Carl-Richard

Gregory Bateson's work (which spans many different fields) generally challenges reductionistic or linear ways of thinking. For example, in communication theory, he emphasizes how communication is a circular rather than a linear process, and that the meaning of an utterance is constructed as a result of what the interpreter brings to the table (their personal dispositions) and other contextual factors (e.g. time, place, past events). So a Bateson will be predisposed to making context aware critiques of stage theory, which is a field that generally lacks context awareness (as it's an older field). Pointing to a lack of cross-cultural validation is one example of a context aware critique. Barbara Rogoff has made similar critiques.

@nuwu Does this actually make sense to you when you read it?

No, because it literally just makes shit up.

ChatGPT lies.

Of course. It's Gregory Bateson's daughter

You have to watch his conversations with John Vervaeke on TOE with Curt Jaimungal.

Yes. But what is even better than weed is being fully immersed in a movie while not having intrusive thoughts about spirituality

Fasting until you're on the brink of death, or sitting in a dark cave unmoving for days at a time while bugs are eating at your flesh, or experiencing a car crash, can all be catalysts for a spiritual awakening. They're disruptive practices: they create a contrast to your normal state which lets you become aware of unconscious patterns that keep you asleep. But when you return to your normal state and want to integrate your awakening into it, you should do things that optimize your normal state, because that is where you exist most of the time. You don't want to be dependent on disruption for awakening. You eventually want the awakening to blossom naturally from the inside, not from some outside practice.

There is such a thing as a language game. When somebody is talking about facts, I understand what they mean. When you are talking about how facts don't exist, I also understand what you mean. Words are contextual, and the more context awareness you have, the more you can concede to any particular language game without being fundamentally confused.

I've seen estimates between 48-76 depending on the source. It's anyway up there with soft drinks and sucrose.

People spend years or decades writing one book. People spend an afternoon or a week making a video. There is only so much depth that a video can give you. Even the best educational videos out there don't give you 1% of the depth that a book can give you. Channels like Veritasium give you easily digestible introductions to a subject, which can be very useful, but if you want to truly grasp a subject, you need to go to the source, and that is usually in the form of books. Watching college lectures is an intermediate thing. It gives you maybe 5% more depth, and it's usually a bit more digestible (depending on the book and the lecturer), but if you don't care about that and want to read the books, videos and lectures are really a waste of time, as you can read much faster than a lecturer can speak.

It causes a drastic short-term change in state.

What does that look like?

"Alien insanity"? LOL

Mindfulness, Self-determination theory, developmental psychology, systems thinking and holism (as a part of community psychology), trauma psychology (CPTSD, etc.).

People find religion meaningful for the same reason why you find holiday dinners meaningful, or going to the movies, or the bar, or a party, or the beach, or the mountains, or a wedding, or a funeral: things you do routinely that have a structure to them, that you do with your friends and family, that create a sense of cohesion and connection on multiple levels (socially, spiritually, self-actualization, etc.).

When Curt asks about how he learned to communicate the way he does, he does have a surprisingly deliberate and methodical approach to maximizing how he is being understood, which was insightful. Then also, when he asked whether he does any prepping or psyching up before he goes on stage, he said "absolutely zero, it's like being in my living room, and it has always been like that". That shows how being grandiose and overconfident can actually be a positive thing when being a teacher, as you'll have less self-doubt, anxiety and other things that may make you stumble in your speech or subtract from the teaching in other ways. In fact, I think the narcissistically prone person is actually the best fit for the type of superficial, one-way, lecture type of teaching that is normal in our society, because they will study the best techniques for getting a positive response from their audience (because that is a lot of what they care about), to such an extent that it selects for a highly simplified and easily digestible format, which creates a perfect fit with that teaching format. And I can't stop myself from saying something about his MBTI type (he's an ENFJ), in that his highly methodical approach struck me as a very alien way of thinking for me as an INFP (very Fe focused, very "they" focused), and it also seems to be consistent with his strong allegiance to the "old mainstream" in science, as well as "Normal science" (coined by Thomas Kuhn), a.k.a. the highly loyal to in-group and cynical to out-group, almost dogmatic, "intra-paradigmatic" science. It all seems to go together nicely: the "just shut up and calculate" mentality, or like Neil puts it: "I just want to do the measurements and find the next planet — that's it", has a nice simplicity to it, just like his "I just want to teach easily digestible pop science to kids" mentality.

Schizophrenia develops due to a confluence of environmental and genetic factors. Psychedelics may serve as an environmental stressor that can trigger the development of schizophrenia, but that doesn't mean that everybody who does psychedelics will develop schizophrenia. If that was the case, Leo would be schizophrenic by now, but he is not. People with schizophrenia (the psychiatric diagnosis) have severe problems with logical thinking and general daily functioning. You can also talk about schizophrenia as a dispositional trait (not the psychiatric diagnosis), where you have varying degrees of schizophrenic-like traits, but not necessarily severe problems with daily functioning, and this relates to the autism-psychosis spectrum in the paper that I linked in the previous post.

"Psychosis and autism as diametrical disorders of the social brain". Bernard Crespi, Christopher Badcock. Behavioral and brain sciences 31(3), 241-261, 2008. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=no&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=autism+psychosis+spectrum&oq=autism-psychosis#d=gs_qabs&t=1689416439830&u=%23p%3DURfcprLvG-QJ

Stomach issues can have a profound effect on your consciousness. Get some rest, let your hair grow out, get into your usual routines and things will get better.

Reminds me of one of my childhood friends who used to say all since middle school "I'm going to be an engineer", and I was like "how can you be so sure?". Well, he is an engineer today. Apparently, some people are simple like that.

I want to hear your explanations for why you think exercise increases health and longevity. Have you actually thought about that? I'm not interested in statements like "exercise has been shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by x percent". I'm interested in very foundational mechanical explanations; for example, why does exercise reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease; the mechanism behind it. And I believe there is a general explanation that applies to virtually all examples of exercise and bodily functioning, so maybe try to find that. I'd like to hear you guys' explanations first, and then I'll present my explanation

That's a brilliant way to put it. I've never been able to put it into words like that, the seeming contradiction between being awake but still being here as a human, experiencing things and acting like a human. I thought about it as I was going to sleep, here in my dream as a human, about to enter another dream realm ?

The ignore function does that.

Fun fact: he coined the term "the Hard problem of consciousness" back in the 90s.