Carl-Richard

I saw them live last year. I could not stop nodding my head to the music. I never thought I would end up enjoying that kind of music. My signature is like a Meshuggah lyric. It's un-non-noddable once you get the song. And of course that can be a challenge because the way they write the songs is more like deriving a mathematical formula than "playing from the soul" as they say (which has pros and cons, but damn, sometimes it's just beautiful). They essentially write their music as if it's electronic music and then they play it on their instruments (they use a drum machine and try to find an odd-time rhytmical pattern that they repeat in a certain way over a straight time signature, and that's their creative process most of the time; so much for "nobody buys a song for its rhythm" 🤪). And can I just say the massive cojones it takes to perform that particular song live with the whole band playing at the same time in the studio and that being used for the album (of course while splicing together the best parts from multiple performances, but still)? These guys are tighter than a box of sardines. Let me re-iterate: the sounds you are hearing in this particular YouTube video is the entire band playing live.

Holy BUCKETS!

10:54

I'm not so sure he is drawing the inference "the void is x therefore I must live better". It was rather a thought he had in the void. This is more of the issue of (Leo) declaring thoughts in the void and without as "Absolute x". It did not occur to me that Bryan was declaring he is now delivering the gospel of Truth as he experienced it in the void. He was sharing a thought from the void. When he said "it is impossible to explain with words. Whatever you imagine, multiply it by 1,000 and then add infinite width and depth and dimensions", that seemed more like he was trying to convey the actual experience of the void itself. You know, not everyone is a "epistemic pervert" as they say.

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.

It's exactly if you think "grasping the Absolute" implies it necessarily is not that way, you haven't actually grasped the message, only made faulty implications about it. It's to overstep and make it complicated (which has more or less become the entire shtick with this place), and then view those who don't do that with condescension, that's to not grasp the message.

"Save Soil" too I guess. I think you're wrong. It matters in a relative sense. If no effort to survive mattered at all, you would curl up in a ball and die right now. But you don't. You still keep on surviving, in the limited way you desire. Some prefer surviving in a different way.

Meaning (in life) can be described by significance, purpose, coherence, mattering. But I think it extends metaphysically as well. They all boil down to how our cognition is structured and how our survival occurs at even a biological level. Without significance, nothing has innate value (nothing has true quality or qualia, it's only just means to an end, an end which has no ground but another mean, which feels empty in itself; any endevor must inevitably point to something truly valueable, something truly real, to feel meaningful). Purpose is means to an end, and it creates impetus, telos, movement. Organisms that move are very clear expressions of this form of meaning. If you're an organism that moves but with no purpose, you will struggle to know where to move and your movement will be inhibited and you will feel like you're not "going anywhere"; the moving organism needs to move to be truly alive. Coherence means that the "movement" (be it abstract in the realm of mind or concretely in the realm of physical movement) makes sense, it coheres to an environment, it coheres to a set of conditions, it follows logically. Mattering is simply do all of these things transcend merely my own self in their value, do they matter to something bigger than myself (e.g. my species in terms of biological reproduction or simply more abstractly in terms of the collective survival of the species)?

Attracted? It just happens. Look: 🙂 It's not about the frame though. It's about the music. It's not like "how do I want to feel today; ah I'll pick this song". It's more like "music - ah, this song". Maybe there is a "I want to feel this way" in the middle there between "music" and "this song", but it's "music" that comes first. Very often I want to just listen to a guitar solo in a particular song because it's that cool, and a guitar solo is sometimes less "vibe" and more "notes, harmony, melody, structure, surprise, angularity, beauty", i.e. music.

(Damn what a nice t-shirt referring to Enlightenment). More seriously, I don't think I think of music in this way (I don't "think" much of music, other than the music itself). I just listen to the music while looking like in the picture. What I think of music is mostly found in my journal: Sometimes the song title matches a lot with the song: It makes me think of a monstrous massive thing (turns out the lyrics is actually about a city, I didn't know that before now 🙂).

I think "ADHD is insensitive to meaning" is an unfortunate and "insensitive" way to frame it. I would instead frame it as ADHD jumps between meaning frameworks quickly (and therefore might spend less time "deepening" or expanding on any single framework). It's a difference in dynamics, not "ontology". Every mind is driven by meaning. It's just some are less "sequential" about it than others (did I just deconstruct your paradigm by saying that?). For example, The Mars Volta, or any band that goes from low intensity to high intensity or switches textures or modes or ideas many times throughout a song (e.g. King Crimson, Opeth), are very ADHD-like, but they are also extremely structured and cohesive (i.e. meaningful). Any song ever made has structure and cohesion. It just happens at many levels simultaneously, and you can tweak each level more in the direction of ADHD or "autism". I think you might define meaning differently than I do. How do you define it?

The history of metal has essentially been the purest form of expression of testosterone. "How can we make this sound even heavier, even faster, even uglier, even more evil, even more monstrous and terrifying?" Rock -> hard rock -> heavy metal -> speed metal / power metal -> thrash metal -> technical thrash metal -> death metal -> technical death metal / brutal death metal / black metal / grindcore / djent -> goregrind / pornogrind (🤣)

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).

Yup, nihilism from psychedelic trips is simply the inability to distinguish relative from absolute. It's a weakness of intellect. "Yeah nothing matters", so what you going to do now? Lay down and die? No, you keep on living in the dream.

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.

How do you choose whether you go left or right on the street?

Why fish eggs expensive but chicken eggs not? 🤔

Say there is a reality beyond language, but it can't be spoken of. And because it can't be spoken of, you can't present it as a perspective that differs from any other perspective, so therefore it is not a perspective and it is absolute.

I thought you would mention a flamethrower but ok.

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.

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).