lmfao

@Yog most of the blue in society arises from the older individuals in that society. Old people dying out in conjunction with new people being born into the world is a mechanism through which society would move up the spiral. This mechanism is probably applicable to all cultures at every stage. The environment that successive generations are being raised in become gradually less toxic. One generation slightly improves the environment and culture for the next generation, and that next generation improves the culture and education for the generation after them. The cycle continues. Of course regression can always happen. For an individual at any given stage in the spiral, the ego will foolishly persist in their folly until their current way of being has caused so much destruction and the ego accepts this and moves on a stage. The collective ego could roughly be approximated to the sum of all the individual for egos and so the same mechanism would be in action. I think a discussion around how a collective ego would move up the spiral is just a more complex discussion of how an individual ego moves up the spiral. And moving up the spiral as an individual is a whole topic in of in itself for self-actualization. Unfortunately I don't know anything about to Odin to follow what you said at the end.

Does anyone here have any opinions on the different effects of differently pitched binaural beats? I've tried listening to theta, delta and gamma waves when meditating recently. I've tried googling online what the supposedly different effects are of these different frequencies but I just wanted to ask if anyone has actually noticed or felt these differences. Random question I thought: Does increasing frequency at a possible frequency always yield the same result as increasing the frequency at another possible frequency (e. G. so would going from delta to theta have the same effects as going from beta to gamma)? The answer is probably no since the complex effects and mechanism of action of binaural beats has, what is judged to be in my mind, a low probability of being linearly scaled with frequency.

What works for me is looking at my current state of happiness. I'm miserable and frustrated. A question that works for me is asking myself "Why aren't I happy right now?" or "What is wrong with now?". Why can't you be happy with a shitty meditation session? Why can't you be happy with shitty willpower? Why can't you be happy with these "negative" feelings inside you? Another random tip, don't overly force yourself to resist thoughts. Pay attention to the sounds on your head mindfully in the same way you would pay attention ally mindfully to the sounds in your external world. It's a quick way to see the non-existent separation between what is voluntary and involuntary. Your awareness in meditation should not originate from the intent to fix yourself, it should originate from the intent to just see what's there. I think permenant effects from meditation is a gradual process. Suppose an complete newbie does meditation for the first time and reaches a slightly higher level of consciousness. However, 15 mins after the session they are very quickly regressing to their old state. It might not be until a year a later that you're getting lasting short term effects, and then even longer to get lasting long term effects. I've been meditating for 11 months now (missing about 50-60 days) and have noticed subtle long term effects. Even though I don't know you personally my mind believes there's a high probability that continuing meditation is the right move for you.

@SQAAD Past 90 minutes of meditation and my mind gets tired. If I try to meditate for too much longer than that the session gets too intense and mentally draining for me. Meditating for longer might be inefficient and I should be fine by just trying to retain subtle mindfulness throughout the day. You meditate for longer than me and are probably more experienced with meditation than me lol. The only thing I'll say is be careful not to burn yourself by doing way too much. I speculate that you can meditate for extremely long sessions so long as you don't let the repressed negativity which surfaces up consume you.

Amen

@moon777light You don't know if it is a trick or not, true. One can never know for certain that they aren't under the guise of self deception. No entity (like the the god in christianity or islam) or organism can ever be sure they aren't deceiving themselves. I agree with that quote you mentioned. You talked about how humans have imagined entities in their mind for things. Many things that we take to have a concrete existence are just concepts/words. Human rights, laws, religion, nation, money, it's all an abstraction. The author talked about these things being something you can't directly see and they were concocted in sense. What I see being pointed to by what you type is the difference between the map and the territory. I see meditation and mindfulness as the "best" attempt you can make to avoid these concoctions. All meditation is about is paying attention to the raw data in your consciousness. Paying attention to the raw data in your consciousness will probably "break down" the existence of even simple thing like "a tree" , and would probably go even deeper with the idea that the author is mentioning. I personally think of concepts being rooted in words, with words being rooted in thoughts, and thoughts are just a conglomeration of different noises in your head that have no inherent meaning in the same way that random colours and sounds you experience in the outside world have no inherent meaning.

This is probably the wrong site for this type of thread but I feel the need to type it anyway. I fell asleep 90 minutes ago, and those 90 minutes since then have been packed with the most emotional distress I've ever experienced in my life. I woke up screaming. It was literal hell, I've never experienced so much negative emotion in my life. Those 90 minutes of sleep literally felt like two weeks of lived experience, so much time dilation. I'm at a loss of words of how to describe my dream, other than simply being hell. After having woken up now, Im literally crying if I try to remember my dreams. The whole things feel so cerebral and unreal. I've never taken psychedelics, but for a short part of the dream I was experiencing what you could probably say is the most negative and suffering filled drug trip in all of human existence with hallucinations and negative perceptions reaching to depths of negativity you never even knew existed. Hallucinations and emotions that I felt in the dream was extremely scary and honestly feels like some borderline supernatural shit. Anyone here had similar problems?

@Dan Arnautu According to understandmyself.com , I'm 1st percentile agreeableness when I took it over half a year ago. This might be inaccurate, I'm not really sure. I think I'm below average in agreeableness for sure though. I just took the test from the site you referenced, my agreeableness score is 2.5 ( which judging by eye on the scale they give since they don't tell you an exact number) would make me 25th percentile agreeableness. I've definitely changed a bit since I took the test half a year ago, plus the test half a year ago was somewhat inaccurate. I'm not really sure what I can say to you, since I think my low agreeableness arises from the fact that one of my parents is a manipulative person (although the manipulation isnt directed at me) and so it is that I have a tendency to just look for signs of bullshit in other people. Another thing to realise is that your high agreeableness might partially be a function of anxiety; you might be excessively nice not because you're being authentic but because you're afraid of the consequences of not being extra nice. If you see something being done inefficiently around you, don't be afraid of saying it. People should have a thick enough skin for you to criticise what they do without them thinking you're criticising them as a person, provided you're nice and polite about it.

@Leo Gura Yeah there is no such thing as typical, I understand what you're trying to say. There is no such thing as typical especially in the context of absolute infinity and in the context of what a persons exact conscious experience is like, although typical does exist for individual particular aspects of the psyche when we take averages of certain traits in a human population. For arguments sake we could conceptualise the nervous system as having Y (with Y just being any real number) elements where each element has a numerical quantity for a person. The numerical value would represent "sensitivity" for that particular aspect of first hand experience in consciousness. We could have a Y-th dimensional co-ordinate system where the exact, precise numerical quantity across each dimension of measurement is needed to define the exact state of the nervous system. I suppose I was also curious about the particular cause of autism ( and also other cases like maybe psychopathy or whatever other deviations you can get from the average). In the reductionist model I proposed in the second paragraph, autistic people would have relatively low numbers in some dimensions of measurements. But I also wonder whether someone autistic would compensate for it with an increased number for other dimensions of measurement. Supposing Peter Ralston has a decreased sensitivity to "Love" ,idk if he will compensate for it in other ways. Ignoring neurological conditions, we could just look at personality types such as the ones in MBTI. My question is kinda unanswerable, but I was just wondering if certain types of people are capable of a more "rich" experience than other people by nature. Need it be said that the "value" of this consciousness couldn't be reduced into the sum of numerical quantities across each dimension in the reductionist model I stated earlier. My current speculation is that 99.9999...% of people have a equal capacity for a rich conscious experience since all beings in reality come from the same absolute. Some people might be "talented" in fulfilling their capacity, but everyone should be able to I think.

@NoSelfSelf idk maybe they just mediate for the lols. Maybe the mediate because they're bored and there are perhaps few things more enjoyable. A passionate , master level athlete will keep doing his craft for fun even if he won't make progress and even if he can't enter any competitions .

When I was younger I discovered a stretch I'd use in an attempt to fix my bad posture. I made a post about this months ago, but I just want to make another post because: 1) I've slightly changed how I do it now and 2)its feels amazing. After a very short time of using the stretch today I accidentally made my left arm numb and tingling (and it hasn't fully gone after 45 mins) so be careful lmao. I have no experience with yoga whatsoever, I just do this stretch when meditating randomly. Sit down (not on a chair) cross legged (or with whatever sitting position you'd use for meditation) and put your hands behind your back. Introlock all your fingers, including your thumbs. Keeping your hands interlocking with your back straight, try to raise your arms and hands far up vertically whilst other trying to maximise the horizontal distance between hands and back. You don't have to strain yourself too much here. KEEP YOUR BACK STRAIGHT. If you are looking straight ahead of you, tilt your head 90 degrees to left or right. The previous sentence is simply being written down to precisely give you a visual perspective from which to follow the next instructions. You can separate your thumbs and then from the current perspective of your visual field rotate your hands anti clockwise. Your fingers are interlocking (except thumbs) and your palm is facing away from your back. Keep your head in a normal position now. Keeping your back straight, stretch your hands and arms far out horizontally from your back whilst keeping your arms raised vertically. Put a lot of effort into this stretch, even if it's uncomfortable. After straining yourself for a bit you should start to feel a huge stretch across your entire arms and and shoulders. If it hurts and is uncomfortable, it's a good sign. Keep going. Remember to keep good form and symmetry. After you've finished, if you've done it right with enough intensity, your arms +shoulders will be tingling and relaxed. For a few brief moments my consciousness felt extremely elavated and amazing. It felt like I ascended to the 8468th dimension. Be careful, for me the stretch is very potent and caused numbness and tingling for me quickly. Do it at your own discretion. But if you're of normal health, and are not a pussy who doesn't mind numbness and tingling, go for it. Im typing about this just because it felt so orgasmic, idk if it will be the same for everyone. I did the stretch 70 minutes into meditation (so my shoulders and back were slightly loosened up for the whole things) and maybe it felt so good just because of the numbness and tingling I induced which persistent over an hour after. It might just be a combination of all the right factors which made it feel potent. --------------------------------------------------- Extra info which is not needed: After doing it and putting your arms in front of you, your body might have the natural urge to bend your arms and flex them towards your body. To explain what this urge is, you might know of this little experiment. Completely submerge your hands in the pockets of your trousers ("trousers" is the same as the word "pants" for you filthy americans). Have an uncletched palm. Push both your hands outward from your body as hard as you again, straining your muscles. Your hands are fully submerged in the pocket and hence will not escape. Do it untill you're extremely tired. Take your hands out of your pocket and your hands will experience a funny urge to move outwards.

@Leo Gura Supposing we grant the existence of brain types and personality, is it possible that an autistic brain and personality type would give someone access to new/different dimensions of high consciousness to a neurotyoucal, or is every deviation from a neurotypical result in exclusion of something rather than inclusion.

@Jordan94 whenever I meditate (I just do 1hr a day) there's always plenty of shit for me to focus on and work on. Emotions, pain, mind wondering, monkey mind, etc. If you're looking to spice things up, you could maybe meditate when you're slightly dehydrated and/or hungry? Meditating upon new flavours of suffering and misery might work.

If I have the feeling that everything in consciousness is perfect and that the existence of everything in reality is good and amazing, is that what is pointed to by "love" with a capital L? If that's the case, is "Love" just a mode of being you can reach at high levels of consciousness?

@Tony 845 I'm not enlightened, but I intuit that's its possible to get rid of anxiety and depression. In your consciousness you're experiencing all sorts of sensations, pressures, emotions, different senses, and etc. For some reason, we ascribe a positive meaning to some sensations and a negative meaning to other sensations. This ascription of meaning happens at a subconscious and conscious level. The raw sensation of something negative, e.g. anxiety, isn't inherently bad. You could perhaps say that "objectively speaking", a negative sensation/feeling/emotion isn't inherently bad. To say that the raw sensation of fear is worse than the feeling of (insert arbitrarily chosen pleasurable sensation,e. G. Sexual stimulation) is to say that the colour red is objectively superior to the colour blue, when in reality both these colours are equal in their "objective" status. I was meditating earlier today and felt I went deep. I was at first blissfull, then depressed after meditation ended, and now blissfull again. And I was feeling extremely down earlier, but through being mindful it's gone. The only way for you to get rid of a negative emotion is to fully accept the negative emotion and see it for what it is. Right now, there are negative sensations for me but I have equanimity and optimism about it. Your depression might get temporarily worse for short periods of time from doing meditation since your old neurotic motivational structures can abruptly collapse. The whole process of purification through mindfullness is essentially outlined in this video. You let the negativity engulf every cubic centimeter of your body and it is then that you'll realise that it ain't all that bad: At the deepest levels of enlightenment, you're probably gonna be in a state of peaceful of bliss. I think that at that point, the fact that there is existence at all feels beautiful beyond words and all contents of your consciousness feel good.

@Preetom @Outer Thanks for the good advice. @Angelite ?‍♂️

@Akuma I know its bad but ive started to struggle bothering listening to materialists talk about anything the same way I struggle bothering listening to religious people talk about anything. That said though, this particular talk seems interesting. He seems intelligent for an 87 year old lmao.

@CreamCat You seem quite interested in the area of psychopathy. Have you read what self proclaimed psychopaths say about themselves online in places like Quora? https://www.quora.com/topic/Psychopathy-and-Psychopaths It appears that psychopaths are born the way they are and that isnt their fault, but they are as far as one can be in wanting sympathy for that fact. Because from what I've read of what self proclaimed psychopaths say, their emotional dial is muted in sadness and anxiety in combination with being muted in empathy. I find this answer to the question "What is the definition of a psychopath" quite interesting. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-definition-of-a-psychopath/answers/51259476 Im about to goi off on a tangent. In regards to monoamine oxidase A, I remember reading an article https://mad.science.blog/2018/07/12/serotonism/ which essentially stated that theres a hypothesis that groups of people which have faced oppression and subjugation (on a large enough scale to have an effect, im assuming) will select for genes which code for low MAO-A.

I've recently wondered whether theres a "reason" for why certain things are deemed pleasurable and why certain things are deemed painful. From meditation I've come to feel that things like negative emotions, muscle pain, thirst, are in of in themselves just sensations in the same way that warmth, tasty food and sex generate another set of sensations. There isnt anything inherently wrong about the raw sensation of fear, its just different from sexual gratification in the same way blue is just different from red; none of the colours are inherently superior. But despite this, my mind has a natural aversion to certain sensations which are deemed negative and ive come to notice only during meditation that this aversion happens at a level that is subconscious but I never notice this in my day to day life. I think long meditation sessions are the best way to see this. Maybe there is no reason for why we have an aversion to certain colours, and it is just the way it is. I'll read whatever thoughts you have on this. A really good short video on this topic: There's also Leo's video on strong negative emotions:

@now is forever Good question, politics probably does go deeper than that two dimensional compass.

@Outer Everything just is the way it is, nothing is done by you in creating this moment. Reality is always in a situation you did nothing to make or control.

@Ampresus Good

@Outer Just took it LET THE POLITICAL JIHAD ENSUE. I agree with you that libertarianism is just voluntary ism. Please don't purge my dualistic egotistical ass Leo, I'm sorry for posting political compass ?

@Outer I like libertarianism but I just feel that taking it to its extreme in implementation in society wouldn't succeed, I think Leo articulated it well. I personally think that voluntaryism is a nice ideal, but maybe government is a necessary evil. The ideal government probably has some conservativism there, liberalism here, a pinch of authoritarianism, a dash of libertarianism and etc. For a long time I have and still do resonate with libertarianism, but it just seems extremely unrealistic. To paraphrase something I heard from Stefan Molyneux "At the core of every law is a gun pointing at your head telling you to comply", and whilst that is an emotionally compelling reason to hate government, I think it's something to accept.

Enlightenment is paradoxical in a way because your desire for enlightenment is what causes you to not be enlightened, although that might be a crude way of phrasing it. The way I see it, it's the intention behind your effort to increase consciousness and mindfulness that matter. If you try to forcefully "raise" you awareness into accepting something negative in your experience, you'll fail. If your awareness has the intent of "fixing" or removing something, you'll fail. Rather your awareness should come from a "desire" to just pay attention to reality as it is. In order to stop thoughts "The first rule is: Don't try to! Because if you do you will be like someone trying to make rough waters smooth water with a flat iron"