StrangerWatch

You’re confusing what I mean by the word subjective. There are objective facts to said about subjective experience. For example, "that burger tasted pretty good to me". That’s an objective statement about my subjective experience. It doesn’t require an observer of the observed, and it isn’t invalidated by someone else saying "I disagree; you didn’t like that burger". The burger may not be inherently good or bad, but that isn’t the point. This same logic extends to morality: The capacity for creatures to make objective reports about their subjectivity creates a basis for morality in an otherwise meaningless universe.

That’s the kind of enlightenment I can get behind. But people who say enlightenment is about loving everything, it seems to me, are completely deluded, or at the very least apathetic towards the very real and unacceptable suffering going on in the universe.

Because value and meaning is measured in the capacity to understand such things. They have inherent value. This capacity can be objectively observed, and our best way to do so thus far is through neuroscience. I’m not saying the universe cares about the well-being of conscious creatures — ergo why I don’t love the universe unconditionally.

I merely refuted the claim that all life is equal. You must understand that we agree on this. I condemn the needless suffering of anything that has the capacity to suffer.

Some, not much. I have the desire to uncover truth, and I understand non-duality intellectually. I meditate daily. Had a couple ego deaths (without psychadelics). Big fan of Alan Watts, Sam Harris and J. Krishnamurti, philosophers who talk about Enlightenment. I’ve watched a bunch of Leo’s videos, along with some other YouTube speakers like Martin Ball and Koi Fresco (all of which are bit out there, but they’re fun). I’ve had several existential panic attacks upon confronting certain truths which non-duality relates to. I don’t use psychadelics, aside from weed which has also kicked me in the nuts spiritually.

There’s no problem. This is how a discussion works. If I’m wrong, I’ll be happy to get a correction from Leo.

Her conclusion is basically that morality has no objective basis, and that justifies loving everything — torture, rape, racism, totalitarianism — unconditionally. A horrifying statement; clearly she has deluded herself. Neuroscientist Sam Harris has written a book called The Moral Landscape, which argues that morality is objective. This 4-minute video gives a glimpse into his reasoning, and there’s also a 22-minute TED talk which basically illustrates the thesis of the book quite well if you care enough to watch. I’ll link you both videos. Watch either of them as you please:

It is how I interpreted his words. He’s free to correct me, should he read this and discover I’ve misrepresented him.

Interesting. You’re taking the position of a stoic and saying reality isn’t perfect and ultimately something to be endured. I can respect that. I doubt Leo would think the same. Morality is not subjective. Our opinions on it may be, just as our opinions on global warming are subjective. The well-being of conscious creatures is measureable at the level of the brain. I know my own suffering is objectively bad, and given my genetic ties to everyone else around I’m inclined to believe their suffering is equally objective.

Don’t just cling to the words I’m using, please. Understand what I’m saying: Functionally, Leo is someone who doesn’t care about the quality of the content within reality. Nothing matters to him.

I don’t doubt you’re having a great time down in the depths of existence, Leo. Greater than any of us can imagine. And you’ll openly admit that you have cast aside all concepts of good, bad and meaning. You’re a nihilist. You don’t believe that suffering is real and should be avoided, except superficially. To you, it really doesn’t matter if Africa is suffering with negligence of their most basic human rights, or if Asia still has countries akin to WWII Germany and the Soviet Union, or if Western civilization is converted to extreme religious dogma which it helped propogate. Seems to me you’re no better than the nihilistic solipsism growing out of the New Age movement, based on what you’re saying here. As I suspected. Through your Enlightenment work, you’ve created a religion out of your own subjective and impulsive observations, and as such you’ve cast aside any responsibility for the world you’ve now left. You may call it higher existence — I call it egotistical cowardice. And BTW, I’ve had ego death experiences. Yes, it feels amazing. Yes, you lose all attachement. And no, I don’t believe it’s the right way to view the world all the time. Because there is no meaning in the universe outside the meaning conscious creatures create for themselves, and that biased meaning is not to be thrown away because IT’S THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS.

Nah, man. All life is not equal, insofar as levels of awareness differ between them. A bug is not worth much more than a plant, which is probably not worth anything compared to a human, based on brain activity. Of course, it would be better if there was no need or compulsion to kill at all, but that’s life. Not my fault — and as I’ve said, I wish it weren’t so. I don’t accept it, and I don’t completely love it.

How so? Hedonists care about the well-being of all conscious creatures, not just their own.

I don’t suffer all that much, so nah. I’m thinking about the world at large.

Solipsism is bullshit. It might appear to make sense through inductive reasoning, but by definition it’s a bogus position to have in a philosophical debate.

I base my morals around the measurement of well-being. I’m a classical hedonist, culture be damned. Holocaust was objectively bad according to these standards.

So the holocaust, for example, being bad is just a matter of opinion? It wasn’t objectively bad?

I suppose. It is my belief that the absence of pain is more important than the presence of pleasure, so the relativity argument doesn’t mean much to me.

@Faceless By "bliss", I refer to good/enjoyable subjective experience — the opposite of suffering.

Let me ask you, @Leo Gura: Is there a difference between an existence full of suffering and an existence full of bliss? Are both equally good/bad because they are truly nothing, as you so claim?

The language of mathematics is artificial (as is all language, ultimately), but the fact that twice the amount of two objects makes four objects is infallible unless you want to assert that all logic is somehow a construction that’s impossible for humans to see through, but I think such an assertion is comparable to denying the existence of subjective experience. At the very least you should bring some evidence to back that up.

I like to demonstrate an answer to the question of "why is there something instead of nothing" through mathematics. We all agree that 2 + 2 = 4, right? There can be no alternate reality where 2 + 2 = 5? If you grant this, you admit that the laws of mathematics transcend existence, and would therefore exist even in a state of "nothing". Or, more accurately, if we were to go back to nothing and then into something else entirely, the laws of mathematics would remain intact no matter what.

Haha, I’m fairly certain I’ve not reached the end of this journey. After all, I’ve only had one short enlightenment experience. But it came as quite a surprise to me that it was way more peaceful than people like you, for example, had described. Now, I have experienced prolonged existential terror, but naturally I can’t be certain it’s the type you refer to. Anyway, I came to realize that since nothing can exist outside reality, reality must include absolutely everything in order to even exist. My belief in this fact caused me to fall to my knees in despair, not only at the thought of my body and everything around it being an infinite regress, but also at the thought of the infinite suffering that must be occuring at all times if this is the case — not to mention the paranoia that I exist in a multiverse essentially without rules. Are these beliefs unfounded? Probably — hopefully. But it’s the picture you’re painting in your videos for people who haven’t experienced enlightenment. And it’s also the reason I stay away from powerful psychadelics such as 5-MeO for the time being. That said, these beliefs did not even factor into how I interpreted my enlightenment experience once I had it. My enlightenment experience told me nothing concrete about the content of reality; it simply told me that reality is essentially nothing at all (which again, makes little sense unless one experiences it). Reality could be infinite or it could be finite in some way we can’t understand. Either way my enlightenment experience would make sense.

When I first discovered enlightenment as a concept, I was bombarded by gurus and philosophers (such as @Leo Gura) using these big words and terrifying metaphors about infinity, God, void, illusion and stuff like that. This caused me great anxiety because of my existing relationship to these words. When I had my own enlightenment experience, I suddenly realized that it was all a big joke. I smiled and thought to myself: "Everything is just so silly and banal". And this realization filled me with an incredible feeling of freedom and peace. How could I not have seen it before? The thing is, it wasn’t an understanding of a conceptual nature. It was more like a new sense. Conceptualizing at that point seemed fruitless. I was listening to a science podcast in the background when I suddenly awoke to this paradigm shift, and the words coming from respectable scientists in the podcast speculating about the nature of the cosmos seemed so misguided. "Why are you doing this?" I thought. "Don’t you see it’s all so simple?" And yet, the only way to communicate enlightenment experience is through this fruitless method. You can be like me and call it simple, funny, nothing, and you may cause people to be depressed. "Is that all?" Or you can be like the gurus I listened to, and then people may react with terror. "I can’t handle this! I’m God?! I’m infinite?! What the fuck?!?!" No metaphor, coming from someone who’s experienced enlightenment, is any less or more valid. They’re all invalid by the mere fact that language was created through a dualistic approach to life. We are communicating enlightenment with tools that were made by unenlightened individuals. Not realizing this will cause many seekers of truth great pain. If you want to achieve enlightenment, you must NOT rely on conceptualizing. You should instead focus on meditation, and safely experiment with drugs if you dare. The only ways to enlightenment entail direct experience. Don’t listen to enlightened people trying to conceptualize the experience. You may listen for fun, but don’t use their descriptions as a way of "understanding" it. You might just go insane or panic, as indeed I almost did. Only you can become enlightened, by yourself and through yourself.