There is something weird going on on this forum currently. It kind of reminds me of one of the pioneers seeing Richard as a lunatic/madman at some point, I don’t remember who it was precisely. It all seems back to front…
It’s the method that is at fault, it’s the actually free that are biased etc
Is this referring to things I have said? I don’t have time to rebutt all the comments on here atm . We need a chatgpt plug in on this app to save some time haha.
To be clear, I’m not trying to attack R&V or even debate them on any given topic - especially not re the method - though I don’t think they are correct about all topics by default. Definitely not. That is no diminishment on their contributions regarding actual freedom, and no lack of appreciation for their involvement in discussing such matters
Regarding the method: I’m not saying feeling good isn’t fundamental - I just don’t think that saying the method is “feeling good each moment again” is in itself a method for how to feel good. So much of it is stuff to do with awareness, working out how one is getting in the way, enjoying and appreciating etc etc. Feeling good each moment again is more of a standard than a method per se. There’s a lot that has to be worked out to reach that standard, based on direct experience of what works - whether tracing back, investigating, naïveté etc etc. That being said - from the point of an actually free person, that whole journey is identity based. But we can’t act like we are there already as if it made it somehow silly to talk about practical issues with implementing the method.
And then regarding the ‘belief’/bias based stuff you mention - essentially how much one dares to question R&V - I’d say that if one was going to wait to use one’s brain until after one becomes free, one might not have enough brains to become free.
Yeah the ‘method is at fault’ bit is referring to what you wrote in your journal recently. But in general I am referring to a certain vibe or approach that I am observing from writings. It’s very hard to put my finger on it, the below is the closest I can come to describing it.
I remember getting into gaming when I was a kid and someone described to me what a ‘noob’ is - essentially someone who has no clue what they are talking about but because of their utter lack of experience they behave as if they know everything back to front already, the funny thing is that they are not even aware of the depth of their ineptitude so they act as if they are experts, you don’t know what you don’t know.
I should clarify I am definitely not calling anyone some kind of actualist noob (therefore implying myself to be some actualist expert by virtue of making such a claim).
It is just the best I can describe this tendency. It is attacking the ones that have been there and done that from a place of ineptitude/ignorance. What they are saying cannot be the case because ‘I’ cannot see it from where ‘I’ am sitting, but where exactly am ‘I’ sitting? From which vantage point am I assessing?
Haha Ok. But do you see questioning things as an attack? Or a ‘noob’ move?
What do you think this process is, if not a “trying on” of a method that someone has relayed to you. You think you should just take everything on authority?
My diary is an expression of my own testing ground - not a pulpit. To that extent it does indeed show my viewpoint. One persons expression of their attempt to do this.
As such things can change - I might say stuff that is totally wrong and I’ll disregard later. That’s fine though right? or do you think you have to be some sort of “model” citizen of actualism for things to work? You do seem to write in a way that is pretty safe - I used to do that I looked like the perfect actualist haha.
I mean I don’t see these “attacks” you are talking about. Unless you think not paying lip service to their authority all the time is a type of attack?
I respect R&Vs expertise and advice fully - if that’s not clear. I consider them friends almost They have always treated me very well - and we have had super frank conversations about topics like homosexuality etc.
But I’m not going to become free by riding their coat tails - hence why you see I do not write about them much, or those issues. despite having spent a lot of time with them. Im not interested in global warming or whether or not they have on point opinions on social matters. None of that stuff matters to me right now. Only working out the next steps for my process.
And it’s called a ‘psychic maze’ because you do hit dead ends along the way - so I’m more than happy to be super wrong and a noob
Depending on where one is operating from but I see it as potentially a counterproductive habit/approach.
It’s like if I am in an area I’ve never been to before and I ask a local for directions. When he proceeds to explain to me - “turn right after the shop and you will see a hill”, it would not be sensible to question him on whether he is sure that the shop is not a school and the hill is actually on the left side, why? Because i’ve never seen the place.
Nah . Im not just dimissing advice left and right like I know everything. Im applying the advice to my own circumstances and obstacles. And from that, drawing my own insights.
In terms of your map analogy - it’s not like the school and the hill thing. Because the obstacles you will face are entirely unique to you. The map doesn’t show you
any of the obstacles that will stop you along the way - and we all have different ones.
So it’s like Richard says ‘head north’ - but you and I might be starting with 1000km distance between each other. Or you might get find it easy right close to the end and hit a massive wall of fear that you never get past. Or Srinath may have got stuck because he had social identity stuff. Vineeto ran away from actualism for 2 years at the very start. It’s individual.
But I’m not sure in any case how the following was not clear (and moderate - seen as you seem to like to be moderate) enough for you:
I’m advising people to follow their own experience, and see what works and what doesn’t.
In my view the actualism website essentially gives you some parameters, to guide you towards the experience of the PCE. But it isn’t some perfect toolkit thing which you just follow and it works - that’s clear.
Another aspect is where you start from. People all have different psychology, different baselines, different personalities, different circumstances etc.
You can tell all people “head north and you’ll get there” but getting there - including obstacles faced along the way and the time it takes to reach the destination - is entirely dependent on where an individual starts.
So why do you take issue with me describing my progress with becoming free (in my own diary, no less)? It’s called the psychic maze for a reason😃. And guess what, with a maze you hit roadblocks. You take wrong turns. You question things and reconsider your approach at different points.
Do you think that’s not allowed? Maybe you have a fear of stepping outside the bounds, or a belief in being well behaved on some level, if you are pulling me for supposed insubordination. Coming up against that would be one example of an obstacle of yours that would hinder your progress. If you were to only trust the map in that instance, but not your own experience and intelligence, you wouldn’t have any of your own intuition to rely on.
The whole point of actualism is to have the obstacle of yourself. If you already felt perfect all the time, you would already be free. So you’re being covertly hypocritical/holier than thou - because you can’t say that you do feel good come what may (therefore there’s obstacles you have where the method isn’t working for you).
I’m attempting a next level troll here (it may not be clear how it relates to Felix, Kub and Claudiu hence next level). And maybe I’m embarrassing myself. Maybe it doesn’t relate at all. Maybe my question had already been discussed in great detail earlier in the thread and everyone is just tired of it already… I’d be like sad Donny from the Big Lebowski:
…you have no frame of reference here, Donny. You’re like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and wants to know…
Even if so. Even if I am like sad Donny. I find it disappointing that no one wants to have a conversation with me. One would think that after doing months of research one would be happy to talk about what they learned. Especially to a person of like mind and like interest. So I’m gonna try again.
Well all I can say at this point is that I really have no interest in this mode of interaction.
I am not here to be playing some game of psychic attack and defense with you and this is blatantly becoming that very quickly, so I will at this point choose to sign out of this back and forth.
Unless of course there is a way to turn it around to something approximating a mutual probing and questioning as opposed to seeing who can piss further
Not really. I mean it would make sense. But it’s not necessarily a prerequisite to being sincere. People engage in different ways. I like conversation more than independent research. Besides, when I first re-entered back into this thread, I was engaged with. My questions were answered. So reading the whole thread didn’t seem necessary for me to be talked to and acknowledged.
Well, my interest to continue engaging fizzled when your questions started to tread grounds that had already been covered. 'twould appear thine “next level troll” hath fallen flat
I honestly have no idea what you mean haha. Psychic attack and defence? Where?
You are acting like we are at war with each other. Even verbally this whole convo has been totally moderate from my POV.
Again, maybe you have some beliefs about what ‘proper behaviour’ is or some moral ideas about being harmless (or humourless :)). Or you think because I say things directly/openly that means you are being attacked in some way?
It seems you are in the phase of wanting to just be above it. Like if you’re not out of the human condition, you can at least feel above it by being circumspect and serious about the motives of others . It’s like wanting to be a good Christian or something - you got to be a good actualist if you want to enter the pearly gates!
I’d legit empathise because I had a whole actualist moral virtue phase too - but it’s such a barrier to having fun and interacting authentically.
Im already in the friendly mutual probing and mode dude Maybe it’s just you who has to join that mental space then.
@Felix Tx. Did you get it? How I was linking the psychic battle going on between you three (no judgements - not weighing in at all) in this thread to my attempts at conversation in this thread receiving silence. I surmised the silence I received was a part of the same battle going on between you three. Subsequently confirmed, more-or-less.
It’s all good if not unfortunate. I enjoy the topic (AGW) but if I have to do hours of solitary research just to come up with a conclusion that no one cares about then I’ll pass. It wouldn’t be fun or helpful to anyone. I will, however, bounce ideas and data off anyone else who’s interested in the same subject. That does seem fun and would foster some fellowship between actualists.
We’ve truly entered a bizarro universe lol. How on Earth can you say you “confirmed” that your “attempts at conversation were receiving silence” due to this psychic battle when:
Your questioning around the “-18C” being “effective at predicting average temperatures for the planetary bodies in our solar system” started ~3 days ago.
@Felix initiated the psychic battle ~2 days ago (~12 hours after #1).
Andrew actually engaged you in conversation about it (i.e. your attempts at conversation were not“receiving silence”) – 21 posts across the past 3 days no less, including after the psychic battle started!
My reason for not responding to your questioning around this point (which I read and decided not to reply to at the time before the psychic battle started) is because I already discussed it in detail earlier in the thread, I suspected that you hadn’t read it based on how you were asking it, and I didn’t have any interest at that point in re-iterating the same thing again – not because of the recent psychic battle going on.
After seeing that you indeed hadn’t read the thread (based on you indicating you weren’t sure if your “question had already been discussed in great detail earlier in the thread”) I asked you if it wouldn’t make sense to read the thread first - to which your reply was that you agreed it would indeed make sense but you still basically weren’t gonna do it anyway – at which point I stated my reason for not engaging with you on it (which has been my reason for all ~3 days since you first asked it) – that my interest “fizzled when your questions started to tread grounds that had already been covered”.
I have no idea from all that how you can conclude that the psychic battle had anything to do with it – nor how you “confirmed, more-or-less” that it had.
Well if you only want to research it to talk about it with other people, I don’t really see the point. I did the research cause I wanted to know what the facts were – and then I posted what I found here to see if there were any valid criticisms to what I found (none yet). If you don’t care what the facts are yourself, except as a conversation topic then… I’m not really interested.
That being said if you do actually read what I already wrote and make a good or interesting point that hasn’t already come up on this thread yet, then I probably would reply! But maybe not, I have satisfied myself enough on the topic. It would probably have to be an angle I haven’t explored myself yet.
@JonnyPitt feels it, @Kub933 feels it, I felt it from your first post on this thread [ie Global warming/climate change - #334 by Felix] – you clearly have started a very intense psychic battle here, and the psychic currents you are putting out are all the more powerful because you aren’t aware of it (i.e. it’s currently going on in your subconscious). Adding emojis to your posts doesn’t change it!
Isn’t this the “you got to be a good actualist” 101 – don’t pretend you are feeling good when you aren’t feeling good?
I implore you to please recognize you are doing so and address it directly so that the psychic currents can stop! Not unlike calling a demon by its True Name – call it by its name and it loses its power
Ask yourself sincerely, is this really an example of not attacking someone?
Is it not further attacking someone to say that “Even your writing is absolutely dropping with Richardisms” and “let alone the viewpoints which only ever stretch to fit the dimensions of what Richard has already said” and that this “cannot be called the free flow of intelligence”, even likening to what I’m doing as if one “Might as well go down to the local courthouse, put on some handcuffs and shut the cell door”?
And all for what? For observing me engaging in a discussion on a topic you’re not even interested in[1]??
I’ll put it this way. If Richard wrote that the Earth goes 'round the Sun and not the other way around… and you saw a thread where various people were saying “No, the Sun goes around the Earth, it’s obvious, look at the sky, look at ‘skepticalastronomy.com’”, and I was saying “But the Earth does go around the Sun, I looked into it, here is why…” – would you yourself, knowing that the Earth does go 'round the Sun, have the same reaction you had here?
If not then, why not? What’s different about this topic? And how do you know since you aren’t even interested in it?
Or do we all have to disagree with Richard on some factual topics (as opposed to say tastes or preferences), in your mind, even on a specific topic where he wrote something that is indeed a fact?
Ehmm no, what is strange is that you would think from what I wrote there that I believe that Richard is omniscient.
To explain: as you posted on the “Global warming/climate change” thread, and you are busy excoriating me for agreeing with Richard’s article, I made the presumption that if I were agreeing with something Richard wrote that you also agree with – such as for example that the Earth goes 'round the Sun and not the other way around – you wouldn’t be excoriating me for agreeing with you, too.
So the reason you are excoriating me must be because you disagree with Richard’s article – unless you didn’t even read it which would be even more bizarre.
So I asked you what specifically about it do you disagree with? What did he write that isn’t a fact? Tell me indeed how (to stay with the analogy) it’s not a fact the Earth goes around the Sun?
Because if you can’t point out anything unfactual about it… then there really is no reason for you to be excoriating me for agreeing with it! That would indeed be akin to saying I’m locking myself in a jail cell for being aligned with what the facts are.
Is it possible you had a negative reaction to what Richard & Vineeto’s most recent article said about “sexual orientation identity”, then you saw me agreeing with something Richard said (albeit about something else entirely), and you dug into me as a result? It’s only a speculation and I only offer it as a possibility (not an attempt to ‘read your mind’ or anything like that).
It’s even stranger that you write that you “respect R&Vs expertise and advice fully” yet here you are digging into me for agreeing with something they wrote resulting from that very “expertise and advice”! Why are you doing it? Further, as you write they “have always treated me very well” – why not extend that treating-you-very-well yourself, to your other fellow human beings on here specifically? Or would that be too much of a “Richardism” for you, not enough “independent thinking”, too much of “emulat[ing] Richard” to treat your fellow human beings the way he has treated you?
All of this raises an interesting topic completely unrelated to the GW issue, which is the degree to which we can pick up on vibes transmitted across a message thread. I have certainly experienced some vibes flying around in this thread and others recently, but I know that it’s a pretty hit & miss way to tell what’s happening inside of someone else’s psyche. And then behind a screen, anyone can deny or claim that they’re feeling perfectly pure & clean, and for that matter they may even believe it themselves. In the end it’s up to everyone to ask themselves where they’re at. As Richard says, if someone wants to spend their lives causing a ruckus, that’s their own choice.
I think @Felix also accurately points out that the psychic maze involves many dead ends, speaking for myself I’ve run into many, many of them over the last few years and even today it’s an ongoing thing sorting out where sincerity lies, and where ‘I’ continue to find insidious ways to wreak havoc. Of course, part of the role of the forum is pointing out dead ends to each other!
All the same, I don’t think any of us are wrong in observing that there have been some waves over the last couple weeks, certainly an interesting case study in ‘group’ dynamics, and an opportunity to see how we as individuals feed into that, feel offended by what others have to say, and feel hurt and perhaps lash out.
@Felix Thanks for pointing out in Richard’s article what caused you to question what his opinion of homosexuality is; is it an identity or is it a genuine biological orientation?
It would seem that on reflection, all sexual orientations have both at play.
The spectrum of hetrosexual orientation is hardly homogeneous. It’s so prevalent among men to have a “type” that it’s a cliche.
I have seen my own “type” morph over the years.
That “type” could have a biological aspect (I suspect we are driven to “balance” our genetics back to an “average”), but it clearly has identity aspects too; where will I be appreciated, where do I have the most power. Aspects which have clearly social motivations.
You mentioned above that you consider Richard and Vineeto “friends” (perhaps “almost friends”?). This is something that I had to let go of at some point over the years contemplating my visit in late 2017. They were very friendly with me, but they are not “friends” in the conventional sense.
Indeed, ascribing them with “conventional friendship status” is to rob oneself of the appreciation of the actual caring they demonstrate in meeting with us.
I enjoyed our brief chat earlier in the week. I certainly will read and respond to your investigations. It was a genuine interest being expressed when I said that I am interested to see where your interest takes you. (That’s a lot of interest going on there!).
Indeed, as we discussed, the crux of the entire AGW theory depends on the -18C starting point.
My own satisfaction is 99.99 recurring % complete that it’s false. There is the that tiny doubt there simply because I don’t have the inclination to program a suitable model and pay for super-computers to run the needed simulation.
It however is the glaring absence of anything like such a model (a virtual earth sans atmosphere, water and biology) confirming, if only virtually, that starting point, which is the smoking gun for me.
Such a massive political, economic, social, doctrine impacting the lives of everyone should surely have better experimental (if only virtual) publicly available evidence.
As I mentioned many hundreds of posts ago, I am legally responsible to vote in Australia. So whilst being nothing close to a scientist, I am legally expected to decide on this topic.
Whilst at best my political power is 1 in 12million of the country (assuming I don’t start a political party), it’s not zero.
or do you think you have to be some sort of “model” citizen of actualism for things to work? You do seem to write in a way that is pretty safe - I used to do that I looked like the perfect actualist haha.
. It’s like wanting to be a good Christian or something - you got to be a good actualist if you want to enter the pearly gates!