MutedMiles

I went through the list you shared and i scored 26/30. Not sure how objective this is but most of what you wrote, made intuitive sense to me. I avoid news and media mostly, rarely watch movies. And my need for alone time has increased alot, so much so that i had to quit job and stay disconnected for few months to feel normal again. I designed my life in such a way that except couple of very close people no one contacts me. That's the only way i can survive for now. What helps me most is the physical activity, running and exercising, though i feel drained mentally but when i start working out, some how i find energy and it rejuvenates me. Had to create a small home gym to complement my alone time. Regarding data overload, what helps me these days is to avoid screens after 6 PM. I gradually trained myself to do slow contemplative reading in last few months, read alot of Ralston, Rupert and Francis Lucille, Nisargadatta, J. Krishnamurti and others. And i like to read printed books even kindle doesn't cut it for me, just engaging with these books slowly, sometimes even keep reading the same passages again and again helped.. I'm also looking forward to read what suggestions others have.

Any path that leads to peace is good. If I could understand Arabic i would read the actual works of Khalil Gibran, Also for most people it makes sense to stay close to your source, language and culture has an intricate way of seeping into one's DNA and foreign ideologies remain Alien to a certain extent no matter how deeply you incorporate them. It looks like a show or an act for some reason. The truth is in you, just use the tools that are closest to you, don't go too far.

I have been using AI extensively in my work, had very high expectations around 2022-2023, but gradually viewing the progress and seeing the issues first hand I'm not so optimistic now, progress will come but at a longer time scale, Maybe around 5-10 years at minimum we'll see some real progress different from current hype based paradigm. There will be many shinny, catchy and fascinating things along the way. To keep users engaged and hooked till the real value is delivered. Currently real value is being delivered in media and software development primarily. And AI takeover of jobs is not in the order of less creativity first, it's the creative jobs that are more exposed , Least creative manual jobs are less exposed. Movie industry, writing and programming (supposed to be an art ) etc. are exposed.

Let's be realistic apart from hype, what are the 10 remarkable things of actual value that AI has delivered so far? Infact there are no 10 things of real value that AI has delivered infact recent MIT report on actual business adoption of AI, it is reported that 95% of AI based projects have delivered no real value and are failed, this is even after adoption of AI. The only concrete thing AI is delivering is user engagement which is similar to social media which isn't something of real value. Two industries where AI is adopted so far is Software development and Media. The jump from GPT 3.5 to 4 was way bigger then the jump from GPT 4 to GPT 5, infact many users are not even convinced that GPT5 is any better than GPT4 at all including me, that's the best of the model trained by the brightest of the minds for years using infinite compute. And now Mr. Sam is promoting GPT 6, the same way GPT 5 was promoted, it's quite clear now they are heavily funded and want to keep the hype train going, which is only possible if most of the world digital population makes a transition to AI similar to the one that was made to smart phones, infact bigger, since now in subscription friendly environment people are expected to pay. There is always a possibility of surprises but, we need to be realistic, the magic everyone was waiting for has already passed.

I'm quite sure a good percentage of these unregistered users are scrapping bots. I can imagine some interesting use-cases people might have already built using the content from this forum. Also the error message that is more frequently appearing now while browsing the site could also be related to this.

These experiences are quite old, there were explanations too. But I feel the experience is primary thing here, instead of how the person coming out of it tries to explain it through religious or other language. However, at it's core the person comes out of it as "content" with life. They call this "contentment" peace or some use more profound expressions like bliss or happiness. But ultimately it doesn't matter what they remember or how they describe it. I mean description is after the fact and will always be an approximation, and would be limited to the persons ability with language and life. what matters is the experience itself and how such an experience impacts the person. So when they invoke religious language and similar stuff, it's just their attempt to describe what they experienced. I feel what happens basically is that the person gets a rather intimate experience of "death", A lot of agony that people go through in life is because of how they relate psychologically with death and suffering, one gets conditioned to this suffering, somehow and lives life in a kind of "hiding" from death, it's a hiding of the psyche or self. While people with these profound experience go through realize that there is nothing to fear or hide from, Once you are open emotionally to whatever feeling or sensation you are feeling life could be very different.

@Mayonnaise I think it's already been pointed out in above comments, But let me try again, personality traits are cultural abstractions and their relationship with physiology is trivial in a sense that there is no relationship there. However since people imitate, so they can gradually imitate a certain look out of identifying with a certain trait. But it seems quite far-fetched and stretched out.

By being strong, relevant and needed by China, US and Russia. They are very relevant and needed for sure, but I don't think they are strong enough at the moment.

For self whole life is a struggle to somehow escape death, so all this façade can very easily be a ploy to survive death. For what else one can be interested in these fairy tale NDE stories?? Death is death that's all, until you experience it otherwise. This goody good, fairytale view of the world can very easily create delusions. So I think right question one needs to ask himself is this: what purpose these stories are serving for me? why I like them?

I feel for those who are stuck with Solipsism, it's the most sophisticated trap one can dig for himself. Problem is that you may have experienced something profound but you can't be sure of your interpretation of the experience because that is done by mind. Just having an experience doesn't mean one is interpreting it correctly, It's the mind that interprets experience using concepts, Ones ability to interpret correctly is proportional to ones intelligence with concepts.

I think you need to contemplate on concepts and conceptualization. Like how you know "thinking" is same as rock eroding. These things belong in different categories or even realities all together one is physical while other is conceptual or mind-like. The models you are using to explain things are not making it clearer. Additionally when you believe that concepts and thinking cannot be dropped or changed unless you are open then that's your reality, and with such beliefs it will be impossible to change unless you are open off-course, But these are concepts or models to explain and understand stuff and it's always best to be flexible with these, Since it's not the actual reality, if we get rigid with it then we block our own way. Ralston makes total sense when you read his books and spend time, on his assertions or if you spent time thinking on these things. I would recommend you a book. If you are into books it might be something you really like, You reminded me of an old friend who loved it, it's his favorite book . "How to Think About Weird Things by Theodore Schick".

Why you wrote this with ChatGPT? After first few lines i couldn't read, what's the point. I mean would have been better you write four sentences but by yourself. Atleast I'll know someone wanted to say something. Now it's just AI content.

This forum is my go to place on internet. There is nothing like this anywhere on internet. There used to be some forums from 2005-2010 that I used to visit and contribute. But currently this is the only place I feel like visiting and reading maybe posting something once in a while. I don't participate as much but, I get a lot out of it by reading others. It's like in the company of many high consciousness people who just by interacting with each other talk with me, without me saying a word. It's a gathering in the league of it's own.

This reminds me of staring at my self in the mirror few years back, not sure why it started it was a practice I did for a while. And at one point I was staring at something truly unknown and it scared me. I didn't knew what that thing was in the mirror. The fear was kind of addictive, like something scary and interesting at the same time. so I visited it few more times. But couldn't stay with it for long. Needless to say the practice stopped as it started on it's own.

I don't see a connection here, I'm aware of what I'm doing and that's enough. I don't have to align my self image with anything, it is what it is. I just need to see it for what it is.