tsuki

I don't think that it's necessarily more difficult than any other transition. Maneuvering out of blue's dogma with all of its systems that threatens to kill you if you step out has to be a lot of trouble. Green is no different too. Once you've deconstructed success that orange is oriented towards and see its true nature (sheer stupidity and shortsightedness) - it is extremely difficult to find a new basis that is not susceptible to the same methods. Spiral dynamics is a tricky thing to master, especially since you know up front that every single stage is wrong in some sense.

@Daniell Why don't you ask him to remember how it was back then, before he was born?

@Ethankahn If you "adopt" a fully nondual perspective, then why is there a need to ask why? Who are you asking, exactly? What is the difference between questions and answers? Is there a duality between duality and nonduality?

@Aquarius I refuse to blame. You, me, the medium. I just love Enneagram. It's so uncannily accurate. Truth always feels like a slap in the face and this system just never fails to deliver.

@Aquarius I'm sorry. How do I even respond to you after all you've wrote? Let me try this way and I hope that you won't pick up on my mountains of suppressed anger this time: I don't take anything you say personally. You are okay. Don't worry. I was making fun of myself in my last post. This human thing called "talking" is tricky. I usually fail at it. Have a good day.

You're right. Don't use the word don't.

@Aquarius My inner animal smells a slight sense of superiority from you. You may call it my insecurity if you feel like it. Anyways, thanks for your explanation of what spiral dynamics is and your encouragement to feel comfortable picking a seat. I find both of these kind of insulting, but I know that we've never talked before and you're probably just cautious with your response. I choose not to identify as any particular SD stage because I think that it is ridiculous to cultivate an identity in a system that is built around a hierarchy. (That's very green/turquoise of me, isn't it?). I think that any color I choose to pick is, ultimately, my choice and reflects my self-image. Any development within this system is therefore not a development of me, but of my thoughts about myself.

Hey, I was just curious what do you get from calling yourself coral. I didn't intend to offend you at all. In fact, I'm still curious. I used to (silently) think that I'm turquoise, but I'm probably green/yellow.

Ohh, and I'm back to obsessive checking out of the forum. I have to get back to being productive! My success is at stake lol.

@Aquarius I'm curious, can you actually look yourself in the eye in the mirror and say that out loud with a straight face? The more I think about spiral dynamics (and even life in general) - it all seems like a device that reflects ones self-image.

Half a month later - I'm still entangled with bayesian machine learning with PYMC. So far, I was able to create a autoregressive model for stock price forecasting in PYMC3. For now, moving average models have the upper hand on me - I can't find any solid introduction on them. Anything I'm able to find is either: Good old arxiv article written in plain mathematical Voodoo Failing to describe the actual process of parameter estimation of the model So far, I was able to implement an example of MA model from STAN's documentation, but we have a disagreement with python interpreter about its correctness. That cheeky bastard actually swallows the program no with problems, but then, when I try to sample from the model - it crashes. The actual python interpreter crashes. It makes me think that It's a bug in PYMC, or Theano, but it just seems like I'm excusing myself for my lack of skill. What makes me think that I'm correct? Well, as funny as it sounds - this implementation is the only one that makes sense to me and if I introduce a bug, it samples, but the output is rubbish. I implemented it twice in two different ways and it crashed both times. Wrrrrr So - it seems like I'm back to buying into the life's stories of necessary success. It's a refreshing change, actually believing in something. I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

Perfection is not a statement about reality's moral value, but about its completeness.

Just to leave a breadcrumb for myself - I vanished into: Re-capping statistics Then I got into Bayesian statistics Then it lead me to quantitative finance Which took me back to machine learning Now, I'm playing with time series analysis with Bayesian statistics.

Enneagram type six, counterphobic MBTI - INTJ It's strange that we're both sixes and I actually took great value in learning MBTI.

That's just beautiful.

Funny that we can always immediately tell that we're not on the same page though .

I don't have any concerns, I was clarifying the question that @Sashaj asked.

That's a good point and I thought that as well for a very long time. I think that the key observation is that we take the understanding of language for granted, and it is not such a simple matter. After all - in order to understand what @Preetom says, one has to go through some of 'the path' and relate his knowledge to what Preetom wrote. The important bit is 'relating his knowledge', or 'careful consideration'. Without it - it will become just another belief. So - even if Preetom presents knowledge, this knowledge has to be understood.

I don't think that you do. It may very well point to it, but I haven't followed that pointer yet. I have an intuitive sense that you are right, but the whole point of reading Ethics is to see it in terms of something else than intuition. (or at least in baby steps of intuition) I am an INTJ and intuition is my strongest forte. It feels like magic.

It does not relate to my interpretation of Spinoza, because I'm just 20 pages into the book. However, my high level view of his work suggests that he may conclude that in the last part of the book. I can relate to what you've quoted from experience though. I can barely follow myself . The key to understanding any of that is understanding what a substance is. You can understand that either by stumbling into this problem by yourself, or - by reading Descartes (which Spinoza argues with). The key here I think is that substance is basically a self-defining concept. Descartes concluded that there are two substances - mind and body. These substances do not interact with each other and because of that, he was left with the famous mind-body problem that Spinoza solves. His idea is that Descartes is wrong in concluding that there are two distinct substances and proves that on the grounds of logic. Ethics is built as a set of propositions that mimic Euclid's Geometry for that reason.

Here's a little hierarchy that expresses what I understand about the basic building blocks of Spinoza's ontology. With respect to causality, there are two kinds of objects: Those that are dependent on other objects Those that are dependent on themselves The first object is mode, the other is substance: In this reading, 'conceiving through', and 'exists in' express causality. Substances are conceived through themselves because they are their own cause. Modes depend on other modes, or/and (eventually) on substance: (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sufficient-reason/#Spin) So, basically - it is entirely possible for Spinoza to have an infinite chain of modes, as long as it is necessarily caused. If that is the case, then everything has to finally point to a substance as its original cause. Then, there are attributes and essence that are related to these two objects: So, essence is the collection of things that are necessary for x to be conceived (caused). Removal of anything that is essential would prevent x from arising. Attribute seems to be that, which the essence of x is made of. It is one of the things that are necessary for x to be conceived (caused) and is included in the essence. The key thing here I think is the inclusion of the intellect into the definition. I have not seen Spinoza to talk about it yet. It seems like substances have attributes that make up their essence and these attributes are perceived by the intellect. It follows from his argument (E1P7) that the essence of substance is existence, and - by the above definitions, the intellect perceives this essence as attribute (attributes?). EDIT: Now that's an epiphany Is it possible that by essence, Spinoza means the activity that ties properties together that cause something? Is it possible then that attributes are just beings that take part in essence?

No free will means that your "will to start a project" is dependent on external circumstances. That you are not an actor that have the possibility to react for, or against some stimuli. Even if you react to something (deny it and apply effort to counter it), that reaction is dependent on something as well. Basically, you are an automaton. It says nothing on whether your project will succeed or fail, so getting all depressed about it is just an excuse. Your project may actually improve your circumstances, after all.

Here was a link, but it was obnoxious. I'll post a pretty picture instead: It's the logical structure of Spinoza's first 6 propositions.

I did a quick search on the Imaginal from Cynthia Bourgeault and came across this article. Even though it is very rudimentary, a term noetics picked my interest and I found this article (polish). Unfortunately, the English version is not very developed, but it seems to imply that Spinoza did in fact think in terms of this "paranormal" ability to perceive reality. It seems to agree with my conclusion that I posted here: Thank you for the pointer @Zigzag Idiot .