During the golden age of radio, Jocks ruled the world, airtime was King, and heavy rotation was the coveted prize of any artist. The more exposure you got the more records you sold and the more money you made. Then television came along and by most accounts the advent of MTV foretold the downfall of radio and in many ways those that made this claim were right. Radio declined but even now decades later it still survives, although it is not what it was and for the most part it is now driven almost entirely by personalities, there is in some way a resurgence not in the conventional sense but in terms of digital services that attempt to mimic the behaviour of traditional radio.
Spotify, Apple Music, and Pandora among others attempt to provide their listeners with services akin to what Radio once was, but instead of playing music that is curated they play music they think their listeners will like. Spotify and Apple use algorithms to achieve this, whilst Pandora does use curators, something which Spotify has attempted to mimic with curated playlists, yet in both cases there is still the absence of a Jock, there's no personality just music, which for most people is a good thing because they want to hear music they don't want to hear someone talking in between tracks especially when they have a personality they find personally grating.
Nevertheless this differentiation between traditional radio and these internet radio services is marked, the former had a degree of control and influence that was explicit whereas the latter has no explicit control at all, leaving the user to decide what they want to listen to, this makes marketing new music to them very difficult. Indeed Spotify provides users with insights into which songs are played the most and which are played the least in each album they view, there's even a service called Forgotify [Not a sponsor] which randomly plays music from the millions of tracks on Spotify that no-one listens to. This idea of forgotten content fascinates me, it's like forgotten books and movies too, there is now wealth of content that in practical terms will never be consumed simply because the rate of content production today is so fast that we cannot keep up with it. There was a time when you could realistically set out to watch every video on YouTube, but at this point even if you spent your entire life from birth to death every waking minute watching YouTube you wouldn't even scratch the surface.
It is for this reason that I think curators are important and why I feel quite sad that Radio is not what it was. There are still internet radio stations that specialise in genres of music that I still listen to but they aren't services that I would listen to as a matter of routine. As for algorithms and their comparison in terms of effectiveness, the main problem with algorithms is that they all inevitably produce results that are the same or too similar, there is no diversity because they can't comprehend that two genres even though distinct and wildly different might be appreciated by the listener. Algorithms inevitably send me down rabbit holes of content that all centre around the same ideas - this isn't exclusive to music streaming services either, it is also the case with YouTube and with sites like Amazon - the latter is the worst, it fails to comprehend that buying a set of earphones does not mean I would be interested in 50 more earphones, that need has been met, move on to something else.
This problem is caused by recursion, and by the fact that most of these algorithms rely on reinforcement learning, that is to say they take your feedback and use it to reshape their policy based on that feedback. They don't understand the type of music you are listening to, they only understand how many connections to it have been established and how much weight they should place on those connections. The end result is that the more you hear EDM tracks and enjoy them the more EDM tracks it feeds you - it might actually be possible to achieve something akin to curation if rather than pairing you with a single algorithm you were paired with about 20 that each started with different genres and excluded the genres the other algorithms started with that way each algorithm will in theory draw different conclusions.
It is also worth mentioning here that the concept of a Music podcast is something that is appealing to me, these however are rare as copyright basically makes them almost impossible for people to create without getting sued.
Where in the world?
If the world was your oyster, and you had more money than sense, would you move? If you would then where would you go? The feeling of wanting to run away is something that I've felt many times, the trouble is despite the barriers to actually doing this, in a perfect world even if I could just up sticks and move my entire life, I don't know where I would go. The reasons for wanting to run away from everything mostly come down to politics and whilst domestic politics in the UK right now are miserable, the state of international politics doesn't seem that great either. Everywhere you look from pole to pole all around the world the same problems seem to exist and it really feels like the problem isn't political ideologies, but rather humanity itself.
We've been around for thousands of years and in that time we haven't been able to figure out the problems we face as a race, that tells me that either these are problems that we can't solve or we are the problem and that as long as we exist they will continue - that last admission is rather fatalistic of course, as it's basically an admission that we're never going to solve these problems that despite our best efforts we are destined to carry this burden. I do have to wonder whether this feeling is normal and represents something that everyone comes to with age when optimism and naivety give way to cynicism and pessimism or whether this feeling is the by product of a society that has managed to advance technologically with such pace that it has now surpassed our sociological development and that we now lag behind the technology we created.
In computer science there is a moment hypothesised in the future known as the technological singularity, the exact definition of that term and the timing as to when it will occur is open to debate but it is generally believed to be the moment when sentient AI will be born, this advancement chosen above all others as it would represent the moment that technology would surpass human understanding as any sentient AI with the ability to rewrite its programming would experience an intelligence explosion and advance quickly beyond human comprehension. I would perhaps choose to redefine this term and choose not to use AI as the marker but rather to use technology and what it is capable of as a general marker and to pit that against what humans are capable of in comparison. By this definition by any account the technological singularity would have already occurred. We are already living in a world where technology is capable of doing more than humans are capable of doing. Not only this, but our sociological development has not advanced in line with technology. The technology we create disrupts our lives and whilst there are still people who understand how it works and can explain every detail of the process, that number is dwindling the more advanced it becomes. Humanity as a whole does not possess that knowledge, it only exists within the minds of a few people by comparison to the size of humanity as a whole.
Where then can you run away to in order to escape the effects of this singularity? The answer is rather simple, nowhere. The reach of technology is now at a point where no matter where you go you will not be able to escape it. With initiatives that set out to connect the poorest nations to the internet and provide yet more technology we are fast reaching a saturation point. The only place you could really go is to some deserted island in the hopes of living out the rest of your life in isolation but that desire is one that is unrealistic, as human beings we are social animals and need contact with others in order to survive and stay sane, without it we descend into madness quite quickly and whilst I admire the gumption of those who retort that they would be more than willing to give it a go, I do question how strong the survival instinct would be within most people and what practical skills still exist in order to survive and be self sufficient in complete isolation.
On the flip side you can modify the question and instead of asking where you can run from technology, ask instead which nation has embraced technology the most, which nation has arguably shaped their beliefs and advanced their sociological development in line with their technological development - in answer to those questions only 2 nations spring to mind, Japan and South Korea, neither of which I could afford to move to and live there, that's before you even consider the language barriers that would need to be overcome, still it's interesting to entertain the thought.
We've been around for thousands of years and in that time we haven't been able to figure out the problems we face as a race, that tells me that either these are problems that we can't solve or we are the problem and that as long as we exist they will continue - that last admission is rather fatalistic of course, as it's basically an admission that we're never going to solve these problems that despite our best efforts we are destined to carry this burden. I do have to wonder whether this feeling is normal and represents something that everyone comes to with age when optimism and naivety give way to cynicism and pessimism or whether this feeling is the by product of a society that has managed to advance technologically with such pace that it has now surpassed our sociological development and that we now lag behind the technology we created.
In computer science there is a moment hypothesised in the future known as the technological singularity, the exact definition of that term and the timing as to when it will occur is open to debate but it is generally believed to be the moment when sentient AI will be born, this advancement chosen above all others as it would represent the moment that technology would surpass human understanding as any sentient AI with the ability to rewrite its programming would experience an intelligence explosion and advance quickly beyond human comprehension. I would perhaps choose to redefine this term and choose not to use AI as the marker but rather to use technology and what it is capable of as a general marker and to pit that against what humans are capable of in comparison. By this definition by any account the technological singularity would have already occurred. We are already living in a world where technology is capable of doing more than humans are capable of doing. Not only this, but our sociological development has not advanced in line with technology. The technology we create disrupts our lives and whilst there are still people who understand how it works and can explain every detail of the process, that number is dwindling the more advanced it becomes. Humanity as a whole does not possess that knowledge, it only exists within the minds of a few people by comparison to the size of humanity as a whole.
Where then can you run away to in order to escape the effects of this singularity? The answer is rather simple, nowhere. The reach of technology is now at a point where no matter where you go you will not be able to escape it. With initiatives that set out to connect the poorest nations to the internet and provide yet more technology we are fast reaching a saturation point. The only place you could really go is to some deserted island in the hopes of living out the rest of your life in isolation but that desire is one that is unrealistic, as human beings we are social animals and need contact with others in order to survive and stay sane, without it we descend into madness quite quickly and whilst I admire the gumption of those who retort that they would be more than willing to give it a go, I do question how strong the survival instinct would be within most people and what practical skills still exist in order to survive and be self sufficient in complete isolation.
On the flip side you can modify the question and instead of asking where you can run from technology, ask instead which nation has embraced technology the most, which nation has arguably shaped their beliefs and advanced their sociological development in line with their technological development - in answer to those questions only 2 nations spring to mind, Japan and South Korea, neither of which I could afford to move to and live there, that's before you even consider the language barriers that would need to be overcome, still it's interesting to entertain the thought.
Music Monday #4: Move Along by The All-American Rejects
"Let me know that I've done wrong, when I've known this all along, I go around a time or two, just to waste my time with you, tell me all that you've thrown away, find out games you don't wanna play, you are the only one that needs to know, I'll keep you my dirty little secret, don't tell anyone, or you'll be just another regret, my dirty little secret"
- 'Dirty Little Secret' - The All-American Rejects
'Move Along' by The All-American Rejects was released in 2005 but I didn't become aware of it until later in 2006. When I first started University as with most people I got to know some of my new friends through their music taste, one girl in particular had a music library with a wealth of music I had never heard before and I jumped right in and I went deep. 'Dirty Little Secret' is the first track on this album and right away I was hooked, not just because I loved their style of music but also because of the lyrics and what they meant to me. There are two guys for me that this song would come to be associated with, the sweet irony here is that around the time the album was released I was having a "thing" with a closeted gay guy that I wouldn't call a relationship - I've touched on this before, but for the sake of clarity, I've never been in anything I'd officially class as a relationship but I've been in more than a few "It's complicated" arrangements. Despite the fact that the closet case experience didn't lead anywhere, the song still reminds me of him, and of the other guy that during my time at University I crushed on so hard but sadly nothing ever happened, he was straight and I don't chase straight boys.
The title track of the album 'Move Along' is equally as poignant for me, a reminder not to linger on things you can't have and move along, keep moving. The lyrics aren't really about moving on from anything in particular but rather about the need to keep moving, even when you feel your weakest you need to keep moving. An honourable mention goes out to their self titled album, and 'When The World Comes Down' both of which I liked but Move along still holds a special place in my heart not only for the two guys those songs remind me of but also for the bond I forged with the girl who introduced me to their music, she'll get another mention in this list as her music collection opened up a whole world to me I hadn't explored before - just as a side note here, prior to University I never had broadband internet, and the only internet access we had at home had been for a year before we moved house we never bothered getting it again after moving, it was a lot harder to discover new music back then, there were no streaming services, and with dialup internet to download an album could literally take hours - in particular when Windows Media Player 9 was released in 2003 I remember the download taking half an hour just for the player.
This theme of others serving as curators that introduce me to music that I then go off and explore is something that will appear time and again, I consider myself very open minded when it comes to music, I will try almost anything you want me to listen to and tell you what I think, whatever I like I go off and explore and find more of it. Curators served a much greater purpose back then, and even today despite having algorithms in streaming services to suggest music to you, a human ear still makes connections that machine learning doesn't. I don't think Spotify would suggest Marilyn Manson to someone who likes Vengaboys but there you go, taste in music can be odd.
Dirty Little Secret remains my favourite track by All-American Rejects and I still smile every time it plays, I can't help that, it's akin to Pavlov's Bell.
- 'Dirty Little Secret' - The All-American Rejects
'Move Along' by The All-American Rejects was released in 2005 but I didn't become aware of it until later in 2006. When I first started University as with most people I got to know some of my new friends through their music taste, one girl in particular had a music library with a wealth of music I had never heard before and I jumped right in and I went deep. 'Dirty Little Secret' is the first track on this album and right away I was hooked, not just because I loved their style of music but also because of the lyrics and what they meant to me. There are two guys for me that this song would come to be associated with, the sweet irony here is that around the time the album was released I was having a "thing" with a closeted gay guy that I wouldn't call a relationship - I've touched on this before, but for the sake of clarity, I've never been in anything I'd officially class as a relationship but I've been in more than a few "It's complicated" arrangements. Despite the fact that the closet case experience didn't lead anywhere, the song still reminds me of him, and of the other guy that during my time at University I crushed on so hard but sadly nothing ever happened, he was straight and I don't chase straight boys.
The title track of the album 'Move Along' is equally as poignant for me, a reminder not to linger on things you can't have and move along, keep moving. The lyrics aren't really about moving on from anything in particular but rather about the need to keep moving, even when you feel your weakest you need to keep moving. An honourable mention goes out to their self titled album, and 'When The World Comes Down' both of which I liked but Move along still holds a special place in my heart not only for the two guys those songs remind me of but also for the bond I forged with the girl who introduced me to their music, she'll get another mention in this list as her music collection opened up a whole world to me I hadn't explored before - just as a side note here, prior to University I never had broadband internet, and the only internet access we had at home had been for a year before we moved house we never bothered getting it again after moving, it was a lot harder to discover new music back then, there were no streaming services, and with dialup internet to download an album could literally take hours - in particular when Windows Media Player 9 was released in 2003 I remember the download taking half an hour just for the player.
This theme of others serving as curators that introduce me to music that I then go off and explore is something that will appear time and again, I consider myself very open minded when it comes to music, I will try almost anything you want me to listen to and tell you what I think, whatever I like I go off and explore and find more of it. Curators served a much greater purpose back then, and even today despite having algorithms in streaming services to suggest music to you, a human ear still makes connections that machine learning doesn't. I don't think Spotify would suggest Marilyn Manson to someone who likes Vengaboys but there you go, taste in music can be odd.
Dirty Little Secret remains my favourite track by All-American Rejects and I still smile every time it plays, I can't help that, it's akin to Pavlov's Bell.
Happy Chinese New Year
Today is Chinese New Year, we are now in the Year of the Rat. Happy Chinese New Year!
I've always found the idea of horoscopes and the zodiac both western and the Chinese zodiac to be something intriguing. I like the idea that you can know certain aspects of a person's life and their personality without having to ask, but as others will point out most horoscopes are generic statements that can apply to anyone and any situation, as for the personality traits and what they encompass these too are often written in a way that is malleable and easily twisted to fit whoever reads their description. As for whether or not you can derive any truth of a person based on where or when they were born I think to an extent some things can be ascertained.
For example if you know someone has a birthday that is typically in the Summer months they're more likely to enjoy getting older and enjoy the idea of celebrating their birthday because that time of the year is quite pleasant, whereas for the northern hemisphere at least if someone's birthday is in the middle of winter or very close to Christmas they are probably less likely to enjoy celebrating their birthday as the cold, dark winter months make people less likely to want to do anything productive and there is also the inevitability that their birthday will be overshadowed by Christmas with the worst being those who were actually born on Christmas day I would imagine serves as a particular point of contention.
Nevertheless the attempt to categorise people into groupings that can be stereotyped seems to be prevalent, a form of segregation but without the racial connotations. Although I have seen the way some people regard their star signs with fervency and I would argue it borders on zealous. Beyond the signs themselves, or in the case of the Chinese zodiac the animals, both incorporate elements. The western zodiac uses Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, whilst the Chinese Zodiac uses Earth, Metal, Water, Wood, and Fire. This year to give its full classification is the year of the Metal Rat for instance. These elemental modifiers add another aspect to the classification system.
The association of personalities, and character traits with elements is something that interests me, especially since most cultures share common ideas when it comes to these associations. Like many other areas of study however, the more I have explored these concepts in the past the more akin to Cold Reading they appear, where statistics and observations have simply been collated so that assertions can be made with confidence using educated guesswork and vague statements can be used to tailor the message to fit any willing recipient.
There is however the question of suggestion, whether horoscopes and zodiac in and of themselves rather than accurately depicting the individual simply offer up an archetype for the individual to conform to - in other words when you read your daily horoscopes that you think come true so often because they can foretell your future, are they really inventing scenarios that you then unconsciously create through your actions? A form of subtle suggestion if you will, like hypnosis where the individual must be willing, then too horoscopes may simply be suggestion and their prevalence due to those who prescribe to their suggestion conforming.
Is Taurus a stubborn star sign because people born under Taurus are stubborn or are people born under Taurus simply stubborn because they learn at some point that is to be expected of a Taurus? Likewise will a Rat be industrious because they were born in the year of the rat or will they become industrious because they learn at some point that is to be expected? When you read what this year will bring for your zodiac, are you unconsciously asking for direction as to how to behave in the coming year?
I don't have answers to these questions because like anything of this nature the truth is subjective not objective, from a purely objective stance there's no evidence for any of it to be true beyond statistical coincidence that is no more accurate than a random distribution, but subjective truths are influenced by more than empirical data.
I guess in truth if it brings you joy or entertainment and does not cause harm to anyone else then have at it, I'm undecided by the way, just voicing both sides of the argument as I can see both, I want to believe but have yet to be given reason to believe despite the fact I do identify with many of my western zodiac traits [Taurus] as well as my Chinese zodiac traits [Dragon] but those are traits I can also apply to many people I know who are neither.
I've always found the idea of horoscopes and the zodiac both western and the Chinese zodiac to be something intriguing. I like the idea that you can know certain aspects of a person's life and their personality without having to ask, but as others will point out most horoscopes are generic statements that can apply to anyone and any situation, as for the personality traits and what they encompass these too are often written in a way that is malleable and easily twisted to fit whoever reads their description. As for whether or not you can derive any truth of a person based on where or when they were born I think to an extent some things can be ascertained.
For example if you know someone has a birthday that is typically in the Summer months they're more likely to enjoy getting older and enjoy the idea of celebrating their birthday because that time of the year is quite pleasant, whereas for the northern hemisphere at least if someone's birthday is in the middle of winter or very close to Christmas they are probably less likely to enjoy celebrating their birthday as the cold, dark winter months make people less likely to want to do anything productive and there is also the inevitability that their birthday will be overshadowed by Christmas with the worst being those who were actually born on Christmas day I would imagine serves as a particular point of contention.
Nevertheless the attempt to categorise people into groupings that can be stereotyped seems to be prevalent, a form of segregation but without the racial connotations. Although I have seen the way some people regard their star signs with fervency and I would argue it borders on zealous. Beyond the signs themselves, or in the case of the Chinese zodiac the animals, both incorporate elements. The western zodiac uses Earth, Air, Fire, and Water, whilst the Chinese Zodiac uses Earth, Metal, Water, Wood, and Fire. This year to give its full classification is the year of the Metal Rat for instance. These elemental modifiers add another aspect to the classification system.
The association of personalities, and character traits with elements is something that interests me, especially since most cultures share common ideas when it comes to these associations. Like many other areas of study however, the more I have explored these concepts in the past the more akin to Cold Reading they appear, where statistics and observations have simply been collated so that assertions can be made with confidence using educated guesswork and vague statements can be used to tailor the message to fit any willing recipient.
There is however the question of suggestion, whether horoscopes and zodiac in and of themselves rather than accurately depicting the individual simply offer up an archetype for the individual to conform to - in other words when you read your daily horoscopes that you think come true so often because they can foretell your future, are they really inventing scenarios that you then unconsciously create through your actions? A form of subtle suggestion if you will, like hypnosis where the individual must be willing, then too horoscopes may simply be suggestion and their prevalence due to those who prescribe to their suggestion conforming.
Is Taurus a stubborn star sign because people born under Taurus are stubborn or are people born under Taurus simply stubborn because they learn at some point that is to be expected of a Taurus? Likewise will a Rat be industrious because they were born in the year of the rat or will they become industrious because they learn at some point that is to be expected? When you read what this year will bring for your zodiac, are you unconsciously asking for direction as to how to behave in the coming year?
I don't have answers to these questions because like anything of this nature the truth is subjective not objective, from a purely objective stance there's no evidence for any of it to be true beyond statistical coincidence that is no more accurate than a random distribution, but subjective truths are influenced by more than empirical data.
I guess in truth if it brings you joy or entertainment and does not cause harm to anyone else then have at it, I'm undecided by the way, just voicing both sides of the argument as I can see both, I want to believe but have yet to be given reason to believe despite the fact I do identify with many of my western zodiac traits [Taurus] as well as my Chinese zodiac traits [Dragon] but those are traits I can also apply to many people I know who are neither.
Come Clean
Cognitive Bias is a concept that details an aspect of human behaviour where in the pursuit of what we perceive to be truth, we pay more attention to what is cohesive with what we already believe, by extension, Confirmation Bias takes this concept and applies it to reasoning, driving us to accept that which confirms what we already believe as true. These two concepts are very closely related, the latter is essentially related to individual beliefs and the former is related to cumulative belief, or to put it more succinctly, repetitive confirmation bias leads to long term cognitive bias.
The longer you allow confirmation bias to shape your thinking and your pursuit of knowledge, the more distorted your internal beliefs and understanding of the world becomes. In the extreme, these biases combined can lead an individual to form an interpretation of the world that although appears entirely logical to the individual, is in reality inaccurate and inefficient. Eventually this leads to conflict with beliefs and experiences that contradict the internal model. In those moments there are decisions that need to be made which more often than not end up being decided by pride and prejudice rather than logic and reason - thank you Jane Austen.
Notions of judgement aside, there is a reason the concept of pride is derided by most religions, that ultimately pride can lead to the refusal to admit when you are wrong. It is ironic then perhaps that religion would be the proponent of admitting you are wrong in the face of logic and reason that contradicts your beliefs when most religions don't actually let you question their beliefs but there we are.
We live in a society that is increasingly divided, where polarisation is becoming the default state, where no middle ground can exist. This in many ways is the result of the inability to admit when you are wrong. There are very few things in life that are truly black and white issues with no grey area in between. Yet the refusal to admit that grey area exists leads each side of the debate to distance themselves from anything that would admit to its existence, the result is that you end up with two polar opposites with no tolerance at all for opposing beliefs.
If a centre ground is to be established once more, then there has to be an acknowledgement on all sides that mistakes were made on all sides. Pride must be swallowed and there must be a moment of humility before you can begin to rebuild and find truth once more that is not biased that incorporates not only what you believe but challenges what you believe in order to strengthen that belief or to replace it with one that makes more sense - this is not easy when your identity is tied to your beliefs which is why prejudice needs to be abandoned, you need to accept evidence for what it is and build new beliefs through experience and accept that your beliefs do not define you as a person but that you as a person are meant to define your beliefs.
To turn the idea on its head that beliefs do not define you, is to accept that they are not rules that should dictate your life, but rather that they should be guidelines that attempt to explain your behaviour rather than control it. Your beliefs should be based on your actions, then they will hold up to question otherwise you will profess beliefs that do not reflect how you act in reality as is so often the case with those who profess their adulation for various religious orders and claim to practice such beliefs when in reality their behaviour does not adhere to those beliefs.
I've mentioned many times on this blog how sites such as iSideWith can show you who you should vote for based on whose policies you agree with, the disparity that exists between the results that people are given and the party they actually vote for reflects the cognitive bias that exists in society and in politics specifically. People form impressions of political parties and hold those as true and over time they pay attention to everything that confirms that impression and ignore everything that contradicts it, until you end up with a society that professes certain values yet votes for a party that does not enact policies that promotes those values but rather does everything to undermine them. As stated above this can only end in one place, conflict, if that is to be avoided then there has to be an admission that you were wrong before efforts to bridge the gap can be taken seriously.
The longer you allow confirmation bias to shape your thinking and your pursuit of knowledge, the more distorted your internal beliefs and understanding of the world becomes. In the extreme, these biases combined can lead an individual to form an interpretation of the world that although appears entirely logical to the individual, is in reality inaccurate and inefficient. Eventually this leads to conflict with beliefs and experiences that contradict the internal model. In those moments there are decisions that need to be made which more often than not end up being decided by pride and prejudice rather than logic and reason - thank you Jane Austen.
Notions of judgement aside, there is a reason the concept of pride is derided by most religions, that ultimately pride can lead to the refusal to admit when you are wrong. It is ironic then perhaps that religion would be the proponent of admitting you are wrong in the face of logic and reason that contradicts your beliefs when most religions don't actually let you question their beliefs but there we are.
We live in a society that is increasingly divided, where polarisation is becoming the default state, where no middle ground can exist. This in many ways is the result of the inability to admit when you are wrong. There are very few things in life that are truly black and white issues with no grey area in between. Yet the refusal to admit that grey area exists leads each side of the debate to distance themselves from anything that would admit to its existence, the result is that you end up with two polar opposites with no tolerance at all for opposing beliefs.
If a centre ground is to be established once more, then there has to be an acknowledgement on all sides that mistakes were made on all sides. Pride must be swallowed and there must be a moment of humility before you can begin to rebuild and find truth once more that is not biased that incorporates not only what you believe but challenges what you believe in order to strengthen that belief or to replace it with one that makes more sense - this is not easy when your identity is tied to your beliefs which is why prejudice needs to be abandoned, you need to accept evidence for what it is and build new beliefs through experience and accept that your beliefs do not define you as a person but that you as a person are meant to define your beliefs.
To turn the idea on its head that beliefs do not define you, is to accept that they are not rules that should dictate your life, but rather that they should be guidelines that attempt to explain your behaviour rather than control it. Your beliefs should be based on your actions, then they will hold up to question otherwise you will profess beliefs that do not reflect how you act in reality as is so often the case with those who profess their adulation for various religious orders and claim to practice such beliefs when in reality their behaviour does not adhere to those beliefs.
I've mentioned many times on this blog how sites such as iSideWith can show you who you should vote for based on whose policies you agree with, the disparity that exists between the results that people are given and the party they actually vote for reflects the cognitive bias that exists in society and in politics specifically. People form impressions of political parties and hold those as true and over time they pay attention to everything that confirms that impression and ignore everything that contradicts it, until you end up with a society that professes certain values yet votes for a party that does not enact policies that promotes those values but rather does everything to undermine them. As stated above this can only end in one place, conflict, if that is to be avoided then there has to be an admission that you were wrong before efforts to bridge the gap can be taken seriously.
The Fifth Wall
'The Fifth Wall' is a journey through darkness that depicts a struggle with depression and anxiety and the pursuit of a means to reconcile the existence of both in life.
'The Fifth Wall' is a metafiction narrative that develops a relationship more intimately between the reader and the characters depicted within the narrative ultimately exploring the concept of the author as an absent protagonist within the narrative.
Lifelong Learning
I live in the UK which means compulsory education stops when you reach age 16. For me personally that meant 7 years of primary school and 5 years of high school. Those 12 years of education taught me a lot, but most of it was generalised with the exception of electives that I took in high school which were specific subjects I wanted to study. The remaining subjects and their syllabuses were intended to establish a foundation or a baseline that you would take with you through life. How much of it was relevant is debatable and how much of it I have even used is even harder to determine.
After those 12 years of education everything else was considered further and higher education which wasn't compulsory it was entirely optional, for me that meant 2 years of college and 3 years of University entirely spent studying subjects that I chose and wanted to learn about. All together compulsory and optional education for me totalled 17 years and came to an end when I was 21.
I find the idea that at 21 you have learned everything you need to learn to survive in life to be one that is both laughable and laudable for its arrogance. If you were to take most adults and ask them if they think a 21 year old has life figured out the answers you would get would be typically derisive, and yet the system we have hinges on the belief really that at 16 you know everything you need to know to survive in society - if you disagree with this assertion then you cannot conceivably believe that the education system we have is fit for purpose because the two beliefs are irreconcilable, you're either prepared or not at that age and if the answer is that you are not prepared then the question inevitably arises, do you need more education or do we need to change what is taught?
If you change what is taught then there will inevitably be the question of bias and the questions of political influence in deciding what is and is not relevant to include within any curriculum. If however you choose to educate further then you run into the problem of choice. I'm under no illusion, most people hate school, at least in my generation that was the case, I don't know if things have changed much but I'm willing to bet they haven't. I hated school and wanted nothing more than for it to be over. You might find yourself asking why I pursued further education if it was a choice and the answer is simply that, because it was a choice. The atmosphere was completely different when I was surrounded by people who were there because they chose to be there not because they were made to be there. They were studying a subject they chose which they had an interest in which they wanted to learn about and wanted to engage with others who were learning about it too.
You could not take adults and ask them to sit in a classroom all day the way we do with children and teenagers, they just wouldn't do it. That is not to say there are not adults who pursue education, I know from experience that the age ranges in college and University were wide ranging and that people pursue further and higher education later in life. However the idea of blanket enrolment of an age group in courses is something that I think would be nigh on impossible to impose. What is clear however, is that with age, the things you need to know in order to get through life change. Most of these things would be irrelevant to children and teenagers and if you were to teach them at such a young age, by the time they would need them they would not remember much if any of the details at all. For example, planning your retirement, investing money that you have made, taxation of inheritances, purchasing property, employment rights, and a whole host of other financial procedures that you don't encounter until later in life. None of these things are taught in schools but most adults at some point will need to learn about each of these things in greater detail and at present you're pretty much left to google it or to turn to some organisation that offers citizens advice - or you hope that friends and family can provide answers who have been through these things before you.
Somewhat controversially I would also say that most people who become parents aren't ready, and that most parents have to learn as they go. Some people are good at it, and some people are objectively bad at it. I know there will be many parents who will take offence to these remarks and offer their opinions and their experience in retort but I would simply say that the fact there is no consensus or definitive guidebook to parenting simply serves as a testament to the fact that it isn't something that has been standardised in the same way that subjects in education are. I'm not saying that everyone should have to take a course in Childhood Psychology or Cognitive Development before they become a parent but I am saying that this being something that the majority of people are going to experience at some point in their lives it is somewhat humorous that you aren't actually taught how to do it.
That last point touches on another aspect of education I often take issue with, and that is the belief that all education is instructional when it is not. Education can be theoretical or practical and only in the latter case is it instructional. In the former case it is more concerned with discussing a concept and conveying an understanding either as a foundation for future exploration and self discovery, or as a means to be able to effectively navigate situations that involve those subjects.
When it comes to exploring new concepts and new ideas that we have never studied during our time in education, our success in these endeavours relies largely on the effort we put into learning and on the quality of the resources we turn to in order to learn about these concepts. There is however a lack of verification and validation in this approach that is otherwise present in education. Although the bane of most students existence, the presence of someone to tell you when you do something wrong is needed to ensure you actually gain an understanding of the subject that is accurate and succinct.
I have yet to find resources that are as effective for use in self teaching as structured education has been for me in the past which leads me to question how effective lifelong learning can be when it relies on self teaching which is inherently lacking in structure and standardisation, but also lacks the ability to verify the conclusions drawn are indeed correct.
After those 12 years of education everything else was considered further and higher education which wasn't compulsory it was entirely optional, for me that meant 2 years of college and 3 years of University entirely spent studying subjects that I chose and wanted to learn about. All together compulsory and optional education for me totalled 17 years and came to an end when I was 21.
I find the idea that at 21 you have learned everything you need to learn to survive in life to be one that is both laughable and laudable for its arrogance. If you were to take most adults and ask them if they think a 21 year old has life figured out the answers you would get would be typically derisive, and yet the system we have hinges on the belief really that at 16 you know everything you need to know to survive in society - if you disagree with this assertion then you cannot conceivably believe that the education system we have is fit for purpose because the two beliefs are irreconcilable, you're either prepared or not at that age and if the answer is that you are not prepared then the question inevitably arises, do you need more education or do we need to change what is taught?
If you change what is taught then there will inevitably be the question of bias and the questions of political influence in deciding what is and is not relevant to include within any curriculum. If however you choose to educate further then you run into the problem of choice. I'm under no illusion, most people hate school, at least in my generation that was the case, I don't know if things have changed much but I'm willing to bet they haven't. I hated school and wanted nothing more than for it to be over. You might find yourself asking why I pursued further education if it was a choice and the answer is simply that, because it was a choice. The atmosphere was completely different when I was surrounded by people who were there because they chose to be there not because they were made to be there. They were studying a subject they chose which they had an interest in which they wanted to learn about and wanted to engage with others who were learning about it too.
You could not take adults and ask them to sit in a classroom all day the way we do with children and teenagers, they just wouldn't do it. That is not to say there are not adults who pursue education, I know from experience that the age ranges in college and University were wide ranging and that people pursue further and higher education later in life. However the idea of blanket enrolment of an age group in courses is something that I think would be nigh on impossible to impose. What is clear however, is that with age, the things you need to know in order to get through life change. Most of these things would be irrelevant to children and teenagers and if you were to teach them at such a young age, by the time they would need them they would not remember much if any of the details at all. For example, planning your retirement, investing money that you have made, taxation of inheritances, purchasing property, employment rights, and a whole host of other financial procedures that you don't encounter until later in life. None of these things are taught in schools but most adults at some point will need to learn about each of these things in greater detail and at present you're pretty much left to google it or to turn to some organisation that offers citizens advice - or you hope that friends and family can provide answers who have been through these things before you.
Somewhat controversially I would also say that most people who become parents aren't ready, and that most parents have to learn as they go. Some people are good at it, and some people are objectively bad at it. I know there will be many parents who will take offence to these remarks and offer their opinions and their experience in retort but I would simply say that the fact there is no consensus or definitive guidebook to parenting simply serves as a testament to the fact that it isn't something that has been standardised in the same way that subjects in education are. I'm not saying that everyone should have to take a course in Childhood Psychology or Cognitive Development before they become a parent but I am saying that this being something that the majority of people are going to experience at some point in their lives it is somewhat humorous that you aren't actually taught how to do it.
That last point touches on another aspect of education I often take issue with, and that is the belief that all education is instructional when it is not. Education can be theoretical or practical and only in the latter case is it instructional. In the former case it is more concerned with discussing a concept and conveying an understanding either as a foundation for future exploration and self discovery, or as a means to be able to effectively navigate situations that involve those subjects.
When it comes to exploring new concepts and new ideas that we have never studied during our time in education, our success in these endeavours relies largely on the effort we put into learning and on the quality of the resources we turn to in order to learn about these concepts. There is however a lack of verification and validation in this approach that is otherwise present in education. Although the bane of most students existence, the presence of someone to tell you when you do something wrong is needed to ensure you actually gain an understanding of the subject that is accurate and succinct.
I have yet to find resources that are as effective for use in self teaching as structured education has been for me in the past which leads me to question how effective lifelong learning can be when it relies on self teaching which is inherently lacking in structure and standardisation, but also lacks the ability to verify the conclusions drawn are indeed correct.
Music Monday #3: The Platinum Album by Vengaboys
I did say in my first post that my music collection was varied and encompassed some polar opposites. If Marilyn Manson and The Church of Satan are a little dark and heavy for you then perhaps this one will lighten things up again for you. Vengaboys were a Eurodance band that enjoyed success in the late 90s and early 00s. 'The Paltinum Album' was released at the start of the year 2000 when the turn of the millennium left people in a strange state of mind, on the one hand looking forward and feeling optimistic and hopeful for the future and on the other looking back at the past and feeling nostalgic.
An honourable mention goes to one of their previous albums 'The Party Album' which had a track called 'The Vengabus' aka 'We Like To Party' which is what most people will know them for. I prefer The Platinum Album however because it is more relaxed even though it's still a dance album it leans more toward pop than anything else. 'Shalala Lala' and 'Kiss' are my favourite tracks on the album, the latter of which I always found amusing because the lyric "I only kiss when the sun don't shine" I misheard as "I only kiss where the sun don't shine" which gave me more amusement than it should. Years later when I heard the song again I couldn't help but feel the softness of the word "when" was intentional, to the point where I read into the lyrics far too much and convinced myself the song is actually about rimming - and now when you go and listen to it you can keep that in the back of your mind too.
'Uncle John From Jamaica' gets a mention here too because I it's upbeat, pop, and touches on the idea of escape albeit in a much more light hearted way than some of the other artists I will mention. Vengaboys represent an informal genre that most people in the UK would refer to as "Cheese Music" in reference to the colloquialism "Say cheese" to make people smile in photographs. Cheese music is meant to be insincere, tongue-in-cheek, relentlessly positive and upbeat, and light-hearted. The only formal genre that comes close to this is bubblegum pop but there are distinctions, ask most Brits to name cheesy pop songs and they'll give you a list most of which they won't admit to listening to but I can tell you for nothing they'll know the words and with a few drinks in them they'll be singing along too. Perhaps the most infamous cheesy music track worth mentioning here as it won't fit anywhere else is 'The Fast Food Song' by the Fast Food Rockers, if you're still unsure of the definition of cheese that should make it quite clear.
Vengaboys were one of the first Eurodance groups that I came across, I first discovered them in 1998 like most people who know of them when Vengabus reached #3 in the UK charts; I followed their career until 2002 when they went on hiatus. In researching this post I discovered that they have been active again so I will be taking the time to explore what they have been doing since. I had no idea they had reunited but looking at the dates that's not so surprising to me, 2006-2009 were the years I studied at University and for the most part paid very little attention to pop culture other than what I was exposed to organically. Likewise 2010 onward represented a period in my life that was once more very tumultuous and a lot of things changed in a short space of time. That really does make me aware of the fact there have been extended periods of time where I have flown under the radar pretty much bowing out of society. I've mentioned how I can be reclusive and recede into a shell of sorts, this gives you a peek into just how all encompassing that recession can be.
An honourable mention goes to one of their previous albums 'The Party Album' which had a track called 'The Vengabus' aka 'We Like To Party' which is what most people will know them for. I prefer The Platinum Album however because it is more relaxed even though it's still a dance album it leans more toward pop than anything else. 'Shalala Lala' and 'Kiss' are my favourite tracks on the album, the latter of which I always found amusing because the lyric "I only kiss when the sun don't shine" I misheard as "I only kiss where the sun don't shine" which gave me more amusement than it should. Years later when I heard the song again I couldn't help but feel the softness of the word "when" was intentional, to the point where I read into the lyrics far too much and convinced myself the song is actually about rimming - and now when you go and listen to it you can keep that in the back of your mind too.
'Uncle John From Jamaica' gets a mention here too because I it's upbeat, pop, and touches on the idea of escape albeit in a much more light hearted way than some of the other artists I will mention. Vengaboys represent an informal genre that most people in the UK would refer to as "Cheese Music" in reference to the colloquialism "Say cheese" to make people smile in photographs. Cheese music is meant to be insincere, tongue-in-cheek, relentlessly positive and upbeat, and light-hearted. The only formal genre that comes close to this is bubblegum pop but there are distinctions, ask most Brits to name cheesy pop songs and they'll give you a list most of which they won't admit to listening to but I can tell you for nothing they'll know the words and with a few drinks in them they'll be singing along too. Perhaps the most infamous cheesy music track worth mentioning here as it won't fit anywhere else is 'The Fast Food Song' by the Fast Food Rockers, if you're still unsure of the definition of cheese that should make it quite clear.
Vengaboys were one of the first Eurodance groups that I came across, I first discovered them in 1998 like most people who know of them when Vengabus reached #3 in the UK charts; I followed their career until 2002 when they went on hiatus. In researching this post I discovered that they have been active again so I will be taking the time to explore what they have been doing since. I had no idea they had reunited but looking at the dates that's not so surprising to me, 2006-2009 were the years I studied at University and for the most part paid very little attention to pop culture other than what I was exposed to organically. Likewise 2010 onward represented a period in my life that was once more very tumultuous and a lot of things changed in a short space of time. That really does make me aware of the fact there have been extended periods of time where I have flown under the radar pretty much bowing out of society. I've mentioned how I can be reclusive and recede into a shell of sorts, this gives you a peek into just how all encompassing that recession can be.
True Will
I mentioned in a previous post that I had been exploring dark magic and somewhat glossed over the specifics of this as it was not relevant, however I would like to discuss one of the topics I stumbled across when exploring it and that is the concept of True Will. For those who are interested where this concept comes from, I stumbled across it when I was reading about Thelema I am not sure if that is where the concept originates or if the Thelemic belief in True Will was influenced by another teaching but the origin for now is not relevant. What is relevant is the definition of True Will, the concept is closely related to the interconnecting concepts of fate and destiny. Where Destiny is defined as an ultimate destination you will arrive at, and fate is defined as decisions you will make along the way no matter how much you try to fight them.
The concept of free will in contrast to destiny and fate is the belief that you can do whatever you want, make whatever choices you want, and that ultimately your life is what you make of it. Destiny and Fate limit that freedom by establishing frameworks within which you must live your life, with the former pinning down your destination and the latter deciding key points along the path that you must pass through. Naturally the concept of free will is one that is associated more with rational thought, scientific endeavour and logical deduction, whilst the concept of fate and destiny are associated with spirituality, religion, and the supernatural. Despite these associations arguably in truth they should be swapped. That is to say religion should be centred around free will as it usually claims that this was a gift from whatever deity it is centred upon whilst the concept of scientific study on the other hand professes the belief that with enough information and accurate modelling any system can be predicted with precision, the study of Chaos Theory for example the field of Determinism takes this concept to the extreme, Laplace's Demon posited that if you knew the exact position of every atom in the Universe that you could determine their past and future positions, the conflict here then arises when free will is considered and the impact it has.
Regardless of the intricacies of these conflicts, the concept of True Will on the other hand takes both destiny and fate, as well as the concept of free will and combines them into one unified belief that professes destiny and fate to be your true will, or your true path in life that you were meant to take, and also acknowledges free will by basically saying you have a destiny but you are free to deny it if you wish. The concept of true will and free will are then contrasted and reframed as an argument for and against cosmic harmony. That is to say, cosmic harmony occurs when your free will aligns with your true will, when you freely choose to walk the path you were destined to walk, whereas cosmic discord occurs when you deny your true will and actively push against the universe to create your own path. The underlying belief here is that although you are free to do this, the path you walk will get harder the further from your true will you stray and that ultimately to find peace, joy, and harmony in your life you have to follow the path you were destined to follow.
To sum this up better we can use the analogy of a play. Everyone is on stage at the same time, playing a role, and everyone has a script that they are meant to follow, this is your true will, the part you are meant to play. You are free to improvise because you have free will, you can change dialogue and move around as much as you want, but the further you stray from the script the more disruption you cause, the play eventually loses direction and stops making sense, in order to restore it to something that is coherent, you eventually have to return to the script. The concept of true will extends beyond the self, to the Universe itself, in this case the play. Whilst you may deviate significantly from the script, the others around you are free to do as they wish, and most of them will continue playing the parts they played, few will follow your improvisation, and when you inevitably pass on, the characters that remain will continue to tell the story in line with the original narrative, the more time passes the less your legacy of disruption is upheld.
I found this idea interesting because I have seen this play out in the lives of other people. I have seen people who fight their nature, sometimes in the extreme becoming incredibly self destructive in the process, but ultimately their nature wins out in the end and they accept it and become the person they fought all along. This is the same idea as obsessively pursuing the wrong path until finally admitting defeat and following the right path or to put it another way, discovering how easy life becomes when they don't fight to swim upstream and instead flow with the current.
For me personally and my life I have decided to make the conscious choice to give up on some of the ideas I had held onto and the aspirations that went with them, and instead I have decided to go with the flow and take the easiest route I can in each situation to see what will happen, to see if it will lead me to a different place or if it will be more fruitful as opposed to fighting to swim upstream which to be honest I just didn't have the energy to do any longer. Only time will tell how successful this strategy will be, but one thing is for sure, this mentality is one that I once held when I was much younger, when I didn't think about life so much and lived it instead of over-thinking, trying to pursue this strategy once more is in many ways a return to my nature, let's see how effective this Thelemic belief is in practice.
The concept of free will in contrast to destiny and fate is the belief that you can do whatever you want, make whatever choices you want, and that ultimately your life is what you make of it. Destiny and Fate limit that freedom by establishing frameworks within which you must live your life, with the former pinning down your destination and the latter deciding key points along the path that you must pass through. Naturally the concept of free will is one that is associated more with rational thought, scientific endeavour and logical deduction, whilst the concept of fate and destiny are associated with spirituality, religion, and the supernatural. Despite these associations arguably in truth they should be swapped. That is to say religion should be centred around free will as it usually claims that this was a gift from whatever deity it is centred upon whilst the concept of scientific study on the other hand professes the belief that with enough information and accurate modelling any system can be predicted with precision, the study of Chaos Theory for example the field of Determinism takes this concept to the extreme, Laplace's Demon posited that if you knew the exact position of every atom in the Universe that you could determine their past and future positions, the conflict here then arises when free will is considered and the impact it has.
Regardless of the intricacies of these conflicts, the concept of True Will on the other hand takes both destiny and fate, as well as the concept of free will and combines them into one unified belief that professes destiny and fate to be your true will, or your true path in life that you were meant to take, and also acknowledges free will by basically saying you have a destiny but you are free to deny it if you wish. The concept of true will and free will are then contrasted and reframed as an argument for and against cosmic harmony. That is to say, cosmic harmony occurs when your free will aligns with your true will, when you freely choose to walk the path you were destined to walk, whereas cosmic discord occurs when you deny your true will and actively push against the universe to create your own path. The underlying belief here is that although you are free to do this, the path you walk will get harder the further from your true will you stray and that ultimately to find peace, joy, and harmony in your life you have to follow the path you were destined to follow.
To sum this up better we can use the analogy of a play. Everyone is on stage at the same time, playing a role, and everyone has a script that they are meant to follow, this is your true will, the part you are meant to play. You are free to improvise because you have free will, you can change dialogue and move around as much as you want, but the further you stray from the script the more disruption you cause, the play eventually loses direction and stops making sense, in order to restore it to something that is coherent, you eventually have to return to the script. The concept of true will extends beyond the self, to the Universe itself, in this case the play. Whilst you may deviate significantly from the script, the others around you are free to do as they wish, and most of them will continue playing the parts they played, few will follow your improvisation, and when you inevitably pass on, the characters that remain will continue to tell the story in line with the original narrative, the more time passes the less your legacy of disruption is upheld.
I found this idea interesting because I have seen this play out in the lives of other people. I have seen people who fight their nature, sometimes in the extreme becoming incredibly self destructive in the process, but ultimately their nature wins out in the end and they accept it and become the person they fought all along. This is the same idea as obsessively pursuing the wrong path until finally admitting defeat and following the right path or to put it another way, discovering how easy life becomes when they don't fight to swim upstream and instead flow with the current.
For me personally and my life I have decided to make the conscious choice to give up on some of the ideas I had held onto and the aspirations that went with them, and instead I have decided to go with the flow and take the easiest route I can in each situation to see what will happen, to see if it will lead me to a different place or if it will be more fruitful as opposed to fighting to swim upstream which to be honest I just didn't have the energy to do any longer. Only time will tell how successful this strategy will be, but one thing is for sure, this mentality is one that I once held when I was much younger, when I didn't think about life so much and lived it instead of over-thinking, trying to pursue this strategy once more is in many ways a return to my nature, let's see how effective this Thelemic belief is in practice.
Divination II
I'm quite fascinated with the concept of Mediums. As someone once put it, people are low level beings, those who have passed on and those who supposedly inhabit the spirit world are high level beings, and a Medium is in theory a person whose consciousness is elevated or is aware of both plains and is able to bridge the two. That's the theory at least and from what I gather this is where the concept originates. Mediumship and Divination are two distinct concepts but they are viewn by people in general in much the same way. Whereas Mediums are concerned with spirits and being or consciousness, Divination is concerned more with the extraction of knowledge and information from objects and places which traditionally aren't considered capable of holding that information.
Ultimately both endeavours seek the same goal, to find answers to questions without direction, to be able to ascertain accurate information without prior knowledge. Most people when confronted with people who claim to possess these abilities will offer alternate explanations such as prior knowledge that was forgotten but recalled, or intuition, and most often educated guesswork - that is to say, guessing with statistical information that skews probability in favour of accuracy.
What I find fascinating about both of these concepts is that they can be seen in most peoples' lives if you stop and pay attention, those explanations offered don't always suffice as reasoning for such abilities. I recently experienced this when I was exploring dark magic. I know that sounds odd, but bear with me. I've had an interest in the occult for as long as I can recall but I've never had much success with it. Not much of what is claimed by those who study it or those who profess proficiency in it when you actually subject it to scrutiny. However through my research I did stumble across something interesting, an article that discussed a group of concepts the specifics of which aren't relevant here. What is relevant however is that this article was accompanied by essentially a framework of suppositions which are remarkably close to a novel I wrote but never published when I was a teenager.
Some of these suppositions I can easily dismiss as coincidence and some can simply be explained as logical conclusions that people would naturally draw. However the wording and the terminology used within others touches very closely with what I wrote - which I must stress was written at a time when I did not yet have internet, was limited to a handful of TV channels, and had not yet read about many of the subjects that I have since explored in greater depth.
Dismissing the supernatural explanations for a moment, assuming these conclusions were influenced by popular culture, TV, Movies, Games, and Books etc, I do wonder where and when those seeds of knowledge were planted. This isn't a concept I only associate with the occult, I associate it with knowledge in general, there is a lot of information that I know but I have no idea nor recollection of how I know it. There are so many random facts inside my head at some point my mind concluded that citing sources wasn't important. This inability to trace what you know to a moment of discovery is something that intrigues me because without being able to account for the source of everything you know, how would you actually know what was learned and what was divined if such a thing were indeed possible?
Names are perhaps one of the more interesting pieces of information that crop up from time to time. There are moments when a name will enter my head for no apparent reason and I will ask myself how or why I know that name, and often after googling that name and looking through their Wikipedia page or their IMDB profile I am still left wondering how or why I know their name when nothing I read is anything familiar to me.
To be clear, I am sure there's a reasonable explanation as to why these things happen, but I think the concept of divination and mediumship ultimately evolved from this inability to trace the source of our knowledge. Still of all I do find it fascinating when you can explain certain concepts you never studied and knew nothing about and those explanations then prove to be accurate. Human Intelligence as I have written before, I believe, is marked by its ability to process priori and a posteriori knowledge, that is both knowledge that is derived from what is already known and knowledge that is independent of what is already known and has no evidence or experience yet to back it up - the latter of which artificial intelligence can not yet accurately model.
Ultimately both endeavours seek the same goal, to find answers to questions without direction, to be able to ascertain accurate information without prior knowledge. Most people when confronted with people who claim to possess these abilities will offer alternate explanations such as prior knowledge that was forgotten but recalled, or intuition, and most often educated guesswork - that is to say, guessing with statistical information that skews probability in favour of accuracy.
What I find fascinating about both of these concepts is that they can be seen in most peoples' lives if you stop and pay attention, those explanations offered don't always suffice as reasoning for such abilities. I recently experienced this when I was exploring dark magic. I know that sounds odd, but bear with me. I've had an interest in the occult for as long as I can recall but I've never had much success with it. Not much of what is claimed by those who study it or those who profess proficiency in it when you actually subject it to scrutiny. However through my research I did stumble across something interesting, an article that discussed a group of concepts the specifics of which aren't relevant here. What is relevant however is that this article was accompanied by essentially a framework of suppositions which are remarkably close to a novel I wrote but never published when I was a teenager.
Some of these suppositions I can easily dismiss as coincidence and some can simply be explained as logical conclusions that people would naturally draw. However the wording and the terminology used within others touches very closely with what I wrote - which I must stress was written at a time when I did not yet have internet, was limited to a handful of TV channels, and had not yet read about many of the subjects that I have since explored in greater depth.
Dismissing the supernatural explanations for a moment, assuming these conclusions were influenced by popular culture, TV, Movies, Games, and Books etc, I do wonder where and when those seeds of knowledge were planted. This isn't a concept I only associate with the occult, I associate it with knowledge in general, there is a lot of information that I know but I have no idea nor recollection of how I know it. There are so many random facts inside my head at some point my mind concluded that citing sources wasn't important. This inability to trace what you know to a moment of discovery is something that intrigues me because without being able to account for the source of everything you know, how would you actually know what was learned and what was divined if such a thing were indeed possible?
Names are perhaps one of the more interesting pieces of information that crop up from time to time. There are moments when a name will enter my head for no apparent reason and I will ask myself how or why I know that name, and often after googling that name and looking through their Wikipedia page or their IMDB profile I am still left wondering how or why I know their name when nothing I read is anything familiar to me.
To be clear, I am sure there's a reasonable explanation as to why these things happen, but I think the concept of divination and mediumship ultimately evolved from this inability to trace the source of our knowledge. Still of all I do find it fascinating when you can explain certain concepts you never studied and knew nothing about and those explanations then prove to be accurate. Human Intelligence as I have written before, I believe, is marked by its ability to process priori and a posteriori knowledge, that is both knowledge that is derived from what is already known and knowledge that is independent of what is already known and has no evidence or experience yet to back it up - the latter of which artificial intelligence can not yet accurately model.
Small Talk
I hate small talk, if you spend any amount of time with me and get to know me at all, you'll soon realise most conversations will descend to a depth you don't experience with other people. That's not a comment I make in arrogance based on some contrived impression of myself that I have created, it's based on the comments that other people have made. I've been labelled many things in my time by others, deep, heavy, intellectual, bleeding heart, intense, among many others, and there was a time when I took each of these as an insult but the truth is with age I have come to understand that those are other peoples' perceptions of me, and what other people think of me is for them to decide not me. All I can do is be myself and stay true to myself and let other people perceive that in whatever way they want.
I realise that my personality is not something that everyone can handle, this is one of the many reasons why people close to me have a relationship with me which can go for days, weeks, or even months without talking and then pick up exactly where we left off. I know that everyone has their own life to live. I know that the depth of the connections I form with people will withstand distance and duration apart. I don't need to see you every day or speak to you every day to maintain that depth.
The fact that conversations run so deep has led those around me to know what to expect from me, to the point where they don't engage in small talk anymore, if I ask them or they ask me "How are you?" we'll both give an honest answer that is actually going to answer the question, a one word answer isn't something you should expect if you ask that question, if that's what you want then you'll learn very quickly not to ask me that question. That doesn't mean I will pour my heart out to anyone that will listen, not everyone gets to form that connection with me, there has to be give and take. Over the years I have become quite good at judging who can and can't have that level of engagement. I learned quite quickly that some people can't swim if you throw them into the deep end they'll drowned.
You might question how successful my social interactions are based on that behaviour, and the answer is rather simple. I have a small circle of friends that I am extremely close to, who I can tell anything and they can tell me anything. Those relationships are fulfilling, and give me something that I value greatly and I give the same in return to them. I've never been one to chase that desire to have a wide circle of friends that I barely know, I don't get the appeal in doing that. The sort of person that wants to have hundreds or thousands of people on their friends list on social media most of whom they've never met - what do you actually get from that? I want to make more meaningful connections with people. There's no limit to how many I would like to establish, I just want the connection to be genuine and to know that there is connection that's more than just knowing each other exist and having passing conversations.
As I have said before, the goal I have with most relationships is the point of silence, that point where you can be in each other's presence in silence without it being awkward. Where there's no pressure and no expectations, just two people who enjoy each other's company and can feel at ease around one another and can relax. This world is hectic and there's a lot in it that can sweep you away, the only reason I want deep connections is to know that it will take more than those things to break that connection and pull us apart. The reason I hate small talk is because I see it really as a socially acceptable way of saying "I want to be sociable but I don't really care" which to me feels pointless, if you don't care, don't pretend you do, just don't speak, I won't be offended.
I realise I give the impression at times that I am an antisocial person, and I accept that. As someone with social anxiety who finds it hard to talk to people I don't know, the truth is yes I am antisocial, I'd rather people didn't engage with me unless they actually want to get to know me, I don't see what is so wrong with that idea. Would you rather be sociable with a load of people who don't really care about you, or would you rather make a connection with at least one person who really does care?
I realise that my personality is not something that everyone can handle, this is one of the many reasons why people close to me have a relationship with me which can go for days, weeks, or even months without talking and then pick up exactly where we left off. I know that everyone has their own life to live. I know that the depth of the connections I form with people will withstand distance and duration apart. I don't need to see you every day or speak to you every day to maintain that depth.
The fact that conversations run so deep has led those around me to know what to expect from me, to the point where they don't engage in small talk anymore, if I ask them or they ask me "How are you?" we'll both give an honest answer that is actually going to answer the question, a one word answer isn't something you should expect if you ask that question, if that's what you want then you'll learn very quickly not to ask me that question. That doesn't mean I will pour my heart out to anyone that will listen, not everyone gets to form that connection with me, there has to be give and take. Over the years I have become quite good at judging who can and can't have that level of engagement. I learned quite quickly that some people can't swim if you throw them into the deep end they'll drowned.
You might question how successful my social interactions are based on that behaviour, and the answer is rather simple. I have a small circle of friends that I am extremely close to, who I can tell anything and they can tell me anything. Those relationships are fulfilling, and give me something that I value greatly and I give the same in return to them. I've never been one to chase that desire to have a wide circle of friends that I barely know, I don't get the appeal in doing that. The sort of person that wants to have hundreds or thousands of people on their friends list on social media most of whom they've never met - what do you actually get from that? I want to make more meaningful connections with people. There's no limit to how many I would like to establish, I just want the connection to be genuine and to know that there is connection that's more than just knowing each other exist and having passing conversations.
As I have said before, the goal I have with most relationships is the point of silence, that point where you can be in each other's presence in silence without it being awkward. Where there's no pressure and no expectations, just two people who enjoy each other's company and can feel at ease around one another and can relax. This world is hectic and there's a lot in it that can sweep you away, the only reason I want deep connections is to know that it will take more than those things to break that connection and pull us apart. The reason I hate small talk is because I see it really as a socially acceptable way of saying "I want to be sociable but I don't really care" which to me feels pointless, if you don't care, don't pretend you do, just don't speak, I won't be offended.
I realise I give the impression at times that I am an antisocial person, and I accept that. As someone with social anxiety who finds it hard to talk to people I don't know, the truth is yes I am antisocial, I'd rather people didn't engage with me unless they actually want to get to know me, I don't see what is so wrong with that idea. Would you rather be sociable with a load of people who don't really care about you, or would you rather make a connection with at least one person who really does care?
Music Monday #2: Lest We Forget: The Best of Marilyn Manson
In the first post in this series I alluded to the tumult that I went through in 2004, during that time I met a lot of new people when I moved around and thanks to that expansion in my horizons I was also introduced to a lot of music that I hadn't explored before. One album came as a gift from one of the students in my class at college and that was 'Lest We Forget: The Best of Marilyn Manson' - this is one of the greatest hits albums I chose to include in this list because it includes a selection of songs from the artist that I love that otherwise I'd have to include several albums to get them all in.
My favourite track on the whole album is a cover of 'Personal Jesus' originally recorded by Depeche Mode. Personal Jesus meant a lot to me in particular it served as a way to process thoughts and feelings I that were still unresolved after my Grandfather had died earlier in the year, and in years to come when I lost other family members in particular when I lost my Grandmother it was again a track that I turned to when I couldn't process what I was feeling. In this vein (S)Aint also served as a way to resolve internal conflict that I had which it isn't really important to go into depth explaining right now suffice to say that most people who are raised in a religious environment reach a point where they have a crisis of faith and they need to find reconciliation either in accepting what you have come to reject or in accepting the new reality of abandoning that mindset - for me it was the latter and the struggle to define exactly what I believed when everything I had built up fell apart.
At 16 that's something I think most people aren't yet equipped to process - I am 31 now and I am still not able to fully process it and I don't know many people who could either. Sooner or later you come to accept that what you believe has to be defined by your own faith in whatever form that takes, some people throw themselves into fields of study and devoted themselves religiously [ironically] to that field of study and take the empirical knowledge and facts that exist within it as their new foundation to build their lives upon. Whatever works for you, personally even now years later there are few things in life that I believe can be taken as a given and a certainty upon which you can rely - I think in many ways this is why some people react to violently to new scientific discoveries and new data that contradicts decades old teachings, gender politics in particular as an example is something that changes as scientific understanding advances but even those who advocate scientific reason and fact based beliefs refuse to accept that change and hold to old erroneous conclusions as dogma - the reality being the ultimate realisation that religion isn't the problem, the problem is following something religiously, you have to be able to question everything and if you hold anything as sacrosanct then it stops being something that is resilient and built on logic and reason and transforms into something that is built on faith rather than facts.
There's nothing wrong with the latter for the record as long as you can accept that reality and understand that you can't expect others to accept it too if they don't share in that faith. Marilyn Manson in many ways for me represents controversy in its literal sense to contravene the verse or to disrupt the stream, that and the concept of questioning authority and pursuing your own free will and deciding for yourself what you believe in and yes the irony does not escape me that Brian Warner chose the name Marilyn Manson as a portmanteau of Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson the latter being a cult leader and cults embodying authority and conformity but that's the point of Marilyn Manson, it's supposed to be ironic and it's supposed to piss in the face of people who want to decide for you who and what you are.
Manson is inextricably linked to The Church of Satan, which for most people there will be an immediate aversion and the belief that it entails worshipping the Devil in the same way that Christians worship their depiction of God, but what The Church of Satan represents in reality is quite the opposite. Manson is a priest of the Church of Satan and understands the tenets that underpin its philosophy, and it's important to point out here it is a philosophy, if you swallow the apprehension and actually take the time to explore it in depth what Anton LaVey created was not unreasonable and again ironically as the case may be actually represents a belief system that most people actually implicitly live their life by even those who have never even heard of LaVey. In particular the concept of kindness to those who deserve it and vengeance rather than turning the other cheek - these are tenets most people actually live their lives by in practice, treating others with kindness until they give them a reason not to, and seeking revenge on those who wrong them. The LaVey doctrines ultimately prize free will and self indulgence and represent counter culture when culture itself doesn't deliver what it promises it's only natural that some people will find it when seeking out alternative beliefs and reassurance when they try to make sense of the world.
My favourite track on the whole album is a cover of 'Personal Jesus' originally recorded by Depeche Mode. Personal Jesus meant a lot to me in particular it served as a way to process thoughts and feelings I that were still unresolved after my Grandfather had died earlier in the year, and in years to come when I lost other family members in particular when I lost my Grandmother it was again a track that I turned to when I couldn't process what I was feeling. In this vein (S)Aint also served as a way to resolve internal conflict that I had which it isn't really important to go into depth explaining right now suffice to say that most people who are raised in a religious environment reach a point where they have a crisis of faith and they need to find reconciliation either in accepting what you have come to reject or in accepting the new reality of abandoning that mindset - for me it was the latter and the struggle to define exactly what I believed when everything I had built up fell apart.
At 16 that's something I think most people aren't yet equipped to process - I am 31 now and I am still not able to fully process it and I don't know many people who could either. Sooner or later you come to accept that what you believe has to be defined by your own faith in whatever form that takes, some people throw themselves into fields of study and devoted themselves religiously [ironically] to that field of study and take the empirical knowledge and facts that exist within it as their new foundation to build their lives upon. Whatever works for you, personally even now years later there are few things in life that I believe can be taken as a given and a certainty upon which you can rely - I think in many ways this is why some people react to violently to new scientific discoveries and new data that contradicts decades old teachings, gender politics in particular as an example is something that changes as scientific understanding advances but even those who advocate scientific reason and fact based beliefs refuse to accept that change and hold to old erroneous conclusions as dogma - the reality being the ultimate realisation that religion isn't the problem, the problem is following something religiously, you have to be able to question everything and if you hold anything as sacrosanct then it stops being something that is resilient and built on logic and reason and transforms into something that is built on faith rather than facts.
There's nothing wrong with the latter for the record as long as you can accept that reality and understand that you can't expect others to accept it too if they don't share in that faith. Marilyn Manson in many ways for me represents controversy in its literal sense to contravene the verse or to disrupt the stream, that and the concept of questioning authority and pursuing your own free will and deciding for yourself what you believe in and yes the irony does not escape me that Brian Warner chose the name Marilyn Manson as a portmanteau of Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson the latter being a cult leader and cults embodying authority and conformity but that's the point of Marilyn Manson, it's supposed to be ironic and it's supposed to piss in the face of people who want to decide for you who and what you are.
Manson is inextricably linked to The Church of Satan, which for most people there will be an immediate aversion and the belief that it entails worshipping the Devil in the same way that Christians worship their depiction of God, but what The Church of Satan represents in reality is quite the opposite. Manson is a priest of the Church of Satan and understands the tenets that underpin its philosophy, and it's important to point out here it is a philosophy, if you swallow the apprehension and actually take the time to explore it in depth what Anton LaVey created was not unreasonable and again ironically as the case may be actually represents a belief system that most people actually implicitly live their life by even those who have never even heard of LaVey. In particular the concept of kindness to those who deserve it and vengeance rather than turning the other cheek - these are tenets most people actually live their lives by in practice, treating others with kindness until they give them a reason not to, and seeking revenge on those who wrong them. The LaVey doctrines ultimately prize free will and self indulgence and represent counter culture when culture itself doesn't deliver what it promises it's only natural that some people will find it when seeking out alternative beliefs and reassurance when they try to make sense of the world.
Toys
A catalogue arrived in the mail this morning, from a Toy store that I occasionally buy things from. They offer discounts on some games and things that other retailers don't so that's that main reason I am a customer, as for the rest of the catalogue 99% of it is irrelevant to me. What I do find interesting however is the fact that it contains many of the toys and the types of games that I played with when I was a child. I got my first PC when I was about 6 years old, an Amstrad CPC-464. That was really around the time that I started to abandon toys generally and focus on technology. Prior to age 6, most of the toys I played with as a kid were either construction based like Lego, puzzle based like a Rubik's Cube or jigsaws of which I had many, or they were designed for creating make believe worlds, like farming sets or motor cities where you created a world with people living in them going about their lives.
As I grew older and my fascination with technology grew, I got a lot of games consoles, most of which I would get a year or two after release. I would come home from school, finish my homework and then sit for hours playing those consoles until dinner was ready. My first console was a Sega Master System II with Alex Kidd in Miracle World built in - a game which to date I have never finished without the help of an emulator and save states. That was also the first console where I was introduced to Sonic the Hedgehog. Over the years I have played many different Sonic games, I still maintain the Master System version was the most difficult. I eventually got into Nintendo consoles too with time and was introduced to Mario games too, and again the first games I played, the SNES All Stars collection and Super Mario World still remain to be my favourite games from the franchise, followed by Super Mario Sunshine for the Gamecube which I know is much maligned.
Liking games that didn't do that well or had poor critical response become something of a staple for me. One of my favourite games for the Master System was Asterix and Obelisk, for the SNES it was the Addams Family, and for the PSX is was Casper - the version where you explored Whipstaff Manor solving puzzles. Those games all represented puzzles, logic, reasoning, platforming, and exploration. All of these things have stayed with me as influence over what types of games I am drawn to most. Today one of the games I play most is Minecraft as it incorporates almost all of these elements in some way and provides you with the scope to create so much more.
Looking through the catalogue from this toy store however I do have to wonder how much the world has changed since I was a kid. I don't have children myself and I don't know anyone close to me who does. I can't really judge what it would be like raising a child today, but I would imagine there is much more pressure to introduce technology at a younger age. I do wonder how I would have handled that as a kid, even with the limits of technology at the time when I was a child, I did have what I would consider an obsession with games for a time, where all I wanted to do was play them and nothing else. Thankfully it wasn't really possible for me to do that in excess since I shared a bedroom and apart from the TV in the bedroom and the main TV in the living room there was nowhere else I could have played them - although for a time before we moved houses my Dad did build a sort of gaming grotto for me out of the unused space under the stairs.
Even as an adult I still have some of the physical toys I played with. I still have Rubik's Cubes, 3x3x3 and 4x4x4 variants, although they aren't the originals from my childhood those were long lost. I still have some of the teddies that I had when I was really young, mainly for sentimental reasons. I still have a few of my consoles too but I don't think any of them work anymore except the more recent ones. There is often the desire to buy all of those things again and hold onto them but if I did, they would take up a lot of space which I don't have - we live in a small house - and realistically I don't think I would actually use them enough to justify getting them, there would certainly be a novelty but I think it would wear off quite quickly and they would end up gathering dust as the originals had.
I find it fascinating when other people tell me what they held onto from their childhood, I've known people from either extremes, those that held onto everything and those that got rid of everything over the years. There are some things I wish I had looked after better and still had but again that would mostly be for sentimental reasons, not for practical reasons.
As I grew older and my fascination with technology grew, I got a lot of games consoles, most of which I would get a year or two after release. I would come home from school, finish my homework and then sit for hours playing those consoles until dinner was ready. My first console was a Sega Master System II with Alex Kidd in Miracle World built in - a game which to date I have never finished without the help of an emulator and save states. That was also the first console where I was introduced to Sonic the Hedgehog. Over the years I have played many different Sonic games, I still maintain the Master System version was the most difficult. I eventually got into Nintendo consoles too with time and was introduced to Mario games too, and again the first games I played, the SNES All Stars collection and Super Mario World still remain to be my favourite games from the franchise, followed by Super Mario Sunshine for the Gamecube which I know is much maligned.
Liking games that didn't do that well or had poor critical response become something of a staple for me. One of my favourite games for the Master System was Asterix and Obelisk, for the SNES it was the Addams Family, and for the PSX is was Casper - the version where you explored Whipstaff Manor solving puzzles. Those games all represented puzzles, logic, reasoning, platforming, and exploration. All of these things have stayed with me as influence over what types of games I am drawn to most. Today one of the games I play most is Minecraft as it incorporates almost all of these elements in some way and provides you with the scope to create so much more.
Looking through the catalogue from this toy store however I do have to wonder how much the world has changed since I was a kid. I don't have children myself and I don't know anyone close to me who does. I can't really judge what it would be like raising a child today, but I would imagine there is much more pressure to introduce technology at a younger age. I do wonder how I would have handled that as a kid, even with the limits of technology at the time when I was a child, I did have what I would consider an obsession with games for a time, where all I wanted to do was play them and nothing else. Thankfully it wasn't really possible for me to do that in excess since I shared a bedroom and apart from the TV in the bedroom and the main TV in the living room there was nowhere else I could have played them - although for a time before we moved houses my Dad did build a sort of gaming grotto for me out of the unused space under the stairs.
Even as an adult I still have some of the physical toys I played with. I still have Rubik's Cubes, 3x3x3 and 4x4x4 variants, although they aren't the originals from my childhood those were long lost. I still have some of the teddies that I had when I was really young, mainly for sentimental reasons. I still have a few of my consoles too but I don't think any of them work anymore except the more recent ones. There is often the desire to buy all of those things again and hold onto them but if I did, they would take up a lot of space which I don't have - we live in a small house - and realistically I don't think I would actually use them enough to justify getting them, there would certainly be a novelty but I think it would wear off quite quickly and they would end up gathering dust as the originals had.
I find it fascinating when other people tell me what they held onto from their childhood, I've known people from either extremes, those that held onto everything and those that got rid of everything over the years. There are some things I wish I had looked after better and still had but again that would mostly be for sentimental reasons, not for practical reasons.
It's Not Real
When you watch a soap opera, you know what you see on the screen is scripted, that it isn't real, and that everything it portrays is meant to entertain. That word, entertainment, is often assumed to be synonymous with enjoyment, that something has to be enjoyable to be entertaining. That's not true though, when you think about the history of entertainment, one of the oldest forms is theatre, and one of the most ubiquitous symbols with theatre and the arts that are associated with it are the masks of comedy and tragedy which originate in ancient Greece associated with Thalia and Melpomene the muses of comedy and tragedy respectively. These two muses and their masks represent both sides of one whole. Entertainment incorporates both sides when it wants to be realistic and true to life.
When you watch movies, and play games, likewise you know just as with scripted soap operas, what you see is not real, it is there for your entertainment, to make you feel happy or make you feel sad. I believe one of the reasons why the world can so often seem like a dark place devoid of hope is because we have much more sources of sadness readily available to us than we do sources of happiness. Take rolling news channels, these run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and almost every single story they cover is focused on something bad or sad that is happening in the world. There are no real equivalents of this for happiness. You can argue that a comedy channel would be the antithesis but I would argue those channels are more than negated by the plenitude of channels that exist devoted to rolling news, there are for more of the latter than the former, that's before you even get to the fact that comedy channels whilst being funny are not always happy, especially in the UK we have a penchant for black humour - making jokes about death and very dark subject matter.
If you wanted to turn on your Television and find something happy to watch for the next 24 hours, you'd be hard pressed to fill those 24 hours easily. If you wanted to be dejected by the world for 24 hours you would just switch on a news channel and sit and watch nothing else. What's even more depressing about this fact is that the latter you are almost guaranteed to be based in truth. Dismissing claims of fake news, the only other time you watch a news channel and see something that isn't true is when they cover an emerging story and are running with details that have not yet been fully confirmed or validated, or when you watch a news outlet that is so heavily politically biased that you can see how they spin every story to be a positive for their side or a negative for whoever their ideological opponents are.
There are TV shows however that claim to be true to life, reality TV as I have mentioned before has many problems not least of all the fact that most people who watch them believe reality means real, rather than imitation of real life. There is an important distinction there as many reality TV shows are heavily edited to create a narrative and make entertainment out of stories which on their own wouldn't be engaging enough for people to watch. Big Brother for example was often described as a case of the viewers being people sitting in a house watching people sitting in a house. That descriptor however reinforces the idea that you're watching people live the way they would live their lives in general, that's patently untrue though. If you knew there were dozens of cameras in your house watching your every move, you would act in a completely different way to the way you would if you were alone.
On the flip side there are shows that we watch which are not real, we know they are not, but they are presented in a way that they attempt to be realistic. Perhaps the best example of this would be entertainment franchises like WWE - World Wrestling Entertainment. The first reaction I often see people have whenever anyone talks about watching any WWE programme is "You know it's not real right?" like they are eager to be the one to tell a child Santa Claus doesn't exist and they want to see the reaction. Those same people though are the first to ignore others when they criticize them for caring about anything that is "reality TV"; I've seen arguments between people who watch Big Brother and people who watch WWE over which one is more realistic. I don't watch either but in the debate as to which is more realistic I would take the side of the latter as it doesn't claim to be real, the name itself tells you it's there for entertainment. People who watch it know full well that if they smacked someone across the face with a folding chair that person wouldn't stand up again and continue like nothing happened.
The willingness to believe that everything you see is real because someone tells you it is, without questioning it, I feel is quite dangerous. I have no surprise nor any astonishment at the state of politics around the world and the state of political discourse as a whole given this willingness. People have become too gullible and the violent reactions that emerge are in part down to the fact that people realise they have been turned into fools. If you treat people like idiots, you shouldn't expect logic and reason in their reactions, if you treat people like they are impulsive and easy to control, then you shouldn't be surprised when they react in unpredictable ways and fight against every measure of control that has been levied upon them. People are angry because you gave them something to be angry about, and whether or not it was real becomes irrelevant, they believed it was, so you have to suffer the consequence.
When you watch movies, and play games, likewise you know just as with scripted soap operas, what you see is not real, it is there for your entertainment, to make you feel happy or make you feel sad. I believe one of the reasons why the world can so often seem like a dark place devoid of hope is because we have much more sources of sadness readily available to us than we do sources of happiness. Take rolling news channels, these run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and almost every single story they cover is focused on something bad or sad that is happening in the world. There are no real equivalents of this for happiness. You can argue that a comedy channel would be the antithesis but I would argue those channels are more than negated by the plenitude of channels that exist devoted to rolling news, there are for more of the latter than the former, that's before you even get to the fact that comedy channels whilst being funny are not always happy, especially in the UK we have a penchant for black humour - making jokes about death and very dark subject matter.
If you wanted to turn on your Television and find something happy to watch for the next 24 hours, you'd be hard pressed to fill those 24 hours easily. If you wanted to be dejected by the world for 24 hours you would just switch on a news channel and sit and watch nothing else. What's even more depressing about this fact is that the latter you are almost guaranteed to be based in truth. Dismissing claims of fake news, the only other time you watch a news channel and see something that isn't true is when they cover an emerging story and are running with details that have not yet been fully confirmed or validated, or when you watch a news outlet that is so heavily politically biased that you can see how they spin every story to be a positive for their side or a negative for whoever their ideological opponents are.
There are TV shows however that claim to be true to life, reality TV as I have mentioned before has many problems not least of all the fact that most people who watch them believe reality means real, rather than imitation of real life. There is an important distinction there as many reality TV shows are heavily edited to create a narrative and make entertainment out of stories which on their own wouldn't be engaging enough for people to watch. Big Brother for example was often described as a case of the viewers being people sitting in a house watching people sitting in a house. That descriptor however reinforces the idea that you're watching people live the way they would live their lives in general, that's patently untrue though. If you knew there were dozens of cameras in your house watching your every move, you would act in a completely different way to the way you would if you were alone.
On the flip side there are shows that we watch which are not real, we know they are not, but they are presented in a way that they attempt to be realistic. Perhaps the best example of this would be entertainment franchises like WWE - World Wrestling Entertainment. The first reaction I often see people have whenever anyone talks about watching any WWE programme is "You know it's not real right?" like they are eager to be the one to tell a child Santa Claus doesn't exist and they want to see the reaction. Those same people though are the first to ignore others when they criticize them for caring about anything that is "reality TV"; I've seen arguments between people who watch Big Brother and people who watch WWE over which one is more realistic. I don't watch either but in the debate as to which is more realistic I would take the side of the latter as it doesn't claim to be real, the name itself tells you it's there for entertainment. People who watch it know full well that if they smacked someone across the face with a folding chair that person wouldn't stand up again and continue like nothing happened.
The willingness to believe that everything you see is real because someone tells you it is, without questioning it, I feel is quite dangerous. I have no surprise nor any astonishment at the state of politics around the world and the state of political discourse as a whole given this willingness. People have become too gullible and the violent reactions that emerge are in part down to the fact that people realise they have been turned into fools. If you treat people like idiots, you shouldn't expect logic and reason in their reactions, if you treat people like they are impulsive and easy to control, then you shouldn't be surprised when they react in unpredictable ways and fight against every measure of control that has been levied upon them. People are angry because you gave them something to be angry about, and whether or not it was real becomes irrelevant, they believed it was, so you have to suffer the consequence.
Why does Evil exist?
When children ask you why there is evil in the world, there are a lot of answers that you can give. Some people will give religious answers, others will delve into psychology albeit in a simplified way that children can understand. For me personally the answer that I would give is not one that is particularly encouraging. The truth is Mankind was never taught to be evil, it is in our nature. There is a depiction from Chinese Philosophy of two twins known as Yin and Yang, the former is black, and the latter is white, the two are twisted together to create the Taichi symbol, whilst they represent darkness and light respectively, they each contain a smaller circle that holds part of their opposing twin, this represents that in everything good there is always bad and in everything bad there is always good.
When asked why there is evil in the world I would simply say that there is evil because there is good. If there was no evil there would be no good, they exist as a scale you can make any scale bigger or smaller you can cut it in half in an attempt to remove the bit you don't like but what you're left with becomes the new scale, the two ends become the new extremes. You can only eliminate one end of the scale entirely by eliminating the whole thing.
When you look at the world, it's very easy to find darkness. It's very easy to see everything that is wrong with it. The negativity stands out, but the fact that mankind survives and lives on is because despite what you are led to believe, there is as much good in the world as there is bad. It's easy to argue against this and say that there is much more bad than good and that there is no balance enforced by nature but I would argue this isn't true. There is a balance and it is more solidified than we think. There is no association between genders, male and female as to who is more likely to be good or bad, but we can take the divide between male and female as an example of something that you would think there would be no balance enforced by nature. You would be wrong however.
There are around 7 billion people on Earth right now and incredibly, the distribution of male to female is approximately 1:1, this is despite the prevalence of patriarchal society, and some countries fixation on preferring male children, and all manner of human intervention in fertility and birth rates etc. The human race is not alone, most species that reproduce via sexual intercourse result in the same population ratio of 1:1 in terms of binary genders - the idea of binary gender in and of itself is archaic but that's an issue that requires a much more lengthy explanation, the short explanation is that gender in humans isn't determined by XY pairing as it was once thought to be, it is determined by the SRX/SRY box genes which have hundreds of permutations which is just one reason why gender profiling is problematic but as I said that's a topic for another time.
You can take things which involve much wider scope for random variation like the Euromillions lottery balls and you will see the same conformity eventually arise. The Euromillions is a lottery where 5 regular balls numbered 1 to 50 are drawn and 2 lucky star balls numbered 1 to 12 are drawn. It was launched in 2004 and has remained largely unchanged since its inception. There are other lotteries that have been around a lot longer but the consistency of the rules for this one make it a good example to use. There is a website you can use called LottoNumbers which details the most overdue balls for the Euromillions lottery among others. Balls generally reach between 20 and 120 days without being drawn. You can also see the most common balls which details the balls that have appeared most often. What you will observe if you pay attention to both of these pages over time is that the numbers that appear in each changes quite often. There are no balls that remain in either page forever. A standard distribution is eventually achieved and a standard deviation also emerges as to how long a ball can go whilst being the least or most common to appear. In the end there is an even distribution that emerges.
Good and Evil we are raised to believe are the result of how we are raised, and come down to a case of nurture as opposed to nature - I don't believe this is true personally. I don't believe you can ever achieve world peace and Utopia, and I don't believe that the world could ever descend into total war and a Dystopia, you can call me naive for thinking that but I maintain even if you managed to cause it, in the end it wouldn't last. Whichever side you sought to eliminate will eventually emerge in time. I know this to be true because it has already happened, as I have said Mankind was never taught to be evil, it is in our nature, but likewise Mankind was never taught to be good either, that too is in our nature. Humanity is Yin and Yang, there is evil in the world because there are people in the world, and so long as there are people, there will be evil, but there is also good in the world, because there are people in the world, and so long as there are people, there will be good. You just have to find it, and focus on it, and if you want the world to be a better place then you need to create more good in the world.
When asked why there is evil in the world I would simply say that there is evil because there is good. If there was no evil there would be no good, they exist as a scale you can make any scale bigger or smaller you can cut it in half in an attempt to remove the bit you don't like but what you're left with becomes the new scale, the two ends become the new extremes. You can only eliminate one end of the scale entirely by eliminating the whole thing.
When you look at the world, it's very easy to find darkness. It's very easy to see everything that is wrong with it. The negativity stands out, but the fact that mankind survives and lives on is because despite what you are led to believe, there is as much good in the world as there is bad. It's easy to argue against this and say that there is much more bad than good and that there is no balance enforced by nature but I would argue this isn't true. There is a balance and it is more solidified than we think. There is no association between genders, male and female as to who is more likely to be good or bad, but we can take the divide between male and female as an example of something that you would think there would be no balance enforced by nature. You would be wrong however.
There are around 7 billion people on Earth right now and incredibly, the distribution of male to female is approximately 1:1, this is despite the prevalence of patriarchal society, and some countries fixation on preferring male children, and all manner of human intervention in fertility and birth rates etc. The human race is not alone, most species that reproduce via sexual intercourse result in the same population ratio of 1:1 in terms of binary genders - the idea of binary gender in and of itself is archaic but that's an issue that requires a much more lengthy explanation, the short explanation is that gender in humans isn't determined by XY pairing as it was once thought to be, it is determined by the SRX/SRY box genes which have hundreds of permutations which is just one reason why gender profiling is problematic but as I said that's a topic for another time.
You can take things which involve much wider scope for random variation like the Euromillions lottery balls and you will see the same conformity eventually arise. The Euromillions is a lottery where 5 regular balls numbered 1 to 50 are drawn and 2 lucky star balls numbered 1 to 12 are drawn. It was launched in 2004 and has remained largely unchanged since its inception. There are other lotteries that have been around a lot longer but the consistency of the rules for this one make it a good example to use. There is a website you can use called LottoNumbers which details the most overdue balls for the Euromillions lottery among others. Balls generally reach between 20 and 120 days without being drawn. You can also see the most common balls which details the balls that have appeared most often. What you will observe if you pay attention to both of these pages over time is that the numbers that appear in each changes quite often. There are no balls that remain in either page forever. A standard distribution is eventually achieved and a standard deviation also emerges as to how long a ball can go whilst being the least or most common to appear. In the end there is an even distribution that emerges.
Good and Evil we are raised to believe are the result of how we are raised, and come down to a case of nurture as opposed to nature - I don't believe this is true personally. I don't believe you can ever achieve world peace and Utopia, and I don't believe that the world could ever descend into total war and a Dystopia, you can call me naive for thinking that but I maintain even if you managed to cause it, in the end it wouldn't last. Whichever side you sought to eliminate will eventually emerge in time. I know this to be true because it has already happened, as I have said Mankind was never taught to be evil, it is in our nature, but likewise Mankind was never taught to be good either, that too is in our nature. Humanity is Yin and Yang, there is evil in the world because there are people in the world, and so long as there are people, there will be evil, but there is also good in the world, because there are people in the world, and so long as there are people, there will be good. You just have to find it, and focus on it, and if you want the world to be a better place then you need to create more good in the world.
Music Monday #1: Love Angel Music Baby by Gwen Stefani
I wanted to write some posts for this blog that were a little different to the other topics I have covered so far. I realise that a lot of the topics I cover can be quite heavy and whilst that is a place where my mentality thrives, and I find comfort there, it's not where my mind resides all the time. I do have other interests but I haven't really shared those much on here so I wanted to change that. When it came to thinking about what I could share one of the first things that came to mind was my love of Music. It should be stated right off the bat my taste in Music is somewhat strange to most people in that it ranges quite a bit, there are artists you would never associated that sit side by side in my music library and they're played just as much as each other.
I wanted to lay a few ground rules in this first post, just to keep things simple for now, these posts will be made every Monday with the aim being to post 52 for 2020. Each post will focus on a particular album and the only real rule I have is not to include compilation albums with the exception of greatest hit compilations. The reason I made this rule is because I love Dance, Trance, Electronica, and genres of music closely related to them, these make up a chunk of my library but they are almost entirely compilations that have a mix of artists featured on them and my ratings for those individual artists vary quite a bit so without going through the albums track by track it wouldn't give a fair depiction of what I like and what I don't. Greatest Hit albums are an exception as they tend to be centred around a single artist and they provide a greater accuracy when it comes to how my opinion of the album reflects my opinion of the artist. The only other rule should go without saying but for the sake of clarity, these are all albums that I like, by artists that I like, I won't be featuring anything in these posts that I don't actually listen to.
To that end, the first album I wanted to feature is 'Love Angel Music Baby' by Gwen Stefani. This album was released in November 2004, I was three months into my Diploma at College when it was released, I bought it the same day that I bought Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code which at the time had been out for over a year but had been a book that I was reluctant to read if not for any other reason than the fact it felt over hyped. The reason I mention the book in tandem with this album though is because I read the book whilst listening to this album on repeat - that's not unusual for me I do that quite a lot music helps me think and it helps me focus, I know for most people the opposite is true and that they find it a distraction but this was never really the case for me. If I want to use one sense in particular, I find that repetitive distraction of the other senses helps create a sort of bubble of concentration where everything else gets drowned out.
Love Angel Music Baby is one of those albums where I love almost every track - there are are only a handful of albums I can actually say I love every track and a few will feature in these posts. The track I love most is called Serious but the album is perhaps best known for Hollabeck Girl, Harajuku Girls, or What You Waiting For. This album for me was Gwen Stefani's peak, her magnum opus, an album that only 1 other came close to which will be featured later in this list. It's been 16 years now since the album was released and to me it hasn't aged a day, every track still has relevance for me, each one evokes a different feeling and triggers memories of people and places that make me feel happy for the most part so it still remains as a go-to album when I want something to try and get into that mindset.
2004 was a tumultuous year for me my Grandfather passed away close to the start, we moved house in the middle of the year, and I started college in September, I turned 16 that year and experienced so many changes and rebirths several times over that I can't look back at that year and find anything really that was static, it represents a period of flux for me or flames when the proverbial Phoenix was reborn and rose from the ashes. Love Angel Music Baby is one of those albums that will feature prominently in my library and I can't imagine I'll ever grow tired of it or ever want to get rid of it.
I wanted to lay a few ground rules in this first post, just to keep things simple for now, these posts will be made every Monday with the aim being to post 52 for 2020. Each post will focus on a particular album and the only real rule I have is not to include compilation albums with the exception of greatest hit compilations. The reason I made this rule is because I love Dance, Trance, Electronica, and genres of music closely related to them, these make up a chunk of my library but they are almost entirely compilations that have a mix of artists featured on them and my ratings for those individual artists vary quite a bit so without going through the albums track by track it wouldn't give a fair depiction of what I like and what I don't. Greatest Hit albums are an exception as they tend to be centred around a single artist and they provide a greater accuracy when it comes to how my opinion of the album reflects my opinion of the artist. The only other rule should go without saying but for the sake of clarity, these are all albums that I like, by artists that I like, I won't be featuring anything in these posts that I don't actually listen to.
To that end, the first album I wanted to feature is 'Love Angel Music Baby' by Gwen Stefani. This album was released in November 2004, I was three months into my Diploma at College when it was released, I bought it the same day that I bought Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code which at the time had been out for over a year but had been a book that I was reluctant to read if not for any other reason than the fact it felt over hyped. The reason I mention the book in tandem with this album though is because I read the book whilst listening to this album on repeat - that's not unusual for me I do that quite a lot music helps me think and it helps me focus, I know for most people the opposite is true and that they find it a distraction but this was never really the case for me. If I want to use one sense in particular, I find that repetitive distraction of the other senses helps create a sort of bubble of concentration where everything else gets drowned out.
Love Angel Music Baby is one of those albums where I love almost every track - there are are only a handful of albums I can actually say I love every track and a few will feature in these posts. The track I love most is called Serious but the album is perhaps best known for Hollabeck Girl, Harajuku Girls, or What You Waiting For. This album for me was Gwen Stefani's peak, her magnum opus, an album that only 1 other came close to which will be featured later in this list. It's been 16 years now since the album was released and to me it hasn't aged a day, every track still has relevance for me, each one evokes a different feeling and triggers memories of people and places that make me feel happy for the most part so it still remains as a go-to album when I want something to try and get into that mindset.
2004 was a tumultuous year for me my Grandfather passed away close to the start, we moved house in the middle of the year, and I started college in September, I turned 16 that year and experienced so many changes and rebirths several times over that I can't look back at that year and find anything really that was static, it represents a period of flux for me or flames when the proverbial Phoenix was reborn and rose from the ashes. Love Angel Music Baby is one of those albums that will feature prominently in my library and I can't imagine I'll ever grow tired of it or ever want to get rid of it.
INR6.39
Amazon has a programme called the Kindle Direct Publishing Select Fund - KDP Select. The programme in a nutshell allows authors - like me - to make their books available for free to anyone who is a member of Kindle Unlimited or who borrows the book through the Kindle Owners' Lending Library - KOLL.
Every month I receive an email from Amazon Accounts Payable that lets me know a payment is on its way. There's a payment report that lets you see how much money is coming your way. This month I logged in and found I was to be paid INR6.39 - forgive me for not knowing the Indian Rupee to Pound Sterling exchange rate off the top of my head, I had to use Google to get an estimate of how much that was. The answer, £0.07 which first of all, it seems pointless to even pay that, the cost of processing the payment is probably more than the payment itself, second of all, the way KDP Select works is that every month Amazon sets aside so many millions of dollars for the fund. In that same month the total number of pages read across all books on all platforms by all authors around the world [you get the point] - every page read, is divided into the fund to return a price per page. You as an author are then paid an amount based on how many pages of your books people read.
Owing to the way this works, it's not unusual to get varying sized payments from Amazon. However £0.07 made me stop and think, first of all, I'm flattered someone in India actually showed an interest in my work, I can't for the life of me think why though. Second of all I dug into the reports dashboard on KDP and found that there were a grand total of 12 pages read from one of my books - again the title in particular has left me wondering "why?" not least of all why 12 pages?
I don't normally question this sort of thing, for a start I don't normally drill down through my reports to actually get an idea of who reads my books, that's not why I wrote them. It's like analytics here on this site, they are there because Blogger - the site that hosts this blog - provides them. I never look at those either. I know some people will scold me for that and decry me for not putting more effort into search engine optimization and all the rest of it. Let me make one thing clear though, I know all about those things, I've used them professionally, I choose not to use them here because I genuinely don't care. I mean no offence to anyone reading this blog, I am happy you are here, but this blog is very much treated like a diary that I write in that I happen to leave open online for anyone to read. I have said before I would continue to write for this blog whether I got 1 reader or 1 million, or none at all, that's not the point.
The same is true to an extent with my books, I write them in the hope that they will help someone, and they do provide an income but it's not an income I rely on. I have to say though £0.07 is the smallest single payment I have received from Amazon and I found the whole thing amusing. Even more comical is the idea that before direct deposit payments were supported, Amazon used to send actual cheques. If I had received a cheque from Amazon for 7p I think I would have actually kept it rather than depositing it purely for the novelty of having something that seems so ridiculous.
If anyone at Amazon KDP should happen to read this blog post, I'd love the option on the payments section of the reports dashboard to donate the money to charity, if that had been there that's probably what I would have done in this instance.
Every month I receive an email from Amazon Accounts Payable that lets me know a payment is on its way. There's a payment report that lets you see how much money is coming your way. This month I logged in and found I was to be paid INR6.39 - forgive me for not knowing the Indian Rupee to Pound Sterling exchange rate off the top of my head, I had to use Google to get an estimate of how much that was. The answer, £0.07 which first of all, it seems pointless to even pay that, the cost of processing the payment is probably more than the payment itself, second of all, the way KDP Select works is that every month Amazon sets aside so many millions of dollars for the fund. In that same month the total number of pages read across all books on all platforms by all authors around the world [you get the point] - every page read, is divided into the fund to return a price per page. You as an author are then paid an amount based on how many pages of your books people read.
Owing to the way this works, it's not unusual to get varying sized payments from Amazon. However £0.07 made me stop and think, first of all, I'm flattered someone in India actually showed an interest in my work, I can't for the life of me think why though. Second of all I dug into the reports dashboard on KDP and found that there were a grand total of 12 pages read from one of my books - again the title in particular has left me wondering "why?" not least of all why 12 pages?
I don't normally question this sort of thing, for a start I don't normally drill down through my reports to actually get an idea of who reads my books, that's not why I wrote them. It's like analytics here on this site, they are there because Blogger - the site that hosts this blog - provides them. I never look at those either. I know some people will scold me for that and decry me for not putting more effort into search engine optimization and all the rest of it. Let me make one thing clear though, I know all about those things, I've used them professionally, I choose not to use them here because I genuinely don't care. I mean no offence to anyone reading this blog, I am happy you are here, but this blog is very much treated like a diary that I write in that I happen to leave open online for anyone to read. I have said before I would continue to write for this blog whether I got 1 reader or 1 million, or none at all, that's not the point.
The same is true to an extent with my books, I write them in the hope that they will help someone, and they do provide an income but it's not an income I rely on. I have to say though £0.07 is the smallest single payment I have received from Amazon and I found the whole thing amusing. Even more comical is the idea that before direct deposit payments were supported, Amazon used to send actual cheques. If I had received a cheque from Amazon for 7p I think I would have actually kept it rather than depositing it purely for the novelty of having something that seems so ridiculous.
If anyone at Amazon KDP should happen to read this blog post, I'd love the option on the payments section of the reports dashboard to donate the money to charity, if that had been there that's probably what I would have done in this instance.
Numerology
As human beings there are a lot of things that we have managed to define and catalogue when it comes to the Universe, its structure and its workings. For all we have managed to discern however, there is a great deal we do not know. Despite the desire to approach the process of discovery with logic and reason, through method and rationale, there is an inevitability in all of us to hold a degree of superstition. We become wary of certain things, even when we know and understand that such wariness is illogical and has no basis in truth. Still of all, superstition persists.
One such area that I find fascination is the study of Numerology. Up there with Astrology and many other supernatural inclinations, Numerology is one of those things which has no basis in any Scientific study. Although perhaps Numerology is the closest supernatural curiosity to actual Scientific study as it is more structured and less subjective than the other divinations. Still Numerology is something which is never linked to causality, only ever linked to correlation and coincidence, but as they say, correlation does not imply causation.
Nevertheless, I find the use of Numerology and the study of this art as something of interest. Two of my favourite branches of Psychology are Behavioural Psychology and Cognitive Psychology. The former deals with how our behaviour is rationalized and the latter deals with our thought processes. The two are closely linked and one can often lead to the other and vice versa. What I find fascinating about Numerology is ultimately the question of whether beliefs, desires, intentions, and expectations affect outcomes to the extent where false positives appear and cognitive bias occurs, or to put it simply, bad things happen because we expect them to and may be unconsciously causing them to happen, or whether there is any real correlation or causation at play.
I have said before, when it comes to the lottery, you are just as likely to win with the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, as you are with any other 6 numbers chosen at random. For some reason numbers pose something of an anomaly in our minds when it comes to processing probability and reason. Despite the above statement being statistically true, we still want to insist such a series is less likely to occur than any other 6 random numbers.
The more attentive among you and more superstitious among you will have already been slightly triggered by the previous paragraph owing to the three sixes mentioned within it. This is yet another factor in this field of study - the religious and cultural significance of the numbers we fixate upon. This causes bias when humans are asked to give random numbers, with a particular persistence and importance given to the number 7.
There are others that we commonly associate with bad luck, like the number 13 or the number 23. Both of these are seen to be bad - the former however is deemed to be good luck within my family which adds yet another element to consider here - the way we are raised and any Psychological conditioning that you can ascertain based upon it.
Other numbers people choose to fixate upon tend to be related to mathematical concepts. In the world of technology for instance most counting and arithmetic inevitably involves binary, the only number system that computers understand at a native level. This gives rise to patterns that are centred around the number 2 and its powers, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, and 1024 are perhaps the most prevalent.
Whilst all of these deal with the concept in itself, the curiosity and the case for observation and study comes when these numbers are incorporated into peoples' lives. Taking 13 as an example, there are between 1 and 3 occurrences of the date Friday the 13th per year, depending on the day of the week that the year started on, and whether or not it is a leap year. The rarity of such an event gives it more visibility when it occurs. The day in itself is widely believed to be one of bad luck. 2020 will have two occurrences, one in March and one in November.
Someone, somewhere will experience bad luck on those days, by simple virtue of the fact that every day, someone, somewhere has bad luck, and those days are no different. As I said before though, what I find interesting is the question of whether people will fixate on the fact that bad luck coincides with the date, or whether somehow they unconsciously cause it to happen because they expect something to go wrong on that date, Numerology attempts to rationalise this speculation with explanations offered where correlations occur, the more people experience bad luck on Friday the 13th the more Numerology would assert that the date is likely to be the cause.
I am yet to find any real use for Numerology however beyond the mere entertainment and the satisfaction of curiosity both of which are fed by seeing the correlation of data, if you're interested in an example of this a good place to start would be the Lincoln Kennedy correlations of which there are quite a few and countless articles exist breaking those down but I'd recommend the Encyclopaedia Britannica's Blog post from 2007 that focuses on these connections.
One such area that I find fascination is the study of Numerology. Up there with Astrology and many other supernatural inclinations, Numerology is one of those things which has no basis in any Scientific study. Although perhaps Numerology is the closest supernatural curiosity to actual Scientific study as it is more structured and less subjective than the other divinations. Still Numerology is something which is never linked to causality, only ever linked to correlation and coincidence, but as they say, correlation does not imply causation.
Nevertheless, I find the use of Numerology and the study of this art as something of interest. Two of my favourite branches of Psychology are Behavioural Psychology and Cognitive Psychology. The former deals with how our behaviour is rationalized and the latter deals with our thought processes. The two are closely linked and one can often lead to the other and vice versa. What I find fascinating about Numerology is ultimately the question of whether beliefs, desires, intentions, and expectations affect outcomes to the extent where false positives appear and cognitive bias occurs, or to put it simply, bad things happen because we expect them to and may be unconsciously causing them to happen, or whether there is any real correlation or causation at play.
I have said before, when it comes to the lottery, you are just as likely to win with the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, as you are with any other 6 numbers chosen at random. For some reason numbers pose something of an anomaly in our minds when it comes to processing probability and reason. Despite the above statement being statistically true, we still want to insist such a series is less likely to occur than any other 6 random numbers.
The more attentive among you and more superstitious among you will have already been slightly triggered by the previous paragraph owing to the three sixes mentioned within it. This is yet another factor in this field of study - the religious and cultural significance of the numbers we fixate upon. This causes bias when humans are asked to give random numbers, with a particular persistence and importance given to the number 7.
There are others that we commonly associate with bad luck, like the number 13 or the number 23. Both of these are seen to be bad - the former however is deemed to be good luck within my family which adds yet another element to consider here - the way we are raised and any Psychological conditioning that you can ascertain based upon it.
Other numbers people choose to fixate upon tend to be related to mathematical concepts. In the world of technology for instance most counting and arithmetic inevitably involves binary, the only number system that computers understand at a native level. This gives rise to patterns that are centred around the number 2 and its powers, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, and 1024 are perhaps the most prevalent.
Whilst all of these deal with the concept in itself, the curiosity and the case for observation and study comes when these numbers are incorporated into peoples' lives. Taking 13 as an example, there are between 1 and 3 occurrences of the date Friday the 13th per year, depending on the day of the week that the year started on, and whether or not it is a leap year. The rarity of such an event gives it more visibility when it occurs. The day in itself is widely believed to be one of bad luck. 2020 will have two occurrences, one in March and one in November.
Someone, somewhere will experience bad luck on those days, by simple virtue of the fact that every day, someone, somewhere has bad luck, and those days are no different. As I said before though, what I find interesting is the question of whether people will fixate on the fact that bad luck coincides with the date, or whether somehow they unconsciously cause it to happen because they expect something to go wrong on that date, Numerology attempts to rationalise this speculation with explanations offered where correlations occur, the more people experience bad luck on Friday the 13th the more Numerology would assert that the date is likely to be the cause.
I am yet to find any real use for Numerology however beyond the mere entertainment and the satisfaction of curiosity both of which are fed by seeing the correlation of data, if you're interested in an example of this a good place to start would be the Lincoln Kennedy correlations of which there are quite a few and countless articles exist breaking those down but I'd recommend the Encyclopaedia Britannica's Blog post from 2007 that focuses on these connections.
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