[FoRK] His Not-So-Dark Materials

[Lion Kimbro]

On Nov 30, 2007 5:49 PM, Jeff Bone <jbone at place.org> wrote:
> On Nov 30, 2007, at 7:23 PM, Lion Kimbro wrote:
> >> Why?  Why isn't it just wonderful enough --- in itself?
> What exactly do you mean by *mystical?*  Therein, I suspect, lies the
> rub;  I say it's in no way mystical, merely physical --- and very
> complex.

  Yeah, but, ...

  It's **mystically** complex.

  It's so complex, it's mystical.

  If we don't think that's the case, it's just
  because we're looking with our eyes at the ordinary
  world, rather than really unpacking the significance
  of things, in our head.


  I have an idea that I'm calling "mystical realism."
  * http://lionwiki.taoriver.net/cgi-bin/wiki/MysticalRealism

  If you can look at this picture, and say with a
  straight face, "There's nothing super-natural in this
  picture," then you get something of the sense of it:

  http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b23/palookaville/Stumbleupon/UNIMED-PAI-E-FILHO.jpg


  I mean to make some "mystical realism" art.

  For example, pictures of people working in cubicles,
  with the web of relationships and activities that are
  actually going on, in the abstraction layers,
  superimposed / meshed within the actual "by the eye"
  imagery.

  It'll be *intuitive,* but just because it's depicting the
  *subjective,* it doesn't mean that it's not reflecting
  the *real.*


  Atheists have, as a class, really missed the boat
  on the significance of the subjective world.


> (And yes, it is vast and mysterious;  but I assert that it is neither
> so vast nor inherently so mysterious as to permanently defy all
> understanding.)

  Hm, ...

  "Permanently defy all understanding" ..?

  Well, ...  I'm skeptical.  Not in a "God exists, thou shalt not
  know the secrets of the Lord" sort of way, ...

  ...but in just a pragmatic way.


  Here is my thought:

  I think that we will know more, and more, and more about
  the universe, how it works, and so on.

  It would be cool if:
  * ...we figured out all the subatomic gizmos, and figured
    out how they worked.

  Amazing if:
  * ...we figured out how to see past the light cone!
  * ...ie: see beyond the edge of the presently
       observable universe!

  Shocking if:
  * ...we could somehow contain the state data of the
    entire universe, including the state data containing the
    entire universe!
  * ...we could figure out the total extents of the whole
    Universe, and the initial (or looping, or whatever) conditions.

  But, earnestly, I'm pretty skeptical about those later
  things.  I just don't see how we're going to do it.

  But I can get psyched about science growing and growing
  and growing, in terms of what it can explain.

  Maybe, with time, we will develop an ansible, or
  crack the code of the substrate computer, or whatever.

  I hope!

  Until then -- it's pretty damn mysterious.


  What is mysterious to me is about how a tiny
  little choice that's barely perceptible can have
  enormous influence over the future.  That's pretty
  interesting.


> >   I don't get the "don't celebrate the universe" thing.
>
> That's not an inherent part of being anti-religious.

  Oh!, ...

  Well then!

  OK!  {:)}=

  I'll see you and other anti-religious atheists at the yearly
  party, then -- celebrating the Universe, the formation of our
  galaxy, the sun, the sun to follow, our Earth, the struggle
  of creatures over the ages, the emergence of civilization,
  and the complex social developments above it all.

  It'll be awesome!

  Would you like it to be a rave, like we do today?  The
  advantage is you get all the cute raver chicks, but people
  glare at you when you bring your daughter.

  Or something more like an orchestra?  Dignified, respectable,
  evoking the sense of the depths, ..?

  There's a million ways we can do this.  {:D}=