Carl-Richard

Sure, you can call different teachers more or less advanced based on some intuition. It just doesn't mean much when the alternative is experience, certainly when that is expounded as the goal. After all, that is the reason why I align myself with basic non-duality and not 5-MeO-ism, because that is what aligns most with my experience. Of course, it all has to start with an intuition, but then given the right methods and tools, you quickly find out whether or not the intuition is correct. I just see that the last step is missing for many of the Leo-ites. And when that is the case, it's easy to fall in the trap of disregarding your own experiences and intuitions to serve some preconceived notion. And that is why I say that agreeing with Leo on absolutely everything is a bad sign, because it most likely means that you're disregarding some part of your own authentic self. We're all different people with different predispositions and experiences, so you should be careful about aligning yourself fully with the views of another person, especially when you know that some crucial aspect of their experience is different from yours (again, shitloads of 5-MeO-DMT).

No idea what that means. There are pros and cons to New Age religion vs. traditional religion, that is true. But it's all very much religion: there is a sacred impulse within, and you identify the idealized version of that in some external idol or method, and you give some trust in that authority through faith. Even the most Neo of the Neo-Advaitans fall under this definition, but the idolization of especially one person (in this case Leo) makes it very clear. And the shame here (and why I call it a cargo cult) is that the idolization seems to actually not align with the methods expounded by the idol. There is no shame in being religious, but at least do what your religion actually says ? That is pretty much what I said.

You want to talk about ontological randomness and expound your cosmology around that, while Leo prefers to talk about epistemological randomness and leave it at the human level. If you want to call that a disagreement, sure. I just personally don't think of it as a substantial disagreement, because when you identify this conceptual distinction, you see that it's two different subject matters. On the other hand, if you had both disagreed on either ontic or epistemic randomness, then that is more of a substantial disagreement. It's of course possible to enter a conversation with the assumption that it is a substantial disagreement, but then you can realize that you're mistaken once additional information is uncovered. I just intuited that from the very start of the discussion, and then we laid out the proof for why that is. If you want to still hold on to the idea that you're fundamentally disagreeing about the same subject matter, then sure, that is just a new case of difference in language games (from my perspective of course).

No. I just admitted I don't know. You're the one who claims he does know while you actually don't. I'm not, but I'm not interested in it. If you're interested in 5-MeO-style awakenings, you should take 5-MeO. LSD is not 5-MeO. If that was the case, I would say I know what Leo has experienced, but I don't. That's cargo cult thinking. You're using intuition to create a working hypothesis that he is more conscious than you. But that has nothing to do with whether you actually know what he has experienced. And that is his main prescription if you haven't gotten it yet: if you want to awaken to his levels, take 5-MeO. Until then, you're in religious fantasy land.

I believe it's entirely possible to be mistaken about one's assessment of one's internal life.

Curious, have you heard about the concept of a cargo cult?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult "We don't have the 5-MeO right now, but maybe if we do everything right; listen to the right teachings, write the right words, maybe do some LSD; then one day, 5-MeO will spawn inside our buttholes and we'll finally experience it!". Drop the cargo dream and actually take the steps to experience it, or don't. (That said, I'm not actually advising you to take 5-MeO, as it's no joke. Just admit what you know and what you don't know, admit that you're taking a lot on faith. For all you know, 5-MeO could be just the experience of smelling farts for 15 minutes. You're taking it on somebody else's word that it's such an incredibly deep experience that is somehow different from the sober non-dual experience. And this is the reason why I'm more forgiving of religious institutions, because I don't pretend that spirituality is anything different.)

What we mean by understanding or knowledge is different. When I say "I don't know", I'm talking about actually experiencing it. I haven't experienced what he is talking about. Then do you really know that he is the best teacher, or is it just faith?

I think a better question is: is he too advanced for you? Have you done 100s of trips of 5-MeO-DMT?

I don't think like that. But again, as I prefer the more basic non-duality stuff, I like teachers like Rupert Spira, Ram Dass, Sadhguru. Jan Esmann is a wild one if you're interested in crazy experiences (and he had them sober, that is the craziest thing). As for people crossing non-duality with more intellectual realms, Bernardo Kastrup could be considered my idol right now.

You said "name a better place". I didn't think "Leo's teachings" was a place. But anyways, I would do the same thing for Leo the person: he is a person with a certain background and experiences, done a lot of spiritual practices, self-help, a shitload of psychedelics, etc.; probably saved a few lives in the process as well. Well, I haven't done a shitload of 5-MeO-DMT, so I don't really know what he means with Alien Consciousness or ultimate God-realization. I can only extrapolate based on my "shitload" of meditation-induced mystical experiences and a few LSD experiences. I could believe that he has experienced some crazy shit, but I don't really know what he has experienced. But from how he talks about it, it seems to mostly agree with basic non-duality, so there is not much to disagree about there.

I disagree with the framing of the question. I like to be as purely descriptive and dry as possible when describing this place: people with similar backgrounds and experiences have come to share their experiences and thoughts on life. Some have done a lot of spiritual practice, a lot of meditation, a lot of psychedelics, and some have shattered their sense of identity many times, some have had glimpses, and some have seen unimaginable things. There is some philosophy, some internet Advaita/New-Age, psychonautics, self-help, psychology, etc. I will describe other places using the same formula. It's quite trivial (in a sense), but the death penalty comes to mind. I used to disagree a lot about how you should use words like "solipsism", but today I care a little bit less, although my main argument still stands (i.e. it's a culturally loaded term which often confuses more than it clarifies). I personally prefer the "spiritual rats" "baseline > altitude" approach to spirituality. I'm maybe a little more forgiving of some institutions (mostly in science and religion). And a bunch of other stuff which most likely got resolved.

When it comes to these things (exploring the highest heights vs. becoming the fullest human vs. doing both at the same time), there are no shoulds. Ask what you want, at the deepest and most sincere levels. But of course, generally don't harm yourself or other people.

Ugh, how can you say such a gagworthy thing with a straight face? ? If you don't disagree with Leo on anything at all, that's a bad sign.

So many YouTube videos are now taking the least amounts of information and spreading it infinitely thin with a bunch of bullshit on top to keep your attention on it. Here are some examples: This video is literally just a girl petting a horse. This video is literally just a guy telling you to train squats. Post your own examples

I think you are literally going crazy. In one moment, you say he is making claims specifically about evolution, and in the other you say he is making a more general claim about metaphysical bedrock. Metaphysical bedrock is of course way beyond evolution, way beyond humans using a framework to try to predict some behavior. If you think randomness is not simply a failure of human prediction (epistemological randomness) and is instead an innate property of reality (ontological randomness), then good: that is the real reason why you're talking past each other. And that is what I said from the beginning: if you mean something different by the word "randomness", then the disagreement is just a language game. Substitute "randomness" for some other word ("freedom") and then it's clear that you're talking about different things. Then Leo isn't "wrong" about randomness; he is just talking about a different concept than you are.

Well, I disagree. I do think he was pointing to metaphysical bedrock. He almost always does that. But you could ask him yourself. When Leo says "randomness is just human ignorance", then he is talking about evolution. Evolution is a framework for describing, explaining and predicting reality. If we fail to predict something, we call it random (which used to apply to genetic mutation, but as I said earlier, today it's not as straightforward). But that is just a failure of humans, i.e. human ignorance. Metaphysical bedrock is beyond all that, beyond humans coming up with a framework to try to predict some behavior.

@Scholar The hubris is not helping. I think this is a part of the disconnect that is happening: when we're talking about metaphysics, often it involves reducing something to the most fundamental thing there is. This is what I think Leo is doing: "nothing is random; everything is patterns". He tries to give you the most fundamental one thing there is. You on the other hand are doing an investigation into some secondary aspect (which you can still call metaphysics, but still, it's secondary), which you've conceded yourself, but yet you're not seeing that this causes you to talk past what Leo is saying.

I know essentially nothing about this, but my intuition is yes. You should test yourself dozens of times to see how it fluctuates. To borrow a term from @Michael569: mechanistic speculation is easy, and it doesn't mean much before you do the actual tests.

If you can say there is an "I", then I can say there is an "I" that makes choices. It's as simple as that. There is no "I" in an ultimate sense, yet we speak about an "I" in many situations. In the same way, there is no choice in an ultimate sense, yet we speak about making choices in many situations.

Yup. Like I said in a previous post, there are many possible ways to model these things, and there will be overlap, as life is complex and interconnected. The purpose of presenting the three-way split is to provide some broad coverage of the concrete domains that you inhabit, of the "implementation". I just prefer that split because it pops up in so many places.

I was reading about Marr's Three Levels of Analysis, and I suddenly saw the similarities to this map. https://blog.shakirm.com/2013/04/marrs-levels-of-analysis/

Who is saying? There is no "I".

Read and respond to stuff.

I'm not missing the point. The point you're making is included in my point.

This is why our civilization is collapsing ?