Self-Deception - Part 3
By Leo Gura - January 29, 2018 | 15 Comments
A list of over 60 common self-deception mechanisms
Joe says: Jesus loves you
saurabh jadhav says: you have became one of the integral part of my life
Andrew says: I absolutely loved your three-part series, Leo! Your commentary on self-deceptions involving “hard-won truths” and “historical meta-narratives” resonated especially deeply with me. Studying the mythological and cosmological perspectives of societies in which non-Aristotelian epistemic models are the norm can reveal some of these mind-blowing truths. For example, the Ojibwe people of North America believe that all human knowledge and power originates from NON-human sources, in which humans must establish mutual, symbiotic relationships with other-than-human-beings to survive. My favorite illustration of this model tells the story of how humans learned the art of cooperative hunting FROM wolves. Now that’s a mind-fuck if I ever heard one!
Xain says: He’s a loon who doesn’t know what he’s talking about, preaching on a platform that insulates him from criticism.
Those people can believe that but it does not make it so.
We didn’t learn hunting from wolves, and he’s not speaking “mind blowing truths”. I’m willing to bet that his ideas will get shredded if posted anywhere outside of his bubble, which they have been.
He’s just good at appearing to know what he is talking about, but it’s meandering sophistry in the end.
Jojo says: Leo can you please do a video on how to stop thinking a lot ?
Aaron Morris says: Watched the whole self deception and enlightenment experience videos while tripping on lsd. Certainly recommend doing this, I accomplished more during that 8 hours than in all the meditation I’ve ever done. Also check out the book called “the present” at truthcontest.com
Shawna says: Hmm… I get the sense you’ve read Ishmael…. I listened to the entire three parts today. I feel like I deserve a seminar badge! Really though, it was a great introduction. It was so challenging for me to not constantly compare “what I do, what I don’t”; but I think that always is. To grab the ideas with no bias and apply then as they emerge is beyond me for now.
Thank you, for taking the time to put together all the videos you do. They inspire me, and I find that even in my research over the years into personal development and psychology, I still love to come back and scour you page for tid bits of insight and wisdom.
Max Gron says: The reality is Christianity smells like shit, it has a funny smell, I don’t want love, I don’t want evil religions like Christianity, I want orthodoxy into cool things, like science, knowledge, and music. I want the truth that the masses are against me and they don’t want the truth, they want the bullshit that I’m insane and the bullshit that most people aren’t into my shit and want to get people like me, bullshit, no one wants to get us, most people believe most of the things I believe, I’m not insane. People don’t want the truth, the truth is most people like me aren’t medicated, they’re just normal people, and most people like me don’t have people with the same negative reactions they give me. People are shit scared of the past differences, they’re wounded from me going too far, they’re fucked in the head, they wouldn’t be if it was somebody else, they’re scared, they’re scared of giving up weirdness as I used to be.
Max Raoy Gron says: Here’s the truth and I’ll give it to you for the first time now: a thing is true as long as it works, and religion’s true for fear of going to hell, and authority of Protestant and Catholic kings is true, and hard work and industry’s true, and equality’s true, making no judgment Leo’s way is true, Leibnitz’s optimism’s true, book one of “Either/Or” is true, having no national culture’s true, and the wisdom of conventional behavior’s true, and everything Leo said about self-deception’s true. I’m complete with the truth, as lack of knowledge is true and my morals are true, I don’t assume that any evidence to the contrary has any truth to it. That’s right, you’re getting the whole truth from me, there’s a sufficient reason for the evil, this is the best of all possible worlds, God’s good and just and has infinite love, but also there’s the reality that life’s ugly and pieces of shit exist to ruin your plans, you can’t even have an abundance of Coke with a thief, then I’m to go to sleep and it’s lights out, leaving me sleepy in the morning and waking up with a coffee, also your life can be at risk of raising your despair, despite hobbies of Shakespeare and listening to Mozart, then up over your eyes goes the eiderdown. You could be at the pinnacle of despair and read the Bible thinking of God, I’m just happy living this way, though cynical I am, which I wasn’t in this comment at any expense of the truth. The truth hurts.
Xain says: Dude that is not even close.
Something doesn’t have to be true for it to work, to cite your example, the authority of catholic kings was false because they weren’t appointed by god. Racist rhetoric about black people was false but it worked to get people to hate. There are literally thousands of examples about how something doesn’t have to be true in order to work, just look at how Donald Trump got elected and his presidency. Proof that stuff doesn’t have to be true to work.
Religion isn’t true just because of the fear of going to hell and pretty much everything Leo says on this website is false which is why when called on anything he says he defaults to “that’s just ego”.
Dude, you have no idea what truth is and not amount of buzzwords is gonna change that.
The truth doesn’t always hurt, that’s another banal saying with little backing. It CAN hurt, but not always.
What you just described is a school of philosophy called Pragmatism, where truth is what works. However the criticism of that is conflating truth with utility and not to mention the blatant examples of how something doesn’t have to be true to work.
Max Gron says: Heh heh, you hit the nail on the head, for truth to be said to work, pragmatism is exactly what it is. You got me, I admitted on the back of my mind that I was deceiving myself, I also admit I was for a little while preserving a system, or that is, the structure of religion, as scientists are no different, they preserve the structure of science. Schools of philosophy, it’s true, is what I’m preserving, but it took me 9 months for me to understand what Leo’s talking about, yes, he was talking about God, deceiving selfishly, staying alive as selfishness, and defending a belief, system or paradigm, as with science, funny enough pseudo-scientists preserve their pseudo-science as hard-nosed “science” and tell you “the real science is my version of science” but their science could be built on lies and deceptions and delusions. As evidence to Kierkegaardian philosophy as a philosophy of mine it’s as simple as an unchanged system, with the exception that my system has been changed from the changed structure and I’m restoring my philosophical/religious system, even though I’m not as dogmatic in Puritan religion and am open to other beliefs and not just the Bible, some time I’ll self-reflect by questioning what I hold as certain, and I’m only accurate in being a pragmatist, e.g. taking on awakening as a belief, I’m awakened and therefore am prone to solving my problems, however untrue it is, because in reality and I tested it, pragmatism as I have it is the truth of what I really believe in, but that’s assuming I should be extreme in my Puritanism, religious doctrine is enough to do the right thing in a conformist way, but it’s not quite enough to do morality in a selfless and wise and sage way. The fool is duped into a belief, but nobody cares about my theory, it’s like when a scientist says a different theory they say it’s false, it’s pseudoscience, you’re doing the same thing with my philosophical schools, so therefore I must be right, I didn’t get anything inaccurate and I should put back that unbending system back to the way it was.
Max Gron says: Even though this is the case, that people so disagree, the reality is it’s just the internet, I can’t take this internet talk seriously, more importantly you shouldn’t take trolls seriously (above internet junkie isn’t a troll, but I could be right about everything, I’m wrong about having to not change any system, I suppose I’m even wrong about that, whatever, contradict me, I don’t care! It’s no match for stupid foods like ramen noodles which you computer nerds eat in front of the computer, I know what you people are like, nerds who do their research and smartarse your disagreements to others over the internet, you think your professorship of science is soooooo important! It’s not, it’s a distraction from actualized.org, and further down the line it’sa distraction from doing the work, you play this game of not bothering to use skepticism and finding beliefs that match up with the truth, not like me, internet junkies might be right about some things, wrong about some other things, people can’t possibly lead to an argument, why bother? It’s no use arguing with a delusional person).
Max Gron says: As for inability to see the same things the same way, do I look different to you?: I saw a picture of someone with a beard, he looks exactly like me. We’re all the same, I’m no different to a man ordering a decaf soy latte. Me and my dad don’t agree with each other, he assumes it’s all wrong having a son diagnosed with Asperger’s, but what if assuming we’re in the Dark Ages that we get away with evil and mean things no different to the 1920s? Yes, doctor’s medicine hasn’t changed, not really, doctors are still cruel to patients, they do freaky, scary things to anyone with a diagnosis, they’re inhuman to the patients, therefore medicine hasn’t evolved, nor has herbal medicine, that’s an evolution of conventional medicine but people don’t accept that, they don’t take that seriously, if I acted exactly as if conventional medicine was wrong like marijuana, they’ll guilt trip me for such a good act: the Dark Ages, it’s always been like this throughout all of history and will go on forever and ever till the end of time, that’s why people don’t want truth, because of that, because the truth hurts.
Max Gron says: You want the truth? The truth is truth is in accordance with fact, everything else is a lie, if you can’t prove it it’s a pseudo-truth, as religion’s a pseudo-truth, it’s not a fact that God exists, you’re deluding yourself, only the true sciences and pessimism are the truth, religion’s a lie, it’s not fact-based, it says atheists are wrong, that’s a lie! Everybody knows that the science they choose as a field of study is true. It’s simple, the disbelief of everything, even your former beliefs, including disbelief of religion and superstition, don’t you know an old wives’ tale when you hear one? Merlin was laughing at his disciple, it’s all a scam. As I study moths and butterflies the truth derives just from that, that they can see germs, they can see your thumb about to crush them therefore they fly away and are afraid of you killing them.