tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887440039323868659.post8553310464189545023..comments2024-03-28T07:55:50.510-07:00Comments on RAWIllumination.net: Prometheus Rising exercise and discussion group, episode 79, Chapter 14Cleveland Okie (Tom Jackson)http://www.blogger.com/profile/07810736442596736041noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887440039323868659.post-77259034863584622842022-05-07T12:26:23.304-07:002022-05-07T12:26:23.304-07:00Apuleius, you mentioned Borges. For reasons I forg...Apuleius, you mentioned Borges. For reasons I forgot already, I was just last week compelled to reread The Garden of Forking Paths (1941). In the story, said Garden is both a labyrinth and a book.<br />“I had questioned myself about the ways in which a book can be infinite. I could think of no other than a cyclical volume, a circular one. A book whose last page was identical with the first, a book which had the possibility of continuing indefinitely.”<br />Not only this describes a strange loop, but it also seems to me to be an accurate description of Finnegans Wake, published two years prior.<br /><br />Right after the above quoted lines, the narrator talks about the Thousands And One Nights, and the strange loop within. I am now getting to the chapter in Gödel, Escher, Bach where Hofstadter describes recursive structures and stories within stories. A lesser known literary work filled with meta-stories and old-fashioned psychedelic esoterica would be The Saragossa Manuscript, written in the early 19th century by Jan Potocki. The film adaptation I recommend heartily.<br /><br />The Borges short story also has a mention of “chess”, which Oz Fritz talked about last week, and its “theme has been said to foreshadow the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics” (quoting from Wikipedia), thus in a way connecting with the Schrödinger’s Cat trilogy. Perhaps a bit eerily, we also find the sentence “he opened a drawer of the black and gold desk”, echoing Apuleius’ second paragraph.<br /><br />I am even being told that Deleuze uses this story as an example somewhere. By the way, Oz I really like your video series. I watch each one a good couple of times to try and wrap my head around what is being discussed. I feel like these very much connect and give depth to our current talks on the metaprogramming circuit.<br /><br />Here can be read The Garden of Forking Paths: <br />http://www.mycours.es/gamedesign2012/files/2012/08/The-Garden-of-Forking-Paths-Jorge-Luis-Borges-1941.pdf<br /><br />“I can’t get out – my horns won’t fit through the door.”<br />Until recently I was having a hard time seeing beyond the apparent goofiness of this example. I think it alludes to all those self-imposed constraints that translates as psychological or emotional blockages, and which can be experienced as very real. Some reframing then becomes necessary (therapy, psychedelics etc) and rather than solving the issue, often it simply stops being perceived as such.<br />Learning to successfully perform this type of heuristic on oneself seems like a good way to describe one aspect of the metaprogrammer.Spookahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11682642534331240023noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5887440039323868659.post-4530957763820627972022-05-04T21:14:00.306-07:002022-05-04T21:14:00.306-07:00Regarding acid as a magic switch recalls hearing s...Regarding acid as a magic switch recalls hearing someone say once that all serious teachers who worked with it invariably connected it to a spiritual practice or discipline of one sort or another; that it seems more helpful to consider it a possible assisting factor rather than a be all, end all, if used at all. <br /><br />Oz Fritzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06061222169144560970noreply@blogger.com