JosephKnecht

He speaks to you by name. The problem is that you don't know your name.

@MrWolf Haven't read that one yet. Is the advice also applicable to women?

I can see that he was struggling to understand that which could not be understood. His desire to understand was genuine. Not sure if banning him helped him. He needs to contemplate more for himself, rather than asking questions and then rejecting all answers.

@Striving for more You obviously need to strive for something more than just bare survival. But if you can't survive, how can you strive. You must strive while surviving.

If traditional relationships don't suit you, you are free to have new kinds of relationships. You can try to have a relationship with yourself. Try not to screw up that one too bad. You can have relationships with some other people you like. Having a relationship is like getting on a ship. You know that eventually, you will come back to land, but you know that all the adventure happens on the water.

... and I am waiting for you to prove that you are intelligent so that you can understand the proof. If you enjoy reading proofs, I suggest reading Gödel, Escher, Bach. Gödel proved that every formal system that is complete, cannot be consistent. Here is a brief overview of the book, but I suggest reading the whole book. https://medium.com/swlh/gödel-escher-bach-series-an-overview-of-gödels-incompleteness-theorem-d00c2202abf4

I am thankful for having the opportunity to be thankful.

But how can I show you proof of infinite intelligence if you can't prove to me that you have any intelligence? Intelligence is a subset of infinite intelligence so we need to prove the smaller before we prove the larger. The problem is that Intelligence can't be proven to anyone else but itself. I asked you that question because I know you can't prove it, but you might be able to experience intelligence. Thus, Experience is greater than proof.

@charlie cho I am not trying to tell you what to believe. I just want to inspire you to think deeper about your philosophy. Why you don't value the things that come easy to you?

IQ tests only measure your ability to recognize patterns. The ability to recognize patterns could be useful for getting yourself out of the "matrix" of reality, but it's not the only criteria. For example, if your Ego co-opts your intelligence, it will only seek patterns to stay grounded in reality. Doing psychedelics or being intelligent does not guarantee that you will become enlightened.

I will provide the proof for infinite intelligence, but first I demand that you prove to me that you are intelligent. @Cosmin_Visan Show me proof that proves that you are intelligent.

That is not a philosophy. It's a bumper sticker. Maybe you don't appreciate the things that you can get easily, so you throw them away. Maybe you only appreciate the things that you work hard for.

There is nothing wrong with him per se. He has many conservative views that don't coincide with the views of the more liberal members on this forum. His intent is good, but he is a little bit stuck in his own Ego. His Ego has created an image of a public intellectual, and the image doesn't allow him to look beyond the image and into the essence. If his words inspire you or help you in any way, follow his work.

Philosophers look for profound knowledge. Spiritual people look for the spirit that exists beyond knowledge. Maybe once you exhaust your seeking for profound knowledge, you too will seek the spirit. Are you a philosopher or are you spiritual? Or, you might be something else.

I took psychedelics before I found Leo's content. The 'mystical' experience is ineffable and undeniable, and when you are having the experience you simply 'know it' to be true. Whatever the mystical experience reveals to you is true because it is in your experience. But, after the "high" goes away and you come down back to reality, the experience is just a memory. Then you can use Leo's content to recontextualize your experience. If you don't have any preconceived notion of a "mystical" experience you will believe that you had lost your mind. So having knowledge is only useful to recontextualize your experience. Psychedelics try to give you an experience beyond concepts. All language is a symbolic representation of concepts. Realize that direct experience is stronger than understanding because all understanding relies on concepts and all concepts are ultimately imagined. Therefore all understanding is ultimately false understanding. How can you understand that which you don't understand? What you wish to do is to directly experience rather than understand.

It might be true, but it's impossible to prove.

There is nothing that prevents normal consciousness to become aware of itself. The problem arises only when normal consciousness gets too normalized into its own state. For example, if someone gets stuck into a material/physical reality, he can take a material(psychedelics) to wake up to a reality greater than the material world. Psychedelics are just medicine for those who get stuck in materialism. Psychedelics offer you a glimpse into a greater reality which sometimes is very hard to be achieved through natural means. Here is a video of Ram Das on this topic:

How come you can't extract the knowledge from psychedelics then? If you can extract experience/knowledge by looking at color red, you should be able to extract knowledge by examining psychedelics. The fact that you are here asking this question, tells you that you can't extract the experience without undergoing the experience. And yet you seem not to understand what is possible on psychedelics. The bottom line is, reason and arguments are circular in nature and they can't give you the Truth. Only direct experience can show you what is True. Nobody can give you that experience but yourself. Psychedelics might be able to give you that experience, but maybe they won't.

Yes, that is one aspect of meditation. You can also let go of thoughts by giving up the payoff that thoughts have on your emotions. For example, If negative thoughts make you feel bad, realize that it was only a thought that made you feel this way and let go of feeling bad. The same would go for positive thoughts. If thoughts have less effect on you, then thoughts have fewer reasons to exist. Eventually, you might stop having thoughts for a few minutes, hours which is the goal of meditation practice.

I read 12 rules before reading Maps of Meaning. 12 Rules for life is more focused towards a broader audience and was fairly enjoyable. In 12 Rules Peterson backs up his philosophy for life with many examples from religious texts, psychological studies, etc. Maps of meaning is a more technical book but it goes into much more depth. In Maps of Meaning, Peterson presents his metaphysical construction of reality heavily inspired by the greatest psychologists in the past centuries. The book gets repetitive and boring at some points but in the end, it's worth it. I will also read his new book. If you feel that his language helps you in your own development, you should read his work.

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. - William Shakespeare It's best if you let go of the thought.

If the other person doesn't believe in pink elephants, how can he see it? We only see that which we believe, and we only believe that which we know how to interpret.

Notion.so They have a desktop version.