How should scientists approach their research while being truth oriented

[SOUL]

28 minutes ago, Faceless said:

I agree..that’s the contradicting nature of thought. Without a seeing understanding of the whole of thought “the self “ thought is selective according to its preferences, desires, and so on. This type of thinking is influenced by personal bias and so on. 

 

 I agree again.. Through this compulsion to rationalize in the attempt to validate ones conclusions thought becomes corrupt. In seeing the truth that thought is limited by the thinker and there agenda makes for a true line of thought. As in not being caught in the deception of ignorance of that fact that thought seeks security and by doing so is unable to be objective. 

Someone can call anything "truth" they want which isn't the same thing as being "true" to their beliefs so this inconsistency between their "truth" and what actually is can produce quite a significant degree of mental yoga in an attempt to validate beliefs/thoughts/ideas/personal experience.

Which is why I encourage people to accept this physical manifest for what it is, it may be illusory but it is persistent and insistent in it's behavior regardless of what we believe/think of it or what we perceive it as.

People who have a personal experience of subjectively perceived 'truth' which contradicts the objective natural physical manifest often perform extreme mental contortions and rationalizations to resolve their perceptions.

An example that often is present in people who profess non-duality is when someone thinks/believes that there is an 'absolute truth' because 'truth' is a dualism/dichotomy so if someone is really non-dual they wouldn't perceive 'truth'.

No matter how much one thinks/believes it's "absolute truth" a bookcase isn't a unicorn. To them it may be so are completely convinced it is but they can't make me perceive it as a unicorn and it doesn't magically become one in the physical manifest, it just is what it is.

Edited January 30, 2018 by SOUL

[Faceless]

@soul 

Absolute truth lol

Truth in essence is independent of thought. Is this what your implying. 

Do you see this fact? Yes or no 

Do you see the truth that truth is totality independent of thought. There is truth “whole” then we make that truth into a reality “fragmented, partial, limited, conditioned ” by thinking about it?? 

Just a yes or no so I can know we’re meeting one another.

Edited January 30, 2018 by Faceless

[Leo Gura]

@SOUL Nothing about the "physical world" is objective because it is a function of human cognition. You think an ant experiences the same physical world? Nope! Whatever scientific knowledge you have is from the HUMAN species perspective, which is the very definition of subjective.

Whereas spirituality can give you access to the Absolute, which is the only objective thing there is.

[Faceless]

52 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Whereas spirituality can give you access to the Absolute, which is the only objective thing there is.

Well I would say it depends on how alert the observer/inquirer is to the limits of thought and if one has a capacity to know when thought is attributing or inducing various experiences as independent of thought. 

There’s a lot of self deception that goes undetected because thought is so subtle. 

I’m sure your aware of this to. 

[SOUL]

9 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@SOUL Nothing about the "physical world" is objective because it is a function of human cognition. You think an ant experiences the same physical world? Nope! Whatever scientific knowledge you have is from the HUMAN species perspective, which is the very definition of subjective.

Whereas spirituality can give you access to the Absolute, which is the only objective thing there is.

So you think gravity is just a "function of the human cognition"? It doesn't exist at all outside of our cognition of it?

Explain how spirituality isn't also from the human perspective so not subjective.

 

Edited January 31, 2018 by SOUL

[Leo Gura]

5 hours ago, SOUL said:

So you think gravity is just a "function of the human cognition"? It doesn't exist at all outside of our cognition of it?

Yes. That's why it took a genius of Isaac Newton's caliber to invent it.

Quote

Explain how spirituality isn't also from the human perspective so not subjective.

Spirituality leads to Absolute Infinity.

It's ABSOLUTE. It contains everything possible. Period. It is not a cognition, perception, or perspective. It's what remains when all perspective is abolished.

[art]

@Leo Gura Hmm.. Peter Ralston talks about gravity as a PRINCIPLE in this video, not as an invention.. That Newton grasped the principle of gravity, not invented it.. Or are you both right? Please explain

 

[Girzo]

@art All principles are groundless in their essence. Principle doesn't stay in opposition to invention, it's just a more basic invention that lays ground for other inventions. The utmost building block of reality is Nothing, not principles.

[Staples]

@art Principles are relative, that's for sure, and maybe some are absolute, but Leo would have to educate you on that particularity. 

It seems to me Ralston is operating in the relative paradigm and not the absolute in that particular clip.

[Monkey-man]

Well science can be more truth-oriented if we are talking about the most holistic possible understanding of reality.

In terms of your life, the truest holism is to reach absolute truth like Buddha.

But in terms of thinking and understanding reality, true holism is to inclusion of everything and thats also possible to very big extents, not to 100% extent but to very big. 

Opinions aren't problem.

Problem is to identify with them.

Why do we defend our ideas about consciousness and nonduality so much?

this absolute, thats relative, this true, thats false, this real, thats dream, this nondual, thats not nondual, bla bla bla many attachment to terminology

I think doing that is pretty much green or orange thinking, we hold our precious ideas as a truth. Rather why don't we just hold them as important, instead of holding them as true? They can't be non-important anyways, thats our values, but why do we so quick to think that if its important for me then its absolutely right?

You might think that intellect is important or spirituality is important, and then you think that its true for everyone and thats how life is and should be. But no, its just valuable for you, which is very good thing, but thats not the whole story of how life is or how life should be. Life can be with or without that. Because simply some people consider these things as important and need them in life and some don't. So its both! Moreover, some things are not people at all.

If you disidentify with your opinions you might see that now you can create holistic approach and be true system-thinker.

True system thinking is all-encompassment. Include everything, every variable including limitations of your mind, perception and your personal tastes, values and inclinations that will affect end result of created systemic thought.

So if you want to have systemic and holistic conceptual understanding of life/reality, you must include not only your non-dual staff, but everything from science, philosophy, psychology, economy, politics, history, maths to art, esoteric, cosmology, fairytales, religion, mythology, conspiracies, astrology and occults. From what bums on the street might think about life to what your family might think about life. From including your own biases and personal preferences to biases and preferences of people who conducted your books, articles, i.e. your research base. From holding the paradox that everything can be known and nothing can be known, that we don't know that we can know and that we don't know that we can't know.  That we know that we don't know, and that we know that we know. That all exist, and also don't exist. That everything is one, but also that its not one but many, that its infinitely one and many interactions of one infinity. Coz most people don't perceive reality in that way, and that fact must be included too. That nothing is paradoxical, yet for our logic its all paradoxes. We must include our feelings, emotions and all of our subjective experience as variables too. You need to use both logic and intuition. Cold-hearted abstained approach implying you only care about what's most correct and also warm-hearted compassionate approach implying that you do it out of care and love to knowledge. That knowledge and facts are just mind at work which isn't true, and yet mind is the only possible mean of knowledge to understand anything at all. That everything is metaphors, and yet metaphors are only reality that we have hence they are real. That all is real and illusion in the same time. That all is meaningful and meaningless. That there's evolution and its purposes, and that there's none of that. That its a game or show, and that its important and divine. That world doesn't need change, yet it needs change a lot. That all of your experience is absolute and relative in the same time. And in the same time its not absolute, in the sense that you are not in the state of absolute. That all is one, yet there are many layers of one which are interconnected but also have their own partially separate world.

So how to do that? I think that the only thing you really need is to exclude identification with your thinking and with end result. No identification assumes that you abstain from need to change something or to make impact or to survive or to be right as a person or to get somewhere. Instead aim to create holistic understanding which will be as right (relatively) as possible. Don't identify with your model. Mind that you can't be 100% right, but also that you don't need to be 100% right. The aim is not to be perfect,  you can't be perfect, but also you are already perfect. You are just creating systemic thought. You don't really need to include things that are low interest to you, but then you need to keep in mind that your end result is not as complete without those things, and it would be different with that things.

Also, keep in mind that you probably won't be able not to hold your opinions as precious to some extent, so also include that in your holistic model.

Then exclusion of wrong things will be done by inclusion of them!!! LOL how funny is that, you include all your biases, and all cultural superstitions about life, and this inclusion will make you to see bigger picture. Those stories can be fitted into bigger picture to extent that bigger picture makes bigger sense now. Because those biases can HIDE something very much true. Stories about santa clause may hide something behind them, including that its actually true entity! if you came to conclusion that its not then you can search why those stories exist at all or where do they fit into bigger picture.  because EVERYTHING FITS BIG PICTURE. Big picture includes places where you discover that all lies have aspects of them which are correct. Once that is taken into consideration, you can see how exactly it fits in. So maybe Santa is just metaphor of something, maybe he is real, maybe its all non-sense stories that exist because of some other factors, and maybe its all of the above! Now you can see how those stories are right and how are they wrong, and that its two sides of the same coin. Some of them can reflect one aspect, some another.

After you have your conceptual systemic model of reality (which will be forever expanding, so don't settle for anything), now you can use it for a change of your life, for share, for impact and for a good. Now it can be much more useful for your life or for life of society. Now its more correct. 

Or you can just simply enjoy creating and discovering knowledge and expand it further.

I don't mean you first need to learn a lot, you actually create your understanding every moment, so you can use that principle right now with what you already have. Whatever you know, just don't identify with it. And see how you can understand reality truer, or how you can really use your knowledge for better. Not only truth can be seen clearer but also life can be better.

It also feels good not to identify with opinions, it gives you opportunity to feel value and meaningfulness in all that, to use your intellect in much wiser ways and to grow. You even can survive much better and live much better if you don't identify with your opinions. You didn't even started to expand your model but its already holistic understanding once you don't identify with it. 

Now the question, to what extent thats possible?

[SOUL]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Yes. That's why it took a genius of Isaac Newton's caliber to invent it.

Spirituality leads to Absolute Infinity.

It's ABSOLUTE. It contains everything possible. Period. It is not a cognition, perception, or perspective. It's what remains when all perspective is abolished.

So it took a genius like Newton to "invent" it? Before he 'invented' it people were freely flying around all over the place because gravity didn't exist? Gawd what an ahole!

If it contains everything possible in the absolute infinite, then it's all cognition, perception, perspective and potential, not the absence of them because it contains everything possible!

Your limiting beliefs are why you need drugs and 1000s of hours of meditation to even get a glimpse, it takes much to overcome your mind's belief paradigm as you have created it.

Awakening brings clarity of cognition, perception, perspective and is a so simple state of being that few are attentive to it but the potential of it is absolutely infinite.

 

 

Edited January 31, 2018 by SOUL

[SpaceCowboy]

8 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Yes. That's why it took a genius of Isaac Newton's caliber to invent it.

Spirituality leads to Absolute Infinity.

It's ABSOLUTE. It contains everything possible. Period. It is not a cognition, perception, or perspective. It's what remains when all perspective is abolished.

@Leo Gura How would you know that the Absolute is actually absolute? I'm sure enough fish in an aquarium are ABSOLUTELY sure they are swimming in the endless ocean..

[Ibn Sina]

Historically speaking, the act of finding the truths of nature, and truths of the nature of self, almost always follow two different, distinctive traditions and as you are attempting, have never usually been intermingled together. If you want to see how success in science is made, look at stories like Einstein , Feynman, Schrodinger, Darwin, Newton, Aristotle, and for 'success' in spirituality look at  (bhagwan) shree rajneesh , buddha , christ, krishna, sankhara, rumi, vivekanda, heraclitus, diogenes, mahavira,  kabir, mansur (who went on quoting Leo- "I am truth", right till the moment of his execution) . I don't see much intermingling of the 2, except in very rare cases like Aquinas or Averroes. One cannot , I suppose, achieve any substantial success without going all in.

[Leo Gura]

13 hours ago, art said:

Hmm.. Peter Ralston talks about gravity as a PRINCIPLE in this video, not as an invention.. That Newton grasped the principle of gravity, not invented it.. Or are you both right? Please explain

He didn't contradict anything I said. He's using the word PRINCIPLE there in a particular context. He's talking about the "physical world" and pragmatically how to operate effectively within it. He's speaking about relative truths there, for purpose of teaching martial arts.

What people normally consider "gravity" is a very tricky thing. It's a highly abstract concept which they mistake for something out there in the "physical world", which is also another concept.

See, there is big difference between something like "a cat", and the actual furry creature sitting on your couch. "A cat", "a creature", "a couch"... these are also abstractions. Obviously no such things exist. You've never see "a cat", you've only seen specific animated colors and shapes which your mind then constructed into "a cat".

Saying what I'm saying doesn't make "the cat" disappear. It just highlights taken-for-granted conceptual projections which the mind casts upon the world. Imagine being a newborn baby. He does not see "a cat". He sees something, but it ain't "a cat" and it doesn't come with all the conceptual baggage that your notion of "a cat" comes with. The whole point is that words and concepts like "cat" or "gravity" are not isolated things, they are part of an infinite semantic web which makes up your entire worldview and sense of reality. Pull on these concepts long enough and eventually your entire sense of reality will unravel like a knitted sweater, and you along with it. Because you too, are a concept.

9 hours ago, SOUL said:

Your limiting beliefs are why you need drugs and 1000s of hours of meditation to even get a glimpse, it takes much to overcome your mind's belief paradigm as you have created it.

You speak of things you do not yet comprehend.

Watch out for the trap of making this about me. Whatever your feelings or assumptions about me, that's YOUR stuff.

Finger pointing at the moon.

[Leo Gura]

5 hours ago, SpaceCowboy said:

@Leo Gura How would you know that the Absolute is actually absolute? I'm sure enough fish in an aquarium are ABSOLUTELY sure they are swimming in the endless ocean..

Because it's abso-fucking-lute.

You won't understand until you see it. The ordinary mind is incapable of knowing it. It only makes sense at the moment of enlightenment.

If you knew it already, you'd be enlightened and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

If you want a quick and guaranteed way to grasp this, find some 5-MeO-DMT. Or spend a few thousand hours meditating towards it.

[SOUL]

23 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You speak of things you do not yet comprehend.

Watch out for the trap of making this about me. Whatever your feelings or assumptions about me, that's YOUR stuff.

Finger pointing at the moon.

It's all your self confessed stuff, taking drugs and hours of meditation, what's to assume when you speak openly about it?

You also spends hours on camera saying "you you you", should you consider that maybe that is all YOUR stuff and not the audience's?

I comprehend your belief paradigm is stuck on dualism otherwise the word Truth wouldn't be uttered as often as it is by you.

Don't fall into your own trap of making it about me or any of the viewing audience and forum participants as you so readily do.

It is what it is.

 

[Thanatos13]

42 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

He didn't contradict anything I said. He's using the word PRINCIPLE there in a particular context. He's talking about the "physical world" and pragmatically how to operate effectively within it. He's speaking about relative truths there, for purpose of teaching martial arts.

What people normally consider "gravity" is a very tricky thing. It's a highly abstract concept which they mistake for something out there in the "physical world", which is also another concept.

See, there is big difference between something like "a cat", and the actual furry creature sitting on your couch. "A cat", "a creature", "a couch"... these are also abstractions. Obviously no such things exist. You've never see "a cat", you've only seen specific animated colors and shapes which your mind then constructed into "a cat".

Saying what I'm saying doesn't make "the cat" disappear. It just highlights taken-for-granted conceptual projections which the mind casts upon the world. Imagine being a newborn baby. He does not see "a cat". He sees something, but it ain't "a cat" and it doesn't come with all the conceptual baggage that your notion of "a cat" comes with. The whole point is that words and concepts like "cat" or "gravity" are not isolated things, they are part of an infinite semantic web which makes up your entire worldview and sense of reality. Pull on these concepts long enough and eventually your entire sense of reality will unravel like a knitted sweater, and you along with it. Because you too, are a concept.

You speak of things you do not yet comprehend.

Watch out for the trap of making this about me. Whatever your feelings or assumptions about me, that's YOUR stuff.

Finger pointing at the moon.

I don’t think you understand your own words. 

A cat is just a label we affix to a creature with certain characteristics. The same as an outer world, and the same with gravity. Gravity is something that is independent of us, but we just have a word to the phenomenon. 

Its rather safe to assume that these things exist outside of us, we just give them labels to facilitate ease of communication. They are in fact isolated things, whether or not we have a term for them. 

The “cat” does exist, whatever you decide to call that collection of sensory data does exist. What you decide to call it doesn’t change the fact that it does exist. If you call it a cat then it is a cat.

41 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Because it's abso-fucking-lute.

You won't understand until you see it. The ordinary mind is incapable of knowing it. It only makes sense at the moment of enlightenment.

If you knew it already, you'd be enlightened and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

If you want a quick and guaranteed way to grasp this, find some 5-MeO-DMT. Or spend a few thousand hours meditating towards it.

I’m sorry but that would fall under “non evident” matters and judgment must be suspended, unless you aren’t a pyrrhonist. 

You haven’t proven that such a state exists. All psychedelics show is that they disrupt our senses. The same with any “spiritual experiences”, in this case enlightenment. All these states can be shown to be alteration of brain activity, but not evidence of any truth or insight about the nature of reality. If it were absolute then everyone would know it.

But the more likely outcome is that meditation and drugs cause one to perceive such things, rather than such things being the truth of any thing. Kind of like optical illusions. The lines look curved but they aren’t. I’m willing to wager “enlightenment” is the same, an altered view of reality but not the truth. Just because it’s powerful doesn’t make it true, that’s a fallacy. 

When it comes to anyone spouting enlightenment and spirituality I take everything with a huge grain of salt.

[Staples]

1 hour ago, Thanatos13 said:

You haven’t proven that such a state exists.

 

Obviously, he can't prove it. Every video on enlightenment has been him saying "I can't prove it to you, I can only tell you that it's real, and if you want to see it for yourself, do the work". I very much doubt you are doing any of the work to try and prove it's real or not for yourself. From what I've read, you're doubting before you even attempt to look for a hint of truth. You're free to be a sceptic, but you're not able to criticize something fairly if you aren't openminded to even consider trying to attain or understand it for yourself. 

Maybe you're totally right, but I see it as foolish to be so confident in your own argument without first-hand experience, which you've cited none of in this post.

1 hour ago, Thanatos13 said:

The “cat” does exist, whatever you decide to call that collection of sensory data does exist. What you decide to call it doesn’t change the fact that it does exist. If you call it a cat then it is a cat.

 

Is the collection of sensory data static across different species of life? Does a flea have the same sensory input of a cat as a human? A bird? I'd argue not. A flea experiences a "cat" as a huge behemoth, with juicy blood underneath the surface and he is surrounded by a forest of hair. A flea feels a cat different to you also. You feel soft fur on the skin, the flea feels something to consume, no fur, and its biological agenda in relation to the cat is totally different from a human's. 

What is more real, the sensory input of the cat or the objective cat outside of you as a human and your senses without any input? I think that's partially what Leo's talking about when he talks about absolute infinity. Infinite perspectives are possible, and each perspective modifies the external world to make sense under its own set of rules.

Is the cat literally physically different for the flea, or does it just appear differently for the flea? My answer to that is, "What's the difference?"

Edited February 1, 2018 by Staples
clarity

[Nahm]

There’s a pattern evident of have or not having experienced the big reveal; and using the word ‘drugs’ vs ‘psychedelics’, ‘lsd’, ‘psylicibin’, ‘mushrooms’, etc.  I don’t think anyone who has that experience would neglect to make a distinction, and just use the word drugs. People tend to remember which “drug” they experienced the truth with. Lol . Nobody’s on here talking about coke, or meth or anything for a VERY specific reason. If a snaws berry cured a headache, and you had a headache, you wouldn’t just say give me some berries! You would need snaws berries!

Before the experience, there is no distinction possible, because the reveal hasn’t happened yet. Self identity is still conceptual, whatever that concept is, even if it is a “concept of no concepts”. ?  It is extremely black and white, this matter. No grey whatsoever, when it comes to absolute. Absolute is about as good of a word as there is for it.  

But, the defenses kick in; tension, accusation, character attacks.  That’s the same  ‘self’  that goes though when the experience happens, and then we’re free of that mess, or at the least, we see right through it now.  The practices make the trips awesome, and the trips make the practices awesome. 

Some synonyms for absolute;   complete, full, infinite, pure, sheer, simple, unadulterated, unconditional, unlimited, unqualified, utter, entire, free, total, unabridged. 

 

[Thanatos13]

8 minutes ago, Staples said:

Obviously, he can't prove it. Every video on enlightenment has been him saying "I can't prove it to you, I can only tell you that it's real, and if you want to see it for yourself, do the work". I very much doubt you are doing any of the work to try and prove it's real or not for yourself. From what I've read, you're doubting before you even attempt to look for a hint of truth. You're free to be a sceptic, but you're not able to criticize something fairly if you aren't openminded to even consider trying to attain or understand it for yourself. 

Maybe you're totally right, but I see it as foolish to be so confident in your own argument without first-hand experience, which you've cited none of in this post.

Is the collection of sensory data static across different species of life? Does a flea have the same sensory input of a cat as a human? A bird? I'd argue not. A flea experiences a "cat" as a huge behemoth, with juicy blood underneath the surface and he is surrounded by a forest of hair. A flea feels a cat different to you also. You feel soft fur on the skin, the flea feels something to consume, no fur, and its biological agenda in relation to the cat is totally different from a human's. 

What is more real, the sensory input of the cat or the objective cat outside of you as a human and your senses without any input? I think that's partially what Leo's talking about when he talks about absolute infinity. Infinite perspectives are possible, and each perspective modifies the external world to make sense under its own set of rules.

Is the cat literally physically different for the flea, or does it just appear differently for the flea? My answer to that is, "What's the difference?"

Considering the different biological makeups of creatures it makes sense that each would see sensory data differently. But in the case of humans we have a shared understanding of what a “cat” is. 

All we have are the senses, and even those are flawed. 

Your first paragraph is exactly the reason I doubt enlightenment exists. “I can’t explain it or prove it, you’ll just have to see it yourself”. That’s the line for either the stupid or gullible. It’s used to avoid critical examination of our experience and wonder whether it was true or not. Time and again people have said “see for yourself” and time and again they don’t stand under questioning. 

The point of the skeptic is to question everything, which Leo fails to do. He seeks to use it solely to undermine science and materialism, but spirituality gets a free pass. 

Spiritual experiences don’t prove anything, they just reinforce preconceived notions. 

8 minutes ago, Nahm said:

There’s a pattern evident of have or not having experienced the big reveal; and using the word ‘drugs’ vs ‘psychedelics’, ‘lsd’, ‘psylicibin’, ‘mushrooms’, etc.  I don’t think anyone who has that experience would neglect to make a distinction, and just use the word drugs. People tend to remember which “drug” they experienced the truth with. Lol . Nobody’s on here talking about coke, or meth or anything for a VERY specific reason. If a snaws berry cured a headache, and you had a headache, you wouldn’t just say give me some berries! You would need snaws berries!

Before the experience, there is no distinction possible, because the reveal hasn’t happened yet. Self identity is still conceptual, whatever that concept is, even if it is a “concept of no concepts”. ?  It is extremely black and white, this matter. No grey whatsoever, when it comes to absolute. Absolute is about as good of a word as there is for it.  

But, the defenses kick in; tension, accusation, character attacks.  That’s the same  ‘self’  that goes though when the experience happens, and then we’re free of that mess, or at the least, we see right through it now.  The practices make the trips awesome, and the trips make the practices awesome. 

I call them drugs because that’s what they are, plus it’s easier to spell. Those don’t revel any truth or insight, people only think they do because the experience is so powerful. But since you are ingesting something that alters your senses from normal functioning it would be reasonable to assume it isn’t truth. It’s just a biological reaction to a foreign substance. 

But because it is so strong and powerful we assume it means something, which is jumping the gun.