TrustTheProcess

Relativity

31 posts in this topic

Ok, so I understand that all beliefs are only "true" relative to the subjective frame of reference of the person/group who hold the belief. To the ancient greeks, the universe was literally made up of earth, wind, fire, and water. To a modern chemist, it is made up of atoms, and quarks or whatever. Both perspectives have elements of "truth" and elements of falsehood.  The only objective is absolute Truth.

 

My question to the forum is the following:

How can we really  tell which frame of reference is relatively more "true" and less false? If all perspectives are wrong relative to the absolute, what makes a climate change denier less right than a climate scientist? What makes Bernie Sanders more "right" than Trump? What standards are we using? How can we use these standards? Is it fair to tell a climate change denier or conspiracy theorist that they are "wrong" when everything is fundamentally subjective and illusory? I guess you could say that the climate change scientist is operating from a higher stage of development on the spiral, but even the application of  spiral dynamics and the categorization of levels of consciousness is untenable in the end. 

 

 

Really itching for Relativity part 2

 

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I would recommend using the word "useful" instead of "true" when talking about relative truths. Some frameworks are more "useful" than others for achieving a certain goal, but the measurement of progress and the choice of goal is subjective. In other words, if you can identify somebody's goals and ideas of what constitutes progress, you could say that they're going about it the wrong way if you think there is a better way to achieve that goal.

For instance, the climate scientist and the climate change denier both have a common goal (atleast implictly): to survive on this planet. Denying climate change based on a few internet searches is arguably not a better strategy to achieve that goal than having a worldwide team of scientists actively working on it. However, convincing somebody that way is not so easy, because they may believe that denying climate change IS the measurement of progress.

Edited by Carl-Richard

Intrinsic joy is revealed in the marriage of meaning and being.

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@Meta-Man I tried to convey that fact aswell somewhere in there (I don't know if I did so successfully though) :) :
 

Quote

the measurement of progress and the choice of goal is subjective.


Hallais :)


Intrinsic joy is revealed in the marriage of meaning and being.

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2 hours ago, louhad said:

What standards are we using? How can we use these standards? Is it fair to tell a climate change denier or conspiracy theorist that they are "wrong" when everything is fundamentally subjective and illusory?

That's the trick. All standards are relative.

BUT! As a society and as humans, in practice, we share certain relative values and standards which allows us to come together and work together. Science is one such standard. Emprical testing is a standard that even a climate change denier agrees on -- if he is being honest and neutral.

Of course nothing prevents a person from being dishonest and biased, as honesty and neutrality themselves are just relative standards. Which is why we have the mess we have.

Nothing is stopping you from adopting whatever standards you want. You can even be insane. But some standards are more practical than others for the purposes of survival. And that's what unifies most of us: we all want to survival. BUT! We all are trying to survive a different thing, therefore we all disagree about which way is best. The climate change denier is denying climate change because that is his way of surviving as the self that he thinks he is.


You are God. You are Truth. You are Love. You are Infinity.

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2 hours ago, Meta-Man said:

Hehe, that’s a mighty big if!

On a more trivial note, it's actually possible to have a bit of admiration for believing in flat earth if you're a strict follower of the principle of radical empiricism: if you've not seen it with your own eyes, it's not true. But of course that's only an admiration of somebody being logical consistent rather than actually being wise :P 


Intrinsic joy is revealed in the marriage of meaning and being.

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@louhad If it was so simple, there wouldn't be much trouble amongst people. It's because it's so much complicated and there's no actual ground that we all share that all of our disagreements exist in the first place.

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3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

But some standards are more practical than others for the purposes of survival. And that's what unifies most of us: we all want to survival. BUT! We all are trying to survive a different thing, therefore we all disagree about which way is best. The climate change denier is denying climate change because that is his way of surviving as the self that he thinks he is.

You always want to narrow things down to survival. That's cynicism. It's good to have it in mind but it's not everything. The map breaks down eventually.

Not all of us want to survive (I mean obviously we do but we have to take it for granted to be able to seek other things, i.e. expand). Most of us take survival for granted and we mostly focus on other things. Unless we're faced with a death situation, we're almost never concerned with the concept of death. Of course, when I say survival is not the main driver, I don't mean that we would have been seeking death instead. It's just that we don't think that much about survival itself. We don't think that much about life and death. We're so much engrossed in our lives while taking most of it for granted. And that's not a bug, that's a feature. Because if we would stay worried and constantly thinking about death, we'd never grow and evolution would stop. Thinking about death is limiting. We rather seek more freedom and expansion.

Conclusion: The main drivers of human beings are expressed in Maslow's hierarchy. The lowest driver is survival, and the highest is freedom and expansion. But everyone is at a different place in life (and will always be). That makes it extremely complicated to find a common ground. Besides, expansion of some people has to occur on the expense of others' contraction. So, the game is always dynamic. And so here we are.

I think my theory is more accurate and nuanced than pure cynicism. Let me hear your thoughts Leo.

Edited by The observer

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1 hour ago, The observer said:

You always want to narrow things down to survival. That's cynicism. It's good to have it in mind but it's not everything. The map breaks down eventually.

Not all of us want to survive (I mean obviously we do but we have to take it for granted to be able to seek other things, i.e. expand). Most of us take survival for granted and we mostly focus on other things. Unless we're faced with a death situation, we're almost never concerned with the concept of death. Of course, when I say survival is not the main driver, I don't mean that we would have been seeking death instead. It's just that we don't think that much about survival itself. We don't think that much about life and death. We're so much engrossed in our lives while taking most of it for granted. And that's not a bug, that's a feature. Because if we would stay worried and constantly thinking about death, we'd never grow and evolution would stop. Thinking about death is limiting. We rather seek more freedom and expansion.

Conclusion: The main drivers of human beings are expressed in Maslow's hierarchy. The lowest driver is survival, and the highest is freedom and expansion. But everyone is at a different place in life (and will always be). That makes it extremely complicated to find a common ground. Besides, expansion of some people has to occur on the expense of others' contraction. So, the game is always dynamic. And so here we are.

I think my theory is more accurate and nuanced than pure cynicism. Let me hear your thoughts Leo.

You don't let understand how deep survival goes.

99.99% of everything you do all day long is survival.

Watch my series Understanding Survival Parts 1 & 2, and contemplate what survival is. It goes way beyond whatever you think it is.


You are God. You are Truth. You are Love. You are Infinity.

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11 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

You don't yet understand how deeper survival goes.

Yeah, yeah. Or maybe you missed my point.

11 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

99.99% of everything you do all day long is survival.

No.

99.99% of everything I do all day long is unconsciousness, not survival. Unless you equate the two, which I think is a mistake.

11 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Watch my series Understanding Survival Parts 1 & 2, and contemplate what survival is. It goes way beyond whatever you think it is.

I've watched your series the days you posted them. And I'm pointing beyond the map you're operating from. The map is not the territory, right? If I can't have the perfect map, I still can have a more comprehensive one than cynicism. Cynicism as an explanation is stage Blue/Orange at best. Seriously, it's outdated. On the other hand, Maslow's hierarchy is Yellow, and it's way more nuanced and accurate.

Edited by The observer

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@The observer Survival is about perpetuating a particular pattern. It's not merely about having food in your belly or a roof over your head. Survival is happening on all levels of the pyramid.


Intrinsic joy is revealed in the marriage of meaning and being.

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28 minutes ago, The observer said:

 

Not all of us want to survive

You would then be deceased or close to it.  You certainly wouldn't be here.

The mindfuck is that death is an illusion anyway and you would just melt into Infinite Love anyway.  You can't escape yourself.   Infinity has no where to go.

 


 

Wisdom.  Truth.  Love.

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3 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

@The observer Survival is about perpetuating a particular pattern. It's not merely about having food in your belly or a roof over your head. Survival is happening on all levels of the pyramid.

I get that. But I don't think it's effective to keep calling it survival at that point. Essentially, sure it can be viewed as a survival strategy. But that's not how it is perceived by the one who's doing it. When someone is perpetuating a particular pattern, the thought of life vs. death (survival) never even crosses their mind. They're aiming towards something else entirely. That's their drive. It's more accurately called a desire to expand, which does not contradict survival essentially. It's just a more nuanced term for it. The relativity of drives is a complex problem (Yellow). Cynicism is a stage Blue/Orange explanation. Therefore, it cannot work. And it will cause a lot of trouble and confusion.

@Inliytened1 Please don't misquote me ?

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@The observer  Survival is more than just preserving the illusion of the body. It is about preserving ALL illusion,

I think this is what you're missing here.

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1 minute ago, Extreme Z7 said:

@The observer  Survival is more than just preserving the illusion of the body. It is about preserving ALL illusion,

I think this is what you're missing here.

No, I see that. And if that's true, then that whole concept is illusory and should be done away with. Right? You can't call out other illusions and still keep yours. You'd only be deluding yourself.

My point goes deeper. Instead of undermining thoughts and behaviours as purely driven by survival, I think it's better to acknowledge that they're driven by a higher force. Once basic survival is taken care of, the rest of thoughts and behaviours is not going to be directed at survival anymore. It's rather going to be directed towards expansion.

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@The observer Does an ant think about how it's taking care of its survival needs? What is the desire to expand but a survival strategy? I don't see this definition of survival as cynical one: I see it as a very inclusive one, infact quite the opposite of what you've been projecting here :)


Intrinsic joy is revealed in the marriage of meaning and being.

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@The observer You are acting cocking and not taking what I said seriously.

If you are wise, open your mind and reconsider your understanding of survival.


You are God. You are Truth. You are Love. You are Infinity.

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25 minutes ago, The observer said:

No, I see that. And if that's true, then that whole concept is illusory and should be done away with. Right? You can't call out other illusions and still keep yours. You'd only be deluding yourself.

True. But there are still degrees to that.

 

26 minutes ago, The observer said:

Once basic survival is taken care of, the rest of thoughts and behaviours is not going to be directed at survival anymore. It's rather going to be directed towards expansion.

Different people on different levels of the class spectrum have different ideas of what "basic survival" means.

For some people it could mean "keeping my mega-corporation afloat".

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4 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

@The observer Does an ant think about how it's taking care of its survival needs?

I don't know. Why don't you ask it? Maybe that specific ant doesn't think at all.

5 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

@The observer What is the desire to expand but a survival strategy?

That's one way to look at it. There's another one, and you're not able to see it (remember I'm suggesting a stage Yellow approach).

9 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

@The observer I don't see this definition of survival as cynical one

Okay. Perhaps cynicism is not the perfect word. I just realised that it's a loaded word. Let's forget about it entirely. I still stand by the rest of what I said.

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9 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@The observer You are acting cocking and not taking what I said seriously.

If you are wise, open your mind and reconsider your understanding of survival.

Look Leo, I'm trying to offer you a way of understanding/viewing things differently. If you think that your understanding is all-comprehensive, universal, and absolute, then I will not go on any further. I will understand that it's a survival strategy that will keep you from expanding your perspective.

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@The observer I think the yellow approach lies in recognizing how survival and expansion aren't necessarily mutually exclusive but at the same time different concepts indeed.


Intrinsic joy is revealed in the marriage of meaning and being.

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