Leo Vs Schmachtenberger

[xeontor]

First, please see this post:

https://actualized.org/insights/where-schmachtenberger-goes-wrong

 

Below is a structured comparison of the two positions, followed by a critical appraisal of Leo Gura’s objections and some take-aways for anyone trying to make sense of “What is Reality?” in 2024.

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1. What Daniel actually does (27 : 15 – 34 : 30)
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• The “unspeakable premise.”  
  – Daniel begins by quoting Lao-Tzu (“The Tao that can be spoken…”) and Gödel/Tarski/Bell/Heisenberg.  
  – Point: any finite description of the whole will be incomplete or self-contradictory; therefore, whatever model he offers must be held lightly.

• “No false idols.”  
  – He equates idolatry with mistaking one’s map for the territory.  
  – Proposes never holding 100 % confidence in a model; remain in living contact with experience.

• Tripartite ontology of perception.  
  – Introduces perceiver / perceived / perception (immanent, omniscient, transcendent).  
  – Uses it to show why any statement about “what reality is” already presupposes a stance inside that triad.

• Practical implication.  
  – A functional metaphysics must inform ethics, governance, civilization design.  
  – But premature certainty can produce violence and bad design.

Net effect: Daniel declines to compress Reality into a one-word slogan; instead he frames Reality as trans-conceptual, partially modellable, and ethically consequential.

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2. Leo Gura’s critique (core claims)
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1. Daniel “dodges” because he doesn’t know the answer.  
2. There is a single correct answer: “Reality = Infinity/God/Love/Mind.”  
3. Absolute Truth is directly accessible; humility is unwarranted.  
4. The entire Game B / meta-crisis discourse is “Tier-2 mental masturbation,” i.e. collective conceptual self-deception.  
5. Dialogue, community, environmentalism, integral theory, etc. are all “group-think hallucinations.”  
6. What matters is individual realization of Infinite Love (a mystical, not dialogical, act).

Implicit premises behind Leo’s stance
• “Direct mystic experience” delivers infallible knowledge.  
• Conceptual thought is inherently deceptive.  
• Group inquiry cannot reach the Absolute; only solitary realization can.  
• Once realized, the Absolute should be declared without caveats.

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3. Epistemology clash in a nutshell
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            Daniel                         |             Leo Gura
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Source of Multi-modal: sense data,         | Singular: non-dual mystical

knowledge: models, logic, dialogue,        | apprehension = Absolute Truth
            contemplative states            |
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Posture : Epistemic humility (Gödel,      | Epistemic certainty (“God/
            “no false idols”)                              | Infinity/Love” is self-evident)
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Goal : Co-create workable              | Individually realize & proclaim
            civilization design                 | the Absolute
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Method: Dialogue, collective sense-     | Solo contemplative breakthrough;
            making, iterative modeling        | discard conceptual discourse
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4. Strengths & weaknesses of Leo’s critique
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A. Where Leo has a point
• Mystical immediacy is real. Many people (traditions East & West) report direct apprehension of an unconditioned “Suchness,” often described as boundless love or luminosity.  
• Intellectual discursiveness can become evasive; “analysis paralysis” is common among high-complexity thinkers.  
• Movements like Game B can foster echo-chambers where peers reinforce one another’s abstractions.

B. Where the critique over-reaches
1. “Only one correct answer.”  
   – Even within the mystical literature, descriptions vary: emptiness (Śūnyatā), Brahman, the Tao, Ein Sof, the Clear Light, etc. Claiming a monopoly (“Infinity/Love or you’re wrong”) ignores the perennial variety of legitimate formulations.

2. Equating humility with ignorance.  
   – Humility in the face of Gödelian limits is not a dodge; it is a logical conclusion that finite language cannot exhaustively capture the infinite.  
   – Genuine mystics (Meister Eckhart, Lao-Tzu, Plotinus) also deploy “negative theology” and paradox, precisely to avoid idolizing a word like “God.”

3. Dismissing group inquiry as impossible.  
   – Collective inquiry is fallible, but so is individual revelation (susceptible to pathology, ego-inflation, misinterpretation).  
   – Science, ethics, and even mystical traditions themselves are preserved and refined communally.

4. “Absolute Truth is accessible, period.”  
   – Maybe so experientially, but translating that encounter into language introduces representation error.  
   – The very moment one says “It’s Infinite Love” the statement becomes a pointer, not the thing itself—exactly Daniel’s point.

5. Throwing out pragmatics.  
   – Even if one awakens to God, food must still be grown, ecosystems stabilized, AI governed, nukes controlled. Civilization design remains necessary; mystical certainty alone does not specify CO₂ ppm thresholds or supply-chain logistics.

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5. Bridging the two perspectives
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• States vs. stages (Wilber). One may attain a non-dual state yet still need to develop post-rational capacities for systems design. The two are not mutually exclusive.  
• Two kinds of “truth.”  
  – Mystical (aletheia): unmediated disclosure.  
  – Pragmatic/propositional: models that guide coordinated action.  
  Failure to distinguish them creates the debate.

• Complementarity principle.  
  – Daniel supplies epistemic safeguards, heuristics for coordination, and design principles.  
  – Leo supplies existential urgency, the call to firsthand realization.  
  – A mature culture likely needs both: awakened individuals who can also think systemically with humility.

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6. Take-aways
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1. If you want a definitive, once-and-for-all ontological slogan, Daniel will disappoint you by design; his core claim is that slogans are idols.  
2. If you want practical guidance for governing biotech, AI, or climate systems, Leo’s one-word answer is beautiful but under-specified.  
3. The tension between “direct realization” and “collective modeling” is ancient (Advaita vs. Madhyamaka, apophatic vs. kataphatic theology, Zen vs. Hua-yen). Both poles have pitfalls: solipsistic certainty vs. infinite deferral.  
4. Beware rhetorical certainty: saying “I have realized God” does not exempt anyone from self-deception, spiritual bypass, or blind spots in ordinary life.  
5. Equally beware infinite waffle: refusing ever to commit can paralyze action and smuggle in hidden assumptions.  
6. A viable 21st-century metaphysics may have to integrate (a) contemplative immediacy, (b) logical self-limitation, and (c) cooperative problem-solving.

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7. Concluding assessment
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Leo Gura’s critique is emotionally forceful and points to a legitimate danger: becoming so enamored with meta-models that one misses the raw, luminous fact of Being. However, his dismissal of epistemic humility and collective inquiry over-simplifies the situation and risks erecting a new idol—“Infinity/Love/Mind”—that, once verbalized, falls under the same Gödelian caveats Daniel flagged.

In short:

• Daniel: “Any statement of Reality is partial; mind your idols; build better systems.”  
• Leo: “Reality is God; stop equivocating; wake up now.”

Neither stance is sufficient alone; together they illuminate different facets of the diamond. The work is to hold radical openness to Infinite Love while still thinking clearly enough to keep civilization from tearing itself apart.