A rant against intelligence as Leo sees it

[QandC]

"I know this world is ruled by infinite intelligence. Everything that surrounds us- everything that exists - proves that there are infinite laws behind it. There can be no denying this fact. It is mathematical in its precision."

–Thomas A. Edison

 

There you go.
 

Edited June 11, 2018 by QandC

[tsuki]

23 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@George Paul It doesn't make sense because your mind cannot make sense of Infinity.

Your idea of Infinity is not Infinity, it is finity. See?

The map is not the territory.

Anything you think about Infinity is automatically wrong. Any logic you apply to Infinity will crumble and not make sense.

Infinity cannot be held in the mind. But it is definitely Infinitely Intelligent.

@Leo Gura Doesn't it imply that anything you say about infinity is nonsense?

[WaterfallMachine]

2 hours ago, Azza said:

The questions is not why it would be hard. The question is why create it at all for what reason. Why would two separate souls decide to create a new soul and help it create that soul's brain? (Referring to birth btw only an example) It would only make sense if these souls are connected

Have you considered that whatever higher beings could be out there, they don't have the same emotional motivations as human beings do? Why assume they're just a more powerful version of a human being? We assume that living creatures look for happiness and avoid pain, but can't there be another goal? What if the goal is to explore new ways of being?

That could explain the problem of evil. Why is there evil in this world? Because maybe the goal isn't more happiness, and less suffering. If the goal is simply creation for the sake of creation, then that could explain much of the complexities of this universe.

Edited June 11, 2018 by WaterfallMachine

[Azza]

28 minutes ago, WaterfallMachine said:

That could explain the problem of evil. Why is there evil in this world? Because maybe the goal isn't more happiness, and less suffering. If the goal is simply creation for the sake of creation, then that could explain much of the complexities of this universe.

I like this understanding actually. but this could actually lead us to religions and their idea of god. So much that one can't grasp logically

[WaterfallMachine]

6 minutes ago, Azza said:

I like this understanding actually. but this could actually lead us to religions and their idea of god. So much that one can't grasp logically

Very little religions think of God as apathetic or lacking in power to their needs. This theory, in my opinion, would make much more logical sense. But who knows? Who knows?

[furashido]

@tsuki How could infinity be described with a limited language? How could you understand it if it was spoken to you through words? The only way to grasp it is if you have infinite awareness. 

 

One went to the door of the Beloved and knocked.
A voice asked: “Who is there?” He answered: “It is I.”
The voice said: “There is no room here for me and thee.”
The door was shut.

After a year of solitude and deprivation
this man returned to the door of the Beloved.
He knocked.
A voice from within asked: “Who is there?”
The man said: “It is Thou.”
The door was opened for him.

-Rumi

[Nexeternity]

its funny, my violin teacher told me once that a great composer was in the last few years of his life, kind of sick and dying but he kept getting flooded with new and more beautiful compositions to write... heh must have tapped into that infinite well of intelligence

[Leo Gura]

8 hours ago, QandC said:

"I know this world is ruled by infinite intelligence. Everything that surrounds us- everything that exists - proves that there are infinite laws behind it. There can be no denying this fact. It is mathematical in its precision."

–Thomas A. Edison

There you go.
 

Awesome!

[robdl]

@Leo Gura Do you ever think that setting out for insights, and accumulating them, is a form of self-deception --- nourishing the subtle movement of "insight receiver"?  It seems like there could be some conflict between accruing insights and realizing/abiding in no-self.  Could insights be an ego mind's subtle ploy to maintain its continuity?

Edited June 11, 2018 by robdl

[Leo Gura]

@robdl Sure, anything can be abused.

The whole process is relative. It's all about where you are now and where you need to go next. You have insights and then you outgrow them, have some more, outgrow them, and so on.

You're not gonna go from newbie to Zen master in one giant leap. It's gonna be a long, slow, grueling process of having dozens and hundreds of various insights.

You're going mature every day a little bit. Some days a lot. Some days, you will regress.

[Matt8800]

On 6/10/2018 at 3:07 AM, George Paul said:

First of all I want to say that this Leo's last video about intelligence goes a little against Leo's teachings so far.

I am a big fan of Leo's way of thinking, though I don't always agree 100% with few and small pieces of truth or the way he interprets them.

But in this case, when it comes to intelligence, I strongly believe that Leo did an important step backwards.

This video has many points in it that can be debated individually, but as an overall picture, the reason why I consider it wrong is the following:

  ---- If all that it is, is a consciousness that creates the reality as we see it, this consciousness can't be attributed with any quality or property ----

Not even the attribute of infinity, which is the same with nothingness as we already know. But, to express somehow that the source of reality is omnipotent, we define it as infinite (which is not a human understandable concept). And that's all.

 

Now, saying that this consciousness is intelligent is as nonsensical as saying that it is good, or white, or polite etc.

Intelligent as opposed to what ? Because being infinite, the consciousness is also bad, black, unpolite and non-intelligent accordingly.

 

Then, if you think that the creator did a lot of intelligent work in arranging molecules and atoms in cells from Leo's hand hair, it is again a nonsense. And here is why : the creator didn't have a previous a set of rules to figure out how they work and to think how to arrange things in the best way to form a cell. No, the creator IS the rules. He only created the cell without any need to "think" because whatever he did it was perfect. How could be otherwise ? Compared to what else ?

 

I know that this seems counter-intuitive, as the cells look so perfect and they build a bigger being which is again perfect and all these fit in a perfect tuned universe which works like a clockwork perfectly. That seems to be a scenario of  some very  intelligent creator. Well, no. It is an illusion of our species who tries to live a better life figuring out things and arranging them in an "intelligent" way. we need to do this because we work with creator's creation, not ours. 

One of the answer of the above dilemma is the following: the reality is infinite, so this universe is just a tinny part of the reality. Countless of non livable universes might exist, and who knows, maybe they are perfect for other form of life.

Another solution is to take the reality as it is. I mean, in this reality, we are the beings that could have been ever evolved. Period. It is not like viceversa: to create our species, the reality needs to function like this and that, yati yati,,.. Nope.

 

 

We live the illusion that the creator is intelligent because we look at our universe and wonder how perfect it is. Compared to what ? If we were a form of life made from silicon , or rubber, or steel, we also have said that we lived in a perfect world, because we never can imagine an imperfect world. Or if we can, it already exists.

 

Intelligence as an absolute concept does not exist. Not even applied to earthly things or beings, because there is no any absolute measure for it.

 

 

I just want to point out that nearly every statement you made was an assumption. Those assumptions were influenced by your bias/paradigm. 

Leo specifically said the kind of intelligence he was referring to was not logic or reason. What is your definition of intelligence? Many experienced meditation practitioners would claim, as I would, that they have experienced intelligence without cognition. Also, since we are limited to the English language and our our own non-paradoxical, dual input from the senses, many of Leo's explanations could only be largely metaphorical. 

Self Organization Theory (which I believe takes a step towards explaining abiogenesis) is a pretty sound explanation as to how we get order out of chaos. How molecules self organize can be explained to some degree mathematically. Regardless, the fact that Self Organization exists at all implies intelligence. Occam's Razor says the most direct implication is the most probable to be true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organization 

https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-of-the-origin-of-life-20140122/ 

Im also curious about your experience with intense psychedelics. I used to be a skeptic of people that claim to obtain understanding through psychedelics until I tried DMT. I used to be an empiricist but now I consider my own experiential evidence to form conclusions. I have experienced similar things to what Leo is describing. 

 

Edited June 12, 2018 by Matt8800