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Fucking gross. This is just a cult of bootlickers defending the guy they've put on a pedestal. Nothing more conscious or more sophisticated is happening here. And now there's equivocation on "God." (Suddenly everyone isn't God anymore --- only Leo is God and poor God needs a lot of patience) Now this is supposedly "corrupt" and "devilry," and apparently one main deciding criterion is whether something "helps Leo," (as if every discussion is obligated to optimize for Leo's interests.) Meanwhile, none of you have anything to say when Leo went on his thousandth rant about science and scientists, or when he regularly opens with lines like: "You don't know what the fuck you're talking about." "I'm the standard of epistemology." "You ought to use my definition of cult." "I'm the most awake out of all you spiritual rats." Apparently all of that is "sophisticated," "conscious," and carefully calibrated to "maximize" truth. Or when he gaslights people for holding him to standards that he himself established. Or when he insists he never said something, is shown that he clearly did, and then ends the conversation with, "I can't be wrong because I once said self-deception is endless, therefore if I'm wrong, I'm actually right about self-deception being endless." And the list goes on and on. None of you actually care about tone. None of you really care about truth or substance. Your supposedly "sophisticated" or "conscious" analysis of what best serves truth begins and ends with whether Leo is the one saying it. It has virtually nothing to do with the content or with the tone of the message.

This is my last reply in this clusterfuck thread and I wont waste any more time on this. So allegedly some people here have big issues with closed-mindedness and with someone not using proper learning frames (because "lessons will be lost on them," because "they are not open enough"). I want these people to present a definition of closed-mindedness to the readers under which they can establish that Leo isn't closed-minded (but me and Carl are). If they can't do that, then I will take it that none of them really care about any of their listed norms in a principled way, and that it is just empty mini-Leo rhetoric on their part. Present a definition of closed-mindedness, under which a guy who has repeatedly claimed to be the most awake being in the universe, has repeatedly claimed that no one else knows what they are talking about, claimed that he is the standard of epistemology, claimed that he has little to nothing to learn from humans anymore (with regard to spirituality), and who stops 99% of his debates with "you don't know what you are talking about" and then frequently refuses to elaborate; and a guy who wants to dictate what definition of cult ought to be used by everyone; and a guy who has made multiple inferentially justified, highly confident statements about alternative spiritual pathways (like what certain forms of meditation or yoga can do for you or get you to, even though he hasn't seriously practiced them for multiple decades); and a guy who explicitly stated that he can't be wrong about being the most awake being on the planet <--- that this guy isn't closed-minded, and that this guy is inside a proper learning frame (in which he can learn new things and correct false beliefs); but a guy who gives detailed arguments about why he thinks the way he does, who qualifies most of his statements, and who immediately acknowledges epistemic limitations and clarifies how he can be wrong <--- that this guy is the closed-minded guy, and that this guy isn't inside a proper learning frame. [ It's very transparent that none of you seriously care about any of these norms. These norms and mini-Leo ticks (where you use one-word catchphrases like "closed-minded" to derail conversations) are exclusively used to enforce Leo's dogmas and none of them are used in a serious, principled way. The moment you would need to apply these norms to Leo, that's the moment when all of you suddenly stop caring about them. ] ------------------------------------------------------- Some people here have been dead silent about a lot of things, and it's clear to me that Aurum is only interested in highly selectively engaging with arguments. So here is Leo's alien transformation failure spelled out again, since most of you guys extremely conveniently ignored it last time. By the way, do you guys know how your trusted guy responded to @UnbornTao's "Where is the video, Leo?" question? He said, "I'm not going to bend over backwards over your closed-mindedness." <---- Even though he created the enforcing "bullshit" standard for himself. That's your Tier 2, epistemically responsible guy, who is true to his own standards and words, who can own up to things, and who won't discourage you from holding him accountable using the standard that he created for himself (perfectly describes a guy, who cares a lot about not creating or contributing to cult-like dynamics, right?). Aurum - I dont see you holding Leo accountable , but I see you a lot throwing around the label of "closed-mindedness" towards people who do want to hold Leo accountable. Your only way out this is to claim that you didnt know that Leo claimed these things about the alien transformation thing - but in that case , that just shows your very low level engagement with the arguments here (where you come in here with big wide shoulders and throw the "closed-mindedness" label and implication around without having any fucking clue about the relevant context some of the Leo critiques target). And this is just one of the points you failed to engage with, I gave you a lot more than just this, and I left other effort posts here with a lot of links and - but it is very clear at this point that you only highly selectively want to engage with things and you are disinterested in actually reading through the posts and the links in detail before you chime in with your quick uninformed emotionally baiting comments on things. Let's correct that. He doesn't just think highly of his awakening; he thinks the highest of himself while degrading everyone else. To this day, he still makes childlike comparative judgments like "I'm stronger than you, and you guys are weak as shit compared to me," about every other being in the universe. And yes, that claim is extremely unwarranted on his part. He is pretentiously using extremely weak inferential judgments, and that's supposed to be his "justification" for claiming that he is the most awake. He has no fucking data or direct access to who has what level of awakening. And even if he had direct access to the content of the awakenings of every other being in the universe (and to the awakenings of every being who has ever lived), he would still need to presuppose his own circularly justified notion and norm of what "being the most awake" even means. So: 1) Let's not pretend that he has any substantive reply to any of these problems, and lets not pretend that his claim has any serious leg to stand on, or that he carefully and rigorously worked through all of this before vomited out his pretentious statements. 2) Let's also not pretend that you would ever entertain this kind of reasoning from any teacher other than Leo. You conceded that it is an inferential comparative judgment, so it is subject to being wrong. Yet I haven't seen you once press Leo on his credence with respect to that claim. I haven't seen you once press him on why he makes comparative judgments in the first place, and I haven't seen you once question what purpose those explicit comparative and degrading judgments serve. I guess all of this is also included in your "trust" in Leo, along with his infinitely delayed alien transformation-on-camera claim and his healing claims. (Before you make your usual thought-terminating "you're closed-minded" move again, I'll qualify my position once more: the argument does not rest on the premise that these things must be impossible. The argument is about adjusting credence based on evidence and owning up to failure—and failing should obviously lower your credence in such claims.) My original example had a lot to do with ethics, but you couldn't engage with that, so you went with your own modified version instead. You also had a very hard time entertaining the idea that there is no contradiction in someone agreeing with Leo on all of his spiritual takes while also having issues with some of Leo's teaching methods and behavior. But in any case, the argument that "I have seen him make awakening claims, and I managed to verify some of those claims. Therefore, the more I manage to verify, the more I'm going to trust that his other awakening claims (that I haven't yet verified) are true as well" could work. But your special privileging of Leo and your dead silence about his failures and about some of his behavior go beyond any reasonable notion of trust you can appeal to. Leo hasn't demonstrated a single empirically verifiable miracle yet, so you have zero reason to trust him on miracle claims. And yet, you have been dead silent about his failure to produce the alien transformation on camera and about his healing claims. It doesn't matter how many of his awakening claims you managed to verify, because there is no straightforward bridge from that to his empirical claims. It would be like taking some verifiable facts from the Bible (for example, that Jesus existed) and then pretending that it is therefore reasonable to infer and trust that every other fantastical claim presented in the Bible is likely true as well (such as the miracle claims surrounding Jesus or the claim that Jesus is the Son of God). Given your trust standard, the exact same "I'm just trusting my teacher" argument can be made by many other people whom you would negatively label as "blindly putting their teacher on a pedestal and taking certain claims to be true from their teacher without verifying them first." Buddhist and nondual students can use the exact same argument: "Im going to trust my teacher's w,z claims, because I managed to verify that his x,y claims were true." So I guess, all of the students who managed to verify some of the things their teacher told them are justified (by your standards) in giving special privilege to their teachers as well. And I'm sure you won't put any negative label on them for it, and I'm sure you won't reassure Leo about how these supposedly low-consciousness, cognitively undeveloped, conformist individuals are lost and not doing proper spiritual work. I thought this was supposed to be about "doing the work" (like using the suggested methods) and not about special-privileging your teacher's explicit propositions and dogmas, or about maintaining some kind of polished, special image of your teacher. But again, this is nothing more than empty virtue-signaling on your part. You don't seriously care about these standards and norms, because you make your own judgments about other teachers, and you are perfectly fine with being closed off, labeling them with a bunch of negative labels, and special-privileging Leo - even though you haven't gone through their exact methods for their exact suggested timelines. (you havent done half a century worth of meditations or yoga work and yet you are perfectly okay with placing your bets and with judging those methods and the efficacy of those methods and the efficacy of other teachers). And the exact same shit applies to Leo as well, but you will never, ever publicly assert to have an issue with Leo being 100% confident in his stance and with him being 100% closed off to all other teachers, despite the fact that he has only directly practiced a fraction of a fraction of other teachers' methods (for a fraction of a fraction of their suggested timelines) Yes, that's why debate won't resolve this. One of us is just going to be mistaken. "One of you is going to be mistaken," but the moment I present you with similar epistemic challenges, you suddenly categorize them as "me trying to gaslight you with nonsense," even though it's clear that you have no substantive reply to those epistemic challenges. Yet you are still perfectly confident that you are right and that Leo is right, and you talk down to everyone who disagrees with you from your pretentious high horse, even though the exact same "I've personally verified claims x, y, and z relative to a different body of work" argument is equally applicable to many other people. Neither you nor Leo has any substantive response to underdetermination issues, and neither of you arrived at your position by carefully and exhaustively ruling out all alternative options. Yet both of you pretentiously act as though you have some kind of high horse to ride and some kind of special epistemic leg to stand on. You and Leo both refuse to acknowledge your epistemic limitations, and instead you play the "I'm absolutely certain in my position" game. Then, whenever someone challenges that certainty, both of you dismiss it as "gaslighting."

He wont answer in any straightforward way. My predicition is that maybe after enough pusback from you guys - he will try to wiggle himself out by doing desperate , dishonest and hardcore reinterpretive work on his own past statements. Leo is not an honest actor when he is cornered. He will pretend that when he made those statements that he wasn't referring to having the ability to transform in this world (even though it's super clear from his statements that he was going to record himself with a camera, upload it to youtube, and shock the world with it). Whatever state of consciousness he was referring to in those statements, it was a state of consciousness where there is still a camera, there is still youtube, and there is still a world that could be shocked by the uploaded video. (Dont let him bullshit his way out of this.) Typically, the cycle with Leo on this is something like this: Leo: "X is imagined." (He uses an incredibly broad notion of "imagination" that includes things that you can't change, but he uses this term so that he can look cool by giving the implication that shit can be changed.) Then you ask: "Okay, but then why don't you do grandiose shit if X is just imagined?" Leo: "Well, imagination is subtle and very intelligent, and just because it is imagined doesn't mean that you can easily change it." So now we suddenly walk back the initial implication about shit being able to be changed easily to a position where everyone started with (where it is recognized that certain limitations are real in the sense that you don't have the ability to just change them on a whim). Leo will also rhetorically use "you are just imagining X" (like "you are just imagining enlightenment") in order to undermine your arguments and claims when you disagree with him, but he will carve out endless nuance about how imagination works when he is pushed on his own claims about what is real and what is possible. All the nuance about imagination flies out the window the moment he needs to engage with your arguments and claims (everything will be just broadly "imagined," without adding any specificity or nuance to it), and then infinite nuance about imagination will suddenly appear the moment he needs to defend his claims. ------ Given this reasoning, it's clear why he failed to deliver on his claim. He wasn't rigorous enough, and he jumped light-years in his logic. He probably made an inference from, "I accessed infinite intelligence and recognized what is possible from that state," to, "Of course, given this previously acquired knowledge from higher states, and given that I now recognize that limitations are imagined, of course I will be able to record myself turning into an alien on camera." (equivocating between God and his ego and equivocating between different states of consciousness and what is possible given different states of consciousness). He makes this move a lot: where he propositionalize insights that he learned from higher states and then assumes that he can operationalize all of those insights in his current state simply because he once recognized that the limitations are "imaginary." (For instance, retrospectively using the propositionalized insight that "he is God" to justify the claim that whatever his ego is aware of right now is all that exists, and that when he closes his eyes, the world ceases to exist.) And one reason why all of this is exceptionally weird coming from him - is because he is the one who is hardcore pushing and aggressively defending the view that different states of consciousness are robustly metaphysical and not merely epistemic models for making sense of things (and he is the one who argues that non-dual people are radically wrong from assuming that different states of consciousness arent robustly metaphysical).

"No, u" is the highest quality response avalaible.

Now apply all that shit to your own post, and then you nulled all of the points you tried to make there.

@Someone here i dont expect leo to honestly engage or answer any of those questions. He is a master at being a weasel. This was to demonstrate to others how Leo refuse to walk back claims and refuse to change his credence on claims and refuse utilize more epistemic humility given that he failed to deliver on the alien claim. Its cool that you suddenly recognize now that harsh rhetoric isnt effective and isnt good (when its used against Leo), but you very rarely had to bring this up when Leo used this kind of rhetoric against other people. Maybe I should have used the "you dont know what you are talking about" , and "im more awake than you" and "im the standard on epistemology" as a response and then my rhetoric would have been more acceptable. This point about the alien transformation has been brought up multiple times now. Do you know what Leo's last response to this question was? He told unborntao, "I won't bend over backwards over your closed-mindedness." So that's how he clarifies things and owns up to things. Again, to be super clear on this: he created the standard for himself. He said that a camera should be able to record his transformation, and when someone asks him about it, they are the bad guy(the closed-minded one) for asking for it. How is that not enforcing cult-like dynamics, where he can freely make any bullshit claim and, when held accountable for it, infinitely gaslight you into believing that you are the bad guy for holding him accountable for the very thing that he explicitly told you to hold him accountable for?

@Someone here dont pretend that you care about tone. You havent once engaged substantively with any of my criticism in the other thread - you only emotionally bashed out like a good leo acolyte. You dont have the spine to stand up when leo use harsh rhetoric or when he undermines the cognition of other people , so dont babysit your tier 2 god now, he can take it. I also heard from one Leo Gura guy that this rhetoric is effective against closed-minded people. Answer the question - where is his empircal delivery on the transforsformation claim or on the healing claim?

At the very least - holding him to his own spelled out standards would be a good start. Calling someone closed-minded or implying that someone is closed-minded for holding Leo to his own standards is one of the most spineless instances of being a free water carrier for him that anyone can or attempt to display here.

Unfortunately, it's not all it is, because there are a bunch of mods here and non-mods who don't just enable this but even support it. I respect you for calling this out for what it is, but again, we have a bunch of mini-Leos here having their never-ending Leo ticks: "thinking for themselves" and "being open-minded" (which, in practice, just means employing all the Leo rhetoric to exclusively enforce all the Leo Gura dogmas). None of these people have any clear, principled stance on open-mindedness. Their "open-mindedness" only applies to Leo, where anything goes. But if there were any other person here who disagreed with Leo and employed the exact same tactics to enforce their own spiritual views, all of these people would label that person "closed-minded." None them could give a definition of closed-mindedness under which Leo wouldnt be closed-minded. A guy who has repeatedly claimed to be the most awake being in the universe, claimed that no one else knows what they're talking about, claimed that he is the standard of epistemology, claimed that he has little to nothing left to learn from humans (with regard to spirituality), and who ends 99% of his debates with "you don't know what you're talking about" ; a guy who wants to dictate which definition of "cult" everyone ought to use; a guy who refuses to engage in detail or explain specifically why and how you're wrong; and a guy who makes inferentially justified, highly confident statements about alternative spiritual paths (such as what yoga or certain forms of meditation can do for you or lead you to), even though he hasn't practiced them for decades—That guy is considered open-minded, but anyone who calls into question his empirical claims (claims he has failed to deliver on after years of making them) is considered closed-minded. If Leo were his own student, he would have left himself a long time ago, and both Leos would have labeled the other like "this guy is arrogant and closed-minded and this guy doesnt know what the fuck he is talking about, and im more awake than him "

No. This shit unironically feels like debating a drugged-up person in the park who is talking grandiosely and having a psychosis.

You do not understand your own claims, since you couldn't deliver on any of them. To be extremely clear on this, you haven't delivered once on your miracle claims or your alien transformation claim, and you still refuse to adjust your claims or your credence regarding those claims. You pretend to know much more than you actually do. If you knew how this shit worked, you would have already delivered on your claims and wouldn't just talk big with 0 results after years of failure. The only thing we have seen so far from you is you talking grandiose about yourself, you making excuses and delivering 0 empirical results with respect to your empirical claims. But sure, sure—we are the ones who don't know what we are talking about, while you do. That's why, once again, you haven't demonstrated shit yet. I guess we are in the infinitely "sit tight" period and you are in the "I will make infinite excuses why I cant deliver on my own claims and I will infinitely weasel my way out of my own standards" period, right? Anything but having the spine and the epistemic responsibility to own up to your own claims and to your own standards. The camera was the issue and not your lack of understanding of how reality works, right?

Oh, sure. I don't think I need to have definite answers to your questions in order to recognize language and conceptual games. A lot of people will play specialty games in a way where conceptualization and trips will be categorized as direct experience. I've never had an issue admitting my limitations. If 99% of the people here were to rigorously go through and check each and every one of their affirmed propositions related to metaphysics—where only direct experience is categorized as knowledge, and inferences, conceptualization, and experience are not—then their honest answer would be, "I don't know," as well.

I gave you a lot that does not rely on this premise or on the premise of who is the most awake. But also notice the subtle epistemic differences here. You have this premise - "I manage to successfully verify some of the claims he said" - and then from there you want to get to "therefore I believe he is justfied to behave the way he does, and therefore this Leo dude is justified in believing that he is the most awake person in existence"???. Thats a big fucking jump there. I don't want to strawman you there, but if that's not what your core argument is, then I don't see the relevance of your response to any of my points. Also to give my personal opinion on this—I think you are insane for this. You shouldn't give such special privileges to anyone. The ethics you are okay with should not be dictated by anyone, regardless of how spiritually awake they are or how asymmetric the knowledge difference is. (And yes, Leo has made such comments and justifications in the past where he implied multiple times that the cognitive undermining and "Im the most awake" rhetoric he used was necessary to help the "closed-minded" awaken). The effect of his rhetoric is an empirical question—and there can be no hiding behind "you don't understand" claims. We see the effects, and we see the very clear negative feedback. This special privilege-giving attitude alone goes against the core "you shouldn't idolize me and should only focus on the work" teaching. This is why most of us here have emphasized this multiple times. That there is the teaching, and then there is what goes down in practice. You get desensitized to the "him being special" bullshit, to the point where you think the most reasonable default position is to grant him insane special privileges. And to be very clear on this - All of this comparative "who is the most awake" shit is inferentially justified and both you and Leo know this. And both you and Leo know that such inferential comparative judgements are subject to be wrong (especially , again, when you dont have access to all the data that you make your claims about) And as an additional point to all of that, the Relativity (where there are ever-deeper awakenings and previous shit gets recontextualized by additional shit) alone should make Leo much more reserved about making "who is the most awake" claims. You have no clue how your next awakening will recontextualize your understanding of the awakening hierarchy/scale. All of this shit is retrospectively justified and retrospectively recontextualized (again, even if I grant that the Relativity frame is not just epistemic and conceptual but that it is actually robustly metaphysical). ----- As long as you concede either of these configurations, the "Leo should change his behavior and rhetoric" argument goes through: As long as you concede that you can be the most awake being in existence without knowing with absolute certainty that you are the most awake being in existence; or As long as you concede that you can be the most awake being in the universe, know with absolute certainty that you are the most awake being in the universe, and not make any public statements about it; or As long as you concede that you can be the most awake being in the universe, know that with absolute certainty, make public statements about it, but not make cognition-undermining comments alongside those statements. ----- I can create more configurations if you want. The point is just to give you an intuition pump about the things he can change that does not turn on spiritual disagreements. You can think of it this way: Clone Leo a 100 times in your mind and maintain that each clone is the most awake being in the universe , maintain that each clone knows with absolute certainty how awake other beings are, and then slightly change each clone's teaching style, rhetoric, and behavior.

The narcissism critique, the "he is narcissistic" critique, the "lack of integrity" critique, and the "you shouldn't bring attention to the idea or declare yourself to be more awake than every other being in the universe" critique do not rely on the premise that Leo is not the most awake being in the universe. You can go back and read my previous posts. I provided numerous links throughout this thread documenting the behavior I consider problematic. Feel free to actually go through those examples, respond to them individually and/or comprehensively, and provide an explanation that makes them no longer problematic while still preserving your view that Leo has integrity and that his commitment to teaching is more important than preserving his special image. You can criticize the morals, judgment, rhetoric, or behavior of a spiritual teacher without assuming that their spiritual realization is false. These are separate questions.(unless you want to make a weird move, where you want to collapse that seperation, and where you want to imply that every instance of bad behavior was necessary (that it was the optimal strategy for accomplishing Leo's teaching goals and that only Leo possesses the special knowledge required to understand why behaving that way was both necessary and beneficial). Lets suppose, for the sake of argument, that Leo actually is the most awake being in the universe. Lets also suppose that he genuinely possesses special abilities that allow him to know (with absolute certainty) the level of awakening of every conscious being in existence. Even if I grant all of that, the criticism still stands: You can be the most awake being in the universe and still choose not to repeatedly create threads declaring that you are the most awake being in the universe while explicitly undermining everyone else's cognition. If the stated purpose of this work is helping people awaken, making them more sovereign, encouraging independent realization, and emphasizing that people should "do the work," then repeatedly redirecting attention toward yourself and your own exceptional status is obviously counterproductive. A Tier 2 guy who is the most awake being in the universe and can telepathically (with certainty) perfectly read everyone's level of awakening somehow failed to recognize how ineffective his "I'm the most awake being in the universe for the 1000th time, and everyone else is a fucking spiritual rat and should be beaten with a crowbar" rhetoric is (even though multiple people have given him very clear negative feedback about it) - Especially, again, if his main goal is to teach us, keep us receptive, help us awaken, and make us more sovereign. If his primary objective is teaching, , helping people awaken, and increasing their sovereignty, then it is very weird why he continued using rhetoric that many of us repeatedly clarified was producing a negative effect. Again, notice that this criticism does not depend on the claim that he is not the most awake being in the universe. His rhetoric is problematic (regardless whether he is the most awake or not) : because of how it comes across; because Leo would never grant comparable claims if they would came from someone else; because many members of his own audience have repeatedly made it clear that this rhetoric makes them significantly less receptive; and because it predictably creates cult dynamics that undermine the very goals he claims to value (especially again if you combine that specialty claim with undermining the cognition of disagreers). More specifically: It undermines people's sovereignty. It encourages exceptional trust in Leo's authority. It encourages people to become increasingly dependent on him while simultaneously distrusting every other spiritual teacher, because all of them supposedly belong to the category of "they don't know what they're talking about." It also encourages people to distrust their own judgment and discernment (If the claim is that every single advanced spiritual teacher in history failed to reach Leo's level of realization, and if no one else truly understands consciousness, then why would anyone on this forum ever trust their own discernment?) And no, the reply that "every other spiritual community has the exact same problems" does not work - because not every other spiritual community has a leader who claims to be more awake than everyone else in the universe , not every spiritual leader undermines the cognition of every single student every singe time when there is a disagreement ,not every spiritual community is set up in a way where your progress can only be evaluated by the leader (again, the "you can validate everything for yourself" doesnt work in practice, because if you do the work and disagree on things, then that can only mean that you havent done enough work and there is no possible scenario under which you can do enough work and disagree with Leo on spirituality - the "did enough" standard can only be called by Leo and there isn't any independent standard from Leo's judgement. ). Now, let's temporarily stop assuming those two premises: (That Leo is the most awake being in the universe and that Leo can flawlessly determine everyone else's level of awakening.) And lets challenge the implication that the reasonable default position is simply to grant those premises until someone can disprove them with absolute certainty. Lets be clear and honest here - Neither you nor Leo would ever consistently apply that standard. Imagine someone else making exactly the same argument to you.: Imagine a scenario where a teacher behaved in ways you considered manipulative or morally questionable. And then one of the teacher's follower told you: "The reasonable thing is to simply assume this behavior is necessary because this person is the most spiritually advanced being in existence. He understands the effects of his rhetoric better than anyone else, so you should trust the process, regardless of how much negative feedback his students express." In what world would you ever accept an implication or response like that? Now, If your response is something like "Of course I would grant that someone other than Leo could be the most awake being in the universe." Okay. then let's check how serious you are about that. Grant that special priviledge to me (After all, you cannot be absolutely certain that I am not the most awake being in the universe, right? - And thats the standard you are asking everyone else to adopt) So, from this point forward, assume that I am more knowledgeable than you: Assume I am the ultimate authority on epistemology. Assume that whenever we disagree (about spirituality, definitions of cults) that I am correct by default and that everyone ought to use the definition of cult that I provided Do not rely on the possibility that I might be mistaken (because again, the reasonable move is to grant those things to me, because if you dont then you are closed-minded or not ready for this advanced work). And from now on, you need to accept all of my rhetoric and behavior because you don't yet understand how this is going to be beneficial for you and everyone else. You can validate everything that I say, but you need to keep in mind that, as long as we disagree about anything I care about, that that will automatically mean that you are wrong and that you need to do more work. This is because sufficient validation is analytically defined as you agreeing with me on all the things I care about, and there is no standard outside of me that can tell you when you have done enough and proper work. (So, let me take on that role and be an absolute authority on what "enough work" and "enough validation" means - actually let me contradict myself since this work is paradoxical and say that there is a standard that is technically outside of me - this is the standard: Keep doing the work until the point where you agree with me perfectly on everything I care about. Until then, any disagreement simply indicates that you have more work to do) if you acknowledge that all of that shit is completely unreasonable and you can entertain for a moment that Leo is not necessarily that special or infallible as he trie to pretend to be - then we can begin discussing Leo's epistemology. Explain: Why is there no video demonstrating the alien transformation that Leo repeatedly claimed he both could and would perform on camera? (Also - Why, when confronted about failing to deliver on that prediction, was his response dismissive rather than reflective ( where he acknowledge that he was wrong or at the very least acknowledge that he failed to deliver on that claim)? Why has there never been any healing miracle done by Leo ? How do you explain the repeated situations in which Leo denies making statements that he demonstrably made, even after evidence is presented? (One example that illustrates [this was one of my interaction with him] , you can search for my post related to this, its in this thread and I provided relevant links there) This was the situation: Leo said : "I never claimed that I can't be wrong." I then presented him with a post where he wrote: "I can be full of shit, but not on this." His response then shifted from: "I never claimed X." to "Just because I claimed X doesn't mean X is true." (Those are entirely different propositions - The first concerns whether the claim was ever made and the second concerns whether the content of the claim was correct) This is a sneaky and spineless shift in the discussion so that he doesnt need to take responsibility when he is cornered. He then ended with one of the most manipulative moves, when he uttered (paraphrased): "I cannot ultimately be wrong because I once uttered the claim that self-deception is endless. Therefore, if I turn out to be wrong about something, that will just confirm my broader claim that self-deception is endless." - Given this logic, you can't be held accountable for any false or incorrect claim, because you can always pivot back to, "But I already told you that self-deception is endless."

That’s a fair criticism. I got baited (although I don’t think baiting applies to Yimpa — I think Yimpa is a good, well-intentioned person).

This is getting very, very sad at this point. So we have two posts where Leo is very explicit about this, and one of those posts is followed by another in which he talks about how debating this topic takes a toll on his psyche and that he is just trying to communicate it as authentically as possible. On top of all that, you have Leo's "I'm not going to bend over backwards over your closed-mindedness." response to UnbornTao's callout. And then you have "I'm not here to debate, I'm just here to understand perspectives, and I'm just here to frequently character assassinate everyone I disagree with" Elliott saying, "Hmm, I think he was just joking."

I love the cope. What do you think this part means "And it won't just be words, you will visually see me morph into an Alien Intelligence." But also here you go. Will wait for how you cope your way out of this one

No, no there is no coping around this. Its very clear what Leo claimed here.

I will answer when I have things more flashed out. I am still uncertain about a lot of things and I have a lot of contemplative and experiential and direct experience work to do. Also, I don't have anything fancy or unique figured out that hasn't already been said by others. The only thing I can say is that my inferential and non-inferential justifications point towards idealism being true (that consciousness is fundamental), but that thats not enough to answer your questions. My genuine answer to most of your questions is that "I dont know".

Yeah, and given how some people reacted to your question in that thread, that was also interesting. Leo backed himself into a corner by creating a standard by which he can be held accountable (specifically related to that point), and it's clear that he doesn't give the slightest fuck about it and will imply that you're wrong for even attempting to hold him to his own words. Hours and hours of ramblings about epistemology, integrity, maturity, self-deception, epistemic responsibility, and how scientists fall into the trap of infinitely delaying paradigm change—and then, when shit hits the fan, he can't embody or live by anything that he preaches about. " I'm Leo. I made some claims in the past, and I created a standard for myself. Now, should I acknowledge that I was wrong, or at the very least lower my credence in the belief that I can undergo such a transformation after years of failure? Naaah, let me choose the other option,where I label UnbornTao closed-minded for holding me to my own words, and then call it a day (like a mature, epistemically responsible, non-manipulative, 'truth is my highest virtue and value' guy). " Some people here did not pick up on the significance of Leo's reaction to your question. His reaction shows that he doesn't have the spine or the integrity to acknowledge failure and be responsible for his own standards and his own word (especially when it comes to things he cares about - like maintaining a special identity). His reaction to your question simultaneously targets and undermines his epistemology, integrity, and his alleged deep care about what's true.

You mistake some of the trolling and jokes as just empty entertainment, when in reality they are not intended to be just empty jokes (at least not from me), they are jokes but they are intended to also make legitimate points in response to the absurd standard that some people put forth here (where open-mindedness is defined as something like): " I am a Leo fanboy and I affirm that Leo is the most awake being in the universe, and I will hide my cultish, special privileging of Leo under the label of 'open-mindedness,' and I will label anyone who is even slightly skeptical of Leo being the most awake being in the universe as closed-minded. It's true that I won't ever, in my life, entertain the idea that there is someone other than Leo who is the most awake being in the universe, but the important point is just that I'm open-minded for Leo and thats what open-mindedness means ). " I also demonstrated using trolling - how Leo navigates disagreements (labeling you self-deceived, telling you that you dont know what you are talking about, and claiming to be the most awake being in the universe) ---- And btw, a good chunk of the arguments did not rely on the premise that Leo is not the most awake being in the universe; it's just that some people here have a very hard time tracking the arguments, and some of them don't really give a fuck about adequately and seriously engaging with the arguments or about putting forth a serious argument themselves. And when it comes to the arguments that do rely on the premise that "Leo is not the most awake being in the universe" and/or that "Leo doesnt know who is the most awake being in the universe," some people will handwave away all those arguments as long as you can't establish with absolute certainty that those premises are true. They are incapable of engaging probabilistically with those premises, and they will pretend and imply that the reasonable attitude towards those propositions is to take them as false as long as their truth cannot be demonstrated with absolute certainty. The playbook is this: "Do you really want to criticize Leo? Okay, put forth an argument where the conclusion is absolutely true beyond any doubt. If you can't, and if I can mention just one context-detached hypothetical alternative to yours, then I will pretend that my alternative is true and that yours is false, and I won't defend why mine is better than yours."

You don't know what you are talking about. You are self-deceived, and you have yet to become conscious of what I have become conscious of (but only with my permission --- there is no fucking way that you can surpass me or get to my level. Immediately forget that arrogant BS). Its not about trips; its about my permission. I will inform you when you manage to get there (if you behave correctly, and by that I just mean you acknowledge that Im more awake here than everyone in the universe).

That's only because your consciousness is too low to recognize the dildo outside your door, and/or because you have become too desensitized to the dildo to the point where all of your perceptual faculties have become numb to it.

I probably won't have answers to most of those questions, and you would need to clarify some of them. But before we go down some deep inquiry, I will clarify which specific proposition I disagree with / have an issue with: "Reality is dependent on my perceptions, and reality ceases to exist the moment I close my eyes." If we start to talk about imagination and say that time, sleep, your life, etc. are all imaginary, then whatever notion is used for "imagination" there, that broad notion will also include your localized perceptions, and will include what you are capable of being aware of and what you are aware of at any given moment. There is this weird move where "imagination/hallucination" is used to undermine the existence of "other" and "others," but there is a special privileging of one's limited localized consciousness (which is just as imaginary). There is equivocation on multiple terms. There is equivocation on "I," because sometimes it refers to your localized consciousness (Ego), and other times it refers to God. And the self-deceptive move here is to say, "But God and Ego refer to the same thing under my language because I deconstructed the imaginary difference between them." This is what I will label a "retrospective conceptual superimposing" move, where you propositionalize/conceptualize the legitimate insights that you might have had at some point in some kind of state, and then you retrospectively conceptually superimpose those insights onto your current experience (on your localized consciousness/limited Ego-experience). This is one way how you can conceptually confuse yourself and mistake your limited localized perceptions for all there is. And this point will target every single proposition that is state-dependently true. (The implication here is not that you being God is state-dependently true. The implication is that what you are aware of, and what you are capable of being aware of, are state-dependently true/constrained, and they should be treated as such.) This is why, imo, it would be very useful to be very clear with language and term usage, and also to make it clear which specific proposition or set of propositions is justified inferentially and which ones are justified non-inferentially. (The non-inferential justification category is very broad, and that's where a subtle carving out between 'experience' and 'direct experience' would be very useful and helpful, so as not to conflate the two).

The problem is the wordgames. You having perceptions is also imagined. When you close your eyes and don't see anything, that is also imagined. You having a specific set of experiences is also imagined. But for some reason, some people here want to tie "what exists" to "what is currently on the screen of perception." An equivocation game is played with words like "direct experience" and "direct consciousness" --- sometimes these words are used in perception-dependent ways, and at other times they aren't used in perception-dependent ways. You have an insight that you are God, you come back from the trip, and then you take that insight and conceptually superimpose it onto the perceptions your ego has right now. "Oh, but I have already deconstructed the difference between the ego and God," says the ego, which is currently not directly conscious that it is God and is mistaking its limited and imagined perceptual faculties for what is real or what exists.