Re: RE: RE: Gods

From: animated silicon love doll (cheshire@velvet.net)
Date: Mon Feb 04 2002 - 21:52:02 MST


2002.01.31 23:05:19, "Emlyn O'regan" <oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au> wrote:

Whee, chesh is behind on email!

>Not to the technologist

Unless said technologist accepts magic is a part of everyday life. It's really not that
special a thing.

>Not to the posthuman

What if that posthuman creates a simulated universe? At least to the inhabitants of that
universe, said posthuman would be a god.

>I want to be able to understand it better than that.

Magic is useless if you don't understand it. The understanding has to be suppresed at the
time of the working, but saying that something happens for some arbitrary reason like an
unmeasurable spiritual power is pointless, and usually means that someone is talking out
of their ass.

>You can't strive toward magic; it is in essence indefinable, and thus
>untargetable. It contains the set of all (or some?) things that we cannot
>comprehend. By definition, as we come to comprehend them, they cease to be
>magical, and become part of the toolkit.

I beg to differ. I may not be able to describe a sigil as a concrete equation, but i
understand how it works, and know that it works. Nevertheless, I think most people
would describe making something happen by having sex while thinking about a weird
mass of squiggles that once made up a coherent sentance is magic.

>Off the top of my head, striving for "God" has a couple of interpretations.
>It can mean striving for potence and control... I can agree with that (gee,
>what a blokey definition!). But I would not label it God.

I would.

>Or, it could mean striving to somehow become closer to that which is greater
>than/beyond us, and on that score, who really gives a rat's? If this concept
>even makes sense, I suspect that the closer we get to "god", the less
>interesting it will become. It wont become any less pointless, of course,
>having started at the maximum on that scale.

The posthuman is greater than/beyond us.

cheshire morgan. we all create life, some of us with wombs,
                        some with smiles, some with patient hands.
                        we are all gods, if we choose to be.
                                -kitten.



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