none can be proved to be either ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’
But he is far from being awakened. I think that his elephant is seriously sick which led him to his actions. If there is thinking that taking another being’s life is freedom, that means something is terribly wrong with the elephant. I believe that it all stems from the genetic make up of the brain. What he says about values is not necessarily wrong. But. If values are only ephemeral then why choose ‘wrong’ over ‘right’, why impinge on someone else’s freedom? This question has no answer. I tend to follow the principle of ahimsa and categorical imperative of Kant, that one behaves in the way that may be applied as a universal rule. It doesn’t mean you expect other people behave in the same way, that’s just my perspective and other people’s actions are up to them. That’s the same principle Jesus expressed with his Golden Rule.
I also would not call that intolerant to isolate such people from society, as they are fundamentally sick and pose a danger to other beings. One doesn’t think it’s intolerant to go away from the elephant in the rut. It’s a common sense to protect the organism. The same applies here. The same applies to myself. If I ever would pose a danger to other beings, I would like to be either isolated or liquidated. As none of us has a guarantee that won’t be the case, we can only hope that it will work out somehow.
In general such principles as ahimsa are needed for the seekers and not for the liberated. For the liberated there is no need of them, that doesn’t mean they will kill other people. As the metaphor goes, if you realise that everything you perceive is your own Self, how could you harm anyone? It would be tantamount of hurting your own Self. Therefore they say, what is experienced as truth for the liberated (e.g. ahimsa), is the means of practice for the rest. Which means while we are not liberated it is wise to listen to sages and correct one’s behavior in a certain way. What is truth for them, becomes means for us to reach to that state. It’s not imitation, it’s emulation.
Thinking, itself, undermines thinking
Thinking does undermine itself. But the insight is something beyond thinking it’s on the holistic level, it’s on the gut level (or what they call in spiritual traditions the Heart). The wise use of thinking is to breakthrough to that holistic level. And your analogy with fuel is indeed spot on. As Ramana Maharshi expressed in his work “Who am I?”: “The thought ‘Who am I?’ will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed.” So we might use thinking wisely, to go beyond it, to the pre-conceptual level.
how do you know that you’re describing something external from the human brain at all?
I cannot reply to this question pre-awakening. But it is described as the mind getting out of the way. What I experienced in those rare glimpses showed that “I” was not the body but the field of awareness itself. And there no question of external or internal arose. Questions and doubts stop bugging one there. It’s not like I can guarantee that that’s a reality, just there is no one to whom it matters how to call it. The doubter dissolves.
Bad things don’t exist, as “bad” is a judgement and not a trait.
Exactly. But that doesn’t make you want to hurt other people. Why would it? You don’t want to hurt one’s leg or arm. One might consider hurting other people if one identifies with one’s body and takes another as another body and derives pleasure from overpowering another. So it’s deeply entangled with the belief “I am the body”. If one looks at oneself as at the body, one takes another to be the body also. That belief is the root-belief and it’s most difficult to let go of. Awakening might be defined as the dissolution of the belief that you are (only) the body.
is still a human experience from a human perspective, and thus decorated in a sense
Decoration remains even after awakening. The difference is that identity shifts from name and form (the default mode) to being-consciousness-bliss, from ornaments to gold. It’s like one of these images that show a different picture depending how you look at it.
What is experienced as an existential issue is actually a philosophical issue, which is actually a psychological issue.
I don’t agree here. An existential threat is something that threatens the integrity of the organism is not a psychological issue, it’s an existential issue. It has a psychological aspect but is not limited to it.
What concerns that psychologically healthy people don’t have existential issues, they might not be aware of the underlying questions that direct their life, like “What is the meaning of it all?” or “Who am I?”.
Every person sane or insane comes to one of this questions and has a local answer to it. Why the answer is local? Because it generally changes throughout one’s life. It’s not static. But some answer is usually provided, even if unconsciously. For example, you gave your answer to the question “Who am I?” as “I am this body”. Some person might value the family or friends above everything else, so to him “What is the meaning of it all?” is the family and relations. And so on. The person might not be aware that he is asking these questions and answers them, but the answers can be deduced from his values and intentions. They generally change implicitly with age, situations, etc. and explicitly with reflection. They cannot be “right” or “wrong” and generalized to many. They are highly unique and intimate. They are always about you as you’ve yourself noted. That is, “What’s the meaning of life?” means, “What’s the meaning of my life?”
So I claim that your current answers to questions “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of it all?” reflect your current experience of life. I can give you my current answers as an example. To “Who am I?” my brain just shuts up (for a moment), it is silent with regard to the answer, I already know that “body/mind/human” are just thoughts. That’s why this question is also the best therapy, as it quietens the compulsive thinking. To “What is the meaning of it all?” my answer is “Liberation” or “Freedom from thoughts”. Even an attempt to answer them (even to oneself) starts a reflection process. That’s why I believe they are important.
There is an I
And how do you know that, seriously? Did you see it? How do you spot it? Where in the body it is situated? What is that centre from which all actions seem to stem?
No, well, then I will only half-ass the effort
Ha-ha. Yes, there are times when I doubt I’m being sincere with the effort. However, the technique is universal, the question pops up, “Who doubts that he is sincere?” And it turns into a game. The pattern however is easy, when I reach a state of no-thoughts I feel elated afterwards and practice seems to click. The concentration is strong and so on. But when I cannot reach it, it feels dumb and not engaging. So I struggle with it willy-nilly. I cannot spot the pattern yet when the practice seems to work.
I tried to let brain do what it likes and it doesn’t go well, it’s constantly anxious with regards to the future. So in my case some process is necessary. “Do nothing” doesn’t work as a rule (sometimes it does though and it’s sweet), as the brain cannot shut up. I think everyone should come up with his own heuristics with regards to the mental make up. Among many therapeutic practices that I’ve tried self-inquiry turned out to be the best even in that regard (that was unexpected as I was not pursuing it from the therapeutic standpoint). I genuinely think it’s the best tool I’ve discovered in my whole life.
His conclusion isn’t incorrect, and he got there by the same kind of reflection which may lead to enlightenment. But he likely lacked empathy, which lead him to question the validity of empathy. If he had had empathy, even these realizations wouldn’t have been much of a danger, as the affective/emotional empathy is harder to destroy through thinking than the cognitive empathy is.
Being dangerous is not bad in itself, sometimes the tree of liberty needs to be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants. The world has a tendency to degenerate unless one maintains it like a gardener removing weeds. But the unreasonable and ill are much more likely to default to violence, so the majority of the violence which occurs will be a net negative.
I think it’s true that “the dose makes the poison”, and this makes it so that good and bad things don’t exist in themselves. Nietzsche even wrote “Health and sickness are not essentially different, as the ancient physicians and some practitioners even today suppose. One must not make of them distinct principles or entities that fight over the living organism and turn it into their arena. That is silly nonsense and chatter that is no good any longer. In fact, there are only differences in degree between these two kinds of existence: the exaggeration, the disproportion, the nonharmony of the normal phenomena constitute the pathological state.”
I don’t like the framing that society needs to protect itself against those who harm it, but I do believe that the peoples of a society must protect themselves from elements which would harm their society (this subtle difference is important because society, considered as a super structure emergent from its parts, tends to not represent the interests of its parts).
I must also have benefited positively from thinking too much, since I’m basically devoid of malice by now. Even when I want enemies gone, it’s for practical reasons and not due to hate.
The wise use of thinking is to breakthrough to that holistic level
I feel like the east is really good at doing this by default, and that the west lacks this ability. The same is argued in the book The Master and His Emissary. this division can also be described as a lack of balance between the objective and the subjective, between machine-like efficiency and humanity, between qualia and replication, between materialism and meaning, and between rationalism and intuition. Perhaps “IQ vs EQ” as well. I’ve come to the conclusion that thinking itself might be pathelogical. Which reminds me, have you heard of the idea that language is a parasite? (I didn’t read that paper, it just seems like a good introduction to the idea). It’s a memetic entity with people as its host. I suppose I’m talking about language in the negative sense that people tend to talk about ego.
Anyway. I see what you mean about “the doubter dissolves”. I kind of did that to my own doubt. Just like how enlightenment tells you that it’s real, my experience of the world also considers itself real. It’s a reality, my reality. I don’t particularly care if other, conflicting realities may exist. You seem to rely a little more on the idea that enlightenment has to be true/real (your elephant seems to want this reassurance), whereas I’d be content with it being a state of mind. Your theory may be correct, I just happened to think of a counter-argument. But any belief and statement can be countered, attack is infinitely easier than defense, so my counter-argument doesn’t actually matter. My bad.
I don’t think “deriving pleasure from overpowering another” is sufficient for wanting to hurt someone. I like games because they make power dynamics possible. But we’re only enemies inside the ring, we’re friends playing the roles of enemies. But I do believe that evil mostly stems from weakness resulting in the mind employing self-defense tactics. Almost all psychological self-defence consists of hurting those around oneself by throwing ones own burden onto them, venting to them, draining their energy, fishing for compliments, using them as a means to achieve safety, manipulating them (e.g. guilt tripping), etc. (and this is why an abundance mindset leads to a large reduction in evil, and enlightenment seems like a state of abundance). And as you say, seeing the world as an extension of yourself means that benefiting oneself and benefiting others is the same thing. In a state of poverty, the framing is “self vs world”.
Decoration remains even after awakening
This might sound weird, but I consider the disillusioned eye to be perverted. The purpose of decoration is hiding that which is under, and that which is under is rather crude and unattractive compared to the surface. The underground world is ugly, the person below the mask is a mess, the face without makeup is imperfect, the “behind the scenes” of every performance is filled with problems. Now that I think about it, the state of enlightenment you’re describing is not disillusioning per se, but the process which results in enlightenment rubs me in the wrong way because it’s essentially the opposite of enlightenment (e.g. doubting everything to achieve the state of non-doubt)
An existential threat is something that threatens the integrity of the organism
I was wrong if you meant existential threat such as the emergence of superintelligence. I took it to mean “existential crisis” which I still believe is psychological. Most people might ask philosophical questions as they get older and reach higher states of awareness, but it’s only excessive anxiety (manifesting as doubt and the need for certaincy) which keeps one stuck with these questions. Many simply go “I am”, and this is an assertion, not the answer to a question, but an axiom which doesn’t bother to question itself. The immersion (grounding) is too strong, and the process which disrupts and disorients is weaker than the stimuli in the surroundings. It’s like when you’re about to wake up from a lucid dream and you rub your hands together, feeling the friction between them in high detail, and thus stabilize the dream.
I disagree that everyone thinks about questions relating to meaning. Meaning is a feeling, not a logical conclusion, so thinking about it analytically is a mistake. People justify effort to themselves, e.g. “Do it for your family”, or “work so that you can feed your dog”, or “If I improve, maybe somebody will love me”, but this internal conflict is emotional, it’s still attached to illusions of self and to subjectivity (the first-person view). The third-person view, and the analytical and detached nature of philosophy, is unable to find an answer because it’s detached. Meaning is a property of the first-person perspective, it dissolves when you look at life from the outside. Hence the importance of immersion.
Reflection only happens when something is wrong. Only anxious minds get stuck in reflection because they don’t achieve the feeling of resolution which is required to go back.
While I do have answers to questions, because I too have been anxious for most of my life, these are past conclusions and simple deductions. I no longer consider the questions meaningful nor the answers necessary. I simply am. Reality is what I can get away with. ‘Good’ is what I like, ‘Bad’ is what I dislike. If I want something to happen, I make it happen. Nobody is to blame for anything, everyone is fully responsible for everything which happens. I’m just a player who loves the game. When we play Minecraft, we don’t ask “What’s the meaning of zombies? And we don’t write long dramatic texts like “What’s the meaning of our struggles? We collect items only to lose them, the sun rises only to descend, we heal hitpoints only to get damaged once more”. In other words, the problem is that one thinks there’s a problem to begin with. The solution is to deny the problem, not to solve it. The existence of the problem is not a fact, it’s a perspective, an interpretation.
And how do you know that, seriously?
I experience it, just like I experience ornaments. And all information must come from the senses, right? So experience is the highest source of truth we have access to. Well, perhaps consciousness is first, experience second, senses third, and reasoning fourth, or something. I just don’t think that reflection is more correct than what is being reflected upon, as that is like putting the map before the territory.
Yes, there are times when I doubt I’m being sincere with the effort
I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t putting in effort, but my own motivational system tends to do what I just described (I solve my ADHD with coffee, which makes me more anxious. It’s not ideal). When I really want to do something, the feeling of effort does not even exist, because there’s no friction. I think the feeling of effort might come from internal conflict between desires.
It’s constantly anxious with regards to the future
You’re intelligent, so you should be able to make plans which secure a better future for yourself. You may have problems which make it harder for you than most, but you’ve probably found that, on days where you can be proud of what you’ve accomplished, your elephant lets you relax.
In short, when the brain judges “If I continue like I am now, everything will work out”, the elephant is happy. Jordan Peterson went as far as saying “The vast majority of positive emotion that you’re going to experience in your life is a consequence of pursuing meaningful goals.”, but the meaning is actually the substance which helps one believe in it and move towards it without doubt. It’s the absence of meaning, and not the existence of pain, which makes a goal feel not worth it. This is the default process, anyway. You can live accordingly, disrupt it, do neither or do both at once. Whatever works for you. You know yourself the best!
I am not beyond good and bad. Therefore my model is simple, everything that tends to ahimsa is good, everything that violates it is bad. It doesn’t mean I can 100% follow the ahimsa principle myself, in fact many times I realise that it’s an impossibility! But I still try my best to tend in that direction. In Buddhist Dhammapada it is implied that the intention is almost more important than action itself. Perhaps, it’s just the mechanism of calming myself down, when I realise that ahimsa is practically impossible. But I do what I can.
I think I don’t agree that the dose makes the poison. If the intention is to cause harm even a little, and the resultant harm is not so big, it is still the intention that matters. I think we feel that subconsciously, we are our own best judges what concerns ethical behavior. When we cultivate such intentions (even if no harm is actually done) sooner or later they will poison our life. The evil disposition is not only harmful to the recipient but it’s most harmful to the host of such disposition. As it leads to loosing the peace of mind and murky conscience.
Even the edge cases like the one mentioned above feel that they are doing something wrong. And would not like to live in society that would operate on their principles. They are only “enjoying their time” because most people follow the rules. One can say eventually it’s not about being good and bad, but about the optimal behavior in order for society to work. Society cannot operate without trust between its members. Trust is like a Proof of Work in human relations. It implies that certain work has been performed, even if it is work on ethos of the member.
Aristotle would agree to that as he basically defined ethos as the work done by individual to figure out the middle between edge cases. And it doesn’t mean it is something “mild”—not too hot, not too cold. The middle of the person with developed ethos might seem like an extreme from the perspective of the person of undeveloped ethos. That’s why ascetics, saints and sages are important even if their cases don’t generalize well. They really show where that “middle” really lies. Buddha was saying the same thing. The middle is not established by an average person’s standards (who didn’t go through the process of developing the strong ethos). But by those who are established on a different level of relation to the world (who developed their ethos). Their middle way is usually seems too harsh from an average person’s perspective, but it sets the plank right. And we can develop our ethos by just tending in that direction (even if imperfectly, as that develops devotion and right intention).
That was a rant, but trust is important. It is more so than the principles of good and bad. As it tends in the direction of equilibrium of society. It represents an optimal strategy of unfolding. If trust is lost, society as a rule deteriorates. The same goes for the person. If one is distrustful of everyone, one is dispersed to many unhelpful directions. Concentration on a single (and deep) task becomes difficult. But when one looses trust? When one starts wishing harm for another and is suspicious that it is mutual. So we are back to ahimsa, it is not simply “good” as in judgement about values, it is the mechanism that supports trust in society. So it’s really an optimal behavior that makes trust possible.
I must also have benefited positively from thinking too much, since I’m basically devoid of malice by now. Even when I want enemies gone, it’s for practical reasons and not due to hate.
That’s actually beautiful, as it shows that you’ve developed your ethos through computation of a certain complexity (reflection). That’s your PoW, that will allow you to reap benefits in healthy society build on trust. And for yourself not to spend time on ruminating how “someone might hurt you”. But whether the society is healthy or not that’s another topic. In any case you will reap internal benefits of not wanting to harm anyone. I’m sure of that.
your elephant seems to want this reassurance
Not necessarily. I would be more than content with a state of mind too. It’s only that it seems that it is also more real than my perception of this world in the default state. But what do I know?
why an abundance mindset leads to a large reduction in evil
Exactly! Magnanimity is a strong virtue.
that which is under is rather crude and unattractive
Why do you assume that? Granted I had only glimpses but they were in no way crude or unattractive. It was a total unconditional acceptance, all-permeating tranquility and glorious silence. Peace of mind is the greatest bliss in my perspective. The rest doesn’t disappear it just seems different, and more pronounced and complete, even the little things. Getting to that state even once a day would make life a beautiful journey even in difficult circumstances. Not even speaking of the permanent establishment in that state.
excessive anxiety
Or curiosity as in my case. I came to this question through curiosity. But then anxiety appeared on the scene. And it turned out that’s the best tool to deal with anxiety too.
Hence the importance of immersion.
You can be immersed in many things. In thoughts and feelings are the one edge case. That’s where you are immersed with “the movie”. In being is another. That’s where you are immersed with “the screen”. Your inclinations direct you in one of these ways. My intention is to shift attention from the movie to the screen on the permanent basis, i.e. from thoughts and feelings to simple being. But your inclinations will define what you want from life. As they say: when one sees a beautiful dream one doesn’t want to wake up, it’s only when the dream turns into a nightmare that one wants to wake up. In my view, it’s not necessary to wait for a nightmare, curiosity is enough to have the intention to wake up from even a beautiful dream.
In other words, the problem is that one thinks there’s a problem to begin with.
I think, that is correct and an insight. In my case it’s just not stable under any circumstances. I attempt to make it stable. Otherwise, beautifully put.
When I really want to do something, the feeling of effort does not even exist, because there’s no friction.
That’s beautiful too. In my case I do almost everything through resistance. ADHD means the DMN cannot shut up, so you’ve effectively found the way to shut it down with some autotelic process. That’s a win.
you should be able to make plans which secure a better future for yourself
Thank you for your kind words. In my case, all the futures I can predict are no go, except for awakening. So I’m practically forced to let go and surrender (random YouTube recommendation that popped up in my feed lately, spot on and beautiful). And that’s where the elephant lets me breathe, when I (the rider) realise I’m not in control. And there were some unexpected good outcomes that I couldn’t have planned beforehand. So letting go works for me. It’s also the most important aspect of the way. Letting go is not just giving up, it’s an active process which requires practice (e.g. the Sedona Method) and acceptance of what is. There is a beautiful verse of Ramana Maharshi that describes this:
Know that while the Lord is bearing the entire burden of all the beings of the world, the pseudo-self assuming to bear this burden is like the caryatid figure in a tower appearing to sustain the tower, a droll comedy of figurines provoking ridicule. If one, journeying in a carriage that can carry heavy loads, keeps his burden not in the carriage but on his own head and thereby suffers pain, who is to be blamed?
-- Reality in Forty Verses, Supplement #17
I simply am.
That’s actually beautiful and can be an insight too. Most people say, “I am this” or “I am that” and few just say “I simply am”. Why it can be an insight? When we stop identifying with “being this” or “being that”, we simply are established in being itself. Most folks create metaphysical entities out of everyday notions, the map’s view of the territory confused with the territory itself. Like someone is saying, “I am a simple man”, he creates “a simple man” class in his map and measures everyone else based on that notion, in most cases it means he is far from being “a simple man” and he further endows such class with subconscious virtue of “simplicity”, which is again not so simple but represents a metaphysical notion ascribed to the territory as it’s imagined in the map. Therefore, the most honest and sincere thing one can say, “I am”. Implying “I’m neither this nor that”, not defined by circumstances or other people. It can be a deep insight if that’s experienced fully.
I experience it, just like I experience ornaments.
You say “I experience it”? Are there two “I”s—one the experiencer and another experienced? Where is this experiencer? Is it somewhere in the body? Where is it situated? If that’s a single entity one should be able to spot it or its products. If it is a conglomeration of thoughts, how can it be termed single integrated unit? I ask because in my experience I cannot find any entity, yet actions are performed and thoughts are directed to someone. Who is this one? It’s like Bassui wrote in his Talk on One Mind, “It may be asserted that behind these actions there is no entity, yet it is obvious they are being performed spontaneously. Conversely, it may be maintained that these are the acts of some entity; still the entity is invisible.” So who is the experiencer? Where is he? In the head? Behind the eyes? In the body? etc. This inquiry will work only if you have the similar questions, otherwise it will not have sense. That’s also alright. Not everyone is attracted to the same koan.
Well, good and bad does not exist in an absolute sense, but they can be local truths, and ahimsa is a fine choice. The only bad systems are those that don’t work out. It’s a bit of a low hanging apple but I consider communism to be such a system. While we can create our own subjective reality, there are natural laws which restrict the set of workable realities.
Most ideals are impossible, we can only approach them, not reach them. It’s fine as long as we recognize this, but I find that unreachable ideals sometimes turn people bitter because they make reality seem flawed in a way which is impossible to solve. Comparison is the thief of joy, so it’s dangerous to compare to perfection (which, of course, is the reason perfectionists are less happy in general).
Truth is defined in a way which implies “one truth path”, but there’s no such thing. I’m really just explaining the pros and cons of various choices that I’ve made, so that you can know the consequences of integrating them into your worldview in advance.
I think anger is the easier ‘poison’ to defend, one often becomes angry about injustice, and so anger can be used for good. Malice is harder to defend, but at the very least, every poison is its own antidote. The more alcohol you drink, the higher your tolerance will be. If you grow up in a bad environment, you will be more equipped to deal with imperfection than somebody who did not. Even exercise is a poison which makes us more resistant to the consequences of even harder exercise. In this case, the tolerance you’re building is muscles. Traumatic events are poisons which strengthen the mind. Life has a quality in which it grows under that which threatens it, and all fatality occurs when the rate of adaptation is too low, or the threat is too sudden. So it’s a fight between “rate of adaptation” and “rate of change”.
You’re decribing mechanisms in which the damage accumulates—trauma which is never overcome, grudges which are kept forever, stress and cynicism which just slowly gets worse and worse until they destroy a person. I might have to concede here—let’s see. There’s poisons which one cannot build tolerance towards (a lack of sleep seems like one), and poisons which only some people can use for their benefit while others are destroyed. Finally, I mentioned earlier that natural laws prevent some things from succeeding, and we can call such things immoral. It’s very possible that malice is similar to communism in that natural laws prevent it from being used for good purposes, which makes it “objectively bad”. But I’m not yet convinced that this is the case.
You’re right that some things can only exist as exceptions to the rule, but this class of things are countless. Society wouldn’t work if every job was “baker”, or if every person alive was a child. So differences are absolutely vital, and we cannot prove the qualities of a person by their rarity, or by the ratio of such a person that society can tolerate before it collapses. I’m afraid this is another argument in favor of “the dose makes the poison”, or at least “Balance is good and evil is that which is out of balance”.
I agree that the average and the true middle are different. I agree about the importance of trust too. I’d put it like “The maximum stable size of a group is governed by its coherence, which is the cooperation and trust of its parts”. But since the need for coherence threaten the unique qualities of the individual, I think we should de-globalize and have more communities rather than bigger communities. Very bad things happen to social dynamics once the network density gets too high. It’s more pleasant to be in a group of 5 than a group of 50, and it’s more pleasant to be in a community with 1000 members than a community with a million, and I think there’s natural laws behind this as well.
That will allow you to reap benefits in healthy society
Yes. So the limit of how healthy I can get away with being depends on the health of my environment. It’s no good to be a naive person in a malicious environment, just like it’s no good to be a malicious person in a good environment. My self-improvement is being limited by society because I’m being “pulled” towards the average. The more out of alignment you are with society, the larger any “correction” will be. A naive person in a extremely hostile environment will undergo experiences which rapidly makes them less naive, but somebody who is 98% in alignment will have to work hard in order to find the tiny difference which puts them 99% in alignment. But I do reap rewards for my mental health, like those who do Yoga reap rewards from their physical health!
What protects things against changes? Against tending towards the average? I find that it’s isolation, gate-keeping, detachment, illegibility, hierarchies. Even shibboleths and such. A sort of entropic protection against updating towards a worse (or just different) state than one is currently in. How do you stay pure around perverts, sensitive to noise around people who yell, optimistic in the face of failure? Researching this is another hobby of mine.
Magnanimity is a strong virtue
Some would put it in the category of delusion, but I think that it’s often a self-fulfilling state. Sort of like how people who consider themselves lucky find more opportunities. This sounds a bit like spirituality, “belief can move mountains” and all that, but it seems true. A kind of placebo which actually affects physical reality.
All-permeating tranquility and glorious silence
I suppose that the lower only hurts through comparison. It can be freeing as well to update ones point of reference downwards because everything else seems better after. But the human sense of aesthetics does protect against that which is bad. If I lived in India, I’d have other standards of hygiene than I do now, but something inside me resists lowering these standards, and I think that’s for the better. About people, I’m conflicted. One should accept people precisely as they are, but on the other hand, I find it beautiful when people work hard for the same of appearance, be it grooming, having manners, remaining positive, or polishing their image. I’m influenced by Nietzsche who defined art as “deception with good intentions”. The quote I sent a few comments ago called rational people “inartistic” and I’m making the same criticism for the same reasons. Truth seeking and disillusionment conflicts with meaning-making and aesthetics. Aesthetics and meaning both add value to things, so they protect against nihilism and life-denying attitudes.
While I think it’s a shame to focus on the screen, you do you. The insights I share should still be helpful in reaching such a state, even if you sometimes have to do the opposite of what I’m recommending. I’ve used two means to get where I’m at, both with limited success. The first is tricking the elephant into wanting the thing that I also want. The other is considering life to be a video game (why can some people be in the top 0.1% in a video game and yet in the bottom 5% in life? If they experiencedf life as a game, wouldn’t they suddenly do well?). I don’t think I’ve shut down the DMN, but I’m slowly learning to live with ADHD, somehow.
I’m curious why no futures are good enough. I’d have to get out of my comfort zone to achieve my dreams, but there’s always a path. If somebody else took over your life, would they also fail at achieving any good ends? If no, I think you have self-imposed limitations you can remove.
When “I am” is followed by other words, it’s a self-imposed label. You could even call it a sort of roleplay. But the world does not work without roleplay. In the structure of a company, each person plays a role over which they are responsible (this also mirrors software engineering principles, and probably generalizes to other fields which I’m no familiar with). Even physically, in a car for instance, each component has a role and a protocol for how it interacts with other components. It’s the same biologically, each of our organs have a specialized purpose and is capable of signaling the components which are relevant for them to interact with. Thus, roleplaying is not merely social pretence or the ego investing too much into an idea, it’s a principle which apples to creations which get things done in reality.
You say “I experience it”?
Got me there. The lazy answer is that self-awareness allows me to experience myself. A proper answer is more complicated. Do you think a corporation is many things, or just one thing? What about a human body? A car? If they’re multiple—how do you decide the level of recursion at which you stop dividing? If they’re just one—what is the limit for seperation before the cohersion of the structure is so low that you consider it multiple?
You’re asking questions which makes one doubt the I. But you can ask these questions about anything, and make anything seem unreal. I don’t think it’s the ‘I’ which has to prove itself in front of these questions, I think these questions have to prove to the I that they have value at all, that questions have value, that theory is allowed to propose the idea that my experience of myself is wrong.
I know the purpose of asking me these questions, but I’d personally rather anchor my concept of self more strongly than reduce it. I’m trying not to be enlightened, as I enjoy being a fool
Well, good and bad does not exist in an absolute sense
I consider some processes like a festering wound. Is a festering wound good or bad? Ultimately it’s neutral, just a natural process at work, but we still would like to be free of it. Otherwise, it leads to dire consequences. So processes with intention to harm another is like festering wounds. If not taken care of, they escalate and lead to more serious consequences.
It’s only as a rule we solve such processes unskillfully by isolation and liquidation of the person who is making the harm. What would a skillful process look like? I don’t know, but it seems to me that prescribing psychedelics (psilocybin and DMT to be precise, as they were proven to shut down the DMN temporarily and proven to work on people with addictions to alcohol, e.g. a good read about psychedelics, Drugs Without the Hot Air by David Nutt) in order to shift the perspective of the person would worth a try, also trying other anti-psychotic medicines, perhaps even experimental. As most issues of such kind are due to neural imbalances of sorts. So it’s not just about reprogramming the rider, it’s about rewiring the elephant. And we even have tools at our hands we just stubbornly avoid using them. But it’s a difficult topic to handle for a layman as one tends to generalize un-generalizable. The direction which seems to be promising is experimental medicine, not just plain old isolation.
Comparison is the thief of joy
Comparison is more evil than it seems as it involves division. And the divided mind is more confused not less so. What I meant by having examples who had different relations to the world was something akin to emulation, rather than imitation. What’s the difference? In imitation we compare and imitate behavior. In emulation, we reverse-engineer the processes down to the principles and then apply the principles in our life. Which may even lead to completely different behavior than that of the example, taking into account our conditions. A good example doesn’t come to mind. But I think one can deduce what I’m trying to express. It’s not comparison that works, but underlying principles behind the behavior. One can say that’s a way to initially gamify one’s experience and potentially transcend it.
Ok, here is a weak example, I don’t eat meat. Many sages didn’t eat meat as well and prescribed sattvik diet. Is is imitation? No. I don’t eat meat not because sages didn’t do it and I’m trying to imitate that behavior. I don’t eat meat because I cannot eat something from which I personally cannot take life. It’s a principle which I came upon in reflection and which feels right to me. As I don’t think anyone should follow this principle, but only those who resonate with it, I don’t expect people around me to follow the same rule. So I don’t compare people who eat meat with sages who didn’t eat it and allocate respective judgements. I believe it’s a personal business of an individual and it doesn’t by itself reflect “the level of malice” of individual. As a person may not have ill intentions towards living beings, yet follow the rules imposed to him by surrounding society and circumstances. So it’s not the comparison that works in that case but reverse-engineered principles. It matters that a person comes up with ahimsa out of personal reflection and not just parrots what sages did. So in my case it works only because I came up with it myself. And I don’t think it should be applied as a universal rule (about eating meat).
Traumatic events are poisons which strengthen the mind.
You see, I don’t think that traumatic events strengthen the mind at all. It’s true that strong mind will come through them more easily. But comparing them to exercising the muscles seems odd to me. First of all, exercise is a feasible controlled challenge, overcoming which gives one a pleasure. While traumatic events are unpredictable uncontrolled shocks that shutter the nervous system. They introduce an unsurmountable contradiction, “I love her, and she is gone.” Which starts up the cycle of self-rumination (in which the DMN is prevalent) which saps up all the energy from the constructive channels. It’s true that one has to learn to overcome that grief, and eventually some process will shift the network from the default self-ruminating mode to the tasking mode. But the shock divides the mind through contradiction and will in one way or another sap its energy (even when one seemingly shifted from the initial shock).
An example. Having a psychotic break after an existential shock doesn’t make you stronger by any means, it even makes you more prone to more psychotic breaks. That is like uncontrolled entropy growth. And one cannot reverse that process so the feedback-loop is degenerative. It makes one more vulnerable to vicissitudes of life and doesn’t teach anything of value. It’s a lose-lose situation. The only upside of such an event can be the understanding that one has no control over life and attempt to cut the dispersion to different directions of thinking, i.e. simplification. But whether it’s healthy or not in a highly complex environment it’s hard to tell.
How do you stay pure around perverts, sensitive to noise around people who yell, optimistic in the face of failure?
Yes, that’s a difficult topic. The only solution that I have found to work when you are in such conditions is turning inward instead of outward. That is, all the time it is possible to do it. That’s also why I believe spirituality works, as one’s odds of success are miniscule and one is basically operating on faith alone.
Aesthetics and meaning both add value to things, so they protect against nihilism and life-denying attitudes
It’s funny that I think that the very process of meaning-making (if meaning taken as intrinsic) leads eventually to nihilism. When one is thwarted and doesn’t get what one wants, the very meaning one was invested in turns against him and feeds life-denying attitudes. The only solution that I found to this is the Buddhist middle way, which basically denies intrinsic meaning, stating that all meaning only made up, i.e. relational, local. In that model I tend to de-emphasize the meaning making apparatus. But that’s not nihilistic, as relativized meaning is accepted. It’s like saying, it works, but don’t forget that it’s only local and not absolute.
If somebody else took over your life, would they also fail at achieving any good ends?
Positive here. But I don’t despair, because all the conditions and circumstances seem to direct me in the direction of liberation. Everything else will not suffice. In games’ jargon, only epic win will suffice, everything else is half-measures that would not hold ground. I’m certainly not guaranteed of that, but it creates a somewhat healthy dynamics.
But the world does not work without roleplay.
It’s not a problem if one takes it to be only a role. But deeply is not identified with that role. Some people used to call me a mathematician or a programmer, but those were just functions I performed, not what I am deep inside. I am neither limited nor defined by those functions. All I can say, I, indeed, simply am.
I think these questions have to prove to the I that they have value at all
You seem to want to build a theory of mind (a good read on the topic by Joscha Bach, Principles of Synthetic Intelligence). And it may serve a valid purpose. But what I try to share with those questions is deep inborn childlike curiosity (that I myself get from them). Granted those questions may not be “your” questions and you may resonate with different set altogether. It’s actually good that you don’t have such a theory of mind, as you feel unprepared for their rawness! They are not meant to be answered by the mind, they are to lead the mind into impasse from which it cannot move, where concepts cease and silence prevails. That silence (albeit temporary) is the goal. It’s the data-point that the mind learns after asking such questions. Once it gets enough data-points of silence, it starts to prefer that state over the default one. For some it may take few months, for others—years of practice. There is a good post by Gary Weber that uncovers this process, Self-inquiry vs the egos/Is—How it works—the neuroscience.
Actually, from the theory of mind perspective self-inquiry is meant to get rid of the SRIN. So if one is tired of incessant self-talk one will look for any means to stop it. But the “I” will never agree to that deal as that would mean its own dissolution… Therefore the process of self-inquiry is itself paradoxical. You are either attracted to it or not. That includes any koan, not just self-inquiry as the aim of koans is the same—to get rid of the SRIN (which is by some tantamount to awakening). Only a peculiar “I” will agree to that deal. But Gary in Myths about Nonduality and Science says that cognition in the result is much higher. He gives a comparison by Hood’s mysticism scale, where nonduality/liberation scores higher than sex and psychedelics. A worthy read/watch, if you are into hacking your perception.
I know the purpose of asking me these questions, but I’d personally rather anchor my concept of self more strongly than reduce it. I’m trying not to be enlightened, as I enjoy being a fool
Ha-ha-ha! In some way “it’s too late” as you’ve already started contemplating over those questions. But don’t worry about that, they say that awakening is not directly linked with anything we do with our minds. If you are destined to awaken—you will, whether you want it or not, whether you’ve heard something about it or not, whether you do some practices or not. Contemplating these questions (or other koans) just makes one “prone to accidents” more. I think your mind is too curious not to ponder over some unanswerable question or another so you are not liberationproof.
But he is far from being awakened. I think that his elephant is seriously sick which led him to his actions. If there is thinking that taking another being’s life is freedom, that means something is terribly wrong with the elephant. I believe that it all stems from the genetic make up of the brain. What he says about values is not necessarily wrong. But. If values are only ephemeral then why choose ‘wrong’ over ‘right’, why impinge on someone else’s freedom? This question has no answer. I tend to follow the principle of ahimsa and categorical imperative of Kant, that one behaves in the way that may be applied as a universal rule. It doesn’t mean you expect other people behave in the same way, that’s just my perspective and other people’s actions are up to them. That’s the same principle Jesus expressed with his Golden Rule.
I also would not call that intolerant to isolate such people from society, as they are fundamentally sick and pose a danger to other beings. One doesn’t think it’s intolerant to go away from the elephant in the rut. It’s a common sense to protect the organism. The same applies here. The same applies to myself. If I ever would pose a danger to other beings, I would like to be either isolated or liquidated. As none of us has a guarantee that won’t be the case, we can only hope that it will work out somehow.
In general such principles as ahimsa are needed for the seekers and not for the liberated. For the liberated there is no need of them, that doesn’t mean they will kill other people. As the metaphor goes, if you realise that everything you perceive is your own Self, how could you harm anyone? It would be tantamount of hurting your own Self. Therefore they say, what is experienced as truth for the liberated (e.g. ahimsa), is the means of practice for the rest. Which means while we are not liberated it is wise to listen to sages and correct one’s behavior in a certain way. What is truth for them, becomes means for us to reach to that state. It’s not imitation, it’s emulation.
Thinking does undermine itself. But the insight is something beyond thinking it’s on the holistic level, it’s on the gut level (or what they call in spiritual traditions the Heart). The wise use of thinking is to breakthrough to that holistic level. And your analogy with fuel is indeed spot on. As Ramana Maharshi expressed in his work “Who am I?”: “The thought ‘Who am I?’ will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed.” So we might use thinking wisely, to go beyond it, to the pre-conceptual level.
I cannot reply to this question pre-awakening. But it is described as the mind getting out of the way. What I experienced in those rare glimpses showed that “I” was not the body but the field of awareness itself. And there no question of external or internal arose. Questions and doubts stop bugging one there. It’s not like I can guarantee that that’s a reality, just there is no one to whom it matters how to call it. The doubter dissolves.
Exactly. But that doesn’t make you want to hurt other people. Why would it? You don’t want to hurt one’s leg or arm. One might consider hurting other people if one identifies with one’s body and takes another as another body and derives pleasure from overpowering another. So it’s deeply entangled with the belief “I am the body”. If one looks at oneself as at the body, one takes another to be the body also. That belief is the root-belief and it’s most difficult to let go of. Awakening might be defined as the dissolution of the belief that you are (only) the body.
Decoration remains even after awakening. The difference is that identity shifts from name and form (the default mode) to being-consciousness-bliss, from ornaments to gold. It’s like one of these images that show a different picture depending how you look at it.
I don’t agree here. An existential threat is something that threatens the integrity of the organism is not a psychological issue, it’s an existential issue. It has a psychological aspect but is not limited to it.
What concerns that psychologically healthy people don’t have existential issues, they might not be aware of the underlying questions that direct their life, like “What is the meaning of it all?” or “Who am I?”.
Every person sane or insane comes to one of this questions and has a local answer to it. Why the answer is local? Because it generally changes throughout one’s life. It’s not static. But some answer is usually provided, even if unconsciously. For example, you gave your answer to the question “Who am I?” as “I am this body”. Some person might value the family or friends above everything else, so to him “What is the meaning of it all?” is the family and relations. And so on. The person might not be aware that he is asking these questions and answers them, but the answers can be deduced from his values and intentions. They generally change implicitly with age, situations, etc. and explicitly with reflection. They cannot be “right” or “wrong” and generalized to many. They are highly unique and intimate. They are always about you as you’ve yourself noted. That is, “What’s the meaning of life?” means, “What’s the meaning of my life?”
So I claim that your current answers to questions “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of it all?” reflect your current experience of life. I can give you my current answers as an example. To “Who am I?” my brain just shuts up (for a moment), it is silent with regard to the answer, I already know that “body/mind/human” are just thoughts. That’s why this question is also the best therapy, as it quietens the compulsive thinking. To “What is the meaning of it all?” my answer is “Liberation” or “Freedom from thoughts”. Even an attempt to answer them (even to oneself) starts a reflection process. That’s why I believe they are important.
And how do you know that, seriously? Did you see it? How do you spot it? Where in the body it is situated? What is that centre from which all actions seem to stem?
Ha-ha. Yes, there are times when I doubt I’m being sincere with the effort. However, the technique is universal, the question pops up, “Who doubts that he is sincere?” And it turns into a game. The pattern however is easy, when I reach a state of no-thoughts I feel elated afterwards and practice seems to click. The concentration is strong and so on. But when I cannot reach it, it feels dumb and not engaging. So I struggle with it willy-nilly. I cannot spot the pattern yet when the practice seems to work.
I tried to let brain do what it likes and it doesn’t go well, it’s constantly anxious with regards to the future. So in my case some process is necessary. “Do nothing” doesn’t work as a rule (sometimes it does though and it’s sweet), as the brain cannot shut up. I think everyone should come up with his own heuristics with regards to the mental make up. Among many therapeutic practices that I’ve tried self-inquiry turned out to be the best even in that regard (that was unexpected as I was not pursuing it from the therapeutic standpoint). I genuinely think it’s the best tool I’ve discovered in my whole life.
His conclusion isn’t incorrect, and he got there by the same kind of reflection which may lead to enlightenment. But he likely lacked empathy, which lead him to question the validity of empathy. If he had had empathy, even these realizations wouldn’t have been much of a danger, as the affective/emotional empathy is harder to destroy through thinking than the cognitive empathy is.
Being dangerous is not bad in itself, sometimes the tree of liberty needs to be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants. The world has a tendency to degenerate unless one maintains it like a gardener removing weeds. But the unreasonable and ill are much more likely to default to violence, so the majority of the violence which occurs will be a net negative.
I think it’s true that “the dose makes the poison”, and this makes it so that good and bad things don’t exist in themselves. Nietzsche even wrote “Health and sickness are not essentially different, as the ancient physicians and some practitioners even today suppose. One must not make of them distinct principles or entities that fight over the living organism and turn it into their arena. That is silly nonsense and chatter that is no good any longer. In fact, there are only differences in degree between these two kinds of existence: the exaggeration, the disproportion, the nonharmony of the normal phenomena constitute the pathological state.”
I don’t like the framing that society needs to protect itself against those who harm it, but I do believe that the peoples of a society must protect themselves from elements which would harm their society (this subtle difference is important because society, considered as a super structure emergent from its parts, tends to not represent the interests of its parts).
I must also have benefited positively from thinking too much, since I’m basically devoid of malice by now. Even when I want enemies gone, it’s for practical reasons and not due to hate.
I feel like the east is really good at doing this by default, and that the west lacks this ability. The same is argued in the book The Master and His Emissary. this division can also be described as a lack of balance between the objective and the subjective, between machine-like efficiency and humanity, between qualia and replication, between materialism and meaning, and between rationalism and intuition. Perhaps “IQ vs EQ” as well. I’ve come to the conclusion that thinking itself might be pathelogical. Which reminds me, have you heard of the idea that language is a parasite? (I didn’t read that paper, it just seems like a good introduction to the idea). It’s a memetic entity with people as its host. I suppose I’m talking about language in the negative sense that people tend to talk about ego.
Anyway. I see what you mean about “the doubter dissolves”. I kind of did that to my own doubt. Just like how enlightenment tells you that it’s real, my experience of the world also considers itself real. It’s a reality, my reality. I don’t particularly care if other, conflicting realities may exist. You seem to rely a little more on the idea that enlightenment has to be true/real (your elephant seems to want this reassurance), whereas I’d be content with it being a state of mind. Your theory may be correct, I just happened to think of a counter-argument. But any belief and statement can be countered, attack is infinitely easier than defense, so my counter-argument doesn’t actually matter. My bad.
I don’t think “deriving pleasure from overpowering another” is sufficient for wanting to hurt someone. I like games because they make power dynamics possible. But we’re only enemies inside the ring, we’re friends playing the roles of enemies. But I do believe that evil mostly stems from weakness resulting in the mind employing self-defense tactics. Almost all psychological self-defence consists of hurting those around oneself by throwing ones own burden onto them, venting to them, draining their energy, fishing for compliments, using them as a means to achieve safety, manipulating them (e.g. guilt tripping), etc. (and this is why an abundance mindset leads to a large reduction in evil, and enlightenment seems like a state of abundance). And as you say, seeing the world as an extension of yourself means that benefiting oneself and benefiting others is the same thing. In a state of poverty, the framing is “self vs world”.
This might sound weird, but I consider the disillusioned eye to be perverted. The purpose of decoration is hiding that which is under, and that which is under is rather crude and unattractive compared to the surface. The underground world is ugly, the person below the mask is a mess, the face without makeup is imperfect, the “behind the scenes” of every performance is filled with problems. Now that I think about it, the state of enlightenment you’re describing is not disillusioning per se, but the process which results in enlightenment rubs me in the wrong way because it’s essentially the opposite of enlightenment (e.g. doubting everything to achieve the state of non-doubt)
I was wrong if you meant existential threat such as the emergence of superintelligence. I took it to mean “existential crisis” which I still believe is psychological. Most people might ask philosophical questions as they get older and reach higher states of awareness, but it’s only excessive anxiety (manifesting as doubt and the need for certaincy) which keeps one stuck with these questions. Many simply go “I am”, and this is an assertion, not the answer to a question, but an axiom which doesn’t bother to question itself. The immersion (grounding) is too strong, and the process which disrupts and disorients is weaker than the stimuli in the surroundings. It’s like when you’re about to wake up from a lucid dream and you rub your hands together, feeling the friction between them in high detail, and thus stabilize the dream.
I disagree that everyone thinks about questions relating to meaning. Meaning is a feeling, not a logical conclusion, so thinking about it analytically is a mistake. People justify effort to themselves, e.g. “Do it for your family”, or “work so that you can feed your dog”, or “If I improve, maybe somebody will love me”, but this internal conflict is emotional, it’s still attached to illusions of self and to subjectivity (the first-person view). The third-person view, and the analytical and detached nature of philosophy, is unable to find an answer because it’s detached. Meaning is a property of the first-person perspective, it dissolves when you look at life from the outside. Hence the importance of immersion.
Reflection only happens when something is wrong. Only anxious minds get stuck in reflection because they don’t achieve the feeling of resolution which is required to go back.
While I do have answers to questions, because I too have been anxious for most of my life, these are past conclusions and simple deductions. I no longer consider the questions meaningful nor the answers necessary. I simply am. Reality is what I can get away with. ‘Good’ is what I like, ‘Bad’ is what I dislike. If I want something to happen, I make it happen. Nobody is to blame for anything, everyone is fully responsible for everything which happens. I’m just a player who loves the game. When we play Minecraft, we don’t ask “What’s the meaning of zombies? And we don’t write long dramatic texts like “What’s the meaning of our struggles? We collect items only to lose them, the sun rises only to descend, we heal hitpoints only to get damaged once more”. In other words, the problem is that one thinks there’s a problem to begin with. The solution is to deny the problem, not to solve it. The existence of the problem is not a fact, it’s a perspective, an interpretation.
I experience it, just like I experience ornaments. And all information must come from the senses, right? So experience is the highest source of truth we have access to. Well, perhaps consciousness is first, experience second, senses third, and reasoning fourth, or something. I just don’t think that reflection is more correct than what is being reflected upon, as that is like putting the map before the territory.
I didn’t mean to imply that you weren’t putting in effort, but my own motivational system tends to do what I just described (I solve my ADHD with coffee, which makes me more anxious. It’s not ideal). When I really want to do something, the feeling of effort does not even exist, because there’s no friction. I think the feeling of effort might come from internal conflict between desires.
You’re intelligent, so you should be able to make plans which secure a better future for yourself. You may have problems which make it harder for you than most, but you’ve probably found that, on days where you can be proud of what you’ve accomplished, your elephant lets you relax.
In short, when the brain judges “If I continue like I am now, everything will work out”, the elephant is happy. Jordan Peterson went as far as saying “The vast majority of positive emotion that you’re going to experience in your life is a consequence of pursuing meaningful goals.”, but the meaning is actually the substance which helps one believe in it and move towards it without doubt. It’s the absence of meaning, and not the existence of pain, which makes a goal feel not worth it. This is the default process, anyway. You can live accordingly, disrupt it, do neither or do both at once. Whatever works for you. You know yourself the best!
I am not beyond good and bad. Therefore my model is simple, everything that tends to ahimsa is good, everything that violates it is bad. It doesn’t mean I can 100% follow the ahimsa principle myself, in fact many times I realise that it’s an impossibility! But I still try my best to tend in that direction. In Buddhist Dhammapada it is implied that the intention is almost more important than action itself. Perhaps, it’s just the mechanism of calming myself down, when I realise that ahimsa is practically impossible. But I do what I can.
I think I don’t agree that the dose makes the poison. If the intention is to cause harm even a little, and the resultant harm is not so big, it is still the intention that matters. I think we feel that subconsciously, we are our own best judges what concerns ethical behavior. When we cultivate such intentions (even if no harm is actually done) sooner or later they will poison our life. The evil disposition is not only harmful to the recipient but it’s most harmful to the host of such disposition. As it leads to loosing the peace of mind and murky conscience.
Even the edge cases like the one mentioned above feel that they are doing something wrong. And would not like to live in society that would operate on their principles. They are only “enjoying their time” because most people follow the rules. One can say eventually it’s not about being good and bad, but about the optimal behavior in order for society to work. Society cannot operate without trust between its members. Trust is like a Proof of Work in human relations. It implies that certain work has been performed, even if it is work on ethos of the member.
Aristotle would agree to that as he basically defined ethos as the work done by individual to figure out the middle between edge cases. And it doesn’t mean it is something “mild”—not too hot, not too cold. The middle of the person with developed ethos might seem like an extreme from the perspective of the person of undeveloped ethos. That’s why ascetics, saints and sages are important even if their cases don’t generalize well. They really show where that “middle” really lies. Buddha was saying the same thing. The middle is not established by an average person’s standards (who didn’t go through the process of developing the strong ethos). But by those who are established on a different level of relation to the world (who developed their ethos). Their middle way is usually seems too harsh from an average person’s perspective, but it sets the plank right. And we can develop our ethos by just tending in that direction (even if imperfectly, as that develops devotion and right intention).
That was a rant, but trust is important. It is more so than the principles of good and bad. As it tends in the direction of equilibrium of society. It represents an optimal strategy of unfolding. If trust is lost, society as a rule deteriorates. The same goes for the person. If one is distrustful of everyone, one is dispersed to many unhelpful directions. Concentration on a single (and deep) task becomes difficult. But when one looses trust? When one starts wishing harm for another and is suspicious that it is mutual. So we are back to ahimsa, it is not simply “good” as in judgement about values, it is the mechanism that supports trust in society. So it’s really an optimal behavior that makes trust possible.
That’s actually beautiful, as it shows that you’ve developed your ethos through computation of a certain complexity (reflection). That’s your PoW, that will allow you to reap benefits in healthy society build on trust. And for yourself not to spend time on ruminating how “someone might hurt you”. But whether the society is healthy or not that’s another topic. In any case you will reap internal benefits of not wanting to harm anyone. I’m sure of that.
Not necessarily. I would be more than content with a state of mind too. It’s only that it seems that it is also more real than my perception of this world in the default state. But what do I know?
Exactly! Magnanimity is a strong virtue.
Why do you assume that? Granted I had only glimpses but they were in no way crude or unattractive. It was a total unconditional acceptance, all-permeating tranquility and glorious silence. Peace of mind is the greatest bliss in my perspective. The rest doesn’t disappear it just seems different, and more pronounced and complete, even the little things. Getting to that state even once a day would make life a beautiful journey even in difficult circumstances. Not even speaking of the permanent establishment in that state.
Or curiosity as in my case. I came to this question through curiosity. But then anxiety appeared on the scene. And it turned out that’s the best tool to deal with anxiety too.
You can be immersed in many things. In thoughts and feelings are the one edge case. That’s where you are immersed with “the movie”. In being is another. That’s where you are immersed with “the screen”. Your inclinations direct you in one of these ways. My intention is to shift attention from the movie to the screen on the permanent basis, i.e. from thoughts and feelings to simple being. But your inclinations will define what you want from life. As they say: when one sees a beautiful dream one doesn’t want to wake up, it’s only when the dream turns into a nightmare that one wants to wake up. In my view, it’s not necessary to wait for a nightmare, curiosity is enough to have the intention to wake up from even a beautiful dream.
I think, that is correct and an insight. In my case it’s just not stable under any circumstances. I attempt to make it stable. Otherwise, beautifully put.
That’s beautiful too. In my case I do almost everything through resistance. ADHD means the DMN cannot shut up, so you’ve effectively found the way to shut it down with some autotelic process. That’s a win.
Thank you for your kind words. In my case, all the futures I can predict are no go, except for awakening. So I’m practically forced to let go and surrender (random YouTube recommendation that popped up in my feed lately, spot on and beautiful). And that’s where the elephant lets me breathe, when I (the rider) realise I’m not in control. And there were some unexpected good outcomes that I couldn’t have planned beforehand. So letting go works for me. It’s also the most important aspect of the way. Letting go is not just giving up, it’s an active process which requires practice (e.g. the Sedona Method) and acceptance of what is. There is a beautiful verse of Ramana Maharshi that describes this:
-- Reality in Forty Verses, Supplement #17
That’s actually beautiful and can be an insight too. Most people say, “I am this” or “I am that” and few just say “I simply am”. Why it can be an insight? When we stop identifying with “being this” or “being that”, we simply are established in being itself. Most folks create metaphysical entities out of everyday notions, the map’s view of the territory confused with the territory itself. Like someone is saying, “I am a simple man”, he creates “a simple man” class in his map and measures everyone else based on that notion, in most cases it means he is far from being “a simple man” and he further endows such class with subconscious virtue of “simplicity”, which is again not so simple but represents a metaphysical notion ascribed to the territory as it’s imagined in the map. Therefore, the most honest and sincere thing one can say, “I am”. Implying “I’m neither this nor that”, not defined by circumstances or other people. It can be a deep insight if that’s experienced fully.
You say “I experience it”? Are there two “I”s—one the experiencer and another experienced? Where is this experiencer? Is it somewhere in the body? Where is it situated? If that’s a single entity one should be able to spot it or its products. If it is a conglomeration of thoughts, how can it be termed single integrated unit? I ask because in my experience I cannot find any entity, yet actions are performed and thoughts are directed to someone. Who is this one? It’s like Bassui wrote in his Talk on One Mind, “It may be asserted that behind these actions there is no entity, yet it is obvious they are being performed spontaneously. Conversely, it may be maintained that these are the acts of some entity; still the entity is invisible.” So who is the experiencer? Where is he? In the head? Behind the eyes? In the body? etc. This inquiry will work only if you have the similar questions, otherwise it will not have sense. That’s also alright. Not everyone is attracted to the same koan.
Well, good and bad does not exist in an absolute sense, but they can be local truths, and ahimsa is a fine choice. The only bad systems are those that don’t work out. It’s a bit of a low hanging apple but I consider communism to be such a system. While we can create our own subjective reality, there are natural laws which restrict the set of workable realities.
Most ideals are impossible, we can only approach them, not reach them. It’s fine as long as we recognize this, but I find that unreachable ideals sometimes turn people bitter because they make reality seem flawed in a way which is impossible to solve. Comparison is the thief of joy, so it’s dangerous to compare to perfection (which, of course, is the reason perfectionists are less happy in general).
Truth is defined in a way which implies “one truth path”, but there’s no such thing. I’m really just explaining the pros and cons of various choices that I’ve made, so that you can know the consequences of integrating them into your worldview in advance.
I think anger is the easier ‘poison’ to defend, one often becomes angry about injustice, and so anger can be used for good. Malice is harder to defend, but at the very least, every poison is its own antidote. The more alcohol you drink, the higher your tolerance will be. If you grow up in a bad environment, you will be more equipped to deal with imperfection than somebody who did not. Even exercise is a poison which makes us more resistant to the consequences of even harder exercise. In this case, the tolerance you’re building is muscles. Traumatic events are poisons which strengthen the mind. Life has a quality in which it grows under that which threatens it, and all fatality occurs when the rate of adaptation is too low, or the threat is too sudden. So it’s a fight between “rate of adaptation” and “rate of change”.
You’re decribing mechanisms in which the damage accumulates—trauma which is never overcome, grudges which are kept forever, stress and cynicism which just slowly gets worse and worse until they destroy a person. I might have to concede here—let’s see. There’s poisons which one cannot build tolerance towards (a lack of sleep seems like one), and poisons which only some people can use for their benefit while others are destroyed. Finally, I mentioned earlier that natural laws prevent some things from succeeding, and we can call such things immoral. It’s very possible that malice is similar to communism in that natural laws prevent it from being used for good purposes, which makes it “objectively bad”. But I’m not yet convinced that this is the case.
You’re right that some things can only exist as exceptions to the rule, but this class of things are countless. Society wouldn’t work if every job was “baker”, or if every person alive was a child. So differences are absolutely vital, and we cannot prove the qualities of a person by their rarity, or by the ratio of such a person that society can tolerate before it collapses. I’m afraid this is another argument in favor of “the dose makes the poison”, or at least “Balance is good and evil is that which is out of balance”.
I agree that the average and the true middle are different. I agree about the importance of trust too. I’d put it like “The maximum stable size of a group is governed by its coherence, which is the cooperation and trust of its parts”. But since the need for coherence threaten the unique qualities of the individual, I think we should de-globalize and have more communities rather than bigger communities. Very bad things happen to social dynamics once the network density gets too high. It’s more pleasant to be in a group of 5 than a group of 50, and it’s more pleasant to be in a community with 1000 members than a community with a million, and I think there’s natural laws behind this as well.
Yes. So the limit of how healthy I can get away with being depends on the health of my environment. It’s no good to be a naive person in a malicious environment, just like it’s no good to be a malicious person in a good environment. My self-improvement is being limited by society because I’m being “pulled” towards the average. The more out of alignment you are with society, the larger any “correction” will be. A naive person in a extremely hostile environment will undergo experiences which rapidly makes them less naive, but somebody who is 98% in alignment will have to work hard in order to find the tiny difference which puts them 99% in alignment. But I do reap rewards for my mental health, like those who do Yoga reap rewards from their physical health!
What protects things against changes? Against tending towards the average? I find that it’s isolation, gate-keeping, detachment, illegibility, hierarchies. Even shibboleths and such. A sort of entropic protection against updating towards a worse (or just different) state than one is currently in. How do you stay pure around perverts, sensitive to noise around people who yell, optimistic in the face of failure? Researching this is another hobby of mine.
Some would put it in the category of delusion, but I think that it’s often a self-fulfilling state. Sort of like how people who consider themselves lucky find more opportunities. This sounds a bit like spirituality, “belief can move mountains” and all that, but it seems true. A kind of placebo which actually affects physical reality.
I suppose that the lower only hurts through comparison. It can be freeing as well to update ones point of reference downwards because everything else seems better after. But the human sense of aesthetics does protect against that which is bad. If I lived in India, I’d have other standards of hygiene than I do now, but something inside me resists lowering these standards, and I think that’s for the better. About people, I’m conflicted. One should accept people precisely as they are, but on the other hand, I find it beautiful when people work hard for the same of appearance, be it grooming, having manners, remaining positive, or polishing their image. I’m influenced by Nietzsche who defined art as “deception with good intentions”. The quote I sent a few comments ago called rational people “inartistic” and I’m making the same criticism for the same reasons. Truth seeking and disillusionment conflicts with meaning-making and aesthetics. Aesthetics and meaning both add value to things, so they protect against nihilism and life-denying attitudes.
While I think it’s a shame to focus on the screen, you do you. The insights I share should still be helpful in reaching such a state, even if you sometimes have to do the opposite of what I’m recommending. I’ve used two means to get where I’m at, both with limited success. The first is tricking the elephant into wanting the thing that I also want. The other is considering life to be a video game (why can some people be in the top 0.1% in a video game and yet in the bottom 5% in life? If they experiencedf life as a game, wouldn’t they suddenly do well?). I don’t think I’ve shut down the DMN, but I’m slowly learning to live with ADHD, somehow.
I’m curious why no futures are good enough. I’d have to get out of my comfort zone to achieve my dreams, but there’s always a path. If somebody else took over your life, would they also fail at achieving any good ends? If no, I think you have self-imposed limitations you can remove.
When “I am” is followed by other words, it’s a self-imposed label. You could even call it a sort of roleplay. But the world does not work without roleplay. In the structure of a company, each person plays a role over which they are responsible (this also mirrors software engineering principles, and probably generalizes to other fields which I’m no familiar with). Even physically, in a car for instance, each component has a role and a protocol for how it interacts with other components. It’s the same biologically, each of our organs have a specialized purpose and is capable of signaling the components which are relevant for them to interact with. Thus, roleplaying is not merely social pretence or the ego investing too much into an idea, it’s a principle which apples to creations which get things done in reality.
Got me there. The lazy answer is that self-awareness allows me to experience myself. A proper answer is more complicated. Do you think a corporation is many things, or just one thing? What about a human body? A car? If they’re multiple—how do you decide the level of recursion at which you stop dividing? If they’re just one—what is the limit for seperation before the cohersion of the structure is so low that you consider it multiple?
You’re asking questions which makes one doubt the I. But you can ask these questions about anything, and make anything seem unreal. I don’t think it’s the ‘I’ which has to prove itself in front of these questions, I think these questions have to prove to the I that they have value at all, that questions have value, that theory is allowed to propose the idea that my experience of myself is wrong.
I know the purpose of asking me these questions, but I’d personally rather anchor my concept of self more strongly than reduce it. I’m trying not to be enlightened, as I enjoy being a fool
I consider some processes like a festering wound. Is a festering wound good or bad? Ultimately it’s neutral, just a natural process at work, but we still would like to be free of it. Otherwise, it leads to dire consequences. So processes with intention to harm another is like festering wounds. If not taken care of, they escalate and lead to more serious consequences.
It’s only as a rule we solve such processes unskillfully by isolation and liquidation of the person who is making the harm. What would a skillful process look like? I don’t know, but it seems to me that prescribing psychedelics (psilocybin and DMT to be precise, as they were proven to shut down the DMN temporarily and proven to work on people with addictions to alcohol, e.g. a good read about psychedelics, Drugs Without the Hot Air by David Nutt) in order to shift the perspective of the person would worth a try, also trying other anti-psychotic medicines, perhaps even experimental. As most issues of such kind are due to neural imbalances of sorts. So it’s not just about reprogramming the rider, it’s about rewiring the elephant. And we even have tools at our hands we just stubbornly avoid using them. But it’s a difficult topic to handle for a layman as one tends to generalize un-generalizable. The direction which seems to be promising is experimental medicine, not just plain old isolation.
Comparison is more evil than it seems as it involves division. And the divided mind is more confused not less so. What I meant by having examples who had different relations to the world was something akin to emulation, rather than imitation. What’s the difference? In imitation we compare and imitate behavior. In emulation, we reverse-engineer the processes down to the principles and then apply the principles in our life. Which may even lead to completely different behavior than that of the example, taking into account our conditions. A good example doesn’t come to mind. But I think one can deduce what I’m trying to express. It’s not comparison that works, but underlying principles behind the behavior. One can say that’s a way to initially gamify one’s experience and potentially transcend it.
Ok, here is a weak example, I don’t eat meat. Many sages didn’t eat meat as well and prescribed sattvik diet. Is is imitation? No. I don’t eat meat not because sages didn’t do it and I’m trying to imitate that behavior. I don’t eat meat because I cannot eat something from which I personally cannot take life. It’s a principle which I came upon in reflection and which feels right to me. As I don’t think anyone should follow this principle, but only those who resonate with it, I don’t expect people around me to follow the same rule. So I don’t compare people who eat meat with sages who didn’t eat it and allocate respective judgements. I believe it’s a personal business of an individual and it doesn’t by itself reflect “the level of malice” of individual. As a person may not have ill intentions towards living beings, yet follow the rules imposed to him by surrounding society and circumstances. So it’s not the comparison that works in that case but reverse-engineered principles. It matters that a person comes up with ahimsa out of personal reflection and not just parrots what sages did. So in my case it works only because I came up with it myself. And I don’t think it should be applied as a universal rule (about eating meat).
You see, I don’t think that traumatic events strengthen the mind at all. It’s true that strong mind will come through them more easily. But comparing them to exercising the muscles seems odd to me. First of all, exercise is a feasible controlled challenge, overcoming which gives one a pleasure. While traumatic events are unpredictable uncontrolled shocks that shutter the nervous system. They introduce an unsurmountable contradiction, “I love her, and she is gone.” Which starts up the cycle of self-rumination (in which the DMN is prevalent) which saps up all the energy from the constructive channels. It’s true that one has to learn to overcome that grief, and eventually some process will shift the network from the default self-ruminating mode to the tasking mode. But the shock divides the mind through contradiction and will in one way or another sap its energy (even when one seemingly shifted from the initial shock).
An example. Having a psychotic break after an existential shock doesn’t make you stronger by any means, it even makes you more prone to more psychotic breaks. That is like uncontrolled entropy growth. And one cannot reverse that process so the feedback-loop is degenerative. It makes one more vulnerable to vicissitudes of life and doesn’t teach anything of value. It’s a lose-lose situation. The only upside of such an event can be the understanding that one has no control over life and attempt to cut the dispersion to different directions of thinking, i.e. simplification. But whether it’s healthy or not in a highly complex environment it’s hard to tell.
Yes, there is a nice paper on this, Hunter-gatherer networks accelerated human evolution. Which basically states that small interconnected groups solve puzzles more quickly than one big group would.
Yes, that’s a difficult topic. The only solution that I have found to work when you are in such conditions is turning inward instead of outward. That is, all the time it is possible to do it. That’s also why I believe spirituality works, as one’s odds of success are miniscule and one is basically operating on faith alone.
It’s funny that I think that the very process of meaning-making (if meaning taken as intrinsic) leads eventually to nihilism. When one is thwarted and doesn’t get what one wants, the very meaning one was invested in turns against him and feeds life-denying attitudes. The only solution that I found to this is the Buddhist middle way, which basically denies intrinsic meaning, stating that all meaning only made up, i.e. relational, local. In that model I tend to de-emphasize the meaning making apparatus. But that’s not nihilistic, as relativized meaning is accepted. It’s like saying, it works, but don’t forget that it’s only local and not absolute.
Positive here. But I don’t despair, because all the conditions and circumstances seem to direct me in the direction of liberation. Everything else will not suffice. In games’ jargon, only epic win will suffice, everything else is half-measures that would not hold ground. I’m certainly not guaranteed of that, but it creates a somewhat healthy dynamics.
It’s not a problem if one takes it to be only a role. But deeply is not identified with that role. Some people used to call me a mathematician or a programmer, but those were just functions I performed, not what I am deep inside. I am neither limited nor defined by those functions. All I can say, I, indeed, simply am.
You seem to want to build a theory of mind (a good read on the topic by Joscha Bach, Principles of Synthetic Intelligence). And it may serve a valid purpose. But what I try to share with those questions is deep inborn childlike curiosity (that I myself get from them). Granted those questions may not be “your” questions and you may resonate with different set altogether. It’s actually good that you don’t have such a theory of mind, as you feel unprepared for their rawness! They are not meant to be answered by the mind, they are to lead the mind into impasse from which it cannot move, where concepts cease and silence prevails. That silence (albeit temporary) is the goal. It’s the data-point that the mind learns after asking such questions. Once it gets enough data-points of silence, it starts to prefer that state over the default one. For some it may take few months, for others—years of practice. There is a good post by Gary Weber that uncovers this process, Self-inquiry vs the egos/Is—How it works—the neuroscience.
Actually, from the theory of mind perspective self-inquiry is meant to get rid of the SRIN. So if one is tired of incessant self-talk one will look for any means to stop it. But the “I” will never agree to that deal as that would mean its own dissolution… Therefore the process of self-inquiry is itself paradoxical. You are either attracted to it or not. That includes any koan, not just self-inquiry as the aim of koans is the same—to get rid of the SRIN (which is by some tantamount to awakening). Only a peculiar “I” will agree to that deal. But Gary in Myths about Nonduality and Science says that cognition in the result is much higher. He gives a comparison by Hood’s mysticism scale, where nonduality/liberation scores higher than sex and psychedelics. A worthy read/watch, if you are into hacking your perception.
Ha-ha-ha! In some way “it’s too late” as you’ve already started contemplating over those questions. But don’t worry about that, they say that awakening is not directly linked with anything we do with our minds. If you are destined to awaken—you will, whether you want it or not, whether you’ve heard something about it or not, whether you do some practices or not. Contemplating these questions (or other koans) just makes one “prone to accidents” more. I think your mind is too curious not to ponder over some unanswerable question or another so you are not liberationproof.