TheAlchemist

Member
  • Content count

    689
  • Joined

  • Last visited

About TheAlchemist

  • Rank
    - - -
  • Birthday 07/12/1997

Personal Information

  • Location
    Turku, Finland
  • Gender
    Male

Recent Profile Visitors

7,355 profile views
  1. A Nazi can be a Nietzschean but Nietzsche cannot be a Nazi. Nazism is a later development but a lower perspective.
  2. You seem wise beyond your years Congrats!
  3. This is a perfect illustration of how the same underlying structural driver can lead someone to be both a new age shaman healer and a fundamentalist Christian. For example here is one underlying, usually unquestioned driver: I should be guaranteed permanent satisfaction, I should be secure, I should have a place, fulfillment and a sense of belonging. Being insecure, lacking, questioning, alienated and uprooted is categorically bad and should be avoided. No matter how many gallons of ayahuasca someone drinks, an underlying driver and fantasy such as this may never be uncovered. It requires a different approach and mode to uncover. Even spirituality generally is very accommodating to many fantasies about eternal fulfillment, happiness and belonging. An even when these drivers and fantasies are uncovered they continue to drive behavior, so it could be a massive task to uproot something like that without significant internal turmoil.
  4. Would you say that Infinite Mind imagines through having limits? Is limit necessary for the process of imagination to unfold? Would you agree also that limitation is required for the infinite to realize itself, the infinite having no ground for realization without limit and finitude? I very much like the idea that Hegel also expressed about limit/limitless and finite/infinite being in dialectical relationship. They are necessary conditions for each other to exist and the Absolute Idea is about this eternal self-contradiction.
  5. Some Bernardo Kastrup book, or even more grounded and approachable for a materialist would probably be the new Christopher Koch book: "Then I Am Myself the World: What Consciousness Is and How to Expand It". He has his own theory for what consciousness is but still I think he is a genius at opening up the conversation about what consciousness is and the mystery of it, especially for a western materialist mind. This or something similiar would be the most approachable I think, but Bernardo Kastrup goes much deeper into the real interesting stuff imo. It just may seem a bit too strange unless someone is already quite open to the idealism or eastern thought. Towards a more spiritual approach Sam Harris' Waking Up book would probably be also quite good as an intro
  6. The Substance was just insane and also thought provoking. Terence Malick films like Thin Red Line and Days of Heaven. Super contemplative and visually beautiful with existential themes.
  7. I think spiritualist, new age type of beliefs are often just another expression of the same structure that a religious person has adopted. Just a moderate-major shift in life circumstances or having a real love bomb experience from some Christian sect is often enough to cause a conversion. A certain level of insight into epistemology and development of critical thinking and rational capacities is needed to transcend fundamentalist belief systems. Maybe you have developed these capacities to the point that it just wont sink into you anymore in the same way it would for many. This is why I think more traditional philosophy is important to balance out some of the spiritual aspirations. Also, none of this is to say that there isn't validity to having faith or to Christianity. It's just that developing ones rational capacities usually seems to make people immune to those most fundamentalist forms of Christianity. And most spiritual people don't seem to be interested in diving deeply into questions of epistemology or metaphysics (from a philosophy perspective), and those folks are often just one step away from religious conversion. Anyways, I was also raised into religion and I can relate to the confusion and struggle of dealing with that in later life. But ultimately I think it's better to remain questioning and unsure of those things, it's a sign of individuating and coming to terms with ones subjectivity and the anxiety that is quite core to it. It's no wonder many choose to surrender to Jesus, especially with these people who dive really deep and the questions get bigger and bigger and the anxiety often along with it. Jesus comes to the rescue seeming to resolve that struggle. So, it can give a ton, but what is the shadow side of all the joy and glory that is being sold? I think there's always a shadow side to these saviors. But that's for each person to contemplate individually. I think we do have the capacities to live with the uncertainty and I do think it's valuable to question things and to continue to explore and investigate.
  8. Someone like Andrew Tate psychologically lives in the role of a submissive housewife in relation to their favorite paternal superego figure. Think about it, the internalized paternal figure (God, parent, ideological structure) who is always watching and judging them, ready to punish and hurt them lives inside their mind in every moment. So to compensate for the sense of guilt they get from enjoying their slavery to the superego (the enjoyment in itself a kind of coping mechanism), these "alpha males" develop an enjoyment out of the domination and suppression of others. In a male-dominated culture, many women also can get enjoyment out of submitting, but there is an accepted social role for that for women so not as much guilt and much less compensatory behavior is expressed. But fundamentally it's a result of the internalized oppressive superego figure, which is perpetuated by these dynamics. So really, these self-annointed "alpha males" need someone who submits to them to feel like they aren't total worthless pieces of trash. Uncovering this dynamic and reflecting upon it honestly would be so painful that the path of oppressing others is chosen. Once I saw this dynamic I couldn't unsee it. I look at Andrew Tate and I see a sad little boy who is a slave to their superego. So there is and isn't something natural about these dynamics. They are natural in the sense that we all grow into them to some extent without a choice , but not natural in the sense that they aren't somehow inescapable or hard-coded into being human. So about men crying: Crying is just a natural expression of emotion for humans. The gender categories are what cause these interesting situations where crying is allowed for some and not for others. The social identity of being "man" is really just "not-woman". So there are certain qualities and behaviors that have cultural attachment to a certain genders. And of course identity is a source of stability and safety against death. So when a man cries and the culture tells him "men don't cry", he is confronted with a short moment of identity crisis, which is also a moment of confrontation with insecurity and lack. It can feel like a threat to the identity, which then has to be protected against by suppressing that behavior in the future, and telling others who share the same identity to also avoid that behavior. A man telling other men to not cry in public is often coming out of care and love, because one might intuitively know that it might not be received well by the social reality. And even many women might actually be repulsed by a man crying, because ultimately that identity also requires this distinction of being not-man. But still, the systemic and socially negotiated nature of the situation is not brought to light and the same dynamic continues.
  9. You sound quite submissive to these "rules". Men belong here, women belong there. As if there is some higher natural order that we must submit to in exchange for lasting fulfillment. I think that's an illusion and a coping mechanism to stay feeling safe at the expense of others. We can engage with the world with our rational and emotional capacities, then we have some hope of actually moving somewhere instead of remaining stuck in some fantasy of the "good old days". It might be painful and it won't always leave us feeling happy but the alternative is much worse. Oppression, force and control are what are needed for the system you suggest. Because not everyone will ever agree to those rules and roles that you seem to think are somehow divinely assigned. The human striving for individuality and freedom from any definitions, roles or rules are also a productive part of the engine of history.
  10. I agree about the individuation part. It seems a certain sense of alienation can be very fruitful for the development of individuated existence. Not finding a community to belong to, having identity-crises, self-doubt etc. can all be healthy signs of coming into contact with ones (sometimes painful) individual subjectivity. A model that specifically explores the unfoldment of subjectivity would be quite interesting. Although it would need to have a disintegration point where the model must fail, since it can't really account for or model the subjectivity itself once it has unfolded.
  11. My observation is that any discussion about SD must always involve some reference to the problems of stage green Before I though I was becoming yellow. Now I think I am devolving fast towards some pre-human state. My plans for a future as a spiral wizard are doomed! 😁 To beige and beyond!
  12. Looking at this from outside the US, it seems that this is a cathartic response coming from masses of people who have been fcked over by the insurance companies. It's probably very hard for anyone (including me) to fully relate who hasn't been in that situation themselves. Also, I think people are surprised and energized by recognizing how little they care about the death of a health insurance CEO. Maybe there is a conscious or unconscious recognition of the underlying systemic violence that has been killing people and causing suffering to countless people in the name of profits and growth. In that context, if we recognize that systemic forms of violence do exist, they usually go under the radar, and that there are people who are responsible for such violence, then it is more understandable that people would have this kind of reaction. In 100-200 years, if the US healthcare system develops, this act might just seem ethically equivalent to someone killing a slave owner in the 1800's . If that systemic violence truly is so widespread and the rule of law is not capable of recognizing that form of violence and bringing justice, then this is what can happen, as the frustration brews enough. People will resort to beheadings and mass killing if necessary to bring a sense of justice, but it is ugly and likely no good changes will come quickly. It's more about a release of emotions and recognition of injustices, so maybe that can fuel some political changes in the long run. Personally, I have no strong feelings about this. The death of a CEO holds no special significance in my heart compared to anyone else who is murdered or killed any day of the week around the globe. But I also won't celebrate or rejoice in this, maybe because I haven't personally experienced the injustice of the US healthcare system.
  13. A lot of the new-age spiritualist stuff combined with conspiracy theories could easily be integrated into a fascist narrative.
  14. 1. As a response to Russia bringing foreign troops to Ukraine 2. To improve Ukraine's position in the coming negotiations Based on these two points alone it seems to me to be a strategically smart choice to make.