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Beliefs
Jun 14, 2018 9:07:10 GMT -5
Post by Reefs on Jun 14, 2018 9:07:10 GMT -5
Scott's main premise is that people are not rational beings. They only give themselves (and others) the appearance of rationality. Which means you'll usually have better chances convincing someone with fiction than with facts. Another premise is that there are many versions of reality and that everyone is choosing his/her version and then perceives, rationalizes and acts accordingly. In that sense, I think his observations are pretty accurate. I've seen this playing out on the forum as well. Scott was also one of the very few people who predicted the Trump presidency very early on. And he keeps being pretty accurate with his predictions about current events as well. So this approach certainly has merit. I think the problem with the scientific approach today is that people want to apply it universally, as some kind of universal litmus test. And that is quite amusing in a way, but has rather tragic consequences, too. What has to be realized is that the scientific view (as well as the religious view) is just one possible view on reality among many others. And I see that already happening on many fronts. We all have our prejudices and views. I'm trying quite unsuccessfully to let go of mine. Yes, we do. But what Scott is pointing to is a lot more profound. People usually say that seeing is believing. But this also works the other way around. Believing is seeing. And that's a much more fundamental truth than seeing is believing.
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Beliefs
Jun 14, 2018 9:49:27 GMT -5
Post by laughter on Jun 14, 2018 9:49:27 GMT -5
We all have our prejudices and views. I'm trying quite unsuccessfully to let go of mine. Yes, we do. But what Scott is pointing to is a lot more profound. People usually say that seeing is believing. But this also works the other way around. Believing is seeing. And that's a much more fundamental truth than seeing is believing. But it's also just as true that belief can blind.
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Beliefs
Jun 14, 2018 10:28:06 GMT -5
Post by Reefs on Jun 14, 2018 10:28:06 GMT -5
Yes, we do. But what Scott is pointing to is a lot more profound. People usually say that seeing is believing. But this also works the other way around. Believing is seeing. And that's a much more fundamental truth than seeing is believing. But it's also just as true that belief can blind. That would be included in above statement. Said in a different way: beliefs guide perception. If I firmly believe that you are an idiot, I'm going to overlook or miss most if not all of your many brilliant comments here. I might even see idiocy in some of your comments that don't contain any idiocy at all by any objective standards. I think this is easy to understand. Now, Seth talks about different root assumptions in different reality systems. This is similar to beliefs guiding perception, but goes way beyond mere beliefs. These are perception filters we have from birth (like solid objects, consecutive time, cause and effect etc.). They are not acquired. It comes with the physical senses. So here believing is literally seeing (or not seeing). And everyone who is creating in this reality system has (roughly) these same filters. That's why we can (roughly) agree on what our senses see. This also explains how the idea of an objective reality comes into being. From within this (same) root assumption context there is indeed some kind of objective reality.
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Deleted
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Beliefs
Jun 14, 2018 10:49:24 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2018 10:49:24 GMT -5
We all have our prejudices and views. I'm trying quite unsuccessfully to let go of mine. Yes, we do. But what Scott is pointing to is a lot more profound. People usually say that seeing is believing. But this also works the other way around. Believing is seeing. And that's a much more fundamental truth than seeing is believing. Then by your own words this is silly. I don't believe what he proposes and see it as nonsense. Why bother reasoning with me? I see according to my beliefs. Why bother trying to reason? Give me a chant I can relate to or offer money or sex. Don't try to reason with me when you know it's futile.
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Beliefs
Jun 14, 2018 11:21:18 GMT -5
Post by Reefs on Jun 14, 2018 11:21:18 GMT -5
Yes, we do. But what Scott is pointing to is a lot more profound. People usually say that seeing is believing. But this also works the other way around. Believing is seeing. And that's a much more fundamental truth than seeing is believing. Then by your own words this is silly. I don't believe what he proposes and see it as nonsense. Why bother reasoning with me? I see according to my beliefs. Why bother trying to reason? Give me a chant I can relate to or offer money or sex. Don't try to reason with me when you know it's futile. Why would it be futile when it works both ways?
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Beliefs
Jun 14, 2018 11:32:37 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2018 11:32:37 GMT -5
Then by your own words this is silly. I don't believe what he proposes and see it as nonsense. Why bother reasoning with me? I see according to my beliefs. Why bother trying to reason? Give me a chant I can relate to or offer money or sex. Don't try to reason with me when you know it's futile. Why would it be futile when it works both ways? I see your point. I'm with you mostly. I'm more optimistic and believe the vast majority respond to facts and will change their beliefs accordingly.
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Beliefs
Jun 14, 2018 11:40:32 GMT -5
Post by laughter on Jun 14, 2018 11:40:32 GMT -5
But it's also just as true that belief can blind. That would be included in above statement. Said in a different way: beliefs guide perception. If I firmly believe that you are an idiot, I'm going to overlook or miss most if not all of your many brilliant comments here. I might even see idiocy in some of your comments that don't contain any idiocy at all by any objective standards. I think this is easy to understand. Now, Seth talks about different root assumptions in different reality systems. This is similar to beliefs guiding perception, but goes way beyond mere beliefs. These are perception filters we have from birth (like solid objects, consecutive time, cause and effect etc.). They are not acquired. It comes with the physical senses. So here believing is literally seeing (or not seeing). And everyone who is creating in this reality system has (roughly) these same filters. That's why we can (roughly) agree on what our senses see. This also explains how the idea of an objective reality comes into being. From within this (same) root assumption context there is indeed some kind of objective reality. Even intellect can grasp that there's a meaning of objectivity that is founded on consensus, and sure, I understand that this can point to a notion that's far more profound than that conclusion of mind. Have you ever looked at a person's head and thought of it in terms of the entire Universe focusing itself through a sort of lens? When I did that years ago it was delightfully ungrounding, these days it's just a sort of (still quite delightful) humorous way to see people. See now, the lens is another metaphor for a two-way flow of information that is just another way of saying "filter". But of course, all the movement, all the coming and going -- even those movements the common human embodiment of consciousness makes it difficult for most people to perceive -- it's all superficial relative to the timeless spaceless space all this movement unfolds into. The movement of consciousness is undeniable, but, of course, relative.
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Beliefs
Jun 14, 2018 11:42:37 GMT -5
Post by laughter on Jun 14, 2018 11:42:37 GMT -5
Why would it be futile when it works both ways? I see your point. I'm with you mostly. I'm more optimistic and believe the vast majority respond to facts and will change their beliefs accordingly. What we're seeing play out quite loudly in this relatively hyperconnected media landscape is how obvious it gets to everyone but the deniers of fact that they're in denial as it's happening. And the thing is, this hyperconnectivity is likely an irreversible trend that's only going to continue to go in one direction.
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Beliefs
Jun 17, 2018 5:36:57 GMT -5
Post by laughter on Jun 17, 2018 5:36:57 GMT -5
Yeah, I get your point here, and it's a rather delicate one to make, as in, without covering both sides of the aisle as you've done here the expression of it is imbalanced and incomplete. The flip side of the coin is that when you do cover both sides, it can become obscure, unless the reader is either deeply engaged in the writing or they have a really good feel for what you're writing about. Either self-realization or a profound enough oneness-experience has the potential to put the causes of emotion into perspective and facilitate an ongoing process of becoming conscious/RC. This is because they each alter the perspective on the nature of cause/effect generally. But the alteration is different in each case, and in either case there's still the issue of the informing of mind after the fact. From what I've picked up on from the historical material that's often shared on these forums, and the dynamics between the personalities happening on them, this issue is far from trivial. My time at the Tolle board was during the only time of conscious-existential seeking I've done in my life. A question that occurred to me then, and one that I perceive as fairly common among conscious seekers, is: "how can I stay Present with all these ego's constantly firing-off all around me?". As far as self realization and oneness experiences affecting one's beliefs or understanding about cause and effect. I would say both have the potential to lead to beliefs that mesh with bypassing or not taking responsibility for one's emotional state. The link between cause and effect in the personal realm is the law of attraction, and it's not a God created law, but a conditional link programmed with the dna of how you feel (desire and desire fulfillment). Becoming conscious is possible because the human mind can become less than conscious. This less than conscious state is mind identification, and it is created through unconsciously choosing to emote in a certain way: this moment is not good enough, or I am not good enough because this moment is not making me feel how I want to feel. This type of dynamic opens the gateway for compartmentalization, the remarkable ability to blindly block out our feelings, project them through compensation, and then seek them in predictable drone like fashion as we become a more betterer person in the world of form. If you move next door to a sewer plant, there is a certain period of time where the smell stops bothering you. Essentially, you detune from the smell, and it's as if they aren't filtering your community's waste right next door. The same thing has happened with the human emotional state, in that folks are completely tuned out or turned away from what they have going on internally. Luckily, what happens externally is directly linked to what we have going on internally. Not because, ultimately speaking, the internal causes the external, but rather, the compartmentalized self, the personal unconscious, only exists because something happened in the world that led mind to turn away from it and compensate for it. Many atheists are dealing with precisely this complex, in that feelings of God abandonment are masked through the belief that there is no God. As the external mirrors the internal, as long as we unconsciously feel inferior, no superior condition will ever make us feel whole for more than a brief glimpse or a passing tide. Becoming conscious or healing the internal injuries we are carrying, alters the conditioned mechanism through which we experience creation. we align in a different way. We attract experience not in accordance with a need to compensate for injury, and as such, changes in experience, from uptime to downtime, can bring about an opportunity to relax, rather than a need to compensate for attachment because we just lost a moment we are attached to. This attraction or alignment, at the deepest level, is the act of creation, unraveling through the prism of self as the light of all eternity. If we call self realization the realization that one is the light of creation and yet is competely unbound by what is created, the mind or person through which we create and experience can still be completely detuned to how suffering is being perpetuated by unconsciousness. A oneness experience probably isn't going to help much either. A willingness to experience, stay humble, and understand can go a long way. And to the extent we are unwilling, or not humble, is to the same extent a correction mechanism is programmed into our experience. Sure, acceptance doesn't mean that one shouldn't or doesn't act, but the flip side to desire-based action is that not all desire is personal or destructive. Bypassing can only happen when one is caught up in self-dishonesty. These external conditions a person finds themselves in are on a scale that they can barely imagine, so reducing their relationship to them into a single natural law is always going to miss the nuance of life as lived by the living. At their extreme and hard-core, atheists are crying about the abandonment, yes. They define themselves by what they disbelieve and reject. But it's also just as true that humanists, generally, have outgrown the old traditional limiting paternalistic and personalized notion of God. More pointedly, the cultural artifact of science is an outward reflection of a collective human movement toward greater consciousness. Perhaps we can think of hardcore atheists as a sort of regressive adolescent stage, one wallowing in personal rebellion. In contrast, humanists that have questioned their existential position based on the results of the experimental method but are still open in the questioning are beyond that. Carl Sagan instilled a profound sense of awe in a generation simply by inviting attention to the wonderful scope and intricacy of the material movements in the world as they present themselves, with only a single underlying assumption: objectivity. All it takes to stumble into the existential free-fall of self-honesty is for a humanist to genuinely investigate the roots of his or her cultural conditioning. And at the end of that free-fall, it's possible for a humanist to look back on the old God-culture that got out of his way and find something valuable in it. The Christians named, precisely, what it was that happened in the world that led mind to turn away from it: "original sin". What's got obscured over the millenia by both the institutions that formed-up around Christ and the movements of rebellion against those institutions, is the message of God's unconditional love and forgiveness. What self-realization or a profound enough oneness experience can put one in touch with is twofold: (1) the nature of the existential delusion is that original sin and (2) there's nothing to be ashamed about for it, because it's just an impersonal movement of consciousness over time, just the way the Universe happened to unfold. If the realization is self-realization, or the oneness experience profound enough, then it's possible to see this not only relative to ourselves, but to everyone else as well. And that's what the Catholics have been saying all along: love thy enemy as thyself. As Father Joe put it, the potential for transformation doesn't get more radical than that. I think of self-realization in different terms: simply the end of any self-inquiry, or the possibility of self-inquiry. Once the existential truth has been realized, it isn't possible to continue questioning along these lines even if you wanted to, and while some aren't very nostalgic for the questioning, others are. From my readings on these forums it seems to me that it's quite possible to get in touch with the unbounded nature of creation and the light of consciousness that illuminates it, long before the questioning is over. Or after. In either event, the question "can an enlightened man ever go unconscious?" is one of those Zen-koan thingy's that no movement of mind can ever answer truthfully. But as people come in all shapes, sizes, flavors and shades, some of them have some serious healing to do, while others can have lived a blessed life relatively free of internal scars.
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