StrangerWatch

I checked in on his RationalWiki page, and the first section ends with this: "Thankfully, Gura has recovered to the point where he no longer believes this." (This is talking about his views on consciousness, enlightenment and arguably solipsism). What could the article be referring to? Anyone have any links or sources they'd be willing to share with me? Thank you.

Lol.

Answer to Question 1: No, but there's no reason to think experience started before life began. Answer to Question 2: Those are not stories. The first two are undisputed facts about life. Are you implying that consciousness transcends human life? Answer to Question 3: I use the words "experience" and "consciousness" interchangeably. Do you still require a definition?

That was my point all along...

I've actually had a meditative experience of "no-self", and indeed the feeling of a separate experiencer dissolves into the experience. To be fair, subjective experience should never be used as proof of how life and death works. I would rather say that my logical reasoning above is what can prove that there is no self or experiencer that transcends the experience. Many of the people on this forum, including @Leo Gura, believe that the self is an illusion, as I do. But instead of identifying with the experience as a whole, they replace their old illusory self with the entire universe. To me, this is missing the point. There are philosophical ways of saying that we are everything, but when many people say this, they are specifically claiming that all of existence has a single consciousness and that this consciousness is their true self. In summary, many people here don't seem to truly grasp the idea that they have no "self". Instead they replace it with a new self: The spiritual self called God, the Universe, Absolute Infinity, etc..

Don't know if you noticed this, but Leo is still alive. If he was dead, I'm pretty sure his feeling of being an aware experiencer would be gone. When Leo says he became infinite, he's referring to hallucinations he has had, often on psychedelics. Hallucinations are based on pre-conceived notions in the mind, and manifest accordingly. Therefore, they cannot constitute scientific proof of how reality or humans work.

My mother's womb? Billions of years of evolution? The big bang? I don't know how specific the question is. Presumably there was no experience (or experiencer) before birth, so there's no reason to think any of it persists after death.

The one most humans believe in. What we call self. It is an illusion, of course. There is no self to transcend experience after death.

People assume there is an experience and a conscious experiencer. But the experiencer can't logically exist without the experience. So it would seem the experiencer is just another part of the human experience. And when the human experience dies, the experiencer dies with it. Death is very real, folks. People like Leo telling you there is a "true consciousness" transcending the one nature gave you may be soothing, but it isn't true. Peace out. Enjoy your lives, and make others happy while we're all conscious.

Anyone here agree on his antinatalism theory? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Benatar

What do you guys think of this quote? Is this person right or wrong? Both? In what ways?

Well, I hope that death exists in this "reality", and that I don’t have to endure my lungs being torn and then healed for all of eternity.

@Nahm No offense, mate, but you did a shit job with your quotations and responses. I’ll try to respond as best I can. What you seem to be doing is making outrageous truth claims without providing ANY basis for them. You’re basically claiming that the afterlife is true, which is the single most extraordinary claim ever. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," said Christopher Hitchens, and you’re not doing that. I believe in reality, but don’t make the mistake of thinking I draw a distinction between dreams and waking life. Where there is experience, there is reality, because experience is by definition empirical. "I think, therefore I am," said Descartes. Even as a dream, life has consequences. In fact, if I were to literally become stuck in one of my own bedtime nightmares for all of eternity, that would constitute a real problem. Tell that to the bloke in some alternate dimension who’s being tortured 24/7 for all of eternity. What chance does he have to awaken? I don’t see a distinction between suffering and pain. Please explain.

The burden of proof lies on the person making the claim; the absence of evidence for Russell’s teapot is not evidence of its absence. Leo is making an outrageous truth claim, and thus the burden of proof lies on him. So healthy skepticism constitutes evidence for idealism?

Nothing. My life has so far transpired exactly as I have been led to believe it would based on the laws of physics and the reports of the people around me. According to this metaphysical multiverse of experiencial illusions, it is just as likely that my current existence will continue to operate as predicted (until death, also as predicted) as it is that it will all break apart in a metaphysical explosion of flying semen. How realistic does this seem? Here’s the conclusion: "I will definitely die or grow old and then die" is an accurate statement UNLESS you grant the existence of this infinity where anything can happen.