Carl-Richard

That video is probably the only one of Leo that I don't recommend watching. I might rewatch it to see if I've missed something.

Firstly, no. Secondly, what does that have to do with anything? ?

Self-transforming elves, backflipping mice — potayto potahto.

The question is just do you want to stay in the world of imagination and fantasy like Peter Pan or do you want to grow up and be in the world? Adolescent self-indulgence vs. adult responsibility. Tell me if you see the connection:

What do atheists know about reality? ?

Your true nature is "self-transforming elf machines from hyperspace, kicking down your front door and rotating all four tires on your after-death vehicle and also checking the radiator"? Does that mean do 100 butt trips of 5-MeO-DMT?

Now that this thread was revived for some reason, just before this happened, I ran across this video by Terrence McKenna (one the aforementioned representatives of the psychonaut approach — arguably the main figurehead, or at least one of the pioneers), and he basically nails the distinction I've been trying to make here in the first 2 minutes of this video. If you understand what he is saying, it's virtually certain that you also understand my point:

@Alex_R ?

You do it for yourself.

Makes zero sense.

There is no "why" to reality. Why should there be?

Haha that kind of strange loopy stuff reminds me of this video: 2:02

Like @Nilsi, you got hung up on the word "self-referential thinking" from the title. I guess I'm sorry that the title of the thread couldn't capture all of the nuances of the topics discussed Therapy is a guided problem-solving session. Rumination, while it involves recalling unresolved problems, is not problem-solving, because there is no work being done, no progress being made. As I've established earlier, rumination makes up the majority of self-referential thinking. Therefore, to refer to self-referential thinking as something dysfunctional is not completely unwarranted, but yes, it can be misleading from a more granular perspective.

I thought you were defending rumination and general dysfunction in your mental illness and people-missing-their-legs advocacy.

I think people who are generally "consumed" by thoughts, generally experience a large proportion of negative thoughts. It was that way for me, and the science seems to agree, and it generally seems to make sense. Negative thoughts are usually about unresolved problems, and because they're unresolved, they tend to get stuck on repeat, which is what rumination is. A solution happens in a flash, and then it's solved — thinking about it no longer serves a function. So if a thought is negative, it's most likely going to repeat, and because it repeats, it's going to make up a large proportion of thoughts. Anyways, I would say that spiritual growth is when you increase your capacity to not just love, but live, and a good (but not perfect) measurement for that is the ability to be present, as opposed to being consumed by negative thoughts.

Holy shit I didn't know Maynard James Keenan did a collaboration with Robert Fripp This was literally my face the entire song:

Is being consumed by negative thoughts conducive to love?

Is it possible to grow in one's capacity to love, or is it something you're born with?

Which is?

@Tyler Robinson @Proserpina What do you think spirituality is?

There was a loss of functioning there, yes.

Society usually calls something a mental health problem if, according to society, there is a problem with functionality.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8429319/

He is a great intellectual. You just don't agree with him politically. This reminds me of when I was writing my research paper and I was arguing with myself about whether I should find arguments for whether or not Christianity can be considered a religion, or whether I should just say it's a trivial point and move on I think it's a trivial point.

Do you want me to prove it to you?