The Conjurer’s Fallacy

The Conjurer’s Fallacy

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Does Chi energy exist? This video suggests that it does:

This video, on the other hand, seems to have been made to challenge the testimony in the first:

While I agree with the premise that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof I think that this is an example of what I would call the ‘conjurer’s fallacy’, the notion that any feat, claimed to be paranormal, that can be reproduced by conjuring has been produced by conjuring. There is more to the video about Dynamo Jack than the burning of a newspaper and it is the whole testimony rather than a part of it that is suggestive of a paranormal energy.

Regrets

Regrets

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I saw this post on Facebook saying that we should have no regrets:

I commented:

I liked the sound of this then I thought that it’s not quite right, not quite balanced. Being ashamed and regretting stuff is not so bad. Without regret there is no repentance, restitution, reconciliation or reinvention.

Too much regret can be paralysing but without it there is no incentive to reflect and change direction. Regret is like a mirror, you don’t need to be looking at it all the time but you can use it to help you adjust stuff.

As Homer Simpson says “why keep beating yourself up about something you have done? Beat yourself once, and then move on!”

Looking back over my life and the three and a half years since I left work I realise how many mistakes I’ve made and how much time I’ve wasted and I have regrets. But I also realise that I have no need to define myself by my mistakes, if I do then it is impossible to move on and the mistakes persist.

There are times when I feel very inadequate, when I beat myself up over not meeting expectations whether those are my own or someone else’s. I don’t know how I compare to others in this as I considers myself ‘mostly happy’ while I perceive that so many are not.

Maybe I am only ‘mostly happy’ because I am and have been living in accordance with the expectations of others. Certainly I have over many years, my whole life, allowed myself to be too bothered by what others say to and about me. I react to their shit and mess up my own direction. In saying this I’m not blaming others, it’s my reaction that’s the problem; most people have more shit to deal with than I do, my life so far has been pretty easy and I think I have as much good as I deserve. No, I have more than I deserve; maybe not a lot more but certainly more so I have no sense that life has been unfair to me.

My destiny has always been to be a teacher and I have been a teacher whether in my incarnation as a school teacher or as a youth worker or in other roles. In this I have succeeded and failed at the same time. This was brought home to me in a conversation with a young woman who attended, who was a key member of, one of my groups almost fifteen years ago. She had done some stuff that I considered bad, disrespectful and disloyal to me. I wrote her a strong letter and she left. I valued her and she valued me but we essentially ‘broke up’. She told me she still had the letter. She told me how much she valued the group, that it had more meaning to her than her school and that she felt lost when she left. I realised both the value of what I had given and my own failure to properly deal with whatever lack of sensitivity or rudeness that she was expressing. As a teacher I should have dealt with my own reactions and hers in a non-egoistical way. I did not and I still do not in other contexts. Essentially it is a lack of maturity, wisdom.

Wisdom is not getting angry and not reacting harshly, negatively, whether this negativity is directed at someone who has upset me or at myself. It is being able to guide the other, to respond without ego attachment. That is what a true teacher is. That is where I have failed others and myself and that is where I most need to change.

Making Computer Games

Making Computer Games

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One of the courses I’m managing this summer is on making computer games. It was proposed by one of the tutors I work with but as he is new to this I am checking out game creation systems. One of these is a text adventure creation system called Quest that looks quite simple. I’ve spent the past two days learning the basics and this is my adaption of the tutorial game:

http://play.textadventures.co.uk/Play.aspx?id=6ko6qz-zdug9ucw0dzutqq

The big advantage of the system is that it can be created and played online as well as offline so there’s an immediate reward for learners and no problems installing on the old youth and adult ed computers at the centre we will be using.

Wedding

Wedding

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I don’t usually care much for weddings and big social celebrations and don’t want to go on too much about yesterday’s event, there are hundreds of photos on Facebook, but I have to admit that Mike and Marissa’s wedding celebrations were very well done.

Epistemic Humbleness

Epistemic Humbleness

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In my post Essence, I wrote:

To the three figures of the Buddha, the Christ and the Prophet, I should add a fourth, the Philosopher/Scientist whose key truth is [epistemic] Humbleness, and whose posture and practice is that of Study. Socrates said that “The only thing I know is that I know nothing” while Newton said “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

I thought that maybe I should say that the key insight or quality of the philosopher/scientist is Rationality but somehow ‘epistemic humbleness’ seems to fit better. Isaac Newton also wrote:

“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.”

This expresses the humility that is essential to the scientific project. It presents science as a collective enterprise that can be advanced by those of normal stature as well as giants like Newton.

Essence

Essence

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There will always be mistakes, misunderstandings and misinterpretations in our actions and in the way that we relate to each other. This is a consequence of being individuals with egoic attachments and apparently separate interests. The prime function of religion is to take us beyond the veneer of separateness to recognition of our fundamental unity with each other and with all that is. To attain this unity the Buddha taught Detachment, the Christ taught Forgiveness and the Prophet taught Submission; these are represented in the characteristic postures and practices of Meditation, Prayer and Prostration. Religions are essentially One as are we; and to go beyond mistakes, misunderstandings and misinterpretations we need to return to essence in our religions and in ourselves.

I tend to perceive the three universal religions as having a particular symmetry. This is not to say that I dismiss other religions such as Taoism and Hinduism or any other; I believe that there are remarkable insights contained in all religions but there is an archetypal aspect to the triad of Buddhism, Christianity and Islam that I find fascinating. I think that the archetypes of Buddha, Christ and Prophet reside within us. The realisation of these archetypes in our own consciousness is vastly more important that the particular doctrines of these religions.

To the three figures of the Buddha, the Christ and the Prophet, I should add a fourth, the Philosopher/Scientist whose key truth is [epistemic] Humbleness, and whose posture and practice is that of Study. Socrates said that “The only thing I know is that I know nothing” while Newton said “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

Stuart Wilde Dies

Stuart Wilde Dies

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Stuart Wilde died on 1st May at the age of sixty-six. While I only knew him through his books, articles and audio recordings a lot of what he said resonated with me, what I mean is that his talks and articles often seemed to speak directly to where I was. Maybe Wilde was saying fundamental things that resonate with all of us or maybe it was the way that he expressed idealism in ‘mythopoetic’ language that appealed to me. Wilde gave a lot of very sensible down to earth advice:

A lot of his work is worth reading, rereading and reflecting upon and I’m going to do this. Some of what he said sounds crazy or ‘off the wall’:

Maybe the drugs he took distorted his perception, maybe he was fantasying, maybe he was seeing through to truths beyond normal perception; I’m not in a position to make a judgement about this. The advice I would give anyone coming to Wilde is that they should use whatever resonates with and seems useful to their own path and politely ignore the rest. Actually I would give the same advice about all teachers and teachings.

Two Mountains

Two Mountains

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The Tianzi Mountains, China, were the inspiration for the Floating Mountains of Pandora in the film Avatar. Mount Roraima, South America, was reportedly the inspiration for the mountain in the film UP which I’ve not seen. Mt Roraima is on the border of Guyana, Brazil and Venezuela.

Source of Pictures: Bored Panda and All That is Interesting.