crab12

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Posts posted by crab12

  1. Posted · Edited by crab12

    In the higher, philosophical sense, I don't know. But in practical everyday life this question is quite important.

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    But what about the self in our everyday language, all our actions and all our decisions during the day - these are under our control?

    Let's take a couple of extreme examples. Alcoholics cannot control themselves, they cannot stop drinking, even if they wanted to after an especially bad hangover. Chronic procrastinators cannot stop procrastinating even if they see how it's ruining their lives.

    If you dig deeper you'll find that you have almost no control of what the mind or the body does. You are very mechanical, literally a machine. It's just that most of the things you do are not causing problems so you don't notice. You think you eat, piss, sleep, play video games because you want to with your free will?

    The only way you can choose the direction (exercise free will) is through awareness. The alcoholic cannot just stop drinking because the mechanism driving the behavior is all in the subconsciousness (aka the ego). Unless he becomes aware how he is triggered into that behavior and how to intervene, he literally can't stop drinking.

  2. Posted

    On 12/3/2019 at 8:13 AM, Leo Gura said:

    The point is, right and wrong are relative notions.

    There is no absolute right and wrong. But in the relative world -- relative to living a decent human life -- you should not kill people, because it will not end well for you. But again, this is all relative.

    Interesting. This means prisons can't be just correctional facilities. There has to be punishment serving as deterrent.

    13 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

    Goodness is an Absolute. But this has almost nothing to do with human morality so I hesitate to even say it in this context due to the likely misunderstanding.

    I thought those were completely unrelated. What's the small connection between absolute goodness and everyday human morality?

  3. Posted · Edited by crab12

    I would love to see result of your work. Too many conscious people retreat from the external world.

    You say your work combines architecture and non-duality. To me at least, those are totally unrelated areas. Can you explain, what the end result is going to be? Or, if you prefer not to share details, do you personally have a clear and realistic understanding what it is you are trying to create? I brought this up because the symptoms you describe feels like it's coming from an opaque vision.

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    I have to contemplate whether this is even what I want to do.

    You might discover that architecture isn't a good medium for this. Or maybe it is. Either way, obviously, this is the question you have to figure out ASAP.

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    Again, I can observe this happening over and over, but I can’t seem to get any control of it in the present.

    This is an empowering thing to notice, that you don't have direct control over your actions, thoughts, emotions. Now you can stop fighting with yourself fruitlessly and do what actually gives you choice in life - by bringing awareness to your problematic beliefs and assumptions.

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    I have realized how dependent I am on approval and encouragement from others

    You already know that you are not your identity, and the identity doesn't even represent you, and it's irrelevant whether it gets tarnished or praised. Maybe you think you need to be liked? Need to be popular? Need to be a good person? Need to be respected in your field? You believe your authentic self is not lovable and you have to put on a facade? Need to act in a "high conscious" or an "enlightened" way? Need to fulfill someones expectations? There's something there causing it outside your awareness, what is it?

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    I know this is really just the ego talking, but “I” don’t seem to have much else right now.

    What is ego? It's the area of your mind that is outside the flickering light of consciousness. As far as I'm aware, it is "you" talking, just the part that's in the darkness, in unawareness.

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    This quite often becomes so bad that I will spend, literally hours, worrying about what I should devote my time to, hardly doing any actual work.

    If you had a crystal clear vision and a realistic, thought-out strategic plan how to actualize it, would there be anything else stopping you from just doing it?

  7. Posted

    On 11/7/2019 at 5:59 PM, mikelyons said:

    What I would like, is some sort of framework for deciding if I actually want to have kids or not, so that I can make a solid decision and be confident in it.

    lol, you are guaranteed to make the wrong decision this way. Reminds me of Dexter (season 4?) where they made a list of pros and cons whether to have a kid or not. They came up with a long list of negatives and couldn't find a single positive. Then they decided to have a kid anyway, because that's what they wanted. Climate change and having children is "selfish" and "ebul nadzi" or money or time are bullshit reasons. Have them if you want to, don't, if not.

  8. Posted · Edited by crab12

    @Keyhole Quite eye opening that those NDE's align with what Leo, and all others are teaching. Also 10/10 music selection.

    8 hours ago, Leeeon said:

    Do you know what happens after death?

    No.

    So why are you afraid?

    The afterlife could be horrible or it could be the best thing ever, you don't know!

    You're right, I don't know. I assume it's like going under full anesthesia and never waking up, but even that's an assumption.

    edit: That's a good thing to point out actually. I though I knew what death is like, but really I'm just assuming.

    6 hours ago, Nahm said:

    “Not ego death”

    Consider that maybe the inquiry of death, and utilization of ‘direct experience’ to differentiate, is built on the assumption you were born. Scrutinize that enough, and the realization there’s no death occurs.

    Now that I think about it, the thing that's scary about death is that I can't do the things I do anymore, and well, be me. The loss of identity or the loss of "me" or ego death is the scary part about my physical death. I guess that explains why so few people are able to permanently let go of their ego because it literally feels like death.

    edit: yes, that does assume I was born. Oh man, I didn't even realize I was making so many assumption. Haha.

  9. Posted

    I want to get comfortable with death or the end of life or whatever is when there is no life. I've been putting off thinking about it, probably because I'm afraid of it. Share your insights, book / video recommendations, thoughts, experiences regarding physical death (not ego death, as direct experience doesn't stop after ego death, that's how I'm distinguishing the two). I'm interested in whatever you have to say, especially the line of thinking that physical death is a self-deception (how? why?).

    I'll share my own thoughts so far.

    - What is death? The usual explanations include "I stop existing" or "the body stops working". But that's not totally honest. A more accurate way to put it is "experience stops".

    - Thankfully I have the memory of going under full anesthesia. They put on the mask, the eyes close, and the next thing I notice is waking up in the recovery room a day later. There is no recollection of time passing. No experience or awareness. That's what death is like, only there is no waking up, there is no "next thing I notice".

    - Death isn't "bad" or "good" either. Those are just judgements the ego came up. It just is what it is.

    - The popular thing to do is to try to not feel the fear of death. But that's silly. Of course the body is going to produce the emotion of fear as it wants to stay alive. A person who succumbs to fear of death tries to postpone the ending of experience as much as possible by whatever cost.

    - If you bungee jump for the first time, you will feel an intense fear of heights. But you don't have to succumb to the fear, you can still move your legs and stumble off the ledge. The same with fear of death, it's pointless to try to make the emotion go away, as you can't make the fear of heights go away while standing on the ledge, but you can move your legs.

    - Say you get diagnosed with cancer and you have 6-12 months to live without treatment. Your body is still relatively intact with only mild fatigue for now. What are you going to do? You can accept the treatment from the doctors and they'll postpone death for at least another year and the doctor tells you there's even a small chance that you'll be cured. You'll spend all of your remaining time confined to hospital beds, you'll spend all your savings on treatments. They'll do chemo and operate on you. You'll be in excruciating pain confined to your hospital bed hooked on various tubes, but at the same time too medicated to do consciousness work or anything else. If you let fear guide you, you'll take this option. And the small chance of being cured is what you are clinging to, like a desperate gambler playing the lottery.

    - The question of death is the question of life. Really the thing to be afraid of is never having lived. Are you going to let the fear of death prevent you from doing what you want in life?

    - I cannot think of death as only the ending of experience, as I have artificially attached additional meanings to it.

  10. Posted

    I'm interested in this question as well. I got a few glimpses of enlightenment, and stopped pursuing it ever since. Because of what being totally without ego actually entails. Because I cannot see how I could make it work without going full monk mode total retreat from society. Forgetfulness and ego backlashes are powerful and it requires constant attention to maintain the state. And I wanna live my life, I'm gonna be dead pretty soon anyway and then I'll have all the time in the world to be enlightened. Hoping someone can shed some light here.

  11. Posted · Edited by crab12

    @dyslexicFcuk

    13 hours ago, crab12 said:

    @dyslexicFcuk I can easily poke holes into your reasoning

    I agree, that does come off as arrogant. My intent wasn't to be condescending, but the words slipped in. I apologize for that.

    Obviously you put a lot of effort into your OP with multiple lines of reasoning. I only wanted to address that one flaw, not the entire post.

    edit: the thing with trying to use rational arguments to prove non-duality (dualistic monism) is that I can always bring a pretty strong counter-argument. For the classical double slit experiment which you brought as proof, I can explain it away with quantum field theory, which is strongly substantiated. Next you bring up delayed-choice-quantum-eraser and I say "many worlds interpretation!" which is still a deterministic model. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can always at least cast a shadow of a doubt to your arguments. I guess it does sound woo-woo to outsiders but the only strong evidence you are ever going to find is by looking within your own mind.

  12. Posted

    @dyslexicFcuk I can easily poke holes into your reasoning, since you brought up physics and the double slit experiment. According to latest physics, electron is a wave, not a particle. Particle-wave dualism is an incorrect way of thinking about electrons. It's a tiny and concentrated wave that seems like a particle if you look from far. So if the slits are close enough and small enough the electron literally travels through both slits at the same time and interferes with itself and creates the interference pattern. The bulk of the electron travels through one slit, but some of the wave propagates through the other slit. And you can't detect an electron with a camera, you have to put up some kind of detection screen which the electron has to pass through. And this is enough to stop the miniscule wave propagation that would have created the interference pattern.

    There is no evidence for non-duality to be found in the external world. In fact, everything in the external world implies that reality is dualistic. Only if you go inwards, you can find that reality is non-dual, despite the external world that seems dualistic, at first glance at least. You will eventually reach this conclusion, because fundamentally that's how the mind is constructed. This is the only conclusion you can reach if you are absolutely honest with yourself.

  13. Posted · Edited by crab12

    I agree with what has been said so far, you need to take  action and you need to face the emotional labor, not escape from it.

    8 hours ago, Shroomdoctor said:

    Yeah I am basically a master procrastinator. I even procrastinate through learning more theory, as if that would change anything,

    I suggest dealing with procrastination the same way alcoholics stay sober. I use this method in my everyday life, and it works. There were periods in my life, where I would take a pause from studying or whatever and then get into a cycle of procrastination, completely stop doing anything useful for months. I just played video games, watched porn, etc, to escape from reality while my life was falling apart. Finally unbearable anxiety and guilt would snap me out of it, but only to fall back into the cycle a few weeks later.

    Anyway, the first step for an alcoholic is to admit to himself that he is an alcoholic and that he has no control over alcohol. Just as you are a procrastinator and an escapist and you have no control over procrastination and it's destroying your life. A recovering alcoholic cannot drink ever again, a single drink is enough to suck him back into a cycle of binge drinking, even after years of sobriety. You cannot procrastinate ever again for the remainder of your life, as the smallest avoidance can suck you into a cycle of full blown escapism which can waste away years from your life.

    Living without alcohol seems overwhelming to an alcoholic, but he manages it by focusing one day at a time. He just needs to get through today without a drink and go to bed sober. Soon days become weeks, weeks become months, and months become years. You need to get through just this one day without procrastinating.

    Now find the situations that trigger procrastination for you. For me, this is not getting out of bed in the morning immediately after the alarm goes off. And not going to bed on time at night. In mornings, if I go to the bed again for a quick little nap, then I'll use that to justify further procrastination and waste the entire day. I cannot trust myself with things like this, and once I start avoiding things I might not be able to stop myself, it has happened to me countless times. I have to get out of the bed and start my day instantly. I have a few other rules. Since I have a home office, during my work hours I will not check my facebook, youtube, email, come to this forum, or anything else unrelated to my business, no matter what. As long as I follow my rules, I can get through the day without procrastinating on a single thing.

    Just imagine how awesome your life would be right now if you never procrastinated, you'd always do the difficult things that you actually wanted to do and the things that needed to be done in order to get what you wanted. What are the situations that trigger procrastination for you? What rules do you need to stay clear of them?

    Try telling yourself every morning "Hi, I'm Shroomdoctor, and I'm a procrastinator and escapist. I have no control over procrastination, and procrastination has done serious damage to my life. I have it in me to waste my entire remaining life away, never achieving my full potential in life."

    edit: why do alcoholics call themselves themselves harshly "alcoholics"? Because if they think they have permanently defeated alcoholism then they are free to drink again like a normal social drinker do. And then they relapse. This has happened to them multiple times. And now they recognize that they are alcoholics for the rest of their lives. Even after years of sobriety they are still alcoholics. And you are a procrastinator for life too.

    Last thing, If you manage to start your day by the rules, then be mindful of yourself the whole day. If you notice that you are avoiding doing something, then start counting in your head 5-4-3-2-1 and then when you reach "1" move yourself and go do the thing you are avoiding.

  14. Posted · Edited by crab12

    On 10/24/2019 at 5:51 AM, crimson_chess said:

    habits of productivity, getting up early, NoFap, life purpose, reading, eliminating videogames, journaling and recently exercise.

    All of these activities can be useful. But... why are you doing them?

    On 10/24/2019 at 5:51 AM, crimson_chess said:

    I felt I needed to do, but I did them anyway, and I grinded through them, because that's what I thought would make me happy.

    Seems you already know that doing things to make yourself happy isn't a good enough reason to do stuff . So, why are you doing these things then? What are you trying to achieve?

  15. Posted

    On 10/20/2019 at 4:37 PM, Arthur said:

    When markets are down the Fed stimulate the economy by lowering interest rates. They will give you an easy loan because that will result in more spending, growth, jobs etc.

    They started cutting the rates in the U.S and the recession hasn't even started yet (it's 2% right now down from 2.5%). And in the EU the rates are already negative. There's not much room to go lower. They probably wouldn't dare -5%. The U.S has never had negative rates. I wouldn't bet on an easy loan as I see no way how central banks could significantly stimulate loan taking via rates cut. Personally, I don't anticipate another 2008 style crash.

  17. Posted

    I wanted to point out one more thing. There's an important distinction between conflicting values and when someone is trespassing on your boundaries. If someone is trespassing on your boundaries then the right thing is to confront the person about this, in a non-aggressive way. You cannot let these things slide. If you let others walk all over you, then this will destroy the relationship just as fast as you trying to push your values onto your partner.

    Say you're the landowner in your example. Then it is imperative that you let the person know that him driving his bike there is unacceptable and you want him to stop.

  18. Posted

    What @Nahm said basically.

    For conflicting values, confrontation doesn't work. Think about it from his perspective. He loves riding his bike on these roads and now he is supposed to stop because his girlfriend tells him to. Maybe he will even listen to you, but he'll feel resentment towards you. He had to sacrifice something he loves because he's girlfriend is nagging him about it. Things like this always ruin the relationship in the long run.

    For conflicting values, the best thing to do is to just accept him and his values, even though they conflict yours. He is his own person and you need to respect that.

    Changing someones values is difficult, it might not work at all and backfire and damage the relationship. Are you sure you want to do this? If you do then the approach you have to take is the following. Explain to him about the endangered species and the environment you care about. Give him the honest reasons why what he is doing is damaging. Give him information and then let him make up his own mind. The moment you try to force your values on him, he will instantly feel resentment towards you as no ones likes being told what to do and what to think.

  20. Posted

    On 10/17/2019 at 4:09 PM, Giulio Bevilacqua said:

    Why should i trust my feelings and emotions in situations like making decisions ?  I really doubt evry thought and emotion. Why should a "bad" feeling be wrong and a "good" feeling be right ?

    Where did you get this silly notion that "bad" feelings are wrong and "good" ones are right? A recent example from my own life. I work towards something I want from morning till midnight. Everything should be alright yet I get this nagging anxiety that I ignore for 2 days. It doesn't go away. Then I say, alright, I'm listening, what are you trying to tell me? And it's obvious. I'm avoiding a problem that I should be facing right now by distracting myself with work. Even though this work is meaningful to me, I use it to distract myself. And I'm getting lonely working away for weeks with no meaningful contact with others. Hadn't I listened to my nagging anxiety I would have kept on working and avoiding this problem for god knows how long. Thankfully a negative emotion pointed my attention to it which I was unable to see with my rational thinking mind.

    On 10/17/2019 at 4:09 PM, Giulio Bevilacqua said:

    I really can not trust them fully. I always wait for that perfect feeling before taking an action, and often it really doest not express it self and so it takes a lot of time  before i decide something.

    The problem is that you believe that you need "that perfect feeling before taking an action". You don't. Just go do what you want regardless how you feel. Waiting for the "right" feeling is something procrastinators do to avoid doing what they actually need to be doing.

  22. Posted · Edited by crab12

    The harsh truth is: we don't know. Quantum physicists have come up with those 2 (or 3 if you count multiverse as seperate) explanations. But in the end, reality is what it is. It just is. That satisfies me, but you can seek further is you want to. But what answer could possibly satisfy you? Even if the scientists tell us that, yup we have now 100%, beyond the shadow of a doubt, confirmed how reality actually works, it is still going to be only a collection of thoughts in our mind trying to rationalize our perception / reality.

  23. Posted · Edited by crab12

    2 hours ago, Paulus Amadeus said:

    if everything is deterministic according to Bohm, then why do all the experiments point to probabilistic wavefunctions?

    Can you bring some examples where Bohm's model doesn't hold up? I would be interested in that.

    edit: I googled a bit. Bohm's pilot wave holds up to the classical double slit experiment, even when a single photon or electron is fired at a time. Pilot wave does struggle with quantum entanglement and delayed choice quantum eraser experiment but it still doesn't rule out a deterministic model.

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    I’m trying to understand what the quantum mechanics model means in light of there not really being a perceiver

    Wave function tells us that if there is no observer then it is a wave of probability. The wave contains all possibilities. And when the observer looks it chooses one randomly (based on % of probability). And according to other models parallel universes area created during the moment of collapse - one for each possible choice. You have probably heard of the Schrödinger's cat meme. If you interpret the model literally then while nobody looks into the box then the cat must be both alive and dead because the probability wave contains all possibilities while not collapsed. This thought experiment was made up to demonstrate how silly classical interpretation of quantum mechanics is. But maybe that's how reality actually is, who knows.

    Bohm's model tells us that the wave / particle already has a set path whether there is an observer or not. It doesn't choose anything the moment the observer looks. The problem is quantum world is so small we can't look at it directly. Say you flip a coin and hide it under your palm. Do you think the coin is both heads and tails at the same time and when you take a peek the coin chooses one randomly? Maybe this is exactly what that pesky coin does, the bugger! Or maybe the universe splits into 2 the moment you peek, so there's one of you who saw heads and another who saw tails. Or maybe it just lands on one side but you just can't see it because it is under your palm and you are just imagining it to yourself that the coin is a wave of probability until you take a look or that the universe splits the moment you look. Imagine that! Crazy, right? Anyway this is a giant mental masturbation arguing which model is the correct one. Both explanations of reality can be viewed as correct.

    You don't have to go as far as quantum mechanics. Why does e=0.5*m(v*v) describe how a car or a bowling ball behaves in normal everyday situation? There are no cars or bowling balls or speed or mass, it's all just perception that we arbitrarily categorize in these terms.

  24. Posted

    The collapse of the wave function is just a convenient mathematical model that physicists use in calculations. You are interpreting a mathematical model in a literal way and coming up with these assumptions. There's also Bohm's interpretation of quantum mechanics which is deterministic. No "infinite possibility" or anything. And it gives the correct answers too in many cases. But it is inconvenient to use in calculations so physicists prefer to use the wave function. Which mathematical model describes reality more accurately? Nobody knows. But do you really want to base your philosophy on the literal interpretation of what some clever mathematician came up with on paper?

  25. Posted · Edited by crab12

    On 10/9/2019 at 6:56 AM, 7thLetter said:

    wait for a recession or market downturn, then potentially get a loan

    Not that easy. During a downturn is the most difficult time to get a loan because everyone is short of cash. Everyone wants a loan during the crash. Banks will be getting massive amounts of defaults and are very wary of giving out new loans. If you think you can time the market crash then you should be taking out a loan before the crash. The central banks could easily postpone the downturn by another 5 - 10 years with additional QE. Who knows? And by the looks of it so far they will postpone it at the cost of high inflation. Realistically, you won't be able to time the market downturn. And you wont be able to time the bottom. You might buy, then everything drops another 50% in value, you panic sell, then it starts rallying and you just lost half of your equity. Then you panic buy, it starts dropping again, you panic sell again. Then it does a double bottom and rallies for real and without you. And now you have lost 80% of your initial equity. Shit like this sometimes happens to even veteran investors. Do you have at least 5 years of experience operating in the markets?

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    live frugally to save up and build capital

    You will never save up enough capital for starting a business with a 9-5 job. You need to raise cash from venture capitalists / private investors / take out loans for your company / start-up. Assuming you are not a millionaire already.

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    learn some investing/business skills

    If you are an amazing investor (that is the timeframe of your trades is at least a year) you might pull 20% per year (before taxes and inflation). But that takes YEARS of experience and a good education to be able to pull 20% per year consistently. Whatever you can save away with a 9-5 job is probably not going to be enough to live off your investment portfolio.

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    start up my own business

    Start NOW. You are not going to get financed during a market crash / recession and there is less demand for whatever you are selling. Whats the product? Who's the target demographic? How is it going to work? What's your exit? Etc. You can start prototyping and testing out potential ideas immediately.