Carl-Richard

I've had this feeling since I was a little kid: preaching is like 80% about getting off on the aesthetics of how words are used and 20% about the message.

Coincidentally and independent of Leo's blog post, I recently decided to stop watching clip compilations. There is this one channel (UnusualVideos) that has just the most insanely good clips, I have to rewind them 3-4 times to believe my own eyes. It's just one after another. It never stops. It's hard to imagine how he manages to find all of them. Anyways, I don't know if it's the teachings of the likes of John Vervaeke or the entire "high consciousness" intellectual sphere (they all seem to tie back to either Curt Jaimungal or Game B) that I've been exposing myself to that has caused this development in me, but I've gotten increasingly aware of how meaningless and mentally toxic it is to watch hundreds of 7-second clips back-to-back like this, not just intellectually, but on an embodied level (I "feel" the phenomena as its happening). About the intellectual understanding though, the things that are meaningful and nourish your soul can be boiled down to four concepts: 1. purpose (are you aimed towards a goal?), 2. coherence (do things fit together and make sense?), 3. flow (do you engage in activities for their own sake, i.e. intrinsic enjoyment or value?), 4. mattering (are you a part of something larger than yourself?). Now, clip compilations, TikTok, Instagram reels, YouTube Shorts; all these sites that employ short clips and a scrolling function, are sorrowly lacking in all except one of these points: 1. It does not contain purpose. It's not working towards anything. Clear and simple. 2. It does not involve coherence in any significant sense. You jump from one clip to the next where there is generally no sense of continuity or development of narrative, theme or context. It's just pure nihilistic postmodernism and hedonism put into a technological device. 3. It does contain flow (intrinsic enjoyment), but so does eating ice cream, jerking off and taking drugs. It's not a high bar to pass. It's the only thing it has going for it. 4. It does not matter in any significant sense. It does not make you feel like you're a part of something larger than yourself. It's just you sitting and scrolling. Of course, there is a comment section under each clip, but these also run into the problem of a lack of coherence. The feeling of belonging to these "communities" is as short-lasting as the clip itself. You don't really feel like you belong to these communities. It's more like you're there as a visitor. There are no deeply felt relationships, no sense of productive contribution, sacrifice or reciprocity. And of course, from a more conventional cognitive perspective, the short clips zap your attention span, the highly stimulating and sensational nature of the clips (often containing seduction, violence, surprise, disgust) numbs you to the experience of everyday life, and you just know you're wasting your time and you're itching to get yourself out of the loop, but it's hard because it's addictive. All in all, it's literally consuming garbage. It's all the negative tropes of TV zombies that your parents warned you about come to life, times ten. Anyways, so that is why I think I got so turned off by clip compilations. Now, do you want to see something which I recently learned and which I did find very meaningful? Here it is: Cosmogeny (astrophysical evolution), e.g. gas clouds to stars, to planets, to moons. -> Phylogeny (biological evolution), e.g. fish to amphibian, to reptile, to mammal. -> Ontogeny (individual development), e.g. child to adolescent, to young adult, to mature adult. -> Microgeny (moment to moment), e.g. seeing the raw visual data of an apple, to experiencing arousal, to forming some mental concept about it ("apple", "edible"), to thinking about the apple ("am I hungry?"), to planning to eat the apple, to executing that plan, etc. See how they all are nested into each other like holons? That's coherence right there. See how they matter to you in terms of understanding yourself as a part of the universe, as a life form, as a human, as a being moment to moment? That's mattering right there. See how fun it is to understand these deep interpenetrating relationships between different levels of reality? That's flow, intrinsic enjoyment. Now, what purpose does it have? Maybe that is more up to you. For me, the purpose is to further my understanding, which then actually feeds into all these aspects of meaning like I've just demonstrated. So it wraps around itself quite nicely. This "wrapping around itself" is what I think I find so fascinating about particularly John Vervaeke's work. By talking about meaning; by explicating the structure of meaning (coherence), by sharing it with others (mattering), by enjoying the process of understanding meaning (flow), by making the purpose the furthering of understanding itself; you're doing the very thing you're talking about, as you're talking about it, as you're doing it, and arguably to the greatest degree (because it feeds on itself; it's a positive feedback loop). It's absolutely fascinating. By the way, I learned about this yesterday when listening to a curious conversation between Ken Wilber and Lana Wachowski, one of the Wachowski sisters who created The Matrix Trilogy. That conversation itself also has a definite "wrapping around itself" going on (I mean, these are high conscousness people; who would've thought that the creators behind The Matrix are even deeper than what the movie suggests? ).

I feel resistance towards the question. Merely forming the thought that I want to avoid something somehow feels like it creates a shadow dynamic in my mind, which means I will only have to expose myself more to that thing at some point to undo that split. I guess I did the philosopher thing of answering the question by deconstructing it (or did I? Have I expressed that I wanted to avoid something, or have I merely avoided it? )

I mean, the progression from 2-Back to high-end 4-Back says a lot. Other than that, it does actually feel like I've gained an additional 10 IQ points. I think faster, read faster, write faster, perform mental arithmetic faster, stumble less often when I speak, I'm better at listening to people speak, understanding things, etc. I think another thing that helped significantly was adding sprints to my training regimen, so that may be a confound for how I feel subjectively, but still, I was advancing in n-Back ability before that as well.

God. Just a heads-up, you will need to calm down that preacher talk a good bit if you want to stay here. We promote a pluralistic approach to religion; no proselytizing, no "turning to Christ". We appreciate your understanding

No. I think it's likely we have a soul, but I'm saying that what it entails is different from what most people would believe.

Consistency over volume for this. My routine is 10 sets every other day, which takes 17-18 minutes if you rest 10-20 seconds between each set. It's not a big investment in terms of time, but it can make you a bit tired, so you should ideally not prioritize it over work. I sometimes crank out those sets while commuting, so no time is really lost. I think it's definitely worth the investment. My mind is a lot quicker than it used to be.

Progress on Dual-4-Back Maybe 5-Back soon?

That was not my intention. It's just that the idea of a soul becomes less attractive once you realize that it's the process of the flesh (and the accompanying egoic identification) leaving you which is what you fear (if you indeed fear it), not the existence beyond the flesh. The "you" that you fear losing (your limited identity) is going to be lost, at least temporarily, and that is the case irrespective of there being a soul or not. I don't think the process of dying involves some astral version of you causally ascending out of your body with your normal sense of self intact and floating to some concrete astral realm where you wait for the next incarnation or heavenly realm. It's a much more expansive, mind-altering and non-spatio-temporal experience than that (and maybe you'll agree since you say you've had near-death experiences). We are not just flesh, but we are also one with everything. Oneness has nothing to do with flesh in particular. Oneness has to do with everything.

The concept of a soul is not as attractive once you realize it's the dying process you fear, not what happens after. But sure, there could be a string of memories from other lives associated with this body-mind that would imply the concept of a soul, but still, that doesn't make you overcome the fear of dying (which is what most people use the belief in the soul to cope with). That is what the real spiritual quest is about.

New years is the time of the year where people talk about making a change about the same things as last year. It's talked about as a time of change, but in reality, it's just one part of the same cycle which repeats every year. Conscious change depends little on the seasons. It mostly depends on you.

Spoiler: they all say the same thing. Sadhguru: Ken Wilber: Sri Anandamayi Ma: Gary Weber: 33:12 Gary Weber's video goes into the science behind what is happening (prolonged deactivation of the Default Mode Network).

Your title seems a bit mismatched to what you wrote under it, but according to research on the Big 5 personality traits, conscious leaders have: high extroversion, high openness, high conscientiousness, low neuroticism, high agreeableness.

Mmm technically, when you feel fear, there is a physiological response, so in that sense, there is fear in the meat. Whether this causes you to feel fear when you eat the meat depends how you want to draw the lines. Could the fear decrease the health of the meat, decrease your own health by eating it and thus make it more likely to find yourself in a situation where you experience fear (as decreased health leads to dysfunction and dysfunction leads to less fortunate situations)? Probably. Could the fear be stored in some psychic bank that is released in your psychic system when you eat the meat? Maybe.

Unless you get roped into learning about some political issue by circumstance, it's normal to not have a lot of interest in it. There are a million different political issues out there that almost nobody cares about. Of course, some political issues are probably more useful to care about than others. If you didn't have the privilege of getting roped into some issue through other means but you want a systematic approach to learn about for example the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: 1. learn a bit about the larger context of the conflict (e.g. WW2, the Arab-Israeli conflict), 2. learn a little about the worldviews to the different people in the conflict (e.g. Judaism, Zionism, Islam, Arab nationalism), 3. learn a little about the basic history (big dates, straightforward facts that are less prone to ideological framings), 4. learn a lot about how the pro-Israelis (e.g. Netanyahu) frame the history in their favor and how the pro-Palestinians frame the history in their favor. War is not just kinetic, men on the ground, but also words and ideas. And 5. don't go looking for simple answers, don't expect simple conclusions. Wars, history and international relations are messy and sometimes involve impossible situations where everything possible action has a less than favorable outcome. Be skeptical of taking sides, but at the same time don't disallow yourself to take sides if appropriate.

This is the realization of dukkha, the truth of suffering. You always try to do something, squeeze something out of life, but at the end of every experience, you're left just as empty. This realization came crystal clear to me during my first LSD experience. I had planned so many things I wanted to do and experience in this new altered state (weird sensory experiences, fun things to watch, songs to listen to, etc.), but when the time came where I entered the state and did the things I had planned, I felt an immense sense of emptiness, uneasiness and existential dread, not just after doing the things, but before and during. I felt a sense of helplessness due to the all-encompassing nature of this realization. It touched everything I thought I knew. I felt that nothing I could ever do could rid me of this feeling. I didn't know it at the time, but this realization laid the foundation for the intense search for truth that was about to come.

My point is that you'll most likely believe it's in the garage despite it being stolen before you find out that it was indeed stolen. This would evidenced by the state of surprise you would experience if you opened the garage and it wasn't there: "I put it there yesterday and now it's gone!". This is because you've formed a belief based on for example a previous action (putting it in the garage), and maybe your past experience with putting it in the garage and finding it the next day, and maybe the expectation of the security of your garage, etc. But this day, you in fact didn't find the car, and you were really surprised. Then with this new knowledge, you would adjust your beliefs: "maybe it was stolen", "maybe my brother borrowed it". Again, a belief is not a naughty thing, and it's not incompatible with experience. It's informed by experience. I'm saying that we always use beliefs in our daily lives, because that is just how life works. You make conclusions based on limited information all the time, and you're always able to be proven wrong (and when you are, you'll most likely be surprised).

What if it got stolen when you were away?

Do you believe your car is in the garage or not?

I swear I read it had MAOI activity somewhere.

I like to think I started to play the intellectual games afterwards 😊 It's not "evidence" in the sense that you're literally experiencing their thoughts and feelings right now, but it's a reasonable logical conclusion. However, by the same token, things only appear like you're the only conscious person in existence (and I'm not being facetious when I say this). This is actually what is happening: you're taking appearances (people, eyes, chairs) and making a conclusion about the relationship between these appearances. I'm saying you're making a semi-stingy conclusion for seemingly no good reason. If you want to be really stingy, stick with direct experience: don't even grant the legitimacy of appearances. I've said this before: I actually believe it's reasonable to conclude that people in your personal dreams are conscious, because you do essentially the same logical steps to conclude that other people in real life are conscious. I think the reluctancy to conclude this has to do with materialistic assumptions in the culture (dreams only occur "inside your head") and also with the moral implications ("did I actually make somebody suffer in that dream?"). There are also empirical clues pointing to this: people with dissociative identity disorder report having different alters being present as dream characters in the same dream and experiencing the dream from different perspectives (each alter reports this when the person is awake). It's not undeniable evidence, but it's really curious. You did not definitely prove that you're the only conscious person either. You've only adopted a pseudo-position of conceptual parsimony and falsely claimed that this is the the bottom layer of conceptual parsimony (which it isn't), which is the only reason you would do such a thing (because you somehow claim the philosophical highground by being the most parsimonious position, which is itself is also an assumption, but oh well). I think you would not be so convinced of your own position if you had admitted that it's not the most parsimonious position. You would then instead probably open yourself to other criteria for evaluating your ontology (e.g. explanatory power), granted that you care about rationality, and poof — no more denying other people's experiences (probably). It is if you do it right and don't unconsciously smuggle conceptual assumptions. If you do that, then you end up with direct experience, or the inconveniently named "Absolute solipsism". I've tried to qualify along the way that solipsists "tend" to do the unconscious smuggling, because some people call themselves solipsists and don't do the unconscious smuggling (something which for example Leo seems to fall under). My frustration with him calling it solipsism is exactly because of this distinction: many people do the unconscious smuggling when the concept of solipsism is brought up (mostly due to culturally inherited assumptions, like with dreams) and are bound to misunderstand what is being communicated. You bought a Lamborghini, but you're unconscious of this and think you bought a pedal-driven tricycle, and then you awkwardly limit your top speed to 20 mph (downhill if you're lucky). I'm trying to show how unreasonable it looks to unconsciously smuggle conceptual assumptions while also claiming bedrock parsimony. In reality, you're inhabiting a pseudo-position of parsimony; half-assed parsimony. I'm saying that if you acknowledge that this is the position you're in, you should re-evaluate your priorities, or more specifically your meta-theoretical criteria for constructing your ontology, e.g. optimizing your explanatory power. Because if you've given up the throne of supreme parsimony, then you have a lot less to lose by bumping up things like explanatory power. Your kind of solipsist assumes (among other things) that the way your eyes are oriented in space have a bearing on your ontology, that the way you relate to other human beings have a bearing on your ontology, that the way you experience your bodily sensations and mental activity have a bearing on your ontology, etc. Again, you're assuming space, time and objects, and you're making logical conclusions based on those. This is not self-evident (in the sense of it being baseline reality independent of assumptions), because you can inhabit a reality beyond space, time and objects (and you can get thoroughly acquainted with it even while immersed in so-called spatio-temporal reality — it's called enlightenment).

Once we get the fact of direct experience out of the way (that there is only one Consciousness), then we can consciously go on to grant things such as space, time and objects (and logical deductions based on those), because that is how we come to understand much of the world, particularly the world of things, people and inner experiences (which again, is not direct experience). Now, when you grant these things, most rational people will conclude (using logical inferences and based on how objects in their inner experience seem to behave and interract) that their inner experience is not the only inner experience that exists. On the other hand, what solipsists tend to do (usually unconsciously) is to grant space, time and objects but then severely limit the scope of their logical deductions. They will say (implictly not explictly): "I'm only able to see a particular configuration of space, time and objects here, therefore that is all that exists". Most rational people will further the investigation and say "but looking at these objects and how they behave and interract, other people seem very alike me, both in behavior and appearance, and when I perform a particular behavior, that causes a change in my inner experience, thus other people must likely experience the same thing". In this sense, solipsism is a conceptual understanding of the world that feigns conceptual minimalism by unconsciously smuggling conceptual assumptions, and as a consequence, it becomes unable to take advantage of these assumptions in a way that makes sense, because they (solipsists) are unconscious of what they're actually doing. They think these assumptions are just what is self-evident, that there are no assumptions involved, but in reality, it's just a stereotypical and unconscious way of trying to find the most reductionistic and parsimonious worldview there is (which is attractive because it gives a feeling of safety). In reality, it's not reductionistic, not parsimonious, but instead a constipated and lobotomized view of the world. And why is it that? Again, because you grant all these things (space, time, objects and logic), but then you severely limit the use of these things (you constipate or lobotomize yourself). Like, why grant the existence of objects but don't investigate a bit deeper how they behave and interract (other than how they merely relate to the position of your eyes)? It's like you're playing a game of monopoly where you give yourself a huge stack of cash but you only use pocket change to play the game. And it's worse than simply being stingy, because you actually believe that you only have the pocket change. You unconsciously granted yourself a huge stack of cash, but in your unconsciousness, you don't think it exists. So in summary, if you want to concede to making conceptual claims and answer the question of how many people in the world have an inner experience: 1. don't claim you're not making a conceptual claim when actually you are (don't smuggle conceptual assumptions), and 2. do it right (investigate a bit deeper how objects behave). Then you should have your answer.

I don't think we actually agree. I think what you mean by "this right here is ALL That exists" is actually your "inner experience" (defined in terms of space, time and objects; not direct experience), which in reality is just as non-existent as other people's inner experience. When you say "this is all that exists" and if I ask you what "this" is, I think you'll list me a number of objects extended in time and space.

Because if we grant a coherent understanding of the topic at hand (which I don't think you have), this goes without saying when you deconstruct space, time and objects, because then you also deconstruct your own "inner experience" (which, again, is different from "direct experience"). So of course, other people's inner experience is also deconstructed, just as your own experience is. It's like you want me to spell out that the tea that I poured from my teapot into my teacup is now no longer in the teapot. It's self-evident. Your fervent insistence on emphasising the non-existence of the tea in the teapot is in fact only indicative of a misunderstanding of the topic at hand, namely that you think the tea that was poured into the cup actually exists, but it doesn't, just like it doesn't exist in the pot, because it's an illusion altogether.

Concepts don't really exist (from the perspective of direct experience). I don't get what your deal is with "subjective experience".