Carl-Richard

I think one thing that happens with some people when they think about working out is that they have a negative cognitive frame of it as something difficult and hard. According to Cognitive Activation Theory of Stress, this frame ("stimulus expectancy" and "outcome expectancy") is largely what causes the "stress" (the "bad" stress; chronic, sustained stress). Once you're able to mentally cope with the challenges associated with working out, it's not a source of "bad" stress — it's "training", unless you overdo it and it becomes a sustained stress response ("strain"). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0149763409000232?via%3Dihub And if you want to counter this by saying "but what about the non-cognitive part of the stress? Isn't that inherently tearing on the system?". No. Again, it only becomes a problem when it's prolonged and sustained. Literally anything you do; any action, any thought, any movement; initiates the stress response to some degree. It's an ingrained part of your functioning. The optimal way it works is that you activate the stress response, you do the work, solve the problem, and then you rest. The problem only arises if you don't solve the problem and don't get to rest, and that is when the response gets prolonged and you experience the "bad" stress. Now, how trained you are will determine what that point is for you. The reason why working out is generally healthy is because for some people, that point is reached in everyday life, even while not working out, simply by trying to do everyday activities, for example work, or just merely moving your body. Working out decreases the likelihood of ever hitting the point where bad stress occurs in your life, and it's the bad stress that decreases functioning and has the strongest negative impact on longevity. As for the argument that short-term stress increases resource consumption, increases calorie-intake, bodily strain, requires more rest, and that this reduces longevity; while this is strictly true in isolation, as somebody mentioned earlier, you have to look at it in context: if you never get into situations of high short-term stress, you'll avoid that, but you'll also experience a severe increase in prolonged stress, and the former is quantitatively AND qualitatively incomparable to the latter. It's qualitatively different because, in line with the CATS model, it's really easy to mentally cope with a workout, while any constant and prolonged stress from life you'll most likely experience as outside your control and therefore has a much worse profile of mental coping (e.g. "hopelessness" and "helplessness" in the CATS paper). And now, I'll make the quantitative case (which someone else also made earlier): A proper high-intensity workout lasts maximum 90 minutes. You're awake for 16 hours (960 minutes) a day. If you could choose between 90 minutes of high-intensity "stress" (which is not "bad" stress) say 3 times a week, which is "stress" you can rest and recover from, and 960 minutes of prolonged/actually-bad stress 7 times a week, which you cannot rest and recover from; if you know basic arithmetic and if you know anything vaguely theoretical about how the human body works and if you have ever experienced the intense negative side effects of going from a period of regular exercise to no exercise; you would have to be psychotic to choose no exercise. The question shouldn't be "exercise: yes or no?", it should be "how much and what kind?".

That's if you have a wacky definition of health. If you define health as optimal functioning, then health and longevity are virtually synonymous. If you define health as having big muscles and fucking a lot of bitches (reproductive fitness), then sure, that definition of health might not be synonymous with longevity. Sure, if you manage to keep your resting heart rate below 50 or so, if you have no musculoskeletal issues and you cope well with your daily life, and if at the same time you happen to be working out less than someone else, then sure, working out more might not help you that much in terms of longevity. But I'll assure you that in virtually all cases, getting to those levels requires some amount of working out (or just general physical exercise); whether it would be considered light or extreme exercise, whether it's intentional or accidental; that's beside the point.

Define light moderate exercise.

It's impressive what sleep deprivation and cramming the day before an exam can do to your dreams, if that's a potential explanation. The dream basically consisted of my mom trying to show me this invisible creature that was learning how to walk on a tightrope. At first, I couldn't see it, but then as I applied deep focus, I could start to see a faint outline of their body. The more I focused, the more I became aware of them, but their body was still extremely subtle and translucent. It was as if I had to slowly and through great determination unlock and train a second pair of eyes to be able to see them. Then the weird thing happened where I was attempting to "merge" with them, not physically, but telepathically, where I would literally become this translucent silhouette of a being for a moment, experiencing walking the tightrope from their perspective. After a while of intense concentration and psychic determination, I managed to do so — I became the being walking on the tightrope, and it was an incredibly euphoric experience. While being in this other form, I still knew that I had a second body, but I just wasn't currently operating it, or I was temporarily plugged in to this other experience. It still felt as real as my other experience, and it felt like I had achieved some marvelous feat and broken through preconceived notions of what was possible. It makes me wonder if this very thing is possible in real life, with the right level of dedication and practice.

That's like, just your opinion, man.

What do you like to do?

Lists.

Dunno, but one hilarious thing I ran into while reading about sleep is trying to explain what the hell is going on during sleep paralysis in a dry scientific way: You emerge from REM sleep. You're awake, kinda. You're perceiving things in reality, but you're still in a dream-like state; you might experience a sense of panic or terrifying hallucinations, and you can't speak or move because your body is still experiencing the muscle atonia from REM sleep. So are you really awake or are you just dreaming? Is reality a dream? 😆

@Reciprocality I would agree with @Consept that if you tried really hard to say simple and meaningful things, you could probably provide some useful thoughts. But that requires a certain set of values. Do you actually feel a strong drive for meaning, for being understood through and through by yourself and others? Is your need for self-expression something more than merely coming off as deep and profound? Do you want to connect to something truly real? Find that impulse within you. And as a bit of a side note, for people who care about this notion, I think this is what being an independent/original/free thinker is really about. When you strive your very hardest to deeply connect with what is real and true, at the cost of sometimes not coming off as the smartest, most virtuous or most profound person in the world, you'll actually start to think for yourself, because thinking true thoughts as an unique individual is what produces original thoughts by definition. It has very little to do with isolating yourself from outside influences (in fact, you can't really escape outside influences, especially if you want to think). Simply being an unique individual and trying your best to get at the truth inevitably produces an original result, and it's really the only real way it happens. People who don't aim to think true thoughts (at least unconsciously) but instead take shortcuts and go by surface-level appearances (for example on the level of ideology in the form of group-think, or on the level of language with grandiose and pseudo-intellectual word salad; both which work to serve an ego that needs a certain type of emotional validation), these people are the ones who don't think for themselves, simply because they don't know how to think. Not coincidentally, it's the people that know how to think that we fashion as original thinkers, not the people who fail to think. Ironically, the concept of an original thinker is really about appearances and social recognition, which is why you shouldn't care about it if you're an original/true thinker. Knowing how to think true thoughts means your thoughts get recognized as thoughts worth considering, and you're always an unique individual and will always think unique thoughts, so the more true thoughts you think, the more unique thoughts people will recognize you for. Hence more true thoughts = more recognition as an original thinker. Tada! Also, in a sense, you'll stop thinking for yourself, because you'll be driven by something larger than yourself. And this is again why coming off as an independent thinker no longer becomes important. A big part of it involves acknowledging when you don't understand something, seeking clarification, trying to be as clear as possible, and accepting when you're wrong (which happens less and less the better you get at acknowledging when you don't understand something). Anyways, late-night ranting again.

Do you talk this incomprehensibly to people in real life? Do people understand you? Genuinely curious.

I literally laid out how being strong makes you healthy. Maybe read it again.

Firstly, an organism is not a stationary object. All organisms evolved to move in one way or another (either more overtly/motorically like most animals or more metabolically like most plants). Secondly, stress is not unhealthy: chronic and overly intense stress is. Stress in manageable doses makes you stronger, and being strong means you're more capable to handle stress in general, which makes you less prone to chronic stress and injuries, which makes you more healthy. Imagine what would happen if one day you just stopped walking. That is one big source of stress off your back. "But that isn't stress though, is it?". Well, let's say you stopped walking for a whole month, causing significant muscle atrophy in your legs. Then try to walk up a couple of flights of stairs. Tell me if that is not stressful. Now, did walking suddenly become a bad activity just because it caused you a bit of stress? No. Unless you keep walking without ever taking a break, causing you to be in a state of chronic stress, or you walk too intensely and for example pull a muscle, walking is not bad for you. So why is working out supposedly bad for you? The problem is not walking or working out: the problem, if any, is that you're weak and that you need to train yourself up to tackle it better. And so it is with everything in life. All of life is really just a big collection stressors, and some of it might cause you to be chronically stressed or cause injuries if you're too weak to handle it. Grandma might break her back just by bending down funnily, which is not something you want to emulate. An unathletic person might have an existential crisis just while carrying groceries or standing too long in line (or when something slightly bad happens at work, because, as you know, health is bio-psycho-social). So, would you like to face those stressors while being weak or while being strong? Which do you think makes you more healthy?

Are not movement and non-movement part of the same one reality? In reality, they're continuous entities. For example, try to find the definite limit where the movement begins and where it ends. You'll find out it's either an infinite regress or it's rather arbitrary where you draw the distinction. Carving things out as distinct entities is something we do for convenience.

How do the individual statements connect? That is the point of a sentence: providing things that connect. If they don't connect, you're just saying a bunch of random statements.

It's the interpersonal equivalent of a psychosomatic syndrome (mind causing body causing mind causing body etc.): When you feel bad, other people in your environment might start to feel bad, and then you might attribute their feel-bad behavior as the cause of you feeling bad, which makes you feel more bad, which makes them feel more bad, etc. With these things, it's generally unclear what is the root cause. Most interpersonal dynamics are not easily described by linear causal relationships (A → B). They're more easily described by circular causal relationships where all the causal factors arise simultaneously in a co-dependent relationship (A ⟳ B). The same can be said for psychosomatic syndromes. When we talk about relationships and say things like "he made me feel bad", we have to keep in mind that we're mainly doing it as a pragmatic move to express how we feel and that it's only ever one limited part of the story. And we should express how we feel, because that is how relationships work. But we should be careful about determining the reasons for why we feel what we feel. The safest bet is to be probabilistic and quantitative: "I feel x most probably and mostly because he did y, maybe less because z happened yesterday, and most probably and much less because of w etc.). More importantly, we have to keep in mind that our feelings are biased and that we're often blind to a part of the story. But at the same time, you should never deny your own feelings outright. Your feelings are legitimate, just not absolutely legitimate.

When you feel hated by people, people may come to actually hate you

How so?

Bro you're literally making no sense.

Consciousness. Everywhere.

How is the "you" separate from something else absolute now? 🤨

Psychedelics weren't created with any particular human purpose in mind (they were created by nature). Still, I think they can definitely be used to control people's minds, in principle. Psychedelics deconstruct your mind, but after deconstruction, there is a reconstruction, and that is when you're particularly vulnerable to control. However, control by some malicious actor is not generally what you should worry about. Rather, it's being suggestible to new perspectives that prey on your lower impulses or fears, and you'll be controlled by them, just like the people who promote it (e.g. vaccine paranoia, conspiracy theories, negative supernatural energies/entities). I'm not saying this has to happen when you take psychedelics, but it can happen and I've seen it happen (it has also happened to me). It's also true like Leo said that you become less susceptible to some forms of control, but again, when you deconstruct something, there is a potential for something to go wrong during the reconstruction.

A sense of belonging is felt when you fit to your environment. It's easy to forget that even though you might be different, you share a lot with your fellow humans, and therefore you belong with them. I didn't have it as a deep psychedelic insight, but more conceptual, but I'll still share it here:

It's a cycle more precise than the movement of the celestial bodies.

Self-Determination Theory (SDT) is a theory that presents three factors that create optimal motivation in an organism. SDT in a nutshell: These three factors reflect deep biological truths and can be applied to all organisms, but here I will apply them to humans. I will also claim that "motivation" in this sense is synonymous with "health" and "well-being". In other words, SDT describes the factors that create optimal health and well-being. For a more in-depth explanation of SDT, I recommend this thread. So, how does SDT relate to Western values (or so-called "Western" values)? What is so special about the West? Why are Western values considered so precious? And more controversially: is it true that Western values are "objectively" good? I will claim that if SDT can be treated as an objective measurement of health and well-being, which you could argue is the case when you consider how it reflects deep biological truths, then you can possibly make the case that Western values are "objectively" good. (I put "objectively" in quotation marks because I acknowledge that I've chosen an arbitrary standard for objectivity. However, like I said, the standard can be argued on biological lines and applies to all organisms. So if it's not objectively good, it's at least based on something that applies to all organisms, and it has to do with health and well-being). Individualism The West champions the right to be the maker of your own destiny, that you can pursue whatever you want as long as it doesn't hurt others (which is relativistic, but we won't go there), and generally that you're free to be who you want to be. This coincides nicely with "autonomy" and "competence" (you're free to be who you truly are and who you want to be), but also "belonging" in the sense that the surrounding culture promotes and supports your right to be yourself, and that you belong there. It's also a two-way street in the sense that you need to factor in other people and their autonomy (you can't hurt them), creating the space of belonging for them. Freedom of speech You should be able to say what you want, to make your case, to have your voice heard, again, as long as it doesn't hurt others. In a sense, it's individualism in the realm of verbal and intellectual self-expression, and it has practically the same relation to SDT as above. Democracy You should be able to have a say in how your society is governed. This ensures "belonging" in the sense that your competencies and need for self-expression is reflected in your environment, i.e. that you belong to that environment. The state also protects you from other people taking away your autonomy by being the monopoly of violence, again creating the space for belonging. So in summary, it seems like SDT coincides nicely with the Western values of individualism, freedom of speech and democracy. Does that mean the West is perfect? Does that mean authoritarianism doesn't have a point? Not necessarily. With respect to the West not being perfect, the West often goes too far with individualism, in a way that erodes the need for belonging, for example by the tiny size of families ("the nuclear family"), ideas like having to move out from your parents, buying your own house or living on your own, overdoing sayings like "going it on your own" with respect to career, intellectual pursuits or "spirituality" (the fallacy of autodidactism). With respect to authoritarianism having a point, if you wanted to pull in a model like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, authoritarianism could be good if the need for safety is threatened by anarchy and violence (people who do not respect your autonomy), effectively creating a relative space of belonging. But once your safety is secured, once you live in a society where other people relatively respect your autonomy, what else do you need as an organism? Or rather, what "is" an organism? How does an organism function on a fundamental level? What makes an organism healthy? That, is what SDT tries to describe.

How does it prove your point? No human form of government has existed for 3.5 billion years.