The Social Matrix was a tour de force, but had issues

[Gesundheit2]

@MartinGifford I may be deluded. Most likely.

[MartinGifford]

31 minutes ago, Windappreciator said:

Is this really news to you, that our suffering is self opposed and that we hold the key to stopping it?

Do you understand that stopping our suffering is painful process for most people who are no willing to take the step because of selfishness?

It would be stupid to create our own suffering. And if we did, the solution to suffering would be easy - just stop creating it. Selfishness would mean wanting to end suffering, so that's actually a motivation not an obstacle. 

[Windappreciator]

@MartinGifford

You're that guy huh.

Just cannot get out of the conventional mind. 

Will your world break when you realize how much of the horrors in the world is just simply because you, your friends and family are too lazy to take action beyond their shitty jobs?

Is that the implication you're avoiding?

Edited August 2, 2021 by Windappreciator

[MartinGifford]

15 minutes ago, Windappreciator said:

1. Just cannot get out of the conventional mind. 
2. Will your world break when you realize how much of the horrors in the world is just simply because you, your friends and family are too lazy to take action beyond their shitty jobs?

1. The idea that we cause our suffering and that it's hard to end suffering is a conventional belief in the new age movement, religion, and spirituality.
2. I've written a book that could end the world's horrors.

Edited August 2, 2021 by MartinGifford

[Windappreciator]

26 minutes ago, Windappreciator said:

@MartinGifford

 

17 minutes ago, MartinGifford said:

1. Believing that we cause our suffering and that it's hard to end suffering is conventional religion/spirituality.
2. I've written a book that could end the world's horrors.

Finally, something interesting from you.

1. Then go tell the cancer patients or people in warzones that they don't actually suffer and everything is alright.

2. If it's easy to free oneself from it, why don't you show the world how it's done?

I am willing to learn.

Edited August 2, 2021 by Windappreciator

[MartinGifford]

50 minutes ago, Windappreciator said:

1. Then go tell the cancer patients or people in warzones that they don't actually suffer and everything is alright.

2. If it's easy to free oneself from it, why don't you show the world how it's done? I am willing to learn.

1. Suffering is real. The point is that it's caused by the belief that human beings are lacking and flawed. That makes us forget innate happiness and goodwill, and so we start fighting for illusory forms of happiness. However, I admit that it's generally easier to start with affluent healthy people. They have time and freedom to investigate. Then it can spread from there. But sometimes people have breakthroughs when they are under pressure.
2. It depends where you are at. We could start with asking, "Why am I struggling? Why is life hard? Why do these problems exist?" Alternatively, investigate cause and effect within - whatever arises, ask what caused it. It will usually be caused by some feeling of vulnerability of hope. Alternatively, question the belief that we are lacking and flawed, and the belief that we can find reliable happiness in things that change.
   
   Regarding the belief that we are lacking and flawed, consider this evidence:

   A) Why are all the animals in the universe considered to be cool in their own ways, but human beings are believed to be lacking and flawed? Doesn't it seem suspicious and statistically unlikely?

   B) If you and I had been born on a super-developed utopian planet, would we have any of the personal and social problems that we have on Earth?

   C) If humankind continues to improve, will the current kinds of personal or social problems still exist in the year 10,000?
   
   D) When people have a Near Death Experience, why are they suddenly filled with love and wisdom? Could it be that that is our natural state when we are free of bodily instincts and society's illusions? If so, then doesn't that prove that instincts and society's illusions are the problem?

Edited August 2, 2021 by MartinGifford

[Windappreciator]

@MartinGifford

@MartinGifford 

I see. Enjoy your time on the forum ?.

 

[Carl-Richard]

11 hours ago, MartinGifford said:

At 1:28:00 he said it's all based on survival. It's not. Once basic survival needs are fulfilled, the social matrix is based on illusory forms of happiness such as possessions, prestige, power, and money. This distracts us away from the innate happiness and goodwill of being, and so we get trapped in competition.

Possessions, prestige, power and money is all survival.

 

11 hours ago, MartinGifford said:

At 1:47:00 he said that it's hard to break free of the social matrix. That idea is part of the social matrix! Everyone says, "Questioning things is hard, which is why no one has found the big answers to life." In reality, it’s easy.

This is why it's hard to break out of the social matrix. People underestimate the extent to which their mind is shaped by their environment. Without the social matrix, you couldn't begin to understand yet read this sentence.

 

11 hours ago, MartinGifford said:

At 1:59:00 he says that people are mentally lazy. That criticism is part of the social matrix. Essentially, the social matrix says, "People are weak, immoral, and lazy." We got those ideas from society.

All types of human thought is essentially the social matrix trying to make sense of itself. You can't actually think without the social matrix. You have no idea how profound this is: you can't even form the cognitive concept of "self" and "other" without 1. other people to interact with, and 2. language; two of the most basic aspects of the social matrix.

 

11 hours ago, MartinGifford said:

At 2:24:00, he talks about creating a "collective hive mind". Why? I don’t want to be part of a collective hive mind. We are not dependent on such outcomes.

Well, you can't actually survive as a human being without depending on the collective in some way or another. Even if you decide to live in some cabin for yourself without electricity or running water, the tools and materials that are used to build the house are a result of thousands of years of collective effort. Any knowledge about natural first aid solutions or how to hunt, forage or eat nutritious food also stems from the collective. Human beings lived in tribes for millions of years. You're a collective creature – that is your nature. You've just lost touch with that because of the incredible material success of the collective.

 

11 hours ago, MartinGifford said:

At 2:46:00, he attacks our "selfishness and egotism". The social matrix criticises those things too. But there's nothing wrong with individuals. The social matrix is the only problem. Sure, individuals must be turned around to face reality, but it should be through encouragement and insight, not criticism.

Just like the individual is shaped by his environment, the environment is shaped by the individuals within it. Every biological creature does this, but humans are masters at it, and this is the basis of culture and society. Humans create the social matrix, and therefore the humans are fundamentally the problem. It's just that individual human problems get magnified exponentially when they interact socially and create higher-order emergent phenomena that cannot be reduced to the individual level.

 

11 hours ago, MartinGifford said:

At 2:53:00, he suggests we read books and whatnot. But he said the books come from the social matrix, so it doesn’t make sense. We only need to question what's arising within. Towards the end, he went on a tirade about how bad we are. That’s just channelling society again.

Again, we are all imbedded in the social matrix. It's just about how self-aware you can become of that fact. Some aspects of the social matrix are more self-aware than others. The social matrix is a complex system. It's not a black-and-white issue.

Edited August 2, 2021 by Carl-Richard

[Loving Radiance]

3 hours ago, 7thLetter said:

A comment about the video, it seems only to be a mental masturbation video rather than anything else.

It seems like you haven't got the message. That's ok.

3 hours ago, 7thLetter said:

see beyond the illusions that society creates

Oh, you seem to get it. You can realize that everything you believed to be solid and true is a fabrication. Maybe you can still realize is that this knowledge can be felt in the body as a energetic shift.

3 hours ago, 7thLetter said:

no one here is truly going to live that lifestyle of complete independence, and not even Leo either probably.

He says in the video that complete independence is not the goal.

[MartinGifford]

21 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

1. Possessions, prestige, power and money is all survival.
    
2. All types of human thought is essentially the social matrix trying to make sense of itself. You can't actually think without the social matrix. 
    
3. Just like the individual is shaped by his environment, the environment is shaped by the individuals within it. Every biological creature does this, but humans are masters at it, and this is the basis of culture and society. Humans create the social matrix, and therefore the humans are fundamentally the problem.

1. Seeking an excess of possessions, prestige, power, and money is all happiness, unless you live in a poor country where you need to buy your own army, or you might be a neurotic survivalist living in a developed democracy. Plenty of people survive happily with very little and don't seek more.
    
2. You can use thought to break down the social matrix, which is negation of the false.
    
3. Current humans embellish the illusion that we are lacking and flawed, but they didn't create that core concept. It was inherited from people who invented it thousands of years ago. The illusion was in society before we were born into it. Then we were brainwashed by it and then we began retransmitting it in various forms.

[Carl-Richard]

9 hours ago, MartinGifford said:

1. Seeking an excess of possessions, prestige, power, and money is all happiness, unless you live in a poor country where you need to buy your own army, or you might be a neurotic survivalist living in a developed democracy. Plenty of people survive happily with very little and don't seek more.

Seeking is suffering. Suffering is survival. Happiness is the end of suffering.

 

9 hours ago, MartinGifford said:

1. You can use thought to break down the social matrix, which is negation of the false.

You're always in the social matrix. You can't escape it.

 

9 hours ago, MartinGifford said:

1. Current humans embellish the illusion that we are lacking and flawed, but they didn't create that core concept. It was inherited from people who invented it thousands of years ago. The illusion was in society before we were born into it. Then we were brainwashed by it and then we began retransmitting it in various forms.

1. "Current humans" and "past humans" are both humans, thus humans still "created" the social matrix.

2. The social matrix is always evolving. It wasn't "invented thousands of years ago". It had always existed – it's endemic to social creatures.

Edited August 2, 2021 by Carl-Richard

[MartinGifford]

31 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

1. Seeking is suffering. Suffering is survival. Happiness is the end of suffering.
2. You're always in the social matrix. You can't escape it.
3. "Current humans" and "past humans" are both humans, thus humans still "created" the social matrix.
4. The social matrix is always evolving. It wasn't "invented thousands of years ago". It had always existed – it's endemic to social creatures.

1. Yes, seeking is suffering and happiness is the end of suffering. But suffering is not survival. Survival and suffering are due to either survival pressures or illusions.
2. That doesn't address my point that we can negate the false. Nothing stops us from questioning the belief that we are lacking and flawed.
3. I agree that humans created [past tense] the social matrix. But you originally wrote, "Humans create [present tense] the social matrix, and therefore the humans are fundamentally the problem." You switched from the past tense to the present tense. And so my argument that we were born into a deluded social context still stands.
4. The deluded part of the social context was invented thousands of years ago. That part is the idea that we are lacking and flawed. We can look at it in spiral dynamics terms:

   PURPLE: You need to please the spirits, and you’re bad and should be outcast if you don’t.

   RED: You need to dominate, and if you fail, you are weak and deserve to be dominated.

   BLUE: You need to submit to our belief system and hierarchy, and you’re bad and bring shame to the family if you don’t.

   ORANGE: You need to succeed in the economy, and you are weak, foolish, or lazy if you don’t.

   GREEN: You need to accept other belief systems as equal, and you are a bad dominator if you don’t.
   
   The evolution here is just in the form of the belief. Each stage was a false solution to the beleif that we are lacking and flawed. Instead, of evolving a new form of the belief, we need to question the belief. 

[vindicated erudite]

The most damning thing about this theory is that it's so easy to reset the snowball of lies that we call the social matrix theory.

[7thLetter]

11 hours ago, Loving Radiance said:

It seems like you haven't got the message. That's ok.

Perhaps, but I did go back to watch the beginning of the video and now I do get the bigger picture.

Its a meta-perspective that goes beyond just escaping society as a human being who hunts for his own food and lives off the grid. A perspective that looks at the bigger picture of how society works, how it constructs itself, and it analyzes it at its core.

11 hours ago, Loving Radiance said:

He says in the video that complete independence is not the goal.

I do think that it goes both ways though, to question and escape society at the meta-level perspective as presented in the video, should also eventually lead us to escape society at the physical level as well. If not then my point still stands, it's all just mental masturbation, it's intellectualization for entertainment.

How could we discuss the illusions of society but then still partake in the illusion of society? That's like listening to motivational self-help advice to help you get off your ass, but then in reality you do agree with the advice but you still sit on the couch playing video games eating Doritos & drinking Mountain Dew.

Maybe this is the bigger-picture that we're missing here, it's all just mental masturbation. To deny this I would say is justification. 

"Wow cool ideas about society!" *Proceeds to work a 9-5, browse the internet, watch TV, play video games, shop at the grocery store, participate in social activities*

This is also a response to @RendHeaven

And edit: I do understand what you're saying RendHeaven. I call it mental masturbation because I don't see how exactly the information presented in that video is practical. Leo even admits its the ultimate conspiracy theory. It's sort of the same thing as saying life is an illusion, but what can we actually do with that information?

I guess it just leads to more understanding, and maybe that's what we're all here to do, to understand reality, but still, mental masturbation.

Maybe it helps guide us with our psychedelic trips, to understand these deeper concepts. The theory that life is an illusion certainly made sense of an acid trip I had. I died and the illusion of life just vanished completely into nothingness.

 

Edited August 3, 2021 by 7thLetter

[Loving Radiance]

7 hours ago, 7thLetter said:

19 hours ago, Loving Radiance said:

He says in the video that complete independence is not the goal.

I do think that it goes both ways though, to question and escape society at the meta-level perspective as presented in the video, should also eventually lead us to escape society at the physical level as well.

7 hours ago, 7thLetter said:

I call it mental masturbation because I don't see how exactly the information presented in that video is practical.

It is practical as in the quote above.

For myself this was an episode that gave more clarity in my LP and how I want to impact the world. In fact, the episode allowed me to envision a future which is so inspiring and at the same time so idealistic that I will most likely fail in trying even though it would take multiple lifetimes to create that vision.

[DocWatts]

An hour in I'm thinking 'yes, of course, isn't a lot of this rather obvious?' 

That is of course until I stop and remember that the vast majority of people do not think dialectically as a matter of course, and that the ontological and epistemological assumptions which underlie one's worldview are invisible to most people.

And that a dialectical modality itself is highly privileged way of looking at the world, whose availability hinges to a huge extent on getting Lucky when it comes to the Birth Lottery. 

Not sure where exactly I was going with this, but I do appreciate the obvious effort that Leo puts in to his work, and the craft that it takes to take quite complex ideas and present them in approachable ways.

[Bob Seeker]

@MartinGifford 

On 8/2/2021 at 6:13 AM, MartinGifford said:

Didn't your awakening include the ability to communicate? For example, if you awoke to God, then God is powerful and can communicate. If you woke to something less than God, then how do you know your awakening is the ultimate?

forget rebuddling all of this stuff. It’s not going to make sense to you…yet. You need to start nearer the beginning. You can remain skeptical all you want, but when you begin to validate some more things for yourself, through years of work, then you can decide how far you want to continue with this stuff. 
 

I suggest you focus on the personal development side first. Get your psychological needs met for moving toward self-actualization using maslow’s pyramid. Leo made a video on this.

you will have a growing interest in doing epistemological work to discover whether this stuff is true for yourself as time goes on.

 

[Carl-Richard]

On 3.8.2021 at 1:06 AM, MartinGifford said:

1.  Instead, of evolving a new form of the belief, we need to question the belief. 

Let's imagine what that process of questioning one's own beliefs looks like:

You ask a question using the cognitive semantic structures granted to you by the social matrix, and you form a hypothesis. You learned that the hypothetico-deductive method is a virtuous truth-finding device from the social matrix. You then test that hypothesis by probing some more into your own socially conditioned semantic structures and conjure up an answer, and then a thought arises out from these structures that say "I just had an original thought!". That is the extent of self-deception that is going on here. The thing is that there never was even a modicum of originality in that process. It's simply the case that your mental patterns and motivational drives are helplessly a product of the social matrix.

Edited August 8, 2021 by Carl-Richard

[RendHeaven]

4 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Let's imagine what that process of questioning one's own beliefs looks like:

You ask a question using the cognitive semantic structures granted to you by the social matrix, and you form a hypothesis. You learned that the hypothetico-deductive method is a virtuous truth-finding device from the social matrix. You then test that hypothesis by probing some more into your own socially conditioned semantic structures and conjure up an answer, and then a thought arises out from these structures that say "I just had an original thought!". That is the extent of self-deception that is going on here. The thing is that there never was even a modicum of originality in that process. It's simply the case that your mental patterns and motivational drives are helplessly a product of the social matrix.

Well said. Lemme add that even the notion of "questions" are drenched with social matrix stink. As well as the notion of a "notion"/"negating a notion."

There are no questions or notions, fundamentally. But by the time you truly realize that, you're floating above the charade and laughing, and you've got nothing to combat.

That's not to say that questioning is not valuable, though. It can set you in the right trajectory.

But the mistake is to think that you're out of the muck just because you're a questioner!

[roopepa]

On 2.8.2021 at 4:06 AM, MartinGifford said:

At 1:28:00 he said it's all based on survival. It's not. Once basic survival needs are fulfilled, the social matrix is based on illusory forms of happiness such as possessions, prestige, power, and money. This distracts us away from the innate happiness and goodwill of being, and so we get trapped in competition.

Survival is not just about the body. Why does an islamist suicide bomber kill himself in the name of Allah? Posession, prestige, power... People seek these because of the survival of identity. Humans are not separate from each other, culture, beliefs, identity etc. In fact, "my physical human body" IS identity. Your individual physical survival is just one miniscule part of the Great Survival.

On 2.8.2021 at 4:06 AM, MartinGifford said:

At 2:53:00, he suggests we read books and whatnot. But he said the books come from the social matrix, so it doesn’t make sense. We only need to question what's arising within.

Leo's video is also 'coming from' the social matrix, as are all the books he recommends. And so is this post of yours. If we 'only need to question what's arising within', why did you write this post? What exactly are you trying to do?