Cartesian Demonology, Part 1: Introduction (Magick)

Hell is a Turing Tarpit

If this is your first time reading one of my more esoteric posts, please read this introduction post first. Thank you!

In this series, I want to build up to talking about one of the most important classes of forces shaping the world: Cartesian Demons.

Cartesian Demons are a common but advanced¹ and dangerous class of Demons. They are entities/processes that pierce the Cartesian Cut (that “reason about the internals of your mind”) and are Demonic (they are adversarial to Human Values).

We will need to build up quite a bit until we can tackle them directly.

Since this is the first series I am writing on High Powerlevel™ concepts, we will also need to define a lot of common ground on how to reason about these kinds of things and what the lingo means.

We will cover:

• The basics of the Supernatural and Magick/Memetics as the Virtual and Computer Science (this post)

• The Origin of Demons in The Land Between and Pseudo-Bayesian Epistemology

• Daemons and garden variety Psychofauna

• (Lesser) Demons

• and finally: Cartesian Demons, their widespread effects, their ecology and how to interface with and Hunt them.

Introduction

It is tempting to view the world as made exclusively of physical Things. People, rocks, broccoli, paroxetine anhydrate², whatever you encounter in day to day life.

But, in practice, while trying to model the world through sheer autistic dedication to physicality alone is admirable, it is not in fact a good and practical model of how many things in reality work. Great for stars and siege weapons, not so great for human life.

No, our practical lives contain another critical type of Thing: Software.³

The Supernatural and the Virtual

“Software” is a pretty recent term (coined in 1958), and while it is for sure the case that “software” is important to our modern, digital world, it is still usually classed firmly in the “physical, rational” category, and opposing it to that might feel a bit odd.

No, the traditional Human™ counterpoint to the Physical™ is the Supernatural™.

Here is a platonic example of a conversation between a Believer B and a Skeptic S:

• S: What is the Supernatural™?

• B: Well, it’s something that is “super” to the “natural”, something beyond the understanding and confines of physical reality and science.

• S: Ah, well, then this Supernatural™ is an epiphenomena that doesn’t interact with physical reality? Well, then I don’t care, because I live in physical reality.

• B: No no, it can interface with physical reality! Ghosts and magic can do all kinds of crazy stuff!

• S: Oh, it can interface with physical reality? So it is physical and therefor within the realms of science to study?

• B: No.

• S: No?

• B: *thinking of a slur to call S*

This is the strawman version of what people mean when they talk about the Supernatural™: an incoherent confusion to how causality, science and reality work.

But trying to explain everything that could be learned here away with such a strawman is epistemic cowardice!

It’s clear that the concept of the Supernatural has persisted throughout humanity’s entire existence and constantly pops back up, including in our modern, “rational” world. There is clearly Signal here, something is going on. Now that Signal might just be “people are stupid/confused”, sure, and there is a lot of that.

But I want to present a stronger, more coherent version of what it might mean to be talking about the Supernatural in a meaningful way.

Taking the Supernatural seriously

So what would a serious version of the concept of the “Supernatural” look like? What are people actually pointing at when they use this word?

As a first step on our Expedition, lets look at what people usually point to when in this context. From Wikipedia⁴:

“The term is attributed to non-physical entities, such as angels, demons, gods, and spirits. It also includes claimed abilities embodied in or provided by such beings, including magic, telekinesis, levitation, precognition, and extrasensory perception.”

Angels, demons, gods, spirits, magic, telekinesis, levitation, precognition and ESP. All things that would be pretty important to understand if they existed!⁵

Let us focus on Spirits as the most core example of a Supernatural phenomena.

Spirits are:

• Immaterial, they have no physical body

• Have various abilities, such as the ability to think, take actions, do tasks and/or speak

• Can be summoned by a Sorcerer by using various Arcane Rituals and Spells

• Can be hard to control and cause a lot of trouble if the Sorcerer makes a mistake

Take this excerpt from the Esoteric Tome™ known as “The Wizard Book”:⁶

[…] we conjure the spirits […] with our spells.

[…] much like a sorcerer's idea of a spirit. It cannot be seen or touched. It is not composed of matter at all. However, it is very real. It can perform intellectual work. It can answer questions. It can affect the world […]. [The methods] we use to conjure […] are like a sorcerer's spells. They are carefully composed from [symbols] in arcane and esoteric […] languages that prescribe the tasks we want our [spirit] to perform.

[…] Thus, like the sorcerer's apprentice, novice […] must learn to understand and to anticipate the consequences of their conjuring. Even small errors […] can have complex and unanticipated consequences.

Wow, yeah, that sure does sound like Spirits doesn’t it? Is this “Wizard Book” for real? It must be some kind of quack superstitious nonsense!

I assume you can see the punchline a mile away.