poimandres

I'll see if I can find it!

You mean on the forum? I'm off and on here quite a bit (my post count is low). I'm just saying broadly speaking and it's only my opinion.

I think from my interpretation, it's not that the world "means" anything, it's that we label it. Do you see a moth or a butterfly or a face or what do you see? And for me, whatever I say "I see a moth" is a label. It's a projection onto Reality. For me, it's about recognizing that Reality is Reality, and that whatever we say, is essentially a projection. And then instead of inkblots, just look out the window.

Correct. How many people do you know that have actively sought out psychotherapy to figure out why they do the behaviors they do, or why they keep getting with the wrong partners? To examine these things requires the patient to examine themselves, their downfalls, why they keep getting sucked into the lure of charm of others (or whatever the case maybe). Some people may not be emotionally strong enough (in the case of why people can't leave abusive partners, it's fucking hard and scary!). People would rather watch tv and be told how to live life (or live vicariously through others) rather than do something hard and create a life they want to life (which doesn't happen overnight). Life doesn't have an instruction manual, but some people need to be told how to live. An example of this, is any overly religious person. They have to have authority to report to. Or why most people's education stops at the end of graduation (either high school or college). They quit pushing themselves when no one else is demanding them to be better. Some of Freud's theories, imo, are still very accurate with regards to our parents and how we were all raised (and how we seek out partners).

I heard Alan Watts say in a lecture: "The world is a Rorschach Test." Once I grasped the gravity of this, I can't seem to get over it. I am interested in your opinions on this idea.

#1, they forgot we are still living in a survival situation so critical thinking isn't required as much anymore. That being said, actualization goals are abstract. In a materialistically focused world, how do you prove intangible goals like switching your psychology? Or you learned how to lucid dream? The dominant mindset here is "That must not exist! Where is the proof?" Critically looking in the mirror and even the thought of needing to change, is extremely hard for most people. Facing their demons, is just that. No one wants to confront demons because they are scary.

From my experience, I pretend I already have the job. And a face to face interview is usually just to see if you are a culture fit. They clearly believe you have the skills, or they would not want a face to face. So they are seeing how you would fit in with their already established team. Ask them questions as well, like how they manage, what does their typical day of work look like. If you feel that the interview is going well, ask what kind of hobbies they do outside of work. Once you reach this personal level in an interview, I can almost guarantee you will get the job. One thing I had to learn, an interview is both directions. You should be interviewing the company and the manager just as much as they are interviewing you. I usually prepare for the third interview cycle. My first two usually do not work out, because I haven't been on interviews in years, and they ask you questions that I already forgot. So, take notes on the ones you stumble on, and then you will be prepared for the next interview. I don't know about your field, but for me, I'm an IT person and they usually want to see how much you know to what point then stop. No one can know everything so they ask questions to test the limit of your knowledge, just be honest and say "I'm not sure, I'd have to look it up." That's 100x better than making something up. They may play dumb games like "I'm smarter than you" by their responses so watch out for that, red flag (remember two way interview, do you want to work with/for someone who has to always be the smartest?).

I want to be financially independent. My first business, was a dashboard reporting platform from another help desk platform called Freshdesk. I used their api to have my clients log into my platform, retrieve their tickets, and I would produce metrics that Freshdesk wasn't doing at the time. No one wanted it. Customers would get my free 60day trial period, log in for 10minutes and look at the charts and never return. My next venture, someone reached out to me on cofounders lab, I didn't check his background, we started a dating site together, and he claimed he knew about marketing, but when the time came, nothing to show on his side. I wrote the entire website. My final venture to date, was some friends and myself wanted to start a crypto exchange platform from an open source one. I got it functional. We severely disagreed on how to grow the business. They wanted to take out loans from the bank, I wanted to grow organically, bootstrapping. We had interviews lined up from good online websites that would drive traffic to our site, my friend was just too techy and didn't want to start with the Honda of AWS low tier stuff and work out way up as we got more and more customers. He wanted us to get a loan and pay $2k a month with zero traffic on the site -- that's how you go broke fast as hell, spending money you do not have. I even talked to a successful entrepreneur to validate my thinking at the time. He confirmed I was thinking smart, that was another flag as to why I quit. Then I learned more about trading because I love investing, no cofounders who are not equally yolked, success is very individual with trading. No one does it for you. I've essentially educated myself very much on markets, which is awesome, but I can't seem to become profitable in trading forex. I do not haven enough capital to grow (you need at least 10k) and since I'm not profitable, I'm going back to trading a demo account. I've spent more on education than money I've actually lost (literally lost $250). Learned there is no holy Grail strategy, but learned a bunch about how markets are manipulated, supply/demand, and how banks trade. Except I can't predict if they went long or short. ? I don't feel it's a total loss because now I'm waaaay smarter about my choices to my 401k and my Roth IRA.

I am definitely open to opinions! Please share!

If it's one single episode of Leo's that I like, it's Be F*cking Patient. There's a line I keep saying to myself and I'll quote "If it takes you ten years it's still worth it." Well guess what.. This year will be ten years and still no success of making my dreams happen. I've tried everything under the sun. Read tons of books, started 3 failed businesses, investigated Amazon FBA, taken courses on real estate flipping, been to startup launch competitions (they literally win prize money for pitching their ideas against other successful entrepreneurs), mingled with other successful entrepreneurs at events, this past year I've spent $3+k alone on educating myself to trade stocks/forex and I'm still not profitable after 8 months of trading every single day and reading books watching hundreds of hours of videos. I am out of options but I will still continue on. I'm sure I will start yet another business sometime and even though I'm not profitable yet in trading, I like it so I'll keep trying and trying. Maybe someone will find this inspiring if they are just starting out.

I had an oob a while back which changed me and put me on the path I'm on. It's really no different than any others you've read about. Lifted up out of my body, over the apartment I was in, got the tour of the cosmos, time/space was meaningless, saw what I thought was God, infinite white light that enveloped the cosmos and shrunk them in the palm of my hand. Only it wasn't God, it was my higher self or true form. But only years later I would realize that. When I opened my eyes, I felt the universe vibrating altogether as one symphony as if everything was praising God by just being. I felt the oneness. Some other experiences I consider mystical (but not in the classical sense) is that after practicing evocation magic for years, some of the spirits are starting to show up in my dreams. They blend in so well, that if you weren't analysing the dream, it wouldn't even be known. Or receiving oracles from them while meditating during the ritual. My first time I was so excited, I just ended the ritual without letting the spirit give me the full oracle. ?

Good luck on the journey!

I understand where you are coming from now. Basically, I'll explain my stance like this, there are two ways (duality) to see the whole. Science/Math/Mechanical/Logic/Hard Sciences/Active/Tragedy (your stance), or Art/Mind/Living/Creativity/Liberal Arts/Passive/Comedy. Notice how I listed these in order to their correlations to each other. You need both. Nonduality explained dualistically. I'm not saying science isn't real. I completely agree it's the best option we have, for physical confirmation of philosophy. They keep each other in bounds. But science will never be complete because the Omniverse/multiverse/universe (whatever term you want to use), reality, Brahman is infinite. Waves, within waves, within infinite waves, hence the allegory to the ocean a lot of the time. I don't know why you base your whole philosophy on the passage of time as consciousness or why time is so important, then claim it's an illusion. If consciousness is perceiving the passage of time, but time is an illusion. By this thinking, then awareness and consciousness is just as an illusion as well. Thinking is not real, then. This is where we diverge. The foundation of my philosophy is based on everything consciousness becoming conscious and aware of the whole. Not time. But this process does require the passage of time. As far as empiricism, it is only one way to see the world, see my last post (this is a single vantage point). It's a system, that isn't perfect, but does contain partial, very real (as real as any other system or science), truths. It appears to me, that if you sincerely want to grow, I'm not asking you to believe in unicorns or adopt empiricism as your truth, but read a philosophy and be open to the idea that there is some truth to be found there. Then understand the intention, and where it's coming from without the filter of science (for a minute, you can always put back up the psychological wall). Unless you just want to prove me wrong with science. Which case, I yield it is superior and I need to come back to reality. Cells are very aware of their environment. Or they would not give a damn about waste in their cell. They would just have urine in their cell and die (with you as well). Even if this act is mechanical, it's conscious. There's a whole nother universe that takes care of the filtration process made up of another countably infinite (trillion) cells, collects it, and deposits it in your blatter. How can you be conscious, but your cells not? Systems within systems that are synchronously working together. Holons as Leo said. The point that we are making that you decline at, is that the idea or philosophy that you are the universe. You are claiming not. To claim this, is claiming that you arrived here from a space ship (or birds arriving on a new tree from flight), instead of a byproduct of the universe like an apple growing on a tree. According to you, the Apple doesn't have the capacity to become aware, but you do. This is enlightenment. By allegory, because you can become conscious of this fact, the universe is also conscious. Which is where I stand, but doesn't mean my ideas are superior. It is mind, and the game of hide and seek begins again. We are all made of the same thing. ? Unless my awareness or consciousness is an illusion and I am wrong again. I arrived here by my parents and I yield (which is only one half of the truth).

So would you define life forms of single cell or multi/complex cell as conscious (that do not have a central brain) in any sense or they are not conscious? Please include a clear "yes, I believe things are conscious without a brain" or "no, I do not think anything is conscious if it does not have a central nervous system", or "not according to my beliefs currently, only things that have brains" in your reply if you have one. I don't want to assume, I do not care what the article thinks of consciousness, it's about what you deep down believe (if you are honestly looking to grow). Not trying to be a jerk! This answer, defines your beliefs and if you are open or not to other interpretations of consciousness,which science hasn't proven yet (because philosophy is the thorn in science's side, or mirror image). It also appears to me that viruses and bacteria, like funguses are indeed conscious. They have within them the drive that we all seek, survival (why would plants care which area provides the most light?) and replication. Which are transcendental qualities, not physical nervous systems. Except as humans, it's survival (depends on spiritual maturity), replication (for survival as well), or immortality (physically because of a fear of death, or spiritually, because psychological needs, and the game of hide and seek). And this is really the crux of science vs philosophy, one seeks concrete evidence (which will never prove reality), while the other recognizes transcendental qualities (which have to be sought out. It is the initiate's responsibility to prove it to him/herself). You need both to get a better vantage point. Maybe that means I believe in unicorns. ? Let's look at it like the five blind men and the elephant. Forget about time or motion, or anything else where my interpretations are wrong. Science is one of those blind men just like every religion or world view that could possibly exist, reality is ultimately ineffable by one vantage point alone (which you will always have in a human, sober, body), or any combination of them we could think of or to come. Every person and thing (personally, I would include everything, plants, rocks, cells, animals, humans, and higher systems, as well as lower ones) with some sense that can interpret an objective reality (the scientific definition of reality), is a vantage point (or even a combination of them that we could achieve as humans). Therefore, you will find what you seek in reality in alignment with your beliefs system (psychological processes, web of beliefs, how you were raised, current and deep rooted psychological needs). The quote from Dawkins, is exactly what his web of beliefs was, reality is meaningless (this is his opinion based on what he has found, which is tainted with his beliefs, and aspects of his subjective reality), or he just hates his father according to Freud (I don't actually believe this, joke!)?. My interpretation and opinion is the same way, even now. One man's trash, another's treasure. By his works, it's doubtful he's even considered philosophy, psychology or religion serious pursuits of study. I wasn't saying science is wrong, it's correct, just not complete and never will be. Every system (by systems, I mean, science, religion, political worldviews, atheism, philosophy, psychology, etc) that attempts to describe reality is this way, not one of them is complete or will ever be. But they are all simultaneously correct in ways and incorrect in ways. So, your worldview is correct according to your vantage point (which is a culmination of a huge number of variables, but not all of them). What were we debating again? ?

Not trying to judge you my dude. Just offering you another perspective. Of course that article will say it's not conscious. Science will define what is aware and isn't aware of self based on consciousness being electricity inside a nervous system. This is kind of like using the word to define the meaning of the word. I'm making an assumption here, that means that you don't think plants, fungus, or cells, etc without a centralized nervous system are conscious? A radical interpretation of consciousness that I lean more towards everyday, is if it moves, it is conscious. Reality is ultimately groundless, so I could say it's all conscious to some degree. I believe the universe loves the game of hide and seek. I believe death is a transformation. While I may or may not be intelligent or conscious, I'll be something else: everything. I'll return to what I originally and always have been, still the universe. ? In the west, we demonize the hell out of death. But I've heard a couple good quotes. No one has ever done it and lived to tell us about it. And dying is perfectly safe. ?