axiom

I'm not imagining this distinction. I'm making the point that this process / this reality cannot be controlled, and is not controlled by any "one" nor any "thing". If you like, I can explain in detail how every unique word in your sentence above involves some tacit imaginary distinction of disparate ideas... which are in actuality all exactly the same idea, such that one word - or even no words at all - would suffice. But it would take me a lot of words to do so

If you want people to think you're intelligent without actually being intelligent, just memorise a bunch of stuff. And sacrifice all of your other interests for some extremely highly-respected field, such as law, physics or geopolitics. Then make it a priority to communicate simple ideas in oblique, impenetrably esoteric ways which leave people nodding in perplexed awe. Some extremely right-brain orientated people struggle a lot putting things into words. But the insights they've gained in life could be magnitudes greater than those of ordinary people, and especially greater than those who have lived predominantly in the left hemisphere their whole lives. And so this is the limitation of IQ. Spending hours contemplating and deconstructing reality (also psychedelics, meditation) is the secret to true intelligence. But it doesn't mean you'll suddenly be able to sound clever, nor able to communicate your most profound insights to other people in ways that they'll understand.

Yes. Yes, consciousness provides infinite feedback unto itself. Not sure what you mean by an "error" though. It's not a paradox because they aren't both true. "Free will" is the biggest illusion going. There are thoughts which arise and pass away just as the tide ebbs and flows, and there is the sense that these thoughts are somehow "yours". But notice that you cannot - and never could - predict the thoughts you end up having. They just appear all on their own. You can prove this to yourself by watching your thoughts now for a couple of minutes. Notice that you have no idea which thought you're going to have until it appears. In a nutshell, you are dead. There is no-one here at all in the apparent universe. There are just apparent bodies and things and actions happening. You are consigned to watching. You cannot affect the unfolding of the universe in any way.

Notice that you had no control over this thought appearing.

It is possible to believe you are manipulating the dream, but it is not possible to actually manipulate the dream. It is possible to have an experience of developing magical powers. But even in this case, you will not be responsible for the experience. It either happens or it does not happen. You cannot decide what your thoughts will be in advance of having them. The thing you think of as "you" is not actually capable of doing anything. It has never done anything because it doesn't actually exist. Thoughts happen, and the appearance of the external world happens. They happen all on their own without any input whatsoever from a "you". Thoughts may provide some intrinsic illusion that they are involved in some process of control. But they aren't. Thoughts are nothing more than an occurrence in an immutable chain of events. You have always been dead, you just don't know it yet.

Do I decide in advance which thoughts I'm going to think? This question alone is enough.

Not a popular opinion here, but I agree with this.

Beautiful. Yes, everything is made of your consciousness. You're imagining it all. I think that 3D reality is what appears when the pure white light of infinite love shines through a prism and gets broken up into its constituent colours.

@hello1234 I know someone in Ukraine who fights with the Azov Battalion. He doesn't recognise it as a far right movement. His mother wishes he would come to his senses. When Andriy Parubiy was made chairman of the Verkhovna Rada in 2016, those looking on from other European nations were shocked. Most Americans would laugh at the idea that Obama/Biden administration bombed hospitals. And yet in 2015, 42 people died and over 30 were injured when an AC-130U gunship blasted the Kunduz trauma centre in Afghanistan. The average American would also be oblivious to the US-funding of the Saudi Coalition still bombing the hell out of Yemen. Yet 377,000 people have been killed there so far, 70% of whom were children. Anti-semitism is a major problem in the UK. Most people here would laugh at that suggestion, too. But there is now too much evidence to ignore it. People and moreover nations cannot smell themselves. Things become normalised. Outside perspective is essential. This applies to all nations, including Ukraine. Yes, Neo Nazism in Ukraine is overstated by Putin. It does not justify this invasion in any case. In spite of one's best intentions, propaganda is impossible to avoid entirely. This is all the more the case in today's world where so much of the media has been co-opted by competing national and international interests.

I've witnessed someone on iboga having seizures and experiencing agonising mental trauma approx once per minute for 36 hours straight. It very, very nearly killed them. It's quite a dangerous medicine, and has to be used extremely carefully.

@no_nameI'm not sure whether the issue is restricted to progressive millennials. After all, Chomsky and several of his peers suffer(ed) the same bias. Whilst it is clear that Russian aggression in Europe is no fraud, it cannot be disputed that there has been, and there remains, a Nazi and latterly Neo-Nazi problem in Ukraine with roots stemming back to the OUN movement of the late 1920s. Today, ultranationalist politicians occupy positions at the highest levels of government. This is immediately verifiable for oneself and is not propaganda. Rather, Western propaganda now seeks to downplay this reality having previously taken it very seriously for many years. In addition, NATO has never intended to admit Ukraine as a member nation, yet it has stoked the fires of dissent leading up to the Western-backed coup in 2014 and in the aftermath. Regardless of what the Ukrainian people want, joining NATO has never been a realistic goal. It has just been an exercise in chest-beating - a needless provocation with predictable results. The lesson here is that Western propaganda is just as bad as Russian propaganda. Russia's actions cannot be excused, but they can be understood.

Seems like most of you are under the impression you have a choice. The truth is, you have no choice as to whether you awaken or not.

Someone has described Beethoven's Third Symphony to you in great detail, and now you think you don't need to hear it for yourself. You think the description - or the idea - is the same as the reality. This is a misapprehension.

Noone is going to read that wall of text!

Only you can verify that insight. Honestly, trying to grasp something this deep with words alone is like trying to pin jelly to a wall. You've probably got about as far as you can with words. Maybe it's time for more practical methods. To those who claim to have awakened just by thinking about it... not possible. A description of a piece of music is not the music itself. If you had never heard music in your life, you could still deceive yourself that you understood music. But you would not have awoken to the reality of music. Your understanding of it would be academic, pale and lifeless. So it is with awakening. It must be lived. It cannot simply be deduced.

@justfortoday.You have done a much better job than anyone else at explaining it in a coherent way. @machiavelli Multiple POVs can exist. But if there are multiple POVs happening, then all of them are you. To make this easier to understand, as a limited human you must first imagine that time is real. Actually you already believe that time is real, so this should be pretty easy: 1. You live your life with your POV. 2. You die. 3. You live another live with a new POV. 4. The "magic trick" here is that time isn't real. 5. Since time isn't real, you can do all of the above steps at once, in the same timeline. ... and then, not for the faint-hearted: 6. Since time isn't real, none of this can take place at all. 7. Nothing is happening. 8. Nothing has ever happened.

Yes. Anyone who discards this possibility so readily is just wearing their ideology on their sleeve. Election interference by foreign and domestic actors is absolutely commonplace. Can it be proven? Perhaps not. Will it be admitted to? Well... CIA / MI6 interference in Iran's 1953 coup against Mossadegh was finally admitted to in 2013. Personally I reckon that interference in the 2020 elections will be admitted to in 50+ years, assuming documents detailing the plans aren't unearthed sooner.

Interesting, thanks. Whilst it's true that Putin was saddened by the demise of the SU, and was bitterly disappointed in Yeltsin's failed first Chechen war effort - which is what led him to conduct a false flag operation (the apartment bombings) as justification to go back a second time in 1999... I personally think it's still much more about Eastwards expansion of NATO. Numerous warnings about NATO expanding eastwards have been given now for decades, and these come from Western leaders, from Eastern European diplomats, and from Putin himself. As the National Security Archive at Washington University shows, during the reunification of Germany, explicit assurances were given to Russia that Nato would not expand "one inch eastward". This promise was broken - and repeatedly so - culminating in a US-orchestrated coup in Ukraine in 2014 and the installation of a puppet administration loyal to US interests. Putin's eventual response has been all too preventable, and all too predictable. Putin is untrustworthy and cruel, and is more than capable of pushing his response well beyond the realms of reasonable - but the West has been poking this hornet's nest repeatedly. It should not come as a surprise to anyone.

Your question is easier to address if you first imagine that time exists. So, when the idea known as 'machiavelli' is no longer focused upon, your attention moves on to something else, another idea, another being. It's easy to grasp this if you think sequentially. Now, remove time from the equation. Time is imaginary, so things don't actually happen sequentially. They happen simultaneously. Next, remove space. Space is also imaginary. Things don't happen in different locations. Everything that is happening is happening right now in one flash of existence. You are that flash of existence.

Why do you think Putin invaded Ukraine?

1. God just happens, like everything else. There is no "control" as such. 2. 'machiavelli' is is an imagined collection of atoms resembling a human form. 3. You're examining machiavelli and looking through machiavelli, but you are not (only) machiavelli. Read my last comment in this thread where I posted the Mandelbrot fractal. If you contemplate that deeply enough you'll get it

Does any part of this Mandelbrot Zoom affect any other part? No. They're all just happening. Endlessly unfolding. No individual part has its own agency. If it did, then it would break the pattern and there would be chaos. But the pattern is already the perfect design. Each apparently separate thing is part of a perfect design. It cannot control anything from its point within the design. God is exploring its own design for eternity.

This is correct. It’s not a replay though. An unfolding; Yet crystallized and complete. Without history, without future, without volition. Not old at all, yet unspeakably ancient. Just happening. You happening. God happening. And never happening at all.

It’s just hubris. No one here really has any clue at all.

Probably the 2014 Maidan Revolution was a coup to depose pro-Russia Yanukovych, part-orchestrated by the CIA and British Intelligence. The West planted the seed of dissent and continues to fund, train and provide weaponry to Neo-Nazi militias in the country. It reminds me of the 1953 CIA / MI6 coup against Mossadegh in Iran (only admitted to in 2013)