That's the one where we ended up laughing at all those pervy rotters leaving comments about Holly Willoughby.i like this bit.
Note the online magazine Quillette seems to be a cover for a sinister eugenics program (with tendencies I’ve called “neo-Nazi” under the cover of “free thought”.)
we did a great thread on quilette here. well, i was great on it and barty was pretty good too.
Interestingly, the final section of that interview talks about bifurcation.
WALK SOFTLY AND CARRY A LITTLE LAND
As they say, they key word here is not wisdom, but caution. You don’t know what happens at bifurcations. You have absolutely no control. The smallest fluctuation can make things go wrong. The predictive power of humans and technology is nil near bifurcations. All you can do is approach carefully, because the last thing you want to do is get swallowed up by a chaotic attractor that’s too huge in phase space. As Deleuze says, “Always keep a piece of fresh land with you at all times.” Always keep a little spot where you can go back to sleep after a day of destratification. Always keep a small piece of territory, otherwise you’ll go nuts.
this bit too is good and relevant:
There might be an ethics here: how to live your life poised at the edge of chaos, how to allow self-organizing processes to take place in all the strata that bind you. In your life, you could create maps of attractors that bind your local destiny – those behaviors that are habitual and so on. And try to find those bifurcations that would allow you to jump, if not to complete freedom – that doesn’t exist – but to another set of attractors less confining, less binding, less stratifying. Or learn to lead your life near a bifurcation without ever crossing it – the lesson of being poised on the edge of chaos.
Very cool. Could this catastrophic potential be activated, its power harnessed, to change the system in a positive manner? Perhaps catastrophic just isn't the right word, in this hypothetical case.Catastrophe theory: a branch of bifurcation theory, itself a subset of dynamical systems theory, which analyzes how minor changes in circumstance can cause dramatic shift in the system's behavior, e.g. setting off a mudslide.
Very cool. Could this catastrophic potential be activated, its power harnessed, to change the system in a positive manner? Perhaps catastrophic just isn't the right word, in this hypothetical case.
edit: I'm asking you your opinion, philosophically, whatever - not necessarily what the literature on catastrophe theory has to say. Although that would also be of interest.
this is why me and shiels were talking about the psychedelic experience as trauma.
suspended reason said:Here’s the structure of Horney’s neuroticism: an improper environment in childhood causes a deep, underlying anxiety (or feeling of precarity) which leads the child to seek anxiolytic and palliative coping strategies at the cost of real growth. We can call this development non-acute trauma, referring to the banal way an environment routinely shapes one’s priors about self and society, such that when one leaves the conditioning environment, previously adaptive strategies become suddenly maladaptive. In an extreme case, and ancient archetype, the soldier returns home, bringing with him an adaptive jumpiness which while useful on tour, causes him to hear gunshots in slammed doors and backfiring engines. We can look back to Euripides’ Herakles for a portrait: Herakles comes home and, perception befogged by madness, mistakes his children for enemies, slaying them with poisoned arrows.
simpolism said:[In ancestral environments,] these events were potentially cyclical: a tribesman might experience war repeatedly throughout their lives. However, the current state of modern war leaves veterans returning, psychologically prepared for another go at war at any time, but without any real likelihood that they’ll be sent back out in the field… the developed priors become useless, rather than necessary preparation for the next conflict. We can also consider how ancient tribes may have handled “bad” prior formation by considering ritual experience. The sacred, the psychologically powerful, as a means of restoring a more “normal” psychic equilibrium.
Yeah if trauma can be measured as an intensity, then the higher the percentage of your world that is being transvaluated/destabilized/(de/re)stablized, the greater the trauma.this is why me and shiels were talking about the psychedelic experience as trauma.
Yeah I would agree with your points - perhaps my usage of "values" is getting lazy.the world that you inhabit is what is at stake. not your values.