gettoefl

For me the world was made to keep me in captivity forever. It can serve a different purpose. Not by getting to know it but changing how I see it. If I do the latter, then doing the former is just extra credit. I already satisfied my responsibility be getting out of here alive.

Anyone catch a typo or maybe I'm wrong. In either case I disagree even if corrected. I have one responsibility. In the world it's good to understand others but ultimately for me a futile counter-productive, distracting and wasteful errand.

Inspired by Leo, I drafted the ACIM epistemic framework: Epistemic Humility - I don't know what anything means Epistemic Suspension - I am willing to set aside what I think this thing in front of me means Epistemic Responsibility - I am entrusted with a single choice of thought systems -either the world's or God's; And I accept that the world's thought system - and its relative epistemology - is meaningless and I choose to have God's be remembered. Epistemic Correction - I pause a moment in order that my misinterpretation be undone Epistemic Non-interference - I of myself refuse to manage, fix or manipulate perception Epistemic Vigilance - I check in with the mind for shifts in thought system Epistemic Trust - I accept the correction rather than seek the explanation Epistemic Minimalism - I accept what meaning is given me and only that Epistemic Immediacy - I accept truth is known directly not mentally inferred

My two cents. There are two kinds of “bad” in life: 1. The bad you forgive If you remember it and forgive it: The charge gradually fades. In time, you may even forget, because it no longer has any emotional claws. If you had forgotten it and then later forgive it (when it surfaces): The hidden pattern loses all power. What once shaped you unconsciously no longer runs your life. Forgiveness is what dissolves the hold. 2. The bad you don’t forgive If you remember it and don’t forgive it: The pain stays alive. It quietly taints your interpretations, reactions, and relationships. If you forget it but don’t forgive it: It doesn’t disappear. Instead it goes underground. It manifests as triggers, fears, defensiveness, or repeated patterns you don’t fully understand. Unforgiven pain doesn’t vanish. It waits and pounces unconsciously. If forgiving seems like an impossibility, real support such as therapy and honest dialogue, can help loosen what feels fixed. Without releasing resentment, lasting peace is very hard to access. Forgiveness frees you, not the other person. They still live with the consequences and if need be, pay the price that society demands. Forgiveness is what gets you out of jail not them. edit: Forgiveness is not an action, it is a thought. You let go the idea you are a victim who was harmed and is damaged.

"Self-deception transcends all your efforts at epistemic responsibility." - 1:51:43 Even a Jesus wants to live one more day.

Epistemology is the bridge from survival to truth, from meaninglessness to meaning. It's how to transition or first and foremost understand what it takes.

We have the ability to dim the awareness of God and concoct a life of fantasy. It's fun (until it is not) and we have mastered it. We will find true religion one day (see Leo's latest episode). How do I know that? Because the perceived universe MUST be finite. If it were infinite it would be God. Thus we all go home to God eventually.

We can always find people worse off. That is epistemically irresponsible. I am responsible for one person.

Just don't make it dead last on the list. Water cracks rock given time.

What I mean is, you will be dead so your desire for truth is squandered. There will always be some compromise. By eating food, you deny another food.

If you don't survive, what chance do you have to understand truth?

I've one responsibility. The correct ontology. There are two. Relative and absolute. Each has its own distinct epistemology. Science and religion.

For me the absolute which sometimes we refer to as God is quite simply all there is - similar to what you describe above. Problem is most have never experienced it! Everything we see before our eyes is a veil over reality that we are thoroughly convinced exists and therefore appears but in fact has no meaning. We prefer limitation and specialness and suffering to infinity and equality and harmony. And that is an okay choice to make. When we want it to end, we will choose reality instead of fantasy, or better said stop blocking awareness of the truth.

They are opposite poles and so cannot be absolute. Most have never aligned with the absolute; this is also called awakening. Life for such people is blocking the absolute in favor of them being their own god. To align with the absolute as I mentioned is getting out of God's way.

Useful distinction: Empirical responsibility is looking into how things seem; epistemic responsibility is looking into what things mean.

You posited authenticity as being an absolute foundation but according to what I suggested that is not the case.

I can't understand anything in the world. I don't know what anything means. It's not the world and its wars are messed up. It's the one who perceives, who thinks he listens. I have to change not to what I listen but from where I listen. I am listening from a place that thinks you and I are separated, vulnerable, lacking individuals. We are indivisibles not individuals. Thankfully as JK alludes, I can change my mind. Enter the pause and have what it said reinterpreted truly.

Authenticity isn't that special since it is just the egoic reaction to conformity. Try alignment. Alignment is me getting out of the way so the absolute has the reins.

You are right that all outer conflict is the result of inner conflict. To see greater amounts of conflict all around compared to someone else by this logic is good since it tells you your inner state is fractured and that you need a lot of work. Ultimately whether it is more conflict or less conflict is academic, it is conflict and needs inner resolution. Note well that when you change the world still is the same. Where before you perceive destructive conflict, now is reflected unshakeable peace. Peace was always what was there. You chose to cover it with your internal turmoil whereby you were mad at God.

Excellent, it seems we’re basically in sync here. Let me add one careful distinction to wrap it up cleanly. Enlightenment is for sure post-paradigm, and for sure no paradigm is the Truth. But paradigms are not all equal in function. Some obscure while some loosen their own grip. When you state that “there are no real or unreal paradigms” this is true at the endpoint, but on the way there it can flatten one important difference: some frameworks reinforce false assumptions, while others exist precisely to expose and undo them. So when I say “real” versus “unreal,” I’m not suggesting a final metaphysical system. I’m pointing to a diagnostic distinction rather than an ultimate one. This posits a way of noticing whether a paradigm is being used to explain reality or to release the need for explanation altogether. Sanity, as I’m using it, isn’t allegiance to one paradigm. It’s the moment false assumptions are no longer taken as unquestioned. After that, even the tools used to get there are dropped. And so in that sense, I say that enlightenment is post-paradigm. But it’s reached not by denying all distinctions upfront, but by letting the distinctions do their work and then drop away. So I think we agree: sanity isn’t adopting a better model of reality. It’s no longer mistaking any perceived model for reality at all. In point of fact, perception cannot reveal truth since it is a headset designed to distort truth. Seeing is not knowing. To taste sanity means to switch off and go within.

And demean themselves into the very objectification they claim to hate. The words girl and boy for adults is becoming highly problematic and needs cancelling.

I agree that clarity and sanity are inseparable but that’s exactly the point where right now we’re diverging. The disagreement isn’t about whether clarity matters. It’s about what clarity is clarity of. There is certainly a kind of clarity that operates within the relative framework: sharper concepts, fewer contradictions, better self-regulation, longer access to certain states, more coherence of experience. That kind of clarity absolutely admits degrees, development, and process and both of us agree that it’s valuable. Psychology, philosophy, and contemplative practice all work effectively. But that is not the same thing as clarity about the framework itself. You can be abundantly clear, coherent, and refined while still taking a false premise as an assumption. In that case, clarity comes across as real, but it’s clarity in service of error. That’s what I mean when I say clarity within insanity. The mind is functioning well, but it’s functioning inside an assumption that’s never been held up to scrutiny. When I say sanity is binary, I do not mean that people “randomly stumble into it by mistake,” nor that there’s not a process. The process is very real but what that process does is remove interference, not gradually construct sanity. Sanity isn’t built up; it’s unveiled. And unveiling something is far different from refining something. Think of it this way: You can progressively clean a window, right? That’s a process with degrees. But the moment you see through it rather than at the dirt, that shift itself isn’t gradual right? What is gradual is how consistently you stop smudging it again. So yes: 1. There is a process. 2. There are degrees of stability, integration, and embodiment. 3. There are many partial clarities along the way. But the core correction - seeing that the starting idea was wrong - is not a matter of degree. You either continue to assume it, or you don’t. That’s the binary that I’m pointing to. So I’m by no means moving goalposts; I’m distinguishing refinement within a model from recognition that the model itself was was based on a house of cards. The first scales while the second doesn't. That’s not a miracle in the sense of randomness. It's simply what happens when the idea of a separated universe is no longer defended.

What you’re describing is clarity within a unreal framework, not sanity itself. Seeing more clearly through illusion is still seeing illusion. Staying longer in a non-dual state within experience is still a state, and states come and go. You’re describing refinement of perception inside a hallucination, not the end of mistaking it for reality. Sanity can't be a continuum within insanity. That will be like saying there are degrees of sobriety while still drunk. You can be less confused, more functional, more insightful etc. but as long as perception is still structured around presumed separation, vulnerability, and time, the underlying premise hasn’t changed. What does admit degrees is stability in clarity, but not clarity itself. The recognition of truth is wholly binary: either the false premise is operating or it isn’t. What varies is how consistently that recognition is not interfered with afterward. So yes, there can be many experiences, insights, and refinements, but sanity itself is nothing to do with progressive accumulation. It’s the absence of an underlying mistake. Don’t approach it asymptotically; you either stop making the same error, or you don’t. Sanity within insanity is still insanity, just better lit.

I think you’re pointing at something important, but I frame it a bit differently. What we usually call “sanity” is already defined inside a massively distorted framework. By that measure, most people agree with one another and function, but that doesn’t mean they’re close to seeing reality clearly. In that sense, what passes for normal is already deeply muddled. Indeed, the world we collectively navigate is unstable, contradictory, and oriented around threat, competition, and death; and we take all this as given rather than questionable. Sanity, as you suggest, really is about seeing reality accurately. But I'd say it doesn't come in degrees the way intelligence or emotional regulation does. It’s not a matter of being more or less sane than the average. It’s a radical shift in orientation: either perception is filtered through fear, defense, and assumption, or it isn’t. Mixing clarity and distortion cannot produce partial truth; it just produces similar distortion that feels a bit convincing. That’s why I don’t think sanity is something that can be meaningfully quantified or measured on a continuum. Any measurement system is itself being built from the same assumptions it’s trying to evaluate! The problem isn’t lack of data; the issue is the lens through which data is interpreted. What is required then is willingness, which means a readiness to question one’s own interpretations rather than reinforce them, and to allow a different way of seeing to replace the familiar one. That shift doesn’t add information; it removes interference. And when that happens, clarity will not be incremental; rather it is immediate! So I agree that sanity is central to metaphysics, but I’d say it’s less about ranking minds and more about whether the mind is defending its story or willing to let it all go.