That seems rather simplistic and idealistic. Like a cartoon.

Look at those downvotes.

What did I say that was so bad?

What do you think is going on here?

Youth culture got subverted. Dying your hair and blathering about your gender identity on social media is the new rebellion. Small, safe and under control.

Buildings burn and people die when overthrow is attempted. Therefore that’s exaggeration.

I think that what you concentrate on is not key. I think that the shape of your awareness is key, the shape assumed via concentration being one such shape.

Like clenching a small object in your fist. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a penny or a pebble. It’s the same shape.

Oh without a doubt.

Assuming that any real phenomenon can be rendered by my (scientific etc) model, any phenomenon that cannot be thus rendered must be unreal.

Hmm?

So you would say that magic is supernatural. Like “outside of nature”.

Or to put it more plainly, “something that does not fit nicely within conventional models of nature/reality”

Thanks. Nobody can accuse you of etc.

But what do you mean by “magic”?

I mean, it’s funny to talk about something like that.

Yes, not exacly magic or conspiracy

But my title needed to be comprehensive yet accurate yet bite-sized… compromises were made.

I know how to focus my attention on a thing. But that other stuff, I don’t think I’ve seen actual directions on how to do that.

How do you unfocus your attention, or move it around in a way that isn’t “focusing it on a thing”? Drugs?

Yes, I see the reason for doing it. But it’s the appalling, universally-ignored and massively-powerful side-effects that I’m looking at here.

It’s like going blind, except for that tiny important speck in focus.

It’s invisible. Whole universes disappearing… maybe lingering in memory for a while, then poof.

And everybody does it. And nobody talks about it. A 360 degree blindspot called reality.

Re your last paragraph. Call it a side-effect blindness then. Maybe a bit conscious at first. Then habitual and unconscious thereafter.

(Ah, there’s another kind of blindness : unconscious action. I did it but I didn’t see myself do it)

You are in a dark room with a flashlight.

You cast a circle of light. You see a bit of rug, the edge of the couch.

Outside that it’s dark. No information. Not even thought about. Nonexistent.

The whole universe exists inside the circle of light.

Then you see something interesting. A detail on the fabric of the couch. You focus. The circle of light narrows and brightens. The darkness grows…

Now the universe is a bit of pattern on a bit of cloth.

Repeat…

And here’s a question : how would you reverse this process?

I’m a sausage

I have a friend with no brain at all. Got it scooped out at birth. Posting on lemmy takes him all day.

Given that we must direct and (to a degree) concentrate our attention to perform even minimal actions like reading, posting on lemmy, making a bowl of cereal… I think it’s less black-and-white than you portray.

It’s a fuzzy thing. And changable with effort and practice.

I really do want to know what you think.

You have tons of experience with it after all.

So deliver your view.

Ya those guys are the worst. I’m so glad that we’re us.

The fact that everybody does it doesn’t seem to make it less crazy.

They say that everybody experiences stuff like that. Out of body. ESP. Precognition. Ghosts etc. The trick is to get control over it. (See “The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali” for more on that.)

But it doesn’t fit into the popular narrative, so we don’t talk about it. We call it “hallucination”. Now get back to work.

If this kind of stuff exists, but we ignore it, we must be crazy.