Is there any way the tarot can work? All ideas welcome.
And prediction generally ~ if communicated from a predictor.
Lets say there is a predictor, it knows the future completely and all of time.
It knows the sequence which it represents by random archetypal elements/symbols; a, b, c, d, e, f, g etc.
It can predict that you will pick cards of symbol set {e.g.}1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,
Why will the set you pick match the set the predictor knows?
To do that every possible set you could pick would have to correspond to the predictors set, no?
So there is no specific set applicable to the predictors set, or ‘all sets’ are. We would naturally have to take the ‘all-set’ to the maximum otherwise it’s a limited set and we have the same problem. The unlimited set would correspond exactly with the predictors original set as it contains all symbols in the complete set, or would it be any given arrangement of those symbols? The chance in the latter case of the all-set exactly matching the predictors set would be completely random, and hence the predictor performing his tarot spread would himself only be capable of a random chance of predicting the correct set.
My conclusion is that logically a tarot spread of any kind [or by extension any prediction system], could only be predictive by induction, it would have to belong to something which makes the future occur in its predicted manner [by the tarot set as cast]. Hence its not a prediction system.
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yeah, still sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy, no? is that what you mean? if not, can you provide a narrative for this tarot-reading and then explain how the person makes the evens occur accordingly?
If you pick a set of cards and one of them is say the lovers, then if that was a prediction the set would have to match the predictors set [I.e. that part of it ~ the segment of the future it pertains to with the lovers in]. If it is not predictive then the act of picking the lovers would make that situation occur.
In short; here we are either predicting the future or making it!
I am assuming we can do neither and questioning if there is any way the tarot can be predictive.
I read tarot cards, and i think they “work” in this way - they work the way dreams do. Dreams tell us, by analog, stuff we already know, but are reluctant to recognize. I think that the symbology of tarot cards can provide enough psychological/emotional distance from facts that we are not focused on to provide a narrative - or really, to help us form a narrative as we read, that can be a help in recognizing present conditions.
Of course, the better we know current conditions, the better we can figure probable future events albeit within the usual limits. But I think often we already know all we need to know about our love life or (rather immediate) career concerns, but be filled with doubts or delusions about these things. Dreams and tarot readings can help us access ideas we are blocking, I believe. Interpretation requires both skill and honesty, which are more important that the particular cards revealed in a reading.
I completely agree Faust, that’s how I use them too.
In order to be accurate in the present would they still need to be predictive? perhaps in the sense of something else knowing whats going on with us etc.
For my the spirit world tends to ’talk’ to us through a language of metaphor and symbol too, I wonder if there is some vague way of predicting, such that it always seams to be indirect? Not sure if I am making sense there, I just get the impression that either the spirit world cannot tell the future exactly, or it doesn’t want to, I suspect the former but vague [or any] accuracy - in a manner of speaking, is also problematic.
Well, it’s the “fallacy” of induction, but fallacy or not, we feel confident that we understand the present conditions of the solar system well enough to say that the Sun will rise tomorrow. I don’t think “something else” knows something about us, I just think that the “something else” is a part of us that we are not always aware of, vis-a-vis that which we are “predicting”.
But there is the question of patterns, and there are times when we are part of a pattern that is so large and pervasive that we could not hope to escape it. Some of the great narratives of the ages have been spun from such yarn, whether they be the classic tragedies, or love stories or heroic epics. The patterns don’t “know” anything - it’s just that knowledge itself cannot be has outside certain patterns - or paradigms.
Let’s fall in love - I’ll do it.
I’m a hetero - so that leaves out half the population. There is no way in Hell that I would fall in love with someone who does not speak well. In fact, I’ve fallen in love a few times, and never with a dummy. I’m in a fairly high percentile in what we might call “verbal IQ”. Not a math whiz. Let’s see…never fell in love with anyone who was materialistic, relatively speaking. - I could go on, but I think you get the point. The kind of stuff we ask tarot about - is it all that tough to make some general predictions? i think it can be, if fear or prejudice or other strong emotions are present. But I think we seek patterns - it’s the patterns that “know” - to answer your question. In my view.
Now, I will admit that the further I get into these patterns, the closer i am to metaphysics. But I’m stopping short of that. We do not agree, but the gulf that separates us is not as large as may be imagined.
I think there is a layer of information throughout the universe, along with a layer of objects and one would assume some manner to wit they communicate [and so a communicative layer too]. This may or may not be an intellect, as we could think of the communicative layer simply as the ‘means of correlation’ [perhaps what Aristotle mean by; eidos]. Could this refer to the ’something else’?
Very interesting! [could fit in with below*] all our lives could be a story written about someone else to some degree perhaps.
Indeed its not that hard to make general predictions, and yes we all have ways which are predictable and that collectively fall into patterns. But when you pick the lovers card and two people come into your life? …sometimes there seams to be an accuracy there even given the vagueness of the imagery, no?
-----------------some manner of metaphysics---------------------------------------------
*A thought or two…
In ‘all-time’ there is perhaps no difference between all the different now moments and all the different future moments. e.g. with a pack of tarot cards we could pick any set in the instance we do the reading, just as we could pick one set then another afterwards.
If we then see the set of moments and cards as like facets on a diamond, the different sets remain the same; if we add the faculty of time we move from one facet to another, if no-time the same set remain in the same positions.
We know though that time is relative and so the facets change and are only particular to their own timeframe. If I were to make a 3D model of what I am attempting to describe, I would extrapolate all the motions an individual thing made during its course of existing, and I‘d have a model and its set of animations ~ as a separate entity. We could see such a model as like an archetype of that thing overall, though one that covers a range of transformation and change rather than a fixed image or icon.
The predictor could have the entire set of such archetypes, and could put together a scene according to current circumstances. It then runs the dialogue between those archetypes just as you can run the anims of a 3D model in a modelling program. As such you could certainly gain a reasonably accurate portrayal of how the current events would evolve, the more vague that ‘prediction’ is the less likely it would become untrue over the course of events.
So now to get a bit more complex if you were a god/3D modeller, you could to begin with make very predictable sets of very simple sets of events. You could go on to e.g. say that when a situation arises whereby the lovers card came up, there would be a set of choices though usually one of them is far more likely and hence you could predict reasonably what the outcome would be.
In short, a group of combinations of 3D models, their animation sets and possible combinations could be grouped in archetypal form as such things like represented on tarot cards or runes.
So how would we know what to pick?! E.g. when we pick the lovers and they prove to be correct. A predictor could predict the event of the lovers card falling into place at a given time [just as the falling of tealeaves], and that during your animation sequence and others in your life that you would come together at that time. It could even tell you intuitively and subjectively when to stop shuffling the pack, or signify that in some way, such that your pick becomes true!
I think we need to add such an element [I’d call it ‘the click’] ~ one would even say a more human element or that of an intellect of some kind, as the pure math doesn’t work.
Dan~ used to write about his theory of metaphysics, which happens to be the only theory of metaphysics that i have ever read that made any sense to me. He is one of the best philosophers I have ever read, so it’s not much of a surprise. Something like it may well be correct.
We have five senses. Or do we? We could have more. We could easily have senses that do not interpret data in a way that can be accessed consciously and/or verbalised. In any event, there is almost certainly a vast amount of data that we do not recognise. That doesn’t mean it cannot affect us. But maybe we can have some limited access from time to time. Shadows. Of what, I do not know.
Not that it matters, this is after all philosophy but several papers have proved that knowing precisely what is going to happen in future is impossible because it requires more information than is contained in the Universe.
If I am stoned, or really high I mean, and in the zone I can pick out a card I predict from the pack. It’s pretty fucking awesome.
Yeah I feel when the tarot wants me to pick it up and when I do I do a razorsharp reading always, the cards I need to pick are practically tearing themselves out of the pack. Dont know how the F this works at ALL. My friends are baffled by it their jaw drops CLUNK like in a cartoon.
How I think this works is… nah I don’t know. No clue.
I seen an experiment where the tongue was used to see with, so there may be many ways the senses are expressed. Can things affect us if we are not conscious of them? They can affect the subconscious [or non-consciousness as I’d call it] but to effect us they have to come into the conscious sphere.
I think if anything this is nothing to do with the physical senses or processor/brain, more to do with info and consciousnesses and their interactions.
Do we know there isn’t more info than in the universe? Not that I think your point isn’t valid, I just wonder if e.g. info in our imaginations are in the universe or if there needed to be info outside the singularity in order to produce it etc.
Perhaps you are more aware even though one would think less cognitive when stoned, I have always considered such drugs to have the effect of detachment as like meditation.
If then there is a communication with other consciousnesses in the world [which would after all know what they are thinking] or with some manner of universal consciousness, then you would be more connected to them in that state.
Less connected to the physical = more connected with the conscious spiritual world.
The problem is a mathematical one, even if there are more universes than this one or more information, then to know everything that is going to happen requires more information than is in all the universes, and the problem then becomes one that is infinitely insoluble. Adding information just means that more information is required again.
If you had a book of all-time then prediction would be as easy as reading history of course, though I am dubious as to weather or not all-time exists in any manner of fixed fashion.
