UnbornTao

Good luck with that. Discerning a cult would be the first step.

The same could be said about any other cult, if you are a faithful enough acolyte It's not necessarily about the content, the character, or the outrageous claims - not even about potential deception and lies (although those are important, too). But they do a disservice. To "conform to the groupthink", it is false spirituality. I didn't expect their followers to recognize that in the first place, to be clear - hence this discussion. We are desperate to be told what to believe, and when someone presents a nicely packaged model of the world a certain way, you eat it up almost indiscriminately - without knowing the difference between real communication and something else. It just invites people to become followers. You end up believing claims that are assumed to be true, for whatever reason. Even if this doesn't negate some value you might gain from it - in the same way that you may benefit from going to church and burning incense.

Great to hear, although that's not really my point. I'm not sure I can articulate it very well. The best I can do right now is pay attention. What are they up to? After the stories, the assertions, the arguments, and all that - setting aside the assertiveness and self-assuredness - what is the communication actually doing? And who is the author ultimately doing it for?

Sounds good. It could still be clarified, especially your first sentence. Since you mentioned vibe, the way that term is used often highlights what is felt rather than what is thought. Would you call feeling a type of thinking in that sense, then? What about basic and ingrained physiological reactions that even less complex animals are able to produce? You think that language exists as an object in the way a rock may be said to exist, and that we just stumbled upon it one day. For example, does every sound communicate? Is the sound of a crystal bowl falling to the floor and breaking communicating something to you? What makes a sound a communication? Could there be communication without language? How do you see communication if it could exist without language? Remember that this kind of language isn't just the words, sounds, symbols, gestures, touch, sight, etc., themselves. Estos píxeles en la pantalla, ¿qué son y cómo sabes que están comunicando algo? ¿Qué los convierte en "palabras" o en símbolos entendibles en primer lugar? Even when using a different language you may not know, you still know that something is being conveyed. Why is that? The words themselves may not be understood, and yet this "possibility" is still operative. Maybe this is more along the lines of what language is. We completely take this experience for granted, and it's hard to imagine what life was like prior to the invention of language, since it dominates our entire experience. It's a bit like imagining the world of computers before the invention of the GUI (Graphical User Interface).

I wouldn't mind it, it could be entertaining. But at the end of the day, it's just a technology. LLMs like GPT still can't reliably provide accurate information without hallucinating. I'd rather have some profound episode than this. Gotta love the buzzwords.

Cool!

Not at all. It's more like thinking that your reaction to the dog bite could come from something or someone other than yourself. Your preferences, for example, are already generated by you in your own experience, both the conformist and the non-conformist ones. It does seem, though, that this preference for nonconformity may well be based on a desire to feel special. And this occurs within a social context, which you yourself generate as well.

He can take on different forms.

@Someone here

Take some time to ground yourself, and consider seeking professional help. Take care.

Huh... you don't see the problem either. Cult leaders, tell me about it.

Who else would generate it? Your preference for X thing is ultimately generated by you as well - along with many other things that could be considered conformity.

At the very least, they overlap. In any case, both serve the same purpose, albeit in different ways. How much of one's search for comfort is based on conformity? Do you eat a particular snack when you're bored? Do you turn on the TV to check the news? Do you wear clothes purely for practical reasons, or do you avoid wearing certain items altogether? Where's the line between conformity and comfort?

Is it really a need, though? Of course not. It's emotional dependence, a social nicety - one possibly rooted in a sense of worthlessness. The difference is that without food, you'll eventually die. You conform to yourself. Everyone does. And everyone takes themselves to be the center of the universe.

Is there any other reason to post on this subforum? Not sure.

And you didn't ask the fucker who will win the World Cup next year...

Sure.

Meh. It'd be ironic if you were an AI account, though.

That seems to be the case, yes - at least when it comes to basic physical needs. Still, isn't the point of conformity to make survival easier, in a sense? Going to parties can be seen as a form of conformity, and it does support survival. The bigger question is: Is there anything we do that doesn't ultimately serve that purpose? I find it hard to answer that with a 'yes'.

SEX! Also, why is this in the consciousness subforum? It should be in the Politics one.

@zurew Got confused with the other thread. Setting notions of the after‑death aside - which is mostly what my earlier claims about philosophy and spirituality were related to - I'll stick with the basic physical needs for this one. The claims about it being BS were specifically referring to prolonged (years‑long) abstinence from water, sleep, and food. I acknowledged that, in some extreme cases, people have reportedly gone without food for several months. These are not the same claims, though. Can the human body survive without oxygen for long? That's already a "rule." We could call it a fact, a valid belief, or an educated guess, but it really does seem to be how things work. There's no way around that. Likewise, the human body can't perceive sounds outside certain wavelengths. That limitation is part of the body's design. The domain of objective physical reality is the most grounded and "real" one we have, and we notice that it doesn't operate randomly or arbitrarily - hence the hardware analogy. Just in case, I wouldn't brush it off so quickly because of its simplicity. Not a very satisfactory answer but I might say more at some point.

Agree. Even if you were to benefit somewhat along the way, selling snake oil is a false endeavor. It's about what one is up to and the spirit of the work - what it actually does. And a cult turns people into followers. Then again, it's a cult with a large following, so people clearly can't distinguish one thing from another, which is baffling to me. They fail to recognize that they're being fed a pleasant-sounding worldview and are swayed by the assertiveness and charisma. And none of it is true. People are gullible and haven't yet learned to "hear." This dynamic may partly explain why the founder of Scientology claimed that, if you want to get rich, you should start a religion (or cult). And he was right!

Maybe, existentially speaking, there's no such thing as nonconformity, since to exist at all, one must adopt or take on some form. Is conformity "to take on, adopt, or be influenced by the form of something?" What is form? No form, no con(with)-formity. Some abstract shit that some of you guys like.