Socially Conservative Left Wing

[Moonbeam]

I live in the south and I'm starting to think Trump is the anti-christ, so I'm a bit confused atm ...



The philosophers are active lately

Grooming for lice.

 

[agent00f]

agent00f,: It's pretty obvious that language is an overwhelming advantage for juvenile development, including emotionally.

M: It's pretty obvious a rolling stone gathers no moss, but I didn't bring that up because like this point it has nothing to do with what I am saying.

Your argument was that considering evolution is "superficial", when it should be obvious that evolutionary pressures are the predominant forces at play here.

a: So you're making claims about the emotional state of everyone else (billions of people), yet get defensive when any claim is made about your emotional state (1 person). Hopefully the comical folly here is readily evident.

M: Of course I am aware of it. Have been for years and years. Just imagine how lucky you are to have run into me.

What makes this wild extrapolation of one case to all of humanity accurate other than your say so? There are certainly plenty of examples of people who've had rather happy childhoods yet remain terrible at abstract reasoning; many of the mentally slow for starters.

a: More pointedly, hating oneself is symptomatic of depressive individuals, which is a specific mental condition (ie chemical imbalance, etc) not endemic to all.

M: Showing your ignorance again. Everything is chemical. A pill will alter the chemistry of the chemically depressed. Freedom from rage will cure depression based of fear of feeling. It changes the chemistry and alters habituated neural pathways allowing a different kind of thinking.

It's simply a fact that some people are prone to abnormal depression & such, with likely underlying neuralchem causes. This seems a much better explanation than "everyone is acting out repressed abuse", and it's rather arguable than many "prophet"-types had mental conditions. Ignoring this simple point doesn't help your case.

a: It's pretty evident that all students of the enlightenment have more value coincident with jesus than the religious right.

M: It is evident to me that just because one studies something doesn't mean one has any intuitive understanding of what it is one is studying. Some people are more Christian without having ever heard of it than some who think they're the epitome of Christian.

So what makes you believe they will suddenly find nirvana after 2000 years, because they will have heard god's new messenger: you?

a: How do you know that other primates have no simplistic conception of good/bad? It's also rather your point that they would know of abstract reasoning if only they didn't hate themselves, as if calculus would also dawn upon them if only they divorced themselves from it. Again you appear to be extrapolating from your frankly unique situation to rather different people.

M: Clearly I also know the minds of millions of other primates in addition to the billions more closely related. However I will be willing to listen to any you would chose to interview who tells you differently. The analogy you are looking for is that if apes could do calculus but wouldn't because it would make them look human, the most disgusting thing an ape could aspire to be, I might be able to teach them to do math by opening their eyes to my innate beauty. I have the kind of inner light, I am told, that millions of apes aspire to.

In fact, years ago at the end of conversations like these I used to offer my conservative friends a banana.

Good luck with the apes. You can count me among the believers should you succeed.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Evolutionary pressures are as predominant here as they are in the question "can I eat grass" when asking why I will choose an apple over a cookie every time.

Biology gives us an universal base line of unalterables; sociology gives us a highly variant contingent unaterables; psychology makes us feel like the unalterable it's a function of decisions we make.

 

[Moonbeam]

agent00f: Your argument was that considering evolution is "superficial", when it should be obvious that evolutionary pressures are the predominant forces at play here.

M: My argument isn't that evolution is superficial. My argument is that the way you use evolution to imply relevance is irrelevant and explains little. It's like saying we are what we are because we evolved that way. Let us instead ask how is it that we are what we are and how does our natural evolution raise issues that allow for, demand, the erection of an altered reality state.

a: What makes this wild extrapolation of one case to all of humanity accurate other than your say so? There are certainly plenty of examples of people who've had rather happy childhoods yet remain terrible at abstract reasoning; many of the mentally slow for starters.

M: What made the discovery by various people over time that the Earth orbits the sun true for everybody on Earth. And you don't even keep the facts in the argument straight. I am not talking about abstract reasoning or IQ. I am talking about the motivated denial of facts. What makes some people flat Earthers. It won't primarily be their IQ.


a: It's simply a fact that some people are prone to abnormal depression & such, with likely underlying neuralchem causes. This seems a much better explanation than "everyone is acting out repressed abuse",

M: Are you fucking with me? I made it perfectly clear there is more than one kind of depression. What seems better to you, like a conservative, you seem to pull out of your ass. There is lots of depression that people grow out of, There are a number of well know causes for depression that if clustered tend more to bring it on. There is the depression of loneliness that disappears when one finds love, etc etc etc. You made the stupid argument that depression is chemical, sweeping into one bag, not me.

a: and it's rather arguable than many "prophet"-types had mental conditions. Ignoring this simple point doesn't help your case.

M: How does it help yours. Have you a means to distinguish what may be a mental condition from what may be a real awakening of a kind you're not equipped to evaluate? One can argue anything. I' for example still remember the first time I had sex. It's arguable I was dreaming, arguable for you anyway.

a: So what makes you believe they will suddenly find nirvana after 2000 years, because they will have heard god's new messenger: you?

M; Nothing. I am having an honest argument. I didn't ask you if you were going to become a pumpkin at midnight nor did I say anything about suddenly finding nervana. You do suddenly find it, but the finding is of unknown frequency to me.

a: Good luck with the apes. You can count me among the believers should you succeed.

M: I won a long time ago when I died to that need.

Keep your knuckles on the ground, please.

 

[agent00f]

agent00f: Your argument was that considering evolution is "superficial", when it should be obvious that evolutionary pressures are the predominant forces at play here.

M: My argument isn't that evolution is superficial. My argument is that the way you use evolution to imply relevance is irrelevant and explains little. It's like saying we are what we are because we evolved that way. Let us instead ask how is it that we are what we are and how does our natural evolution raise issues that allow for, demand, the erection of an altered reality state.

You keep assuming modern moral ethics are the natural state, when literally just about every historical/pre-historical/natural fact shows humans to be primitive and savage in reality. Enlightened values are the altered artificial reality.

a: What makes this wild extrapolation of one case to all of humanity accurate other than your say so? There are certainly plenty of examples of people who've had rather happy childhoods yet remain terrible at abstract reasoning; many of the mentally slow for starters.

M: What made the discovery by various people over time that the Earth orbits the sun true for everybody on Earth. And you don't even keep the facts in the argument straight. I am not talking about abstract reasoning or IQ. I am talking about the motivated denial of facts. What makes some people flat Earthers. It won't primarily be their IQ.

The Flynn effect perfectly explains why people were able to understand/accept more abstract reasoning over time. The kind of abstract reasoning necessary to figure modern values for our new altered reality.

a: It's simply a fact that some people are prone to abnormal depression & such, with likely underlying neuralchem causes. This seems a much better explanation than "everyone is acting out repressed abuse",

M: Are you fucking with me? I made it perfectly clear there is more than one kind of depression. What seems better to you, like a conservative, you seem to pull out of your ass. There is lots of depression that people grow out of, There are a number of well know causes for depression that if clustered tend more to bring it on. There is the depression of loneliness that disappears when one finds love, etc etc etc. You made the stupid argument that depression is chemical, sweeping into one bag, not me.

I made the argument that some people are prone to mental abnormalities, which is entirely supported by clinical research, and that seems a much more likely plausible explanation of peculiar "revelations" they might have, such as all their problems are the results of acting out abuse, when it is unique to their situation and not the population as a while.

a: and it's rather arguable than many "prophet"-types had mental conditions. Ignoring this simple point doesn't help your case.

M: How does it help yours. Have you a means to distinguish what may be a mental condition from what may be a real awakening of a kind you're not equipped to evaluate? One can argue anything. I' for example still remember the first time I had sex. It's arguable I was dreaming, arguable for you anyway.

There's considerable evidence that most people are not verbally abused as children, by the factual reality that they're not verbally abused as children. Your argument is that it's repressed and they're really unhappy about it all or whatever, which is no different than any other mystic claim about the one truth they found that will solve all of humanity's problems.

I've gone to some length over numerous posts about the conflicting interests at play which perfectly explain why conservatives act as they do: it's simply in their traditional self-interest to be loyal. And that will continued until the circumstances underlying those interests change. For example, mass scapegoating of lower status minorities earned their own a presidency, which is why all efforts incl yours will be predictably futile until there's a cost associated with amoral behavior.

a: So what makes you believe they will suddenly find nirvana after 2000 years, because they will have heard god's new messenger: you?

M; Nothing. I am having an honest argument. I didn't ask you if you were going to become a pumpkin at midnight nor did I say anything about suddenly finding nervana. You do suddenly find it, but the finding is of unknown frequency to me.

a: Good luck with the apes. You can count me among the believers should you succeed.

M: I won a long time ago when I died to that need.

Keep your knuckles on the ground, please.

Good luck with the argument that empirical thinkers just don't have what it takes to understand the Real truth from mysticism.

 

[agent00f]

Evolutionary pressures are as predominant here as they are in the question "can I eat grass" when asking why I will choose an apple over a cookie every time.

Biology gives us an universal base line of unalterables; sociology gives us a highly variant contingent unaterables; psychology makes us feel like the unalterable it's a function of decisions we make.

"Evolution" as an abstract concept also has considerable explanatory power in many fields outside genetic biology, like for example why it's advantageous for higher end grocers and such to overpromote one snack over another despite similar sugar/caloric content.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

"Evolution" as an abstract concept also has considerable explanatory power in many fields outside genetic biology, like for example why it's advantageous for higher end grocers and such to overpromote one snack over another despite similar sugar/caloric content.

I am familiar with the evo-psych lit in consumer behavior.

I'm critical of the paradigm as overly dismissive of the role of sociological influences, particularly institutional logics. I'm also very critical of the sociological perspective that totally dismisses the evolved psychological mechanisms into which sociological programing must pour.

While the system seems complex, it feels simple because we experience ourselves retrospectively as a coherent narrative. It's when we recognize all those futures that we could have had, those other bets on ourselves we could have taken, that we get a fuller sens of all of the 'selves' we could have been, and could be.

 

[agent00f]

I am familiar with the evo-psych lit in consumer behavior.

I'm critical of the paradigm as overly dismissive of the role of sociological influences, particularly institutional logics. I'm also very critical of the sociological perspective that totally dismisses the evolved psychological mechanisms into which sociological programing must pour.

While the system seems complex, it feels simple because we experience ourselves retrospectively as a coherent narrative. It's when we recognize all those futures that we could have had, those other bets on ourselves we could have taken, that we get a fuller sens of all of the 'selves' we could have been, and could be.

Multiple explanations for phenomena, particularly natural complexity, are probably not mutually exclusive. That's in part why "why" itself always remains an open question. The evolutionary stance is really more of a meta-argument, a reminder to not over-complicate explanations: what is is because it marginally or even happenstantially squeezed out what's not, without complex appeals to designed influences.

A lesson I learned from higher math is that "proofs" are more a matter of convincing someone else rather any epistemological certainty, even for the most axiomatic of matters.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Multiple explanations for phenomena, particularly natural complexity, are probably not mutually exclusive. That's in part why "why" itself always remains an open question. The evolutionary stance is really more of a meta-argument, a reminder to not over-complicate explanations: what is is because it marginally or even happenstantially squeezed out what's not, without complex appeals to designed influences.

A lesson I learned from higher math is that "proofs" are more a matter of convincing someone else rather any epistemological certainty, even for the most axiomatic of matters.

Precisely, I fundamentally attempt to remain in epistemic humility.

Presently i'm drawn to a hybrid of phenomenology and white head's process theory. As per evo-psych, I agree it reminds us to keep in mind that if something couldn't have evolved that way, then it didn't.

That said I never got my evo-psych friends to answer this: But what about all those vistigal, or worse anti-adaptive mechanisms that should remain, because the fitness benefit of removing either would require crossing an untenable fitness valley.

Sorry if I'm not expressing this as clearly as could be, but:

For example; I hear the argument "XYZ mechanisms" with the assumption that said mechanism must exist, as such, because its adaptive (usually at the cost of some social-psych idea).

But I never hear 1) the history of that evolutionary path such that we reach this adaptive mechanism or 2) an argument for the 'less adaptive' mechanism couldn't simply be vestigial, or anti-adaptive given a super-recent socio-linguistic world that extends past a small ken-group.

 

[Moonbeam]

agent00f: You keep assuming modern moral ethics are the natural state, when literally just about every historical/pre-historical/natural fact shows humans to be primitive and savage in reality. Enlightened values are the altered artificial reality.

M: You always force what I say into your own pigeon hole because you lack the experience to properly comprehend it. And you will continue to do just that as long as your tea cup is full. I have not said anything like what you just said. I claim there is a god conscious state, an state of consciousness that follows an experience of the ending of thought and the entry into an eternal presence of being. This state is also a state of unity, an ending of division within. It is also a state of love. I argue that this is our original state, the state offered by the full expression of our genetic potential. I argue that it is there for everyone and the same for everyone because no matter your intelligence of special capacities full being is full being. One is whole and that's what matters. I have further argued that the evolution of language created the means by which we lost that state of Eden, we ate from the tree of knowledge and obtained the capacity to divide the oneness of the universe into abstractions that do not exist, good and evil, being relevant here. Once we saw evil in the world and associated with fear and suffering, we learned a new way to control other people, by making them feel bad for certain behaviors by putting them down. I have said that the pain of this experience is too much to consciously bear so the feelings are buried with the hope they will never be felt again. All the evil in the world is not here because we will never allow ourselves to feel that self hate. So, what we are is a mass of unconscious assumptions about ourselves that are wrong The enlightened values of today are not enlightened at all. They are just progress we have made in undoing many of the absurd unconscious assumptions we make via new scientific knowledge and reason, introspection and now psychoanalysis, religious meditation, etc.

a: The Flynn effect perfectly explains why people were able to understand/accept more abstract reasoning over time. The kind of abstract reasoning necessary to figure modern values for our new altered reality.

M: The explanation, of course, is the lessening of terror due to the erosion of taboos. We have a major taboo to go, the terror we expect to feel if we remember our past by feeling what is hidden, what we really feel. Either you know something about that personally or you don't. It's not something you can prove. It is something that is obvious, however, when you consider the power the idea has to explain human nature. One simple idea, the last we ever want to know, mind you, but one simple idea that like gravity, explains what really motivates human beings, the fear of feeling how badly they hate themselves because they believe those feelings are true, were made to feel that as children.

a: I made the argument that some people are prone to mental abnormalities, which is entirely supported by clinical research, and that seems a much more likely plausible explanation of peculiar "revelations" they might have, such as all their problems are the results of acting out abuse, when it is unique to their situation and not the population as a while.

M: You are full of such arguments because you do not have the personal experience to produce a deeper insight. You do not know what you feel so your thoughts can go anywhere. They are not guided by insight into yourself.

a: There's considerable evidence that most people are not verbally abused as children, by the factual reality that they're not verbally abused as children. Your argument is that it's repressed and they're really unhappy about it all or whatever, which is no different than any other mystic claim about the one truth they found that will solve all of humanity's problems.

M: Hehehehehehe Stockholm Syndrome! You know, I had really great parents. I loved them with all my being.

a: I've gone to some length over numerous posts about the conflicting interests at play which perfectly explain why conservatives act as they do: it's simply in their traditional self-interest to be loyal. And that will continued until the circumstances underlying those interests change. For example, mass scapegoating of lower status minorities earned their own a presidency, which is why all efforts incl yours will be predictably futile until there's a cost associated with amoral behavior.

M: You mean to tell me there's a simple mystical explanation for all this, their traditional self-interest? Well that's wonderful, but I have this bad habit of wanting to go deeper. Can you please tell me what the wellspring of traditional self-interest is. It sounds to me a lot like having been forced to conform ones behavior to a group under the threat of being abandoned as worthless, something that all children are threatened with. It's kind of what punishment consists of.

a: Good luck with the argument that empirical thinkers just don't have what it takes to understand the Real truth from mysticism.

M: I have no truck with empirical thinkers. I am one in my opinion. In fact from where I stand it is by knowing something and using empirical thinking regarding it that I consistently reveal the flaws in your thinking. For me, the real truth is the real truth. It's only mysticism for you because, lacking the personal data to understand it, you find yourself mystified by what I am saying.

Here is something to think on. People say curious things, like "Just my luck." or "Why does this always happen to me?"

What feeling might people have of which they may not be consciously aware that could motivate such remarks.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

>Is it ever a good idea to make any kind of abortion illegal?

Yes.

Too complex to go into all the nuance here, but basics are late terms, and men's rights issues (i.e. wife threatens husband with abortion after they previously both agreed to have a child unless he gives her whatever she wants).

>Is it ever appropriate to say the N word?

Yes. Freedom of speech. Accurate historical films. Humor.

>Should we ever fail to spend as much as is needed to try to save a life?

Yes. Money is not a limitless resources. Money spent to save one life could help dozens of others.

>Are there any good reasons to use nuclear power?

Absolutely. Clean energy with low pollution.

Sir, we don't have a place in this forum for sane rational thoughts. Please disperse from the forum before people start to act as if they have normal intelligence levels.

 

[agent00f]

Precisely, I fundamentally attempt to remain in epistemic humility.

Presently i'm drawn to a hybrid of phenomenology and white head's process theory. As per evo-psych, I agree it reminds us to keep in mind that if something couldn't have evolved that way, then it didn't.

That said I never got my evo-psych friends to answer this: But what about all those vistigal, or worse anti-adaptive mechanisms that should remain, because the fitness benefit of removing either would require crossing an untenable fitness valley.

Sorry if I'm not expressing this as clearly as could be, but:

For example; I hear the argument "XYZ mechanisms" with the assumption that said mechanism must exist, as such, because its adaptive (usually at the cost of some social-psych idea).

But I never hear 1) the history of that evolutionary path such that we reach this adaptive mechanism or 2) an argument for the 'less adaptive' mechanism couldn't simply be vestigial, or anti-adaptive given a super-recent socio-linguistic world that extends past a small ken-group.

Philosophically I prefer Wittgenstein's attempt to free the fly from the bottle through better understanding of the underlying language/meaning, ie it could be said there are no real philosophical arguments/disagreements.

Lately I've been trying to read some data-science/machine-learning, and found it helpful for explaining what underlying processes might exist. For an easy read, try Master Algorithm/Domingos, which includes a cohesive survey of the field with insightful perspective. What he attempts with his project is somehow combine various proposed mechanisms into one structure. Regardless of his particular success in replicating more general AI, there's solid ideas there (even if by analogy) about how the mechanisms might layer, in similarly ways to logic mechanisms in current computers. The point here being if you can see the brain as something like this, such as neural nets (ie neurons) implementing some system of deduction, that fly comes out of the bottle in a sense.

 

[agent00f]

agent00f: You keep assuming modern moral ethics are the natural state, when literally just about every historical/pre-historical/natural fact shows humans to be primitive and savage in reality. Enlightened values are the altered artificial reality.

M: You always force what I say into your own pigeon hole because you lack the experience to properly comprehend it. And you will continue to do just that as long as your tea cup is full. I have not said anything like what you just said. I claim there is a god conscious state, an state of consciousness that follows an experience of the ending of thought and the entry into an eternal presence of being. This state is also a state of unity, an ending of division within. It is also a state of love. I argue that this is our original state, the state offered by the full expression of our genetic potential. I argue that it is there for everyone and the same for everyone because no matter your intelligence of special capacities full being is full being. One is whole and that's what matters. I have further argued that the evolution of language created the means by which we lost that state of Eden, we ate from the tree of knowledge and obtained the capacity to divide the oneness of the universe into abstractions that do not exist, good and evil, being relevant here. Once we saw evil in the world and associated with fear and suffering, we learned a new way to control other people, by making them feel bad for certain behaviors by putting them down. I have said that the pain of this experience is too much to consciously bear so the feelings are buried with the hope they will never be felt again. All the evil in the world is not here because we will never allow ourselves to feel that self hate. So, what we are is a mass of unconscious assumptions about ourselves that are wrong The enlightened values of today are not enlightened at all. They are just progress we have made in undoing many of the absurd unconscious assumptions we make via new scientific knowledge and reason, introspection and now psychoanalysis, religious meditation, etc.

Curious why you claim I'm pigeonholing you, then go on to describe just how cozy that pigeonhole is. You're exactly elaborating on the idea that mankind was born with everything, and therefore any discovery is just removal of some fig leaf. It's same as the idea that every computer is born turing-complete and therefore in some sense could do what computers will ever be able to do. I guess from a linguistic/rhetorical sense it can't be said to be "wrong", just completely unhelpful to any actual process of discovery or explaining the merits within.

a: The Flynn effect perfectly explains why people were able to understand/accept more abstract reasoning over time. The kind of abstract reasoning necessary to figure modern values for our new altered reality.

M: The explanation, of course, is the lessening of terror due to the erosion of taboos. We have a major taboo to go, the terror we expect to feel if we remember our past by feeling what is hidden, what we really feel. Either you know something about that personally or you don't. It's not something you can prove. It is something that is obvious, however, when you consider the power the idea has to explain human nature. One simple idea, the last we ever want to know, mind you, but one simple idea that like gravity, explains what really motivates human beings, the fear of feeling how badly they hate themselves because they believe those feelings are true, were made to feel that as children.

As an example, it's quite ridiculous to claim newton's laws or various other modern physical discoveries only alluded ancient people because they feared that agent for change or whatever.

a: I made the argument that some people are prone to mental abnormalities, which is entirely supported by clinical research, and that seems a much more likely plausible explanation of peculiar "revelations" they might have, such as all their problems are the results of acting out abuse, when it is unique to their situation and not the population as a while.

M: You are full of such arguments because you do not have the personal experience to produce a deeper insight. You do not know what you feel so your thoughts can go anywhere. They are not guided by insight into yourself.

If we've learned anything from the scientific revolution, which has been thus far the most effective process for finding verifiable facts by orders of magnitude, it's that how anyone feels about some matter is very ineffective by comparison.

a: There's considerable evidence that most people are not verbally abused as children, by the factual reality that they're not verbally abused as children. Your argument is that it's repressed and they're really unhappy about it all or whatever, which is no different than any other mystic claim about the one truth they found that will solve all of humanity's problems.

M: Hehehehehehe Stockholm Syndrome! You know, I had really great parents. I loved them with all my being.

a: I've gone to some length over numerous posts about the conflicting interests at play which perfectly explain why conservatives act as they do: it's simply in their traditional self-interest to be loyal. And that will continued until the circumstances underlying those interests change. For example, mass scapegoating of lower status minorities earned their own a presidency, which is why all efforts incl yours will be predictably futile until there's a cost associated with amoral behavior.

M: You mean to tell me there's a simple mystical explanation for all this, their traditional self-interest? Well that's wonderful, but I have this bad habit of wanting to go deeper. Can you please tell me what the wellspring of traditional self-interest is. It sounds to me a lot like having been forced to conform ones behavior to a group under the threat of being abandoned as worthless, something that all children are threatened with. It's kind of what punishment consists of.

Per evolution, creatures who don't act in self-interest die, including plenty of creatures without the mental acumen for feeling abandoned. Sorry that's not a colorful enough theory for you.

a: Good luck with the argument that empirical thinkers just don't have what it takes to understand the Real truth from mysticism.

M: I have no truck with empirical thinkers. I am one in my opinion. In fact from where I stand it is by knowing something and using empirical thinking regarding it that I consistently reveal the flaws in your thinking. For me, the real truth is the real truth. It's only mysticism for you because, lacking the personal data to understand it, you find yourself mystified by what I am saying.

Here is something to think on. People say curious things, like "Just my luck." or "Why does this always happen to me?"

What feeling might people have of which they may not be consciously aware that could motivate such remarks.

So where's your data per empirical measurement? Colorful explanations don't exactly count.

For what those people are thinking, they have some expectation that good things will happen to them, and can't figure out why something bad did.

 

[Moonbeam]

Curious why you claim I'm pigeonholing you, then go on to describe just how cozy that pigeonhole is. You're exactly elaborating on the idea that mankind was born with everything, and therefore any discovery is just removal of some fig leaf. It's same as the idea that every computer is born turing-complete and therefore in some sense could do what computers will ever be able to do. I guess from a linguistic/rhetorical sense it can't be said to be "wrong", just completely unhelpful to any actual process of discovery or explaining the merits within.



As an example, it's quite ridiculous to claim newton's laws or various other modern physical discoveries only alluded ancient people because they feared that agent for change or whatever.



If we've learned anything from the scientific revolution, which has been thus far the most effective process for finding verifiable facts by orders of magnitude, it's that how anyone feels about some matter is very ineffective by comparison.



Per evolution, creatures who don't act in self-interest die, including plenty of creatures without the mental acumen for feeling abandoned. Sorry that's not a colorful enough theory for you.



So where's your data per empirical measurement? Colorful explanations don't exactly count.

For what those people are thinking, they have some expectation that good things will happen to them, and can't figure out why something bad did.

Thought is fear. I know you are afraid, There is nothing to fear. Everything you fear to see about yourself is a lie. If you want to be free of lies you don't even know you believe, you will have to confront them in memory. Your thinking and theorizing are all there to blind you to what you have to do. I can offer you nothing but the assurance that those who take the journey can arrive in a different and better place. I do not need you to know this, it is gift you are free to listen to or ignore. You argue to close that door. That is your right. There is no need to justify your choice.

 

[agent00f]

Thought is fear. I know you are afraid, There is nothing to fear. Everything you fear to see about yourself is a lie. If you want to be free of lies you don't even know you believe, you will have to confront them in memory. Your thinking and theorizing are all there to blind you to what you have to do. I can offer you nothing but the assurance that those who take the journey can arrive in a different and better place. I do not need you to know this, it is gift you are free to listen to or ignore. You argue to close that door. That is your right. There is no need to justify your choice.

As evidence to the contrary, consider the value of this advice to the first empirical thinkers by contrasting the subsequent value of their contributions to that of any number of folks who've instead recommended finding the truth within.

I don't doubt that we can discover much about ourselves through introspection, mostly because I've found it very useful, but it's obviously not for everyone and we've know that every since meditative pursuits have been around.

 

[Moonbeam]

As evidence to the contrary, consider the value of this advice to the first empirical thinkers by contrasting the subsequent value of their contributions to that of any number of folks who've instead recommended finding the truth within.

I don't doubt that we can discover much about ourselves through introspection, mostly because I've found it very useful, but it's obviously not for everyone and we've know that every since meditative pursuits have been around.

Oh my Beloved.........Everywhere I look it appears to be Thou. I am blind to what you call evidence. I found the proof within me. You argue only with yourself. I am not here.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Oh my Beloved.........Everywhere I look it appears to be Thou. I am blind to what you call evidence. I found the proof within me. You argue only with yourself. I am not here.

What in you is there to change you?

 

[brandonbull]

I think you discount just how far Conservatives' headsets have been reduced to shitty attitudes & a collection of mindless slogans. It had to be made that way by their leadership in order to get them to vote for trickle down economics. It was inevitable that a monstrous personality like Trump would see it & commandeer it to serve their own purposes.

It's also important to understand that it's a self fulfilling prophesy of sorts. It reached critical mass, a tipping point, with the election of Trump & a Repub Congress. Now it has to cycle through in all its awful glory. They'll break the system in some way that will enrich the power of the uber wealthy at the expense of everybody else. We barely pulled our chestnuts out of the fire in 2008 & they'd forgotten completely by 2010, however, so expect it'll need to get worse than that to induce the necessary epiphany.

Why do people act as if Dimocrats are some how cut from the cloth of the working man? The middle class has been shrinking for some time and wages seem to be fairly stagnant over the last several decades. Both parties have been in power and most Americans have gotten screwed by their greed and pettiness.

 

[Moonbeam]

What in you is there to change you?

The feeling of a need for change. That need is the symptom of separation, the delusion that perfection requires perfecting rather than abandonment of ego need. Everybody is enlightened as the Zen masters say. They add, It would be nice to know it.

I am a nobody. I do not know how to teach. I have no answers. What I know is that words about what I know are not what I know, nor can they convey that knowledge. All I know is that I sought to prove there is A Good, a God and that I failed completely, so completely in fact that I surrendered, I gave up and dies, and everything went black into raw and seemingly unending misery. I lost everything I believed in. I lost all hope that life had any meaning, that there was any such thing as God's Love, that there is no more reason to be good or evil, that the universe is totally indifferent to everything we feel. We are alone and we mean nothing.

In that place or in that state I had an experience, a shift in conscious awareness. Focused deep in thought on the question of why I suffered, a blast of wind hit the house. I went from a deep state of concentration to being the wind, being aware only of the present, awake and aware. All the love in the universe is created by me in being. What I had sought in the Good turned out to be myself. We are but windows and the view through them is God. But you can't see through a dirty window The eyes of ego are blind.

If such isn't what you were asking ask again, perhaps in some other words.

 

[agent00f]

The feeling of a need for change. That need is the symptom of separation, the delusion that perfection requires perfecting rather than abandonment of ego need. Everybody is enlightened as the Zen masters say. They add, It would be nice to know it.

I am a nobody. I do not know how to teach. I have no answers. What I know is that words about what I know are not what I know, nor can they convey that knowledge. All I know is that I sought to prove there is A Good, a God and that I failed completely, so completely in fact that I surrendered, I gave up and dies, and everything went black into raw and seemingly unending misery. I lost everything I believed in. I lost all hope that life had any meaning, that there was any such thing as God's Love, that there is no more reason to be good or evil, that the universe is totally indifferent to everything we feel. We are alone and we mean nothing.

In that place or in that state I had an experience, a shift in conscious awareness. Focused deep in thought on the question of why I suffered, a blast of wind hit the house. I went from a deep state of concentration to being the wind, being aware only of the present, awake and aware. All the love in the universe is created by me in being. What I had sought in the Good turned out to be myself. We are but windows and the view through them is God. But you can't see through a dirty window The eyes of ego are blind.

If such isn't what you were asking ask again, perhaps in some other words.

What makes you right and all the others who speak of enlightenment differently wrong? Consider the scenario of people like this who also speak of the Real truth:

Sir, we don't have a place in this forum for sane rational thoughts. Please disperse from the forum before people start to act as if they have normal intelligence levels.

 

[Moonbeam]

What makes you right and all the others who speak of enlightenment differently wrong? Consider the scenario of people like this who also speak of the Real truth:

There is one truth and it covers us all.

Mulla Nasrudin went for a walk with one of his disciples. They spied a Dervish in the distance who pointed to the sky to make that very point. The Mulla held up a rope he was carrying to respond, 'yes and ordinary people try to reach it by means as ridiculous as throwing a role in the air" The disciple thought, 'good, he is clearly mad and we will tie him up if he tries anything else that's funny'. So go my exchanges with you.

Our perceptions determine what we can see. You have heard the expression I'll see it when I believe it. It doesn't work that way, The facts are that you see it when you believe it, not the other way round. What we believe is conditioned by our assumptions about reality, what we believe to be true. Those assumptions are the product of conditioning. If you do not know how you were conditioned your assumptions are below the level of conscious awareness creating a mental prison. You can only know this by experience. You have to feel what you feel. Neither you nor anybody else wants to do that. You either take that seriously or you don't.

 

[agent00f]

There is one truth and it covers us all.

Mulla Nasrudin went for a walk with one of his disciples. They spied a Dervish in the distance who pointed to the sky to make that very point. The Mulla held up a rope he was carrying to respond, 'yes and ordinary people try to reach it by means as ridiculous as throwing a role in the air" The disciple thought, 'good, he is clearly mad and we will tie him up if he tries anything else that's funny'. So go my exchanges with you.

Our perceptions determine what we can see. You have heard the expression I'll see it when I believe it. It doesn't work that way, The facts are that you see it when you believe it, not the other way round. What we believe is conditioned by our assumptions about reality, what we believe to be true. Those assumptions are the product of conditioning. If you do not know how you were conditioned your assumptions are below the level of conscious awareness creating a mental prison. You can only know this by experience. You have to feel what you feel. Neither you nor anybody else wants to do that. You either take that seriously or you don't.

Continental/german idealism made these arguments and more in much greater detailed and convincing terms. You can learn about where that led them or gained them in the academic lit.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

The feeling of a need for change. That need is the symptom of separation, the delusion that perfection requires perfecting rather than abandonment of ego need. Everybody is enlightened as the Zen masters say. They add, It would be nice to know it.

I am a nobody. I do not know how to teach. I have no answers. What I know is that words about what I know are not what I know, nor can they convey that knowledge. All I know is that I sought to prove there is A Good, a God and that I failed completely, so completely in fact that I surrendered, I gave up and dies, and everything went black into raw and seemingly unending misery. I lost everything I believed in. I lost all hope that life had any meaning, that there was any such thing as God's Love, that there is no more reason to be good or evil, that the universe is totally indifferent to everything we feel. We are alone and we mean nothing.

In that place or in that state I had an experience, a shift in conscious awareness. Focused deep in thought on the question of why I suffered, a blast of wind hit the house. I went from a deep state of concentration to being the wind, being aware only of the present, awake and aware. All the love in the universe is created by me in being. What I had sought in the Good turned out to be myself. We are but windows and the view through them is God. But you can't see through a dirty window The eyes of ego are blind.

If such isn't what you were asking ask again, perhaps in some other words.

Nope, that was it. I relate this sentiment to what I got from the Tao te Ching and Heidegger. Which you don't know and I can't say, but is like waking up from a dream, vaguely aware of what you were thinking, knowing it's nothing, seeing things in the light of being, a being that is at once coming from you, what you always wanted to have, and what constitutes you; looks like me, if I had the perfection of ?sympathy? for myself; coming back to sleep so I can talk to others about a dream I once woke up from.