Two plus two equals ?


As far as it goes

It's not often that there's a discussion on one of my lists that inspires a post. I'm pretty sure this is the first time that I've been able to draw three posts from the same discussion. It wouldn't have happened except I was already talking about tools on this blog.

Someone said that it was insane to think that two plus two equals five.

Well, sort of.

Now I will be the first to tell you that symbols are always imprecise. "The word is not the thing." "The map is not the territory." These are accepted truths. And they are accurate.

As far as they go.

Two point three one and two point four four two approximates five.

It's certainly more than four and a half.

And it's not four.

That was me being a smart ass troublemaker. And it's also accurate.

As far as it goes.

Since our symbols are approximations, we make them as compact and concise as possible. In the case of measurements, we round. You may say that it's two miles to the nearest gas station, but it's really 2.37 miles.

Hold on, today you had to park in a different spot. That makes it 2.372 miles.

But two is "close enough for jazz" as the late Stan Freberg would say. It's close enough for our purposes, It's a given that it's an approximate measure.

Among the older Diné, directions are usually "over the next hill" while pointing with their lips. And that is accurate.

As far as it goes.

What they're not telling you because they don't necessarily think linearly is that it may be over that hill and over the next six, about ninety miles away. It's literally a mismatch of assumptions and ideas. In their minds, they gave you the information you needed, it's not their fault it doesn't fit your map.

The map is not the territory.

Symbols approximate reality.

It's one of those tradeoffs we make.

I can say "Give me a screwdriver" and you don't have to know which exact screwdriver I need. I may not even know, I just want a starting point. Later I can say "A smaller one" and we both have a shared frame of reference.

Two plus two equals five.

Unless we're working in base 3.

Change the assumptions and the symbol context changes. Truth is no longer our constant, it may not even be our reference.

All this is well and good.

As far as it goes.

But I am about to get sneaky on you.

Magick is about shaping reality with your thoughts.

Which makes those symbol things really important.

The spell isn't just about what you want, it's about the process of moving from a to b to c through qq and up to Green-ssss. You have to understand where you are in order to know where you are going. You have to understand what force to apply where. The spell is not just a framework to pour your thoughts, will, and passion into, it's a set of directions that tells you how to get there. It's supposed to be accurate.

As far as it goes.

Now I don't mean carrying out the math to thirty or fifty decimal places. I mean identifying what is involved and what needs to be involved.

Do that and the spell can take you places.

As far as it goes.

Posted: Tue - January 6, 2009 at 02:47 PM
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