Leo and Spiritual Debates

[Scholar]

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?

[zurew]

5 minutes ago, Scholar said:

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.

Those people who are really stuck in their paradigm, doesn't seem to be open for changing their view on things with just debating. Even if Leo would win all the debates most will just get even more defensive imo. Just look at the comments below the "Deconstructing The Myth Of Science" videos. Those who are hardcore materialist minded  were really defensive, and other people who was already open to other possiblities or those who hated materialist people, those were the ones, who praised his video.

I think making the 'awaken using psychedelics' approach  more mainstream seems the most effective way to me to convert these people. Other approach could be to make a detailed plan for each stage to help them to climb up. But that of course much much slower and needs even more planning than the first idea.

The other ploblem i have with this idea to debate with people about this or to have conversations about people, is that they will misunderstand most of these ideas regardless who is communicating it. Leo is very good at teaching ideas and breaking down concepts, but still, most people will misunderstand it. Just look at this forum how much question is about solipsism and God and stuff like that. Those who wached 100s of hours of Leo's content about spirtuality and God they still misunderstand some stuff.

So the proper knowledge can only be given through direct, subjective experience.

[RMQualtrough]

It's somewhat difficult to explain a topic like this... I think any chatter on the topic should 99% of the time be aimed at the hardcore materialists... If someone already gets it, there's no point discussing anything with them really. We're largely circlejerking if that's the case.

Materialists have strange ideas about what a different paradigm would mean. E.g. that it must mean they would be able to bend spoons with their mind or dodge bullets like The Matrix. In the distant past, people laughed at that priest Idealist guy by saying they should be able to chuck a brick at his head and it wouldn't hurt because it's not real.

[Carl-Richard]

Glink is such a nooob ?

[Scholar]

40 minutes ago, zurew said:

Those people who are really stuck in their paradigm, doesn't seem to be open for changing their view on things with just debating. Even if Leo would win all the debates most will just get even more defensive imo. Just look at the comments below the "Deconstructing The Myth Of Science" videos. Those who are hardcore materialist minded  were really defensive, and other people who was already open to other possiblities or those who hated materialist people, those were the ones, who praised his video.

I think making the 'awaken using psychedelics' approach  more mainstream seems the most effective way to me to convert these people. Other approach could be to make a detailed plan for each stage to help them to climb up. But that of course much much slower and needs even more planning than the first idea.

The other ploblem i have with this idea to debate with people about this or to have conversations about people, is that they will misunderstand most of these ideas regardless who is communicating it. Leo is very good at teaching ideas and breaking down concepts, but still, most people will misunderstand it. Just look at this forum how much question is about solipsism and God and stuff like that. Those who wached 100s of hours of Leo's content about spirtuality and God they still misunderstand some stuff.

So the proper knowledge can only be given through direct, subjective experience.

Some people are unable to be convinced, of course that is the case, and debates will not change that. But to say that nobody changes their minds through debate culture is a bit inaccurate in my opinion. Just look at Destiny and how effective he is at converting people from extreme's to his side. It doesn't happen within one debate, but people atleast have to be confronted with other viewpoints for there to be even a possibility for change.

And remember, if someone argues badly for a position, which will happen whether we want to or not, it makes it even less likely for people to engage with that topic.

You first have to convince people that psychedelics even awaken you, there are people who took plenty of psychedelics and still don't believe that anything beyond the material exists. And don't forget, if the people who advocate for psychedelics make terrible arguments and come off as delusional, then that in turn will make people avoid taking psychedelics.

 

I think you misunderstand the situation. Debates and conversation about this topic will happen, and the misunderstanding of them will happen. I do not believe that Leo is as ineffective at convincing people as just any other random person is. Leo specifically is good at convincing people who have materialist point of views. It's not about most people, cultural change does not happen by convincing most people of something. It happens by ideas existing within a culture, and those who are ready being able to access them. If we do not partake in culture, those who are ready might fall for different kind of ideologies, and because these ideologies might be dysfunctional, they then will reject spirituality entirely. At that point, these people usually are locked on their level of development.

 

 

In my opinion the work is not about forcing people to walk on a certain pathway, rather it is to build a pathway for them to follow so that once they are ready, they know where to go. And for them to know about that pathway, they first have to be somehow aware of it.

Edited May 11, 2022 by Scholar

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Scholar said:

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?

It's never a win in the eye of public opinion, at least in the immediate sense. When Deepak Chopra arranged all these meetups between materialists and idealists over a decade ago... well, we got the infamous figure of Deepak Chopra and not much else.

 

 

That said, one of the participants, skeptic Michael Shermer, was genuinely impacted by these meetings, and today he has reconnected with one of the people from those meetups (Bernardo Kastrup) and is seriously considering idealism.

 

 

[Scholar]

11 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

It's never a win in the eye of public opinion, at least in the immediate sense. When Deepak Chopra arranged all these meetups between materialists and idealists over a decade ago... well, we got the infamous figure of Deepak Chopra and not much else.

 

 

That said, one of the participants, skeptic Michael Shermer, was genuinely impacted by these meetings, and today he has reconnected with one of the people from those meetups (Bernardo Kastrup) and is seriously considering idealism.

 

 

As in my previous post, I think there is a misunderstanding of how culture changes, and you kind of pointed to exactly the point I am trying to make. Culture doesn't change by having an ideological dispute, and then everyone decides "Oh that was the most rational position let's go for this.".
Rather, the more truthful perspective exists within the culture, it is fighting with current culture, and then bit by bit, those who see the limitations of the previous perspective will adopt the new one.

A good example for this is veganism. Pretty much every initial vegan was seen as extreme and weird, especially like 30 years ago. But if these people had not been part of the conversation, it could have never grown into something more mainstream. You have to have these ideas be accessible, and people need to be aware of them, and they need to see that these ideas can stand the test of culture. Whether or not 99% will be convinced by them during a debate is irrelevant, it's about the 1% who are uncertain, or have the potential to be uncertain, who will say "Oh yes that actually seems to make sense, it's not as unreasonable as I thought, let me investigate it!", or "Oh wow I just realized why this is wrong, and I remember that debate by with that guy who talked about this, let me investigate it!".

That's how change happens.

 

Remember, it's like making people aware of a road. If you don't, they miight just walk down a different road which will lead them to nowhere, and then they both waste time and might reject any future exploration. It's important that people are aware of the healthy alternatives .

Edited May 11, 2022 by Scholar

[Dryas]

A conversation with Destiny could turn out really productive. He's super open minded and really good at steelmanning the opposing view. I don't think he puts a time limit on how long a convo can be too.

[zurew]

2 hours ago, Scholar said:

But to say that nobody changes their minds through debate culture is a bit inaccurate in my opinion. Just look at Destiny and how effective he is at converting people from extreme's to his side. It doesn't happen within one debate, but people atleast have to be confronted with other viewpoints for there to be even a possibility for change.

And remember, if someone argues badly for a position, which will happen whether we want to or not, it makes it even less likely for people to engage with that topic.

You first have to convince people that psychedelics even awaken you, there are people who took plenty of psychedelics and still don't believe that anything beyond the material exists. And don't forget, if the people who advocate for psychedelics make terrible arguments and come off as delusional, then that in turn will make people avoid taking psychedelics.

Of course there are people, who's viewpoint can be changed but those people are the minority. The vast majority of people, are not at all open minded. If you want to target a small minority of people, thats fine i can agree with that. But we should be clear who is our target and make a specific plan how to do it.  But i still think that converting stage blue/orange society to stage green would be a better goal.

Destiny is a good example, but not a fair comparison in my opinion. We are not talking about people changing their political views we literally talking about people changing how they view themselves and life overall in general. In this case its a much much tougher challenge to do and a much bigger change required on their end. Also to understand Leo's concepts you need to be at a much higher level of development already compared to convert some people's political views.

How many debates are we talking about here, because Leo would need to start at rock bottom. He would need to debate with one person for hundreds of hours to get to a point where they can  somewhat  understand what Leo is trying to say. Most debates would consist of a lot of strawman arguments, because the other side would not even understand what he/she is disagreeing about.  There would be so much misunderstanding and strawman arguments that psychedelics and Leo's teachings would be even more demonized than it is now.

 

The problem im having with your idea about this is that i don't think its realistic. Because the culture change you were talking about in your examples (for example in the vegan example)  is like a 1-2 level jump, when we are talking about Leo's ideas is like going from level 1 to level 50 or level 100.

 

I know some christian people who are really fucking good at debating ,and they probably win most debates against atheist people but i still don't see those atheists converting into being christians (even though those atheists were familiar with the christian concepts, then imagine if you are not even familiar with the other side even on a conceptual level). Surface level ideas can be debated but really core ideas are a different story.

 

So basically at the end of the day, you believe that more people can be more convinced than being pushed away from Leo's work. I just don't think this society is ready to hear and to process these advanced concepts. Even most Leo's viewers are not ready, how do we expect random people to be ready for it? I mention again, its either a systematic approach where we slowly targeting each stages with a proper plan and helping them to climb or somehow making psychedelics more mainstream and teaching how to use psychedelics properly or both.

Or if you want to target a small minority, than we should be clear about who is our target.

 

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by zurew

[Scholar]

1 hour ago, zurew said:

Of course there are people, who's viewpoint can be changed but those people are the minority. The vast majority of people, are not at all open minded. If you want to target a small minority of people, thats fine i can agree with that. But we should be clear who is our target and make a specific plan how to do it.  But i still think that converting stage blue/orange society to stage green would be a better goal.

Destiny is a good example, but not a fair comparison in my opinion. We are not talking about people changing their political views we literally talking about people changing how they view themselves and life overall in general. In this case its a much much tougher challenge to do and a much bigger change required on their end. Also to understand Leo's concepts you need to be at a much higher level of development already compared to convert some people's political views.

How many debates are we talking about here, because Leo would need to start at rock bottom. He would need to debate with one person for hundreds of hours to get to a point where they can  somewhat  understand what Leo is trying to say. Most debates would consist of a lot of strawman arguments, because the other side would not even understand what he/she is disagreeing about.  There would be so much misunderstanding and strawman arguments that psychedelics and Leo's teachings would be even more demonized than it is now.

 

The problem im having with your idea about this is that i don't think its realistic. Because the culture change you were talking about in your examples (for example in the vegan example)  is like a 1-2 level jump, when we are talking about Leo's ideas is like going from level 1 to level 50 or level 100.

 

I know some christian people who are really fucking good at debating ,and they probably win most debates against atheist people but i still don't see those atheists converting into being christians (even though those atheists were familiar with the christian concepts, then imagine if you are not even familiar with the other side even on a conceptual level). Surface level ideas can be debated but really core ideas are a different story.

 

So basically at the end of the day, you believe that more people can be more convinced than being pushed away from Leo's work. I just don't think this society is ready to hear and to process these advanced concepts. Even most Leo's viewers are not ready, how do we expect random people to be ready for it? I mention again, its either a systematic approach where we slowly targeting each stages with a proper plan and helping them to climb or somehow making psychedelics more mainstream and teaching how to use psychedelics properly or both.

Or if you want to target a small minority, than we should be clear about who is our target.

 

 

I think you are focused on putting holes into this rather than trying to envision the potential benefits, you are basically just saying things that are all going to happen whether Leo will debate or not. Again, if the conscious people do not advocate, the unconscious will. Someone will advocate for Leo's teachings sooner or later, and be trying to represent them, so all the negatives you are talking about will occur either way.

I also am not convinced that you need to be at a higher level to understand Leo's teachings. I think many here are orange-green, infact especially earlier videos of Leo are geared towards capturing orange specifcally.

 

I feel like you are reasoning in a motivated way here, because obviously it would not be ideal for someone to talk about the highest level teachings, it would be more ideal to dismantle materialism first, as that is a main hurdle, and that is what we are talking about here. Any I can only repeated it again and again, but we already had people doing exactly this. Connor Murphy had a debate with Vegan Gains, and he was doing it in the most unproductive way possible, spouting very advanced stuff which will not even be effective at targeting the minority who might be receptive.

 

Nobody here said that whoever is going to have these conversations should start with the most advanced concepts, so like I said I think you are trying to poke holes artificially here.

[zurew]

5 minutes ago, Scholar said:

Nobody here said that whoever is going to have these conversations should start with the most advanced concepts, so like I said I think you are trying to poke holes artificially here.

Nope, i was more focused on the majority of people, not the minority. Firstly i assumed, that you thought the same way, but now i see, that your point is to target the minority.

I can agree with that, and i can see how those people could change their mind listening to some debates.

But what is the audience we want to specifically target, and with what kind of teachings ( simply those who we assume are open minded enough?) You mentioned that Leo don't necessarily need to start with the most advanced ones, so where do you think Leo should start, he should start at Dismantling materialism? Do you think the start should be sort of like idealism vs materialism or Leo should jump into awakening vs materialism?

 

I think its possible to do it, but he will need a lot of time to prepare for some questions to be able to defend his side properly (he could do a thread where we brainstorm for most of the questions that can come up in a debate and find ways to deconstruct them and defend some of them). But if one of his main goals is to make more people open to his ideas, then yeah he should do it.

I think you are right, i think that changing (or at least open up) some materialist minded people's mind (whose mind already open enough to have conversations about it or debates)  using debates is necessary not just possible. The only other way i see, is using psychedelics, but we would need to wait for them to become legal and accessible for every people, so until then debates could be used. Or both tools could be used for adequate efficiency.

Those scientist who will be convinced could advocate and spread Leo's ideas further into the institutions. Of course firstly it will be viewed as an ideology but that part can't really be jumped over it is part of the process probably.

Also you are right, the negatives i mentioned before can't really be dodged, because it will happen anyway regardless if Leo will have convos or debates or not.

So at the end of the day defending and presenting his ideas in an adequate way should be good and beneficial.

 

 

[SeaMonster]

3 hours ago, zurew said:

I think making the 'awaken using psychedelics' approach  more mainstream seems the most effective way to me to convert these people. Other approach could be to make a detailed plan for each stage to help them to climb up. But that of course much much slower and needs even more planning than the first idea.

Spiritual awakening is not about conversion to a set of ideas.  That is the territory of religion, philosophy or ideology.  Spiritual awakening is about understanding the proper relationship between reality and ideas -- namely that the map is not the territory, that you can't simply digest or circumscribe the infinite.  The reason Leo doesn't want to debate is because he can't -- he wouldn't be taken seriously by people like Destiny because he'd want to fall back on mystical revelation as a last resort, and would be seriously challenged.  You can be a philosopher or a mystic, but when you try to mix the two, people suspect you're trying to pull a fast one.

[zurew]

41 minutes ago, SeaMonster said:

Spiritual awakening is not about conversion to a set of ideas.  That is the territory of religion, philosophy or ideology.  Spiritual awakening is about understanding the proper relationship between reality and ideas -- namely that the map is not the territory, that you can't simply digest or circumscribe the infinite.  The reason Leo doesn't want to debate is because he can't -- he wouldn't be taken seriously by people like Destiny because he'd want to fall back on mystical revelation as a last resort, and would be seriously challenged.  You can be a philosopher or a mystic, but when you try to mix the two, people suspect you're trying to pull a fast one.

I didn't mean that way. I meant to really know what Leo is talking about can only be known through direct experience.

Also i think @Scholar is right. If we can target the right audience with certain ideas and spiritual practices it can be spread. Spreading ideas is necessary for cultural changes. Without people knowing about these ideas and practices properly they won't even start their journey.

Even if he won't engage in debates, Leo could use friendly conversations to spread some of his ideas. There are people who are open minded enough to have these convos, they just need to be found. 

Look at the Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal. That one was great, and i think that targeting was really good, because Curt was open minded to have a convo with Leo.

Specifically targeting a group of people who are developed and open minded enough to have certain conversations or debates about Leo's ideas can fasten up cultural change, because those people can spread the ideas in their own way further. I am mostly talking about conversations where Leo could talk about how certain practices and methods could be used and why should people do them. 

For example talking a lot about psychedelics and meditation and yoga and contemplation. Talking about all the facts and all the good points how they can change one's life, how can you use them to deconstruct your own worldview, why you should deconstruct your worldview etc. ---> this way more people could start doing those practices and eventually opening their mind up for spirituality even more and spread the importance of those practices even further to other people.

Edited May 11, 2022 by zurew

[SeaMonster]

2 hours ago, zurew said:

Also i think @Scholar is right. If we can target the right audience with certain ideas and spiritual practices it can be spread. Spreading ideas is necessary for cultural changes. Without people knowing about these ideas and practices properly they won't even start their journey.

It's necessary but by no means sufficient - and a little of it goes a long way.  Otherwise you get what some people in this forum do, which is a vicious cycle of mental fapping.  That's kind of the peril of too much philosophy, it becomes just more mental baggage for people not motivated or too scared to do work like meditation.

That's kind of the bottom line, again: many people are too lazy or too scared.  They don't want to face reality. And it's easy for them to engage in spiritual bypassing of all types, of which philosophical rumination is one.

[zurew]

5 minutes ago, SeaMonster said:

It's necessary but by no means sufficient - and a little of it goes a long way.  Otherwise you get what some people in this forum do, which is a vicious cycle of mental fapping.  That's kind of the peril of too much philosophy, it becomes just more mental baggage for people not motivated or too scared to do work like meditation.

That's kind of the bottom line, again: many people are too lazy or too scared.  They don't want to face reality. And it's easy for them to engage in spiritual bypassing of all types, of which philosophical rumination is one.

What is a better alternative though, to spread the message?

I agree that spreading the message with convos and debates won't be enough for cultural change, but this is one aspect that we can have direct impact on. We can't really force people to do the practices, but we can bring the knowledge what to do, why and how and for what reasons.

Also we can point out, or Leo can point out the pitfalls of this work, because of course there are many, and i think many of us can fall into one at a time.

Edited May 11, 2022 by zurew

[SeaMonster]

1 minute ago, zurew said:

What is a better alternative though, to spread the message?

The message is simple: if you want long-term relief from suffering, you have to go into temporary discomfort.  Here's how.  The rest is just unnecessary.

In other words, be closer to Buddhism or Taoism rather than Western philosophy.

[Carl-Richard]

2:41:52 Max sums up exactly what I feel about Greg.

[zurew]

2 minutes ago, SeaMonster said:

The message is simple: if you want long-term relief from suffering, you have to go into temporary discomfort.  Here's how.  The rest is just unnecessary.

In other words, be closer to Buddhism or Taoism rather than Western philosophy.

I think these two things are the ones we can do, to have direct impact on people so to achieve cultural change and development

1. Spreading the message having convos and debates
2. Showing an example and trying to embody all the teachings as much as we can

[SeaMonster]

2 minutes ago, zurew said:

I think these two things are the ones we can do, to have direct impact on people so to achieve cultural change and development

1. Spreading the message having convos and debates
2. Showing an example and trying to embody all the teachings as much as we can

To have success, one must understand the human condition:

1) Many people are lazy/complacent.

2) Many people are scared to leave their comfort zone.

3) Some are both. 

The people most likely to become spiritual seekers are those who are in great suffering.

Focus on those before you worry about cultural change - that's ego talk.  Make your goals realistic and achievable.

[Scholar]

55 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

2:41:52 Max sums up exactly what I feel about Greg.

I haven't reached that point yet but Max is hopelessly stuck in Orange, he is like a perfect manifestation of it.