Do you believe in magic?

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
So said Arthur C. Clark.

It is also alleged that 'any technology distinguishable from magic just hasn't been fully developed yet', but never mind.

The point is, do you believe in magic? You think you don't?

Lets talk about politics or economics for a bit. You think that there is such a thing as 'Political Science', or 'Economic Laws'? Oh, such things are mentioned in Universities, I know. But anyone who is actually honest will admit that economics and even politics is more about Faith, than facts.

The Wall Street crash was caused by a lack of faith in the system more than an actual lack of dollar notes or gold bards in the system. And in spite of the fact that Marx declared that the triumph of Communism and the inevitable demise of Capitalism was certain to come - well, somehow , it just didn't happen. Communism actually collapsed and died before my 50th birthday, in fact.

But faith, and things that need faith and can only be seen and understood in no scientific terms do abound, and keep cropping up i life.

Do you believe in Democracy, or Justice and Fairness, perhaps? No- you cannot find any of these things by scientific means. You may find Radium or Aluminium or even gold if you go look in the right places or do the right things to the right sort of ore, but finding justice and fairness is a different thing altogether.

You have to believe in it to make it happen , and if you don't believe, you just don't see it.
For some, if a child dies as a result of eating rancid tomatoes, for instance, it is simply a matter of the manufacturer being sued. A sum of money is adequate compensation for the parents greif, they believe.

to other people like me, no amount of money can be thought of as adequate compnsation for the death of a child. the only way to prevent such an occurence is to legislate that all ingredients in tomato ketchup and anything else intended for human consumption should be of edible quality.

For me, Agape exists.
Agape is a Greek work, as used in the Bible in 1 Cor 13.
In some translations , it is rendered ' charity', in others 'love', but I would prefer it to read ' altruism'.

The Bible in fact says ' God is Love' - not that god has love, or is loving , but that God IS love.
So, yes, i believe in God, I believe that one should seek to help and assist and not harm and exploit others.

Not because I can prove that it works better if you do, or even that it works long term , I just think that one should. You could say that I believe in magic, albeit magic of a certain kind.

Kent Hovind makes a lot more money than I do and is in prison over his unpaid taxes. he believes in conning people. one cannot hold his beliefs with any sense of integrity at the same time as having any rudimentry knowledge of science.I believe in knowledge, education - he wants to keep people in the dark.

I believe in progress, others believe in profits.
but notice I say ' believe' - because any scientific opinion can be validated or falsified if one sets about it the right way, whereas a political opinion is just that - an opinion that history can only hint at rather than give a direct answer.

I believe in things that are quite irrational - things like justice, Democracy, the rule of law.
I believe in magic.For Democracy and Law, if believed in and implemented, can transform society and bring about a heaven on Earth. It is a sort of technology that is worked by immaterial means, and some nations do it better than others. And yes, I believe we can and should transform the Earth into a global society that works for everyone and not just a limited few.How? through STV, Electoral Reform, Workers Co operatives, Democratic Socialism - all these non material concepts offer us the technological capability - if we have the faith.

Yes, I believe in magic. Do you?

Comments

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

[telemann.livejournal.com]

./me snaps his fingers to the catchy beat.

[op-tech-glitch.livejournal.com]

Right now the lyrics to "Summer in the City" continue oozing out of every single one of my pores.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

But anyone who is actually honest will admit that economics and even politics is more about Faith, than facts.

Nah, that's not true. Its like this: if you flip a coin 4 times, chances are that it's going to come up with tails at least one time. So if you say "It will probably be tails at least 1 time" is that faith? No, it's not.

And then people take that and say It is certain that it will be tails exactly 1 time! That doesn't mean the assertion was wrong, but people use it wrong. That's what happens with economics, political theory, statistics, sociology, etc. That's people's faults though, not the practice itself. We're silly little monkeys.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

When I flip coins, it's tails 3 out of 4 times, consistently. Actually, when people flip coins around me, it's about 60% tails. It's quite interesting.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Do you believe in Democracy, or Justice and Fairness, perhaps? No- you cannot find any of these things by scientific means. You may find Radium or Aluminium or even gold if you go look in the right places or do the right things to the right sort of ore, but finding justice and fairness is a different thing altogether.

So, our inability to scientifically discover the properties of an interpersonal relationship or occurrence means that it is necessarily magic? Any belief that is not verified by scientific observation is the equivalent of magic?

What a ridiculous proposition.

[midsummerskies.livejournal.com]

I don't think you can make the argument that just because things are not provable by science (such as justice, Democracy, the rule of law) that they are irrational

I also don't think that Agape and altruism are the same thing.

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

maybe 'irrationl ' is not quite the word we want - but maybe it is...

What I am after is that certain things are not actually inevitable , cause and effect checkable true. They happen, but we don't know why.

If we really knew about economics, would we have recessions? If we knew anthing about politics , would be have wars?

I think that those in charge are simply whistling in the dark. And to be honest, I don't say i'm right - I just hope so.

And would you like to explain the differences between Agape and altruism for us?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Why yes I do believe when I carve into a tree a pentagram and speak mumbo-jumbo I do summon this nice man in a double-breasted tux who calls himself a man of wealth and taste. He's got a nice colonge, calls it brimstone....

___________

That OP is not describing magic, silly OPs get silly responses.

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

Well, some people believe in the free market, some believe in State regulation - what do you believe in then ?

At least...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... you did not carve the pentagram into the chest of Jumpin' Jack Flash.

[ytterbius.livejournal.com]

I worked at a company once with a lady from former Yugoslavia.

At some point I asked her what she did in Yugoslavia, and she said she was a College Student.

Her room and board were all paid, because of course, the country was Communist.

Her study was Economics.

Alchemy without the magic

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

A teenager I worked with in the past expressed an interest in alchemy. I pointed out that we still have alchemy in the form of chemistry. I explained how it was alchemy without the magic. He wanted to know where he could find the magic. I pointed him to communion service.

Many other sciences are based in magic. Surgery is ultimately based on the work of haruspices. Psychiatry still has a significant magical content.

Witchcraft uses magic to cloud the minds of its victims. Racism is a form of witchcraft were people are deceived into thinking ill of others without getting to know them. The communion service is another example of witchcraft used to fleece the flock.

Yes, there is money in magic.

Re: Alchemy without the magic

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Much more if you are J.K. Rowling than if you are Terry Pratchett or Diane Duane.

Re: Alchemy without the magic

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

So no turning of base metals into gold?

Re: Alchemy without the magic

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

"Witchcraft uses magic to cloud the minds of its victims."

Lol BS, I know more than my fair share of witches and not a damn one of them would ever hurt a fly and while they do use magic it is really just a glorified form of guided meditation that puts them in the right frame of mind to achieve the result the spell was designed to achieve (money, love, whatever the goal was), further the overwhelming majority who are actually serious about it will tell you right to your face that you cannot effect another person with magic, it only works internally.

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

Communism has never been implemented on a national scale; all you saw collapse before your 50th birthday was State Capitalism. True communism requires technological solutions to the problems of allocation of space, distribution of goods, and production of energy.

W. Cleon Skousen...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... agrees with you.

Economics is a philosophical study, not an empirical science

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

You cannot control for human action. It is the belief that you can that lies at the root of the delusions about modern economics. See Murray Rothbard's essay: In Defense of "Extreme Apriorism" (http://mises.org/daily/5195/In-Defense-of-Extreme-Apriorism). It helps to understand the problem space before discussing a field's shortcommings.

Re: Economics is a philosophical study, not an empirical science

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

What language are you speaking in?

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

I do.

[moonchylde.livejournal.com]

"I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen-I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know that I’m alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it." -Neil Gaiman's Amercan Gods

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I forgot how much I liked that book.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

"At the bottom of all philosophy, of all science and of all thinking, you will find the one all-inclusive question: How is man to tell truth from error? The ignorant man solves this problem in a very simple manner: he holds that whatever he believes, he knows; and that whatever he knows is true. This is the attitude of all amateur and professional theologians, politicians and other numbskulls of that sort. The pious old maid, for example, who believes in the doctrine of the immaculate conception looks upon her faith as proof, and holds that all who disagree with her will suffer torments in hell. Opposed to this childish theory of knowledge is the chronic doubt of the educated man. He sees daily evidence that many things held to be true by nine-tenths of all men are, in reality, false, and he is thereby apt to acquire a doubt of everything, including his own beliefs." - HL Mencken

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

shame it is so long - it makes a very good DQ.
but I give you kudos for making one of the best , if not the best comment so far.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

"The Wall Street crash was caused by a lack of faith in the system more than an actual lack of dollar notes or gold bards in the system."

Actually no, it happened specifically because there was not enough value backing up all of the dollars supposedly in the system.

Had the value been there to support the bubble, or even just a good chunk of it then people never would have lost faith in the system to begin with.

"Do you believe in Democracy, or Justice and Fairness, perhaps?"

What do you mean "believe in"? Do I believe they are ideals that humans wish to adhere to in some fashion? Certainly, however I do not believe they have any objective existence. Fairness and Justice are just points of view, and Democracy is actually a very dangerous concept that I believe is given far more power than it deserves.

"For some, if a child dies as a result of eating rancid tomatoes, for instance, it is simply a matter of the manufacturer being sued. A sum of money is adequate compensation for the parents greif, they believe.

to other people like me, no amount of money can be thought of as adequate compnsation for the death of a child. the only way to prevent such an occurence is to legislate that all ingredients in tomato ketchup and anything else intended for human consumption should be of edible quality."

And to others we recognize that NOTHING can prevent a child from dying as a result of eating rancid food. It will ALWAYS happen. Sure, you can fiddle with the odds of it happening and make it more or less likely but prevention actually has less objective existence than fairness.

We also recognize that regardless of their goals regulations often work to bring about the exact opposite result by stifling innovation and enforcing one size fits all processes which encourage the overuse of antibiotics and unhealthy (if not necessarily unsafe) factory farming methods in place of their more organic and natural alternatives.

Further the point of the monetary compensation is not to "make up for the loss of the child" but rather to provide an incentive for food producers to do everything in their power to prevent bad food from getting out.

Finally, please define edible quality for me. You can't do it, because the concept of "edible" is as personal as the concepts of "fairness" and "justice"

"I believe in progress, others believe in profits."

This is a wonderful example of an empty phrase. It sounds really good and profound, however it's semantic content is basically 0.

You believe in progress? What is progress, progress towards what?

Without defining the end goal the concept of progress is meaningless. Without defining ways of measuring the progress there is no way to determine if you are even making it. Progress is ultimately another wishy washy word that sounds good and can fool people into agreeing with you without having to defend or even define what you actually want.

Profit is actually similar, true in an accounting or financial context profit is very rigidly defined. However everywhere else the word has little meaning because profit cannot be measured without defining the underlying value system that will measure it. For example, you stand at a crossroads with an oracle, the oracle tells you that to go to the left and you will meet your soul mate, fall in love with them and live a long but impoverished life raising 3 beautiful children along the way, to go straight you will become a world famous artist (in whatever artistic field you prefer) and have the adoration of millions through your art but be unable to form close attachments because your art consumes you so and have no real friends and eventually die alone, if you go right you will become a rich and successful businessman with a string of failed marriages and miserable home life.

So tell me which path will profit you the most?

The answer of course is different for each one of us and there is no right answer because we all define profit differently.


So you believe in progress towards some undefined goal and others believe in profit defined by an unknown value system.

You didn't end up saying anything.

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

well, it seems your second post came up first, i will try to answer this one now.

"What do I mean by ' believe'?
I have difficulty explaining exactly what I mean here, but I will give an example.

I know that Fox News exists, and so does the BBC- but I believe in the BBC , but not Fox News. because i give credit , i give intellectual support and agreement to the BBC , but not Fox. Do you ge t what i am driving at?

I believe that it is possible to make real progress in society, not just have meaningless change.

If fewer children die in infancy, if more children become literate, then we have progress. it is well being i those terms , real specific and measurable ways , that we can have progress. there are others i could mention , but those are 2 examples.

I get what you say when you give 3 different versions of ' success'.I would pick the first one. but i can see that other choices would e valid for other people. It depends on what you feel is what you ' believe in '

me , I want to see a world where every child can read, where people have some say in how their country gets run and where all adults have equal rights before the law. World peace would be nice too.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

"I believe in magic.For Democracy and Law, if believed in and implemented, can transform society and bring about a heaven on Earth."

And finally I am sorry but you are wrong.

First off, Democracy and Rule of Law are diametrically opposed, because democracy, whether direct or indirect says that we should do whatever the majority decides and rule of law says that there are things which NO ONE and no group can do. However even to the extent that they are compatible they cannot work to create a heaven on earth because they cannot get rid of scarcity and they cannot make everyone agree with each other. Further they cannot turn men into angels, there will always be those willing to dominate and oppress others for their own gain and all of the government in the world will not eliminate them from existance.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Unless the democracy sets the laws. Pokes a whole in your theory doesn't it.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Actually something we should talk about in terms of faith is hygene.

http://healthland.time.com/2010/12/03/can-overuse-of-antibiotic-soap-promote-allergies-in-kids/

Antibacterial soap is an atom bomb to bacteria, both the helpful and harmful kind. Turns out that it can be bad for us.

http://www.webmd.com/ibd-crohns-disease/crohns-disease/news/20040519/wormy-cocktail-fights-crohns-disease

Parasites in our body may be good for us too, we evolved having all sorts of bacteria and parasites all over us. Now we've suddenly decided we need to kill it all, and maybe we're causing a lot of the modern diseases by this.

Obviously this isn't an argument against medicine and cleanliness, but we just make these assumptions without really knowing what we're doing.

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

It is a system that is on a par with magic in terms of our acceptance of magic, but not Pratchett's, I suspect !

Seriously, I reckon it makes economists envious.

Shall we call it a more exact ' inexact science' than Economics?