behavior that depends so sensitively on the system’s precise initial conditions that it is, in effect, unpredictable and cannot be distinguished from a random process, even though it is deterministic in a mathematical sense.” Chaos theory talks about "strands" and "trajectories" in mathematical equations that are way beyond my comprehension but that can probably be translated into the philosophy of "interdependent arising."

Chaos and Order are abstracts steeped in semantical confusion. To discuss them like they are actual things is, in my opinion, worthless for anything other than entertainment.

But it's whatever.

Chaos and Order are abstracts steeped in semantical confusion. To discuss them like they are actual things is, in my opinion, worthless for anything other than entertainment.

But it's whatever.

Precisely, it is merely an abstract mental exercise attempting to shrink an infinite unfathomability into some limited conceptual understanding.

Chaos and Order are abstracts steeped in semantical confusion. To discuss them like they are actual things is, in my opinion, worthless for anything other than entertainment.

They aren't being discussed as "things"; they're being discussed as concepts. Concepts are thoughts; thoughts are both " things" and precede things. Read up on the doctrine of emanation in Hermeticism, Gnosticism, Kabbalah, Samkhya, and Tantra (IMG:style_emoticons/default/book.gif) and then we can discuss Order, Chaos, Existence, Consciousness, Thought, and Form and metaphor and how this relates to the concepts of Chaos and Order. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blablabla.gif) Chaos and Order (Cosmos) have distinct definitions that date back millennia and thus are not "steeped in semantical confusion." They are terms through which experience is explained. I think this chat board discussion (chat boards are for entertainment as well as informational purposes, btw) is discussing this and its importance in magical theory and application. In this discussion on Chaos we are, in part, exploring the role of consciousness, perception, and attention in explaining how and why things happen or exist (and the next step, how to willfully make things happens instead of being nuts and bolts in the Machine). The revelation then emerges is that things happen outside of human perception and frontal brain mechanisms and that existence is not really anthropocentric but is informed by impersonal forces and dynamics--concepts that boggle the human brain and thus form the basis of lively discussion. And also the big thought arises that all meaning (thoughts, concepts, parameters, paradigms, Ordering of things) is provisional--a concept that should be very liberating but also wigs out a lot of people--also giving rise to dynamic conceptualization and discussion. If for nothing else, conceptualizing grows neural pathways and staves off senile dementia.

Nicely put!
I may not agree on everything in prior discussion(s) but it helps to exercise my brain...I'm never too old or too rigid to change or learn new things!
The plasticity of ones mind is key in so many aspects of living! In order to maintain my illusion(s) I may refute this last statement! LOL!

They aren't being discussed as "things"; they're being discussed as concepts. Concepts are thoughts; thoughts are both " things" and precede things. Read up on the doctrine of emanation in Hermeticism, Gnosticism, Kabbalah, Samkhya, and Tantra (IMG:style_emoticons/default/book.gif) and then we can discuss Order, Chaos, Existence, Consciousness, Thought, and Form and metaphor and how this relates to the concepts of Chaos and Order. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blablabla.gif) Chaos and Order (Cosmos) have distinct definitions that date back millennia and thus are not "steeped in semantical confusion." They are terms through which experience is explained. I think this chat board discussion (chat boards are for entertainment as well as informational purposes, btw) is discussing this and its importance in magical theory and application. In this discussion on Chaos we are, in part, exploring the role of consciousness, perception, and attention in explaining how and why things happen or exist (and the next step, how to willfully make things happens instead of being nuts and bolts in the Machine). The revelation then emerges is that things happen outside of human perception and frontal brain mechanisms and that existence is not really anthropocentric but is informed by impersonal forces and dynamics--concepts that boggle the human brain and thus form the basis of lively discussion. And also the big thought arises that all meaning (thoughts, concepts, parameters, paradigms, Ordering of things) is provisional--a concept that should be very liberating but also wigs out a lot of people--also giving rise to dynamic conceptualization and discussion. If for nothing else, conceptualizing grows neural pathways and staves off senile dementia.

I was not trying to condescend when I said it was for entertainment, and I feel as if you've interpreted my statement that way. In my personal opinion most human endeavor is little more than entertainment, and entertainment is a very worthwhile pursuit.


And yes, I'm fully aware that they are concepts that have been discussed throughout the centuries. However, they are not the only 'terms through which experience is explained.' Order and Chaos are terms we use to try and define facets of existence, but they are ultimately man-made and unnecessary. This is what I meant by 'things'(sorry for the sub-par rhetoric, I didn't mean to spark a discussion, merely to put in my two cents). When I used the word 'things' I was implying something with a definite, concrete, inescapable nature. A nature that I believe man-made concepts like Order and Chaos intrinsically lack.

As for semantical confusion, I meant that people have different views of what Chaos or Order even are. This very discussion has pointed out that there are differing views on the subject. And, for an even more literal example of semantics, the word chaos: which now is thought of as a great and unpredictable disorder, was originally thought of as a mere void, empty of all substance. If this difference in definition isn't an example of semantical confusion, I'd be hard-pressed to find one.

EDIT: In conclusion, if you are discussing them as abstracts subject to human perspective, then we have no disagreement. I believe this is the case, but I have been wrong before. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/bigwink.gif)

This post has been edited by Dooley: Jan 26 2010, 03:04 PM

EDIT: In conclusion, if you are discussing them as abstracts subject to human perspective, then we have no disagreement. I believe this is the case, but I have been wrong before. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/bigwink.gif)

Of course. That is exactly what everyone is doing in this discussion.


I don't think I'm going to add more to this for now except to remind:


"Nothing is true, everything is permitted"-- penned by William S. Burroughs, not the 11th century jihadist Hassan Ibn Sabbah, contrary to popular lore

and

All meaning is provisional and has no basis in absolute reality (so sayeth SororZSD23).

hi - back - well, if you lived inside one inch inside a ruler, and you moved (raised, expanded, whatever) your awareness from just the inch that you were in, to become aware of all of the inches in the whole ruler, what you would see would be all the inches stacked end to end with all the stuff going on in each, i.e. 'chaos' - dumbing down the input to where you only see what you can control is what we ordinarily do, and to become aware of the chaotic view is to let go of control, something the built-in survival mechanism called our ego doesn't like to do, and therefore to see chaos is to become chaos - to work within chaos requires accepting chaos and therefore losing control, and to produce an ordered result from chaos is to introduce control which make it no longer chaotic! - semantics imply order so it/they cannot apply to chaos, but humans reject chaos (both the empty set version or the lack or order version) and try to apply any order (even incorrect order is desired over none at all), so wouldn't an incorrect semantic assumption be desired when speaking about chaos?

"its a hole for letting the perfect out"

This post has been edited by esoterica: Jan 27 2010, 09:35 AM

Six years ago, I explained what Chaos is to me as you folks can read earlier in this thread.
I have engaged many people in conversation, about the topic - and engaged a lot of contemplation in relation to my ongoing experience - since then.

I have repeatedly noticed that many (not all) people want to make Chaos primary in their perspectives. Historic, as well as popular culture, supports that arrangement - in addition to further explaining Chaos as a kind of randomness, mayhem, havoc, pandemonium, and even evil. That explanation is often further compounded by analogizing Chaos with darkness. When put in epic analogical opposition to light, which then infuses the roguish flavor of a daring and dashing rebelliousness against whatever paradigm(s) is/are associated with light - then all together the result instigates a titillating fascination for those who yearn to proclaim their individuality by bucking what they perceive to be the prevailing Status Quo. To me, it's very much akin to folks who gravitate toward making characters who champion, comprise, and are regarded as the "dark side" of a video game - where such are seen as somehow being more "bad ass" and "cooler".

I have come to know that Chaos is neither primary nor a word for referencing randomness, mayhem, havoc, etc... That knowing remains based upon my experience. When I attune my awareness to the primordial background, Chaos does not antecede everything else.

Although I was correct about discerning that Chaos arises from not comprehending Order, it has taken me a while to discern that I was mistaken about Order being the Chaos that I comprehend. As accurate as the role of comprehension - and as tight and mutually supportive as my earlier explanation for Chaos and Order, relative to each other - was, the mutual spin of that interconnected explanation failed by excluding experiential Prime.

Crafting a linguistic update here requires me to take the terms, shake them free of my previous explanations, and re-arrange the words more accurately to reflect my current awareness. I'm also going to introduce a few more terms into the explanation here, and so refresh explanations for them as well while I'm at it. So if you are the kind of person who seriously suffers from shocked sensibilities by such wordsmithing, you might want to stop reading right now.



Ordos (Order) is Prime and appears to me according to two ways, directly dependent upon my comprehension.

When I comprehend Ordos - it appears to me as Cosmos.
Cosmos is the Order that I comprehend.

When I do not comprehend Order - it appears to me as Chaos.
Chaos is the Order that I do not comprehend.

Transforming awareness of Ordos as Chaos to awareness of Ordos as Cosmos -
transforming from not comprehending experience to comprehending experience -
occurs according to the dynamic that I reference as Logos.



Another way of saying it:


The primordial dynamic of my ongoing experience is orderly.
As I use the dynamic process of logic (Logos) and craft comprehension of my experience, it appears to me as cosmic.
Not using logic to craft comprehension causes my experience to appears as chaotic.


Refraining from mistaking what I just explained above as any sort of justification for academic mentation requires noticing and remembering that I employ the term "logic" in a different way than how it has come to be habitually and popularly used - and that it also thus remains free from the classical limitations associated with the word.

This post has been edited by Praxis: Nov 10 2011, 08:45 AM