Carl-Richard

Some carbohydrates are necessary for optimal brain functioning. That is why I eat half a kiwi (or orange) with my breakfast (which is mostly protein/fat-based). If I don't, I get a bit slow. If I instead eat a whole fruit, I get jittery and anxious. Throughout the day, I only consume "real food" every 5-6 hours and water (+ one whole fruit during my workouts).

When you called out my statistics bluff, I became emotional and defensive. On top of that, I misunderstood how you were using the terms. So I felt a combination of needing to redeem myself while also feeling like you were gaslighting me (I was also on vacation and not eating or sleeping right). Not my best moment

Doesn't it feel fake?

You can't convince me to not drink alcohol as my preferred entheogen with your McKenna quote.

Meditation in school. Get them young.

Alcohol

It has made me able to think more clearly and meaningfully, but it's like it's not under my control anymore. It feels like the thoughts always have a significant purpose, and if I attend to that purpose (say completing some work), they quickly die down, but if I ignore them, it keeps the circuit open and the thoughts repeat. Thoughts feed off uncertainty and indecisiveness, and if you've figured out some of the big questions, then your mind will be a reflection of that.

Same as with all other force multipliers.

Yep. You also can't will what you want.

I'm going Neo-Advaita on this one: the period of my life where I was the most conscious was after I decided to stop meditating and stop seeking enlightenment. I genuinely didn't want it, and that lowered my defenses to a new level.

Symbols represent or point to some non-symbolic perception. All forms of thought (be it concrete mental imagery or abstract propositions) act as symbols, but they also comprise their own perceptual reality.

Being loved teaches you to be loving.

Molly is to psychedelics what chocolate is to coffee.

I had a thought along the lines of being critical of these theories that may not be more than tangentially relevant to your specific questions here, but I'll mention it anyway: When it comes to complex phenomena like human behavior and cognition, trying to make clear-cut categories is almost always a problematic way to go about things, whether it be personality typologies (most notably MBTI) or structural stage theories (SD etc.). It's just the case that these things are multi-faceted and spectrumy; that they vary over times and situations, and that they don't come in discrete, pre-prepared or ready-made packets. Now, there are certainly some aspects of the human organism that are more easily dichotomizable than others (e.g. monogenetic traits like male/female or blue/brown eyes), but when you look at broader categories like personality traits or thought patterns (which are largely polygenetic and environmentally determined), it's a different story. To account for this understanding, this is the proposal: rather than "stabilizing at one stage" (or even a "center of gravity"), there simply exists developmental altitudes that are unlocked in a specific order. It's a bit like how you're not able to jump 1.5 feet up into the air before you jump 1 feet. Also, just because you're able to jump that high, that doesn't mean you're constantly hovering 1 foot above the ground. Also, maybe you're only able to get one leg above that height (or one aspect of yourself). By doing this, you dial back some of the overly rigid aspects of categorization while still retaining the base structure or premise behind describing it that way and not another. Then it becomes up the particular model in question to lay out their own empirical data for how the categories actually behave, rather than smuggling it in a priori. That way you don't have to throw out all resemblance of predictive utility either (hence, it doesn't merely have to be a "schema", like you asked), but you just have to deliver the justifications for it on a case-by-case basis. In other words, if somebody is indeed able to successfully argue that you can be at one developmental stage, then so be it. Now, I'm aware that certain theorists like Ken Wilber have already steered in the direction of addressing these points ("facets/lines of development"), but what I'm doing here is simply justifying why that is the correct impulse, and how it's not endemic to just the higher echelons of structural stage theory, but rather the entire field of social science (especially psychology), namely the basic insight that humans are largely not black and white.

I weirdly felt some of this dynamic while watching Jordan Peterson (59) talk to Roger Penrose (90). They had a comparable level of vitality despite their relative age. After all, Peterson was very close to dying 2-3 years ago. When he recovered, it felt like he aged 15-20 years.

Also according to Freud, the mystical experience is nothing but a regression to an infantile state, to "the feeling of unity that the infant experiences with the nurturing breast of the mother" In a way, he was kinda right though.

People have already lived to 120 today, and they didn't seem like stopping ?

It's a bit funny, but psychology as a field unironically treats conservatism as a pathology or developmental deficiency. Of course, the smart conservatives will just call this proof of liberal bias in the social sciences ?

Sensory input is an useful idea for describing the dynamics of how your sensory apparatuses work. For example, when you place your hands in front of your eyes, your eyes stop registering most of the light outside of your hands. When you sever your optical nerve, a similar thing happens. As to its relation to perceptions, sensory input is not what "causes" them. It's more true to say it's the other way around, but even then, perceptions themselves are not causal in any absolute sense, not any more than how the pixels that make out these words cause the next. Perceptions are also not fundamental – they happen within consciousness.

Same. I had to artificially reignite it while trying to salvage some neglected aspects of myself (education etc.), but it's still not the same. When I'm engaging in intellectual thought, it feels like I'm operating from the second-best thing. In reality, my mind just wants to be silent. But I deliberately chose to do it, because I'm not ready for selflessness yet (or so I'm telling myself). I feel that I'm practically capable of climbing to the top and letting go, but I also feel that I haven't built a sturdy enough ladder yet.

@How to be wise If you're tired of purely intellectual examples, let's see how Yellow manifests in the interpersonal/emotional domain: 1:32:18 - Frame Control & Inauthenticity This conversation is a good example of context awareness through application of meta-communication, something which Mr. Girl is a master at. People like to criticize him for it, but he explains why it's an important part of communication, namely to get things "above board". Aella is also familiar with this kind of thinking, which is what initiated this part of the discussion (the topic of frame control). It does get quite weird at times, and you can maybe start to think that Mr. Girl is taking it too far, which is something they touch on, but it's still one of the most fascinating conversations I've seen. The reason I post this in Yellow and not in Green, is because of the obvious depth and maturity of the understanding. It's not simply a recognition of the fact that frames exist or that context is important, but it's a prolific and strategic application of that in conversation (while also critiquing the very act of meta-communication itself).

When you're 60-80 years old, that statistic will be very different.

Look at whether they're high-functioning and responsible individuals.

For example, I can't read one chapter in just 25 minutes. There is like a momentum that builds up as you read, not just reading speed, but also a type of holistic understanding combined with connections to other topics, moments where you stop and think etc. I feel like taking frequent breaks will interrupt that process somewhat. Of course, if you're struggling to read and just want to pull your hairs out, then breaks can be very beneficial.

Pomodoro is good if you can't focus or want to spend the entire day reading. I haven't actually tried it, but I feel it would ruin immersion and tamper with elaborate processing.