A Case For Armageddon
Free will, freedom of physical action are just shy of illusory; they are a fractal dimension. Perception is the key to these concepts, each choice, each action constitutes a shift in perception.
Every possible outcome, every decision exists. They are all real whether they happened two days ago or thirty years from now. It's all true, we're all born billionaire paupers. What we think of as our "reality" seems linear, but it isn't. That we tie similar events together in a linear framework is a kind of coping mechanism, an easy way to deal with the amazingly unstable nature of past and future.
I certainly can't tell you why we choose to perceive the way we do, or why "reality" serves as the linear explanation for a fractal existence. What I can say is that the past and the future are indeterminate, we really can be one thing one day and something else the next.
It can feel like insanity to entertain such a plural existence, but it is quite possible to frame it all in a linear box. It's a juggling act of sorts, to be this legionary thing. Many and one at the same time: this is the sacred paradox.
So how do we cope with the idea that each moment represents an alternate reality of sorts, an acasual shift of perception? Many people, especially religious types, sustain their linear/sane outlook by adopting fixed reality tunnels. In other words, they adopt a mental framework that filters out every possibility that challenges the idea of the essential self. Think of it as a sort of personalized version of consensus reality.
Looking at this in context of the butterfly effect, these tunnels constitute patterns we have worked out to a greater extent. Places where we understand how to cause a very specific manifestation with limited or controllable/ignorable fractal repercussions. There will, of course, always be unforeseeable side effects. That's the nature of the order we call chaos. There will also be places where other tunnels intersect, or poke through. Even when interconnecting tunnels contradict each other, it will not necessitate a collapse of one or the other because of the self-sustaining nature of all these systems. Each pattern we create becomes more likely to continue as a system with each repeated participation in that paradigm. It is this self-sustaining nature that makes consensus reality what it is, and keeps things from being totally arbitrary from one moment to the next. The mechanism that allows for this subtle adjustment which keeps systems intact is what magicians call magick.
In cases where perceptual discrepancies appear from the interaction between disparate reality tunnels, people turn to ideas like blind faith, true will, destiny, and the total infallibility of cognitive logic to maintain the integreity of their own tunnels. These devices are absolutely necessary for upholding the linear reality tunnel in the midst of a non linear chaos, it is also why our bodies are impacted by physical phenomenon even though the linear connection between the two is acasual. This is the price we pay for what we call sanity. More over it is also what allows us to cause change in consensus reality, it is the object our will must act against in order to cause change.
This vague sense of a definitive objective reality, but also a sense of individual choice and the ability to choose our destinies are reconciled by the self sustaining nature of the big picture called chaos. In other words both are part of and the result of our inability to work out complex chaotic patterns. This struggle between objectivity and subjectivity and of all the other myriad variations on truth result in ideas like:
Despite what you see, all you need is to believe.
A person's true will being unable to interfere with the true will of others.
God's plan.
The system works as it was destined to because of the mythical first action or what some might call the Demiurge. When one action ripples out through eternity, our concept of truly free will is somewhat compromised. The only real way to have freedom of action in the truest sense would be to return everything to oblivion, and become the Demiurge yourself. On a smaller scale this is what chaos chronomancy is about; creating personal armageddons so that we can create ourselves as new. While it may not be possible to truly gain the freedom of action of a Demiurge, in like fashion the Demiurge can never truly separate itself from creative void or chaos that spawned it. The linear perception effect can be overcome to an extent, and must be overcome by would be chronomancers. Personal armegeddon is the first step in the process.
