LastThursday

@Preety_India it's definitely a useful exercise to pick out other's blindspots, if only just to hold a mirror up to yourself. Here's some I've noticed, mostly from YouTube videos: Mooji Not engaged with explaining the many aspects of reality - one trick pony. Wants to use self awareness and "noticing" as a "cure" for everything. Which is fine and all, but there's more effective ways sometimes and a lot more to reality. Sadhguru More well rounded. But says some whacky and probably some personally unverifiable things. Only has a simplistic understanding of science, but likes to talk a lot about it. Has a bit of a "showbiz" side to his character which doesn't gel in my eyes. Jim Newman He's good, but again a one trick pony. He is like a walking advertisement for it's like to be enlightened, nothing sticks to him. But this makes it hard to get any juice out of him. Rupert Spira Again more well rounded. Good at explaining enlightenment related stuff, but seemingly lacks breadth in other areas. He is super placid, but this makes him seem aloof and otherworldly - so doesn't have the dynamic range in his character to engage you - and if he does, then he's doing it on purpose for effect. Leo Gura The best of the lot in terms of breadth of knowledge and appearing to be "normal" in appearance. Somewhat impulsive and non-diplomatic - perhaps for effect. Bit of an aloof attitude and holier than though attitude without realising it. Naturally contrary. Appears a little misogynistic without realising it. Ok, that's enough character assassination.

@Tim R interesting take on things by Terence. I think before the invention of writing, language always would have had a visual component. In face to face conversation it still does. So in one sense the invention of writing hugely narrowed down the bandwidth of communication. Indeed writing has to be taught explicitly, whereas speech and gesticulation is learned tacitly. And most likely, before writing, a good memory and recall was a must. Writing was a triple whammy of badness. Writing is of course completely visual, but it is also highly abstract. But the benefits of writing are obvious: it's semi-permanent and is able to be copied and shared to a larger number of people. This is what overcame it's bad points. For much of its early history, writing was done by and for the elites in society. So all that is happening, is now that we have the technology to do so, the less abtract visual component of language is making its way back. Now we can capture visual language for mass distribution, the same way writing did when it was first invented. But even before TV there were plays: visual language for mass consumption. And there has probably always been some form of sign language. So the change is not one of ever increasing visuals, but just in ways of delivering it. Language has always been more than just words.

I made a list of these Free Will posts on my Journal. Just sayin' :

The problem goes much deeper than labelling and using words. Notice in your direct experience the difference between the first line and the second line: Are they different? And shouldn't they be the same? See how conceptualising goes deeper than language? You'll only get this when you have a direct experience without conceptualising.

Just saying it as it is. You can bet there's a big difference between someone who wins the lottery and someone who works for that same money. Anyway, the chance of actually winning the lottery is pretty much zero. And that's the trouble with chasing pleasure and hedonism, it distorts reality. I'd plump for the second, both for the self actualization journey and its benefits and for the chances being bigger than zero.

You wake up and find yourself here. There's a rushing stream of sensation, tick tick, every second. None of it makes sense at first, but bit by bit there's a seeming clarity. Years pass and things are crystal clear: you are a person in this ape body, living in a society of apes all chattering at each other. Not only that but there is this immensity that you're suspended in. Everything is big and so so complicated and intricate and it all runs by itself. You're so good at chattering that you have lead all your life believing in it. See, not only are you in the middle of seeming infinity, but you - the entity - are able to conjure up different worlds and dramas and dreams, and magically deliver these enchantments to the other apes. You just love to confuse yourself and blur the lines between what you sense and what you dream: it's something to get lost in a spiritual drug you're addicted to. You imagine a giant machine of parts is running the show. You imagine an ineffable supernatural ape is running the show and call it God. You imagine hundreds of Gods. You even imagine yourself to be both real and unreal and alive and dead and a thousand other things. You think yourself to be all alone and pine for company, and dream yourself to be in a world of 7 billion other apes and fancy yourself hiding from them all. You know that you are part of all that is happening, yet want and know yourself to be separate from it. You marvel at the strangeness of it all, and how bloody unbelievable it is that you're on a pin-prick of a planet in an infinite cosmos, without any other other pin-pricks to talk to. No other animal walks on two legs, no other animal communicates like you, no other animal inhabits all places on this planet. No other animal dresses to impress, makes televisions and flies to the moon. Surely, this is all some hugely elaborate joke? What the hell is going on?

Isn't pleasure just the bodily manifestation of reward? It's like a pat on the back or thumbs up for doing something positive. So eating is pleasurable, sleeping is, and being in love is, and so on and so forth. These are all healthy pleasures. They're healthy because you have to put effort in to get the reward. The feeling of pleasure is an emotional reminder to do the same thing next time. Hedonism lacks the effort and/or positivity. It's all reward and no work. So you get pleasurable feelings for drinking alcohol or taking hard drugs or having easy sex with many people or breaking the law or whatever. I'm not talking morality here, just the buzz you get from the behaviours. The behaviours are low effort or potentially physically damaging; a lot of hedonic pleasure is reward that reinforces negativity. In a way, the immorality of hedonism comes out of recognising this negativity - although there's a strong element of religion attached here too. It would seem like pleasure is not the goal, but actually behaving in a positive way is, and putting effort into things. Positivity here is relative to survival.

Use the DE force Luke. Go look at your hands for a bit. Then repeat the word "hands" for a few times out loud. Heck say it in Spanish for clearer effect: "manos". If you like, I'll do the same but I'll say the word "truth" instead.

As soon as you put anything down in writing it becomes philosophy, and philosophy is serious work. Unless I'm missing something, truth is that which is not false, i.e. certain, undeniable, 100% evident. But all truth has a framing associated with it, which makes truth relative to its framing. This Absolute Truth business is supposedly special though? It doesn't have a framing, because if it did it wouldn't be absolute. That is except for these three framings: nothing and everything and itself. So, Direct Experience, does it have a framing? Is DE couched in nothing, everything or itself or something else? My point is, Direct Experience is a concept and as such it's philosophy and as such its truthfulness is framed, which means from a different frame (viewpoint) it could be false. I can't experience my hands, because "hands" is purely a concept. But I'm not so thick as to not understand what you are pointing to. It's just that anything I or you say about the experience of it is false.

Bingo. Only permanence can be Truth.

Ok, so Direct Experience is an indivisible whole? And in being such an unchanging unity it is therefore Truth? (Two levels of indirection). The fact that it changes constantly is simply an unchanging attribute of DE?

Ah, one level of indirection, I like it. So perception itself isn't Truth, just the fact that it's constantly changing?

Would one objection to perception be: how can something be Truth if it's always changing?

I don't have my own visuals to add, but the scene in the video with the guts, kind of reminds me of the Philip K. Dick story The Electric Ant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Electric_Ant Where the man/robot tampers with his own internal workings and changes his reality: a metaphor for psychadelics I reckon.

Great. You won't regret it. Sign here in blood...

Man that's hilarious. I gave a super literal answer (when clearly the OP was looking for something else). And in turn you took my answer super literally. Sorry for being a devil myself. Can I have your soul? Pretty please.

One observation is that gender is partly cultural. Men and women dress differently, talk differently often using different words and intonation, and have different manerisms. A lot of the cultural aspects of gender are in fact not biologically based. So just as with your insight that you are whatever culture you identify with, so it is with gender culture. For example, to a degree, although not fully I would say, a gay man may approriate some of the cultural markers of female identity: potentially make up, manerisms and intonation. But, you don't have to be gay to do this. Things are fluid, just generally not practised, the need to conform is strong.

Lately I've been getting snatches of a weird kind of dissociation. It always happens in that inbetween state straddling wakefulness and sleep. It's the odd realisation that I'm just inhabiting this shell called Guillermo with all his baggage and history. In that instant there's a kind of distance as if I were thinking about another person. The implication being that there is separate entity that is making this observation. This is so out of my normal experience that I find it jarring, but it's always followed by unconsciousness. This doesn't stop in my dreams themselves. I have had dreams where I had breasts, that was definitely an odd sensation in retrospect. There was a weight and tangible feeling to them; despite being a bloke, I think I could explain what it was like to have breasts. I have also looked in a dream mirror and seen a female reflection. Basically I was a young Keeley Hawes, but with shorter hair (and a shameless excuse to show one version of an ideal looking woman): Also in that hypnogogic state I get glimpses of old feelings. This is hard to describe. But think back to yourself ten years ago say. Notice that there is a definite feeling of being you at that time, and that that feeling is different from the you of now. But it's more acute than that, it's more of a feeling specific to a definite situation in time. All these sensations are always annoyingly fleeting. The impression I get is that if they weren't fleeting, I would effectively be able to re-live them in their entirety. What all this pontification shows is that the very character of Guillermo is a fantasy and completely malleable. Given the right nudge and impetus I could suddenly become someone/something else, with the real possibility of not being able to "go back". Or instead I could just wait another ten years.

So: "Hey. I noticed your pink shoes from a mile away. Where did you get them? No! I don't want a pair for myself. I was with my sister the other day, and she was trying on the exact same pair. What? No she didn't end up getting them, way out of her league, she's more of a flat shoes kinda girl. But I see that you're not. They really work for you. Actually. Show me your calves... Wow. I mean just wow. I've been working on my calves, but obviously you can't tell because of these trousers I'm wearing. I don't normally wear trousers... LOL, no I'm a shorts kind of guy. You should see me in the summer. These clubs and wearing these rags do my manly calves no justice. So? What sort of calves do you like in a man?..." That sort of continuous bullshit. And obviously smirk like a mischevious kid throughout.

Conciousness has many forms, both alive and dead. An alive thing appears to consciousness as different from a dead thing: a corpse doesn't talk. But consciousness doesn't stop just because there are dead things appearing in it. The mistake is to think consciousness belongs to you, it doesn't. The concept of "you" can definitely die when you're being a corpse, but consciousness lives on. 5-MeO just plays with you by removing the separation between being alive and being dead.

The longer version is: selling your soul to the Devil. In other words making a deal with the Devil to sell your soul to him in exchange for supernatural assistance and advantage. In more religious times having no soul would mean you would go to hell instead of heaven. See here for some background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Faustus_(play)#Pact_with_Lucifer

Creation requires time. There is no time.

The forum operates at whatever level you're at. It's a simple mirror of yourself. The rabbit hole effect isn't caused by the complexity, so much as by the ever present meta nature of every answer. There is a kind of oneupmanship based on being more meta than the other person. If you're going to be one of Leo's types of devil, then being constantly meta is pretty devilish. This constant metaness leads to a feeling of a slipperiness and no resolution to any question: complete relativity. The irony. But there is an upper ceiling of complexity on here. I will say that there are a lot of simple people here taking on very complex ideas and misrepresenting them. That's not their fault, just simply that the ideas being pumped into the forum via Leo are way above most people's pay grade. However, it's not above most people's mental capacity, it's just that you have to hang around long enough to understand what's going on. And when you do, you realise what's going on - as you have.

@Vibroverse this is abstract stuff. There are three things you will need to get: 1. There is no time line stretching from the past through the present and into the future. There is no time at all. Zip. Nada. 2. The only thing that exists is what is right in front of your face right now (aka Direct Experience). Thoughts are not proof of existence of anything. 3. Consciousness (you) will never die (immortality), so everything that can be experienced as Direct Experience will be experienced. In other words: infinity itself. So yes. Everything is happening at once. But the reason is because there is only "at once". There's no time. I repeat, there's no time. No time. No time. No time...

This is more of a note to self than anything else. I thought I would thematically list all the sources of knowledge I'm currently consuming, or at least give a flavour of it. Mostly, this is to see what my biases are and if there are any areas I could explore more deeply. My number one reason for consuming knowledge is interest. I find it hard to investigate anything that doesn't get the juices flowing. I'm also strongly into nostalgia as a vehicle for time travel, but that's really more about emotion and feeling and re-inhabiting old versions of myself for the purpose of escapism and comparison to my current self; it is also a tool for self-healing. You Tube This is my new TV. By theme: Ancient history and mysteries surrounding ancient civilisations. All sorts of music, mostly 80's and 90's nostalgia, but also electronic music to work to, classical guitar (got very into female guitarists lately dunno why) and piano music. Rick Beato, Paula Hermosin are great. Also, reaction videos for some reason! Self help and spirituality. I have my favourites here, maybe I'll go through them some time. Trains, especially London tube trains and history - I've always found trains fascinating, super nerdy. Anything to do with languages ancient and modern. Science related videos, especially if there's something I've never come across. Physics, astronomy, maths, computer science. Russell Brand, Joe Rogan, Brian Rose (London Real), Leo Gura alternative type content. This is more about getting a different slant on things, than actual conspiracy type bullshit. Retro-computing in general. I still own computers and from the 80's (and program them) and there's both strong nostalgic and interest value here. Young lifestyle and self-help bloggers, Matt D'Avella, Lana Blakely, Isabel Paige, Nathaniel Drew and others. I was young once, and getting youthful vibes and viewpoints is refreshing and useful to keep me optimistic. Plus nearly everyone is younger than me, so it can't be helped. Engineering and electronics. ElectroBoom and Fran Blanche. I have an engineering degree, so this has always been an interest of mine. Technology reviews. I don't really buy gadgets, but find these interesting nonetheless. Historical clothing. Priorattire is a good channel for this. I find history fascinating in general. House building and the tiny house movement. Mostly for ideas about alternative lifestyles. Odd and random content such as Tom Scott and a few others. The odd foray into pickup videos: but mostly for entertainment than instruction. Psychology, especially about human behaviour and thinking. Self hypnosis. I find these quite powerful for inducing altered states. Esoteric and fringe science and paranormal and UFO. Stuff that could be true, but no-one really knows. I like a good mystery. (What's missing here is art strangely) Wikipedia My main goto source if I want facts or history about a subject. But mainly: Maths, history, music (bands, release dates etc), music history, computing, art and artists and art history, languages, religion and spirituality, engineering, philosophy. Quora Maths, languages, ancient history, physics, some politics. TV Mostly as entertainment to kill time, so I won't list those. But also: The arts and art history, Science and environmental and nature documentaries. I was very into nature documentaries as a teenager. Music history (any period). Books I hardly read books any more. I was a bigger reader in my younger years, but electronic content is a lot easier to consume and more immediate, so it gets a greater slice of my attention. But: Science fiction, futurism (looking to read Stand on Zanzibar next). Classic fiction, you know, the famous ones. Neuro Linguistic Programming and self-help and philsophy and psychology. Some computer books, but the internet is a LOT better for this. Real Life I'm lucky to live close enough to London that I can do day trips: Museums. You get to see the real objects rather than just reading about them. The British Museum, Natural History, and Victoria and Albert are amazing. Art galleries. Tate Britain and Tate Modern are my favourites. But the National Portrait Gallery and so many others are just amazing spaces. I have seen a huge amount of both Salvador Dali and Picasso art: but then again I'm half Spanish so I'm biased here. Physical places, London and surrounding towns and villages are great sources of history in physical form. Bookshops. I could easily browse and read for hours in any bookshop. What's missing? I'm a huge art fan, but my other interests seem to take precedent. For me I guess it's more about aesthetics than actual thought, so I don't think deeply about art and I don't practise it. Both my father and sister are really good artists, and I was good at it in school; but I never pursued it that much. Certainly, seeing art physically is my favourite way of interacting with it. Politics and news. I purposely avoid news like the plague, because I know how negative it can be for my own mental wellbeing. But as a side effect this means I also avoid hearing about politics. I am political to a degree, but not strongly so. But getting to grips with political theory would be something that would make me more well rounded. One from the forums: dating. This is an odd one for me. I'm certainly interested in the meta perspective and psychology of attraction and procreation and relationships. I'd say I'm mostly interested in how relationships work. Again it's not something I think deeply about. But it would be good for my character to expand my knowledge in these areas. Maybe I should participate more in this area on the forum. LGBTQ. I have a vague interest in this area, more from a human psychology and lifestyle perspective. I do find alternative ways of being and living interesting (by which I mean different from mine), and I pride myself on being able to understand and get on with most types of people. But this is one area where my knowledge is thin. My half brother is gay, and I have also dabbled in my younger years, but more out of experimentation; so there is some interest here. Philosophy. I know the main historical players and some of what they stand for and are famous for. But the older I get the more I realise how much wisdom there is to mine here. The main problem is accessibility, it's arcane and presented in an old fashioned way. But Alain de Boton and a few others have brought it up to date. Certainly more juice to be had here. The Self Help and Spiritual sections of this forum - where I mostly hang out - are basically philosphy. Psychadelics. Until Leo this wasn't even a thing in my universe. It still isn't, but I've certainly had many incursions into altered states of consciousness, and I liked it. But using altered states to gain knowledge? That's new to me. I'm extremely curious about trying psychadelics, but, they are basically illegal (for better or worse) and getting hold of them is not frictionless. I keep an open mind.