Philip

Quite literally I think. Humans can understand a timeline, which is like being a character in a movie (1D) but can also compare multiple branching timelines within a ruleset, like a player in a videogame (2D). What's coming is the ability to tweak the ruleset, like a programmer (3D)

Sure it looks amateur-ish, the use of colors is questionable, the spiral dynamics is a bit skewed and I can't find any reference or any explanation for it whatsoever, but after taking a (perhaps autistically) close look at it, I wouldn't be so quick to call the model itself sloppy. It looks like it's mapping SD/Graves onto a bigger spectrum of consciousness like Ken Wilber does, and from what I can see, it lines up quite well. For example, if you look at the numbers instead of the positions, you see that the 3.5D magical stage sits right between 3D animals and 4D humans and it's the beginning of a subjective mind. Wilber's magical animistic sits right between emotions (animals) and symbols (humans) and it's the beginning of 1st person. And I think the whole thing goes: 1) Matter - Stone 2) Body - Plant 3) Emotion - Animal 3.0) Probably where beige would be if this were an octagram 3.5) Magic - Tribe 4) Memory - Human 4.0) Egocentric - Gang 4.5) Mythic - Community 5) Idea - Person 5.0) Rational - Humanity 5.5) Pluralistic - Earth 6) Model - System 6.0) Meta - Cosmos 6.5) Holistic - Kosmos 7) Universe - Truth It looks like it's been copied directly from Wilber's work. But one thing bugs me, though. It's the math of it all. The way the black lines cross one another, they link the stages by skipping one and then going to the next, like the collective/individual pendulum swing, but the dimensions are linked by skipping two instead, giving us normal 2-step pendulum swings within bigger weird 3-step ones, from line to surface to volume, back to timeline and so on. It kind of means that in order to add a dimension, you have to go from individual to collective, back to individual. Surprisingly, it works exactly like Hausdorff Dimensions, in which a single straight line is 1D, folded or multiple lines sit somewhere between 1D and 2D, depending on how convoluted they are, and then they meet again to form a single straight surface at exactly 2D. And also, these 7 words that are associated to the 7 dimensions: Ground: I can imagine rock consciousness as being a unidimensional witness of the gravitational force pulling down Energy: I can imagine tree consciousness as also extending in the lateral direction of the sun and humid soil Dominance: Animals who can be conscious of their position in the hierarchy and can hunt a prey in front of them, using depth perception. Certainty: Humans who can see a single concrete story going forward (like a rock falling, 4 resonating with 1) Possibility: People who can see a tree of possibilities (here's the tree again, 5 resonating with 2) Dimensionality: People who can see their position in the holarchy (and I guess hunt lower stages like animals do, 6 resonating with 3) Infinity: People who can see everything, as the small pendulum make you one with God (and as 7 resonates with 4D stories like the Bible) I put this effort into debunking the model so you won't have to. But now I can strongly suggest you shift the focus back to him, to how his family would miss him, how annoying it would be if you ranted as much as he does, etc. Because I spent about an hour thinking about that picture and I do have to say, I get the appeal. I've never seen one quite like it. Please send more details if you can.

@Matt8800 Nothing detrimental to my life so far. A few people who were subconsciously feeding off my insecurities will now have to find their food somewhere else, but other than that, everything seems to be improving in my life. But I definitely must read about the Dark Night. Thank you!

Yes, that sound about right. I'm not constantly in nirvana or anything. And my ego seems to be slowly building itself back up, but in a much more useful and truthful way. Oh god! I'm not prepared at all. Do I really have to go through that? It sounds bad hehehe. Well, what can I do? Return to unconscious misery? HELL NO!?

It was my first retreat. Before that, my only meditation experience was about 200 hours of mindfulness meditation, done in the last 5 years. I had never really experienced advanced meditative states before. But since last week, it seems that I'm finally able to bring most of the awareness of my body from the Gross realm to the Subtle realm. The Gross state of consciousness feels like having low-resolution, substantial spots of sensations like big potatoes all over the body, which are separated by blind spots and foggy feelings. The Subtle state feels more like a high-definition constellation of pleasant and soft tingling. It makes my arm feel like a galaxy's arm instead of a potato bag. The weirdest thing is that when I reached that state and stayed there for a few days, I started figuring out where my pineal gland was. I didn't remember if it was in the front, back or middle of the brain, but I didn't have to remember. It seemed to be the only part of my whole body that was still resisting becoming subtle. A jellybean right behind my third eye persisted since then and stayed very gross, very hard, very substantial. As I'm thinking and studying, I think that I've had my first direct glimpse (Kensho) of the existential nature of suffering on day 4. And then, around day 6, my body has reached the Subtle reality almost entirely, except for my pineal gland. Clarification and advice would be very helpful.

@Space I had to bring 3 things with me in order to succeed at my retreat, and they're pretty much written into the name of the technique: Strong Determination Sitting. The First thing you need is strong determination. Mine comes from genuine curiosity about the nature of sensations. I just don't know what is true, I'm confused and I really wanted to know. I want to help people around me, but even with the best intentions and the best mind, I could still be misled into thinking that I'm helping people when in fact I'm not. The truth or falseness of something is the most fundamental and important characteristics it has. Anything you value can instantly become valueless if it is ever revealed to be false. Any problem can also become valueless if it is revealed to be false. Wonder and find out what is true right now in your direct experience. Actually look. Also, you need two other things that are included in sitting: your left buttcheek and your right buttcheek. Good luck!

I wasn't focusing on that, really. I do feel the need to meditate a lot these days and there isn't much room for mental chatter while I'm observing my sensations, so I guess I'm honoring your advice indirectly. But thanks. Precisely.

It happened on the fourth day of this quiet Vipassana retreat in a small French-Canadian town called Montebello. For 10 days, we were not supposed to talk, to look at each other, to write, to read or to eat anything else than the usual two meals per day that were served to us. I was meditating on a small pile of 5 cushions, with my legs crossed, my back up straight, my hand united and my eyes closed. The Vipassana practice seems like a well-structured, straightforward technique of body scan practicing our mindfulness and our equanimity in order to simply observe physical sensations throughout the body and eventually generate less and less aversion toward pain and less craving toward pleasure. Nothing fancy. Just try to feel the actual tactile stimuli, without preference for any part of the body. The first four days were just getting more and more painful, tiresome and discouraging. I vaguely knew what I was going into, and I was pretty determined, but these pains (in my shoulders, back, thighs, calves and feet) were around 6 or 7 out of 10. 10 being the level of pain someone might experience when their leg gets slowly cut off with a saw. It was especially painful after 45 minutes of sitting without readjusting my posture (except straightening my back or releasing muscular tensions from time to time). I also had these childhood traumas coming up (which rarely came up before, even during my therapy sessions, but I guess the chair is too comfortable for that ?). At least the reliving of those traumas was shortly followed by a somewhat soothing release, but also by new psychoanalytic insights about how I was acting during my childhood and why. At the end of those hours, the voice in my head was complaining and victimizing, trying to distract itself, trying to cope with all flavors of impatience, rage, sadness, fear, doubt, craving, pride, competitiveness, jealousy and suffering that you could imagine. Most of my muscles were very tense, to the point of my neck and head starting to shake uncontrollably, while my head was presumably turning lobster-red and was displaying the helplessly enraged face of a 2-year-old having a temper tantrum. At least a painful period was followed by a muscular release along with the emotional one, even though the pain was still as vivid and intense. After four days, our capacity for focus and concentration was solid enough for us to not only feel the sensations of our breath, but now also the sensations all around the body. So we had a 90 minutes long meditation where we were not supposed to reposition ourselves or leave the room, while we were taught this whole-body Vipassana method for the first time. The "event" if I may, happened at the end of this very session. The emotional and muscular tension was starting to build up even faster and stronger than it ever did before. It was like a rubber band, stretching and stretching until I gave up and released it, producing an insight that resonated as loud as the rubber's whipping sound. But this one final time, I think the rubber band just broke beyond repair... The voice was not only complaining, resisting or craving, it started literally screaming like that of someone getting tortured to death. It was shaking so much that I got covered in sweat, despite de cool air and slight breeze around me. Screaming, shaking, screaming, shaking, for dozens of seconds, out of my freaking mind until I could not bear it anymore. And then, it stopped. In a fraction of a second, my body went from extremely tense to extremely relaxed. My internal speech went from extremely loud to extremely silent. And I will always remember the two sentences that were internally said after that : "Oh my god, you're exaggerating. You're taking yourself way too seriously..." The voice had a confident and straightforward tone, but also a loving and playful one at the same time. It felt like the voice of an ideal father and certainly, my inner child got the message that day. I was in a state of shock for about an hour or two. I took a cold shower, then looked at myself in the mirror and thought "Oh, that's what a Regard Ténébreux looks like" which is a French expression basically meaning a dark and hard look. One that has lived through a lot. And after that, the smiles, giggles, and fits of laughter started. ? And my meditations were never the same after that. Instead of making torture faces, I was going from serious but relaxed, to smiling, to wide-grinning, all the way to uncontrollable laughter. One of my biggest challenges during the following days was to laugh silently and make sure I don't disturb anyone around. Just to be clear, the pain was still there, 6 or 7 out of 10. It was even more defined and my focus was steadier. But instead of resisting, I was laughing. And I don't feel like I've decided to start doing that. I feel like I've decided to meditate seriously for 4 days, and then this peaceful, playful and detached attitude came naturally, by itself. I also started to experience unprecedented authenticity in my compassion towards people who suffer. For example, I stopped being annoyed by my roommate, wishing he would give up the retreat and secretly feeding off his misery. Instead, I naturally started seeing his pain and wishing that he would understand how to be in a better place. (I'm honestly on the verge of tears just writing that down right now hehe) Within two hours, my compassion, playfulness, motivation, hope, confidence, calmness and equanimity were pretty much increased by a factor of 100 or 1000. It was definitely more than 10 times, but maybe not a million either. That gives you an idea of the significance of the changes. People started being very intimidated by my calm, assertive and focused presence. But I don't think it was conscious, most of the time. I just saw it in their nervous tics and involuntary movements, of which I had almost none anymore. During the first three days, I was looking a lot at one of the two assistants of the Vipassana teacher. He was a bit older than me and seemed very noble, hardworking, but also relaxed, happy and present. I felt inspired by him. But during the following days, he was the one staring at me. I caught him several times and he got seemingly destabilized while looking elsewhere. At the end of the 10 days, we were allowed to speak again. In the washrooms, I waited for this assistant to pass in front of me so that I could tell him that they were out of brown paper. He didn't seem to care about that for even a second, but he just looked at me and asked: "You're pretty much in Nirvana all the time, aren't you?" I answered: "I'm not ready to put words on it yet, but pretty much, I guess. Do you want me to tell you the story? It happened on the fourth day". And so we went on, talking about our experiences. As of today, I feel like he was the only one to really understand my state. He gave me the advice of first maintaining my equanimity (which is my lack of reaction to pleasant or unpleasant sensation or feelings), and secondly, my tactile awareness. I'm still rolling and maintaining both, even after speaking to my parents, walking 2 hours and being stuck in Montebello for 10 hours with my heavy bags, going back to work, having my first panic attack in front of my boss, having every stranger intimidated by my presence, spending a wonderful evening with this girl I like, etc. Since then, I have been laughing, again and again, at was used to be my misery, but which has now become the funniest, inexhaustible joke. Now I seek clarifications about what happened and also advice for the future of my journey. I hope you liked the story, but it's your turn now! ?

Happiness is not something you do. It's a million things you stop doing.

@Lawrence Yes it has to be involved in a sense, because the scientists creating this super AI will most certainly be conscious. And also the people who become robots will most certainly be conscious both before and after their transformation. Even the AI we create on a computer might become conscious at some point. But what I mean is that developing those technologies doesn't require to understand consciousness at all. There is no need to model it. No need to master it. No need to talk about it. Neurons are basically all you need to understand. Once you understand neurons, you can play with them. And once you play with them, the universe is at your fingertips.

@David1 Yes. Yes.

@username If you do a copy/paste with your consciousness, then no problem. You have a clone that thinks like you or whatever and you still get to live. If you do a cut/paste, then the "cut" part means you kill yourself. You don't sound like you're advocating mass suicide, but unfortunately, a lot of people sound like they do. @Leo Gura No, actually it's been done for the first time recently. It says brain-to-brain, but actually it's brain-to-computer-to-brain. So it seems like your prediction has an error of hundreds of years. No it doesn't require you to know anything about consciousness. You just have to plug wires at the right place and Boom! You know the internet like the back or your hand. You plug some more and Boom! You have a hundred different senses, instead of the usual five. A few more wires and Boom! Enlightenment can be pursued without all the distractions and traps that usually get in your way when doing self-inquiry. It's obviously simplified, but you get the point. That's where we totally agree. I want to become a robot by incrementally modifying my brain in a way that I always wake up after the operation and it just felt like a normal nap. This way I don't even have to get into the whole consciousness debate. The key here is incremental change. You're already doing it every night. Why not improve the process?

@DrMatthewsausage When I think about it, the most convincing stuff isn't even their opinions. It's their achievements. Look up Demis Hassabis from DeepMind. Their company was founded 5 years ago and they've already made a neural network that learned to be the best Atari gamer in the world. It learned it from scratch. If that doesn't strike you with awe, fear or deep concern, I don't know what will. @Extreme Z7 You're just switching debate like Leo did. Conversation 101, dude. I like what you're saying, but it doesn't belong here. There's a whole forum section for enlightenment stuff. @username Yes, consciousness may matter to us if we want to transfer it. I, for one, don't. I want to become transhuman, but by incremental operations, from which I wake up like after a good night of sleep. If you're not afraid to go to sleep every night, to die and then to wake up as a slightly different person, like you've been doing since you're born, then you're not afraid of my plan to become transhuman. @Will Bigger Again, look up Demis Hassabis and get your mind blown. Again, consciousness doesn't have to be involved at all. You can become a robot by having multiple minor surgeries and nanobot injections. It's like going to sleep and waking up a little bit different each time.

@Extreme Z7 True. I agree. Consciousness has nothing to do in this conversation. I don't even know why @Leo Gura brought it here. He just switched debate. I repeat: It is a matter of probable human extinction. Life or death. I like consciousness and enlightenment and all, but now I'm talking practical pragmatic strategy. I'd really like for people to think about solutions so we don't get wiped out of earth during the 21st century. And just avoiding the debate by coming up with a random estimation of "It won't happen before hundreds of years" is at best, being uninformed and at worst, being a threat to mankind. Please people, do your research. I know the debates I'm throwing here haven't reached mainstream media yet, which is why I may sound like a crazy alarmist. But the people who actually know a lot about General Artificial Intelligence, they also know how much of a real issue this is. We have to build this responsibly or else you can probably say goodbye to most of what you care about.

@Leo Gura That's not a relevant argument. We don't have to figure out how consciousness works in order to build human level AI. It just has to simulate human behavior and human cognition. And we're getting there frighteningly fast. Once we do get there, we're basically left with two possibilities: World War III or Singularitarian Utopia. And where do you take that number? Hundreds of years? Your estimation is laughable to anyone who works at the cutting edge of machine learning. People who kind of know what they're talking about (unlike you and I) estimate maybe 10 to 50 years. Now you have eyeballs directed towards your channel, Leo. Do the responsible thing for humanity: Admit that it's by far the #1 issue for humanity right now. Help raising awareness about that issue. Use your wisdom to think about solutions. Contribute to those solutions in any way you can. Or convince me that I'm wrong. And use real arguments this time, please.