Credit to: Carlos Alberto Cruz Neto
.
.
i think there is much confusion and deliberate misdirection regarding this topic, so i am going to share my opinion to clarify a few of these issues.
.
first, people are generally born and indoctrinated into a specific set of paradigms (which amounts to a belief system, if this set of paradigms is at least apparently self-consistent) by the other members of the society the individual has been brought up in.
[WS – this is your “logic barrier” or what I call the “Censor“]
.
for example Christianity is prevalent in most of western civilization (monotheistic, with the possibility for direct intervention of the deity in the world, ethical dualism, and judgment after death).. while most intelligent people can develop strength of character and personality to overcome society’s influence and modify their belief system at least once in the course of their lives; say you where born and baptized, then become disappointed at the implications of being a Christian, and chose to change, to be converted into Islamism, Buddhism, Taoism, etc..
.
that is one thing, let´s define it as Indirect doxastic voluntarism.
.
what sets a chaote apart from most intelligent people, as previously regarded, is either (categorized by degree of difficulty):
.
1) the tendency to change sporadically and without external motivation their current belief system, call it Direct doxastic voluntarism.. say you start from a Christian set of paradigms, then conform into a Taoistic worldview, becoming enchanted by the process of change, so you decide to start having fun paradigm shifting.. become a vampire for a few months, adopting the Book of Nod as your creed, then changing into a Sufi, whatever works.. and keep doing that for as long as it is exciting; or
.
2) the ability to create a composite bare-bones belief system, not necessarily self-consistent, using different paradigms from unrelated belief systems, defying dogmas pertaining to each of the sources used, and establishing an original world view that makes sense to you personaly, which you are obviously free to change or rebuild at will. say you create a Christian wicca belief system, or an Islamic Lovecraftian masonry, adhering to it diligently, just try not to be stuck, resisting the urge to indoctrinate others; or
.
3) the last step.. which demands complete deconditioning through methodological skepticism. you need to go all in and break your notion of reality. then you can develop a new, potentially self-consistent, belief system from the ground up, preferably from a suitable metaphysical foundation, then you build a whole cosmological model to make sense of reality, using sufficiently rich and complex mathematical structures. at this level, nothing really sets a magician apart from a philosopher of science or a theoretical physicist, except the necessity of incorporating the possibility of magic into the core of reality. that´s the level of chaos magic that Pope Pete operates at, for example.. not with paradigms anymore, but with mathematical structures, and i don´t really feel that attachment to your work at this level constitutes as weakness, or is even dogmatic at all, but can be better comprehended as sense of fulfillment and achievement.
.
in my opinion, doxastic voluntarism does not apply at the last level, though, except in the context that you are free to choose the mathematical structure that will integrate all the concepts inherent in your cosmological model.. but once you choose one, there are only so many ways to apply it in a natural way to explain physical phenomena.