zurew

Something just causing seems wrong ,but the "just will yourself" also seems wrong to me. The "no gurantee" resonates with me, thats why I would probably use phrases like participation or voluntary necessity (ie being a seeker , like you need to want it, but its not sufficient to just want it) rather than just "will yourself there" or "something caused you to get enlightened completely outside your efforts and will" ). But regardless, the way to do this in a more rigorous way is to take a sample of enlightened people that we agree on for the sake of the argument and then collect variables and then run studies on them. The obvious issue is that the sample size will be small and even there we wont agree on all the people and the number of hypotheses that can be created is also incredibly large and there is no way to check who got enlightened.

I think its useful to make that distinction to avoid some language games, but its nowhere near sufficient to have an answer. If we dont make that dinstinction, then I dont know frankly what we are doing here - because all of us are already enlightened then. But the question is - Is it random, can certain things have an effect on it, and or can certain things actually cause it?

I also think that a good chunk of the confusion comes from not being clear about certain things. So for example, there is a difference between what Reality's nature is and between the realization of that nature. Realization/recognition is time related, nature isn't and both of these can be true at the same time. It can be true that reality's nature has always been the case(in an eternal - non time dependent way,) but it can also be true that the recognition of said nature is time related.

Im arguing about this exact thing with @UnbornTao and im still confused on his view. The honest answer is that I have no clue, but my assumption is that things can have an effect on it, but they dont cause it. The entailment of nothing having any effect on it seem to lead us to conclusions that I dont think any zen/neo-advaita duder would wanna bite. Cause then they give me a good reason to not let them to just freely hit me with the zen stick - let me conceptualize as much as I want, since conceptualizing has as much chance leading me there as anything else.

He actually takes the view that nothing has an effect on enlightenment, not just that nothing can cause it ,so under that view - he could literally video himself throwing spaghetti loops at the wall and have as much expectation of anyone getting enlightened as if he would do 10 enlightenment workshops.

Just use the zen stick and beat people into enlightenment.

Btw, if anyone is interested - it seems that there are some videos uploaded on Ralston's Vimeo channel that arent uploaded on his youtube. https://vimeo.com/peterralsto

My dude is destroying Ralston's business by leaking paywalled videos just to win an internet argument against Leo. When Ralston told you to empty your cup, he didnt meant to empty his wallet

What does that mean in practice? Do you pray and go into a meditative state and listen for answers and guidance?

What if the Holy Spirit is guiding you to success though (by making for example certain goals more salient and more desiring for you)? The response you gave only make sense when you talk about ultimate guiding principles, because under your Christian view - you should let the Holy Spirit to be the ultimate guide / organizing principle for you, but there is no contradiciton with it guiding you to success. The Holy Spirit is telling you to grasp Ralston's cup.

And for clarity - logical impossibility is not the same as your inability to doubt things. Your doubting ability can be limited by a bunch of things, but that doesnt mean that what you cant doubt must be true. Thats an implicit unjustified premise. Something can be logically possible and you can be inable to doubt that thing; and on the other hand, something can be logically impossible and you can concieve of that thing being true.

I agree that we dont need to think this way, thats why I said from the beggining to OP that "you dont need this level of certainty". The only reason why I brought this up because Leo appealed to this level of certainty and now Im holding him to it.

See that I agree with, and I agree that we should care about rationality as an epistemic norm, but rationality and reasonableness is a much more narrower set than logical possibility. I would have 0 issue with you saying something like "you are being irrational/unreasonable when you deny the validity of and or possibility of awakening", I have issue with you implying that awakening being false is logically impossible/it is a logical necessity that awakening is true.

Nope, none of that has to do with what Im saying. The framework doesnt pressupose/reliant on any specific metaphysics. You interpret the term "world" as something physical, but again thats not what it means there. The term 'world' just means a set of true/false statements where there isn't any contradiction.

And the fact is that in the vast majority of cases (when we take a particular claim to be true) - there arent just a 1000 possible compatible worlds - there are much more than trillions of possible worlds that it is compatible with. Often the number of possible worlds a claim is compatible with cant even be cognized, because the number it too big.

This is not about winning arguments, its about holding you to the level of epistemic standards that you put yourself in. My claim that you quoted and immediately dismissed without thinking about it , is just that awakening is not a logical necessity, hence there is at least one possible world where h. Possible world semantics is just a rigorous and powerful frame that you can use to think about all the different ways how the world is and could have been . A possible world is a set of true and false statements where the set doesnt contain a contradiciton. So for instance: its a logically possible world , where this forum doesnt exist; its a logically possible world where Earth doesnt exist ; its a logically possible world where there isn't any life in the Universe; Its logically possible that everyone has a 10km long penis ; its a logically possible world where Christianity is true ; its a logically possible world, where every fact up until this moment is the exact same but in the next second 10 trillion dollars is manifested on your table randomly out of thin air etcetc. In other words, if you cant spell out or derive a contradiciton from a particular claim (that you take to be true), then that means that that particular claim is true in at least one possible world and if you ask yourself the question "which world am I in", then often times you face the underdetermination issue - which is the fact, that from all possible configurations (where that paritcular claim is true) you dont know which possible world you are actually in. So - If that particular claim (that you think is true) is true in a 1000 logically possible worlds, then how do you know which particular configuration you are actually in? You appealing to the claim being true doesnt help you at all with teasing apart which one you are in, because it is true in all of those worlds. Now apply this to awakening and reconstruct the Universe and all your truth tracking and 'realness' senses, and all the sense data and all the qualia that you experienced through your awakening and ask yourself "why couldn't I go through the exact same thing , while having the exact same level of conviciton in a possible world where metaphysics is at least slightly different"?

No clue, since I dont know what that is, but the point is just that its unclear to me how many states those methods are limited to. A good chunk of the methods are probably limited to states where you still have thoughts, other methods are limited to states where you are still capable of self-reflection.

Why would that be the case? Some of the skills Ralston teaches seem to be applicable in many different kind of states and it isn't exclusive to sober state.

Perfect.

OP - you dont need that level of certainty. Recognize the base assumptions and axioms that you necessarily presuppose and go on from there. You folded under no pressure my dude.

No, awakening doesnt give you that kind of certainty. You are unironically still lost in a cartesian framework, where you search for logical certainty and cant stomach some level of uncertainty. 1) Awakening is compatible with multiple different kind of metaphysical frameworks. 2) You have 0 non-question-begging response to the issue "How does God know, that he isn't self-deceived". 3) Whats the contradiciton in saying that you are just dreaming God and God-realization? 4) Your whole shit is based on your 'real'-ness tracking faculties, why should anyone think that those are actually tracking anything and how would you know if they arent tracking anything? 5) Even when you make your comparative judgements about levels of consciousness you are already pressuposing a bunch of things that you necessarily take for granted - for example that your comparative judgement is actually tracking something and that your are capable of making accurate comparative judgements.

Jeff Nippard should come here

Even if you manage to grasp what a cup is, that doesnt mean that you managed to grasp THE cup in Ralston's hand.

Leo you are still struggling to grasp what a cup is, this is why you are jealous of Ralston - the enlightened cup-grasping chad.