How I Do Research Summary

[Juan Cruz Giusto]

This is, personally, the most foundational and inspiring video of all! Hope uou enjoy Leo's video and my summary of it!

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Very few people have an accurate big picture understanding of life and reality. The secret for this is having the right epistemic foundation.

Success in any endeavor is not a matter of knowing the trick, it is about the structure and how you approach the entire problem.

When you seek understanding/truth, you need to be aware of the role of your own psychology in this process. Also, you need to realize the limits of reason and that there is stuff outside of it.

Lessons from epistemology:

·         The first position that every human being is in when they come alive, is that we don’t know what’s true (you need to take this seriously!). This is the first starting point. You need to come from a place of humbleness since you don’t know what will be true or false.

·         Literally, anything is possible (you need to be open to every field, subject and study). You have to be open to every possibility and admit that you don’t know where the research can lead you. Everything is worth the investigation.

·         Self-deception is the number one enemy to developing big picture understanding. Be aware of your personal biases. You should only worry about your own personal biases.

·         Every position has hidden assumptions behind it. These assumptions define the position/perspective. You need to become aware of this assumptions and question them. If you get them wrong or aren’t clear about them, all your other reasonings are going to be on a rotten foundation.

·         All perspectives are partial. The biggest trap is to get caught up in a perspective. All perspectives are only partial truths. There are going to be other aspects that you ignore. One way to avoid this problem is to study many perspectives and to be impartial to the perspectives. You need to explore them all.

·         A model is not reality. Thinking about reality is not reality. While models can be useful, you cannot substitute them for reality itself. For example: Science is so good manipulating reality that we think that they’ve got reality figured out.

·         Your web of beliefs is like a representation of reality and it is under constrained. You have core beliefs/facts which are explained in different ways and perspectives.

·         Foundationalism (the idea that you can take some theory you have about reality and you can come up with a fundamental truth) is false.

·         Rationality is far too limited to use it as your only tool to explore/understand reality. Reality goes far beyond rationality since it is a subset of reality.

·         Paradox is good. When you encounter a paradox in your attempts to understand the world, you have to embrace it. Reality at its very core is paradoxical. Also, paradoxes are signs that you are trying to rationalize everything.

·         Direct experience is the truest thing you’ve got.

·         There is a huge spectrum of possible direct experiences. You need to constantly investigate and look for new experiences (change cities, cultures, try psychedelics, study history and experience life).

·         The practical level still matters. Don’t get lost into theory. The reason we are studying all of this stuff is so we can be more effective in our lives, happier, successful and move forward. If this investigation is not helping you do that, you are losing yourself in theory. In the short run you may be discovering some things that fucks you up a little bit but in the long run your life should be improving big time.

·         The best position to take is no position at all. You should not have nothing to defend. You should only care about what is true, whatever that might be. What you should care the most is understanding what life is and which is the best way to live it.

·         Seek understanding rather than truth. You should be interested in developing understanding (business, science, personal development, health, spiritual development, etc.).

·         Seek holism in whatever you are studying and investigating instead of focusing on some niche thing. YOUR GOAL IS TO UNDERSTAND ALL OF LIFE AND HOW YOU SHOULD BE LIVING YOUR LIFE.

·         Argumentation, debates and justifications are just tools of the ego and don’t serve truth-finding.

Use the axioms below as principles!

The big question is: Which is the best method for understanding reality? There are different approaches:

1.       The default position (going with the flow): This is what will happen if you don’t do nothing in respect. This is the case for 99.9% of people on earth. You don’t question life very deeply since they believe they already know the big picture (which was obviously absorbed from mainstream culture). These people hardly understand anything (why they aren’t happy, successful, productive, why they are angry, people-pleasing, why there is a debate between science and religion, etc.). They think that happiness will come from relationships, money and then they will retire and live a really comfy life).

 

2.       The academic approach: It is a narrow approach in which you choose a field and specialize in it. This approach is not going to be really useful if you want to develop a really great life. A great example is a scientist that is not fulfilled or happy.

 

3.       Pick one spiritual tradition and stick to it in a very focused way: These people don’t realize that each tradition is a partial truth and it is based on specific assumptions. It is only a way a of looking at the world. Maybe it helps you reach enlightenment but even if it works, you will only develop a sectarian way of looking at the world. You will have a narrow and limited understanding of the world.

 

4.       Strictly stick to your direct experience: You don’t read any books, study or listen to master because the only thing you know for sure is direct experience. The problem here that the number one danger is self-deception. When you lock yourself in a room for 10 years, you will get lost in the labyrinth of your own mind; you will end up tricking yourself. If you are only going to stick to your direct experience, you have to assume that you will be the most self-honest and motivated human being. You are assuming that you will discover all of reality by yourself only and without any help.

 

5.       Studying lots of perspectives from lots of sources: Read all the books, watch all the videos, listen to all the gurus and then I’m going to have the biggest picture. The problem with this approach is that if you only do that and you don’t have the direct experiences, you will not get far; you will get caught up in the theories.

Each of these methods by themselves won’t work. But there is a 6th approach (Leo’s approach). There isn’t a method to get the biggest picture. A lot of attention to details and a vigilant attitude is required if you want to successfully navigate this path.

6.       You fully commit to understanding vs position taking. I’m going to be very mindful of how I debate and argue my position and every time I do that, I will stop. I’m going to be very mindful when defending any ideas of reality, myself, the world and so forth and when I do that, I will cut that off. Also, I’m going to see past the difference between the perspectives and get beyond the terminologies; I will go to the root of what these teachings are pointing at with the intent of experience it in my own life. I will not nitpick sources, assuming that the things that masters/gurus are teaching me are usually a partial truth. I’m going to put the burden on myself to understand all of these perspectives. I’m going to study from 100s of sources and combine them with my direct experience. I will create hypotheses and test them in my life. I will do this until I’m dead, I will not stand by any position. I will cross-reference from many different perspectives. I’m going to check all my conclusions with my intuition. You are going to find that Truth stands out after all this process. You use the theory to come up with a model, but then you go out and direct experience it! And also you are careful about the minor discrepancies, which you will follow up.
 

a.       You hold everything as provisional, you don’t have any favorites and you don’t cling to anything.

b.       You also have to be open to be very wrong. But at the same time you need to have a positive outlook. This positive outlook is that understanding is possible. That there is something larger that you can understand about reality and that will have practical value. You have to trust that it will be worth it in the end.

c.       Also, you don’t have to become loyal to anyone’s teaching.  

d.       Also, reality can be absurd and counter-intuitive.

e.       Furthermore, don’t worry that much about lack of utility. But remember, you need to see the bigger picture and take into account the long term!!! Many of the things you will learn will get results in 10, 20 and 30 years! It might take you 5 years for the foundations to create results!

f.        Another element is emphasis on wisdom and growth vs theory. Utility is important because wisdom and growth needs to be occurring as you are going to this process. This process should be improving the quality of your life.

g.       Moreover, you will have to use meta-sources. You will study from people who studied form many perspectives.

h.       There is way more to reality than it meets the eye. The bigger picture will be much bigger than you imagined! Also, it is going to be an ever-evolving process.

The value of developing this bigger picture is really tough to articulate. It is going to be delicious on an intellectual level; it is going to be very satisfying and fulfilling. And it is going to be very practical. You will live your life in this amazing way and people will look at you amazed!

“We are like sailors who must rebuild their ship on the open sea, never able to dismantle it in dry-dock and to reconstruct it there out of the best materials. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction.” Otto Neurath

This process of rearranging our web of beliefs is a constant process. You can never take your “ship” and go to the shore. There is no shore to go, there is no safe place. There is no assumption that you can rely on. The key here is to construct a healthy ship by standing on one plank to fix the other, so on and so forth. But you can never take for granted that everything in your ship is fixed because there is always a part that can destroy your whole ship. Your web of beliefs has to be in constant and perpetual construction. AND THIS REQUIRES EFFORT AND VIGILANCE IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE! The question is: Can you envision the value in this? Are you willing to commit to these principles and watch yourself as a hawk?

Objections:

-          Wont doing this research lead to stuff like researching stupid things like UFOs? Yes, it will. That is the nature if research. You will not know what is worthwhile to investigate and what is not.

 

-          But, where do you draw the line? You don’t know where to draw the line. That is your position. You are going to have to go to some dead-ends but it will be worth it in the long-term.

 

-          Is there a risk believing everything? This risk is there no matter what. You might think that just by sticking with mainstream culture, it is safe. But it is not. The difference is that when you believe the stupid things that everyone believes in, you don’t feel as stupid.

 

-          Is what you are talking about relativism? No, you are not taking every perspective equally. You are going to decide which perspectives are truer.

 

-          Why bother with all this? Nobody knows the Truth! There will be a snowball effect as you do this work year over year. This effects will add up to create an amazing life that you would ever imagine.

 

-          Why not just pursue enlightenment and fuck all the rest? Until you become fully enlightened, you don’t know. Even if you become fully enlightened, you don’t know if there is any perspective you didn’t take into account. You don’t know if there is more practical stuff after enlightenment. You just don’t know. Moreover, enlightenment teaches you that everything you thought you knew about life was totally wrong!!! Don’t fall into the same trap again!

[TimStr]

I also wrote a summary of Leos newest video. You can have a look at it here:
https://www.evernote.com/shard/s97/sh/99cd918b-606b-4903-b981-2950e46c84a7/bada1c2996270a2d4b3d472c1c8f1570

But I also want to share, how I felt about this video: I noticed, that after watching and summarizing I feel somewhat insecure and confused. It feels like I know less now, after watching the video, than before. And, in a sense, I think, that was exactly the point of this video. To open me up and shatter my foundation to make more understanding possible to occur.

I guess, the most practical action step, I can derive from the episode is to keep rewatching it from time to time, to rip my mind open again and again and slowly but surely assimilate the principles of proper research and understanding, while acquiring consciousness over my very own mistakes and the trickery of my own ego.

Edited January 23, 2017 by TimStr