#metatheory

[andromaex]

ok ok look MAYBE just MAYBE, aziraphale and crowley didnt actually forget each other. so right before god asks them to make their decision, that toad of a man, he who shall not be named says:

I've got a better idea, let's not and say we did.

Then our ineffable husbands show up.

two, when anthony meets asa, I SWEAR he was going to say angel

three, when derek says thats anthony crowley, asa goes: How'd you know that?!

Why did he have such a visceral reaction!

[funeral]

Evaluating Integral Metatheory

[expectsomuch]

This is not for those of you with short attention spans This a deep dive / long read. (I didn't watch the full 3+ hour video but instead read the transcript, which can be found here.)

In short: We all agree, implicitly know, that everything is falling apart. The center cannot hold. We are ripping ourselves asunder. Why?

This is an attempt at a meta-explanation for the changes in mindset over the course of human history that have led us down the path we are currently on.

Maybe, if we correctly identify it, we can change it. And we can start solving the underlying problem. Which is, put as succinctly as I can, the loss of the forest for the trees. As we focus our sights on the parts, we lose the feeling and the meaning of the whole.

[codeword-art]

So as I'm jumping back and forth between two fandoms right now, I wanna sort of put this out here before I explode. This is a reference to the Good Omens "Essay Theory" by Ariaste (I'm not directly linking them, as I dont want to bother them. They've discussed wanting to take a break from theorizing.) However, here is the link to said theory: https://docs.google.com/document/d/193IXS11XN46lziHRb6eUpM17yK0BQkRqke1Wh64A_e0/edit?usp=drivesdk

Now, we just recently got the released behind the scenes footage and images of season 2. One of them immediately caught my eye.

This is a sort of collaged concept photo for Aziraphale's halo, which reminded me of something.

This scene in the Job episode. At first I thought this oval shaped thing was a portal that Aziraphale was stepping out of, but it's clearly not. He does just randomly manifest on the cliff, but as he recognizes Crowley, this spikey aura fades off, then returns when he goes back to avaunting Crowley. It wouldnt return if it was just a portal up to the cliffside. It looks like a simplified version of the concept halo. You can even see where some of the spikes make an arch around Aziraphale's head in particular, then another layer trails down the silhouette of his body.

The concept is entirely different then what we see in episode 6.

Which is a much simpler and stereotypical angels halo, that seeimgly comes out of nowhere. Its not previously referenced at all, as the theory suggests. Also why would Aziraphale effortlessly be able to summon this golden spiked aura but not be able to pull his halo out without a struggle? Its a bomb isnt it? You'd think an angel would need to quickly get ahold of such a weapon in a battle scenario.

So its either a matter of the spikey aura being its own thing, which in that scene is the only time we see at all. If it is, what is it then? Just some sort angelic light meant to ward off demons or look intimidating? Why didn't he use it against Shax if thats the case? I think its Aziraphale's real halo, and the one we see in the finale episode is some made up version that someone wants us to believe is Aziraphale's halo.

My only hesitance with this thought is, wouldn't Metatron know what an angels halo looks like? Unless he is something different than an angel, so he may not be aware of even his own people's characteristics (which let's be honest wouldn't be surprising).

Either way, if you believe in this theory or not, the images are still quite interesting regardless, and I think are worth discussing. At least a little bit.

[funeral]

Evaluating Integral Metatheory

[anthologarium]

In the end, the surest measure of literary worth we have is the verdict of posterity. Either a work lasts or it doesn’t. That’s a kind of group verdict in itself, of course. But it’s a secret ballot, conducted beyond the reach of social influence. It’s thousands of individuals making their own private judgments. Crowd wisdom of that sort is very hard to argue with.

David Free, “Judge a Literary Prize? No thanks, they’re all a giant waste of time,” the Sydney Morning Herald (9 July, 2021)

[veritasuicide-blog]

I wish I could design a game like this, I mean, I went to school for videogame design. I just loved the abstract shit and the level of absurdity, how ridiculous can the depths of the imagination can get before we just say, where the fuck are we?

MetaTheory : Is "This" the Lost Level of Accounting?

[thepsychopathist]

Is Psychopathy a Theory?

I didn’t feel like DeLisi’s book made the case of psychopathy as a theory, it was mostly just a summary of current research on psychopathy (at least through the lens of supporting DeLisi’s ideas about psychopathy). But one of my classmates suggested that a book detailing a theory didn’t have to have what I was looking for. [Which is why I attempted to distill the hypotheses one would test from DeLisi’s book, since I feel the ability to at least distill testable hypotheses is requisite for a theory.] Doing so made me lean more toward “maybe it IS a theory?” so I brought it to my mentor. He said psychopathy is not a theory, it’s a construct.

But self-control is also a construct, so what makes Gottfredson & Hirschi’s self-control a theory but psychopathy is not? That’s my next big question, but it would require a close reading of Gottfredson & Hirschi 1990 to consider on my own and I so don’t want to do that. Might just ask my mentor, or see if a G&H fanboy (and I say that with the utmost respect for people with the patience for that) wants to do a detailed reading of DeLisi’s book like I did, to compare & contrast.