Carl-Richard

Being is baseline, absolute truth. Meaning is what you do with it. Many people sometimes conflate meaning (relative truth) with absolute truth. "It makes sense". That's meaning. Conceptual truth, factual truth, analytic truth, is at first post meaning made up in your head. It might reflect an underlying structure that can be postulated to be outside your head, but that is also meaning in so far it is not simply being. The thing postulated to be outside your head, for it to be being, must also include the inside of your head, and everything that can possibly exist.

Depends on what you want. If letting go is what you want, it's definitely ideal.

The orienting framework for this is the concept of "control", which can be deduced from the concept of autonomy (feeling like being in control of your actions) and competence (feeling like you're able to exert control through your abilities). These are cornerstones of feeling like you are able to exert control and influence over your surroundings and in your life in general. What happens when you feel like you lack control? You develop various symptoms of negative emotion and cognition: Anxiety: a state of hypervigilance, which may involve a worry about what may happen in the future that will lead to a bad outcome (or not happen the way you want it to go, the way you are willing to it go if you could control it). With worry, it's the feeling of lack of control projected into the future. It might not necessarily involve a specific (lack of) competancy but maybe a general one like inability to predict the future (i.e. uncertainty), which is a potent cause of anxiety. Rumination: thinking about something that went bad in the past, a goal you didn't achieve, or some problem you seem to be unable to get over or solve. It's the feeling of lack of control projected into the past (or the immediate past if it's happening concurrently, a.k.a. "now" but still in the form of a thought so still technically the past). Getting stuck in endless "problemsolving" that goes nowhere is a typical sign of rumination. Depression: which might involve helplessness (not knowing what to do or how to do it, and therefore not doing anything) or hopelessness (not thinking this will ever change). These are less operational forms of feelings of lack of control as they don't entertain or mobilize for action (unlike in anxiety and rumination) but simply cease or accept that no action will work. This manifests physically as (or is associated with) psychomotor retardation, low mood, low energy, the typical "immobilizing" symptoms of depression. You could think of depression in the form of helplessless and hopelessness as the extreme endpoints of negative emotion and cognition, because they represent the extreme endpoints of feeling of lack of control ("nothing works, nothing will ever work"), and because while anxiety and rumination might not necessarily involve depression, depression often involves anxiety and rumination. And how does mindfulness, spirituality, cognitive flexibility, deal with these issues of lack of control (e.g. meditation, letting go of identification, etc.)? You might simply accept the lack of control and thus gain control in that (i.e. you identify with whatever is happening and it's you, so nothing bad can ever really happen, nothing really needs to be controlled, because it's fine anyway whatever happens). Acceptance is the very pure mirror image of helplessness and hopelessness, because you are always able to let go and opt out of the need to control and therefore opt into absolute control (as opposed to being perpetually stuck). But do you want to let go? That is always the issue. That's the crux of all the world's problems. But still, it's a good thing to have in the toolbox, a good thing to be aware of, and a good thing to know that you can orient yourself towards when you perhaps realize everything else is hopeless (be it due to depression or simply knowing nothing in life will every fulfill you at the deepest level, will never alleviate your suffering at the root, only temporarily soothe it). Because, the cognitive machinery associated with anxiety, worry, rumination, depression, is always active to some degree as long you are identified with that which needs to survive. The brain and the organism evolved these things because it was good for surviving (predicting things in the future, keeping account of things in the past, honestly judging your feeling of progress and performance). So as long you identify with survival, that is what you will experience to some degree or another (unless you are in complete control and acting perfectly in accordance with your autonomy and competence, which is possible to a huge extent that many might not appreciate but is still a relatively rare and even fragile state: this is where the emotions and cognitions take on a highly positive and excited and passionate form like the creative and productive states you can get in while working on something meaningful or doing something you love; the self-referential machinery flips over to the self-transcendent and self-actualizing machinery). But you will probably keep doing that for a while more so it's good to know these things until then.

An organism that can't move (by its own accord) is by definition ill. Humans just have a projected mental space of this dynamic called depression. If you get hurt and for example break a limb, you will experience a form of depression, because you can't move like you used to. And when you move and it causes pain, that restricts the movement and keeps you in a state of low mood and low energy to avoid that pain. Pain, low mood, low energy, depression, they are all a part of the same system. And of course, when ill or hurt, the body wants to stay still so it can heal (there is an evolutionary pressure for that), so that also feeds into the system above, increasing pain sensitivity, pain from fever, pain from inflammation (inflammation is an immune signal), etc. Notice also in depression, it's not just your body that slows down in its movement, it's your mind. Your cognitive abilities, your working memory, your IQ, your ability to see connections, tanks. Notice also when you're truly sick, especially with the flu, you can notice your "circle of concern" diminishes severely (every goal you have that is not about staying put and healing gets distinctly removed from your mind). It's like you could be working on the most exciting and meaningful project and then you get the flu and suddenly you forget all about it (I've experienced this and it's quite palpable). And of course, meaning and excitement are dopaminergically mediated, and dopamine is the neurochemical of movement (cognitive and physically).

No.

The only woman I've talked spirituality to in real life is my mom lol (maybe it's genetic after all). But I don't exactly push the conversation often either (I don't go around expecting people to be interested in it). And I don't exactly talk to many women either I have talked to like 2-3 guys who know what awakening and/or meditation (and the various states that are possible) is. But I can understand your position. It would be very nice to have someone on that level. Talking to my mom about my experiences (and she being open and actually understanding) was one the most beautiful experiences I've had, it brought me right back into that mind space. Actually, there was one girl at a party once where we had this intense conversation where I managed to drop so many non-dual hints in the normal conversation like "but everything is connected to everything else anyway, so" and she was like "yeeessss, everything is connected to everything else 🤯". And ironically, we were in a way connected after that because she started going to the same gym as me in another town.

I pocket called my mom while on MDMA. The rest of the story is a secret

Watching trippy visuals on a blurry 240p YouTube video through a small laptop computer monitor when tripping can only be described as going to a gas station ice cream truck when you're in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Or having sex with a plastic grocery bag as a condom. Idk.

No melancholic music enjoyers? Opeth - Damnation album, King Crimson - In The Court of the Crimson King album, most of Radiohead's - OK Computer album, every Porcupine Tree album, most of Pink Floyd's - Meddle album (only prog rock albums apparently). Nothing like sitting in the back of a car when it's raining and listening to that on headphones and looking out the window. Or crawling under the bed sheets when falling asleep.

Decapitated somehow manages to play technical death metal but without sounding robotic like many of such bands do and while having catchy, heavy and groovy riffs and incredibly heavy sound production. It's really neat:

They say that good music keeps you at the edge between familiarity and surprise. Too familiar becomes boring, and too surprising becomes hard to follow. Musical improvisation is the manifestation of this in real time, and you can usually notice when the player is engaging in well-established/familiar patterns ("licks") and when the player is creating something completely original. I'm used to improvising a lot on guitar, and I've noticed that I'm able to imagine impossibly intricate and original lines of improvisation in my head, but I'm in no way technically advanced enough to manifest that through my instrument. When I listen to the most complete virtuostic improvisational players out there, even though they can come very close many times, I always feel a tension between boredom and impenetrability. Of course, this desire I have of hearing the most hyper-creative lines of notes that I can possibly imagine is impossible to fulfill. It's completely relative to my unique conception of music, and I would probably never in a million years get to hear somebody produce even 10 seconds of those exact notes (which would be absolutely transcendentally orgasmic if it happened). Nevertheless, I know two players who come extremely close, and I'll try to weigh to which extent they're too "boring" ("musically conventional" is a better word) or too impenetrable (too melodically or harmonically complex) relative to my impossible standard of imaginative perfection. Guthrie Govan (obviously). It's tricky, because he is so versatile that he often fluctuates between too conventional (like bluesy bendy stuff) and too complex (like jazzy shredding stuff). I'll give an example for each player: Allan Holdsworth is notoriously known for being impossible to imitate by other players. For reference, Guthrie Govan can imitate virtually anyone but him. He often becomes too complex. I sometimes have to listen to his songs 30 times to understand what he is doing (like the run at 1:28 in the video below). (Btw things become more interesting around 0:40).

You're being ironically quite religious in your approach to this discussion. I think it would be interesting to know why the DSM-5 or ICD-11 don't want to label it as an addiction (yet). Besides, what do you do when somebody like Dr. K makes a video explaining what addiction is as a general phenomena? Would you be like "hey, slow down there, are you not going to list the entire addiction category in the DSM-5 there, Mr. Harvard-trained medical doctor?". I don't think so. Huh The porn industry? Where there is money there is lobbying.

Too hard music, don't let me bring up the band names about human anatomy.

Is L-tryptophan bad? Is 5-HTP bad? Is fluoxetine bad? Is MDMA bad? It's all a spectrum. If eating too much turkey makes you have serotonin syndrome, then maybe L-tryptophan is bad.

I have a theory (not a conspiracy theory): the people who get strongly drawn to conspiracy theories are the same people who get drawn to supernatural ideas, like God creating the universe from their own predetermined plan (not simply evolving spontaneously through "natural law"). They are fine with explaining reality top down through an elaborate narrative. There is a seeming plan behind everything, behind world politics, behind alien invasions, behind wars, behind ancient history, and they all connect to a grand meta-narrative of control, of manufacturing, of conscious creating, rather than natural systems acting spontaneously. Those who criticize conspiracy theories point out how that level of organization, of top-down control, is unlikely if not impossible, because of the natural tendency towards spontaneous order and the infeasibility of controlling complex systems. In the "naturalist critique", everybody is a victim of systems, even the supposed people in power, while in the conspiracist's mind, the people in power are the controllers of the systems and the powerless are the victims. Whether one is more correct than the other is actually hard to say, and a naturalist that claims otherwise would then become a conspiracy theorist in their own right, thinking they have the level of insight and knowledge to be able to predict complex systems. As for myself, as a general predisposition, I've noticed I'm fine with either (naturalism or supernaturalism). While for example Bernardo Kastrup says he is strongly opposed to supernaturalism simply as a personal predisposition (which is why he says he sees no point in doing philosophy if nature is not simply naturalistic; no "God" at the top planning it all, intervening into nature and changing the natural course of things). But I would also challenge this idea of naturalism, that you could still try to deduce the "laws" behind God's planning so to speak, and it won't be a completely pointless endeavour, simply a more interesting one. Like trying to understand the psychology of God rather than the "physics" of God.

What are their arguments? Or is it simply "not enough evidence to conclude, so we side with the lobbyists until we're obviously behind all other classification systems"? ICD-11 has "gaming disorder" as a form of addiction. Classification systems are generally slow at recognizing new disorders/addictions. Gambling addiction (not gaming) only became recognized in 2013 in DSM-5 and in 2019 in ICD-11. Whether you want to go by general definitions or by specific definitions from slow-moving institutional entities, it's up to you. And at the end of the day, some can engage in a behavior that can lead to an institutionally recognized addiction and not be addicted while others can't (e.g. hardcore drugs). And it would not be unwise to expect the opposite can be true (i.e. you can be addicted to something that is not institutionally recognized to cause addiction). It's always an individual thing.

You just haven't heard local Norwegian rappers from Ørsta/Volda rapping about fjords and the beautiful mountains and biking on acid.

Conspiracy theorists are taking a huge blow after the evolution of AI generated images and videos. They actually have to doubt everything they see, and therefore their narratives weaken. A good example is claims of cloning.

Essentially self-determination theory and its neurological and psychological correlates. As feelings of control decrease, the neurology associated with control also weakens (and systems assessing goal discrepancies, i.e. anxiety, worry, rumination, which positive side is creativity, become hyperactivated).

I might have slightly misremembered the data. There is data that says most convicted child molesters are not pedophiles, they are simply sociopaths on a power trip (which is actually consistent with some of @Cred's reasoning). But are most pedophiles child molesters (convicted or unconvicted)? Maybe harder to pinpoint. But even there, the data seems to indicate that most pedophiles are not child molesters (but again, harder to pinpoint). I think I remember reading some statistics in a psych book about this but I would have to dig to find it.

1. You're describing having a moral perspective on pedophilia, not merely being sexually attracted to children. It's hard to pin down the data exactly, but the data says probably most pedophilies don't act it out, probably because they know it's not morally or socially acceptable. 2. You're describing being in a relationship with a child as pedophilia, not merely being attracted to them sexually. This is like saying you're gay if you want to marry men but not sleep with them on a one night stand. In other words, most pedophiles are not amoral sociopaths, and most pedophiles are probably not in a relationship with a child (i.e. child molesters). You had bad luck running into this forum with all the (ex-) Mr. Girl fans. We know pedophilia inside and out 🙂 (but we're not pedophiles 🙂 ... but it's a spectrum anyway 🙂). You would actually benefit from watching Mr. Girl's discussions with Destiny from back in the day where they discuss psychology, relationships, mental illnesses, etc. I think it would get you to question your DSM-5-heavy framework. Mr. Girl is actually a genius (or that was at least my impression 5 or so years ago, and granted he has a mountainous "self", which is subtle but still massive when you spot it). Also, a curious clash of worlds: Mr. Girl was one of the most vocal public people around Dr. K's therapeutic misconduct and reported him to the Massachusetts medical board along with a few other people, and eventually, Dr. K got a reprimand on his license.

Perseverance is the #1 Stage Red virtue (probably hyperbole, but it could be true).

Yes please. That's unironically my kind of music (depending slightly on the style of monkey scream).