Cause-Effect is All There Is

How many of you still believe in demons, gods and fairies? If you, for instance, are one of those people who "descend" into their own "unconscious" to interface with "spirits" of an "unknown nature", you are basically functioning within a mode of being that, no doubt, future human beings will regard as a function of a primitive age which, without any coherent representation of 'what happens' i.e. affectively, cognitively, etc, human's naively chalk it up to a "cosmic allegory".

The beauty of evolution - and of cause-effect thinking - is that it is so obviously superior - epistemologically (i.e. in terms of "what is known and how it comes to be known") that it really does afford people like me, Umberto Eco and pretty much anyone sufficiently educated to look upon the "mystic" types as a primitive breed which holds back humanity because they - as individuals - are failing to take responsibility for their own traumas, and, instead of taking ownership and "learning to bear" what has personally happened to them, they project their troubles on the world and the others they relate with, which, of course, is only delaying the inevitable 'karmic consequneces' that will come upon a creature that is created and molded to functioning completely in terms of the ecological processes which create it.

In short, magic is not proof of anything - other than that reality has a very complicated structure which also entails human observation - and the objects which emerge therein - so that, like the chemical dynamics which make up our individual cells (and ALL individual cells), we are but a process within a point-counter-point structure which operates within the trillions of cells which make up our body, and, via fractal growth "arcs", or "rings", appears again within our mind as perception-cognition dynamics (where our own observing mind and the objects it interfaces with affects its own meaning relations), and the "spirit" which has apparently dominated and obsessed the minds of primitive cultures without the technological or epistemological means to probe matter for deeper coherency (i.e. representation, or understanding), may be understood as the singular "archetype" which entrains/organizes the functional logic of the self-relation-with-the-world.

In short, if you can't relate to reality as a moral being, you are subjecting yourself to the "mirror" which all self-other relations functionally constitute: if you hurt others, get ready to one day know what it felt like on the other side i.e. as the victim, as opposed to the aggressor.

Trying, or imagining, or pretending, to be anything other a human being i.e. a social being which self-organizes in terms of how others know us - is just a distraction, a lie, a misrepresentation which the universe apparently provides ample wiggle room to express; but its also a massive #ing lie which will hurt the person and the people and society they relate within. Indeed, today's primitive luciferian ethos threatens the wellbeing of all life on Earth - because one life in particular, the human, has got it into its stupid #ing head that it is ineluctably "alien". Aye.

If you don't like physics, or science, or studying reality, my posts will be uninteresting to you. But, if like me, youre a vast-reader, you will know my words are more or less accurate: there is only one way to truth, and that is the systems-view i.e. the view which necessarily positions the individual as emerging within a larger system to which its own dynamical history as an evolving energetic system is necessarily correlated - or "symmetrically complementary" to.

Nature - other animals, indeed, "otherness", is our source of happiness. Evolution is evolving towards greater complexity, and indeed, KNOWING that you are a function of a much larger, inherently de-centered, singular cosmic process, which grows through biosemiotics means via cause-effect energetic dynamics - always, somehow, "knowing" as a function of reducing entropy (or ignorance), you are on the right path, heading in the same way as people like myself, who, not wanting to destroy reality, the natural world, or the self, do not and will not permit themselves to indulge in incoherent fantasies about being somehow "above and beyond" the suffering that motivates us to see the world more truly - not with rose-colored glasses, but as reality is, and most of all, at least for the time being (and in reference to our collective traumatic past) learning to bear that truth knowing that it will grow easier with time.

a reply to: Astrocyte

No. Without the shamanic journeys of our ancestors we would never have evolved into the relative aliens we're now.
Cause & effect.

originally posted by: Astrocyte
In short, magic is not proof of anything

Magic is proof of science that has not been fully understood.

Fly a helicopter in back in the Stone Age and the locals will all call it magic.

Holding a device and opening a portal, stepping through it, into your office is currently majik. In 10-20 years it might very well be reality for millions of people worldwide.

a reply to: Astrocyte

I often enjoy reading your posts, but this one has me wondering. You often write these long long pieces that take a lot of time to read. Mostly your threads go with few replies and more often then not you do not engage with any one who replies.

This abnormality with the general population of ATS has always had me wondering why you post here, why you so seldom if ever reply to other threads.
I have thought that you write all your own material and just toss it out here as kind of a testing ground or fish hook for others to bite on. I have wondered if you write your own threads or merely copy and past from somewhere else.

Well today I pulled up short by what appeared to be an obscure reference.

The beauty of evolution - and of cause-effect thinking - is that it is so obviously superior - epistemologically (i.e. in terms of "what is known and how it comes to be known") that it really does afford people like me, Umberto Eco and pretty much anyone sufficiently educated to look upon the "mystic" types as a primitive breed which holds back humanity because they

At first I thought that you were calling yourself Umberto Eco, but then I noticed that there was no comma behind the Eco, which would mean that you, the author, were referencing yourself, Eco, and others.

Now that would be fine but for the fact that you made no other reference to Eco throughout the thread. That and you made no comment on why he would have been on your mind to the extent that you would pick him out of the ether to use as an example of one who thinks this way. You might have picked anyone who does, but you specifically mentioned Eco...

So this leads me to think that you have lifted this post from somewhere else, some other place that was already referencing Eco so that mention of his name would not have seemed so out of context from the rest of the post.

See? Plus you did not say afforded Eco, but rather referred to him in the present tense. Eco, died a year and a half ago.

So Astro, plagiarizing or what.

a reply to: Astrocyte

How many of you still believe in demons, gods and fairies? If you, for instance, are one of those people who "descend" into their own "unconscious" to interface with "spirits" of an "unknown nature",

All I can say Astrocyte, is this;

Look between two thoughts.

That's where it all happens.

Intellect is just a branch of intellegence.

The pictures intellect builds from book-learning are like pictures cut out of a magazine and pasted on your window.

Too many pictures and you can't see outside anymore.

that it really does afford people like me, Umberto Eco and pretty much anyone sufficiently educated to look upon the "mystic" types as a primitive breed which holds back humanity....

hmm.... You're like Umberto Eco , looking upon the primitive breed.

I think every professor and writer is in some way an exhibitionist because his or her normal activity is a theatrical one. When you give a lesson the situation is the same as writing a book. You have to capture the attention, the complicity of your audience. Umberto Eco

I consider myself that 'mystic type'. Oh Spirituality has it's merits. With only Science we become an army soulless drones might be good for business but there is definitely more than cause and effect. Science and Spirituality well that's a team.

it is a mistake to view mystic types as primitive.

the ancients embraced it and were much more in touch with nature. if you consider them primitive then you are not aware of the ruins they left behind.

science and magic are one in the same. once the magic is understood it becomes science. think of it as trying to re-discover lost science, a forgotten knowledge that is much needed in order to deal with the exponential growth in technology.

According to quantum loop theory and string theory, at the quantum level of the space-time continuum, there is no distinction between cause and effect because time does not exist as an ordering parameter. The arrow of time emerges only on a space-time scale that is several orders of magnitude larger than than the Planck scale of 10^(-33) cm and 10^(-43) sec, where space and time cease to be definable in the sense of the Newtonian physics that governs the macroscopic world. Timelessness and not existing in space are aspects of the mystical awareness where dualism disappears. Your physics and the positivist philosophy that stems from it is Newtonian and thoroughly out of date.
You make the fundamental error of so many psychologists in thinking that mystical thinking and awareness is an activity of the unconscious mind and therefore retro-progressive from an evolutionary point of view. As Ken Wilbur pointed out in his earlier books, like "The Spectrum of Consciousness," psychologists have misidentified the superconscious state (one which is to be evolved TO) as the unconscious state from which thinking humanity has evolved. You have made the same error. You make the mistake because you have no other way of dismissing super-rational, mystical and magical knowledge as an alternative to rational, scientific knowledge (it is, of course, not an alternative but, instead, its apotheosis). You are so eager to call this awareness "irrational" that you totally misunderstand its nature in your haste to relegate it to the primitive superstitions of the past. This is inexcusable. But then, your thread was a cut and paste probably from somewhere else, as Terry McGuire suspects, so it is not even your own idea, quite apart from it being scientifically and psychologically false.

I have said before and will say it again, cause and effect is one of the most erroneous statements ever to leave a mans mouth. Humans, human nature and human interactions is vast and complex and from this the causes are chosen. But they are chosen to "prove" one effect.
This is not logical or sound reasoning as the cause root is in the eyes of the beholder. Therefore the effect proven is the beholders reasoning.

Ebb and flow, but the question always will be is what, or even whom, generated the work or inertia for it to echoe on the surface of the seven seas? Philosophy or proverbs are just peotry of those motions, like a rolling, trolling stone with words describing as it was written, that it dance, the dance of life as one.

a reply to: Astrocyte



Hallow Astrocyte.

As your are probably aware we are near Halloween. So you should know
that in relation to my understanding of the Internet I could figure out where you live and TP your house. Actually I take such a consideration very seriously and have already purchased several $100 of toilet paper, for the purpose of wrapping your entire home in it, as is traditional and in relation to your inconsiderate interpretation of Spirituality.


Understand that the day after Hallow Eve if you find your primary domicile completely wrapped in Toilet Paper. the every first thing you should do is take into consideration that I was responsible.

Any thoughts?

Be warmed I can afford a lot more toilet paper.

Be warmed I can afford a lot more toilet paper.


The Universe exists; effect.

As far as cause that is a matter of belief with all due respect.

Can you prove otherwise

a reply to: TerryMcGuire

To be fair to Astrocyte, he wrote this in a recent post called Why do I post here?

I often find myself asking myself rhetorically, "why do you post here?" Its a question motivated by insecurity, of course, since I am well aware that my viewpoint on things clashes with the religiosity of the people who post here. Nevertheless, It doesn't take long before I discover what it is. It's two things:

1) I've developed a connection with this site. With it's colors - its name - and its users.

2) I think I can help people here, because I feel, however "narcissistic" it may seem to others, like I got the sort of thinking needed to help people stuck in nihilism.

I know that doesn't prove anything but I thought it was worth mentioning.

If you do end up reading your replies Astrocyte, I just wanted to tell you that I really love this "blog". I had never even heard of this website until a google search for "steven pinker philip bromberg" turned up with your post called The Feminine Man. I found exactly what I was looking for, even if "Astrocyte" turns out to be some kind of plagiarist fraud.
Keep the posts coming!

a reply to: MRithgin

Thank you for that reference.
I often wonder about Astro and that which you offered speaks to one of the possible understandings of his presence here that I have considered.
Astro is one of the reasons I am still visiting this site and like you found his referencing to thinkers and scientists with which I am familiar stimulating.

a reply to: Astrocyte

Nature - other animals, indeed, "otherness", is our source of happiness. Evolution is evolving towards greater complexity, and indeed, KNOWING that you are a function of a much larger, inherently de-centered, singular cosmic process, which grows through biosemiotics means via cause-effect energetic dynamics - always, somehow, "knowing" as a function of reducing entropy (or ignorance), you are on the right path, heading in the same way as people like myself, who, not wanting to destroy reality, the natural world, or the self, do not and will not permit themselves to indulge in incoherent fantasies about being somehow "above and beyond" the suffering that motivates us to see the world more truly - not with rose-colored glasses, but as reality is, and most of all, at least for the time being (and in reference to our collective traumatic past) learning to bear that truth knowing that it will grow easier with time

Yet isn't our collective traumatic past dragging us down? Isn't it holding us back from even considering these perspectives that are being brought forth for our considerations? Not just you of course but all of the emerging sciences and what they are telling us about our reality? As much as I agree with what it is offering, it does not seem to counter pull of our traumatic past as well as our millions of years of development towards and through mythunderstandings of existence.