Thanatos13

That’s the case with any “spiritual experience”. Ultimately they prove nothing. Perhaps you are convinced there even is a rabbit hole. Perhaps you think there is more , but you can’t see that it’s just a different lens. Once the initial terror is over.

“Questioning your own skepticism” is missing the point and the aim of it. You are already doing it, questioning your skepticism is redundant

Unfortunately emptiness and “no self” isn’t truth. It never was. That’s just a trick we tell ourselves. We attempt to strip everything away to get to “truth” because we think that is what truth is. But it’s not. When all is gone and you swim in nothingness without fear you see it isn’t the truth, it’s just another view. The same thing with ego, just another view. We seek “it” but there is no guarantee of finding it or knowing what it looks like. We use our sense but even that is flawed. Mots like looking at a video game and seeing colored lights blinking, or at a movie and just seeing actors, you don’t see the reality. Stripping it all alway doesn’t get you truth or the absolute, just a different lens to look through. But we are so convinced that the lens is correct instead of seeing it for what it is. To say reality is empty is wrong. Whatever “reality” really is, we won’t ever see it, just different views of it.

Those who don’t see it as a state of despair just shows who is running the show. You stop before the agony and panic, which is a natural biological mechanism. You still can’t see it for the positivity it is. I’m afraid that is incorrect. There is no mechanism, that itself is the illusion. The despair felt is the reality, it’s one in the same with the void. Strip it all away and the only things left are those.

Actually you did, it’s just you believe your “ego” did it.

Seeing something under drugs isn’t reality but the drugs. As to your first paragraph, sorry but that simply isn’t true. I know plenty of people who went down the path, came back and the result wasn’t what you would find in traditional “positive” spirituality. Your bias shows, but that’s what spiritual experiences do in most cases, they reinforce other beliefs. I wish that was true for me, and everything didn’t shatter beyond fixing.

Sadly I wish the mind was tricking me, but it is trying to make me forget what I experienced. The flaw in spirituality is that it is influenced by bias. Anyone can claim to see “it”, yet there is no standard for what “it” is. You assume it’s a good thing that lies at the end, but what if nihilism (or our word for it) is the truth and your experience of the claimed “it” is merely an illusion? You...don’t....know. I briefly experienced egolessness, then bliss, and then beyond that the gaping maw that surrounds and is us. I say that having been down many paths (no thanks to my mother). Meditation led me here, and I’m loathe to try again and see “that”. Before everyone knew the earth revolves around the sun they thought otherwise and it took one man to see it. I’m not so bold as to refer to myself as Galileo, but it’s something to keep in mind when citing personal experience or an argument based on popularity. The assumption and bias that spirituality leads to “good” outcomes probably colors what you see. It’s likely that Buddha saw terror and out of compassion gave different methods to keep people from going too far. Who knows ultimately. That is why I said it was pointless to post an issue I had here because people make it about themselves and not try to find a solution.

That’s a flawed statement

Hate to burst your bubble, but if you think it’s a dance floor then you are gravely mistaken. That’s were you stop. Once the you see past the joke you get to the despair. If you find anything positive about the void then you are stuck in the mind, trying to shield you from what man wasn’t meant to see. See the thing about trips is that they aren’t anything jut drug induced hallucinations. But because they feel like something you think they mean something. Wheb you truly strip all of it away you see existence for what it is, and the only word close enough to describe it is dread.

Incorrect, in so many ways. Its clear to me that no one knows what they are talking about or how to give advice. Just airy nonsense. I don’t know why I bothered in the first place. You are speaking nothing but nonsense. You clearly have not seen or felt the void. They have not. If you feel anything other than despair then you haven’t seen the void or felt it.

It’s not really feelings. It’s more like the realization that everything we do has little significance and that there really isn’t any reason to do anything. It’s looking at reality as some mass machine that just acts, and despite people appearing different they are all cogs in it. The emotional reaction from that is objective. It’s like the experiments with telling people humans don’t have free will, every time it was met with negative outcomes

It sounds like intellectual sloth not to mention ignorance to tell someone to “figure it out”, especially since if they are asking it means they don’t know. How it work is that if you say something isn’t true you need to say why, otherwise it’s just noise.

That entire statement doesn’t really make sense, and even scientists know that we “hallucinate” our reality. Subjective experience is all we have, agreeing on those “hallucinations” is what we call reality. But when it comes to meaning there is no empirical evidence. I am aware of the color and color blindness. But for the colorblind the empirical evidence is “not red”, and despite what others say they can’t prove that rose to be red if he can’t see red. But the senses are different from questions of meaning. None of this is helpful to someone who has no dreams or desires to pursue.

None of that really helps at all. and how do you know it isnt true

Reality is our subjective experience of it. Objective reality is unknowable. Meaninglessness is not subjective though

I am afraid I cannot buy that. I have experienced the void, the sheer emptiness and nullity. It’s jot something I can put into words really, but it wasn’t a good feeling. It was hollow, like seeing everything for what it really is. No fullness, no richness, just nothing. Even these words don’t accurately describe the sensation, but it was terrifying. From that point in it’s hard to buy into anything about happiness or light, they seem like untruths. I am afraid that isn’t the case. We can talk about meaninglessness as a “concept” but it’s something I experienced firsthand. It’s sheer emptiness that rebuts all attempts to lessen it, and it’s not a pleasant feeling. There is meaningless as a logical concept, and there’s the actual experience of it. It is no inference of the mind

One thing that I never understood was why bother doing literally any of it when suicide is a more expedient alternative. Its like an insight I had one day when I realized I don’t have to or need to live. It’s optional

It’s related to the whole “you are already dead”. If you “are” then there isn’t a reason to save your “life” because there isn’t one to save or help.

Even total skepticism has its logical flaws, and that’s why fallibalism branches out from it (which in this case is science). It doesn’t claim certainty but approximate knowledge and so far that has worked out rather well. Ultimately you cannot suspend judgment on non evident matters because everything is non evident. You need to take “leap” an accept something on unsatisfactory conditions. But you don’t apply skepticism to what you say, otherwise there wouldn’t be any YouTube videos, or “life purpose” courses to sell. But yes, there are counters to the problems posed by skepticism.

None of that addressed my point about doctors.

Non-essentials is again a matter of opinion.

What is “unnecessary” is a matter of opinion though.

Generally I am skeptical of “lists” on the internet, especially when someone stands to make money and especially when it’s over 30. But in practice, nothing is immune to skepticism. The very fact of labeling true and false skepticism is an error, for there is no such thing. There is the one, skepticism, and If you are selective in what you apply it to then you aren’t a skeptic. Of course one has to account for practicality in life, as total skepticism is paralytic.

Well if we are going by the claim of “you’re already dead”, then by that logic doctors should not “save “ people’s lives or relieve their pain.

Actually that was nihilism and antinatalism.