tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887440039323868659.post1204402338125267077..comments2024-03-29T08:44:31.936-07:00Comments on RAWIllumination.net: Natural Law reading group, Week 7, 'The Compleat Skeptic' and two others Cleveland Okie (Tom Jackson)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07810736442596736041noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887440039323868659.post-27303255375173769312023-01-13T10:24:23.335-08:002023-01-13T10:24:23.335-08:00Folks clinging for dear life to truth these days l...Folks clinging for dear life to truth these days love relying on the kinds of quips made RAW’s NL-critic, rather than getting down into the weeds of nuanced debate: “Skepticism is a lovely game, after all, only so long as we ignore it long enough to deal with the outside world.”<br /><br />Each of the three NL essays references Discordianism. Does anyone know whether this was RAW’s most explicitly Discordian phase? I’m trying to pull together other RAW writings that mention Discordianism.<br /><br />Glad you pulled this trio together for a single week’s reading, Tom. They’re much more less potent in isolation. There seems<br />To be a definite progression in his argument, with Neurological Relativism as a real crescendo. The term “NR”, by the way, seems like a great descriptor for a lay audience, as opposed to some of the more esoteric labels getting at the same thing (Maybe Logic, model agnosicism, Discordianism, etc).Chadnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887440039323868659.post-64266462779167172022023-01-13T04:39:07.640-08:002023-01-13T04:39:07.640-08:00Although it is poetically called "the silk-li...Although it is poetically called "the silk-lined womb of solipsism" on p. 121, the description of what happened to Crowley despite (or rather because?) of his magickal training seems an apt example of going through Chapel Perilous, the main danger of multiple-model agnosticism.<br />As Tom says, we find in a very condensed form many of RAW's ideas in these few pages.Spookahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17804786740298960107noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887440039323868659.post-52248136105451042722023-01-12T15:44:59.316-08:002023-01-12T15:44:59.316-08:00“Randroid” has now become my new favorite neologis...“Randroid” has now become my new favorite neologism.<br /><br />“Does this attitude explain why RAW's political views seemed to shift around over the years, as he adapted his opinions to new evidence?”<br />You might be very right here, Tom Jackson. We can indeed see changes in his stances over the years, and that was probably helped by his open-ended approach. So shifting political views appears an example of what Wilson calls here neurological relativism. In fact, that seems to be what he later came to name model agnosticism.<br /><br />After accepting that different people have different reality-tunnels, the next step becomes to learn how to adopt different ones, and to juggle with those: “I can suspend any of these beliefs at will, or all of them, and look impassively into the Buddhist void, or switch around to other beliefs temporarily, to check out how the world looks to those who hold those beliefs.” (p. 126)<br />In later writings, RAW will come to call this habit navigating the ‘reality-labyrinth’.<br /><br />In Stranger Than We Can Imagine, John Higgs writes that “a multiple-model agnostic would not say that all models are of equal value, because some models are more useful than others”, nor would they “concern themselves with infinite numbers of interpretations, as that would be impractical”.<br />This appears the way out of the conundrum of solipsism, and how to “deal with the outside world”.<br />Or, as the old advice given to acid beginners goes: “remember that cars are real.”Spookahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17804786740298960107noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887440039323868659.post-50061932774434118332023-01-10T20:36:23.806-08:002023-01-10T20:36:23.806-08:00Great post and illustration!
In the Neurological ...Great post and illustration!<br /><br />In the <i>Neurological Relativism</i> the example RAW gives of Godzilla getting interviewed by Baba Wawa (Barbara Walters, who just died) suggests Hermetic allusion. <br />"How do you and Mrs. Godzilla <i>do it?"</i> (italics in original). In the <i>Book of Lies</i> Crowley uses "it" as a tag for absolute reality. "Very carefully" seems good advice on multiple levels. 93 appears in the paragraph before. (p.124)<br />Oz Fritzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com