Scholar

That's what a lot of Philosophy graduates go into.

This might be true if I made an argument in a debate or a discussion that would be saying that, but I am not. I simply made recommendations to people in this forum who I repeatedly see reduce everything to very limited concepts that they somewhere caught, like for example the concept of "ego". If you reduce everything to a very broad concept you will actually lose understanding , and more than that you will actually fail to recognize lack of knowledge within a certain domain. I don't see how that is knowledge signalling, and I think you are being very close-minded and defensive for some reason. Sure I was signalling knowledge, that was the whole point so that I could get people motivated to read up on some of this stuff themselves, it's not like I have an inherent superiority, you literally just have to read the books on Leo's book list. To even suggest that what I am doing is due to some sort of arrogance or that it is some sort of debate tactic is so ironic. You literally just dismissed everything I said on the basis that it is knowledge signalling, without providing any rational to how it is "knowledge signalling" or in what way it would even be relevant to the discussion. What if I actually have a deeper understanding of human cognition and development than you do? You will invalidate that because I recommend you books? What are you doing here?

This is what happens when a human being does not develop the capacity to recognize the limitations of formal operation cognition and does not transition into vision logic or post-formal. You have to understand that from his perspective, what he is saying and interpreting, is actually valid and correct. Nothing you ever will tell him is going to make sense to him, in fact it cannot make sense to him. People in here have a tendency to dismiss this as pure ego, but that is very reductionistic and simply false. I can only recommend again and again that people in this community start to read some of the books on Leo's book list. The positions Leo is communicating are far more sophisticated than most people's understanding of the conclusions of these positions are. Leo's hour long videos are not even proper introductions into these topics, and people come away from them thinking they have understood them. This cannot be reduced to epistemology or egoic behavior, there are very specific reasons for why these positions necessarily arise within a human mind, how and why they are overcome. Once you actually go through these stages yourself you will see, feel and understand why conventional communication between these cognitive operators are relatively futile. It is in a very real way as if you tried to make an infant understand what object permanence is. It is not merely an understanding that can be communicated, it is a perception that is connected to cognition. It is how the mind generates it's own subjective reality. Thus it is not even knowledge or a merely a perception, it is actually a difference in the subjective realities between two subjects. These perceptions and cognitive operators structure your reality, and you expect these people to take in information that was generated by cognitive operators and perception that are simply non-existence in their mind structures and consciousness. You cannot understand object permanence if you have no experience of object permanence. You guys really need to read more books.

I would do what motivates you the most. As long as you try your best to surrender the addiction you will be fine. You could be trying to avoid wet dreams but not count them as relapses if that works for you.

Have you read any of Ken Wilber's books? I feel like you could benefit greatly from adopting multi-perspectival cognition.

Can you not see how what you have just told yourself is another fiction itself? Namely, the fact that atoms and molecules are fictions, is a fiction in and of itself? Understand this dynamic and notice what is happening, you keep reducing your subjective reality to certain kinds of ideas. What is a label, what is a function, what is a fiction?

The way I try to formulate it looks something like this: Vision logic or post-formal thought is the capacity to adopt multiple perspectives at once and recognize that truth is a relative phenomenon, that truth is actually an aspect of the mind and not an aspect of "objective reality". Due to that recognition one can hold multiple truths at once that are seemingly contradictory, because one recognizes that each of them contains a partial truth, partial validity. It is not merely the recognition that this is true, but a capacity of the mind. It is an ability that is easily recognizable to someone who has adopted it. I get asked for research and proof that vision logic exists and I try to explain to them that I cannot as it is a very subtle phenomenon. I know from their perspective it is irrational to just believe me, or to go through the effort of trying to learn about this themselves because I am just a random person who is telling them that. So what is there to do? It seems like their formal operational cognition actually prohibits them to go beyond it. It's like there a truths in reality that, due to the limited information we have about reality, are inaccessable to us if we follow strict rationality. It might actually be rational to dismiss me and not pursue what I am trying to communicate even though I am right. So how could one possibly nudge a stage orange person in the right direction? And how does it even occur that they themselves suddenly adopt early-vision logic?

Is it recommendable to use 5-MeO as your first psychedelic experience?

Do you avoid telling people about spiral dynamics and integral psychology? Because I feel like any time I mention it people go crazy and want to know why I would ever believe in it, and it's not easy (and so far for me not possible) to make them understand.

I have been following some of Destiny's content on twitch and youtube, he is a streamer. The way he uses his audience inspired the vision. Even though I think he is dysfunctional in many ways, he is definitely onto something as far as his approach goes, even if he is doing it unconsciously. You can really observe the evolution of him, he went from orange to green and is now scratching at yellow after he started using psychedelics. The amount of knowledge he has acquired just by using his audience is quite astounding. What I envision is really an embracing of streaming into educational structures and research, which might take a few decades to manifest. Leo could be a pioneer in this, I really don't see any better option for him. He can do the traditional approach which is mediocre at best, he can keep making videos which also is sub-optimal, or he can try something new and be the first person who recontextualizes a medium for personal development. I a completely unconscious person can get that far with streaming, I can only imagine what someone like Leo could do with it. But he would have to put his ego on the line, which I think he is not yet ready to do.

What I would suggest is to censor and filter people. Streaming is used as entertainment so you cannot compare an average stream of gamers to a stream of Self-actualizers who are there to learn. If you would be saying stupid shit you would be out of the conversation, plain and simple. Cultures change as new people adopt certain technologies, the same happened for every medium that was invented in history.

I think this thread might reveal a hidden question about the process of consciousness inquiry. How do we distinguish Absolute Truth from Relative Truth? How can we ever know the extend to which our own ego deludes us? How do we know whether we are not merely inquiring into the mind, into individual consciousness? Because it is infinite? Well, who says a mind cannot be infinite? Who says each individual consciousness cannot be infinite? Materialism? "This cannot be my mind, this HAS to be everything, THE ABSOLUTE!" What if the mind is absolute? What if consciousness is an aspect of reality that is paradoxical and infinite? But what if there is something beyond consciousness, obviously inaccessible to consciousness? We know that our entire realities are consciousness, thus naturally inspecting that reality will reveal that it is entirely consciousness. It will also reveal that it is all one, and possibly even that it is all Love. Even if consciousness embraces all of itself, does not mean that there is nothing outside of it. An ego might interpret this as Absolute Infinity and God, without realizing that it is only describing this consciousness. What is Absolute might not be consciousness, but the inaccessibility to things outside of consciousness. A few things are hinting that this might be true: - No enlightened master seems to have ever acquired any information that was outside of his mind structures, or that could have been only explained in a way that would suggest he had access to something beyond his or her own mind. - There are substances which change the structure of the brain and conversely induce enlightenment experiences. - Everything we hear enlightened people say about the nature of reality can be predicted with a scary accuracy if we simply assume the position that they are inquiring into and describing their own subjective reality. - People have widely different conclusions about enlightenment experiences, despite it being supposed to be Absolute Truth. There are many similarities which can be explained away as the natural tendencies the human mind has towards the interpretation of these experiences. From the perspective of consciousness, everything is consciousness. I don't doubt that we can have great insights into reality by inquiring into consciousness, but I am yet still open minded about it not having any significant metaphysical implications outside of consciousness. Of course, any enlightened person will dismiss that anything outside of consciousness exists, which is naturally assumed because existence itself is a concept within consciousness, once it is revealed as such it will seem like that concept has no validity. But because of the mysterious nature of reality and our ability to understand anything at all, it is really hard to determined what is going on, and due to the inherent limitations of the evolved human mind, it might actually be Absolutely Impossible. I have no idea how Leo got past this other than blind faith in his experiences and the natural conclusions his mind has given him.

Is it not possible that by doing consciousness practices for years and years, one actually creates a process for becoming more conscious which exponentially increases consciousness so that it seems like, for someone who has not practice long enough, it would be impossible to reach consciousness levels as high as one does with psychedelics? Additionally, as most spiritual traditions include spiritual purification, might it not also be possible that Leo, because he cannot dedicate his entire life to spiritual purification, is hindered within the more traditional approach due to the limitations his ego put upon him? For example, if one would practice consciousness and purification, one would get to as high, if not higher levels, as on psychedelics, eventually? The reason why I am proposing this is that there seems to lack something in the psychedelic process that is present in the traditional approaches. In the traditional approaches, one actually learns a conscious approach to increase consciousness, whereas psychedelics are an unconscious approach to increasing consciousness, though it increases it far more radically. It's kind of like a photographer vs a painter. In the first few years the painter will struggle with creating beautiful and attractive visuals, whereas the photographer can do so in an instant. But the painter can eventually exceed the photographer because he learns a process which gives him deliberate control over the creation of visual that the photographer will not learn in the process of simply capturing reality. Similarly, it might be the case that having the ability to consciously increase consciousness eventually will lead to higher levels of consciousness than psychedelics would deliver, due to the fact that one has a deliberate process of increasing consciousness that gets better and better over time, but takes longer to acquire. The same is true for spiritual purification, one can do so with psychedelics or learn a process that consciously purifies oneself, which gets better and better with practice. How could Leo possibly know what kind of levels the greatest yogis reached, those yogis who truly dissolve their ego in the process of inquiry, so much so that they kill themselves in the process biologically, by for example starvation?

That is because language is primitive in regards to non-dual awareness. We don't really have concepts to describe all the different facets and aspects of consciousness, we literally have no names for the things Leo has been experiencing. That is why we come back to describe it in the same way over and over again despite the experience being different. The thing is that even if he used different words it would be meaningless to you because you have not experienced what he has experienced. What's the point of talking about all the different shades of red to a person who never has seen any red?

You are interpreting a transpersonal truth from a formal operational perspective, which will lead to delusion no matter how much you will try to make sense of it. It cannot make sense to you because currently you lack the perspective to see what is even meant by these statements. See how you are using an orange tool to understand something that was the result of an at least indigo tool.

Yes, but don't forget that this was the case in all currently first world countries when they went through the industrial revolution. Child-slavery, robber-baron capitalism etc. are all part of the evolution of a civilization. Third world countries are lagging behind and sadly have to go through the same insights, revolutions and changes that the western countries did. Due geopolitical circumstances these changes will look very different from country to country, western governments will not be capable of effectively help these countries until they reach second tier.

But the effect itself is based on it's prevalence among the population, that is really the whole point of calling it the effect Dunning-Kruger effect. Otherwise it's just normal incompetence and overestimation of ones knowledge or skill, I don't think there is a need to keep misinforming people about something that is just bad science.

Not quite on topic, but the Dunning-Kruger effect is not real:

My laziness comment was specifically referring to making us lazy about hardcore spiritual pursuits, like sitting in a cave for 20 years and giving up everything for consciousness work. I think the chances for people to take these kinds of radical steps will decrease as psychedelics increase in popularity especially, in the future, in yogic circles. As I said, I am not talking about people like you and me, but about the pioneers who dedicate their entire life's to this pursuit. Due to psychedelics a culture might be lost that cultivates conscious consciousness work in a sophistication that is not present in other cultures, like for example in this one. My point was that we cannot know whether conscious consciousness work might not get us to greater depths than psychedelic aided work would get us. It might seem that way in the beginning, but that could be due to an exponential increase in consciousness with formal training. I don't know anyone who has seriously embraced yoga, meditation and psychedelics in a 100% dedicated way, as in doing nothing but that for their entire lifes. And if I believe Leo, then I don't believe anyone has ever reached the deepest levels of consciousness because it goes infinitely deep. My entire point is that while psychedelics might be useful for increasing your consciousness level, a traditional practice, while very slow in the beginning, might exceed the consciousness levels that are reached with psychedelics due to the momentum it gains. I don't know anyone who does nothing but consciousness work while still taking psychedelics, and with consciousness work I am more specifically referring to the investigation into the nature and essence of reality.

As I understand it's because enlightenment is the absence of a limitation your mind puts upon awareness to operate in a certain way. The part of brain the that is responsible for imposing that limitation upon consciousness is what is being targeted and disabled by the psychedelic, among other things. Enlightenment is not an addition to consciousness but the removal of a certain aspect of consciousness, namely the dualism or the limited identity. We would most likely be lying to ourselves because we do not really know. It would take an enlightened superconscious yogi to take 5-meo-dmt for him to compare the experience, and even then we don't know if his consciousness work did not change something about the brain that effects the way he experiences 5-meo-dmt. Equally we cannot really tell whether 5-meo-dmt effects the brain in some way that changes how future enlightenment instances are experienced. Maybe in the distance future the inspection of the interactions between waves and particles in the brain will give us more accurate assessments for this.

I agree with that but I see a danger in psychedelics because it inherently makes us lazy, and again I think art is a great example of that. Since photography became mainstream we have not seen any sophisticated master realist painters that had the expressive power of idealization that people had in the 19th century. Art of that quality is extinct because there is no great need for it to be produces. Similarly, why would I sit down for 10 hours every day, in a cave, to purify my ego and reach higher levels of consciousness after I have taken a psychedelics that instantly gratifies me? Do you know a single person who did that? I am not talking about amateur levels of consciousness work here, I am talking about professional consciousness workers who do dedicate their entire life's to consciousness work. Yes, good painters exist today, but there is no John Singer Sargent around anymore. And yes, good consciousness workers are around who did psychedelics, but who reached the deepest levels of consciousness? That is not what I am asking. I understand that psychedelics are a good tool for most people, I am just asking who would eventually reach the greatest depth, a yogi who is talented and does consciousness work all day long or someone who took lots of psychedelics and had a amateur-esk consciousness practice? I have no idea, I just want to propose that it might be possible that the one who did the consciousness work all his life might get into the greater depth eventually. And yes, if he took psychedelics he would probably get even deeper, but as it stands people who take psychedelics seem to simply not dedicate their life's to consciousness work like for examples yogis do. I am sure that people used to do that in the past, but nowadays it seems non-present. Imagine you did what you did for the retreat for the rest of your life, non stop. That is what I imagine someone to do who is dedicated entirely to consciousness work.

@Leo Gura I have a question about something that is not directly related to this topic, I see it happening quite a bit with you and many other higher evolved individuals. I am currently making myself familiar with Ken Wilber's model of cognitive/consciousness development/evolution. When making statements like "Things only happen by God's will." are we not running into the risk of confusing and deluding people due to the stark difference in interpretation between gross, casual, subtle and non-dual state of consciousness, and also due to a difference in cognition from different cognitive stages? It seems to me like a person only capable of, for example, formal operational thought is actually incapable of correctly interpreting your statement, due to the inherent limitations of his cognition. Statements coming from vision logic or beyond will actually cease to be the same statements when viewed from formal operational cognition. When they read it and they are at that stage, and they agree with you, they are actually wrong about what they agree with you about. And if they do not agree, they are wrong too because they do not even comprehend the true meaning of the statement. Either way they will come out confused, whether they believe you or not. And to me this is a real problem in the spiritual community, especially with non-dual "truths" that are being thrown around like candy, necessarily misinterpreted by those who hear them, as they themselves cannot truly understand the meaning of those truths if they have not reached any non-dual states. In this forum alone I see countless of people who are adopting non-dual, casual, subtle or psychic intellectual positions without having even experienced these states. And furthermore it seems like these statements only make sense while being in the particular state they originated from, which further complicates everything as it can easily lead to self-delusion by the person who has temporarily experienced one of these states. What do we do about this problem? I know your style is not conducive to the zen-master riddle approach, but are you not worried about leading people on the wrong path if you give them higher truths that they are bound to be deluded and misinterpreted? Wouldn't a spiral wizard be a little more sophisticated, by for example luring a person to the next stage instead of going full non-dual on them if they are far removed from that realm?

Can you show us a screenshot?

You are right, there is no cookie-cutter solution that will work with everyone. I think there are a lot of people who might be at the verge between orange and green, in those cases I think anger makes them usually regress into orange and empathy opens their hearts green. Though even that cannot be said for everyone, there are a lot of people who respond well to the more passionate/angry narrative.