{"id":126,"date":"2010-08-23T20:13:46","date_gmt":"2010-08-24T03:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/?p=126"},"modified":"2013-09-06T18:15:11","modified_gmt":"2013-09-07T00:15:11","slug":"an-epic-mythological","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/?p=126","title":{"rendered":"An epic mythology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Buy my e-book A Conspiracy of Wizards<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

In the spirit and form of classical mythology, but informed by a synthesis of complex dynamical systems (“chaos”) theory and an amalgam of relevant social and biological (and even physical)\u00a0theories, this is my attempt to capture the essence of our existence in a work of intellectual art. This is an exploration of the underlying dynamics of human existence, rendered in a tapestry of magical story-telling\u00a0woven from threads of\u00a0ultra-violet prose. Now if that <\/em><\/strong>doesn’t make you run hard in the other direction…, read on!<\/p>\n

Buy my e-book A Conspiracy of Wizards<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The theme:<\/p>\n

The interplay of chaos and order, which are sometimes perceived as opposites, are in reality complementary (reminiscent of the motto that Danish Physicist Neils Bohr chose for his coat of arms when he was knighted: “Contraria Sunt Complementa” [opposites are complementary], beneath the Taijitu<\/em> [the symbol of yin and yang]). Disordering and ordering forces interact to produce complexity, revealing the universe\u00a0to be more organic than mechanical in nature. Applications of this theme to physics, ecology, human history, and the nature of individual lives are laced throughout the story. A secondary theme involves human consciousness of these systems, and how it grows by finding order, discovering increased complexity, and finding a subtler order within that complexity, in an endless process of cognitive and spiritual refinement.<\/p>\n

The story:<\/p>\n

To a backdrop of a millenial struggle between the Loci<\/em> (mischievous chaos-loving imps with the magical ability to make tiny changes with enormous consequences, such as moving a twig an inch to the left, and thus\u00a0providing\u00a0the\u00a0necessary link in a chain of events that lead to a forest fire that would otherwise not have occurred) and the Vaznallam<\/em> \u00a0(serene order-loving semi-divine beings that live in an ice city high in the Vaznal Mountains), a host of characters on intertwined adventures find themselves involved in the fulfilment of a phrophesized “Realignment”, averting the\u00a0holocaust of mounting\u00a0natural and human disasters. In the course of these adventures, they undergo a paradigm shift of their own,\u00a0discovering\u00a0a subtler, more accurate, and more naturalistic explanation for the wonders of their world than\u00a0the religious and mythical understanding of reality they (and the reader) had always held to be true.<\/p>\n

Two of my favorite scenes:<\/p>\n

1) Algonion, a main character on a highly adventurous spiritual quest (which leads him to become a\u00a0wizard-trained archer-hero at one point), finds himself inside one of the ice spheres nested inside a larger sphere which is, in essence, the wizards’ incubator of wizardry. Inside, initially simple patterns of colored light and sound and tactile sensations cause pleasure when solved and pain when unsolved (by thinking, chanting, and moving in anticipation of the next sequences in the patterns), only to encounter ever deepening subtley and complexity of patterns upon each resolution. This is my representation of Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure<\/em> of Scientific Revolutions<\/em>, in which accumulating anomalies in old established paradigms cause focused attention on those anomalies, and subsequent paradigm shifts. And it synthesises this quintessentially western theory of scientific philosophy with elements of Eastern mysticism. See The Wizards\u2019 Eye<\/a>.<\/p>\n

2) Inspired by National Geographic footage of the Rainforest Canopy Ecosystem, Algonion is fleeing the Loci imps\u00a0in an enchanted forest, their emotion-destabilizing darts, and the javelins of electricity\u00a0that flashed in the air, swinging from trees and sailing from branch to branch…, “If only I could fold myself into the wind, he thought, desperately, “wrap myself around it\u00a0 like flesh around a whim….” Arriving at a debris strewn set of\u00a0slate ledges leading down to a sea which “churned as though tossed by a storm, thrashing about like a beast with struggling prey clamped in its jaws,” he did just that, and transformed himself with his last lopping strides into a gangling bird that\u00a0 skimmed above that choppy sea…. See \u201cFlesh Around A Whim\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Also see\u00a0:<\/p>\n

The Hollow Mountain<\/a><\/p>\n

The Cloud Gardener<\/a><\/p>\n

Prelude to \u201cA Conspiracy of Wizards\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

The History of the Writing of \u201cA Conspiracy of Wizards\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Buy my e-book A Conspiracy of Wizards<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Buy my e-book A Conspiracy of Wizards In the spirit and form of classical mythology, but informed by a synthesis of complex dynamical systems (“chaos”) theory and an amalgam of relevant social and biological (and even physical)\u00a0theories, this is my attempt to capture the essence of our existence in a work of intellectual art. This […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[24],"tags":[45,44,46,49,43,47,52,48,51,50],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=126"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129,"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126\/revisions\/129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coloradoconfluence.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}