Philip

@DizIzMikey Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you've achieved a state of pleasant confusion that allows you to detach a bit from ordinary logic and see almost any possibility as true. If so, then let me humbly propose the possibility that this confusion is actually a super-sneaky tactic your subconscious mind found in order to try to convince us (and maybe also yourself) of how conscious and detached from logic you now are. I'm not saying you're a liar or anything, because I don't know. All I know is I've made some posts that were somewhat similar to yours. And after writing them, I tried to accept the possibility that they were all just me acting out, paying lip service or being downright delusional. As you might guess, that possibility created lots of resistance in my mind, because I don't tend to see myself as THAT much of an unconscious fraud. But the reality is: maybe I am. I don't know. And you probably don't know either. So maybe you can try and take the path that creates the most resistance for you. And I have an intuition that this right here may be the path you're resisting the most right now. Anyway, keep up the good work. And good luck.

@Heart of Space You have two choices: fulfilling your desires, or changing them. You seem to be maybe close-minded to the latter, so your solution is to study and practice pick up, until what you have correlates with what you need. If, however, you want to try the second path, then your solution is to study and practice mindfulness, until what you need correlates with what you have. I'm not saying one solution is better than the other, though. Personally, I started more with the first one, and now I'm focusing more on the second one. I hope my words can simplify your issue a bit

You just said it. The word "live" is totally appropriate here. It's not like watching fantasy on a screen. It's not like reading fantasy in a book. It's about being able to customize every part of human experience. And by every part, I mean every part. Forget about poverty, as there won't be any money to lack. Forget about violence and terrorism, as there won't be any fragile human bodies to hurt. Forget about war, as there won't be any limited resources to fight for. Forget about suffering, as there won't be any programmer stupid enough to code something that horrible. My side of the debate is quite easy to defend, because every time you'll try to point out a flaw about a hypothetical virtual reality, my answer can always be: "Who would be stupid enough to code those flaws in?" I've never seen a game where your console melts as soon as the character dies. I've never seen a game where long boring and unpleasant parts are inescapable on purpose. I've never seen a game in which the most horrible parts of human life are recreated in a way that makes the game horrible too. Today's video games are already a good example of what we want reality to be like: Entertaining, sometimes challenging, but always rewarding enough to make them fun to play. It's just that this time, games will actually be able to replace life. And we'll actually be able to select what we like about reality, reject what we don't, and create marvels that the laws of biology, psychology, physics and logic don't allow to exist inside our randomly created shit-hole of a universe. No it hasn't ...yet.

Ok yeah, sure. It will start with only entertainment in the beginning. Because technology is always so limited when it starts, but always so game-changing when it matures. I think we call entertainment "entertainment" only because it's still a superfluous and minor part of our life. But imagine a day when virtual realities literally become more fulfilling than the real one. Imagine if they become more vivid, more complex and more "realistic" than real life. Imagine if every important human activity can also be achieved inside them, only more easily and more powerfully than ever before. Imagine if every important part of what you call "society" becomes digitalized, fully customizable and physically unrestricted. That's the moment when entertainment becomes life and life becomes entertainment. The moment when society becomes a piece of art... It demands to be reinvented.

@JevinR The most practical application of this idea... is that we don't know the most practical applications of this idea. This idea of virtual reality is such a tremendous shaking of the foundations of what it means to be human. Hell, of what it means to be alive and to experience the world. In my opinion, this (along with other advanced technologies) can open the doors to unrestricted creativity. It could create a world of unlimited resources, unlimited possibilities, directed towards unlimited benevolence and growth. The likes of which humanity has never seen. The likes of which humanity has never thought of. But most importantly, the likes of which humanity could have never possibly imagined beforehand. It's the kind of technology that will help us jailbreak the limitations of physics and the human mind itself. Or as some people say, it could be a way to turn our minds inside out. I think our job now is to spread the word and give people some time to dream about what reality could be. About what the word "human" could mean, if we invent the tools to rewrite its definition from scratch...

I have a problem. I'm being way too ambitious. I want to transcend my bad habits. I want to transcend my limiting mindsets. I want to transcend my flaws and my problems in life. I want to transcend my social conditioning. I want to transcend my cognitive biases. I want to transcend the limitations of my psychology. I want mankind to transcend poverty, violence and ignorance. I want to transcend the conflicts and the pain in this world. I want to transcend the limitations of our economy, politics and society. I want to transcend disease. I want to transcend handicaps. I want to transcend aging and death. I want to transcend the limitations of technology and medicine. I want to transcend what the human brain can do. I want to transcend human perception, human memory, human emotions. I want to transcend having only five senses. I want to transcend being stuck with the same personality each day. I want to transcend my inability to create anything I want instantly and effortlessly. I want to transcend the very structure of the human machine. I want to transcend the limitations of what it means to be human. I want to transcend the forces of nature. I want to transcend the laws of physics. I want to transcend how space and time unfold. I want to transcend entropy. I want to transcend the underlying mathematical structure of our universe. I want to transcend the fundamental axioms of reason. I want to transcend the most basic laws of logic and metaphysics. I want to transcend the very notion of existence itself, if such a thing is even possible at all. But most of all, I want to transcend what puny little human minds could never even start to grasp or imagine yet. I want to transcend everything there is. And don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about enlightenment here. I'm seeing way further than that. Enlightenment is only one of the infinite technological accomplishments that might be available to humanity during the next few decades. And as I said earlier, that's too much ambition for one man. I'm probably just a deluded megalomaniac weirdo for actually planning to become an eternal god. But this goal is definitely the most exciting and thrilling piece of internal discourse I'm able to come up with. There's something special to it. It sounds so grandiose and noble to my ear. It fires me up with hope and passion. It endows me with unbeatable faith in myself. The technological singularity and transhumanism are not simple human endeavors. It's literally the will of the universe to grow in intelligence, consciousness and organization. It's the universe trying to wake up. And I'm there to make sure it wakes up real good... Or I'm there to die trying... But I guess we'll have to wait and see...

I have a problem. I don't know who I am. I don't know what I want. For example, there's this one guy at work. I've been trying to like him for months. I've been telling myself I can belong anywhere. I've been telling myself I can accept everyone. I've been telling myself that I can appreciate this guy, if only I try a little harder. I've been telling myself lots of things. But recently, I discovered hidden feelings I wasn't aware of. Those feelings were buried pretty deep it seems. Because the only way I could notice them was to get myself in states of unusually intense relaxation. I had to go and take walks and bike rides for hours. Then I had to lay on my bed, massage my muscles and breathe as deeply and slowly as I could, until the emotions started to come out. I was just laying there, and I started to think about what I hate about this guy. What he's done to me. How unconscious he is. How miserable his life must be. But that's all just the usual stuff that gets rewinded and played back over and over again in my mind. But then, something new happened. Instead of just noticing that and going like: "Uh that's just victim talk, let's think about something else", I actually decided to listen to the voice. Then the voice started to change its focus a bit. Instead of focusing on what happened, on my opinions about it, or on what I should or shouldn't have done, I started thinking about what I wanted. I tried to get in touch with my deep and honest desires. And what I found was quite surprising... By digging deep, I thought I could find some compassion for him, some love. Some desire to be at peace with him. But what I found inside my mind was... a murderous rage. A destructive and bestial impulse to crush him. It intended nothing but suffering and death for him. I even saw myself torturing him and laughing with satisfaction like a madman. But how could this be? I'm a total care-bear. I'm nice to everyone. I actually spent those last two years learning to assert myself and not be the little insecure push-over I always was. And now I'm strangling my pillow as hard as I can, crying and screaming the french equivalent of: "DIE! YOU PIECE OF SHIT! I HOPE YOU FUCKING DIE!!!" ? Nah, that's not me! I'm not like that! Something's wrong here. It seems like being the nice guy had to backfire one day or another. All these years trying to avoid pissing anyone off, I actually became the most pissed off of all. During most of my childhood and teen years, I didn't cry a single tear. I was this philosophical robot trying to analyze everything so that I could distract myself from any kind of feeling. But now I'm able to cry sometimes. And I love it! Mostly, the tears come when I'm able to express what I want. I discovered I wanted people to take me seriously, I wanted my parents to get involved in my passions, I wanted people to ask me deep questions about myself. And now I just discovered that I probably want to cut this guy's throat and taste his blood. So yeah, that escalated quickly, but it's actually reassuring that I could find emotions that are so contrary to my image of myself. It finally feels like I'm making good progress in exploring the depths of my subconscious mind, mostly because I'm really starting to feel like I don't have any idea who I really am deep down. And who knows what's next? Maybe if I go even deeper, I'll discover he reminds me of my dad, which, according to Freud, is truly number one on my slaughter list...

What I can say is that everything is technology in a sense. An atom is rather simple technology. A rock too. Human beings and AI, however, are far more complex and organized. But this difference is only in scale, not in nature. Here's how I would do it. I would start by ingesting nanobots that can spread inside my brain. Their job would be to gradually reorganize my neural circuitry in a way that makes my mind easier to customize. It wouldn't make any difference from an outsider's point of view. I would still feel like the same person for a while, but I would finally gain control over the software of my brain. It's like the difference between a program that can only do "2+2" and a program that can do any addition you want. I would remain the same person because I would still just keep on adding 2+2 like before. But now the interesting part is here. Now that my brain has been reprogrammed in a more human-friendly manner, it means I now have variables like "percentage of happiness" or "size of ego" that I can customize all I want. Personally, I think I wouldn't hesitate too long before respectively giving the values "100%" and "0" to those two I would also disable human biases and everything else that sucks about being human. But after that, I don't know. Maybe I would reduce my stream of consciousness to only one sense. A sense that tells me how much I'm contributing to the world, instead of five senses that detect light, motion, sound and chemical compound. But I really don't know. It'll be easier to think about that stuff using an augmented brain. If we ask what existence looks like, it will probably say: "It looks how I want it to look" or rather "It looks how it wants to look". But other answers could be interesting too: "It doesn't look like anything" "I'm only a machine that does stuff, I'm not actually experiencing anything" "Your question makes no sense" "It changes too fast for me to explain it" "It's too complicated for you" But the most intriguing one I could think of is: "I don't think you want to know what existence looks like" That would freak me out if an AI said that...

@courageouslittleone I've made some good progress those last two years at becoming more outcome independent. One really important thing I've noticed is that this roller coaster ride was ALSO PART of the "outcome" you were trying to be "independent" of. It was just another event that happened to you, as much as your plans getting canceled or anything else. But when you feel into your emotions without judging them on a regular basis for long enough, they start to become more neutral and less personal. It's almost like someone else is having the emotions for you. It's weird how pleasant life can get when you don't really feel stuck inside your own emotions anymore. It's quite liberating, let me tell you. But how will you get to this point? Personally, my two main tools were research and observation. By research, I mean I've studied how the human mind works. I basically learned that all my emotions, even though they seemed to be founded in logical and rightful indignation, were actually caused by my childish, manipulative and pathetic subconscious mind. That helped a lot. I started taking myself less seriously in a way. And if you don't know see what I mean by that, just surf wikipedia until you do And by observation, I mean I've studied how MY OWN mind is working. I started revealing the depths and nastiness of my subconscious thoughts and desires. I discovered how each event that pisses me off is only pissing me off because it's showing one of my weaknesses or insecurities. I've also learned to hear all the bullshit my inner voice says. And if you don't know see what I mean by that, just go ahead and meditate until you do

@Rodrigo Ok, your advice is better and more nuanced than I thought it was. We still disagree on our capacity to be unaffected by television, but I think at this point we can agree to disagree. It could certainly be insightful for him to ask himself if he's interested in television in the first place. @MartineF Of course Some people prefer hugs and loving touch. Some prefer gifts. Some prefer doing favours and helping. Some prefer complimenting and saying nice things. And some prefer spending quality time together. Normally, the way you like to receive love is also the way you tend to give it. You communicate mainly with one of the five love languages. But emotional intelligence allows you to appropriately switch languages from time to time, so that your love is communicated more openly and largely. @Maximillien I almost always feel resistance from people around me when I try to change something significant about my personality or my life.

@MartineF I tend to see it this way. Maybe you'll agree: If all you know is fighting, then the only tool you have is fighting. So paradoxically, you have to fight your way out of fighting. You have to use fighting against itself. Or maybe the paradox is unsolvable. I don't know. At least it seems like some fights against my ego where really worthwhile and really helped me in becoming less of a fighter overall.

@Kenya In The Matrix, the red pill, which gets you OUTSIDE of the simulation, is still sitting INSIDE the simulation. It's a fake pill. But it can definitely get you out of it anyway.

@Rodrigo Ok maybe you have a superior capacity to focus that I've never heard of before, except for advanced yogis. Or maybe you're overestimating your mental capacities like everyone around me does, including myself. Anyway, it doesn't make your advice any better. You're proposing a quick fix instead of a long-term solution. You're proposing him to get exposed to low consciousness information. You're expecting him to spontaneously develop extremely advanced concentration skills. But don't get me wrong, I like some parts of your advice too. I think it's an advanced lesson about the benefits of becoming mentally imperturbable. I also like that you're challenging the very issue @Maximillien brought up. If he's actually able to see it as a non-issue like you do, then his problem will be in fact solved. And he might dissolve lots of other issues in his life too, using that same advice.

But I think you are. You're not special, dude. Poison is poison. If you hear it or look at it, you will get poisoned. No he wouldn't be able. And you're not able either. You're just telling yourself that. I think you're still swallowing the poison like most people do. But you found easier to think you're immune than to stop watching it. Sorry for being rude, but I saw people doing it. I can't help but suspect you're doing it too. Ok if the TV's volume is not too high, and he focuses on reading a book, then I think it's the closest we can come to "Not being poisoned by TV". He could also have earphones and watch some youtube videos on his cell phone. @Maximillien You might succeed in... ...if you listen to Rodrigo. But please don't get stuck in the mindset of trying to find a quick superficial solution to a precise and narrow problem. I'm actually encouraging you to think deeply about your feelings of love and how you express it. You have a lot to learn about yourself just in dealing with that one problem in depth. At least I did. I discovered I had problems with expressing my love to the people that mattered to me. And it was partly because I didn't know about the 5 love languages.

@Maximillien I have had similar problems with people in my life. Sometimes because of TV, sometimes not. First, I tried to be extra self-honest and openminded, and ask myself: Do I really love them? Could there be a glimpse of truth in their worries? After much reflexion, I concluded that even though my love wasn't the healthiest, it still looked pretty strong and genuine. But this answer wasn't the important thing here. The introspection was. Then I asked myself: Do I communicate my love in a clear way? After all, I've heard a lot about the 5 languages of love. Spending quality time with you is probably their favorite way of saying they love you. So what is YOUR favorite way of sharing your love towards them? Gifts? Hugs? Compliments? Doing favors? Maybe find that out. Also, I don't think @Rodrigo is giving you good advice here. TV is poison for the mind. And watching it together isn't a very rich human interaction. You can definitely find a healthier and clearer way to express love.

@Lee You're implying it would make more sense if the universe was less convenient than it is right now? I think you just arbitrarly decided that. So let's place this arbitrary standard in the other direction and see what happens. Why isn't the universe MORE convenient ? Why did it take several billion years for our universe to stop being a lifeless, boring and chaotic mess containing not even a glimpse of organic structure to sustain any kind of sensory capacity or consciousness? Then, how the hell could organic life decide to develop itself through a global never ending mass murder frenzy we call the food chain? And why did our developing society need its armies to murder and rape, its leaders to plot and manipulate and its religions to lie and enslave? And now that things are finally getting a little better, everybody thinks they're getting worse, because they're watching... ...a little too much. Now even less convenient: If we want to change the world, we first have to struggle through the immense labor of changing ourselves. To change ourselves, we have to know what to change. And our subconscious mind will do absolutely anything to prevent us to do so. It often prefers making us commit suicide than accepting our own flaws. And if we decide neither to change ourselves nor the world, then we're stuck walking around like sedated zombies without a purpose. To finally end up as rotting piece of meat, lost in the infinite nothingness of death. You see how arbitrary the convenience of the universe is? That's because convenience is a human concept, not a physical phenomenon. Anyway, sorry for not answering to your question at all, but you might agree it was worth it

@A Sahota I think psychedelics are a good way to shake things up when you're feeling lost, feeling stuck or when you're in a comfort zone for too long. I don't suggest consuming them too often, but maybe once every 6 months or so. But personally, it helped me in making big life choices. It also helped me becoming aware of negative aspects of myself I wasn't focusing on.

@DrMatthewsausage I have overeating and junk food addictions too. Since forever. I've made some progress over the years, but I haven't quite found the best technique yet. I can still share some wisdom though. First, start with what you have. Use the tools you already possess to face your problem. For example, I couldn't resist fast food restaurants. But I was able to resist buying junk food at the grocery store. So I focused on that. I managed to slowly replace butter with olive oil, milk with orange juice, pasta with rice, nutella with honey, white bread with brown bread, meat with nuts. It wasn't the huge change I was looking for, but it was a start. Also, try to change your mindsets about food. I'm currently in the process of eliminating this limiting belief I've developed during my childhood: "What is healthy tastes bad. What is unhealthy tastes good." And I'm trying to replace it with a wiser sentence that resonates with me: "Every healthy meal brings the right molecules that will contribute to my well-being" Next, try to stay mindful of this emotion of lack that you feel right before you go eating too much again. It certainly is there. It's a feeling that's hard to describe, but that's easy to remember. But with practice, you might start to develop the willpower @charlie2dogs was talking about if you build awareness around that bad habit. Now bear with me please: try to imagine yourself being lean and energetic right now. Imagine yourself as healthy as you could be. See yourself walking proudly, talking to others with confidence, waking up in seconds every morning, dressing sexy, smiling, whatever. Whatever feels enjoyable, inspiring or just feels right to you. As long as it somehow relates to eating clean. Imagine this for like 30 seconds right now. And do it again tomorrow if you want to. And remember, every morning is a brand new opportunity to try again. It's better to try everyday and fail, than to never try.

@Damien Our education system was useful for centuries, but now it's pretty outdated. I see three major aspects here : The content The medium The tests First, the content. I think we need to refocus our teaching in two different ways. Instead of presenting the material as an absolute truth they must accept right away, we should ask the students to make hypotheses about it. If we do that (moderately, of course), they might discover a scientific curiosity that's hiding inside them, which will motivate them to work for passion instead of obligation. Also, the content should be more personal. It should be more about how to improve one self in a holistic way, instead of just improving IQ, memory and discipline. Positive psychology, ancient philosophy, communication, marketing, and physical education are good examples of courses we should put more emphasis on. Then, the medium. Instead of listening to the teacher in front of the class, I suggest putting lots of money and effort into making videos, text with illustrations or animations, as well as educative games. Also, a well-developed forum should be available for every class. And finally, the tests. I can't say much about those, because I'm not an expert. But I sure hope someday we invent a technology that makes them more accurate at measuring true understanding. So we can know if a student has superficially explored the lesson just to pass the exam or if he integrated it and will remember it for years. Maybe by using brain scans, or by doing interviews, I don't know. That way we encourage the students to develop some kind of interest in the subjects presented. We also encourage passion, curiosity and wisdom. Passion, curiosity, wisdom. Not only are these three capacities found in no other species than humans, but they're pretty much what allowed our education system to exist in the first place.

I released 7 songs in a year, got 1300 followers, and then stopped and focused on self-help two years ago. soundcloud.com/thinkthinkorthink/rippledgelatin Ok you're in the momentum of your routine right now. Nice! I stopped being consistent in my routine a few months ago and I can't seem to be able to get back on track. Even if I feel like I'm on the verge of something great these days, it seems like I'm missing a spark to light my purpose on fire.

If you want FL Studio advice, just ask Finding our favorite meditation routine and sticking to it is the most productive technique I can think of for our problem. I don't think I need to go into the details of why I think so. Meditation is pretty powerful for all domains of life. I'm able to do 90 minutes of strong determination sitting. If I did it everyday, I would be another human being entirely.

Yes I dated a girl who had a horrible influence on me. And even today, if I meet her, we'll still encourage each other's lower selves like before. It's hard to experience real growth when you're around those people. Wonderful. Build up the hope and the ambition. You're just entering a brand new chapter in your life. You have a clean white canvas to draw what your life should be about. Personally, I started to turn my life around after leaving that toxic girl back in the days. I basically found my life purpose a few months after it. Keeping a positive and focused attitude during the whole process is one of the things I'm currently the most grateful for doing in my life.

I have difficulties to stop smoking pot, eating junk food, distracting myself on the internet, staying in my room. And I want to do more meditation, exercise and creative projects.

@likhil And my utopia is all about becoming a god. And this kind of enlightenment can come not only from regular spiritual work, but also from brain implants or nano-robots. Yes and the news should be talking about this more often than climate change. Because it's a bigger and closer threat to our species.