Leo's Blog: Infinite Insights — Page 22

Notice that it is possible to believe true things for the wrong reasons.

Religion is a prime example of this. Religious people believe in God, which happens to exist. However, they believe it for the wrong reasons. God is not the province of any religion, religious ideas of God are deeply wrong, and God cannot be understood through religion. So religion is superficially right. But religious believers take this as validation of the rightness of their faith. No. The existence of God means your faith is wrong, a profound mistake. Just because you lucked out by believing in a thing which happened to be true does not mean that your belief was epistemically sound or intelligent. Religious belief is not sound even though it turns out to be true. You weren't intelligent, you were just lucky. Which is why religious people believe all sorts of stupid shit. Because they will believe anything. It just so happens that some of the things they believe turn out to be true. But this is nothing to be proud of.

Notice, if I walk through my neighborhood with a machine gun, spraying bullets blindly in every direction, I might get lucky and shoot a serial killer who just happened to be walking down the street at just the right time, and that might turn out to be a net positive since killing him saves a few lives he would have taken had he still been prowling the streets. However, this does not mean that firing a machine gun wildly in a neighborhood is a valid behavior. A religious person is right about God in this same way — right, but for completely perverse reasons.

Conversely, you can believe false things for good reasons.

Atheism is a prime example of this. Atheism is factually false — God does exist. However, the reasoning behind atheism is sound and healthy. It is correct that one should not believe in supernatural entities without serious evidence and proof. It just so happens that that's true, but God still exists.

Atheists did all the right things but turned out false. Theists did all the wrong things but turned out true. Sometimes it's just better to be lucky than good. Sometimes a total fool ends up being right. But that doesn't mean being a fool is the way to go. Eventually the fool's luck runs out. Which is exactly what happens to all religious believers. Just because you got God's existence right does not mean you understand God or solved the problem of self-deception. Yeah, you got lucky and got God right, but so what? You're still completely self-deceived.

In the long-term it's better to be wrong for the right reasons than right for the wrong reasons. Just as it's better to get the wrong answer on a math test but with good mathematical steps, than get the right answer but with all the wrong steps.

It is foolish to envy the lucky fool because his luck will soon run out.

Theoretical physicists run into infinities all the time in their work. However, since their methods are finite their methods are incapable of handling infinities, so they treat infinities as errors and mistakes — as a bug rather than a feature.

Here's an example of how quantum mechanics works to hard to avoid confronting infinity. Science does mental gymnastics to avoid facing Infinity, because science is finite and Infinity obliterates science. Infinity literally does not compute in the scientist's mind. But instead of taking that to mean there's something wrong with science, scientists take it mean there's something wrong with reality.

Watch timestamp: 15:06 to 17:25

Sean Carrol: "If you're sloppy about that, your answer turns out to be infinity and your theory's on the wrong track. Everything we know about in the physical world has this nice finite answer in this quantum mechanical realm except for gravity. Gravity does not fit. And indeed, it was recognized pretty quickly that there is a good reason why gravity doesn't fit. And it was almost impossible to imagine fitting gravity in. Namely, that gravity interacts with everything... So when you do the scattering experiment, when you do the calculation, everything in the universe contributes to the infinitely big answer that you don't want to get."

Science is literally coming face to face with God, but science is so narrowly focused on finite pragmatic results that every time it runs into God, it sees God as a useless mistake.

Hello! God is Infinity!

Quantum physicists found God 100 years ago. But they are so narrow-minded they threw him in the trash.

Science is an exercise in trying to contain Infinity, but at the edges this exercise must always fail because the thing that all of science is always studying is Infinity/God. The reason that my work is more intelligent than science is because I understand this and science does not. The higher intelligence understands the lower. The lower misunderstands the higher. Science is not intelligent enough to understand Infinity.

Science is a game of dodge-ball where the ball is Infinity/God. It is not an accident that science hasn't found God, science is unwittingly deft at avoiding God. Any time science finds God, it just calls it a mistake.

This guy is a prime example of how social media corrupts people. This is the monster you will become if you just chase clicks and likes.

Notice the connection between pollution of the information ecosystem and massive profits. Contemplate why the two go together. How are they connected? Why does polluting the information ecosystem generate so much profit?

This is a great example of the extreme distortions of self-bias on the mind. And also the self-deception mechanism of rationalization.

Mormons are so self-deceived they are cartoon caricatures of self-deception. It's an astonishing level of epistemic pervertry. Mormons are a case study in pure ideological delusion, of how unconscious survival hijacks spirituality.

I didn't realize that MLMs (multi-level marketing schemes) are pervasive among Mormons. Of course in retrospect it make sense. MLMs flourish among indoctrinated, gullible, conformist people. Mormons are the perfect hosts for these viruses.

Notice the profound relationship between ideology and collective survival. Ideology always has an insidious ulterior survival motive. It's never just kooky beliefs. It's always kooky beliefs which are enabling some sort of perverse survival strategy. People believe in ideology unconsciously, thinking it's about the truth of the content, without ever realizing that ideology, regardless of content, is a structure designed to hijack your mind for purposes of collective survival.

This is what happens when people get into teaching personal development and spirituality without a genuine interest in truth.

Understand this: Anyone who teaches spirituality without a focus on truth for its own sake will become corrupt and start a cult. Which is why in this work I place truth as priority #1. Not happiness. Not success. Not profit. Not views. Not the end of suffering. Not feelings. Not political activism. Not world peace. Not Jesus. Not relationships. Not love.

The most important leadership I offer is to simply to tell you that your entire life must prioritize truth above everything else. Oddly enough, nobody ever told you that in your life. Isn't it amazing? Nobody who raised you or educated you was pure enough to tell you that.

I am here to tell you that spirituality is truth, not anything else. You want to be spiritual? Make everything subordinate to truth.

Haven't I shown you enough examples yet to see that anyone who prioritizes anything above truth is corrupt?

You can't escape Truth.

You can spend a lifetime just documenting social media corruption and grifting.

Be ware of any supplement powders. They likely contain lots of heavy metals and pesticides and you can never trust whatever claims the brand makes. Stop overpaying for powders, consume fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables instead. Stop feeding all these fitness and wellness grifters. They make billions selling you powdered snake oil that does not improve your health, and may even harm.