@roy I applaud you for sticking with the topic instead of running for the hills (or back to the ‘tried and true’) this is certainly unusual and is a quality that is so essential for success with actualism.
This is something that is clearly visible in your writing, an active perspicacity and a sincerity to get to the bottom of things no matter what the cost to ‘my’ worldview.
I agree that @claudiu is a great communicator and in fact it was his willing and skilful communication that helped me pull out of a major dead end a while back, if you are interested you can see it here - The "Rift".
Although there was 1 thing that I did well too, and that was simply the willingness to stick with the topic long enough for the confusion to clear away.
It’s a shame that so much of what passes for ‘normal behaviour’ is actually an obstruction to constructive communication. As soon as ‘my’ precious feelings, beliefs and principles are questioned then this whole mechanism of diversions swings into action. One of the most crafty aspects of this mechanism is humility - “who am I to know? Who am I to question the collective wisdom or the wisdom of the ancestors?” etc. It’s a very clever ploy actually, as who is going to risk being some megalomaniac in their quest of finding out the facts, it’s ‘safer’ to stay within the group, within the confines of accepted wisdom. This defeatist attitude of “We can never know for sure so let’s be open” - open to what? This attitude is simply an invitation for beliefs and feelings to fill the gap.
It’s interesting that science also venerates humility, it has made it into a virtue. That it is a virtue to never know the answers, that “the more we know the more we don’t know”. Perhaps this was a reactionary response against the dogmatism that was so rife in religion.
But there is a third alternative to either dogmatism or skepticism, to either being ‘closed or open’. The third alternative is the confidence borne out of the direct experience of a fact, this is what the PCE demonstrates, that it is possible to actually find out.
And what the PCE indubitably shows is that the entirety of ‘human wisdom’ arises out of calenture, as Richard wrote - the heartfelt corruption of the mind. Science did not escape this corruption either and for sure those spiritual systems which were invented back when the sun orbited the earth did not haha. Those systems are now enjoying a revival and even some backing from science and popular culture, and this is where an active perspicacity is especially needed. The obvious question for me is this - are those experts actually living their life happily and harmlessly each moment again? And if not then what authority do they actually have?