I think we both experienced something like this and what it is like being alive has not changed for me either. And the experiential portions of the reports we have made of it are accurate reports of what it is like, at least I haven’t made anything up 
.
However, does it attain to that which is called “out-from-control virtual freedom” in actualist lingo? There are, I think, two ways to tackle this question.
The first is the mapping approach which is trying to determine whether it really is this. What happened with me is: after talking about my experience of being alive with Geoffrey, he described a bit what it was like being out-from-control for ‘him’ in ‘his’ last week, and to me it sounded like a different thing than I was experiencing, and we were in concordance on that.
Part of that convo is where he asked me something like, do I think that how I am now will inevitably result in self-immolation, or do I think there is something more I have to do to have it happen? I said it was the latter, and he said something along the lines of that that’s good and he was wondering whether I have been “chilling” / waiting around (or something like this) as a possible reason for why I haven’t self-immolated yet.
Another way to take the mapping approach is to compare experience with already-available descriptions. Is something really described as being “nigh-on unstoppable” (link) really compatible with a state that just… stops? Frequently? Even for months at a time? Viz.:
(Note that even if once it starts again the experience is that of it never having stopped, it does not mean that it didn’t stop in the mean-time…)
And is a state that is described as a “different way of being” and “where the beer is the operant” (link) really compatible with one in which the controller is constantly “trying to re-assert control”? One where you have been “inviting the ‘controller’ once more” even after extensive experience in it? One where you are on a frequent basis returning back to a way of being that is a “dark and stagnant energy, this is the ‘normal’ which ‘I’ return to, this is the ‘gravity of being’”?
And is a state depicted as one where “Being naiveté is intrinsically part of that state (out-from-control/different-way-of-being)”[1] (link) compatible with a state experienced as nevertheless still needing “to discover how to ‘be’ naivete itself” (i.e. not being naivete itself yet)?
And lastly as far as this first approach is concerned, what is it that really sets apart an excellence experience (which is temporary) from an ongoing excellence experience (which is another way an out-from-control virtual freedom is depicted)? Vineeto may have some firm words for me here but… it is not even being out-from-control! As Richard wrote (emphasis added):
RICHARD: Given that it was a case of not being able to answer the question as-asked – to be having an EE (or an IE) is indeed to be out-from-control – then the word “No…” negates the entire query. […] It is more informative, though, to first set the query straight:
• [Respondent]: “Is it possible for someone who is in an EE and not out-from-control to experience near actual caring during the duration of the EE?”
• [Richard]: “As to be having an EE (or an IE) is to be out-from-control then the critical criterion, which you have evidentially been looking for throughout this email exchange, is the ascendant beer being in full allowance of the benignity and benevolence inherent to pure intent being dynamically operative (whereby the actualism method segues into the actualism process) and pulling one evermore unto one’s destiny”. [link]
In other words an EE (according to Richard in 2016) is a (temporary) experience of being out-from-control, while an out-from-control virtual freedom is set apart from this by the “critical criterion” of the ascendant beer (which is also ascendant in temporary EEs) being “in full allowance of the benignity and benevolence inherent to pure intent being dynamically operative” (my bolded emphasis).
Ehm sooo what does it mean to be in full allowance as opposed to a partial allowance? How would you know, experientially, the difference? Maybe you just think it is a full allowance but then later you allow it more and then you realize it was only a partial one? And especially, if you have come to associate a certain experience of being at least somewhat allowing of pure intent, as being the experience of an out-from-control virtual freedom… and you have come to consider that any gaps in the experiencing of this do not disqualify one from being virtually free… and whenever you reflect on the question of whether you are virtually free, that contemplation necessarily brings that (partial) allowance of pure intent into the picture… then wouldn’t you always conclude that you are virtually free even if you aren’t?
You don’t have to answer these questions, it is merely food for thought.
The second way to tackle this issue is I think a much more pragmatic and experiential approach, which is to say… … does it really matter, at this moment, in particular, specifically for the purpose of self-immolating sooner rather than later, what the way of being alive you are experiencing is called?
With this in mind I can only see it hindering, and not helping, to consider it to already be that “out-from-control virtual freedom” as depicted on the AFT site. Because this virtual freedom is one where it’s described as essentially inevitable, that pure intent is pulling one forward with impunity. And the only purpose this can serve, in my opinion, is to diminish my intent, to conclude it is not fully in my hands anymore (now it’s in the universe’s hands you see). If one is correct about it then it doesn’t change anything, but if one is incorrect about it, then this becomes another cunning and clever excuse to put off my inevitable demise (whether it be when the body dies or sooner). And, to be abstaining from the question or not thinking about where one is on the map, if one is indeed virtually free then again it changes nothing, and if one isn’t then one wouldn’t be selling oneself short.
So the winning approach, and indeed the obvious approach to me at this point, is this one, just not to really conceive of it in this way, and rather just naively go forth regardless.
At this point it sorta seems like the best approach is to go ahead and self-immolate, and then later the flesh-and-blood-body which continues being conscious (and is NOT me ) can see if what was experienced may have qualified for out-from-control virtual freedom or not. But that’s just how I’m thinking about it currently.
Cheers,
Claudiu
DONA: (To be clear, I wrote all of this, and they [i.e. Richard & Vineeto] both said it was accurate). ↩︎