charlie cho

This is a revelation! Or if you like to argue I am wrong, please do, because I learn better precisely by discussing matters with other people than just letting it go dry in my mind alone. I have been really thinking deeply with all my attention. After reading a paper regarding how Einstein thought what distinguished a good student to the bad one was how much interest he had in the theory of knowledge (and Leo's videos on science), i tried to understand what science is opposed to other disciplines and spirituality and life. I always struggled with science firstly because I could not distinguish science from reality. I was able to distinguish mathematics to reality because I knew so very well math was a discipline of language. Of course, maths is a language maybe more refined and quite different from English, Chinese, and Hindi, but it is a language nonetheless. So it was easy to study math because I knew it was a hypothesis from the very start, whereas I could not do the same with science because people loved to blur the lines of science with reality (which is wrong) Science is theory. Theory about the behavior of nature, but not the behavior of nature itself. Watching a video from OSHO about how he enlightened his math teacher about what math really is, it gave me a certain revelation that science is the same. While math has hypothesis saying 1, 2, 3, 4 dimensions are 'real' and starting from there to branch out several theories regarding Euclid and many mathematicians which goes beyond me, science is the same. Is hypothesis totally wrong? Quite! But there is a catch. It is practical, but not truth! There is no need to try and destroy what's practical, just we need to accept that it is hypothesis and start from there when studying math. Well, my observation is that science also starts from hypothesis. What hypothesis? Probably, on the top of my head, I can only say that most of our sciences following the hypothesis that start saying what we see, hear, feel is real. (We all know all hypothesis can never be 'real' but lets carry on) Therefore, all our experiments are conducted through our seeing, hearing, smell. Seeing cells. Feeling the temperature of certain flames. Though we cannot 'see' photons, waves of radio transmit, infrared light, anything beyond out color spectrum, we know by proving the existence of it by 'seeing' how experimental equipment's react with the object we are trying to prove exists. Same with atoms, and that is how it was discovered. The brown theory? I don't know. How objects were banging on each other without any force given to it. Or how we knew each atoms always had a certain quantity of weight even though the elements were different. IT was all by inference through other objects to prove the theory which is seeing using our senses nonetheless. Therefore, just like english, chinese words cannot express the Dao 道, and if the Dao can be expressed, it cannot be the true way, same with the behavior of nature. Just like mathematics cannot express the universe, anything of the behavior of the universe expressed in mathematics cannot be the true way. Which is what science is trying to do, isn't it? Maybe not all mathematics, but with visuals, hearing... etc. all the same. Pictures are a language, voices are a language. IT cannot be expressed through words, mathematics, pictures, audio... anything. But, just like spiritual books can be written through language, i don't think science is an exception. That was just an additional thought. Tao te ching with maths? Can we not agree one of the very reasons man is related to the heavens is because we are able to speak language? If we weren't able to speak language, or have the intelligence to have thoughts, theories, hypothesis, and language, we wouldn't be able to reach the heavens. If you've read the description until here, I applaud you, comment please.

@Leo Gura that's jordan peterson. He keeps telling everyone to be in order mentally, but he's not mentally stable himself. I like to listen to him talk about shit though

@Yog what kind of political stuff?

So you asked me what i meant by direct experience. That was my answer. And as you ask me whether i am able to declare that our senses can directly experience nature, I do not believe. @ajai I would have to repeat. My answer would be that our eyes are cameras. Ears are microphones. The camera may show the video of the world it has taken or recorded to the person wishing to see. The microphone may play back the music or the sound of nature and the universe for the listener. But it can't do much else. So it is with our senses.

Isn't it really paradoxical. On the one hand, self actualization is about being oneself, knowing oneself, so you have to trust the self. Yet, one has to discard the self if one is to be one's self. Because life is a circle, one has to understand the both the extremities and accept it. I read chuang tzu's book about how if one is to walk the path of 道，one cannot fragment the universe. One must realize everything as a whole one thing. Although the materialism and consciousness seems paradoxical, it is actually one. He also said that when one confuses materialism as different from consciousness, he is only seeing one aspect of life, not the whole. Whatever it is, i know it's fucking confusing, but carry on with life.

@ajai My question has to be then, don't the eyes merely function as cameras? Don't the ears merely function as two microphones? What function do the eyes and the ears have aside from being a camera recorder or a sound recorder? Can we not agree that although our eyes are not good as 4k cameras or ears are not good as high quality microphones that exist out there, that our eyes and ears cannot function anything more than recording the world out there, but mustn't we see the recording is never the real world out there! And finally, is it the eye and the ear seeing or hearing it, or is it merely a device to see and hear it? (You may or may not put the picture and the audiofile in your brain and put it into memory, but that is a whole different matter. Because that is not for the eyes or the ears to decide) It is obvious though that anything the eye or the ear experiences is not the real world but just pictures and audiofiles of the real outside world. May I ask, with only the camera, with only the microphone (however great the technology is) can one really see the mountain that the camera recorded? With only the microphone, can one really hear the sound of birds and the river that it recorded? No matter how hard we try, with the camera and the microphone, we can never experience the universe at all! One may say that eyes and ears function more than just microphones and cameras. That eyes and ears can be conscious of the sounds and pictures. But is that really true? Even if we are blind. Even if we are deaf, is our consciousness dead? The rest, I leave it for you to formulate and understand. Again my question is don't the eyes and the ears merely function as cameras and microphones to the real world out there? Just remember, microphones and cameras can never experience the world no matter how good a quality they have, good a technology they have. Same as the human senses. Healthy, sick, old... all the same! Therefore, can we really declare our senses are the door way to directly experience nature?

@Gesundheit Science exists for usefulness? I don't know. I really don't know about that. It depends on how you believe science had started in our history. Many would disagree to that statement that science and mathematics solely exists for usefulness. It happens to be the fact that many 'useless' discoveries turned out to be 'useful' discoveries in both science and mathematics. So I beg to differ. In fact, I would have to say spiritual enlightenment cannot happen if one is unclear, illogical, or contradictory. How can anyone who fit such categories be called a scientist? I cannot conceive of such a fact. It doesn't take an Einstein to know that if you add a base and an acid to react as solutions in a tube, it will create water. If you read the theory, see the explanation in a book, and try it out your self in a home lab, it's apparent that it is the case. Nothing useful about it. It's just a fact. The term absolute truth is misleading? Then what should i call it? Truth? All i meant was very simple. Are the senses at all trustable? Yes, or no. If no, (which I have said), then it is not true. I wasn't talking about God or enlightenment. I just meant it's not entirely true. And what do you mean by scientists don't trust their senses? You just linked me to a site about empircism. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism You said, science is about empiricism. Empiricism means, according to the link you gave me, knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience. The difference between sensory experience and direct experience is significant. If we try to experience solely with the senses, with the eyes, ears, taste, smell, and feeling, (and thought, i might add) is not direct. When we investigate, look, realize, see the mountain, the river, hear beethoven's sonata, tarrega's gran vals, taste the pasta, fish, merely looking at the mountain isn't really seeing the mountain in all its entirety. Merely hearing another person speak with the ear is not hearing at all unless there is attention. Merely tasting the chips we eat at mc donalds with our mouth will not give us what the potato chip is in its entirety. One may see, but not see. One may hear but not hear. One may taste but not taste. There is no directness. What I am getting at is that the senses is merely a recorder. The eye is a camera. The ear is a microphone. We never see the mountain, but just look at the picture of the mountain. However advanced your camera is, however healthy your eyesight is (2.0 and above, like mongolians), however expensive the speaker you have in your house to hear Leo's words, however healthy you hearing is... maybe because you have taken care of your ears throughout childhood, you are not really grasping its essence, its nectar. One may have bad eye sight, may have bad hearing, but he can see the the world more accurately than any other, can have bad hearing, but knows music more than any other. Senses can never go to the essence. It's merely a camera. And cameras never see the mountain, just as microphones can never hear the sonata Beethoven. That is direct experience. Just because you can record how the mountain looks like (4k) with you eyes, just because you can record to an orchestra without screeching sounds with excellent Sony-esque sound quality level with your ears, does not mean you have really seen the mountain. OR hear the orchestra playing.

@ajai what does embodying ignorance mean?

@ajai Yes. Of course, there is someone who has the same opinion. I have seen very few. And I didn't mean to critisize the whole of the discipline. No, I was just asking, why do I see so few talking about this? Not only few. It's a blatant fact, and more blatant it is, I would have thought this idea of how limited the senses are must have been out in the public long ago, but apparently, it is condemned by many scientists it seems to me which I cannot grasp why! Anyways, thanks for answering.

@Twega A really interesting question. I have been inquiring into this deeply recently. (See my recent thread about how current science is a study of reality but our senses) Maybe the world is just one universal consciousness. Just one mind. Nothing physical exists. Just consciousness, just mind. Then why do we have senses in this mind? Senses and mind does not seem to interact together in a good relationship. They seem to be enemies where the senses continuously try to deceive men into digressing their way to Truth, Reality, God... etc. Senses are what? Pain pleasure in feeling. Beauty and ugliness in seeing. Music and noise in hearing. Taste and horrendous in taste. Fragrance and stickiness in smell. It's fundamentally fragmentary. A picture of a mountain can never be the mountain. The audiotape of a Beethoven's moonlight can never be the song. However accurate the picture, however good the sound quality of the tape is, it is never the thing. So is our senses. Our eyes act as cameras, ears act as microphones. But the camera and the microphone is never the thing. Why can we not abandon the camera and the microphone and listen to Beethoven's sonata with our real ears? Look at the mountain and the river with our own eyes? In other words, look at consciousness with our real eyes, real ears, real body? But what is the real eye? The real ear? The real body? Does that even exist? With that metaphor, i would like to state our senses are just cameras and microphones. Therefore, Buddha always said abandon the senses, or "restrain" "neglect" the senses and see beyond. (Much misinterpretation was implemented in these words but lets continue on nonetheless) Because the camera is just a tool to see the mountain. But we never see the mountain, we always see the picture of the mountain. So similar it is with our senses. So, consciousness is never antagonistic to the senses. Why does it need to be? Consciousness has no opposite. Real Truth has no opposite. That is why it is absolute. Therefore, there is no need to be antagonistic to the senses. Therefore, why neglect the senses? Let it exist. It is the yin to the yang. When there is a man, there is a woman. When there is light. There is darkness. When there is consciousness, we can also have the senses. A spice, the salt of life, isn't it? Why eat the food bland, when we can put some salt in there. Why live with only men? Why not have women there and spice things up, (although women had been and has usually been the cause of much chaos in the world) It would be boring to not have the opposite. This has been my observation. LOL. Sorry because it's long.

@ajai Are you serious? Wonderfully written? Can you tell me what you have gotten out of it?

@Gesundheit Yes, i agree. If only empiricism tweeked its meaning rather, not as direct sensory experience, but as direct experience, then I would have said science does not care about direct experience at all. Because if science was trusting direct experience as the absolute truth, they would not have justified true of all these theories that are currently 99% based on our senses (eyes, hearing, smell) as you have stated. Anything that is based on senses cannot be absolute truth. Our senses are limited. Anyone who has directly experienced the actual limitation of the senses, one would not have the confidence to say all detection based on our senses is true at all. I don't know why current scientists are so confident in wearing their empricists hat and showing it off. True knowledge cannot come out of the senses, yet they think they know the whole world just because they went far off with studying the world through only the limited senses. Why haven't science asked the question, "maybe knowledge can come out of what is not of the senses?" Nobody dares to touch on this subject in universities. Why?

@Yog thanks man. Kenshi is so fun! I'm playing it, and i learned so much about myself through this simulation. (funny how much we can learn from other creator's worlds) LEarned how cruel I am.

@DocWatts thanks man. Kenshi is so fun! I'm playing it, and i learned so much about myself through this simulation. (funny how much we can learn from other creator's worlds) LEarned how cruel I am.

Is this philosophy of 'Easy come, easy go' relevant not only in life purpose/career, but also in relationships? What about money? Friendship? Enlightenment? (Aside from the counter argument that this so-called 'axiom' can cause people to do unnecessarily challenging things to be successful) I only considered this 'easy come easy go' a statement to be related with life purpose and career, but current occurrences in my life suggests otherwise. That this statement also resides with relationship, making money, and making friends. What do you think?

@Preety_India you remind me of the law of Tao. How rich men pretend to be poor. Geniuses of the ages pretend to be a fool. Law of the world? What seems hard seems to be of much value. Things that are available easy, is many a fraud or low value

@JosephKnecht I just said .... anyways, to me personally, i sometimes think doing the easy thing is the hardest thing. Therefore, many people live the hard way because their ego gets hurt if they do it easy. So I don't always do the hard thing personally. So i guess, what i mean "hard" is not physically or mentally hard. (mathematical, business problems are mentally hard. Mining jobs are physically hard), but i mean spiritually "hard". And it happens to be that many things that are easy mentally and physically can be spiritually hard paradoxically. So recently, I've been feeling, nothing that is of value is really "spiritually" hard.

@JosephKnecht Then, are you saying the universe's principle of 'easy come easy go' is totally a farce? Confused what you are trying to say because I on the other hand regard having this as a personal philosophy to be without any value.

I had encountered many saying self-help cannot help anybody especially spiritually. I think there is a certain truth in this statement, but not entirely. So I inquired into this matter seriously whether this is true or not. If we define self-help, anything that helps the person consuming it is self-help right? Isn't the Tao Teh Ching, Chuang Tzu's writings a self help book then? After all, it is regarded mostly to be written for leaders of a country (at the time when several warlords were fighting for power in china) explaining how one should govern first himself and the people of the realm. What about Sun Tzu's Art of War? Nietzsche's books such as "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" or "Beyond Good and Evil"? Musashi's "Book of Five Rings".... etc. What is the history of self-help? Why do people regard Tony Robbin's books self help but immediately put "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" or Plato's Republic on Philosophy? After all, most Nietzsche's writings were to hammer on the useless ideas Nietzsche regarded to be wrong. He said, "I philosophize with a hammer. I speak what others write in a book in one sentence." Plato was brooding on how one should govern a city... etc. Aren't these self help for the mind and being a leader? Leadership ain't a joke.

@Yog I salute to your guidance....... I will look into it ......

Good game

@bensenbiz Read OSHO's book about Creativity. It will give you another perspective. And you must understand, there is a deep bond with creativity and spirituality. Look at Art of War for example or Musashi's book of five rings. I'm sorry, but I cannot explain it in a few sentences but to say read it. Whether it is sports, war, killing, or music it requires creativity to innovate new ideas, actions, and forms. If one does the same thing constantly again and again, it simply means the person is mechanical. And the opposite of mechanisms is spirit. You'll be very surprised to know, the greatest computer scientists like Steve Wozniak, businessmen Steve Jobs, Einstein, Sun Tzu (ART OF WAR), Mushashi are self proclaimed right brain thinkers, no joke. How is war and killing creative? Well, when one devises strategies to kill other armies, one cannot use the old ways because the other will have read many books about strategy. One needs to innovate new strategies to catch the other off guard and stumble and die. But to innovate, one must eliminate the past, because the new cannot come out of the past at all. Understood? It's all about the relation between eliminating the past and therefore creating something new. The new never comes out of the past or knowledge. And that is what spirituality does. One principle all greatest warlords have used to win battles is this, never doing what has been already known and learnt, catching the opponent off guard therefore confusing them. The essence of spirituality is this only, eliminating the past, eliminating time, to therefore let the timeless be borne out of that elimination. Music? IF you want to create music that has been already known, already played in the past, that's your choice. No problem. But if you want real music, something that is timeless and always new. What should you do?

I like how this guy explains it.

I say learn jiujitsu.... because it's by far the most safest way to really test your skills. There is no head injury in sparring with another person. Muay thai and Boxing, you have to spar with people, and you will injure your head. And do you really want to injure your head? That's why I value jiujitsu because there is no such injury to the head. It's more about submitting the other person rather not casting any violence. If you see some videos of jiujitsu practitioners holding down a drunk asshole, or a retard, they don't hurt them but just submit them to stop casting violence to themselves and others, which is cool. Striking arts are just as important as grappling arts. IT's a lie to say grappling arts is a better sport. But you have to understand, the consequences of learning striking is to me far more dangerous than jiujitsu because there is the punching to the head. And that is the most important in striking arts

How to destroy and annihilate my greatest enemy yet. Hypochondria. Obviously, one cannot eliminate this unless he stops being attached to his body, but i am very atttaccheed to my body. Anyone, who don't give a damn about your body, and still are healthy! Please tell me your secret!