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'To be conscious of' is a loose term, I don't know what it would even mean to become conscious of others' experiences. But notice all of the reasoning is grounded in a skill issue "I can't become conscious of this, therefore it is not true" "I cant doubt this x thing, therefore it is absolutely true". Why would I project my own epistemic limitations and confuse them with metaphysics? - Cause so far all I have seen is exactly that.

How do you know that for sure?

"let me help out these non-existent dream characters" I cannot not point out the absurdity again. "After you realize solipsism is an absolute truth, you will hit up the non-existent dream characters to help you out"

This response doesn't make much sense to me. First of all, choosing falsification as a foundation for absolute truth seem to be completely arbitrary. Second of all , If you want to go with 'if something can't be falsified then that thing is absolutely true', then you will have problems with existential propositions and especially with ones that are mutually exclusive. (for example, you can't falsify that others exist) I don't need to think for a decade to realize the obvious dead end that comes from this kind of approach (thats why I wouldn't start with a foundation of falsification or if I would, then I would acknowledge the limitations of it).

That question is even more absurd when people want to validate solipsism. Its incredibly weird seeing forum members here searching for certain "dream characters" to confirm their idea about solipsism being true. "Look, this dream character of mine says that solipsism is truee, yaaaaaaaaay" - Imagine doing this to confirm the exact opposite (about solipsism being false) - one would get immediate pushback for trusting others.

this.

its you not me, who suggested 'if something cant be falsified it might be absolutely true.'

Or you are just mapping out the limitations of your own mind (and only giving you a validation about what you cant falsify without the added flavour of absolute truth). - I categorize these things as a skill issue. Just because you cant doubt or falsify from that doesnt necessarily follow that it is true. This is also about conflating your epistemic limits with metaphysics Go falsify that other people exist. I dare you. See how far you get. or go falsify this 'there are unknown things that exist, that you cant ever know about'

The point of my question was to test his epistemic humility. Just because you cant falsify something doesnt necessarily mean you cant be wrong about it.

@UnbornTao You are misunderstanding what Im trying to say. Im not trying to claim that enlightenment or awakening is impossible (the word impossible is itself a relational term and its only meaningful if it relates to a specific standard and if you change the standard, impossible can become possible). I already said in my previous reply, that I have almost no issue with granting that those things are possible. What I do have issue with, is when we are not honest about our epistemic limitations and we start to rule out things that we can't really rule out by definition. This was about the set of truths that you don't have epistemic access to and never will. - If that set do exist , then you won't ever know about that set, if it doesn't exist then the same applies, you won't ever know about that set. So either way, you cannot ever claim, that that set doesn't exist. So again, lets tie all this back to the claim that "consciousness is all there is". That claim can be interpreted in multiple ways - one can be epistemic (you make a claim about what you know) or it can be metaphysical (what exist). If its the first one, then thats nothing more than you just reporting on your own epistemology. If its the second one, then we are starting to have an issue with you conflating your epistemology with metaphysics, where you are trying to touch on the set (I was mentioning) which you by definition cannot know about and you are conflating with what you know, with what actually exist. Thats exactly what Im trying to build up here. When enlightened Andy number 140 on this forum says "I know everything that exist and I cannot ever be wrong about this statement" - thats sounds exactly like falling into the trap you are mentioning there. They are ruling out the possibility of them being wrong.

Can you be wrong about solipsism?

Carl is gaslighting again . Jokes aside, I think you are better off not interacting with her , because its gonna trigger her and you are going to be perceived as an abuser and your message wont come across anyway (of course this sentence itself could be perceived as a form of gaslighting or abuse)

Thats perfect and incredibly refreshing to hear.

Here is what im willing to give: There is a set of things, that we can have epistemic access to (given some foundational assumptions), and there is probably a way to max out on that set (maybe). Lets grant that there is a way to max out on it. - That sounds like a really fucking cool thing. Now, lets start with an opposite assumption, namely, that there is a set of truths about yourself and about the world that you have 0 epistemic access to and you will never have any epistemic acces to . Now ,the issue comes when we start to make knowledge claims about that set - and thats what I have problem with here (mostly). When someone says "consciousness is all there is" - thats a claim that seem to be touching on that set, and it shouldn't be touching on it. If the sentence would be "Consciousness is all there is, given what I have epistemic access to" - then I would be much more accepting of that statement. So by definition, everyone has to admit, that there is 0 way for you to rule out the possibility or the existence of that set, and because of that, we should only ever make claims about things, that we have epistemic access to and leave alone all the rest. Btw, just to be clear, no hard feelings here, this is just my writing style , sorry

Sure, people can think or assume that they grasp it "directly". How do you know that you grasped it directly? Well, you trust fully your memory about it and also completely trust your ability to self-reflect correctly Btw we don't need to do this, if we would start with "yeah theis set of assumptions are taken for granted out of necessity and we build up from here", I would have 0 issue with it.

It does involve assumptions, just you guys don't want to admit it, because thats much more comfortable than holding everything probabilistically and constantly having an existential crisis

"bro you are just dreaming the unknown" (not begging the question at all, thanks God)

The best move is to chill the fuck down and to not chase after 100% epistemic certainty

There are two ways I can interpret your question: 1) You know exactly what you want to do, you are just not sure whether having a balanced life will get you there faster compared to having an unbalanced life 2) You know exactly what you want to do, you know that if you have an unbalanced life you will achieve that specific goal faster(or even having an unbalanced life is necessary for you in order to reach that goal), but you don't want to sacrifice everything for it and you are unsure about how much you are willing to sacrifice for it. If the first one is the case, thats just gonna be an empirical question and the question of balance is irrelevant there (its more of a question of "does this thing optimize me more towards that goal or not" thats the question, if more balance does that , [whatever balance means there], then you implement it, if not, then you don't implement it). You need to figure out how you can optimize yourself towards that particular goal. You probably shouldn't completely copy others (regarding how they did it), you will need to fit everything to your uniqueness (to your situation, to your skills, to your strength and weaknesses etc). If the second one is the case, thats gonna be a question regarding your values, where you need to self reflect on what kind of life you actually want and what things you are willing to sacrifice and what thing you are not.

Unironically, It seems like I wasn't clear enough by what I meant by "you" given this context: I used it in a way to refer to people in general, who would use that defence regarding what they meant. I will add to it though, that its fine if you (again 'you' used here to refer to people in general) can't give a perfectly nuanced breakdown every time you use a word,however when it comes to certain topics (like spirituality, philosophy ) it would be cool to see more people being more sensitive to how much semantic nuance there is and to even in some case(s) back down from certain debates or conversations up until you develop a sophisticated enough vocabulary, where if pushed on it, you can give a nuanced breakdown of the language you are using (I personally have backed down multiple times in the past, and will do so in the future). This is not just good for clearing up your langauge, this is also very helpful for clearing up your thinking and your understanding of a given concept. It is also a good way to prove that you have actually thought deeply about said concept, because you can use it in a highly context and paradigm sensitive way.

You think thats something I would refuse to admit, but I can easily admit that yeah - I rely on a set of presuppositions that I cant justify and take them for granted out of necessity. The difference is that I don't pretend that I can't be wrong about those presuppositions or that there is no limitations to my epistemology.

Sounds like a good reason to try to be as clear in our understanding and thinking and in our langauge as possible about them. Clarity and consistency. 1) Clarity on what is being meant by each word, - since you use them constantly , you presumably know exactly what you mean by them . 2) Consistency regarding how you use your language When it comes to any expert within a given field, they have their own specific jargon that they use and there is good reason for that. One obvious advantage is that you create a language set that can be used in a very sharp way to differentiate between concepts (which can elevate understanding) and gives you the ability to point to very specific problems and concepts within that field and then the other advantage is that you can debate and converse more easily and more effectively. Each of the buzzwords that I listed earlier, have a lot of semantic nuance to them in that they can be interpreted in multiple ways and multiple definitions can be given to them. Since that is the case, and since you probably have contemplated about these concepts a lot - you probably have gone deep enough that by this point, you should have a lot more nuance in your language regarding those concepts. If you would ask an academic philosopher what they mean by "possible" or "impossible". They can give you a nuanced breakdown of each of those words and they might even be able to give you what their theory of meaning is. If I were to ask you the exact same question, I think you wouldn't be able to produce any clear answer to that question. But you don't use the word "possible" and "impossible" a lot, so you can be given some leeway on that, however there is this weird word "truth" and you use it a lot and its incredibly strange to me that you never talk about the classical theories of truth and how you have never differentiated your theory of truth from the classical ones (if they are different in the firstplace). If that is the case, then when pushed on it, you should be able to produce a very specific answer, if I specify the context or the perspective. Or you yourself should be able to specify in which context or perspective your statement ought to be interpreted Or you should be able to lay down the nuance regarding all the different ways how your statement can be interpreted. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But again, if your statement is so vague, that it can be interpreted in a million different ways even given a specific context, then I would consider that statement meaningless, cause you are not really communicating anything specific at that point. Notice that here you gave a nuanced breakdown regarding how it can be interpreted and then you give a specific answer how it ought to be interpreted. I doubt though that Wittgenstein had a view on language where he would consider contradictions to be meaningful (but I can be wrong on that). To be clear by contradiction I mean (It is the case that X and it is not the case that X) where both X has the exact same meaning and interpreted in the exact same context.

And then after you raised your conciousness you can ask the exact same question "How do you know that your consciousness is high enough so that you can't be mistaken?" Don't you realize that this is a recursive problem, that comes from one of your pressuposition that 'there is no highest level'? Raising your consciousness further won't solve this epistemic problem. The honest answer here would be - given the assumption that there is no highest level - you never know and there is always room for you to be wrong later. I don't know how im getting lost anywhere, when Im just making an internal critique (going inside the bubble of your paradigm and then laying down what kind of epistemic challenges and problems come from given paradigm) Of course it can be, you just take it to be true completely for granted out of necessity, because you cannot not rely on your introspection (but again that is just a skill issue). But regardless, again you just put an = sign between your inability to question and between absolute truth for some random reason,and you build everything on the assumption that "If I can't question X, then X must be absolutely true" This is another thing that most of you either take for granted or justify it in a circular way - How do you know that you have the ability to recognize an Absolute truth? ( a truth that is stance independently true, regardless what anyone thinks of feels about it) Also, how do you know that you can have epistemic access to Absolute truth? No, what Ive noticed is that a lot of people use their own epistemic limitations and project them onto the world and then pretend that the "truths" that their limited epistemology produces is absolutely true. To me, that statement sounds like a coping mechanism to avoid admitting the limitations of a given epistemology. How do you know that your epistemology produces truth? "Well, I use my epistemology to validate my epistemology" Notice that you completely arbitrarily choose a specific kind of circular epistemology that you think is superior to all the others. Do you actually bite the bullet or do you choose arbitrarily an epistemology and then say that it produces truth in a 100% reliable way? Just to not lose track remember, that the point we originally started to argue about was whether your inability to question x means that x is abolutely true . Im trying to argue that you just pressupose that 'not being to question x means x is absolutely true' and Im suggesting that you should admit the given limitations whatever epistemology you choose to go with and you shouldn't pretend that your epistemology is 100% reliable.

I would argue most of the debates and conversations on this forum about enlightenment and about awakening and about philosophy are almost completely meaningless (meaningless in the sense that people are not talking about the same thing and sometimes you could literally replace most of the buzzwords that they use with "blabla" and the debate and the convo would go down the exact same way , thats how vague and meaningless most of the buzzwords are.) Here is a list of the buzzwords that are regularly used on this forum , that most people either use completely differently or even in contradictory ways compared to others or use it in so vague ways that its completely unclear whats being meant by them (and in some of the cases this vagueness is used to avoid criticism, cause you can't give a targeted attack, if the target is unclear) Absolute truth truth relative truth illusion infinity dream Absolute consciousness reality absolute reality ultimate reality awakening enlightenment awake God experience Direct experience becoming conscious of knowing knowledge external world objective subjective If you allow Leo and others to be contradictory and incoherent, then im not sure wtf the point in trying to communicate (other than trying to signal to other forum members how wise, enlightened, awake and how much of a deep thinker you are, by using big buzzwords that are at this point meaningless) . The sentence that you wrote there is as coherent and meaningful as this one : "sjkdngfjdjgkdgh fdgjng rjht".

Speaking of aliens, here is a big data dump https://www.dpiarchive.com/ You register and then you will have access for free to a bunch of declassified documents, witnesses, whistleblowers images, videos (I have no clue which one is legit or whether any of it is legit, im just dropping it here if anyone interested to do research on this)