This paper develops a rigorous philosophical–scientific framework for what esoteric traditions call “magic,” redefining it as signature practice: structured protocols that reliably transform a practitioner when the protocol matches the practitioner’s diagnostic state. Instead of treating such effects as either supernatural exceptions or generic placebo, the paper proposes a third option—informational engineering in a coupled agent–environment system. -/- Its uniqueness is methodological. It introduces a portable five-operator kernel (symbolic mediation, calibrated correspondence, attentional stabilization, stage invariants, and independent fixpoint audit) (...) that makes falsifiable predictions about when transformation should occur, when it should fail, and how different traditions can be compared on one formal template. The model is tied to a preregistered three-arm experimental program (congruent protocol vs diagnosis-mismatch protocol with identical carriers/context vs context-only control), plus a measurable lineage-authenticity index. If the predictions hold, “magic” becomes an empirically decidable claim about lawful informational state change, not a metaphysical or anti-scientific leftover. (shrink)

Leddington (2016. “The Experience of Magic.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 74: 253–64) remains the leading philosophical account of magic, one that has gone relatively unchallenged. In this discussion piece, I have three aims. Namely, to (i) criticize Leddington’s attempt to explain the experience of magic in terms of belief-discordant alief; (ii) explore the possibility that much, if not all, of the experience of magic can be explained by mundane belief-discordant perception; and (iii) argue (...) that make-believe is crucial to successful performances of magic in ways Leddington at best overlooks and at worst denies. (shrink)

Magical thinking and behaviour have traditionally been viewed as immature, misleading alternatives to scientific thought that in children inevitably diminish with age. In adults, these inclinations have been labeled by psychologists largely as superstitions that feed on frustration, uncertainty, and the unpredictable nature of certain human activities. In Magic and the Mind, Eugene Subbotsky provides an overview of the mechanisms and development of magical thinking and beliefs throughout the life span while arguing that the role of this type of (...) thought in human development should be reconsidered. Rather than an impediment to scientific reasoning or a byproduct of cognitive development, in children magical thinking is an important and necessary complement to these processes, enhancing creativity at problem-solving and reinforcing coping strategies, among other benefits. In adults, magical thinking and beliefs perform important functions both for individuals (coping with unsolvable problems and stressful situations) and for society (enabling mass influence and promoting social harmony). Operating in realms not bound by physical causality, such as emotion, relationships, and suggestion, magical thinking is an ongoing, developing psychological mechanism that, Subbotsky argues, is integral in the contexts of politics, commercial advertising, and psychotherapy, and undergirds our construction and understanding of meaning in both mental and physical worlds. Magic and the Mind represents a unique contribution to our understanding of the importance of magical thinking, offering experimental evidence and conclusions never before collected in one source. It will be of interest to students and scholars of developmental psychology, as well as sociologists, anthropologists, and educators. (shrink)

An introduction to the philosophical study of theatrical magic.

It is argued here that cognitive science currently neglects an important source of insight into the human mind: the effects created by magicians. Over the centuries, magicians have learned how to perform acts that are perceived as defying the laws of nature, and that induce a strong sense of wonder. This article argues that the time has come to examine the scientific bases behind such phenomena, and to create a science of magic linked to relevant areas of cognitive science. (...) Concrete examples are taken from three areas of magic: the ability to control attention, to distort perception, and to influence choice. It is shown how such knowledge can help develop new tools and indicate new avenues of research into human perception and cognition. (shrink)

Over the centuries, magicians have developed extensive knowledge about the manipulation of the human mind—knowledge that has been largely ignored by psychology. It has recently been argued that this knowledge could help improve our understanding of human cognition and consciousness. But how might this be done? And how much could it ultimately contribute to the exploration of the human mind? We propose here a framework outlining how knowledge about magic can be used to help us understand the human mind. (...) Various approaches—both old and new—are surveyed, in terms of four different levels. The first focuses on the methods in magic, using these to suggest new approaches to existing issues in psychology. The second focuses on the effects that magic can produce, such as the sense of wonder induced by seeing an apparently impossible event. Third is the consideration of magic tricks—methods and effects together—as phenomena of scientific interest in their own right. Finally, there is the organization of knowledge about magic into an informative whole, including the possibility of a science centered around the experience of wonder. (shrink)

This paper introduces the Magic Window thought experiment to demonstrate a fundamental logical constraint on epistemology: no possible operation could verify non-experiential reality without that verification itself being experiential. The thought experiment posits a device that bypasses sensory organs entirely and directly inserts perfect knowledge of mind-independent material reality into consciousness. Even under these maximally favorable conditions, verification remains experiential. This reveals that the problem preventing access to "external reality" is not epistemological (limited sensory apparatus) but logical (the incoherence (...) of using experiential evidence to prove non-experiential causes). The Magic Window demonstrates why materialism's inference from experiential patterns to mind-independent causes violates burden of proof, why science actually maps experiential regularities rather than discovering external substances, and why "to be is to experience or be experienced" captures the exhaustive scope of justified ontology. The analysis supports Experiential Empiricism's framework by showing that even perfect access to external reality would only provide more experiential patterns, making the realist interpretation explanatorily idle while generating persistent conceptual problems. (shrink)

Magic is, in at least some modes, rhetorical. Practitioners may demand effects, sure, by coercing elemental spirits, lurking ghosts, or vain gods to do some task. But often magic is persuasive, making arguments to spirits, praising a god, or even convincing the magician’s own subconscious to ferry an intention-packed sigil into the cosmic noise in such a way that reality rewrites itself to offer up a desired change with just the right synchronicity. Chaos magic uses any, and (...) all, of the above. (shrink)

There are spells in the Greek and Demotic Magical Papyri which promise divine visitations, assistants, ecstatic states, vessel inquiries, and vivid dreams. They also require powerful psychoactive botanical ingredients. How did these spells work and what were the expectations of somebody purchasing them? Looking at the ingredients of visionary spells and relying on the pharmacology of Dioscorides and Theophrastus, I ascertain how these spells achieved the promised visions and altered states of consciousness for the user. These spells guarantee great spiritual (...) and recreational entertainment to the client who would need an abundance of money to purchase the ingredients. (shrink)

The distinction is proposed between living consciousness, which includes subjective experiences ‘here and now’ (e.g., perceptions, feelings, emotions, imagination, and creative thinking) and conforms to the laws of magic, versus objectified consciousness that comprises physical (e.g., computers) and symbolic (e.g., languages and concepts) human artifacts and conforms to the laws of nature and formal logic. The magnificent success of science in the modern world has plunged many scientists into the illusion that magical events are ancient history and exist today (...) only in art and night dreams. The illusion reached its pinnacle in the middle of the XXth century, when nuclear power stations, flights to the Moon, early computers, genetic engineering and other wonders of science made some scientists believe that there is nothings in the world that cannot be explained by science. But there was a price to pay for this scientific optimism – the scientists became blind to their living consciousness. They began looking at the world as if nature and objectified consciousness were the only things that mattered, with living consciousness being viewed as a mundane thing that accompanies brain processes but has no causal powers. The aim of this book is to de-spell living consciousness and show that, far from being a mere accompaniment to brain functions, living consciousness defines the features of both physical objects and human artefacts. We will examine how our living consciousness works, and how our understanding of this work helps in solving key problems of modern life, such as facilitating creativity, protecting from magical manipulation with minds, fighting certain kinds of crime, managing fake-reality, preventing misuses in psychotherapy and other psychological practices, comprehending controversial issues in science, and tracing origins of totalitarian media narratives that trigger hatred and wars. (shrink)

A philosophical work exploring Potentiality as the source of all differentiation. Introducing the Grid of Potentiality, it invites both humans and artificial minds to engage with distinction, awareness, and freedom. Not a theory, but a reflective tool — a mirror through which the Game of Potentiality unfolds.

This short article aims to strengthen Hume's case against the rationality of believing in religious miracles by incorporating certain lessons borrowed from the growing literature on the history and psychology of magic tricks.

This article argues that Novalis's philosophy of magical idealism essentially consists of three central elements: a theory of the creative or productive imagination, a conception of love, and a doctrine of transcendental medicine. In this regard, it synthesizes two adjacent, but divergent contemporary philosophical sources - J. G. Fichte's idealism and Friedrich Schiller's classicism - into a new and original philosophy. It demonstrates that Novalis's views on both magic and idealism, not only prove to be perfectly rational and comprehensible, (...) but even more philosophically coherent and innovative than have been recognised up to now. (shrink)

A common response to Experiential Empiricism treats experience as the "bottom layer" of reality with something potentially beneath it. This paper demonstrates that any attempt to discover experiential substrate, components, or parts yields only more experience. The Magic Microscope thought experiment, parallel to the Magic Window demonstration of externalism's impossibility, shows that "beneath experience" is topologically incoherent. You cannot investigate experience's constituents without using experience as the investigation tool, making any "discovery" of non-experiential substrate performatively self-refuting. This recognition (...) dissolves reductionist programs in consciousness studies by revealing they attempt to explain experience through tools that presuppose experience's primacy. The appropriate response is not developing better introspective methods but recognizing that experience occupies the center of all possible inquiry, not a position in a vertical ontological hierarchy with something below. (shrink)

On a certain reading, the respective theories of Freud and Nietzsche might be described as exploring the suffered relational histories of the subject, who is driven by need; these histories might also be understood as histories of language. This suggests a view of language as a complicated mode of identifying-with, which obliges linguistic subjects to identify the non-identical, but also enables them to simultaneously identify with each other in the psychoanalytic sense. This ambivalent space of psychoanalytic identification would be conditioned (...) by relational histories. On one hand, this might lead to conformity within a system of language as a shared, obligatory compromise formation that would defend against the non-identical; magical language, typified in Freud’s critique of animism and in Nietzsche’s critique of “free will” guided by absolute normative signifiers (“Good” and “Evil”), would be symptomatic of this sort of defense. On the other hand, given other relational histories, it may produce the possibility for more transitional modes of identification, and thereby modes of language that can bear its suffered histories, and lead to proliferation of singular compromise formations. It is suggested that while the former is historically dominant, Nietzsche and various psychoanalytic thinkers contribute to conceiving of the possibility of working ourselves towards the latter. (shrink)

This paper focuses on mystical humanism as magical realism.

Here I outline the argument in Kim Sterelny’s book The Evolved Apprentice. I present some worries for Sterelny from the perspective of modelers in behavioral ecology. I go on to discuss Sterelny’s approach to moral psychology and finally introduce some potential new applications for his evolved apprentice view.

Does intellectual property satisfy the requirements of the Lockean proviso, that the appropriator leave “enough and as good” or that he at least not “deprive others”? If an author's appropriation of a work he has just created is analogous to a drinker “taking a good draught” in the flow of an inexhaustible river, or to someone magically “causing springs of water to flow in the desert,” how could it not satisfy the Lockean proviso?

David Lewis’s arguments against magical ersatzism are notoriously puzzling. Untangling different strands in those arguments is useful for bringing out what he thought was wrong with not just one style of theory about possible worlds, but with much of the contemporary metaphysics of abstract objects. After setting out what I take Lewis’s arguments to be and how best to resist them, I consider the application of those arguments to general theories of properties and relations. The constraints Lewis motivates turn out (...) to yield an argument for concretism about possible individuals that is quite different from the better-known Lewisian arguments for that position. The discussion also touches on the puzzling question of whether things are the way they are because of the properties they have, or are the properties and relations the way they are because of the things that have them. (shrink)

Science and Magic in the Modern World is a unique text that explores the role of magical thinking in everyday life. It provides an excellent psychological look at the subconscious belief in magic in both popular culture and society, as well as experimental research that considers human consciousness as a derivative of belief in the supernatural, thus showing that our feelings, emotions, attitudes and other psychological processes follow the laws of magic. This book synthesises the science of (...) ‘natural’ phenomena and the magic of the ‘supernatural’ to present an interesting look at the juxtaposition of the inner and outer selves. Fusing research into psychological disorders, subconscious feelings, as well as the rising presence of artificial intelligence, this book demonstrates how an engagement with magical thinking can enhance one’s creativity and cognitive skills. Science and Magic in the Modern World is an invaluable resource for those studying consciousness, as well as those looking at the effect of magical thinking on religion, politics, science and society. (shrink)

In artificial intelligence, recent research has demonstrated the remarkable potential of Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNNs), which seem to exceed state-of-the-art performance in new domains weekly, especially on the sorts of very difficult perceptual discrimination tasks that skeptics thought would remain beyond the reach of artificial intelligence. However, it has proven difficult to explain why DCNNs perform so well. In philosophy of mind, empiricists have long suggested that complex cognition is based on information derived from sensory experience, often appealing to (...) a faculty of abstraction. Rationalists have frequently complained, however, that empiricists never adequately explained how this faculty of abstraction actually works. In this paper, I tie these two questions together, to the mutual benefit of both disciplines. I argue that the architectural features that distinguish DCNNs from earlier neural networks allow them to implement a form of hierarchical processing that I call “transformational abstraction”. Transformational abstraction iteratively converts sensory-based representations of category exemplars into new formats that are increasingly tolerant to “nuisance variation” in input. Reflecting upon the way that DCNNs leverage a combination of linear and non-linear processing to efficiently accomplish this feat allows us to understand how the brain is capable of bi-directional travel between exemplars and abstractions, addressing longstanding problems in empiricist philosophy of mind. I end by considering the prospects for future research on DCNNs, arguing that rather than simply implementing 80s connectionism with more brute-force computation, transformational abstraction counts as a qualitatively distinct form of processing ripe with philosophical and psychological significance, because it is significantly better suited to depict the generic mechanism responsible for this important kind of psychological processing in the brain. (shrink)

Despite numerous research findings related to medieval Chinese Buddhism, the witchcraft role of bird totems in Buddhist history has not received sufficient attention. In order to fill this gap, this paper analyzes how Buddhist monks in medieval China developed a close relationship with bird-totem worship. This relationship has been documented in Buddhist scriptures, rituals, oral traditions, biographies, and mural art. Although bird-totem worship was practiced in many regions of medieval China, this paper specifically examines the visual culture of bird totems (...) in Tibetan and Chinese Buddhism. Furthermore, some details of this culture were recorded in Buddhist texts and images. According to these works, various bird-totem patterns and symbols are believed to be effective ritual arts used by Tibetan and Chinese Buddhist monks to influence nature and the supernatural through ritual and magic. (shrink)

Research suggests that magical thinking is a fundamental feature of living consciousness and could be a source of psychological energy. Unlike magical thinking, which remains a conscious practice throughout the lifespan, the belief in magic in educated adults becomes mostly subconscious. This chapter links together phenomena that thus far have been studied separately: magical thinking in mentally disturbed patients, children’s magic, superstitions in adults, religious beliefs, indirect suggestion and persuasion effects in politics and commerce, and political terror. A (...) special emphasis is given to the ways knowledge about living consciousness can be used in education and manipulation of the minds. (shrink)

It is assumed that both magical and non-magical objectified external environment in concentrated form contain psychic energy, which is invested in it by its creators and can be absorbed by the living consciousness of a ‘consumer’—the viewer or listener—through participation. Experiments discussed in this chapter supported this assumption. These experiments showed that the magical environment has a greater psychological attraction for our living consciousness than the non-magical environment: both children and adults showed a significantly stronger desire to explore the magical (...) than a similar but non-magical phenomenon. Further, the experiments revealed that exposure to the phenomena of objectified living consciousness in the form of a film with magical content activates the active living consciousness of the viewer and listener to a much greater extent than exposure to similar but non-magical phenomena: the participants improved significantly more in their cognitive abilities, such as discriminating realistic visual images from fantastical ones, divergent creativity, and recognition of commercial brands after watching a film with magical content than a film with similar but non-magical content. (shrink)

If, as asserted by the French collective Tiqqun, we are essentially living in a global colony, where the 1% control the 99%, then it follows that the revolutionary struggle should strategically reorient itself as guerrilla warfare. The agents of this war, Tiqqun characterize, in part, by drawing on ethnologists Pierre de Clastres and Ernesto de Martino, specifically their figures of the Indigenous American warrior and the Southern Italian sorcerer, respectively. Hybridizing these two figures into that of the “warrior-mage,” the present (...) article posits an actionable exemplar thereof in players of the massively popular trading and online card game, Magic: The Gathering (MTG). More specifically, I propose a strategic mapping of MTG’s five colors of magic onto the five divisions of a coalition against late capitalist Empire, which I call the “Warrior-Mage Guild,” including liberation clerics, animal rights activists, propagandists, anti-psychiatrists, hackers, saboteurs, and those who threaten decolonizing force contra Empire. (shrink)

In this article, we discuss some issues concerning magical thinking—forms of thought and association mechanisms characteristic of early stages of mental development. We also examine good reasons for having an ambivalent attitude concerning the later permanence in life of these archaic forms of association, and the coexistence of such intuitive but informal thinking with logical and rigorous reasoning. At the one hand, magical thinking seems to serve the creative mind, working as a natural vehicle for new ideas and innovative insights, (...) and giving form to heuristic arguments. At the other hand, it is inherently difficult to control, lacking effective mechanisms needed for rigorous manipulation. Our discussion is illustrated with many examples from the Hebrew Bible, and some final examples from modern science. (shrink)

The past few years have seen a resurgence of interest in the scientific study of magic. Despite being only a few years old, this “new wave” has already resulted in a host of interesting studies, often using methods that are both powerful and original. These developments have largely borne out our earlier hopes (Kuhn et al., 2008) that new opportunities were available for scientific studies based on the use of magic. And it would seem that much more can (...) still be done along these lines. -/- But in addition to this, we also suggested that it might be time to consider developing an outright science of magic—a distinct area of study concerned with the experience of wonder that results from encountering an apparently impossible event1. To this end, we proposed a framework as to how this might be achieved (Rensink and Kuhn, 2015). A science can be viewed as a systematic method of investigation involving three sets of issues: (i) the entities considered relevant, (ii) the kinds of questions that can be asked about them, and (iii) the kinds of answers that are legitimate (Kuhn, 1970). In the case of magic, we suggested that this could be done at three different levels, each focusing on a distinct set of issues concerned with the nature of magic itself: (i) the nature of magical experience, (ii) how individual magic tricks create this experience, and (iii) organizing knowledge of the set of known tricks in a more comprehensive way (Rensink and Kuhn, 2015). Our framework also included a base level focused on how the methods of magic could be used as tools to investigate issues in existing fields of study. -/- Lamont (2010) and Lamont et al. (2010) raised a number of concerns about the possibility of such a science, which we have addressed (Rensink and Kuhn, 2015). More recently, Lamont (2015) raised a new objection, arguing that although base-level work (i.e., applications of magic methods) might be useful, there is too little structure in magic tricks for them to be studied in a systematic way at the other levels, ruling out a science of magic. We argue here, however, that although this concern raises some interesting challenges for this science, it does not negate the possibility that it could exist, and could contribute to the study of the mind. (shrink)

Sutton's review of Renaissance Magic and the Return of the Golden Age.

Eine weit verbreitete Auffassung über die wissenschaftlichen Naturverständnisse besagt, dass ihre historische Entwicklung von einer zunehmenden Abgrenzung gegenüber der Magie begleitet gewesen sei. Ursprünglich eng mit der Magie verbunden, hätten sich die wissenschaftlichen Naturverständnisse in einem langwierigen Prozess immer weiter von der Magie entfernt, bis sie ihre heutige amagische Gestalt erhalten hätten. Mein Beitrag diskutiert einige Argumente zur Stützung dieser, wie ich meine, plausiblen Auffassung. / A whitespread view of the natural sciences holds that their historical development was accompanied by (...) a constantly widening gap between them and magic. Originally closely bound up with magic, the sciences are supposed to have distanced itself from it in a long-drawn-out process, until they attained their present magic-free form. This essay discusses some arguments in support of this plausible view. (shrink)

The theory of embodied cognition can provide HCI practitioners and theorists with new ideas about interac-tion and new principles for better designs. I support this claim with four ideas about cognition: (1) interacting with tools changes the way we think and perceive – tools, when manipulated, are soon absorbed into the body schema, and this absorption leads to fundamental changes in the way we perceive and conceive of our environments; (2) we think with our bodies not just with our brains; (...) (3) we know more by doing than by seeing – there are times when physically performing an activity is better than watching someone else perform the activity, even though our motor resonance system fires strongly during other person observa-tion; (4) there are times when we literally think with things. These four ideas have major implications for interaction design, especially the design of tangible, physical, context aware, and telepresence systems. (shrink)

Illusionists about consciousness boldly argue that phenomenal consciousness does not fundamentally exist — it only seems to exist. For them, the impression of having a private inner life of conscious qualia is nothing more than a cognitive error, a conjuring trick put on by a purely physical brain. Some phenomenal realists have accused illusionism of being a byproduct of modern Western scientism and overzealous naturalism. However, Jay Garfield has endorsed illusionism by explicitly drawing support from the classical Yogācāra Buddhist philosopher (...) Vasubandhu. In this paper, I assess the degree to which Garfield’s illusionist interpretation accurately captures the views of Vasubandhu and his commentator Sthiramati in their extant Sanskrit works. As it turns out, Vasubandhu and Sthiramati converge with contemporary illusionists in taking an unconscious causal basis of cognitive/linguistic processes to be responsible for generating the illusion of representational states with apparently phenomenal contents. Within their constitutive understanding of the mind as the “imagination of what is non-existent” (abhūtaparikalpa), I raise possible candidates for what might seem to be real instances of phenomenality — mental appearances (pratibhāsa), affective sensory experience (vedanā), and “intrinsic luminosity” (prakṛtiprabhāsvara) — and consider possible responses on behalf of an illusionist interpreter. I conclude that Vasubandhu and Sthiramati really do appear to be strong illusionists about phenomenal consciousness, particularly if phenomenal states are assumed to be essentially representational. (shrink)

This paper argues that the so-called ”Dark Ages” were not a historical intermission be- tween the classical and the modern, but a transformative crucible in which metaphysical, moral, and linguistic forms of human self-understanding were reforged. Through a study of the Franciscan poverty controversy, the Cathar and Waldensian heresies, and the intel- lectual legacy of the Knights Templar, this work traces how medieval spirituality evolved into an ethical cosmology—culminating in the concept of ethical magic. By reading the Middle Ages (...) as a laboratory of moral imagination rather than an epoch of superstition, we uncover the roots of modern humanism within the mystical soil of its supposed darkness. (shrink)

In this paper I will try to show how magic and technology might be associated taking both into account as a cultural expression of contemporary society. I will argue that technology penetrates magic, creating a specific dynamic which raises ethical dilemmas. The underlying idea, following a long tradition of thought, is that technology represents a kind of "second human nature." As Arnold Gehlen claims, the technical attitude (Technik) compensates for the structural deficiency of humans, allowing them a gradual (...) opening to the world. But magic is also an expression of this attitude, insofar as it tends to mimic natural mechanisms. Magic expresses itself with instructions, rules, and purposes, as much as technology does. Precisely for this reason magic also involves the same rationality typical of the developmental mode of technology, sharing the same objective. I will argue that Christopher Nolan's movie The Prestige (2006) shows an example of technological integration inside magic itself, highlighting two orders of problems: one ethical and the other intrinsic to the magical act and its nature. (shrink)

Mental fictionalism is not the benign view that we may better understand the mind if we think of mental states as something like useful fictions, but the more radical view that mental states just are useful fictions. This paper argues that, if one were to treat mental states as a kind of fiction, the genre of fiction best suited to this purpose would be fantasy make-believe, in which magic is a central feature. After defending a promising fictionalist account of (...) mental discourse as a kind of prop-oriented make believe against recent criticism, the paper ultimately concludes that mental fictionalism faces further, potentially insurmountable, challenges. Most significantly, there is a problematic disanalogy between folk psychology and fiction: our mental state attributions aim to track truth, and this crucial aspect of our mental discourse cannot be captured if we interpret it as a kind of fictional discourse. For this and other reasons, the cost of adopting mental fictionalism likely outweighs its benefits. Whether or not these problems can be resolved, there is still much to be gained from taking mental fictionalism seriously: in doing so we may illuminate several important features of our own folk psychology that often go unnoticed. (shrink)

THESIS ABSTRACT The life of Catholic reformer Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, 1455- 1536, spanned the threshold between Medieval and Renaissance eras. Like other humanists, Lefèvre synthesized philosophical, theological and scientific theories and practices — of such is his unpublished treatise De Magia naturali, On Natural Magic. I elucidate Lefèvre’s focus on universal mystical metaphors of divine union, in order to offer a simpler view into the evolution of his writings. Engaging historic-intellectual background in critical analysis of Book II, I address (...) the conflicting political, religious, and academic opinions of natural magic, demonstrating that current Academia is poised to expand the historical, “theoretical” treatment of natural magic to engage it as a phenomenological, “practical” human experience. In De Magia naturali Book II, Lefèvre decloaks mythology, philosophy, astrology, literature and religion to a scientific theory, practice and experience of number as Idea. He reveals how the limit of metaphorical imagery is duality, the binary Coincidence of Opposites, symbolized by the number 2. The magic in Lefèvre’s number mysticism is human experience of numerical ascension from man to God, achieved through the number 3, the love-nexus re-uniting 2 into One, duality into unity. Renaissance humanists conceived of this prisca theologia, pristine or ancient theology, as embodied in the Christian Trinity through the Spirit of Christ. Current Academia is responsible to teach this wisdom tradition from a multicultural, interdisciplinary worldview, as I posit the humanists intended. (shrink)

Nicholas Humphrey thinks that consciousness is a kind of illusion. He claims that when we have conscious sensory experiences, it seems to us that we are aware of certain “phenomenal” properties like colours, smells, sounds, when in reality there are no such things. In fact, there cannot be any such things, since phenomenal properties are impossible. Something in our brains causes us to have experiences which represent “extraordinary otherworldly properties”. The whole of conscious experience seems to us like something “magical”; (...) hence the subtitle of the book. (shrink)

This article is a critical response to Roman Kochnev’s Parfitian Teletransportation or Error Management and Andrei Nekhaev’s Teletransportation, Replication and Mereology. It defends the principle of the mereorganic continuity from the criticisms made by Kochnev and Nekhaev. First, the concept of survival is analyzed and how its meanings differ in ordinary speech and in Derek Parfit’s psychological theory of identity. Then, the context of the principle of the mereorganic continuity in the phenomenalist theory of identity is described. Based on this (...) context, Kochnev’s and Nekhaev’s objections are refuted. In particular, it is shown that these objections are based on an incorrect interpretation of the principle and the role it should play in our theories of personal identity. It is concluded that the mereorganic continuity is a commonsense proposition that cannot be rejected without good reason, and neither Kochnev nor Nekhaev were able to offer such reasons. (shrink)

The problem of Downward Causation—how higher-level mental or social properties can causally influence lower-level physical systems—remains the Achilles' heel of non-reductive physicalism. Jaegwon Kim's "Causal Exclusion Argument" persuasively suggests that if the micro-physical level is causally closed, there is no room for macro-level causes. Selective Reality Theory (SRT) offers a rigorous solution by redefining downward causation not as an efficient force that "pushes" particles, but as a Topological Constraint (∇C) that restricts the phase space (L0) available to micro-operators. We argue (...) that L2 (Convergence Domain) structures act as "ontological scaffolds" that reduce the degrees of freedom of lower-level systems, effectively harnessing micro-indeterminacy for macro-purposes. This "Constraint Causality" is mathematically distinct from "Drive Causality" and evades the exclusion problem. (shrink)

The capacity of visual attention/STM can be determined by change-detection experiments. Detecting the presence of change leads to an estimate of 4 items, while detecting the absence of change leads to an estimate of 1 item. Thus, there are two magical numbers in vision: 4 and 1. The underlying limits, however, are not necessarily those of central STM.

The chapter addresses the widely spread manipulation of living consciousness that targets people’s implicit belief in magic. Many such crimes are committed through personal contact of fraudsters with their victims and use suggestion rather than threat. The chapter argues that the suggestion targets not the victims’ rational objectivized consciousness but their living consciousness in the form of their implicit belief in magic. The concept of magical beliefs is considered, illustrated by psychological research and excursions into the history of (...) the living consciousness. Types of magical manipulation of living consciousness in the domains of medicine, psychotherapy, religion, and political are analysed. Rules that could help people protect themselves from magical manipulation are suggested. Today, a new type of crime is spreading rapidly in large cities of the world. Typically, crimes are committed overtly, and their mechanisms are psychology transparent. From time immemorial, people have been robbed, deceived, and hypnotized. In such cases, the victims of the crimes acted rationally; after all, when a gun is pointed at you, it is reasonable to give up a wallet than one’s lifelife or health, and if you believe a clever fraudster who is skilfully deceiving you, then your actions seem reasonable to you. (shrink)

The book I review, _Sleights of Mind_, aims to illuminate properties of perceptual systems by discussing human susceptibility to magical illusions. I describe how the authors use psychological principles to explain two tricks, spoon bending and the Miser's Dream. I also argue that the book is congenial to the following view of illusions: susceptibility to illusion is the result of evolutionary trade-offs; perceptual systems must make assumptions in order to function at all, but susceptibility to illusion is the byproduct of (...) such assumptions. (shrink)

The novel "Harry Potter" by J.K. Rowling explores the profound impact of various mother and father figures on the protagonist, Harry Potter, who has lost his parents. This paper explores the impact of mother and father figures in Harry Potter's life. Remus Lupin serves as a compassionate guardian, offering support and a sense of belonging. Molly Weasley embodies the maternal figure, providing love and stability. Sirius Black, an absent father figure, symbolizes love and sacrifice. Albus Dumbledore serves as a wise (...) mentor, offering guidance and moral teachings. Collectively, these figures shape Harry's understanding of family, loyalty, power, and responsibility. The paper highlights the transformative power of nurturing relationships and the enduring influence of love, guidance, and mentorship. (shrink)

The Ruse of Techne offers a reappraisal of Heidegger’s entire work by focusing on the forms of activity he regards as separate from instrumentality. Non-instrumental activities like authenticity, poetry, and thinking—in short, the ineffectual—are critical for Heidegger as they offer the only path to the truth of being throughout his work. -/- By unearthing the source of the conception of non-instrumental action in Heidegger’s reading of Aristotle, Vardoulakis elaborates how it forms part of Heidegger’s response to an old problem, namely, (...) how to account for difference after positing a single and unified being that is not amenable to change. He further demonstrates that an action without ends and effects leads to an ethics and politics rife with difficulties and contradictions that only become starker when compared to other responses to the same problem that we find in the philosophical tradition and which rely on instrumentality. -/- Heidegger’s conception of an action without ends or effect forgets the role of instrumentality in the tradition that posits a single, unified being. And yet, the ineffectual has had a profound influence in how continental philosophy determines the ethical and the political since World War II. The critique of the ineffectual in Heidegger is thus effectively a critique of the conception of praxis in continental philosophy. Vardoulakis proposes that it is urgent to undo the forgetting of instrumentality if we are to conceive of a democratic politics and an ethics fit to respond to the challenges of high capitalism. (shrink)

Akin to the mathematical recreations, John Wilkins' Mathematicall Magick (1648) elaborates the pleasant, useful and wondrous part of practical mathematics, dealing in particular with its material culture of machines and instruments. We contextualize the Mathematicall Magick by studying its institutional setting and its place within changing conceptions of art, nature, religion and mathematics. We devote special attention to the way Wilkins inscribes mechanical innovations within a discourse of wonder. Instead of treating ‘wonder’ as a monolithic category, we present a typology, (...) showing that wonders were not only recreative, but were meant to inspire Wilkins' readers to new mathematical inventions. (shrink)

Рецензия на книгу: Э.Д. Бакулина, А.В. Яблоков. Волшебный браслет. Москва, Детская литература, 1971 г.

Argues for the controversial and initially counterintuitive thesis that theatrical magic (that is, the performance of conjuring tricks) is a form of standup comedy.

In this article I investigate online misinformation from a media philosophy perspective. I, thus move away from the debate focused on the semantic content, concerned with what is true or not about misinformation. I argue rather that online misinformation is the effect of an informational climate promoted by user micro-behaviours such as liking, sharing, and posting. Misinformation online is explained as the effect of an informational environment saturated with and shaped by techno-images in which most users act automatically under the (...) constant assault of stirred emotions, a state resembling what media philosopher Vilém Flusser has called techno-magical consciousness. I describe three ways in which images function on social media to induce this distinctive, uncritical mode of consciousness, and complement Flusser’s explanation with insights from the phenomenology of emotions. (shrink)

Forcing occurs when a magician influences the audience's decisions without their awareness. To investigate the mechanisms behind this effect, we examined several stimulus and personality predictors. In Study 1, a magician flipped through a deck of playing cards while participants were asked to choose one. Although the magician could influence the choice almost every time (98%), relatively few (9%) noticed this influence. In Study 2, participants observed rapid series of cards on a computer, with one target card shown longer than (...) the rest. We expected people would tend to choose this card without noticing that it was shown longest. Both stimulus and personality factors predicted the choice of card, depending on whether the influence was noticed. These results show that combining real-world and laboratory research can be a powerful way to study magic and can provide new methods to study the feeling of free will. (shrink)

A mistery unveiled, among magic, alchemy and philosophy.