Elessar2

Karma: 29

Elessar2 6 Apr 2024 13:31 UTC
1 point
0
on: The EMH Aten’t Dead
Please state the nature of the financial emergency.

Elessar2 28 Mar 2024 12:55 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: Kaj_Sotala’s comment on: Should rationalists be spiritual / Spirituality as overcoming delusion
Carl Jung is a perfect exemplar of all of that, because when he had his extended episode of such after his break with Freud, he indeed had a period where his ego was completely toast and nonfunctional, as he tells it.
BTW when I was 16, and my family and I had landed in Germany, I was suffering from a very bad case of jet lag, and in said state of utter exhaustion dreamt of Jung’s Man Eater:
https://jungcurrents.com/carl-jungs-first-dream-the-man-eater
Every basic detail was the same: the underground cavern, the sense that the thing was alive and very dangerous, the platform it was on, and most certainly the primal terror. I didn’t hear my mother’s voice tho-my family was actually eating dinner at the time (I stumbled out of bed in my extreme panic to try to find them in the hotel restaurant, ended up wearing my younger sister’s jeans which of course were too small, wrapped a towel around myself, to their amusement).
An ancient phallic fertility god, as he described it. It happened in Baden Baden, 100 years after his and about 100 miles north of where he was living in Switzerland.

Elessar2 27 Mar 2024 15:45 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: StartAtTheEnd’s comment on: Should rationalists be spiritual / Spirituality as overcoming delusion
I am retired more or less, but aside from a bunch of financial loose ends that my late mother bequeated myself and my sister, no racing rats here. [Sunsets maybe, in my car] I have connected successfully with fellow wildlife volunteers and plan to start doing that again later in the spring (the key for me was birds and nature—a close encounter with a peregrine falcon got my all turned around, had 3 more subsequently, one where I could have reached out and touched it as it flew past me on a highrise balcony).
I like the “theft” angle, because in my case I know that is exactly what it was, when I was severely depressed. “Oh pity poor little old woe is me!”

Elessar2 27 Mar 2024 2:20 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: StartAtTheEnd’s comment on: Should rationalists be spiritual / Spirituality as overcoming delusion
Me, I’ve found that I connect much more readily with animals than I do with humans. I went into a local shop the other day, and one of the owner’s dogs approached me, so I let her sniff my hand. A few minutes later I was petting her head. He was utterly beside himself, said she was a rescue from an abusive owner, and NOBODY other than himself could touch her like that.
I simply aim to move into my center, and let the flow reverse outwards into the world, vs. trying to grasp at things and draw them in. I’ve also found that my energies put people off, incl. women I’ve tried to date; one, a coworker who developed a weird kind of crush on me, couldn’t work with me anymore because the energies were feeding back on her and making her sick.
Tl;dr trying to engage on that level with others usually proves futile. Animals don’t have all that egotistical crap blocking their spiritual arteries I guess. It’s more fundamental than just a mere difference in beliefs or a desire to socialize, or not.

Elessar2 19 Jan 2024 1:08 UTC
5 points
1
on: Why are people unkeen to immortality that would come from technological advancements and/or AI?
Because there is a very strong possibility that the “I” that achieves this immortality won’t be the “I” that I have been in this biological package up to this point-the technology required may very well grossly distort (or even destroy or render irrelevant) my consciousness beyond all recognition or similarity, and I could end up as a slave or addict to the technological AI overmind in question as it subtly morphs my mind into a compromised mess. Even if the key to I. turns out to be biological more or less, I’ll almost certainly have to navigate the AI gauntlet in any event sooner or later. I’d rather take my chances with transcending this plane altogether for a more benign and less dualistic one.
In a less dire era of history I’d be all in favor, esp. given how healthy I am right now (age 61), esp. also given how much I’ve honed my mind to overcome as many dualities here that I can, but all bets are off from here on out.

Elessar2 14 Jan 2024 22:35 UTC
4 points
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on: What good is G-factor if you’re dumped in the woods? A field report from a camp counselor.
As I read this, I actually put myself into his shoes, as another quirky gifted kid...but MY very first impulse upon reading about the fish was that my younger self would have insisted on putting him into an aquarium, keeping him there all summer (along with whatever other critters we can find: frogs, crayfish, snails, salamanders), releasing them on the final day. Vote on names for him and his friends too. Even back then I had zero interest in any Quien Es Mas Macho status games, but bring an animal into the mix and I am there front and center.
Same planet, different universes...

Elessar2 3 Jan 2024 22:57 UTC
19 points
14
on: Apologizing is a Core Rationalist Skill
Unfortunately, in a substantial segment of society if one were to apologize and admit the actual truth, his or her status in that segment would go way down, likely to zero, esp. if it goes against the prevailing mores of the group in question who would rather keep on believing the Big Lie vs. admit that it and they have been wrong.
Usually when I see such an apology, it isn’t directed at the in-group in question at all, but instead at the out-group who has been at odds with the in-group and is more receptive in principle to the said information. In that case it often has been perceived as an inauthentic, manipulative, and disingenuous attempt to garner sympathy and yes status from this new group, if not to troll them.
In other words, authentic apologies are only as good as the authenticity and honesty of the individual or audience that you are apologizing to. If they put little to no weight on such ideals your attempt at apologizing would be worse than useless.

Elessar2 10 Nov 2023 16:30 UTC
2 points
in reply to: SpectrumDT’s comment on: Craving, suffering, and predictive processing (three characteristics series)
He spells his first name “Jeffery”, that’s likely why. The Finders is the book title.
I’ve read that book, and a fair amount dovetails well with my current existence, but quite a bit of it doesn’t. Strange that I cannot find a community of fellow Finders anywhere on da interwebz happily discussing how their lives are with each other and comparing notes and etc.-most Googling of the (correct) name and book title simply brings up a bunch of people going off about the author’s course.
Anyway, I get frustrated with a lot of Buddhist thought & discussion on the ’net, and this one is no exception (the companion entries occ. get rezzed here as well note). Nobody ever discusses what happens if you reverse the polarities, so to speak, and, instead of egoic cravings, you allow the will of the universe to flow through you. Wu wei. [we need some Taoist entries actually in point of fact]
Where does authentic creativity and selfless manifestation lie in this wasteland of viciously craving beings? It’s always ascension, all of the time, forsake forsake forsake. I feel that this singleminded focus on suffering and craving, and transcending such, just leaves a LOT out of the picture. For me (having-mostly-mastered my emotional world) it’s like reading a 3rd grade primer, when I hunger for graduate level work.
For example, if these craving beings were to TRULY experience real, unmediated, 100% pure A-grade ecstasy, they wouldn’t embrace it, they would flee in terror from it. I am well nigh convinced that the problem doesn’t like with attachment, but with fear of actual transcendence, and the cravings and such are simply side-effects of the core issue there.
It may be that the number/% of authentic Finders is much less than the number of self-proclaimed ones (and don’t take my word here either, nuke the Buddha with an RPG).

Elessar2 5 Jul 2023 23:05 UTC
2 points
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on: Optimized for Something other than Winning or: How Cricket Resists Moloch and Goodhart’s Law
American baseball went thru something like this in 1908, the Merkle Game. Fred Merkle of the Giants was on 1st when a teammate singled to apparently win the game-but Merkle never touched second. Cubs got the ball out of the madding crowd and touched 2nd for the force, nullifying the run.

Merkle was roundly reviled for his boner, but just like in the cricket game the common practice at the time was to not run to second. But this time the defense broke the unwritten rule in question and the umpire likewise enforced it.

As an idealist I appreciate the sentiment of the entry here. But we I’d say are delving a bit into game theory. The danger of these unwritten rules is that they can be broken at untimely junctures-all it takes is one bad actor and the unwritten rule is destined for the scrap heap. In a more enlightened realm we’d likely not need any rules at all (Calvinball über alles), but not here at this time in history.