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I used to love reading W.I.T.C.H. comics and they always had a bunch of fun stuff about zodiacs and reading the future in tea leaves, moons and stars and all that silly stuff. I friggin loved that shit because it was fun for the imagination and it also tied in well with the comic being about a groups magical girls who get their powers from nature and blah blah blah. I thought it was fun to find out what my element was based on what month I was born in and what my birthstone was and take little personality tests to see which one of the girls I was like the most (9 out of 10 times, I got Taranee).
The thing is, though: I always knew it was just play pretend and fun past time stuff.
I have had that fun permanently destroyed for me after people started believing in astrology and magic for real. I know people irl who refer to their zodiacs as an explanation for how they like their coffee or why they push their work to last minute or why they vibe well with this and that person. They take personality tests and believe it for real instead of using it as some stupid past time fun. Online, it’s even worse. It gives me the same level of ick as the women in Sex and the City.
It absolutely fucking ruined the fun for me and I just can’t read my horoscope anymore because I don’t want anyone to think I’m one of those people.
You might enjoy Terry Pratchett’s witches series. There’s magic, but the real trick is solving your problems without ever using it. Wyrd Systers or Wee Free Men are good places to start.
Indeed I do! Granted, it has been a minute since I last visited Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, but I have a goal of gnawing my way through 50 books this year, so I might as well peek back in. Thank you for the reminder!
I didn’t even know there was comics, I only knew of the cartoon growing up. I’m the same way, only thing I do is do tarot card readings for me and my gf, we both know it’s just for fun, we also got some cool cards with the images from cyberpunk2077 so there’s that.
In my humble opinion, the first 20-30ish issues are the best ones and then after that the decline is wild and steep. I also never really cared for the TV show. I was so excited when it aired and had been waiting to see the girls move and speak for so long. And then the art style, the color palette, the animation and the voice acting was all ugly and cheap and I never understood why they decided that the color palette should be different shades of piss when the comics were so vibrant and lush. But that is just me. Also, legit, after the comics go into the 30s, the entire franchise crashed and burned. It’s it’s own can of worms and I don’t want to bore you, but that was my first experience with becoming a dedicated fan of something and have a big entertainment company come in and annihilate everything that made the franchise good, run it into the dirt in the most disrespectful way and then cancel it because nobody liked it anymore.
I like tarot cards too. The idea of them, that is. I like the imagery and the many different meanings they hold depending in the combinatiom. Ironically, the whole predicting the future part of tarot cards is the least interesting thing to me, but that’s how I feel about all these witchy things. It’s more so the idea of the weird magic rules and how aesthetic they are that I find so appealing.
The map is not the terrain.
Somewhere between naive realism and “some stupid past time fun”, there are maps.
“It’s funny how people will believe in Newton’s laws of motion but still think the Force from Star Wars is mythical nonsense.”
But the Force is Mass times Acceleration!
Midichlorians are the powerhouse of the Force.
fuck me, you got me good I’m mad I laughed as long as I did
No, it’s the Force so it has to be the Mass times the Acceleration.
No it can’t be then The Force will be equal to The²(Mass times Acceleration)
Its either The mass times acceleration or mass times the acceleration
Where we’re going we don’t need commutative multiplication.
Doc, you can’t just put cocaine in the frunk of a CyberTruck and call it a DeLorean!
the Mass times the Acceleration will equal the2 Force.
You forgot the Lorenz factor. The Falcon flies FTL. That’s where the midichlorians fit in.
“believe in wi-fi”
If you don’t believe wi-fi exists, you’d be a fool.
I only believe in my own wifi. My wifi is the one true wifi.
i don’t believe in wifi, just like i don’t believe in trees. i know they’re there. that requires no belief.
The belief would be that your senses aren’t being actively deceived. Also, that you’re not a Boltzmann brain hallucinating in the void.
I personally believe all the axioms of science apply. It’s still fun to poke at them.
the atheist says “i will not believe”. the agnostic says “i can not believe”. one is as dogmatic as the beliefs they purport to refute, the other lacks the capacity for dogma, as belief for them is simply not possible.
No.
Belief in a null is a lot more reasonable than belief in something so powerful it can pretend to be a null.
Belief that I am not in a Truman show like environment is a lot more reasonable (without evidence) than belief that I am in a Truman show, and they are doing a perfect job.
That doesn’t mean I don’t try disproving the null hypothesis.
a hypothesis based on established facts is no longer belief but extrapolation.
It’s an assumption, not an extrapolation. Assumptions, without evidence are beliefs.
We assume several unprovable axioms to allow science to function. A lot of work has also been done to collapse them down to the core minimum. What is left is still built on belief.
The fact that the results are useful back validates those beliefs. It doesn’t prove them however.
I don’t think reasonable is even it for me, it’s just a helpful assumption.
If they are doing a perfect job at a Truman show type situation, there’s nothing you can do, so you might as well assume they’re not and play your role.
It’s more reasonable via Occam’s razor (more complexity is less reasonable, when everything else is equal). However it is still just a belief axiom. You have to assume 1 holds.
Honestly? Without evidence, they’re both equally probable. And believing, or refusing to believe in a god or something, are both faith of equal measure.
It’s just whether someone thinks their version is faith is more realistic than the opposite.
When the results are inseparable, then complexity is the only element, it doesn’t prove anything, but it does bias.
Also, most gods don’t fall into this debate. Most gods would be quite happy interfering. This is (in principle) distinguishable from the null. It was aimed primarily at the simulation hypothesis. A perfect simulation is indistinguishable from a base reality.
I’m willing to accept Atheism, ‘I do not believe in God’, as somewhat dogmatic, but as others have said, it’s the null hypothesis and they have Occam’s razor going for them. Pragmatically it is a useful stance in light of the societal harm religion does.
I am however unwilling to conflate Agnosticism with ‘I can not believe’, always been “I’m waiting for evidence one way or the other” to me, so perhaps the more scientific point of view.
It’s not 3 points, but 4.
Atheist==>Theist Agnostic==>gnostic
There are agnostic atheists and agnostic theists.
to me, those last two statements are pretty close in the grand scheme of things. it was allegorical anyway, since we weren’t really talking about god.
if there is no proof one way or the other, the pragmatic stance is to be neutral. if one side is more theoretically sound, the pragmatic stance is to assume that’s the correct side while still being open to the other. only when there’s proof of one side can you dismuss the other. none of those steps require “belief”, i.e. unfounded assumptions.
as an aside, personally i feel like religion is one of those issues where there is proof.
Oh, you’re a solipsist? You believe reality is an illusion and trees don’t really exist? I’m somewhat similar, I’m an antirealist. I recognise that reality is an illusion, but I still choose to believe in it until it can be overthrown. If we teach enough people how to reshape their beliefs and perceptions, then we can decide for ourselves whether trees exist. But at present, I need to believe in trees in order to inhabit consensus reality and communicate efficiently with the people who live here. It’s cool that you don’t believe in trees, though!
no
I’m happier with non-belief, than squirming through the exercise of deciding what to believe and disbelieve under the unchecked presumption that we must believe something.
Even more so for the distinct “believing in” something.
I peraonally belief in a really thin cable, but big tech is trying to tell us its waves and stuff. But you have your opinion, I have mine. Nobody can be sure wich one is really true.
data goes in, data goes out. you can’t explain that.
It’s actually a really REALLY fat cable. We spend our entire time inside it.
WiFi uses all three. (Yes, even vibration, AFAIK the clocks inside both computers use piezoelectric quartz crystals)
So many layers to unpack here.
Specifically OSI layers 1 and 2!
Dammit.
Bravo.
I do subscribe to a small comfort belief that our consciousness isn’t just encoded in our neurons but has a radiative component that constructively/destructively interferes with the environment on some small level we atttibute to random events, and that when we die, we sever only the somatic component of our consciousness but our radiative part lives on encoded into a wider network of ambient thought.
Sort of like ghosts/an afterlife, but less moaning and chain rattling and more general vibing the emotion of a park bench from the overlapped thought networks that ever intersected it
Might be in the wrong sub…
What you are describing maps quite well to the Quantum Memory Model (accessible explanation here) of Physics. Certainly considering information a fundamental quantity that can neither be created nor destroyed is becoming a popular concept.
I think consciousness is more than just our neurons, it’s an active waveform riding and guided by them.
Unfortunately, I don’t think it survives death. Without the underlying structure, it collapses to noise.
Interestingly, our brains have special circuits, design to emulate others. In effect, our consciousness imprints onto theirs. It’s not the full pattern, and imperfect, but a part of us lives on in the consciousness of everyone who knows us.
Like ripples in a pond. The water of the initial wave is no longer involved, but it has passed to others.
Interestingly, our brains have special circuits, design to emulate others. In effect, our consciousness imprints onto theirs. It’s not the full pattern, and imperfect, but a part of us lives on in the consciousness of everyone who knows us.
I think this is a far better explained version of what I’m yammering on about. Echoes of yourself living on in other conscious beings, fragmented 1000fold into the general aether of all those you’ve interacted with
It’s useful to understand the mechanisms, it helps you to understand both what it can do, and its limitations. E.g. they can only mirror the parts they see or talk about. The parts of yourself that you hide away will be lost from their imperfect model.
For more info, it generally falls under “mirror neurons”. They help us empathise with others. E.g. when we smile, certain mirror neurons start firing. When we see someone smile, the same ones fire. We feel the appropriate emotions because of this. They also fire preemptively. E.g. when you hear your mother yelling about the mess, even though you’ve lived alone for a decade.
Ah right. I guess I’m sort of implying that the hidden parts are also imprinted somehow too, through a vague hand-wavey mechanism that I’ve yet to define
I think you had the better version straight out of the gate.
what
They conscript themselves unto a diminutive solace tenet that our noetic essence is not merely inscribed within our cerebral neurons but encompasses a resplendent effulgence that constructively/destructively commingles with the circumambient firmament upon some infinitesimal stratum we ascribe to capricious vicissitudes, and that upon our demise, we sunder solely the corporeal partition of our noetic essence whilst our effulgent essence endures, enscrolled within a vaster concatenation of ambient cogitation.
Somewhat reminiscent of phantasms/an empyrean continuance, yet less plaintive wailing and clanking of fetters and more ethereal attunement to the affective emanation of a park bench amid the interlaced noetic filigrees that have ever impinged upon it.
They might be in the wrong comm though…
Lo verrily, I thank thee kind gentleman scholar to the spirit of thine timely repose of which mine gedankenings give flight to the fanciness of bees. May the everlasting illumination of others through proxy prose continue to be a boon to those who entreat upon it!
Sounds a bit like if we die, we retreat into the human noosphere and become a concept instead of a person
Cool, so you have evidence for this? Or do you routinely believe in outrageous things with zero evidence?
The latter, with a ‘s/routinely/rare/’
I also have some curious thoughts about higher dimensional beings as well as some murmurs about what the rustling of trees might be a proxy for if you need the extra fodder, or just a fun drink in a pub somewhere
Mkultra
Trying to legitimize bullshit by using big words out of context and meaning
World appears to be solid/stable at first but on closer inspection is actually vibratory.
It’s ok to have points of agreement. You don’t have to mock and bicker 100% of the time.
People who believe in “auras” and actually think that thinking good thoughts in relation to a specific thing will affect it on any way are deserving of mockery.
It’s religion for people who don’t like organized religion.
You’re changing the subject to auras and telekinesis: not what was being discussed.
What will the mockery get for you?
Hopefully the people mocked will adapt to social pressure and change their beliefs in order to fit in better. Bullying generally does work, even if it sucks.
Do you know this first-hand? Give us an example of a belief you hold primarily because of bullying.
There are people who deny Reality is made of vibrations. They are absolutely deserving of kind & respectful correction, because it’s a wrong view.
https://scienceinsights.org/do-humans-glow-the-science-of-our-bodys-invisible-light/
The answer to whether humans glow is a definitive yes. Our bodies continuously emit a faint, steady light, a phenomenon known as Ultraweak Photon Emission (UPE), or biophotons. This glow is a byproduct of our fundamental biological processes, rendering it completely invisible to the naked eye. Unlike the dramatic, visible light produced by fireflies (bioluminescence), this subtle radiance provides scientists with a novel way to peer into the inner workings of cellular health and metabolism.
How does it feel to be confidently wrong?
There’s more and more evidence that we are affected by and emit light in various ways. Did you also know that there is a flash of light when a sperm meets an egg?
Since light is a kind of radiant energy and we evolved alongside the sun for so long, it’s not actually that far a leap that our biology would make use of it in some way, if you think about it.
That’s really cool, I didn’t know that.
He wasn’t.
You can’t see the biophotons.
Humans have no way of detecting, experiencing them, without complex instruments.
They do not factor in to any decision making activity in our brain, because we have no senses capable of receiving them as input.
Read your own source.
The way that people colloquially use ‘aura’ is as if they have some kind of magical ability to see things other people can’t, that indicate things about that aura-haver’s emotional or mental or spiritual state.
They can’t, biophotons do none of that, they’re just a nearly undetectable form of light that’s emmitted by essentially anything that has an active metabolism, ie, is not dead.
They’re just using a made-up concept to describe internal herusitics in their mind, ie, their intuition.
Sure, they’ve used their mind in the way that your last two sources sort of hint at, but its a delusion, its failing to understand their own mind giving rise to a psuedo religious concept.
The only reality, the only power in ‘auras’ as a concept is sociological, indirect, as a reference with no referent.
Auras being a thing be people can see and use… that’s on the same level of ‘real’ as ‘Christ died for our sins’.
If you mean to use a different definition of aura, as in just a glow of light, then sure, technically all living matter has an imperceptible aura.
Could these UPEs play some kind of way into extremely short distance cellular interactions? Yes!
But thats… not what people mean, 95% of the time, when they’re talking about a person’s aura.
This is the whole problem of using woo woo terms.
You can’t conflate two different meanings of words and then act like that is not what you are doing.
You also should specify what you mean, in cases where a word has different meanings in different domains.
The whole thing about auras is that they’re not visibly perceptible either. Some people claim to be able to see them, but that’s a completely separate argument from the much more common belief that they exist.
And according to science, they do exist. They can be detected with certain instruments and even reveal data about health and metabolism.
Biophotons are an imperceptible glow of light that surround living organisms. Auras are an imperceptible glow of light that surround living organisms. Therefore, biophotons are auras.
You can call bullshit on someone claiming to be able to see auras, but if you’re saying auras don’t exist because science calls them something different, then you’re simply wrong.
If you mean to use a different definition of aura, as in just a glow of light, then sure, technically all living matter has an imperceptible aura.
Could these UPEs play some kind of way into extremely short distance cellular interactions? Yes!
But thats… not what people mean, 95% of the time, when they’re talking about a person’s aura.
This is the whole problem of using woo woo terms.
You can’t conflate two different meanings of words and then act like that is not what you are doing.
You also should specify what you mean, in cases where a word has different meanings in different domains.
- Myself, from the comment you replied to.
So you decided to monopolize the meaning of the term as strictly something that you can point to as obviously wrong, and when I point out that that’s a mischaracterization you cite… yourself… as corroborating evidence.
You go champ.
This is what I don’t like about the top meme, though. Like, yes, energy, frequency, and vibration are all things. Obviously. But the top meme is implying that everyone should believe that those things work in the specific ways that the woo practitioners say they do, and that’s a very different demand. More, it’s implying that people who doubt those effects are ignoring obvious evidence, when in fact the people who doubt those effects do so because nobody has been able to demonstrate reliable evidence for them. It has a nasty gaslighting overtone to it.
There’s not enough information in the top meme to know what theories it’s about.
Things vibrate in a way that isn’t obvious to an unexamined view. If I look at a pebble, it appears to be non-vibratory, still. But a mystic or scientist who has really investigated it closely, exposed it to close analysis, can tell you that the reality of the pebble is vibration, not stillness.
I mean, it’s talking about people thinking that “energy, frequency and vibration are just mystical nonsense.” People don’t think that if you talk about an FM station broadcasting on a particular frequency, or about the frequency of light absorbed by particular atomic orbitals. They think that if you’re explaining that you’ve slept much better since you placed jasper and amethyst on the ley lines near your bed to absorb the negative frequencies.
The implication in the meme that anyone who is using these terms cannot be indulging in mystical nonsense, because these terms can also apply to real things. In fact, though, mystic cranks have been coopting scientific terms for ages, and they show no signs of slowing down. It’s a real problem that people confuse crap with science.
I have to charge my phone. What is your wifi password?
They aren’t “powering everything”. JFC go lick a wall outlet, that’s what powers many things. WiFi is information, and indeed, they try to make it use less and less power.
It could power stuff. Tesla was working on it, and there have been a few small companies over the years that have done it.
Just turns out that it’s not very practical compared to a wall socket.
They also seem to believe wi-fi “powers everything”? What a loon.
Introducing POW (power over wlan)! By broadcasting a constant small gamma wave, small electronic devices can use the latent energy to power electronic components.
Yaayyyy, constant gamma radiation!!!
Just if the Hulk comics were released sooner.
Though I imagine he paid more attention to the cymatic cromulence.
Through the modial interaction of magnetoreluctance and capacitive diractance… https://youtu.be/Ac7G7xOG2Ag
I think you’re probably joking, but this actually is a thing. e.g. https://scitechdaily.com/engineers-harvest-energy-from-wifi-signals-to-power-small-electronics/
if someone is trying to “convert” you to esoteric/occult beliefs, then that person has no idea what they’re talking about
To be honest… electric field you are surrounded by every day most likely affects you more than position of Saturn on the night sky… But people who claim that new tech is causing medical issues are considered crackpots.
Believing in astrology is much safer.
Heard some conspiracy folks mention negative frequencies from 5G and the like. It’s just a phase I guess…
Negative frequency is a concept in signal processing, and many other domains.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_frequency
Phase could be the thing, beats me, it’s been a while. Negative resistance is also another one of those concepts that pop up now and then, specifically negative differential resistance.
Oh god, it’s been a long time since I took Vibrations and Waves, but I still remember filling notebook after notebook with Fourier transform equations.
I mean, the signs* are right there in the article
*something something sines
