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*In the general sense. Not [magick] specifically. |
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*In the general sense. Not magick specifically. |
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You may have noticed a dilemma here. I don't just mean that the number of possibly relevant factors create doubt about finding them all. This does imply that we can never feel complete certainty about any given prediction from experience. (Or rather we can, but not if we think about it.) But we could have figured that out with much less effort, and it doesn't stop us from making almost-certain predictions. The following troubles me much more. In trying to avoid hidden assumptions about the objects of our knowledge, I seem to have made a number of assumptions about the knower. Plenty of people have claimed to experience [egolessness|a total lack of time, space and self]. Furthermore, such experiences seem to compel people to value them, and sometimes try to explain everything else in terms of the mystic experience. We could dismiss this by calling the mystics crazy, but a clever mystic might respond: What do you mean? How do you know? What then? Unless we assume they all lied, it looks like humans can experience an alternative to the seeming certainty of "I think, therefore I am", and all the other assumptions about time, space and self I made before. In practical matters we can ignore this, but to make decisions about practical matters we have to use all the assumptions I just questioned, at least the ones about time and something happening in the past. I wouldn't feel right about dismissing the mystic alternative without trying to duplicate the experience. |
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You may have noticed a dilemma here. I don't just mean that the number of possibly relevant factors create doubt about finding them all. This does imply that we can never feel complete certainty about any given prediction from experience. (Or rather we can, but not if we think about it.) But we could have figured that out with much less effort, and it doesn't stop us from making almost-certain predictions. The following troubles me much more. In trying to avoid hidden assumptions about the objects of our knowledge, I seem to have made a number of assumptions about the knower. Plenty of people have claimed to experience a total lack of time, space and self. Furthermore, such experiences seem to compel people to value them, and sometimes try to explain everything else in terms of the mystic experience. We could dismiss this by calling the mystics crazy, but a clever mystic might respond: What do you mean? How do you know? What then? Unless we assume they all lied, it looks like humans can experience an alternative to the seeming certainty of "I think, therefore I am", and all the other assumptions about time, space and self I made before. In practical matters we can ignore this, but to make decisions about practical matters we have to use all the assumptions I just questioned, at least the ones about time and something happening in the past. I wouldn't feel right about dismissing the mystic alternative without trying to duplicate the experience. |
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