Leo's Blog Discussion Mega-Thread

[Yimpa]

@LifeEnjoyer I saw that first 

[Davino]

I have independently verified the post 'Everything Is Made Out Of Infinities' and aligns with my understanding of Reality. Infinity is the most beautifully marvellous and terrifyingly magnanimous only Reality. Any serious intellectual delights at the nature of infinity.

[Clarence]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

The site has not changed. Your browser settings changed. You can increase the text zoom level in your browser per website.

It doesn’t work. I’ve tried zooming the page exactly the same way as on my old phone, but on the new phone the text size does not change.

Here is ChatGPT's explanation:

Quote

The text appears smaller on some devices because of higher pixel density and a wider logical viewport. A denser, wider screen allows more content to be displayed horizontally, which makes the text appear smaller and lines longer.

The browser can reflow text only when the logical width is relatively narrow compared to the content. On a wider screen, fixed-width content stays in place and the text does not reorganize, even when zooming.

Zooming on mobile enlarges the entire page, but does not force the text to rearrange. If the site uses fixed font sizes or pixel-based widths, the text can overflow the screen instead of adapting.

This behavior depends on the interaction between logical width, screen density, and how the site handles text layout. There is no per-site setting in mobile browsers to change it.

It’s really difficult to read the blog now. I hope there will be a solution in the future, perhaps from the website, if that's not too difficult, by making the layout more responsive and using flexible text sizes so that the text can adapt to different screen widths and pixel densities. Hopefully, that would improve the situation.

I imagine many users will start to face the same issue as they update to devices with higher screen resolutions and pixel densities. For reference, my previous phone was a Samsung S10+ from 2019 and this one is the S25+ from this year.

[Clarence]

Reading on the forum still works great, and zooming works perfectly. The issue is only on the blog.

[Leo Gura]

The blog text size has not changed and it is displaying properly on mobile and desktop.

You had some unusual setting in your previous browser which artificially increased the text size. How it is displaying now is how it is coded to display. Yes, it requires a bit of a pinch-zoom on mobile because the font size is small.

Ctrl++ increases any website's font size on desktop.

My mobile browser (Samsung) has an option of increase font size for any website. Any half-decent mobile browser should have that. And it works with my blog.

Edited 9 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Nemra]

"John Lennox On God: How science buried God?" was interesting interview.

He can't see the irony or the meta-dogmatism that he's engaging in, i.e., atheists and Christians are both believing, and it's merely about whose beliefs are true.

He still clings to his Christian beliefs, but he seemed to me to be more open-minded than most Christians.

[Leo Gura]

3 minutes ago, Nemra said:

he seemed to me to be more open-minded than most Christians.

He's one of the higher stage Christians.

[bazera]

@Leo Gura What about some christians that can also be considered mystics? Can "mystic christian" actually be a thing? By mystic I mean someone who understand their nature as God, but then, how can somebody be Christian if they do?

So my question is, can you be Christian and God Realized at the same time? Something like a stage Blue Christian Mystic.

[Leo Gura]

9 minutes ago, bazera said:

Can "mystic christian" actually be a thing?

Yes, that is a thing.

However, it is not the highest realization of God.

As long as you worship Jesus, it is not the highest realization.

It is possible for a Christian mystic to realize God so deeply that he drops worshiping Jesus. But in that case he is no longer a Christian, he's just God. And that's what I'm trying to lead you guys towards.

Many Christian mystics don't go all the way. They still cling to Christian dogma and worship Jesus, even if they have mystical experiences of God. There is still an otherness there. God and Jesus are seen as something other and higher than oneself.

Spiritual visions are not the same thing as God-Realization. You can have mystical visions of angels and Jesus, but that's not God-Realization and a Christian will not know that difference, confusing it with God-Realization.

Edited 9 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

15 hours ago, Vali2003 said:

Here’s what I think about the critique of postmodernism:

 

It’s from a higher perspective, not a lower. But I was uncertain for quite a while. Honestly, just because, at first impression, she seemed to me like a republican and I judged her/conformed with my liberal bias. 

Why the critique is from a higher perspective:

• She explained post-modernism fairly  I think and understood it well — although she didn’t go into too much detail about it so it’s hard to know what exactly she thinks about it. 
• She didn’t demonize post-modernism.
• She understood an important flaw of post-modernism: That it imposes its own “hierarchy” upon different fields although that should be what post-modernism tries to stop.
• She’s right that assumptions like gender and sex being different shouldn’t be taken for granted.
• She’s right about objective findings STILL BEING IMPORTANT AND VALID. The findings don’t just change because the narrative did. Old, fundamental research is important.
• She’s right that ideology infected the field, that’s it’s extremely biased towards liberalism and that it demonizes conservatives — and that all this is horrible for the practice of psychology and creates worse outcomes for patients. 
• She’s also right that not all perspectives are equal. 
• She’s also right that empirical evidence is ABSOLUTELY necessary if psychology actually wants to be a serious and effective field. 
• Generally I think all of what she said about the field of psychology is correct. Although I’m not an expert in psychology so I don’t know. 
• The final reason for why I think it’s a critique from a higher perspective is that she doesn’t disregard all post modernist premises — like it being important to decrease systemic racism. She simply questions the effectiveness of methods we use to “fight” these things.

At the beginning I thought she was very creepy and republican, at the end I realized that it was just my stage green acting up. 
 

Some points I’d add after reading other comments: 

• She definitely gives stage orange vibes.
• She probably doesn’t see any validity in postmodernism which would point to a lower perspective. Generally, she doesn’t try to really integrate post modernism into her worldview which, again, would point to a lower perspective. 

I correct my answer: It’s from a lower perspective, but I do think a lot of the criticisms she brings up are valid. 

A good exercise for you.

[Leo Gura]

13 hours ago, LifeEnjoyer said:

TFW Infinity

[Daniel Balan]

Thanks a lot Leo for your blog post about Christians. But you miss the point entirely. Don't take what Christians tell you at face value. Christianity has nothing to do with spirituality. That's just a masquerade! All the so called spirituality is there as a facade to cover for their devilry behind the scenes. Christianity is all about maximizing survival and building hierarchical power pyramids at a societal scale. Christianity is most focused on politics. They want power to enhance their survival at the expense of some out group. I've been to church for almost 20 years, Christianity is almost a form of fascism, they can't exist without some outer enemy that needs to be defeated. Christianity is about a facade of purity and spirituality that serves as a cover up for the survival maximisation, exploitation of others, devilry and corruption that goes down behind the scenes. 

All I tell here is from direct experience, when I realised that, I decided that I will never ever again follow any religion and that I will be a atheist forever.

[Leo Gura]

2 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:

All the so called spirituality is there as a facade to cover for their devilry behind the scenes.

Don't forget that we are all devils behind the scenes. So this is nothing special to Christians.

[Clarence]

56 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The blog text size has not changed and it is displaying properly on mobile and desktop.

You had some unusual setting in your previous browser which artificially increased the text size. How it is displaying now is how it is coded to display. Yes, it requires a bit of a pinch-zoom on mobile because the font size is small.

Ctrl++ increases any website's font size on desktop.

My mobile browser (Samsung) has an option of increase font size for any website. Any half-decent mobile browser should have that. And it works with my blog.

I use the same browser on both phones (Chrome) and did not use any unusual settings on my previous phone. The screenshot I posted was zoomed to 110% (I forgot to set it back to 100% before posting).

However, zooming on the blog does not work well on the new phone: when zooming, the text size increases, but it does not adapt to the screen. Here’s a screenshot to illustrate this:

By comparison, on the forum, the text adapts correctly:

I believe the problem is related to the reason given above. I do not use any unusual settings on either phone. I understand that the blog text size hasn’t changed and that the issue is related to the device, but I'm not sure there's a way to correct it on my side.

Edited 8 hours ago by Clarence

[Nemra]

Quote

A Christian is not one who simply believes in God. No, no, no! A Christian is one who worships Jesus as the one and only God. Jesus is not just some mystic, Jesus has an exclusive monopoly on the specialness of God and he must be believed in and worshiped, otherwise you've failed.

You spoke from my heart.

[Thought Art]

@Vali2003 I liked reading over your analysis. She generally is coming from a higher perspective and I found her video helped me to dovetail and contrast with Leo’s recently video series.

I think I would add some things where she may be wrong

1. She is wrong to completely disregard lived experience and qualitative experience in psychology. She is wrong to only use formalized and rational, empirical data. She is trying to create a walled garden to protect her psychology from the pitfalls and nebulosity she so well explains on how post modern, feminist, lefty type ideologies corrupt psychology. On one hand she is right to do this because psychology should be able to measure the results of their approaches. Some outcomes should be considered better than others when working with patients. Therefore having measurable criteria is crucial.  But, she is wrong because by doing so she limits her ability to understand consciousness and mind because in reality they are nebulous and cannot be formalized….. listening to her and the challenges psychology faces made me realize how difficult it would be for psychology to tango with Leo’s Deconstructing Rationality series.
2. I question her disregard for self esteem in well being and wonder exactly the movement she referred too. I doubt it is the self esteem taught by Nathanial Brandon as she referred to artificially boosting self esteem which is not what Nathanial Brandon teaches…

I have much to learn…

I would hesitate to say whether she is above or below. But, she offers a strong critique of ideological corruptions in her field, and the challenges of the scientific legitimacy of psychology when distorted by ideology and a lack of empiricism and standard of efficacy. This is challenging!
 

I think there is room for many branches and fields in psychology which may benefit from different types of research, types of evidence, practices, purposes, etc… I don’t think all psychology should be empirical and that qualitative research has value as well. I think a robust psychology should be rooted first and foremost in a non-ideological and holistic lens. 
 

Actually, Integral meta theory probably the correct map for understanding psychology, plus psychedelics, Chinese psychology/ physiology, yogic sciences and western somatics. 

Edited 8 hours ago by Thought Art

[Leo Gura]

11 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

Chinese psychology/

Don't forget monkey psychology 

[Thought Art]

@Leo Gura Why u do this. What u mean?

I read Chinese psychology and Qigong books. Chinese view on psychology merges psychology and physiology in an interesting way. It’s very strange for me and challenging epistemic and ontological exercise. I am not talking about 5 element theory. There is more to it…

It is helping with my meditation practice as well. I’m working on integrating these psychologies in my self. 
 

Chinese psychology is what I keep thinking and coming back to when I listen to your deconstructing rationality series. 

Edited 8 hours ago by Thought Art

[Leo Gura]

@Thought Art I was not denying your psychology, just adding monkey psychology to it.

Gotta study how monkeys think to understand humans.

Edited 8 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Thought Art]

@Leo Gura

 

Edited 8 hours ago by Thought Art