zambize

AI will one day be great at making logical insights about reality, potentially it will be able to pick out important factors towards enlightenment that has to deal with the science side of things. Maybe AI of the future will give you the best possible regiment that fits your specific needs and brain better than any teacher could hope to do. That being said, I don't see AI becoming enlightened or having insights at the deepest of levels. Just because AI is intelligent, does not mean it experiences anything. While it may seem intelligent and even conscious, when you look at the code of AI it's still simply data that is having one of many basic computer operations. Even though it will be incredibly intelligent, compared to us, you will be able to at the end of the day break it down into data being taken from individual registers and being operated on. When you break humans down to our most fundamental level, apparently you get enlightenment, when you break down AI to the lowest level you get electrons on a capacitor. No reason to believe electrons on a capacitor are any more conscious whether or not they are a part of a system that creates something that seems intelligent. If AI can become self-aware and tap into infinity, well then so can mine craft sheep because they are both again, electrons on one of millions/billions of capacitors

Hi so this might be a challenge for me to help you because it seems like you tried to solution I would have recommended, which is to simply observe it. Well kind of simply. What I personally do is when some emotion such as anxiety/fear/etc arises, I'll usually take a deep breathe while I channel a sort of loving energy in my chest. Now I channel this into my emotions which for negative emotions, those typically seem to arise in my experience as knots in my stomach that need to be resolved (this kind of depends on the emotion). So my advice stays the same to what you are supposed to do, observe your emotions deeply, resolve them as much as you can and don't run away from them or try to push them out the door, it's perfectly fine and normal to feel the way you do. Now because you are already doing this apparently and you end up being "punished" for observing your emotions, I would recommend doing this practice when you aren't in an extremely emotional state. Get good at being aware of the emotions you are feeling, good or bad, and continue to practice. Next time you feel joy or love, investigate that sensation. What the fuck do you even like about love or that feeling, be specific. You can use this same skill of being hyper-aware of your positive emotions, to help you out with your negative emotions. Finally, I think it's important to ask yourself what are you doing with this friend. Are you often sad or frustrated around him? Are you afraid of being alone, or taking responsibility of how he would feel if you cut off the friendship. If you want to improve, you need to take full responsibility for how you feel and act, just as he does. Let's look really closely at this particular quote: " I try to observe but end up getting punished by my sadness" To me, it seems like you are blaming your emotions or your sadness on your inability to observe/be happy in the moment. I believe a more accurate thing to say is that you feel sadness, yet don't have the experience or know-how to avoid suffering from your sadness. The only question that matters here is what could you be doing differently? It's not like you felt like feeling sad, we have seemingly little control over what perceptions and emotions pop up, but you can limit your resistance to what you feel and surrender to it. I think you made a great first step in asking for advice, best of luck changing your life!

"I’m tired of playing this game" Don't be tired, try to have fun D: I'm sure you know this, but it's useful remembering that you are in fact allowed to have a good time, I checked. " I’m sick of my family, cultural, social, societal influences and values telling me and displaying in day to day life what I should live" Err. I could be projecting myself onto you but when I was sick of my mother's expectations on how I would life my life, I also kind of took that out on her. Maybe you aren't sick of them telling you how you should live, maybe you are sick of you being weak enough that they would ever have any influence in the way you lived, or that if you don't live up to their expectation that will somehow make you feel less fulfilled. Again, I realize that I am aware of zero of the complexities of this situation, but I think this is maybe more of a "you" problem than everything around you. Instead of being as disgusted as possible by ego, show them a better way, teach them how to love, teach them the values that you want for yourself. This shouldn't be that hard if you've spent a significant amount of time on self-development. Anyways, I'm sure I was wrong about more than one thing I said or over analysed something, but I hope something was useful. Best of luck

I think you actually have the right idea questioning Leo, I can't help you settle this debate as to whether JP is blue/orange or higher, but I can tell you that you don't have to worry about how you feel or what you think. I.E. "Don't hate me for saying this." I don't want to project on Leo, but would you be surprised if in reality he was happier with you challenging his opinion than someone who blindly bashes JP without fully understanding any of the reasons because they think he (Leo) would like their opinion? Quick ending point, what if we did hate you for your opinion and all thought you were really stupid. I don't personally, but what if I came on here and called you an idiot, and said you had no clue about Jordan Peterson. I know you may have been joking at the end with "please don't hate me", but it's not your responsibility to make sure everyone is okay with your genuine beliefs, Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong, but say what you gotta say so that you can learn why you are wrong, or why you are right and move forward. You did in this post and posted an unpopular opinion, which is great and I hope that continues. Best of luck!

I find that people have a hard time reconciling information too far above where they are on the spiral. For example, I have a grandmother who told me she would join the KKK if they had a local chapter. In this case I use spiral dynamics to ask myself what is the next stage for her. What are some things that I could tell her that she might digest or agree with, remain open-minded to, etc. Don't worry about where you are on the spiral in my opinion. Listen to the most intellectually stimulating material that you can understand, there are mega threads with people at each stage for you to study. I really don't think there is much value to diagnosing yourself, I mean whatever level you are at, it's not like you are here because you planned on staying at that level or regressing (if that's possible), just keep marching forward and having a good time

How to lead a good life is a question best asked to yourself in my opinion. I think there's reasons to believe we all have different things that make us happy, and that anyone's answer is crap when compared to your own. Look within, what do you define as a good life? What do you enjoy? What are you looking to get out of this life? If you are incapable of answering your own question "how to lead a good life?", then ask yourself why you are incapable of answering that question, and resolve that or ask another question as to why you feel limited. I also understand that some times people just want tips and they are also actively asking themselves at the same time, I just want to make sure you're doing that because I think that's probably the number one issue with people who ask a lot of questions. One tip that I found useful in having a brighter day was instead of asking myself how I felt about something, I ask myself how I could feel about it. I start by drinking some water and thinking about its taste and how accepting I am of its taste, and try to really work out what I am experience. After that though, I've found it helpful to ask how much could I enjoy something. How would I go about experiencing this moment, such that I "enjoyed" it the most. You'll often find it possible to immerse yourself further and further in the moment. On the note of immersing yourself in the moment, there tends to be an equation which I think Leo has talked about which is something along the lines of suffering = pain x refusal (struggle). Next time you have a headache or are experiencing something you don't like, ask very concretely EXACTLY what you don't like about that emotion or sensation. Typically if it was negative, it kind of fades away or seems to change form. When I accept my fear and anxiety, it turns to excitement and adrenaline. On the same note, and let me quick exonerate Leo because this isn't something he has personally said, but I believe it to be true, there is an opposite equation which is essentially the inverse. When you feel love or a sense of profoundness for the world, and you try to become more aware of that sense, and it becomes even more beautiful and profound as you get more conscious of it. In summary, being aware of your negative emotions and sensations tends to either make them disappear or become more bearable while being aware of your positive emotions and sense of self love magnifies them. I.E. life is pretty simple, just be aware and honestly that will get you really far. Best of luck! Sorry if I gave you any bad advice, all I can do is try to give good advice, remember to check this all for yourself

I don't think you should have to convince yourself, ever. That doesn't seem healthy. Just continue to ask questions and not be afraid of the answers, and this will resolve itself. It also seems like you put a lot of emphasis on the fact that your mind won't let you do one thing or another, or believe on think, but I would not worry about that. Sometimes my thoughts are really narcissistic, and other times they are really kind and compassionate, but I don't get to choose what thoughts enter my head, aside from maybe being able to put a cap on them for a bit with some conscious effort, but that's not a long term strategy. Maybe you can just wait until those thoughts come up, and laugh at them. If you think of something really stupid and can't defend it, just think to yourself how far you've come from having those thoughts and taking them seriously. It's possible to have elements of yellow in some categories of your life, but I think you should work on the disdain. Ask yourself why you hate some of these people. Do you think they are actively trying to misinform America? Do they seem like hateful evil people? Dishonest? Or just ignorant?

Sounds like you've really worked through some stuff then, wish you all the best from here on out!

I think you certainly made a really well articulated post, i'll put some of the thoughts that I had reading this out there, and hopefully something clicks or maybe gives you a different perspective. "I didn't realize Self-Love was actually OK" To me Self-Love isn't just okay, it's AMAZING. From what I can see, it's important to love yourself and to take care of yourself. I mean when are we the most ready to do nice things for others, or improve our life? Typically for me it's when i'm having a really good day, full of fun and love. I just want to emphasize that self-love isn't just OK and something that you should focus on doing for yourself. The world will be a better place in my opinion if you learn to love yourself. "I just know that when people acquire certain significant names or labels for themselves it can give them a boost, often a toxic boost." In my experience, I was heavily prone to giving lectures to other people in my head, and definitely continue to have a problem with feelings of moral superiority. I'm not exactly sure why you feel like any particular label will help you. Maybe you feel like you're at some stage and that diagnosing yourself at some spiritual level will help you focus on the kinds of solutions and pitfalls that people tend to have at that level? Personally I avoid labeling myself just because it seems to do more harm than good, and instead focus on improving my life through comparing my day to day experience from one day to the next. I think you can just do the same, and not worry about labeling yourself ever "but consciously pushing my ego down" This seems exhausting, typically when I have some ego-backlash or think something ridiculously narcissistic I try to just laugh it off and just be aware of it. To me, you are giving more power to your ego if it's coming up with thoughts that make you feel like you have to force them out of your awareness. I could be wrong, but laughing at my ego and ridiculous thoughts seems to have gotten me further than fighting with it. Don't give it power it doesn't have.

Could you source this or explain the reasoning behind this? I personally have not felt this way about the drug, but i'd be interested in seeing why you feel this way. My guess is that this stems somewhat from the idea that there are no magic pills, and that magic pills are in some way immoral or the improper route of growth. For me, fuck that, acid has allowed me to see some beautiful things, and those doors seem as open as ever. It's been a while since I could sit in the window sill and just enjoy the rays of sun coming in to hit my skin, and that's the direction acid takes me in more and more after each experience. Anyways, best of luck, and you are completely right that it is impressive how much he has accomplished without psychedelics, just really think it's worth it

I hear a lot of talk about non-duality, and how the truth is "one", can not be categorized etc., I'm not going to pretend like I've had a non-dual experience and know what I'm talking about... However, isn't saying reality is non-dual a duality in itself. If reality is truly non-dual, shouldn't it be neither non-dual or dual? We are neither one, nor not one?

Hmmmm, I think you should really be trying acid and shrooms, I'd say go with either. I've had more experience with acid than shrooms so i'll give you a sense of how I think of the drug and my use of it. I think for the trips there are two parts of it, there is kind of times when the drug is still kicking in or falling off, you feel like you have one foot still in reality even though you can clearly tell you are high. In this stage it doesn't really matter, I personally last time really focused on getting better at channeling love for the universe, because I tend towards a bit too rational and unemotional, which I want to work. So I was just sitting on the bed channeling this loving energy/acceptance into my abdomen where most of my emotions tend to bubble up, hoping that I can get some really strong stuff to come out. These emotions can be accompanied by closed eyed visuals even when the drug is still kicking in. As with weed and what not, close your eyes and it's quite a bit stronger of a drug. The other case is when you've taken a tab and a half or more, probably like an eighth of shrooms or more, and at that point my best results come from surrendering the fuck over to the moment, because otherwise I'm sure I'd get steamrolled trying to hold onto everything. Also don't worry if the visuals get kind of gross or even hellish... I definitely saw some really gorey stuff, but just kind of laughed it off as ridiculous, and within twenty minutes I was back to having more cosmic and beautiful visuals. If you're worried and are a control freak, maybe do a contemplation with just a fraction of a tab, say 1/4. If you are confident in your ability to surrender and are general mentally healthy, love yourself etc. I see no reason you couldn't take a tab or more, but I don't necessarily see any harm in ramping up. So maybe start with one, and then after that if you feel ready, a tab and a half to two tabs would probably be really beneficial moving forward with your development. Also for professional opinion compared to mine... Best of Luck!

I'll do my best to describe acid from the perspective of someone still trying to figure stuff out. On small amounts of acid, it really isn't too much different to me than some of my deeper meditations. I look out into the woods and I'm very widely aware of the landscape. Everyday life I usually see just one object, for example my cup in front of me, but the rest of the table is rather blurry and I'm not exactly sure what's going on in the peripherals. On acid this really widens out, such that you can feel like you are much of the table, or are kind of simultaneously focusing on it all at once. As you increase the amount of the acid, this lack of blurriness on my peripherals tends to make the experience come off as rather cartoony in nature. I think it's also why patterns and complex images are often associated with acid, because you are able to experience so much of the complexity at once, and it's honestly beautiful. If you take enough acid, you kind of go into what I call full sending a drug to my friends, and it's kind of that point where you are in such a new unfamiliar head-space that you almost get disoriented and have to take a second to rethink reality because you've been hit with such unfamiliar body sensations as well as vibrating and other strange sensations that I'm still wrapping my head around. Thoughts are very insightful, but they fly away so quickly. You can be explaining what feels like one of the deepest realizations to your friend, and then a second later you're looking at him, and you don't know if you are explaining something to him, or him to you. So I might suggest a journal, or something to keep track of thoughts because they are going to flood in, and if you don't write them down or something, you're going to lose a lot of good material. It can also be pretty emotional, I consider myself pretty even-keep in terms of emotions, and I remember seeing pictures of me and my brother pop up and my mind, and thinking of the things i'd have to give up to carry on this adventure. One last thing, is it's had kind of a different message each time, and the experiences have varied in many capacities, one trip was all about the importance of listening, another about how I need to be better about spreading my love to more than just those who are easy to love, and this most recent one I had what felt like an ego-death experience, as well as the importance of having fun on this journey. Some people seem to peak at different times to, takes 3-4 hours for me, so be aware of that before you pop two more tabs an hour or two in because you don't feel anything and your friend is off the wall talking about puppet masters and what not. I think I took a lot of shots I hope any of that is helpful or interesting, I would totally recommend it, especially sense the insightfulness of the drug comes out at really small doses, you could prolly do 10-20 micrograms (1-2/10 standard tab) and have some really good thoughts and get some feel for the headspace. Also let me link this, I haven't gotten to it yet, but I'm sure it's got something for you in it.

I feel like my best results have come from not taking your word on anything and just exploring myself, but in the case you are right, I really look forward to that. Certainly must be a beautiful realization. I'll see where I get on those questions with some shrooms I have laying around, I see you have a tutorial for using psychedelics for personal development which I appreciate, anyways much love

I totally get there is a language problem, and that at the end of the day you see the need to communicate something that you are bound to communicate imperfectly when you do, because it simply can't be communicated. I was looking more for the implications of this on reality. Is there anything significant to the fact that we can't use the word non-dual. In a sense, does that mean reality CAN be categorized, or partially, or neither is accurate to say? On the note of incommunicable, how does one decide something is incommunicable vs. they just haven't tried enough. Do you just "know" right when you experience something, or do you try for some amount of months or years and give up? How am I supposed to differentiate incommunicable from really really really really hard to communicate? I know this is subtle, but it seems dangerous to me to label something incommunicable/unspeakable etc. without being absolutely sure it isn't, and I'm wondering where you make that distinction. Anyways, thanks for the reply, love your videos, I don't think i'd have had nearly as religious of acid trips if not for you, certainly gave experiences I never expected to have! Much love Leo

Hey everyone! Started to take my meditation a bit more seriously recently, and I just had some questions so if you could answer any of them, I will read your responses and thoughtfully consider them so of course feel free to write as much or as little of a novel, I'll appreciate what I can get. 1. I've increased my meditation habit from about one our a day to three hours a day and it started out a bit rough but now I could almost consider it enjoyable. It ebbs and flows but if I'm not dealing with a particularly negative emotion bubbling up, the baseline could be considered lightly enjoyable. Anyways, that seems like it's a great sign of progress and as happy as I am about that, I'm afraid that my progress is going to slow. Can I really be deeply benefiting from an experience that I consider largely enjoyable? Is it wrong for me to assume that a lot of the progress I am receiving comes through dealing with and accepting negative emotions, and now that I just don't have as many negative emotions popping up, I shouldn't expect the same level of progress? Should I increase difficulty to something like SDS? I'm going to leave it at that for this one, but if you have a good point that isn't related to one of the questions I asked please type it out for me! 2. During meditation I get deep senses of peace and happiness and really all sorts of emotions. When something seemingly mystical comes up, should I keep the same mindset of accepting my thoughts and feelings and letting them go, or should I be deeply investigating these feelings? I'm not always sure whether to pull out my magnifying glass and look deeply into the nature of some of these feelings vs. just kind of feeling/accepting/letting go. 3. Is there something to be gained from doing one twelve hour meditation, vs three four hour meditations vs. twelve one hour meditations. Does splitting it up and taking breaks strongly or weakly effect the results of the meditation assuming all twelve hours are completed? I'll spare you guys more questions for now, but I was impressed with some of the thoughtfulness that you guys put into my first question(s), so thank you!

1) Yeah, I've tried them they were certainly rough but if it's noticeably more effective I would be willing to do it for an hour a day. 2) I think I'm probably on the right track here then. 3) I wonder if the opposite extreme would be even more productive, like have a buzzer go off every single minute to mark that you should be refocusing on your meditation.

Yeah, I'm going to mix it up during meditation then. As far as time wise Ill just do the maximum I can until I feel like the quality of my meditation is becoming questionable and just split it up so I can refocus. Thanks for the reply!

I've been chugging away at the puzzle of life over the last few years at a decent pace, I'm wondering if anyone decently far into the puzzle has any recommendations on how seriously and fast I should be running through this. Should I be putting the pedal to the medal and try to take this super super seriously, or is it okay to take it on at my own pace and kind of smell the flowers? Or is the idea that I might be allowed to smell flowers just a maze that I haven't gotten out of? Also onto the actual title, should I be chasing after help from other people, or if I think I can solve this by myself to a large degree is that more rewarding in anyone's experience?

How does one go about verifying they are unique?

Great post, thanks for linking that. Unrelated question though, if you could undo some of your progress and kind of reset to a lower level of self awareness, would you redo the journey so to say, or if you could would you stay at the absolute highest level of self-awareness possible/that you feel you've achieved?

Yeah I think you hit some good points, thanks for the response!