JosephKnecht

Daniel Schmachtenberger & Bret Weinstein

101 posts in this topic

4 hours ago, Meta-Man said:

You mean how it ultimately slips away into relativity? 

It's formally defined as "the species problem": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_concept

The books and lecturers would vaguely refer to it from time to time. I was most struck by it when we were trying to identify different types of butterfly and moth in pictures. To the untrained eye, some of them would look identical and somehow be a separate species, and some relatively different-looking ones would be the same species and just a different sub-species. Looking at the morphology is only one way to define a species, but it's central to identifying insects, and the defining characteristics are often completely arbitrary.


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

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46 minutes ago, Meta-Man said:

Right. 

Ultimately everything spills over into everything in the non-dual soup, so there is no such thing as a species at all.

It's one illustration of how language fails to encapsulate the intelligence of reality.


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

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On 17/02/2021 at 2:58 PM, JosephKnecht said:

A deep conversation between two intelligent people. 

If you can't watch the whole thing, just watch the speech of Daniel at (01:05:19 Markets, states, and the people),  

Okay, this one was brilliant!

What about Bret's other videos, are they worth listening/watching?

Asking— if you are a regular listener to his show!!!

Thanks.

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3 hours ago, ajai said:

What about Bret's other videos, are they worth listening/watching?

He's a smart guy, but some of his political takes are dumb. Gotta be very selective about the ideas he feeds you.


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

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On 2/27/2021 at 7:16 PM, Leo Gura said:
On 2/27/2021 at 0:13 PM, aurum said:

 

I don't know about wisdom, but we got plenty of selfishness to swing us full-circle.

Sometimes one is so foolish one stumbles into wisdom :D

That makes sense. If there’s one thing humans have been good at so far, it’s survival.

I don’t think we are heading for “self-termination” as Daniel puts it either. I do appreciate his perspective though, it’s a sobering bit cold water.

To not self-terminate still means we will have to make good choices. 

Perhaps even scarier to me though is that human beings survive, but only at a continual greater and greater sacrifice of what really makes life worth living. In some ways we are already doing that.

I don’t think that will happen either, but if it did, I’d rather self-terminate.
 


 

 

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This is exactly the kind of thread I have been looking for on this forum. Great exchange of ideas!

The Consilience Project is now online since end of February, I just started reading. Has anyone read into it already and has an opinion? 

On 1.3.2021 at 9:06 PM, aurum said:

To not self-terminate still means we will have to make good choices. 

Perhaps even scarier to me though is that human beings survive, but only at a continual greater and greater sacrifice of what really makes life worth living. In some ways we are already doing that.

I think this is more clear now since we are seeing the very real effects of climate change. Will we just let it happen and technologically create isolated structures to live in? Will taking a walk in nature be a thing of the past that we will tell our children about? I like your and Leo's thinking that we are too selfish to perish, although some part of me sees disaster arriving. If we're honest, we don't know. That's what makes this even more fascinating to me. On the one hand, I don't care what happens since I know nothing is lost, all is perfection and this is one of infinite beauties in the mind of God. But on the other hand, deep down, I care for humanity to continue and embody love further and further... Life is the best movie ever 

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11 hours ago, peanutspathtotruth said:

The Consilience Project is now online

Is that all it is? Web articles??? O.o

No one is gonna read or share that shit. They need to be making videos.


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

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19 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Is that all it is? Web articles??? O.o

No one is gonna read or share that shit. They need to be making videos.

Seems to be it - for now, quite underwhelming. I'm currently reading through the articles, they are solid. But I agree, from what they make themselves out to be, I am hoping for more. 

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21 hours ago, peanutspathtotruth said:

for now, quite underwhelming.

no just perfect, if it reaches the people who would actually appreciate not less - its better this way, informing those who are interested.  it is neither disturbing nor clickbaiting too much. maybe its arrogant but for those it is not made it is not made.

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11 minutes ago, mememe said:

no just perfect, if it reaches the people who would actually appreciate not less - its better this way, informing those who are interested.  it is neither disturbing nor clickbaiting too much. maybe its arrogant but for those it is not made it is not made.

Yeah maybe you're right, maybe they know exactly how to proceed most effectively considering their goal of offering sense making skills. I'm currently finishing the first meta news article about the planted bricks and I just really love their choice of format for this. I still think expanding into extended video format would be a great idea at some point :)

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11 minutes ago, peanutspathtotruth said:

Yeah maybe you're right, maybe they know exactly how to proceed most effectively considering their goal of offering sense making skills. I'm currently finishing the first meta news article about the planted bricks and I just really love their choice of format for this. I still think expanding into extended video format would be a great idea at some point :)

i still think in sense of seriousness written language is more tangible and informative, especially if information gets processed and broken down into other media formats and set into new contexts afterwards. you could not put so much information into spoken language as it would probably sound very complicated, also in sense of practicality, for many topics i usually prefer books before movies and guess a lot of people do. if you talk about documentary formats it would def be much more time intense than gathering information - so yes, documentaries are probably nice. mixed media can be sensemaking :) 

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16 minutes ago, mememe said:

i still think in sense of seriousness written language is more tangible and informative, especially if information gets processed and broken down into other media formats and set into new contexts afterwards. you could not put so much information into spoken language as it would probably sound very complicated, also in sense of practicality, for many topics i usually prefer books before movies and guess a lot of people do. if you talk about documentary formats it would def be much more time intense than gathering information - so yes, documentaries are probably nice. mixed media can be sensemaking :) 

That's what I've been thinking as well, that this depth is best covered by text. What I meant though would be a video format where, for example, a discussion between multiple people takes place in which it is practically demonstrated how proper argumentation works, how to properly research, how to hold multiple perspectives etc. The most interesting point for me would be to make it practical, to show examples because the theory of it is already there. They also could show their own way of researching a topic with articles and data bases, using smart visuals etc. 

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Very underwhelming, and the articles don't really show their sense-making process in detail or connect to the concepts they are trying to teach (at least not clearly enough to teach people). And tho most pieces are not nearly as biased as mainstream news and are very educational with their thinking process (it's still mostly speaking to a US audience from a US perspective, not a global perspective), it's not as whole or multi-perspective as I'd hoped. Tho their team consists of people in many varied fields, they are not as diverse as I'd hoped. It would be nice if they can have more people who have integrity, direct experience, and expertise but are opposite in perspectives on a topic to come together to makes sense of their differences in perspectives. And not only that, but also looking at the same topic from the perspective of many different fields and levels of abstractions. The level of wholeness and complexity in their perspective is not as whole/deep as I'd hoped. But it's only the beginning, and it's already better than most media sources. If most people in the US can do sense-making on this level, it'd be a huge improvement.  

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On 8/31/2021 at 1:26 PM, erik8lrl said:

it's already better than most media sources.

Better than most, does that mean you know equal or better sources? Would you mind sharing those?

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@peanutspathtotruth

There are too many. 

It's impossible to find truly 100% unbiased sources, all sources are biased in nature, but each differs in its degree of bias. 

So it's best to find sources that are on the same level of nuance as this project, but with differences in bias/perspective. 

Every source of this quality has different aspects/nuance in their perspectives, so I can't just say one is better than the other in a general sense (some might be very deep and complex in their sense-making/research, but only cover a small range of topics/perspectives, while other are more shallow but covers a wider range of topics). But overall the best perspective is combining many different sources that come from a broad range of information landscapes that all reach this level (Consilience Project) of sense-making or deeper.    

What I do:

1. Find sources that are not in the extremes in terms of their degrees of bias. Sources that can look at both sides with facts and don't provide black and white opinions. Sources that are more nuanced and self-aware. They don't have to be completely neutral, but just not blindly pushing propaganda or only their perspective. The Consilience Project would be an example of this. It's fairly nuanced but still leans towards US/western interest.

I would partially disagree with Daniel's idea of reading everything on the spectrum of bias because it's too time-consuming, and the more extreme they are, the less insightful they are (in terms of sense-making, you can still read to gain insights on epistemology or ego development). However, if you cannot find any sources that lean somewhere in the middle, then your only option is to read both sides and then piece them together by drawing a line somewhere in the middle.   

2. Check the funding source for these sources. Who is behind these sources can basically tell you how biased they are and what they will bias towards. A lot of mainstream media in the west are funded either by the government (BBC as an example) or by those who work for the government or by corporations. For example, the CIA has been creating off branches of companies that spread misinformation or funds the media to manufacture consent since they cannot do that as a government body. 

It's best if the source is independent, but if they are funded by a political group, you just have to keep that in mind when you check their sources. 

Or it's also okay if the political group funding the source is more neutral/nuanced, likely with less survival bias involved. A political group that is a third party between the perspectives of the issue for example.  

3. Find sources that provide facts, direct experiences, and integrity. If a source is very clearly trying to invoke extreme fear, or hate, or any form of extreme negative emotions, they are likely not a good source. With good sources, even if they are biased towards a perspective, they don't demonize the opposite but bring understanding and context into them. If the source is clearly trying to play with words to manipulate your perception of the narrative, you just need to be aware of it while consuming their information. 

4. Find sources in different parts of the world. If you see an issue happening outside of your country, don't just read your country's news. Check out sources in that (or around that) region to bring more insights and context into their perspective, even if they are in different languages than the one you know. 

It's best if you can find sources in that location that has integrity (that follows all of the above) but also speak your language. Because if you just translate sources, often the translation can misinterpret/mistranslate the source leading to wrong assumptions and interpretations.   

It's really best if you can speak their language as well, this way you can truly understand what they mean. 

I find that a lot of great sources are simply hidden in a different language on the internet. For example, if you want to find good sources on China, the best sources are actually all in Chinese, with the most balanced/nuanced ones coming from Chinese in Singapore since they completely understand both the western perspective and the Chinese perspective. But there is no way for you to find them if you don't know Chinese. You wouldn't even know how to search for them since they will only show up if you search in Chinese. The same applies in every language, there are whole rabbit holes of sources that are simply segmented into different parts of the internet in that language bundle. Once you find those sources that really bring great insight into their perspectives, it becomes very easy to make sense of that perspective.  

5. Use different search engines, or look for sources that are lower on the ranking and that are different perspectives from the top ones. Search engines can easily censor information by de-ranking them since most people only check what is ranked on the top. Which is often very biased and low quality. You have to dig a little deeper to be able to find good sources. And every search engine has a different bias in terms of their ranking.

A good way is to use the algorithm (Youtube for example) to consciously filter information that is extremes in their bias and only consume sources that are potentially balanced. This way over time the algorithm will start to recommend more sources that are good naturally. 

6. Verify with direct experiences. The only way to truly make sense of different perspectives around the world is to gain direct experience on it, either by traveling to those places and meeting people and talking to them or talking to someone who has integrity and direct experience but holds an authentic perspective (deep understanding of their culture, history, and politics) of that region of the world. It's best if they are just a normal person in that environment and not someone trying to sell their perspective for survival.

When someone is doing perspective selling as the main part of their survival source, they will be very biased, to the point where they will do anything to keep creating narratives for that perspective.

However, it's also okay if the source asks for monetary support but only if they are very clearly nuanced (follows all of the above) and accept both perspectives and are not using fear to oversell their bias. Then they are a quality independent source. 

7. Understand that everyone only has a partial understanding of everything and never the complete whole (since it's infinite). Most beliefs and believed-truths are likely to be made out of unself-verified partially false/partially true assumptions, not the actual truth (this applies more to those who are below yellow, and the lower they are on the spiral, the more this applies). But the more conscious and developed they are, the closer they are to the whole. So take everything as a partial truth even if it comes from very high integrity sources (follows all of the above). Always assume that what you know is not 100% of the full picture, even if you have done a lot of good sense-making/research. Because even if you have 99% of the picture, that 1% could still change the context of the entire whole.

If you do all of the above, you will understand things much closer to what they are in reality, but also you will start to reach a non-duality/unification between all perspectives that is filled with love and the brilliance of existence.      

 

Edited by erik8lrl

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@erik8lrl Quality response, I appreciate the effort and detail! I agree with what you're saying. The "problem" for me personally is, as you pointed out, that I don't have the time to research everything that interests me to this degree, I don't have time to directly experience all that could be experienced to understand an issue from all necessary perspectives - I could never do that, for nearly everything is interesting to me right now. That is why I'm looking for the highest quality meta sources. It is baked into the nature of the matter that there is no completely unbiased source, and there doesn't have to be. To me, Daniel is a high-quality meta source, Leo is one, Ken Wilber is one etc. 

So coming from this angle, I'll adjust the question: What are the highest quality meta sources you personally appreciate and trust to a certain degree, which help you to make sense of the world? I'm not just talking about simple media coverage - whatever you deem systemic, meta, holistic, highly educational and high-consciousness. I'm interested.

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@peanutspathtotruth 

It depends on the topic of interest. Meta sources like Daniel or Leo are not really good for sense-making on a specific topic/issue. They are better for learning sense-making methods and frameworks, and I think in that perspective, Leo, Daniel, and Ken Wilber are enough for you to have a well-defined sense-making process. The sources I was talking about are sources that actually help you to make sense of a specific topic. So in that perspective, it's hard for me to give you general recommendations since they are all sources covering many specific topics that I'm interested in. 

What I do and would recommend is to start with one topic and really go through the process on that topic. Find quality sources and make sense of that topic completely (to the highest degree possible for you). Through this process, if you are doing it correctly, you will start not only to understand the topic on the surface but the underlying meta structure of sense-making as a whole. Because everything is connected, when you dive deep into this process, you will start to connect information/issues that are not even directly related to each other. As you gain more understanding of the meta-structure through this process, sense-making will become easier and easier because you will start to recognize patterns in all human issues. And thus slowly developing an intuition (logic+emotion understanding) on sense-making and a better grasp of the whole of the information landscape.

For example, if you want to fully understand the context within the conflict between Israel and Palestine. You would have to study the history of religion (between Christianity, Judaism, and Islam). This then leads to the study of the history of the Middle East and Europe across several thousand years and not only in Isreal's perspective but also in Palestine's perspective all the way to the present time. (Not too deeply, but just enough depth to understand all the major events that happened) And through this process, you will go through many events that lead to other events in history, and like a tree, it will branch out and connects with other topics that might seem unrelated. For example, how does the origin of Christianity relates (or differs) to the racial issues in present-day America? You will start to see parallels in how human conflict functions and evolves on a structural level.   

I know it sounds like a lot of work, and it is. But it's like a skill that develops and becomes easier the more you develop it. Wisdom does not come easily; it requires you to put in the work and time. It's not something you can develop overnight.

Sense-making is a meta-skill (like learning, and love), it will help you connect all your knowledge/epistemological understanding into a holistic structure that leads to God. 

That's said, you can still strategize and optimize your research process to make it as efficient as possible by finding good sources (as I've defined before) on topics that interest you. 

Edited by erik8lrl

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@erik8lrl I see what you're getting at, and I agree! For example, I have this simple desire to understand politics, because I'm really under-educated in this regard. What I've been doing recently is research books on politics, history, and political history (and as you said, related topics that came up, like anthropology). I spent a lot of time trying to find out which books are highly regarded by academics, which ones aren't, and why, so I can understand what is worth reading, what drawbacks (regarding to specific people) I can expect etc. I compiled this into a big research list which I want to tackle now. So although an anker point is to understand the situation right now, I'm also just fascinated by how everything works in general, and that's why I want to dive deep into this stuff, history and all. I think I might learn quite a lot along the way. I also plan to research every phrase that I don't really know, like reading the whole Wikipedia article on a war that I'm not really familiar with. 

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@peanutspathtotruth Yes, that's good. It's best if you connect your history research to present issues and events. This will help you understand the structure of politics more clearly. 

Also, I would do the same thing as I wrote about on finding good sources with history. If you research history in a different country and a different language, you will find that even on the same event, the details and perspectives are often very different (especially if they are opposing nations). Academics are also biased, and they still function under their own survival bias and their nation's survival perspective. Some countries even change or erase things they've done in the past when teaching kids at school so that they can brainwash them into their perspective. That is not to say you shouldn't use academic sources, but just be aware of that as you check the sources. And it's best if you check out academics that are in different countries to learn as many perspectives as possible. If you research war, you will find that even if both sides speak truthfully about the facts of an event, they can manipulate the perspective and context of the event to make themselves look like the good guys. Personally, I like to research academics in different nations and then find real accounts of the event from different people who lived through it (on both sides) to get a partially direct experience.

 

Edited by erik8lrl

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