The so called wise men are fools...

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dank69

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
35,203
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Did you read the link? The problem you have in my opinion is that you don't know what happens to people who can't live with uncertainty and die trying to prove they are right. You are still trying. I lost that battle and died reborn with the wisdom that an Iphone, while a handy and useful device, doesn't constitute a genuine need. That would be things like air, food, water, societal support, etc.
No, I'm not terribly interested in mysticism at all, as I've never seen a shred of evidence that any such thing exists in my entire life. Other people telling me about it isn't going to change that for me, as I'm sure you know.

I do actually know what it is like to die trying to prove I was right. I have very vague memories of that feeling on a few occasions in primary school. It caused me to learn early that having deeply held beliefs, especially without years of due diligence, is a path to pain. That's why I stopped forming them and began questioning everything I think I know. Much easier to accept being wrong when you start by assuming you are wrong and adapting to evidence as it presents itself.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
72,326
6,039
126
No, I'm not terribly interested in mysticism at all, as I've never seen a shred of evidence that any such thing exists in my entire life. Other people telling me about it isn't going to change that for me, as I'm sure you know.

I do actually know what it is like to die trying to prove I was right. I have very vague memories of that feeling on a few occasions in primary school. It caused me to learn early that having deeply held beliefs, especially without years of due diligence, is a path to pain. That's why I stopped forming them and began questioning everything I think I know. Much easier to accept being wrong when you start by assuming you are wrong and adapting to evidence as it presents itself.
Some of the evidence that might present itself to you is that the subject of mysticism, that is to say what mystics claim they experience is of deep interest to western neuroscientists, medicine, and psychology. It seems likely, I think, that the scientific evidence for altered states is clearly pursuasive in these fields. I can imagine no other reason for your disinclination to learn anything new than basic prior assumptions nothing is there and you don't want those upset. You are afraid, I think, to see you may be missing something. Unlike most people who have an ax to grind and would plead with you to be propagandized, I encourage you to doubt even more.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence bordering, I am sure on the miraculous, a word for which should not even exist.
 

dank69

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
35,203
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Some of the evidence that might present itself to you is that the subject of mysticism, that is to say what mystics claim they experience is of deep interest to western neuroscientists, medicine, and psychology. It seems likely, I think, that the scientific evidence for altered states is clearly pursuasive in these fields. I can imagine no other reason for your disinclination to learn anything new than basic prior assumptions nothing is there and you don't want those upset. You are afraid, I think, to see you may be missing something. Unlike most people who have an ax to grind and would plead with you to be propagandized, I encourage you to doubt even more.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence bordering, I am sure on the miraculous, a word for which should not even exist.
No that's not it. I'd be super interested to experience anything supernatural. I don't care if it exists or not, but if it does exist I would absolutely love to know. I suspect every single supernatural experience every single person has ever had could be explained by physics and brain chemistry, but if it turns out I'm wrong, great!
 

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
16,188
14,090
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What are we defining as elderly? There seem to be a lot of headlines of antivaxxers in their 40s and 50s dying from covid, and thats just the publicly outspoken ones.

Defining it as defined in the OP's video, as 70+.

There are plenty of anecdotes of under 70's dying from this, including some young children. Anecdotes are irrelevant. Only population mortality data by age group matters.
 

cytg111

Lifer
Mar 17, 2008
23,047
12,715
136
According to the article you’re still the same moronic psychopath after this awakening experience as you were before.
Right?
So the purpose of this mystical experience is 100% something happening on the inside. All the inputs and thus the outputs remains the same.
Seeking enlightenment sounds like an egotistical endeavor and that alone.
If all you care about is your loved ones, this “exercise” will only take energy and time away from them.
 
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dank69

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
35,203
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Defining it as defined in the OP's video, as 70+.

There are plenty of anecdotes of under 70's dying from this, including some young children. Anecdotes are irrelevant. Only population mortality data by age group matters.
Okay then what is the estimated death rate of 40-70? Do we know?
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
72,326
6,039
126
No that's not it. I'd be super interested to experience anything supernatural. I don't care if it exists or not, but if it does exist I would absolutely love to know. I suspect every single supernatural experience every single person has ever had could be explained by physics and brain chemistry, but if it turns out I'm wrong, great!
I hate that word supernatural. I am sure that the strike of steel on flint was once considered supernatural. There is no such thing as the supernatural, only things one's own personal experience can explain. Ever had a fever as a child where the 3D space started to go weird? Ever had the experience you were going with some sort of flow where everything you did just seemed to fit like at a party where people are magnetically drawn to you? How about singing and creating poetry on a reverberating echo as if your consciousness was like a strobe light, as if time were both particle and wave. Have you ever felt at cause, as if you create the universe? Most people, I think experience things they can't explain. And as to physics and chemistry, yes, but that is the whole problem. You can know everything there is to know about brain chemistry and what might go on in an enlightened experience but you will never know the actual experience that way. In the East and to a lesser extent in the West there are ancient sciences that are designed to product altered states of consciousness. Animals eat psychoactive plants for the same reason. It confers some felt benefits. You can sit in a chair and dream all day about how you might like to visit Rome, but you won't get there until your desire gets you up out of that chair onto any old road as they all lead there.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
72,326
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According to the article you’re still the same moronic psychopath after this awakening experience as you were before.
Right?
So the purpose of this mystical experience is 100% something happening on the inside. All the inputs and thus the outputs remains the same.
Seeking enlightenment sounds like an egotistical endeavor and that alone.
If all you care about is your loved ones, this “exercise” will only take energy and time away from them.

That would be correct within a certain ironic context. The problem that anybody who claims to be enlightened is either a liar of a braggart, especially in the eyes of those whom such words are spoken. So job one for anybody who has experienced the joy of being that comes with ego death has to be very careful. The ego wants to experience the joy of being and what the ego wants it can't have because it is the ego that creates misery. Therefore the mystic will tell you nothing for the ego to be had here. Enlightenment is just a bunch of bull shit, go away please. The mystics have nothing to offer. There is a puzzle that illustrates the problem. A man with a wolf, a sheep, and a load of cabbage wants to cross a river but he can take only one item at a time. The only way he can do it is by thinking outside the box and putting in a lot of personal effort. That is most unappealing to the ego.

I was not seeking enlightenment when my surrendering disappeared in a flash. I was totally focused on what it was that was bothering me, I went over and over thing after thing and none of them were it. When wind hit the house is was in I woke up aware a moment before only of misery and the next aware of the wind. It changed every thing. A switch was flipped, my suffering blew away. How, I have no idea. Probably some chemical energy was produced by intense concentration that caused neurons to fire along some new synapse that connected and sparked a revelation. I realized that the need for meaning and the suffering its loss creates is an illusion because the need for meaning is as meaningless as everything else. There is no meaning and no need for it to be. There is only being and to be is to be everything. To be enlightened is to be an asshole but without the need to feed it. You know there is only love and you do what you can to open your heart and let it pour out.

In India there is a women who has hugged millions and millions of people, I think the daughter of fisherman, a complete nobody who runs a charity organization of hospitals I believe that is worth billions. I wonder what it is that creates such long lines for those hugs. Must be a bunch of gullible fools, wouldn't you say. But the hospitals apparently, are real enough.
 
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dank69

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
35,203
28,218
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I hate that word supernatural.
First a term you don't like and now a word you hate. Interesting.


I am sure that the strike of steel on flint was once considered supernatural. There is no such thing as the supernatural, only things one's own personal experience can explain. Ever had a fever as a child where the 3D space started to go weird? Ever had the experience you were going with some sort of flow where everything you did just seemed to fit like at a party where people are magnetically drawn to you? How about singing and creating poetry on a reverberating echo as if your consciousness was like a strobe light, as if time were both particle and wave. Have you ever felt at cause, as if you create the universe? Most people, I think experience things they can't explain. And as to physics and chemistry, yes, but that is the whole problem. You can know everything there is to know about brain chemistry and what might go on in an enlightened experience but you will never know the actual experience that way. In the East and to a lesser extent in the West there are ancient sciences that are designed to product altered states of consciousness. Animals eat psychoactive plants for the same reason. It confers some felt benefits. You can sit in a chair and dream all day about how you might like to visit Rome, but you won't get there until your desire gets you up out of that chair onto any old road as they all lead there.
The only times I've had altered state that I can recall are when I was on drugs. It seems to me that fever dreams also qualify as brain chemistry, though I don't recall ever having them. Hence my conclusion that it can all be explained by brain chemistry even if we don't fully understand it yet. The day I experience one I'll be sure to let you know. Until then we're wasting our time discussing it. You'd be equally successful harassing blind people about what it feels like to see a flower and why it's so important that they continue to try.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
72,326
6,039
126
First a term you don't like and now a word you hate. Interesting.


The only times I've had altered state that I can recall are when I was on drugs. It seems to me that fever dreams also qualify as brain chemistry, though I don't recall ever having them. Hence my conclusion that it can all be explained by brain chemistry even if we don't fully understand it yet. The day I experience one I'll be sure to let you know. Until then we're wasting our time discussing it. You'd be equally successful harassing blind people about what it feels like to see a flower and why it's so important that they continue to try.
There are lots of blind mystics who would doubtless like you to be able to see. As I said everything doubtless is brain chemistry at some level. That isn't the point. Knowing every chemical fact about the biology of trees will never give you a camping trip in the forest. You are trying to maintain the fiction that the observer and the observed are two different things, that a fragment of the self can look at the self independently, that there is such a thing as evidence independent of observation. You bring that self to what you see and therefore don't see. The ecstasy that love can produce isn't just chemicals in your brain. The chemicals are not the experience. They may explain the chemistry but not the chemistry of the experience. That exists only in conscious awareness not on a periodic table.

PS: The word Zen has been bastardized by everybody selling some supposedly soothing body wash or computer chip capable of magical thinking, and the term master irritates people because they are victims of Stockholm Syndrome. This should be obvious, no? And supernatural is often used to refer to psychic powers that titillate the imagination providing powers one would happily love to have to enact revenge, etc. I have to hate something or it would threaten my status as an abnormal human being.
 
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cytg111

Lifer
Mar 17, 2008
23,047
12,715
136
There are lots of blind mystics who would doubtless like you to be able to see. As I said everything doubtless is brain chemistry at some level. That isn't the point. Knowing every chemical fact about the biology of trees will never give you a camping trip in the forest. You are trying to maintain the fiction that the observer and the observed are two different things, that a fragment of the self can look at the self independently, that there is such a thing as evidence independent of observation. You bring that self to what you see and therefore don't see. The ecstasy that love can produce isn't just chemicals in your brain. The chemicals are not the experience. They may explain the chemistry but not the chemistry of the experience. That exists only in conscious awareness not on a periodic table.

PS: The word Zen has been bastardized by everybody selling some supposedly soothing body wash or computer chip capable of magical thinking, and the term master irritates people because they are victims of Stockholm Syndrome. This should be obvious, no? And supernatural is often used to refer to psychic powers that titillate the imagination providing powers one would happily love to have to enact revenge, etc. I have to hate something or it would threaten my status as an abnormal human being.
So you brain chemistry produced hospitals in India ... Why not lay claim to another enlightened individual and lay claim to his endeavors, say, like, Jesus Fucking Christ. We're all the same anyway, so... Heeeeeere is John...Jesus.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
72,326
6,039
126
Who says?
I have heard that in Russian there isn't a word that differentiates between say and speak. Can you imagine asking me who speaks instead of who says. You can feel internally the difference. The people who say so also have that inner sense. Ask yourself if you would rather sleep with a bottle of chemicals that produce ectasy or a passionate woman. I don't think you are as clueless as you sound.I know what Mulla Nazsrudin says: Oh my Beloved, everywhere I look it appears to be Thou.
 

dank69

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
35,203
28,218
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I have heard that in Russian there isn't a word that differentiates between say and speak. Can you imagine asking me who speaks instead of who says. You can feel internally the difference. The people who say so also have that inner sense. Ask yourself if you would rather sleep with a bottle of chemicals that produce ectasy or a passionate woman. I don't think you are as clueless as you sound.I know what Mulla Nazsrudin says: Oh my Beloved, everywhere I look it appears to be Thou.
But I know that the reason I'd prefer to spend the night with passionate women is because I can't duplicate the chemical cocktail my meat armor would produce. That doesn't mean it isn't just another chemical cocktail.
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
12,972
7,889
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Really gonna twist his noggin that all his philosophies are just chemical reactions.


Well I guess Moonbeam is just making the standard dualist point, that you can't reduce consciousness to matter. So what, though? I don't' see what relevance the relationship between reality and consciousness has to the question of how we react to a pandemic.
 

cytg111

Lifer
Mar 17, 2008
23,047
12,715
136
But I know that the reason I'd prefer to spend the night with passionate women is because I can't duplicate the chemical cocktail my meat armor would produce. That doesn't mean it isn't just another chemical cocktail.
Have this not been done? Brain implants that stimulants an orgasm at the press of a button… ppls would press that button to no end !
 

dank69

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
35,203
28,218
136
Have this not been done? Brain implants that stimulants an orgasm at the press of a button… ppls would press that button to no end !
There's a lot more to it than just orgasm. Think tantric.
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
12,972
7,889
136
As far as I can tell, amused's post #5 in this thread said all that needed to be said. This Bhattacharya guy does not seem to be a reliable source of expertise.

Since then it seems like the thread has just been driven by Moonbeam's puzzling tendency to latch on to certain figures who push the agendas of powerful vested-interests, and then doggedly defend them to the end, even if it requires retreating into non-falsifiable mysticism to do so (despite the fact that those vested interests almost certainly aren't in accord with his own, anyway - I doubt any of the powerful people who's interests the likes of Jordan Peterson or the Barrington Declaration mob serve, could care less about Moonbeam, or anyone of what I suspect is his class and economic level).

I can only conclude the motivation is pure ego - either a need not to ever admit he'd been fooled by these guys, or, perhaps, a need to believe himself more 'open minded' than anyone else, so making an unchangeable fetish out of being 'persuaded' by them.
 
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eikelbijter

Senior member
Aug 27, 2009
534
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My desire is to provide you with some truths about your inner condition, 'you' also in a general sense, and according to how I see you (them). I stop there with no need for you to see what I think I see. How would a person define gullible who is over cynical and can't trust anything and is unaware of that fact. Would such a person welcome information that might disturb the root causes of such cynicism by bringing them into unwelcome consciousness? I think not. I like the box you have placed me in, 'mystic guru'. Great name for somebody who sees things differently than you do.

About the only things I can see that are different between you and me is that I follow scientific consensus as best guess scientific thinking but minus typical science believer zealotry. I am not egotistically attached to some imagined superiority such consensus thinking seems to gift others with imaginatively. And I think that if and when new scientific facts accrue that challenges the doctrine of the day, I will adjust to them more rapidly than you for that very reason. Having died to everything I once held sacred with all the accouterments of concomitant emotional wreckage, and having mystically transcended them to become the guru I am today, there will be no such storm for me to weather ever again. For this reason, owing to the great good fortune I have had and with no merit whatsoever, be prepared to expect the occassional poke at what I believe is a defective degree of certainty in others. And while I consider it an almost insignificant achievement not to be a fanatical Trumper, I will remember most from this thread is your wish not to be rude to me.
As someone just banned from posting, this will be my only contribution to this thread, which I've been following with great interest. It PAINS me to see how some of the same characters that attacked me like rabid dogs, completely missing the point of many things I said, are acting the same with you.

"typical science believer zealotry" sums it up PERFECTLY. Even though I've made a career as a musician, I did graduate comfortably from one of the best high schools in the Netherlands, and spent a few years studying Electrical Engineering at TU Delft. Didn't graduate, but I was certainly taught the scientific method, and truly free thinking. The incredible arrogance of such large part of the scientific community and its reluctance to consider anything from outside its well-defined, approved box of reality, scared me off.

That first video you shared, in my opinion, is a must see for anyone who wants to have an opinion on the subject, EVEN if you disagree with most of what he says. Full disclosure: I found it a very reasonable and plausible theory, brought by a guy who's clearly quite knowledgeable. Of COURSE he could be corrupted by some outside force, but hilariously, these "good citizens" around here can't even fathom that Fauci might be susceptible to the very same! I've spent this pandemic as an unemployed musician, trying to learn as much as I can. Serious questions I asked here were ridiculed, ignored, or at best answered in that snarky "how dumb are you?" tone that I remember from University!

The worst part, and then I'll stop, is that those around here who are SO sure they picked the right team, are unwilling to admit that there was and will be a SERIOUS price to pay for the measures we took. In THEIR world it's, as they described, "a minor inconvenience of having to wear a mask"; half the musicians I know were not so lucky, not to mention the waitresses, bartenders etc. I know, boot-straps.... More arrogance from those with brains to become a doctor or nurse towards some guy in his 50ies that doesn't know much else than music. Of course the effect on the rest of the world is going to be millions dead, simply because of shrinking of the economy, disruption of supply chains etc. The WHO recommends AGAINST boosters for healthy westerners, but all those calling me selfish for not wanting a booster all of a sudden don't believe THOSE scientists anymore, because they MUST have been corrupted somehow...

Just want to THANK YOU for bringing some greys, and even colors, to this black-and-white world so many seem to have resorted to.

The highlighted is thrice problamatic. You are NOT allowed to reference mod actions in open forum. And you go on to continue to post in this thread despite stating otherwise. Finally, the reason you were told not to post in the Covidiots thread et al is contravened by you using this thread to continue doing so.

Perknose
Forum Director
 
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pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
12,972
7,889
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half the musicians I know were not so lucky, not to mention the waitresses, bartenders etc. I know, boot-straps.... More arrogance from those with brains to become a doctor or nurse towards some guy in his 50ies that doesn't know much else than music.

Yet you voluntarily chose to move to a country that believes as a point of principle in giving minimal support for those waitresses and bartenders.

Some cognitive dissonance there, surely? Or do I mean hypocrisy?

Of course the effect on the rest of the world is going to be millions dead, simply because of shrinking of the economy, disruption of supply chains etc.

Same was true of the financial crisis, yet I recall being repeatedly told that "nobody died" as a result of the greed of those bankers.
 
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eikelbijter

Senior member
Aug 27, 2009
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Yet you voluntarily chose to move to a country that believes as a point of principle in giving minimal support for those waitresses and bartenders.

Some cognitive dissonance there, surely? Or do I mean hypocrisy?

You don't realize that that 50 year old musician I'm talking about is NOT ME, I have many other skills and MUCH better ways to make money than with music. I CHOSE happiness over maximum coin, and thanks to all that this country has given me, done quite well actually, including an actual Grammy Nomination.

It's perfect though, you make my point better than I ever could. This IS the land of "me, me, me" and that will be its downfall.

And another GREAT what-aboutism with the banking crisis! OF COURSE the financial crisis caused MANY deaths, only a moron would not see that. You guyz......
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
12,972
7,889
136
You don't realize that that 50 year old musician I'm talking about is NOT ME, I have many other skills and MUCH better ways to make money than with music. I CHOSE happiness over maximum coin, and thanks to all that this country has given me, done quite well actually, including an actual Grammy Nomination.

That's a complete non-sequitor, which doesn't relate to my point at all. I didn't say anything about a 50-year-old musician. You claimed to be concerned for the interestes of those 'waitresses and barstaff' yet you have said that you moved to the US - so you moved to a country that has a political culture that is entirely opposed to helping those at the bottom of the class system. Presumably because it suited your self interest to do so.

But you can't then demand others put the principle of concern for those 'waitresses and barstaff' ahead of their self-interest (of not dying from COVID). That would be hypocrisy.


It's perfect though, you make my point better than I ever could. This IS the land of "me, me, me" and that will be its downfall.
And yet you chose to go live there. What does that say about you?
 

eikelbijter

Senior member
Aug 27, 2009
534
304
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That's a complete non-sequitor, which doesn't relate to my point at all. I didn't say anything about a 50-year-old musician. You claimed to be concerned for the interestes of those 'waitresses and barstaff' yet you have said that you moved to the US - so you moved to a country that has a political culture that is entirely opposed to helping those at the bottom of the class system. Presumably because it suited your self interest to do so.

But you can't then demand others put the principle of concern for those 'waitresses and barstaff' ahead of their self-interest (of not dying from COVID). That would be hypocrisy.



And yet you chose to go live there. What does that say about you?
Thick as bowl of oatmeal!

"entirely opposed to helping those at the bottom of the class system" - that's at least a bit of an exaggeration, but yes, I had NO idea when I moved here exactly how selfish the culture could be. See, you talk about the POLITICAL culture, but it all starts with the PEOPLE.

Now, I'm not "demanding" anything, YOU ARE. You would shut down EVERYTHING in a desperate attempt to save yourself, and with you many others. Even though it was clear from the beginning, at least according to Osterholm, that we could not stop the virus from infecting just about everybody. We got lucky, very effective vaccines were developed before it got to everyone, so any delay was perhaps worth the damage that the lockdowns did. Now, YOU have the opportunity to protect yourself from serious disease, and it's clear that the vaccination status of others will not make a material difference in how many will eventually get infected. Most doctors are now saying everyone will get it. You can't lock OTHERS down for as long as you want arbitrarily...

You have made two assertions of fact which are over-reaches for which you have neglected to provide supporting credible links.

Perknose
Forum Director
 
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