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Post by siftingtothetruth on Jan 6, 2019 11:51:45 GMT -5
An idea I'm playing with: that conscious planning -- and indeed conscious thinking itself -- has no actual real connection to action.
What arises in conscious thought may purely be a series of images that simply has absolutely zero causal connection to what happens next, except as itself interpreted in that very conscious thought. But that interpretation is merely speculative, and has no actual access to the real processes… is itself merely an image. Conscious thinking may simply be merely a set or series of pretty bubbles/baubles.
The real decision-making processes simply have absolutely nothing to do with conscious thinking, and planning is no exception.
Conscious planning and the actions that are cognized and that seem to follow “from the plan” are together themselves products of the unseen Intelligence. It is not that the actions come from the plan in any way.
It all points again and again to the deep problems of any conceptualization of a "relative" or "dualistic" frame "within" nondualism. That level is quite problematic. It is absolutely ridden with contradictions, except as a concession to seekers. Philosophically it cannot be.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 6, 2019 15:01:27 GMT -5
An idea I'm playing with: that conscious planning -- and indeed conscious thinking itself -- has no actual real connection to action. What arises in conscious thought may purely be a series of images that simply has absolutely zero causal connection to what happens next, except as itself interpreted in that very conscious thought. But that interpretation is merely speculative, and has no actual access to the real processes… is itself merely an image. Conscious thinking may simply be merely a set or series of pretty bubbles/baubles. The real decision-making processes simply have absolutely nothing to do with conscious thinking, and planning is no exception. Conscious planning and the actions that are cognized and that seem to follow “from the plan” are together themselves products of the unseen Intelligence. It is not that the actions come from the plan in any way. It all points again and again to the deep problems of any conceptualization of a "relative" or "dualistic" frame "within" nondualism. That level is quite problematic. It is absolutely ridden with contradictions, except as a concession to seekers. Philosophically it cannot be. On a short-term basis I totally agree. I've pointed out that the body functions quite well and quite intelligently in the total absence of reflective thought. This is what the term "mushin," or no mind, points to. Most people realize that conscious thought is not necessary for going to the bathroom or scratching an itch, but it's often not realized that conscious thought is not necessary for most other things that we do. I have a friend who does not think at all (has no mind talk), and yet she has a high-level job and functions quite effectively. Gary Weber has written about this extensively because one day all of his mind talk simply stopped, and his effectiveness in his executive job seemed to improve. I'm less certain about long-range plans. IOW, I'm not sure that some sort of conscious reflective thought isn't necessary in order to buy airplane tickets three months in advance and make hotel reservations for a future trip. I've never asked my friend about that sort of thing, but I suppose it's possible that these kinds of actions could also take place without any kind of thinking. Having recently planned a trip in late March, I had discussions with other people going on the same trip, and had to do a fair amount of thinking about the issue in order to keep the costs as low as possible. My daughter is an expert at this sort of thing, and I had to sit down with her and spend some time learning the tricks of the trade, so to speak. Whether all of that could have been done by reading, alone, and then taking action without any kind of conscious reflective thought, I don't know, but perhaps it could. I'll ask my friend about this the next time I talk with her. After thinking about this issue that I speculated about, I'm pretty sure that even long-range plans can be made without the necessity of mind talk. In the same way that people can learn to speed read in mental silence and understand the meaning of the words directly, any other task can theoretically be performed in the same way--without conscious reflection. Admittedly, this would be rare for most people, but certainly not impossible. I realized that I do many things in mental silence that involve calculation and future planning although I've made no effort to see how far this sort of thing can be extended. I doubt that it would ever become a goal except as an exercise to satisfy curiosity, but to Sifting's main point, whatever is happening is a movement of the Whole that is generally below the level of conscious awareness. FWIW, I talked to my friend yesterday, and discovered that she had misunderstood what I meant by the phrase "no thinking." She does engage in some mind talk, but without prompting, she told me that her life is almost totally focused upon whatever is happening in the immediate moment, and she rarely thinks about the future or past. I asked her if she could stop all mind talk at will, and after she understood what I was asking, she confirmed that she can. Also without prompting, she said that she has no beliefs similar to those of most people she knows, and she said that because of her attitude, orientation, total acceptance of whatever is happening, and confidence in her intuition, that things seem to manifest in usual ways whenever it would be helpful for them to do so. I think I mentioned that I witnessed this happen in late 2017. She was in charge of a dance competition at that time and had thought it would be a good idea to find a photographer willing to film some of the group dances that were going to be performed in public places, but she had no idea how to find such a person. I was in the dance studio one day after this issue had been discussed, and a young woman who was majoring in photography at a nearby university suddenly walked into the studio. She wondered if there was any filming that she could do of group dances that she could use for a project in one of her courses! Several of us looked quizzically at one another with the unspoken thought, "You've gotta be kidding me!" haha. Truth is often stranger than fiction. My friend told me that this sort of thing happens all the time to her. Sorta fascinating.
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Post by siftingtothetruth on Jan 6, 2019 16:04:13 GMT -5
An idea I'm playing with: that conscious planning -- and indeed conscious thinking itself -- has no actual real connection to action. What arises in conscious thought may purely be a series of images that simply has absolutely zero causal connection to what happens next, except as itself interpreted in that very conscious thought. But that interpretation is merely speculative, and has no actual access to the real processes… is itself merely an image. Conscious thinking may simply be merely a set or series of pretty bubbles/baubles. The real decision-making processes simply have absolutely nothing to do with conscious thinking, and planning is no exception. Conscious planning and the actions that are cognized and that seem to follow “from the plan” are together themselves products of the unseen Intelligence. It is not that the actions come from the plan in any way. It all points again and again to the deep problems of any conceptualization of a "relative" or "dualistic" frame "within" nondualism. That level is quite problematic. It is absolutely ridden with contradictions, except as a concession to seekers. Philosophically it cannot be. On a short-term basis I totally agree. I've pointed out that the body functions quite well and quite intelligently in the total absence of reflective thought. This is what the term "mushin," or no mind, points to. Most people realize that conscious thought is not necessary for going to the bathroom or scratching an itch, but it's often not realized that conscious thought is not necessary for most other things that we do. I have a friend who does not think at all (has no mind talk), and yet she has a high-level job and functions quite effectively. Gary Weber has written about this extensively because one day all of his mind talk simply stopped, and his effectiveness in his executive job seemed to improve. I'm less certain about long-range plans. IOW, I'm not sure that some sort of conscious reflective thought isn't necessary in order to buy airplane tickets three months in advance and make hotel reservations for a future trip. I've never asked my friend about that sort of thing, but I suppose it's possible that these kinds of actions could also take place without any kind of thinking. Having recently planned a trip in late March, I had discussions with other people going on the same trip, and had to do a fair amount of thinking about the issue in order to keep the costs as low as possible. My daughter is an expert at this sort of thing, and I had to sit down with her and spend some time learning the tricks of the trade, so to speak. Whether all of that could have been done by reading, alone, and then taking action without any kind of conscious reflective thought, I don't know, but perhaps it could. I'll ask my friend about this the next time I talk with her. Well this is actually a slightly different issue than the one we've discussed before about the necessity (or lack thereof) of conscious thought. It may well be that conscious thought is required for certain actions. But perhaps conscious thought may always be associated with certain actions without causing those actions, in the same way that someone's skin color does not determine the way their heart pumps. Rather, both the heart and the skin color are determined by DNA. In the case of your trip, I'm suggesting that the sense of "weighing" between various options, looking up this and that and considering how to "keep the costs as low as possible"... that these did not accurately describe the underlying process -- or have any relationship to that process in fact. But that does not mean that it would have been possible to get to the destination without that. It could be the case, in other words, that: a) conscious thought to keep costs low on a trip like this would always precede long-term planning andb) that the conscious thought had no causal link to the actions, but that both were caused by something else.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 6, 2019 23:10:03 GMT -5
On a short-term basis I totally agree. I've pointed out that the body functions quite well and quite intelligently in the total absence of reflective thought. This is what the term "mushin," or no mind, points to. Most people realize that conscious thought is not necessary for going to the bathroom or scratching an itch, but it's often not realized that conscious thought is not necessary for most other things that we do. I have a friend who does not think at all (has no mind talk), and yet she has a high-level job and functions quite effectively. Gary Weber has written about this extensively because one day all of his mind talk simply stopped, and his effectiveness in his executive job seemed to improve. I'm less certain about long-range plans. IOW, I'm not sure that some sort of conscious reflective thought isn't necessary in order to buy airplane tickets three months in advance and make hotel reservations for a future trip. I've never asked my friend about that sort of thing, but I suppose it's possible that these kinds of actions could also take place without any kind of thinking. Having recently planned a trip in late March, I had discussions with other people going on the same trip, and had to do a fair amount of thinking about the issue in order to keep the costs as low as possible. My daughter is an expert at this sort of thing, and I had to sit down with her and spend some time learning the tricks of the trade, so to speak. Whether all of that could have been done by reading, alone, and then taking action without any kind of conscious reflective thought, I don't know, but perhaps it could. I'll ask my friend about this the next time I talk with her. Well this is actually a slightly different issue than the one we've discussed before about the necessity (or lack thereof) of conscious thought. It may well be that conscious thought is required for certain actions. But perhaps conscious thought may always be associated with certain actions without causing those actions, in the same way that someone's skin color does not determine the way their heart pumps. Rather, both the heart and the skin color are determined by DNA. In the case of your trip, I'm suggesting that the sense of "weighing" between various options, looking up this and that and considering how to "keep the costs as low as possible"... that these did not accurately describe the underlying process -- or have any relationship to that process in fact. But that does not mean that it would have been possible to get to the destination without that. It could be the case, in other words, that: a) conscious thought to keep costs low on a trip like this would always precede long-term planning andb) that the conscious thought had no causal link to the actions, but that both were caused by something else. In that case we almost surely agree.
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Post by lolly on Jan 14, 2019 7:09:09 GMT -5
When making a training plan one has to consider how to distribute the volume of training to optimise factors such as specifity to the goal, recovery and overload in such a way that progress is optimised and risk is minimised. My training macrocycles are planned out for 5 months. Exercise selection depends on where my weaknesses lie in terms of muscular strength, flaws in technique and pains/injuries I have to work around. Even though the planned regimen is flexible to a degree, I have to stick to the plan in order to reach the milestones that indicate progress. In short, if I don't do the training I don't lift the target weight. If the training cycle goes well without a hitch, I usually exceed the target by just a little, but if I have problems like an injury or extenuating life stresses, I might come up a little short, because the targets are realistic, but very hard to achieve because I set difficult benchmarks which require my consistentcy, persistence, and exertion to capacity - where the intensity is directly proportionate to the risk.
The is also a dietary regimen that supports the workout program... and sleep is important also.
It is an intricate plan founded on exercise and nutrition principles and an understanding of what is required to achieve set goals - it's a game of possibilities and limitations.
The plan determines the action, and I do what is necessary.
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Post by zendancer on Jan 14, 2019 8:57:38 GMT -5
When making a training plan one has to consider how to distribute the volume of training to optimise factors such as specifity to the goal, recovery and overload in such a way that progress is optimised and risk is minimised. My training macrocycles are planned out for 5 months. Exercise selection depends on where my weaknesses lie in terms of muscular strength, flaws in technique and pains/injuries I have to work around. Even though the planned regimen is flexible to a degree, I have to stick to the plan in order to reach the milestones that indicate progress. In short, if I don't do the training I don't lift the target weight. If the training cycle goes well without a hitch, I usually exceed the target by just a little, but if I have problems like an injury or extenuating life stresses, I might come up a little short, because the targets are realistic, but very hard to achieve because I set difficult benchmarks which require my consistentcy, persistence, and exertion to capacity - where the intensity is directly proportionate to the risk. The is also a dietary regimen that supports the workout program... and sleep is important also.
It is an intricate plan founded on exercise and nutrition principles and an understanding of what is required to achieve set goals - it's a game of possibilities and limitations.
The plan determines the action, and I do what is necessary. Although it seems as though conscious thought is required to formulate an exercise plan, Sifting is suggesting that this may be an illusion--that the body/mind organism was always going to do what it did regardless of any conscious thought that might be associated with what was done. The intelligence operating behind the scenes, so to speak, may not require conscious reflective thought at all. Most people think that mind talk is necessary for driving to the grocery to buy products that need to be replaced or designing a building, but it's not. If the mind becomes sufficiently silent, these kinds of activities can be seen to occur without reflective thought. Furthermore, sometimes people make intricate plans with every intention of following them, but when it comes time to execute the plans, the organism does something totally different than what was planned. This sort of thing happens every day.
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Post by lolly on Jan 14, 2019 9:37:59 GMT -5
When making a training plan one has to consider how to distribute the volume of training to optimise factors such as specifity to the goal, recovery and overload in such a way that progress is optimised and risk is minimised. My training macrocycles are planned out for 5 months. Exercise selection depends on where my weaknesses lie in terms of muscular strength, flaws in technique and pains/injuries I have to work around. Even though the planned regimen is flexible to a degree, I have to stick to the plan in order to reach the milestones that indicate progress. In short, if I don't do the training I don't lift the target weight. If the training cycle goes well without a hitch, I usually exceed the target by just a little, but if I have problems like an injury or extenuating life stresses, I might come up a little short, because the targets are realistic, but very hard to achieve because I set difficult benchmarks which require my consistentcy, persistence, and exertion to capacity - where the intensity is directly proportionate to the risk. The is also a dietary regimen that supports the workout program... and sleep is important also.
It is an intricate plan founded on exercise and nutrition principles and an understanding of what is required to achieve set goals - it's a game of possibilities and limitations.
The plan determines the action, and I do what is necessary. Although it seems as though conscious thought is required to formulate an exercise plan, Sifting is suggesting that this may be an illusion--that the body/mind organism was always going to do what it did regardless of any conscious thought that might be associated with what was done. The intelligence operating behind the scenes, so to speak, may not require conscious reflective thought at all. Most people think that mind talk is necessary for driving to the grocery to buy products that need to be replaced or designing a building, but it's not. If the mind becomes sufficiently silent, these kinds of activities can be seen to occur without reflective thought. Furthermore, sometimes people make intricate plans with every intention of following them, but when it comes time to execute the plans, the organism does something totally different than what was planned. This sort of thing happens every day. I think up a plan, follow through on it, and once executed, reflect upon the successful and unsuccessful aspects so as to continuously improve my programming. Maybe spiritual people just wing it, but for me, intelligent programing is the ticket.
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Post by enigma on Jan 14, 2019 19:55:27 GMT -5
When making a training plan one has to consider how to distribute the volume of training to optimise factors such as specifity to the goal, recovery and overload in such a way that progress is optimised and risk is minimised. My training macrocycles are planned out for 5 months. Exercise selection depends on where my weaknesses lie in terms of muscular strength, flaws in technique and pains/injuries I have to work around. Even though the planned regimen is flexible to a degree, I have to stick to the plan in order to reach the milestones that indicate progress. In short, if I don't do the training I don't lift the target weight. If the training cycle goes well without a hitch, I usually exceed the target by just a little, but if I have problems like an injury or extenuating life stresses, I might come up a little short, because the targets are realistic, but very hard to achieve because I set difficult benchmarks which require my consistentcy, persistence, and exertion to capacity - where the intensity is directly proportionate to the risk. The is also a dietary regimen that supports the workout program... and sleep is important also.
It is an intricate plan founded on exercise and nutrition principles and an understanding of what is required to achieve set goals - it's a game of possibilities and limitations.
The plan determines the action, and I do what is necessary. Although it seems as though conscious thought is required to formulate an exercise plan, Sifting is suggesting that this may be an illusion--that the body/mind organism was always going to do what it did regardless of any conscious thought that might be associated with what was done. The intelligence operating behind the scenes, so to speak, may not require conscious reflective thought at all. Most people think that mind talk is necessary for driving to the grocery to buy products that need to be replaced or designing a building, but it's not. If the mind becomes sufficiently silent, these kinds of activities can be seen to occur without reflective thought. Furthermore, sometimes people make intricate plans with every intention of following them, but when it comes time to execute the plans, the organism does something totally different than what was planned. This sort of thing happens every day. Are you suggesting that Lolly would have followed the detailed plan without giving any conscious thought to making it?
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Post by enigma on Jan 14, 2019 20:11:46 GMT -5
On a short-term basis I totally agree. I've pointed out that the body functions quite well and quite intelligently in the total absence of reflective thought. This is what the term "mushin," or no mind, points to. Most people realize that conscious thought is not necessary for going to the bathroom or scratching an itch, but it's often not realized that conscious thought is not necessary for most other things that we do. I have a friend who does not think at all (has no mind talk), and yet she has a high-level job and functions quite effectively. Gary Weber has written about this extensively because one day all of his mind talk simply stopped, and his effectiveness in his executive job seemed to improve. I'm less certain about long-range plans. IOW, I'm not sure that some sort of conscious reflective thought isn't necessary in order to buy airplane tickets three months in advance and make hotel reservations for a future trip. I've never asked my friend about that sort of thing, but I suppose it's possible that these kinds of actions could also take place without any kind of thinking. Having recently planned a trip in late March, I had discussions with other people going on the same trip, and had to do a fair amount of thinking about the issue in order to keep the costs as low as possible. My daughter is an expert at this sort of thing, and I had to sit down with her and spend some time learning the tricks of the trade, so to speak. Whether all of that could have been done by reading, alone, and then taking action without any kind of conscious reflective thought, I don't know, but perhaps it could. I'll ask my friend about this the next time I talk with her. Well this is actually a slightly different issue than the one we've discussed before about the necessity (or lack thereof) of conscious thought. It may well be that conscious thought is required for certain actions. But perhaps conscious thought may always be associated with certain actions without causing those actions, in the same way that someone's skin color does not determine the way their heart pumps. Rather, both the heart and the skin color are determined by DNA. In the case of your trip, I'm suggesting that the sense of "weighing" between various options, looking up this and that and considering how to "keep the costs as low as possible"... that these did not accurately describe the underlying process -- or have any relationship to that process in fact. But that does not mean that it would have been possible to get to the destination without that. It could be the case, in other words, that: a) conscious thought to keep costs low on a trip like this would always precede long-term planning andb) that the conscious thought had no causal link to the actions, but that both were caused by something else.Yes, nothing in physicality causes anything to happen in physicality. Everything is, itself, caused by the only cause. David Hawkins described it this way (Paraphrasing): 'When an apple falls from a tree and knocks over a bottle, spilling the contents, what is happening is that Consciousness causes the apple to fall, Consciousness causes the bottle to tip over, Consciousness causes the contents to be spilled.' The illusion of cause/effect is formed in the mind.
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Post by maxdprophet on Jan 20, 2019 14:41:38 GMT -5
Although it seems as though conscious thought is required to formulate an exercise plan, Sifting is suggesting that this may be an illusion--that the body/mind organism was always going to do what it did regardless of any conscious thought that might be associated with what was done. The intelligence operating behind the scenes, so to speak, may not require conscious reflective thought at all. Most people think that mind talk is necessary for driving to the grocery to buy products that need to be replaced or designing a building, but it's not. If the mind becomes sufficiently silent, these kinds of activities can be seen to occur without reflective thought. Furthermore, sometimes people make intricate plans with every intention of following them, but when it comes time to execute the plans, the organism does something totally different than what was planned. This sort of thing happens every day. I think up a plan, follow through on it, and once executed, reflect upon the successful and unsuccessful aspects so as to continuously improve my programming. Maybe spiritual people just wing it, but for me, intelligent programing is the ticket. A couple of Lolly's mitochondria, hunched over a desk, looking at the latest numbers coming in. "We definitely can't keep up with this Boss, we're starting to see remnants of lactic acid. If he's going to keep this up, there's no way we can produce more ATP without reinforcement." "Alright I know! But you know how expensive they are, fat stores are plentiful but not like it once was. The price has been going up ever since we hit single digits." "Why can't we get him to ease up?" "Word in the stream is that his frontal lobes are inflamed again. There's some sort of positive feedback loop going on. The Story, you know. Same as usual, but this one seems to be extra cantankerous. Planning this planning that."
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Post by maxdprophet on Jan 20, 2019 14:48:50 GMT -5
Although it seems as though conscious thought is required to formulate an exercise plan, Sifting is suggesting that this may be an illusion--that the body/mind organism was always going to do what it did regardless of any conscious thought that might be associated with what was done. The intelligence operating behind the scenes, so to speak, may not require conscious reflective thought at all. Most people think that mind talk is necessary for driving to the grocery to buy products that need to be replaced or designing a building, but it's not. If the mind becomes sufficiently silent, these kinds of activities can be seen to occur without reflective thought. Furthermore, sometimes people make intricate plans with every intention of following them, but when it comes time to execute the plans, the organism does something totally different than what was planned. This sort of thing happens every day. Are you suggesting that Lolly would have followed the detailed plan without giving any conscious thought to making it? giving conscious thought to conscious thought giving conscious thought ... [barbell falls on neck]
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Post by lolly on Jan 21, 2019 18:55:27 GMT -5
Well this is actually a slightly different issue than the one we've discussed before about the necessity (or lack thereof) of conscious thought. It may well be that conscious thought is required for certain actions. But perhaps conscious thought may always be associated with certain actions without causing those actions, in the same way that someone's skin color does not determine the way their heart pumps. Rather, both the heart and the skin color are determined by DNA. In the case of your trip, I'm suggesting that the sense of "weighing" between various options, looking up this and that and considering how to "keep the costs as low as possible"... that these did not accurately describe the underlying process -- or have any relationship to that process in fact. But that does not mean that it would have been possible to get to the destination without that. It could be the case, in other words, that: a) conscious thought to keep costs low on a trip like this would always precede long-term planning andb) that the conscious thought had no causal link to the actions, but that both were caused by something else.Yes, nothing in physicality causes anything to happen in physicality. Everything is, itself, caused by the only cause. David Hawkins described it this way (Paraphrasing): 'When an apple falls from a tree and knocks over a bottle, spilling the contents, what is happening is that Consciousness causes the apple to fall, Consciousness causes the bottle to tip over, Consciousness causes the contents to be spilled.' The illusion of cause/effect is formed in the mind. It's not that there is no cause and effect in physicality, it's just that action and reaction are arbitrarily defined.
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Post by enigma on Jan 22, 2019 10:43:35 GMT -5
Yes, nothing in physicality causes anything to happen in physicality. Everything is, itself, caused by the only cause. David Hawkins described it this way (Paraphrasing): 'When an apple falls from a tree and knocks over a bottle, spilling the contents, what is happening is that Consciousness causes the apple to fall, Consciousness causes the bottle to tip over, Consciousness causes the contents to be spilled.' The illusion of cause/effect is formed in the mind. It's not that there is no cause and effect in physicality, it's just that action and reaction are arbitrarily defined. You mean when the apple falls, it randomly hits the bottle below it?
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Post by lolly on Jan 23, 2019 2:27:40 GMT -5
It's not that there is no cause and effect in physicality, it's just that action and reaction are arbitrarily defined. You mean when the apple falls, it randomly hits the bottle below it? There is a force which affects both the apple and the bottle. We can arbitrarily say the apple effected the acceleration of the bottle or the bottle effected the acceleration of the apple because they are affected by the same force upon impact and F=ma.
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Post by lolly on Jan 23, 2019 2:39:09 GMT -5
Then again, because the bottle is at rest and the apple is spending potential energy, we'd general say the apple effects the bottle, so it being arbitraty makes more sense when two inert objects collide... or Consciousness did it... whichever.
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