Leo and Spiritual Debates

[Danioover9000]

@Scholar

On 5/11/2022 at 9:32 AM, Scholar said:

I know Leo says he does not want to be debating people, or even have conversations with people, about God and the Nature of Reality. However I am curious what Leo thinks about the fact that these conversations will be had either way, and that sooner or later, someone will be representing Leo's ideas outside of his actual control. We had something like this already happen with Connor Murphy. We also have different kind of spiritual ideas take over, which begs the question whether they might not at some point overshadow Leo's work.

Here for example we have a debate on Spirituality, which comes from someone who seems to have very little actual experience with investigating the nature of reality:

 

Now, it makes sense that Leo does not want to waste his time with these kinds of conversations, but if his focus is helping to dismantle materialism, I feel like part of that will be these kinds of conversations. At some point it seems it is inevitably that they will happen, and in the end it will be about whether or not Leo's ideas will be part of them.

 

The question is basically, would it be positive for someone with a good understanding of reality to take part in these conversations? Or would the negatives outweigh the potential positives?

   I think Leo's all good with what he's doing currently. The Buddha was an exception, as he was reported to be amazing at debating other spiritual masters, however the skills of debating do take time and effort to develop, and if Leo says he lacks those levels of debating as a way to get people to pursue spirituality or consider it and self actualization, then he has to work with what skills he has. Debating is not necessarily the only way to arrive at truth.

   Also, Mr. Girl, despite his open mindedness and empathy, is not ready for spirituality, let alone a discussion of it as he's strongly an atheist and is a part troll, and too many shadows to work through. Destiny is more likely to be open, but my impression from him was that he got scarred from whatever psychedelic trip he had that he is settled to label those experiences as hallucinatory. Glink is just parroting spiritual and psychedelic talking points with little practices and experiences to ground those theories into being. 

   In a simple conclusion, Leo Gura is far superior compared to Mr. Girl, Destiny and Glink that he'd eat them for breakfast. 

[DocWatts]

Rare life-changing or mystical experiences not withstanding, in my experience most people generally start to question their worldview by degrees.

Dropping advanced spiritual or epistemic concepts into someone's lap who doesn't have a sufficient Frame of Reference for it isn't going to be helpful for that individual.

Instead, offering someone stuck in a materialist paradigm avenues for a "Soft Landing" away from their entrenched worldview seems far more likely to be effective.

Dialectical thinking and applied epistemology would be the logical next steps for someone paradigm locked to scientific materialism, since they both provide Value on their own while also giving that individual the Tools needed to begin deconstructing materialism.

In this regard, having clear epistemic understanding of your pre-existing worldview is so important that I'm tempted to call it a prerequisite for productive deconstruction.

The book I'd be most likely to recommend to this hypothetical person as a 'first step' would be Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, precisely because it deals with the epistemic roots of science in an accessible way.

 

Edited May 12, 2022 by DocWatts

[How to be wise]

@Leo Gura Why haven’t you done an interview with Rick archer? I’m sure he’ll be interested in your take on what reality is, and how you see truth.

[Matthew85]

The more your awareness expands the less you will be interested in arguing and debating with people. 

[Leo Gura]

10 hours ago, Mafortu said:

but he is just too scared of something going terribly wrong

That something is the collapse of his entire intellectual house of cards, hehehe. Terrible indeed

[Leo Gura]

5 hours ago, How to be wise said:

@Leo Gura Why haven’t you done an interview with Rick archer? I’m sure he’ll be interested in your take on what reality is, and how you see truth.

I was never offered.

I am not focused on doing self-promotion.

[kamwalker]

On 5/11/2022 at 5:13 PM, Leo Gura said:

I may do it on rare occassion but my work is fundamentally not about that.

My work is generating new insight. Not arguing with people.

I mean it's really damn entertaining though. Those 12 hours with Curt blew by. I've actually listened to it all twice and a certain parts several times. 

Edited May 13, 2022 by kamwalker

[caelanb]

@Leo Gura Will you have a conversation with a scientist or rationally minded person anytime in the future? Or are you no longer interested in doing that? I'm not talking about having a debate, but instead, having a good-faith conversation about reality, truth, and science. I'm sure there are plenty of people that would be very much interested in doing so. You can talk to people like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michio Kaku, Michael Shermer, or perhaps a typical university professor. Neil deGrasse Tyson is probably busy, so it might be a challenge to speak with him. However, he was recently on Modern Wisdom, so he definitely has some time. Also, even if you think they are not interested in having a conversation or think it's a waste of time, it doesn't hurt to test the waters. It could be positive for both sides but also negative too, you never know. Thanks.

[Danioover9000]

@DocWatts

On 5/12/2022 at 10:45 PM, DocWatts said:

Rare life-changing or mystical experiences not withstanding, in my experience most people generally start to question their worldview by degrees.

Dropping advanced spiritual or epistemic concepts into someone's lap who doesn't have a sufficient Frame of Reference for it isn't going to be helpful for that individual.

Instead, offering someone stuck in a materialist paradigm avenues for a "Soft Landing" away from their entrenched worldview seems far more likely to be effective.

Dialectical thinking and applied epistemology would be the logical next steps for someone paradigm locked to scientific materialism, since they both provide Value on their own while also giving that individual the Tools needed to begin deconstructing materialism.

In this regard, having clear epistemic understanding of your pre-existing worldview is so important that I'm tempted to call it a prerequisite for productive deconstruction.

The book I'd be most likely to recommend to this hypothetical person as a 'first step' would be Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, precisely because it deals with the epistemic roots of science in an accessible way.

 

   Yes, this is a slow but solid path to growing into spirituality.

   I can see someone similar to Glink, who already has a world view tied in accepting the possibility, but that's assuming such a person also does the practices and isn't just believing what he/she wants to hear, which can become a problem later. Someone like Mr. Girl, who seems to be strongly atheistic despite being contrarian and has some capacity to hold meta conversations, doesn't seem to be open enough to consider the possibility, which is also tied to him not even taking a psychedelic as well. Someone like Destiny is also another unique problem, in that yes he also has had psychedelic experiences, but he also has had dealt a traumatic one where he seemed, despite what the video showed, hasn't fully recovered from that past experience. In fact, I'd assume here, without those bad trips, I think in this video he would've sided more with Glink and tried more harder to steelman his argument over Mr. Girl's argument.

[How to be wise]

On 13/05/2022 at 5:22 AM, Leo Gura said:

I was never offered.

I am not focused on doing self-promotion.

He interviews absolute nobodies, while you are an enlightenment teacher with over a million subscribers! You should be at the top of the list.