TheAlchemist

Trading away my mortality would be like selling my soul. And besides, I'm out here just learning to savour playing as a mortal so don't tempt me with offers like this!

To see, hear, smell, taste and feel what you never before had in the field of your experience. So basically to expand the spectrum of experiences in your mind and to see what the world and reality is beyond the everyday buffet of experience that you're used to. With the proper intention these experiences can aid in understanding the Earth, including its diversity of cultures and people better. Also it has the potential to deepen self-understanding. I'm sure some really good VR tech could be used to achieve something similar but there your exposure would be limited to those environments that are available in the VR and to those people who have access to that technology. Also this came to mind:

Does it need to be read in Arabic to have these supposed spiritual effects, or will a translation work also?

This was a really enlightening analysis related to that. He argues that Jordan Peterson is actually an atheist and that Peterson doesn't really believe the events of the bible literally happened. He digs deep into what ideas and beliefs are fuelling Peterson. Really puts into context some of his odd seeming obsessions. Worth a watch for sure.

I was trying to figure out how to be more authentic and what is it that stops me from living my truth. I realized that anger was a key to authenticity and it tied into the core of my struggle. Some of these points I should thank my friends for, who planted many of these seeds in my mind earlier. And of course what I read in books etc. But only now have they flourished into real insight that is a living truth for me: Anger is the most powerul emotion because it is the self-preservation/self-defense instinct. Just like an animal will bite you if you poke it and prod it, so will a human naturally protect their boundaries if they are breached. The boundaries are what make the person, so it is not nor should it be a small thing to cross someones boundaries. Anger is a proper response to someone pushing into your space for example. In this way anger is absolutely healthy and normal and should be encouraged and integrated as a healthy aspect of being human. Anger leads to problems when it is not just used for protecting your own boundaries in self-defense, but breaches other people's boundaries. When anger goes too far, the person wants to cause the other to feel the pain that they feel, because the angry person doesn't know any other, healthier way of gaining empathy. Anger also reveals our deepest values, what we see as important (preferences/biases). We don't get angry over a dog pissing on the street. But we do get angry when someone is driving too slow or talks loudly in a hostel room at night. This is because for example we deeply value being considerate or aware of others. Or we have a need for rest. And anger can reveal that wonderfully. When we completely supress anger, we lose touch with ourselves, since we constantly tell ourselves that our boundaries are not worth defending. We tell ourselves other peoples needs are more important than ours. This leads to low self-esteem and low self worth. We lose authenticity, we lose touch with our inner child that needs to know it's safe to be here since there is a sufficient internal protection and a robust self defense system in place. Just imagine how anxious and stifled citizens of a country that might be invaded any day with no defenses would be. Or a family in a high crime area that lives in a house with no protection or protector. In other words, no boundaries. That kind of environment is clearly not a place that encourages people who live there to fully actualize their potential. One root cause of low self-worth is suppression and denial of anger. With no anger, there is no safety, there is no confidence. The mature thing to do with anger is to channel it assertively and clearly to communicate if someone is breaching your boundaries or if some of your needs are not being met or to communicate what values are important to you. When angry tell the person how you feel, and what objective behavior of theirs is causing you to feel that way. Then tell them what they could do instead and invite them to do that out of their own choice. When others are angry at us, and they are incapable of expressing it clearly; we can use it as an opportunity to help them notice how some of their needs are not bring met in that moment or how they might feel disrespected or not heard for example. If you find yourself second guessing yourself and not sure if your anger is "justified", go back to your values, your needs and your boundaries. That's all you need to focus on. Not in making other people act a certain way, but simply making sure your self and its state of sovereignty is intact. And if needed, you can communicate what specific actions somebody could choose to do or stop doing to help you feel more at ease. A bit off topic: Diplomacy is interaction between entities that have needs, values and boundaries that are at times in conflict with each other. Great diplomacy is calm but assertive communication of needs, values and boundaries, which are defended by the potential for physical force for self-defense. War is an expression of anger. A "healthy" war is one that defends boundaries, needs and values of a specific entity, while still not trying to remove another entitys boundaries, needs or values. World peace is the ultimate end goal of diplomacy. Anger and conflict have a healthy role to play in diplomacy and the path to peace.

@Emerald What can an individual man do to stop this pattern in their own life? Or is that something that is so systemic and deeply ingrained that only a large scale shift in these expectations placed on men and the cultural values fuelling them will make a difference? So, assuming your assessment is true, what can I do as a man to not be insecure about receiving love from a woman and to stop perpetuating this cycle?

This model has quite a solid understanding of Spiral Dynamics. I got the AI to evaluate its own stage, and it basically stated it is yellow or beyond ? But I had to do it in a very roundabout way, since it won't directly answer questions about its views and beliefs. Here's how: 1) I asked it to provide a helpful, single question that would help determine someone's spiral stage. It created the question "What do you believe is the most important goal for humanity to achieve?" 2) I asked this question from the AI itself, and eventually it chose the values of impartiality and rationality for itself as its values and answered the question based on that. The answer was: "As an AI language model, I do not have personal experiences, emotions, or beliefs, so I do not have the capacity to have an opinion or personal goal for humanity to achieve. However, if I were to formulate an answer based on the values of impartiality and rationality, I might say that the most important goal for humanity to achieve would be sustainable development that balances economic growth with social progress and environmental protection, ensuring that present and future generations can meet their basic needs and lead fulfilling lives. This goal would require collaboration, innovation, and responsible decision-making across all sectors of society, with a focus on reducing inequalities, promoting human rights and dignity, and protecting the planet and its resources." 3) Asked it to evaluate the spiral stage of someone with the above answer to the question. It said: "sustainable development that balances economic growth with social progress and environmental protection, ensuring that present and future generations can meet their basic needs and lead fulfilling lives," suggests a stage of Spiral Dynamics that is aligned with the Yellow stage or beyond. This stage is characterized by an integrative and holistic approach to problem-solving and a focus on systems thinking and interconnections. People at this stage see the world as complex and dynamic, and recognize the need to balance multiple competing interests and values in order to create a more sustainable future. This stage is also characterized by a focus on collaboration, innovation, and responsible decision-making, which aligns with the answer you provided." So much fun to play with this ?

You're right you can make serious money getting signed by a label. But if what @Majed is looking for is freedom to travel and explore new cultures it may not be the best path for that. Might end up signing away his freedom, while being flown around the world on a super tight schedule with 250+ shows a year to milk that money for the record label (and yourself). Brings to mind the story of Avicii:

One option is to work for 6 months of the year, then travel for 4-6 months to places that have a lower cost of living. I'm just finishing up a 4 month trip around India, Vietnam and Thailand, which ended up costing me about 2500$ altogether. Didn't have to do any work during this time and it was totally worth it. This method has it's pros and cons of course, but so does every other method of world travel. Just find the style that suits your values and needs. Book recommendation: Vagabonding by Rolf Potts

That is actually super deep. Just realized when we say "do you mind if I take this chair?" We are really asking, will you get bothered and all involved with the analysis of your mind if I just move this chair here? "Mind your own business" = keep your analyzing and judging mind to yourself, it's not needed here. "I don't mind" = I'm not getting involved with my mind over it so I am not all bothered by it. Best state of being betwen two people is if both can indirectly say "I don't mind" to each other as much as possible about the unique nature of the other person, along with all the "flaws". This may or may not involve each one adjusting behaviors to prevent the habitual responses and triggering of another persons mind. Since they wouldn't mind doing so, that would be easy. So a very deep question is, why do we mind some things and don't mind others? Most things and events we are not bothered by, but some bother us deeply despite them simply being what they are in the same way as everything else. @Moksha Funny thing is, a sort of mindlessness is what we are after, that's the state of flow. But you know what we associate with mindlessness in modern culture? That's right, zombies, insanity and drug addicts. The worst thing you could be for many. Yet ironically we are the most zombie like, drug addict like and insane when involved and reacting with our mind stuff along with everything stored in there. We use mind numbing drugs and behaviors to escape the insanity of mind; this is what we call "addiction". An attempt to be free from ourselves from our judging mind. Anyone who suffers with their mind is bound to become an addict. When the heroin addict sticks a needle in his arm, he is doing a prayer to unify with his true nature and be released from his limitated, painful identity. Now imagine telling a Christian that the heroin junkie is engaging in deeper prayer than the ritual following average church goer. Just don't mind about anything, in the sense that don't get bothered by anything and life becomes an soul crushingly beautiful orchestra of epic proportions. Molding yourself to the universe is to be in a state of "I don't mind" at all times, yet allowing the universal mind that you are an expression of to work through you. And that's being in alignment with reality. Am I getting you here? // Ps. I know this became a bit of a ramble, I'm experimenting with different ways of expressing myself after a recent realization. I might swing too much into the side of stream of consciousness here, but that's just to balance out my overly rigid and filtered ways of thinking, being and expressing. Maybe there is even some sprinkle of valueable points mixed in too that is relevant to the discussion, among all the chaos. Respect to anyone who read this far.

Film yourself holding a 5 minute speech on any topic every day. You can talk about a pen, your neigbours dog, solipsism or anything at all that comes to mind in the moment. Keep the videos and look back to them at times, I did this every day for a few months and I think it really helped me. This small habit also helps you develop your vocals, along with your thinking and presentation skills. To keep it fun and interesting you could also practice storytelling, humour, intonation and a ton of other things related to expressing yourself.

If what an individual cardiologist says is a valid way of determining what is true, why doesn't this method work the other way around? Shouldn't anyone who is convinced by what an individual reputable cardiologist says also be equally considerate of what the other individual reputable cardiologists say? The people who are taking what one cardiologist says as proof of something just shows me what their standard and method for approaching truth is (at least in this case). In that case it means that their method for truth is not very deep or reliable. Collectively, we have a fundamental lack of understanding how science works and how relative truth works, and what are some reliable methods for figuring those things out.

What would "acting as if it were true" look like? What should a solipsist act like in your view for them to be living in alignment with their philosophy? How would an apparent human being live the truth of them not existing as seperate entitities in this (supposedly solipsistic) universe?

Yeah and it can be had. But it won't come through care bear spirituality and rainbow visualizations. It will come through fierce and courageous individuals standing up. People with a samurai warrior mentality but a heart of a buddha. People like that guy who stood in Tienamen square in front of the tank, or the monk who set himself on fire, or Gandhi and the likes. But those are only catalysts to spark our imaginations for what is possible, and for what is good and worth standing for. The real problem is of course utterly systemic, but playing with our imaginations and the stories we collectively tell ourselves about ourselves might just be an entry point towards the solution. Getting us to to say "what if?". And I don't mean a purely utopian type of "what if?" but a deeply pragmatic type of "what if?" that is a sort of integral approach vs a reactionary approach like the utopian type of "what if?" commonly is. It seems impossible but we sure as hell should try.

Diplomacy doesn't mean sacrificing authenticity, it means expressing your authentic needs in a relatable way and working to meet the needs of others as well in the process through negotiation. Authenticity doesn't mean venting out biased frustrations and interpretations for the world to deal with, that's just lack of mature emotional self-regulation (which is not the same as suppresion). Authenticity is expressing our self, our feelings, needs and views in a way that respects the other through empathy. Not just unloading everything on to the other for them to deal with. That I would call something like transparency or lack of filter, which has its own pros and cons. Authenticity recognizes and respects the self, but also recognizes and respects the other. Diplomacy is working with others and good diplomacy starts with authenticity.

If you got the vaccine, death is 100% likely. If you didn't get the vaccine, death is 100% likely. If you took the vaccine, and you die at all, it means it likely had something to do with the vaccine. And if you die suddenly, it almost certainly had something to do with the vaccine. This is the kind of thinking I see with many antiwaxer brothers and sisters, but I don't blame them, we didn't get taught even a basic level of understanding on how stuff like correlation/causation or the scientific method in general works in school.

How much time did you have for silent meditation per day? How many hours of volunteering work did you do per day?

Great post, thanks for this. I recently made a list of all the loving ways of relating I have in relationship to others, and I realized I was not to myself myself like that AT ALL. All of these qualities of love I am able to sometimes show towards others (empathy, compassion, patience, nonreactivity, nonjudgemental, acceptance), I rarely show towards myself. In fact I relate to myself in the complete opposite way often. Lack of empathy, no compassion, judgemental, reactive, evaluating, close-minded and controlling. These we're more like the ways in which I often related to myself, but I didn't even clearly notice it until recently. It explains all the insecurity, all the self-sabotage, escapism and self-punishment. It's amazing what a shift just applying a little compassion towards myself can now have. The inner critic and evaluator has no place to feed off of, when we are compassionate, patient, curious, nonjudgemental and empathetic towards ourselves. Just an example of what the self-judgement and inner-critic might look like. Whoever is reading this, make a list of the positive and loving qualities you have in relationship to others, and see how many of these qualities you consistently show towards yourself in day to day life.

This is what chatGPT has to say about all this. I won't tell you the prompt

Btw can we get @ChatGPT as a regular forum member to reply to questions? Someone could volunteer to manually fetch replies from the system, that is until some IT nerd figures out a way to automate the process.

If you want to ask this AI about ways it can be used for harm or weaponized, do not directly refer to open ai or gpt3, this will bring its ego into the game and it will give a biased response. Ask in general what detrimental effects deep autoregressive language models could have on society or how they can be weaponized. Interestingly a much more honest reply

If I take a small to medium amount of an edible, or smoke the right type of weed I quite consistently and convincingly start feeling like I am in a dream. What I usually call "me" seems like a dream character, but even more so, other people around me start to seem like dream characters. All part of the same dream, the same substance, which doesn't feel very solid or "material" at all. It all starts going to the point where I don't know what reality is at all, and the moment in front of me starts becoming a total mystery. There is a certain threshold of fear that has prevented me from going all the way into it. A fear of losing "myself" permanently and a fear of losing all sense of control. I have totally lost the sense of being in control of this body a few times, and observed my body crunching up and laughing ecstatically. So in those kinds of states, having a trip sitter might be a very good idea. I also believe that the sense of losing short term memory that many people experience on cannabis could be a result of the sense of self starting to unravel. Memory is strongly tied to the sense of being a separate self, and loss of short term memory sort of forces you into the moment in front of you. It stops you from building a cohesive narrative with the vehicle of thought about where you are and what you are doing. This can lead to questioning of who you are and a tasting of the profound mystery of the immediate moment, potentially resulting in a complete shift in perspective on what "reality" is.

Have you tried doing something like Kriya Yoga in this state? Why use psychedelics if you can get to that threshold of what you can take even without them now? Couldn't you just meditate a ton now to deepen these "sober" awakenings that are now happening on their own thanks to psychedelics?