Science and Chaos (Magic)

June 9th, 2006 Fred McVittie

The techniques of ‘Chaos Magic’ are designed to demonstrate and make evident at a deeply ‘embodied’ level the idea that large areas of reality (the abstract parts) do not consist of a singular objective phenomenon, but rather that this reality is an unformed undivided potential which can be ‘realised’ in many different ways dependent upon which particular perceptual framework is employed to organise that reality. These perceptual frameworks are, in turn, a product of a corresponding ‘belief’ system. In order to develop this sense, chaos magicians typically switch their belief systems on a regular basis, committing whole-heartedly to each in turn, before consciously abandoning each for another. With each change of belief, there is a corresponding change in perception; different connections are made, different patterns observed, different meanings and relevances found. These differences sculpt the serial realities occupied by the chaos magician. (c.f. James: Principles, vol. I, ch. IX, p. 288). This technique results in a mind set which accepts the limits of each perceptual framework and, crucially, intuits the existence of the undivided potential from which these realities emerge.

This system is effectively a kind of ‘model agnosticism’ in which it is tacitly recognised that, at least in the area of abstract conception, reality is the result of a pruning or sculpting process. This is not dissimilar to the approach of the true scientist (even though she would would be loathe to admit themselves a magician). For the true scientist, a ‘theory’, a structured model of the workings of part of the world, whilst it may be deeply felt, possibly even ‘believed’, is nevertheless always contingent, always partial, and may at any moment be replaced by another theory or model.

Posted in Belief, Copenhagen Interpretation, Magic, Science | No Comments »

Copenhagen Interpretation of Performance

January 16th, 2007 Fred McVittie

Part of the successful implementation of the Copenhagen interpretation of Bohr and Heisenberg is an attitude toward the mechanisms of quantum theory, the ‘mechanics’ itself, which is best described as ‘agnostic’. For example, the famous ‘double slit’ experiment of Young describes an entity called a ‘probability wave’ which governs the path and location of specific photons of light which pass through the slits. However, according to Heisenberg, since this probability wave cannot itself be measured this wave is not to be regarded as an actual physical entity, but rather as a kind of mental scaffolding which helps us to interpret the results of the experiment. The (imaginary) wave does not exist in the (quantum) world, but functions as a tool to allow us to think of that world. This ‘model agnosticism’ extends to the theories, equations and formulae which are the effective descriptors of those aspects of the world which are beyond personal embodied experience. Such theories also do not describe the world but describe what kind of model we need to create in order to be able to think of the world, and such models are always, eventually, grounded in embodied sensory experience.

A parallel process may be in operation within some performer training systems which make extensive reference to entities which have no material reality. These include concepts of ‘centre’, ‘energy’, etc. Whilst such concepts may well have no physical existence they may function as components within a model of the world in which a certain sort of performance behaviour is optimally produced.

Posted in Centre, Copenhagen Interpretation, Energy, Performance | No Comments »

Metaphor and Copenhagen Interpretation

September 16th, 2007 Fred McVittie

The mathematician JBS Haldane famously observed that ‘the universe may not only be queerer than we think but queerer than we can think’. He intended this observation to apply specifically to the more esoteric aspects of the universe encountered mainly by astronomers and particle physicists, whose equations do indeed describe a world which is inconceivable in any literal sense, and which makes no intuitive appeal to the senses of even the most highly trained. As Richard Feynman put it, ‘if you think you understand quantum mechanics, then you don’t understand quantum mechanics.’

Haldane’s comment finds theoretical support and application within the so-called ‘Copenhagen Interpretation’ of quantum theory introduced by Bohr and Heisenberg. Part of the application of this principle requires an attitude towards that application which recognises the distinctly partial ontological status of such theories. As Robert Anton Wilson colloquially put it, ‘the equations of quantum mechanics do not describe what is happening in the quantum world, but what structures of thought we need to create in order to think about that world’. Recent work done in the field of cognitive linguistics and cognate fields suggests that these ’structures of thought’ are largely built out of embodied metaphors, and it is these metaphors, grounded in concrete sensibilities of the body and the sensorimotor system, which give accessible form and order to the queerest aspect of the universe.

The attitude one must bring to the Copenhagen Interpretation has occasionally been referred to as ‘model agnosticism’: an approach to abstract theoretical constructs such as equations, models, structures etc, which recognises their usefulness whilst simultaneously also recognising their status as ‘man-made’ artifacts, rather than as material facts

Posted in Cognitive Linguistics, Copenhagen Interpretation, Embodiment, Haldane, J.B.S., Metaphor, Science, Wilson, Robert Anton | No Comments »