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Inaccuracies: Results
I was reading my friends page and came across the World of Darkness quiz, courtesy of WeirdQuark. I was not sure if it is based on some kind of roleplaying game or not, but thought, "what the heck, this looks interesting. I'll take it."
And had the worst trouble I have ever had taking one of these silly quizzes. However, what bothered me the most was my result (<ahref="http://www.visi.com/~phantos/wodtest.html">Mage), although that did bother me a bit. More on that later. What bothered me was the choices that you were presented or not presented with. They didn't fit.
And this might seem like a completely stupid thing to be annoyed at (one half of my brain is going, "it's just an online quiz, for pete's sake. Are you really going to write an essay on why it got your goat?") but they're issues I feel strongly about. I realized that thinking about why the quiz bothered me helped me figure out tiny details of my belief/thought system, in some ways. And that other people might be as interested in thinking about these issues as I am. So, if you're ready, you might want to
Thank you for joining me. I will explain two things up front. Usually, when I take an online quiz, I approximate my answers if I can't find one that truly fits. I couldn't do that here. And for those of you who are just joining us, I'm a dragon, and so took this test according to my own thoughts on that, which are very complicated in some ways and very simple in others, and sometimes both at once. More explanation as each question comes up.
First, let's go with the most obvious and easy-to-talk about annoyance: the result. (Mage, as you remember). I must admit that I rather like the part about 'pushing back boundaries of consensual reality'. And it would be fairly accurate to say that a great deal of my life has been spent 'risking the madness that comes with knowledge'. When I was talking with someone a few months ago who was questioning their humanity, I said, "don't go into this like a game, because it's not. You have to literally be prepared to lose your sanity in the search for yourself. Are you willing to risk it?" I do not think, however, that madness always comes with knowledge. Sometimes knowledge is the only thing that saves us from madness. The "personal enlightenment and ascension" thing seems overly complicated. Personal enlightenment, yes, but I can't figure out if they're using it with religious overtones or not. And Ascension is...what? Heaven? The movement towards achieving some inner goal? Please explain.
What annoyed me the most about this result, though, was the fact that these qualities were not just inherent in a Mage, but were the ones that this person picked as being emblematic of a Mage (and therefore, probably not emblematic of any of the other results). As commonly defined, Mages generally have something to do with manipulation of some kind of spiritual/mental forces. I don't understand why these qualities would only be associated with the people who could do such manipulation, unless this quiz was based purely on the rules of some RPG or another where it was a character class with set values and characteristics.
And (finally) it's wholly inaccurate for me, personally. I am not now, nor will I ever be, a magic-user of any kind. You can quote me on that. I have had strange experiences that I cannot explain (precognition, both in dreams and in real-life situations). However, I do not think that these were magical in any sense of the word. I do think that there are unseen things at work in this world - and think that the thing that some people commonly call "magic" has a high probability not only of existing, but of being one of those unseen things (or more accurately, a part of a whole, but I won't go into that here). But here and now, in the 21st century, in this culture, I think that manipulating that power is unethical for me, because of what I think that power is.
(I have friends who may be offended by that last statement. lf you are one of them, please be aware that I have been thinking about this topic quite hard for at least two years, and this is my current opinion. My opinions always contain the possibility of change based on experience and thought. It also contains the possibility that the use of magic is ethical based on one's own personal theories of what magic is - a subject which is next on my list for thought. So if I have offended, I beg forgiveness of you, but must still admit that this is what I think.)
And speaking as someone who lives not only in the culture and with the ideas of "here and now," but also as someone who lives by a behavioral code which certainly doesn't exist in the here and now: in some ways, I feel that magic doesn't exist, and therefore there is no such thing as a mage.
To make that last bit simpler: Going on what I see here and now, there's a pretty good chance that magic might exist and might do stuff. I don't think that doing stuff with the magic is a good thing for me to be doing. Going on what I think and feel in some other ways, I think that magic doesn't exist. It isn't even a concept that needs to exist.
Yes, I am aware that this is a huge paradox. My brain seems to be quite comfortable with paradoxes, for some reason.
Okay. Because I have not even started looking at the questions on the survey yet (this was only the bit about the result, believe it or not) and that's just too much essay to read on a screen all at once, I'm going to post this part and then start talking about each question and post them up in separate essays as I finish.
And had the worst trouble I have ever had taking one of these silly quizzes. However, what bothered me the most was my result (<ahref="http://www.visi.com/~phantos/wodtest.html">Mage), although that did bother me a bit. More on that later. What bothered me was the choices that you were presented or not presented with. They didn't fit.
And this might seem like a completely stupid thing to be annoyed at (one half of my brain is going, "it's just an online quiz, for pete's sake. Are you really going to write an essay on why it got your goat?") but they're issues I feel strongly about. I realized that thinking about why the quiz bothered me helped me figure out tiny details of my belief/thought system, in some ways. And that other people might be as interested in thinking about these issues as I am. So, if you're ready, you might want to
Thank you for joining me. I will explain two things up front. Usually, when I take an online quiz, I approximate my answers if I can't find one that truly fits. I couldn't do that here. And for those of you who are just joining us, I'm a dragon, and so took this test according to my own thoughts on that, which are very complicated in some ways and very simple in others, and sometimes both at once. More explanation as each question comes up.
First, let's go with the most obvious and easy-to-talk about annoyance: the result. (Mage, as you remember). I must admit that I rather like the part about 'pushing back boundaries of consensual reality'. And it would be fairly accurate to say that a great deal of my life has been spent 'risking the madness that comes with knowledge'. When I was talking with someone a few months ago who was questioning their humanity, I said, "don't go into this like a game, because it's not. You have to literally be prepared to lose your sanity in the search for yourself. Are you willing to risk it?" I do not think, however, that madness always comes with knowledge. Sometimes knowledge is the only thing that saves us from madness. The "personal enlightenment and ascension" thing seems overly complicated. Personal enlightenment, yes, but I can't figure out if they're using it with religious overtones or not. And Ascension is...what? Heaven? The movement towards achieving some inner goal? Please explain.
What annoyed me the most about this result, though, was the fact that these qualities were not just inherent in a Mage, but were the ones that this person picked as being emblematic of a Mage (and therefore, probably not emblematic of any of the other results). As commonly defined, Mages generally have something to do with manipulation of some kind of spiritual/mental forces. I don't understand why these qualities would only be associated with the people who could do such manipulation, unless this quiz was based purely on the rules of some RPG or another where it was a character class with set values and characteristics.
And (finally) it's wholly inaccurate for me, personally. I am not now, nor will I ever be, a magic-user of any kind. You can quote me on that. I have had strange experiences that I cannot explain (precognition, both in dreams and in real-life situations). However, I do not think that these were magical in any sense of the word. I do think that there are unseen things at work in this world - and think that the thing that some people commonly call "magic" has a high probability not only of existing, but of being one of those unseen things (or more accurately, a part of a whole, but I won't go into that here). But here and now, in the 21st century, in this culture, I think that manipulating that power is unethical for me, because of what I think that power is.
(I have friends who may be offended by that last statement. lf you are one of them, please be aware that I have been thinking about this topic quite hard for at least two years, and this is my current opinion. My opinions always contain the possibility of change based on experience and thought. It also contains the possibility that the use of magic is ethical based on one's own personal theories of what magic is - a subject which is next on my list for thought. So if I have offended, I beg forgiveness of you, but must still admit that this is what I think.)
And speaking as someone who lives not only in the culture and with the ideas of "here and now," but also as someone who lives by a behavioral code which certainly doesn't exist in the here and now: in some ways, I feel that magic doesn't exist, and therefore there is no such thing as a mage.
To make that last bit simpler: Going on what I see here and now, there's a pretty good chance that magic might exist and might do stuff. I don't think that doing stuff with the magic is a good thing for me to be doing. Going on what I think and feel in some other ways, I think that magic doesn't exist. It isn't even a concept that needs to exist.
Yes, I am aware that this is a huge paradox. My brain seems to be quite comfortable with paradoxes, for some reason.
Okay. Because I have not even started looking at the questions on the survey yet (this was only the bit about the result, believe it or not) and that's just too much essay to read on a screen all at once, I'm going to post this part and then start talking about each question and post them up in separate essays as I finish.