Dylan Page

I've watched about half of Leo's videos, I think almost all of the ones on figuring out reality. I'm willing to watch them again but the claims being made here seem just really speculative. I probably should review what Leo is saying but there are some things in his videos that seems to be a bit of a jump. @7thLetter

I think you are getting ahead of yourself, we don't understand the arrow of time yet. @7thLetter

This is going to be almost a word for word dissection of Leo's video, as I had some disagreements with/questions about what he said. After spending 1.75 hours on the first 7 and a half minutes of the video, I have decided to release it and see if I get a response. If you guys want me to finish this, please let me know. I am only not finishing it now because I don't want to type this entire thing out only to get no response. So here is a little sample. T = Time Q = Question T = 0:00 - 0:30 Introduction - No qualms. T = 0:31 - 1:17 Lots of why questions that many of us have, all perfectly valid, although I have some questions about the way a few of them are structured. Q 1: "Where is evolution headed?" - This is an interesting question, although I am not sure there is an answer to this. It is entirely possible that evolution isn't headed anywhere, and that we will go extinct, just like the dinosaurs. But, to be fair, it is entirely possible that all life struggles to converge to some sort of point, with the universe setting it back, only to start again. There are a lot of possibilities, I am just pointing out that there is no reason for us to assume that it is going anywhere at all, but at the same time, no reason to assume that it isn't going anywhere. Q 2: "What is reality really up to?" - The only problem I have with this question is that it seems to assume intention, which I don't think is something we can justifiably do. Many physicists, such as Michio Kaku or Lawrence Krauss, have pointed out that it's better to ask "how" questions rather than "why" questions, because often times, a why question assumes a who. For example, asking "why did the chicken cross the road?" is totally different from "how did the chicken cross the road?" There are counter examples of this of course, such as "why did the tree grow" and "how did the tree grow", in which they can be used interchangeably. A better phrasing of the question "what is reality up to?" might be, "How does reality operate?" or "Is there a purpose or reason for all of the mechanisms that exist within reality?" I want to be clear that I am not certain that Leo meant to anthropomorphize reality, but if he did, and was aware of everything I just said, I would really like to know how he can justifiably do that. T = 1:17 - 2:13 Leo criticizes the notion that the universe we live in is arbitrary, as often claimed by many scientific, materialistic thinkers. 1. I agree that we shouldn't assume that there is no further logic behind the reason the universe is the way it is, but I also don't think we should assume that there was some sort of design or intention behind it. To think that the universe literally came from the philosophical notion of nothing is absurd, and logically impossible. There has to be more of a reason behind why the big bang occurred. If it came from either quantum fluctuations or the multiverse, you still have to explain the origins of both of those. However, it seems entirely possible that the reason we are here is simply because this universe happens to allow for life, while possibly most of the other universes, simply don't. That of course leads to many other questions, such as, "why was I born at this time rather than any other time?" "why am I experiencing me and not you?", or "if there is no Cartesian self, then what is the nature of this illusion and how is it so persistent?". The point is, this leads to many questions, but it doesn't totally rule out the possibility of a universe that isn't here for any particular reason, it is just one that allows for life to exist, full stop. Oh, and you also have to define life in order for much of this to make sense. I guess we can use consciousness, but, trying to pinpoint what that is or whether it's even a valid word is a discussion for another time. T = 2:14 - 2:55 Leo claims that life isn't dumb, or arbitrary, or accidental. I can see this in some sense. Let's assume that the universe is entirely deterministic. If this is the case, then evolution by natural selection isn't what we think it is. It isn't a process that creates entities that can survive in their environments, it just seems as if that were the case, and that fundamentally, everything that has happened or will happen is supposed to happen given the laws of physics and the initial conditions of the universe at the big bang. Given this, we can deduce that life was MEANT to happen, it had to happen. Now the only questions are, why was the universe in that initial state and why are the laws of physics the way that they are, and for that, read the paragraph above. T = 2:56 - 3:44 A quick hyping up of the nature of reality lol I'm in strong agreement over here. T = 3:45 - 4:16 Leo: To explain the point of your life you must first zoom out and understand the point of the universe, as they are ultimately one. Reasonable, going along with it. I think that you can get some framework of ought without understanding the purpose of the universe but I'll go with what he is saying in regards to the function of life from a macroscopic point of view. T = 4:17 - 5:21 The Universe (with a big U) is a hyper dimensional, infinite sphere, with no boundaries. Ok, this is a great idea for solving questions such as "what is outside of the universe?" And when I say universe here, I don't mean our universe (because universe doesn't really mean everything anymore when we are now starting to talk about a multiverse), I mean like, THE UNIVERSE, totality, everything. Conceptually, I am a fan. T = 5:22 - 5:52 This sphere is sentient, conscious, infinitely intelligent, all loving, and is essentially god. It's limitless. My reaction to this is "huh? what?" I don't want to pull the word salad card but I really don't know what it would mean for something to be all of these things, or how something could be all of these things. I am just at an utter loss here, I don't know what to make of what this means, or how I or anyone else could possibly come to know this, especially given epistemology and the limits of human understanding. I do want to make it clear though, I am not writing it off, I am simply asking for more explanation. T = 5:53 - 7:30 Inside of the infinite hyper sphere exist an infinite number of sub-realities. They exist out of necessity, as they construct this infinite hyper sphere. Can't find any flaws here. However, he did say that there is no distinction in between division and unity, which I was a little confused about, some elaboration would be helpful. It's a classic non-dual notion, but conceptually I don't get how two things that are fundamentally opposite are the exact same thing. I like Alan Watts' description of non duality, which is that opposites are like the two ends of a magnet, and that they imply each other, like life and death, and negative and positive.

Hey everyone! I have had some trouble understanding the full implications of the limits of models and science. There are certain things like Godel's incompleteness theorems, the fact that what we consider "objective" is more like universal agreement, and the idea that no set within a super set can fully model the super set (aka, nothing inside of the universe can fully explain the mechanics of the entire universe). I just want to discuss the big questions that science, philosophy, and other areas are trying to answer. If anyone wants to talk on discord or something I would love to

Well I think that the knowledge would have many implications. It might alleviate my strong fear of death, and of the question "what am I to do with this life?". Obviously it won't tell me how to file my taxes or get women but I still think that there is some value. @purerogue

@purerogue Yes I generally agree with what you are saying, but then I have to ask, if the only way to go about life is to go about it, what should I do in it? That question is comically difficult to answer when you don't understand the essence of reality, and that is my goal here. As to whether it is actually possible, I have literally no idea, but Leo seems to think that it is and he is very capable of using logic and reason efficiently while also believing these things that don't really make sense to me (and that is apparently because they are outside the realm of reason). So, I am giving it my best shot here.

@Joseph Maynor Yes I agree, science is extremely useful given the context is right, but my interests lie in understanding literally everything, which goes beyond context, there isn't any context anymore, there is all contexts and no context at the same time. That's where I am starting to think that a "theory of everything" is impossible in the scientific sense.

@Leo Gura I guess my only questions now are, what is consciousness, and is there a hierarchy of levels of consciousness, and how do we know when one level is higher than another. Maybe the answer is that we can just tell which is higher through subjective experience, but again, I just don't know if our experiences actually mean anything in regards to truth. I am probably missing something here, but I am still pretty confused. I do want to make it clear that I am radically open minded to new ideas, and therefore I will look further into enlightenment, hopefully I'll understand it soon.

@Conrad I'm definitely gonna try it, it seems that its literally impossible to understand before the fact lol

Yes I do realize that I have only ever had direct experience, but what I am having trouble understanding is, what makes me think that one state of being will reveal more about reality than another? Also, the claim that existence can only exist through direct experience is a dangerous claim because we can't get outside of direct experience. The term exist also seems pretty loaded because it's hard to know what it really means. Does it mean inside the universe? Does it mean that there is some sort of manifestation of it? Again, the word exist is super weird and I don't want to make the claim that existence is only possible through direct experience. @Consilience

If you could drastically extend your life, would you? Would you live forever? This is of course assuming you can have the body of a 20 year old or better. Alongside the giant question of what we ought to do in our lives, there is also the question if we should ever stop living them. Technology is advancing very quickly, (and I'm not saying that this will happen, but it's something to consider.) and it might be possible to dramatically extend our lives by the year 2050 or so. If you could, would you? Would you live your life differently if you could? If you wouldn't, why wouldn't you? My personal take on this is that I would. I see no reason to accept death, even if there is life after it. We don't know if there is life after death, or if that life will be good or not. This life at a minimum, has the potential to be good. We also have the intelligence to change and adapt if things get bad. I have heard @Leo Gura say that there is no death, there is only life (in the comments sections of one of his videos). What in this case, is life? I would consider life consciousness, although many people even doubt the existence of consciousness, and say that is it some sort of mechanistic illusion (dan dennett). Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I'd love to know.

ah ok, I would agree with the first part, as for the second, I think that it's just an over-generalization. There are like a billion billion billion different states that adults can be in at age 30-40.

I think the dangerous assumption you are making there is that you can download your consciousness. I think we really need to get a grasp on what it is in order to make that kind of claim. If it's *just* a pattern of elementary particles, then there is no reason that we can't move over to silicon or graphene or whatever. But, there are many, many different views on what it is and to jump to conclusions is kinda stupid. Also, only some people that get to age 30/40 "give up", there are tons of counter-examples and also keep in mind that we would theoretically reverse our age back to 20 (or become a robot or something). There isn't really any good reason to assume that we would just have our motivation die out at that arbitrary age. @SFRL

Thank you, I just don't know if my conscious experience actually means anything in regards to truth. Partly because I don't have any reason to believe that we are hard wired that way, but also because I don't even know what truth is. Thanks for the responses though. @ajasatya

What is the mind? @ajasatya When I "drop" the mind, what does that actually mean? When I think drop the mind, I think become unconscious, I seem to be the mind, and everything else is simply a projection. If I am not the mind, than what am I?

What is experience? Given that we need to basically become the super set or bigger in order to understand the super set, the only way to understand the universe would be to "become the universe", whatever that means. I just want to understand how one can have not only an enlightenment experience, but literally any sort of experience, and claim that they understand the universe through a new lens of consciousness. What makes an enlightenment experience different than what I am I seeing right now? Is enlightenment an experience or is it a realization? Can I write down this realization? Can someone tell me this realization? I'm so confused on how I can understand and how I can be sure without a doubt that I understand. (And my b Leo I'll talk here :P) @Leo Gura @Conrad