Insightful27

This reading was assigned to me in class, I can't believe that this got published in NIH. It is a near death experience of a neuroscientist of 20 years. Must read. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6170087/ "Communication there goes light years beyond our simplistic linear thinking, beyond the bottleneck of linguistically constrained awareness we experience in these physical bodies in the earthly realm." "I came to see that unconditional love has the potential to bring infinite healing."

I emailed this to my philosophy professor and asked if this was evidence against materialism, here is his reply (he is a materialist) I was tempted a few years ago to write something about this very question, but I never did, though I was satisfied that the reports of people with NDE’s could be explained consistently with materialism. For there to be a problem for materialism, there needs to be conscious experience at the same time as there is no brain activity of a kind sufficient (given materialism) for conscious experience. So it’s not enough to show that at some time the patient’s brain exhibited no activity, and at some time the patient had a conscious experience; the two times must be the same. But it’s very hard to pinpoint the times of the two things. It is not true that brain activity simply ceases entirely when the heart stops, but as far as I can tell it’s very hard to determine how far relevant brain activity has entirely stopped after someone’s heart has stopped, in part because we don’t really know which brain activity is relevant to sustaining conscious experience, and in part because we can’t easily tell what, if anything, is going on deep in the brain of someone in the ER. Apparently, though, some brain activity continues for a surprisingly long time—several minutes—after the heart stops. And it’s hard to say when the conscious experience reported by a patient actually took place. There seem to be two ways in which we might tell. First, we might take the patient’s word for it. But if someone is revived and reports having had certain experiences five minutes ago (or whatever), we can’t just assume that their sense of when they had the experiences is correct. After all, when you remember your dreams, you typically can’t say when you did the dreaming, and even if you had a sense that it was some time ago, rather than just now, that might sense well be inaccurate. Second, we might find a match between the content of the conscious experience reported (for example, what the patient seemed to hear) and sounds (e.g., of human speech) actually made while the patient was unresponsive. If the match is surprising enough that we take the experience to have been veridical (e.g., the nurse spoke of her dog, Felix), then we have a time for when the experience occurred. However, we’ve all seen TV shows of people in the ER “dying” and being revived, so we can easily imagine what might be said in such circumstances; that’s why the match has to be surprising. I’m skeptical that the match is ever that surprising. There is a skeptical literature on NDE’s and their significance for materialism. An activist scholar named Keith Augustine has written on the topic, but I’m sure there are others. For some psychologists, NDE’s are just an interesting psychological phenomenon to investigate; they’re not gunning for materialism. For all I know, there’s experimental work too. Let me add one more thing. If conscious experience occurs in the absence of any brain activity at all, then not only is materialism false, but so too are those forms of dualism that take certain kinds of brain activity to be (merely) causally necessary (and sufficient) for conscious experience. The snag is that these are the most plausible forms of dualism, since they accommodate the fact that ordinarily, as far as we can tell, we enjoy conscious experience of different kinds only when our brains are undergoing certain kinds of activity. Dualists would need to explain why, ordinarily, my auditory cortex has to be active for be to have auditory experiences , but not in the case of NDE’s. There is already a problem for dualists to explain what the brain does for the mind if the mind is immaterial; but the problem is aggravated if NDE’s are experiences in the absence of all brain activity.

I found this post from JP taking about Jung's concept of circumambulation of the self and immediately made the connection to the way Deida talked about purpose in Way of The Superior Man. Basically the concept is that you have a series of mini-purpose's that you need to work through, like the layers on an onion. As you work through them you get closer to your true self and what you really desire. Any thoughts about this or about how this ties in with Leo's idea about life purpose?

I recently bought the Claude Opus 3 after seeing it on Leo's blog and found something really creative that you can do find your life purpose and ideas for task/projects to get you there. I generated a PDF from OneNote with all my notes from the Life Purpose course, uploaded it to Claude, and asked it questions to help get me on track. Some of the best questions I asked were: -Given what you know about me, what are some different ways I could formulate my Life Purpose statement to make it sound more authentic? -Give me a vision of what my life could look like if I was living my Life Purpose, be specific -Give me a list of tasks and projects that I can do in order to get on track with my Life Purpose -Brainstorm a list of people who have a life purpose similar to mine and a brief summary of how they did it It's not a substitute for doing the real inner work but I think that it is a great tool to use especially if you took the Life Purpose course and want help brainstorming an working on your Life Purpose

@OBEler You make good points. I think I will take an extended break from Actualized. However, I do still see spirituality as a core part of my life and Life Purpose.

@OBEler Right, but "spiritual teacher" is actually pretty vague. There are a lot of ways to be a "spiritual teacher", for example I want to earn my PhD is Psychology and become a psychedelic therapist.

I am in the process of trying to find a meditation cushion that doesn't put my feet to sleep. I think that the cosmic meditation cushion might work and I wanted to ask here and see if anyone had any feedback if they have tried the cushion. https://www.sagemeditation.com/cosmic-cushion-and-zabuton-meditation-cushion-set/?revpage=2 #product-reviews

@Space Right, I am still learning how to use AI to get more specific answers

@Space Hard to put in all the results as they are get long, here is an example.

The purpose of this journal is to keep track of my training and insights over time. Feel free to reach out to connect if you also do BJJ.

@Thought Art I don't have a problem with Aikido, what I am skeptical about is the training partner moving across room when he barely touches him, it's ridiculous. It makes me sad because I have a lot of respect for him and he has a lot of good things to say in his book on body awareness, things like this tend to discredit him in my mind. Perhaps I am being dense and something is going over my head, but I don't know how you get around being skeptical after seeing something like this (there are many more videos online).

I am re-reading Ralston's book on body awareness. He talks about how he got into martial arts work in order to get better at his consciousness studies, not the other way around. I thought that was super interesting and that is why I am doing it. I love the idea of showing up to the Dojo day after day to understand consciousness and self better.

@MuadDib I just had the time to go through your entire post and I loved it. Keep up the long detailed posts! I wonder where you could buy a club like that... https://a.co/d/eET9uOy Not too bad

I need someone who understands AI better than me to explain which AI's are better than others. All I can think of is how big of a LLM they are using, what else goes into making a good AI and what is the best AI on the market right now?

Training Notes 4/3/24 -When you take someone's back make sure to roll to the side and not straight back because this will make is easier for them to get away -When you get to a mounted triangle you can pull up on the head just like in a normal triangle to finish it -If someone is in turtle and you can't get your hooks in you can grab their ankle and take them to technical mount -From side control, if someone is framing really well against you, you can fall forward so that they can not bench you off them and isolate their far side arm and go for an Americana or if they straighten their arm you can pull up and sit on their head squeezing your knees to hold them still. Now, you can either hit a kimora or fall back into an arm bar. -When you fall back into an arm bar, keep them as close to you as possible so that your body is touching them the whole time. If you give them space they can pull their arm back in and get their elbow to the mat and escape.

I want to study at a Buddhist Monastery for this summer (3 months) and I have no idea how to go about finding a place to stay. I currently live in the U.S.A but I'm willing to travel almost anywhere. If anyone could help direct me in this process I would greatly appreciate it as I don't know where to start.

No I love it man! It's great to share this journey with you guys! Let me know what you think about your first Jiu Jitsu classes and get ready to get smashed lol.

@Thought Art what do you think of some of his videos on YouTube? I really like Ralston but in some of those videos it looks like Akido bullshit

@Thought Art Nice man! Cool to find someone else who is into Jiu-Jitsu on here. I just finished reading Zen Body Being for the 2nd time. Have you read any of Ralston's books about effortless power?

I'm taking a really intense philosophy of mind class at college right now, and I got to thinking back when Leo has talked about academic philosophy and that it's a limited, pyramid scheme, etc. Obviously it is massively flawed and, (at least in the class I'm taking) is totally caught in the materialist paradigm. Nonetheless, has anyone here found any value in it? Do you think that it helps with complex reasoning skills that are important for understanding reality? Curious to hear your thoughts.

Today we learned more half-guard and I had some really productive sparring. Key takeaways: -When in half-guard keep your bottom hip on the floor (like when you are sleeping) that way if they pass the knee shield they don't pass your guard totally. -When you do an over-under pass make sure to keep your head up and use good posture that way you cause them more pain and they will give you the pass faster -When you shoot your leg and arm through from bottom half guard, if they get a wizzar, you can roll them. If the post with their arm then you can jump up and take their back. Also, if they get a wizzar, you can throw your leg as high up on their back as possible and shoot your leg through for a triangle -When doing triangles, you can leg go of their arm and use the free arm to hold their head as you cut the angle. Not really something that I learned but today in sparring I was able to do a duck under and take the back, do a toraondo pass, do an over under pass, and sumbit with a zipper choke from the back all in the same roll. It is really cool that I am retaining the things I am learning and that I can use them in a real roll.

Training Log #1: 1. When doing an over-under pass you need to use your bottom hand to grab their leg and use that to keep it in place as you step over. DO NOT just gabel grip the far side leg and hold on for dear life. This is something that I really want to add to my game as I think that I could get to it a lot by trying to knee slide and hoping they put up a high knee shield. \ 2. We are not allowed to do dangerous throws, but when you are going for a throw both of your feet should be facing the same direction as your partner.

I want to start this journal to document my journey on improving my brain and motivating myself to higher value activities. You could think about personal development as having 3 main levels, Neurological, Psychological and Philosophical (or Metaphysical). In order to do serious work in the proceeding level you need to have mastered the previous level, and that is what I will be focusing on. Main Goals - Leverage Dopamine to be motivated to do things that align with my Life Purpose and top 10 values - Cut out all the activities that give me dopamine that are actually not worth doing (i.e. bad habits) - Create a vision that is powerful enough to keep me on track

Where are you getting this statistic from? I like the effort you put into this post.

I'm a college student and I have been prescribed modafinil and Vyvanse for my ADD. So far I have used them extremely sparingly, and have worked on things like my diet, sleep, stress, etc. to better my health and focus. Recently though I have been asking myself why I shouldn't take them every day, or at least more consistently. There are potential side effects that aren't fully understood (and maybe couldn't be understood) that I am risking. But in a cost-benefit analysis, because the benefits are so great (Life Purpose progress, earning more money, productivity, better grades), what reason could you give for it not being worth the costs? My thinking is something along the lines of choosing to risk the costs of psychedelics because the spiritual benefits are so great. The only reason I can currently think of for not using modafinil consistently is that I don't want my ability to focus on a drug. But even so, I could use it in such a way as to not let that happen. For example, taking extended breaks and using modafinil as a way to be more productive in improving my health and earning more money to invest in my health. I wanted to come here and get some perspective, and see if there is anything I'm not thinking about or if I'm being biased in some way.