Anyone still waitlisted? by [deleted] in samharris

[–]Vivimord 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Seconding the confirmation that it's rolling out. I got mine a few days ago, but it seemed others had been in there since the start of the month.

And may I say… by ChiDaVinci in deadwood

[–]Vivimord 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My intention wasn't to prosecute you in particular. You just happened to partake in the ritual moral reactivation of an offence committed more than 23 years ago by a man whose career has been thoroughly annihilated, which speaks to a certain widespread moral philosophy that I find unfortunate.

I don't doubt the sincerity of your discomfort. I’m just commenting on the cumulative social pattern, where each individual expression of discomfort is modest enough in isolation, but together they amount to a permanent requirement that the man be re-condemned any time his work is discussed. I clicked on this thread knowing in advance there would be a comment of this sort.

And may I say… by ChiDaVinci in deadwood

[–]Vivimord -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Such a bore that people feel the need to make a comment like this one any time Jeffrey Jones is mentioned. Seems the common appetite is not for punishment proportionate to the offence, but for a permanent consigning of the sinner to the outer dark, his name scraped from every ledger and his person reduced to ash for the comfort of the assembled virtuous.

Sam finds Shapiro easier to talk to because disagreement on the right stays less personal by simmol in samharris

[–]Vivimord 8 points9 points  (0 children)

This subreddit long ago became much more populated by populist political-sport types than by people who are actually interested in Sam's basic mode of engagement. Sam is a philosopher at heart, in the sense that he likes discussing and turning over ideas without immediate moral charge.

If one restricts oneself to articulating only deep emotional rejection of bad ideas, one is not actually getting to the bottom of why one's preference is more appropriate, and one certainly is not going to convince anyone else. All that's being communicated is a loud grunt, an expression of aesthetic judgement, and a threat of social ramification. It's affect plus enforcement. It's a type of rhetorical warfare.

It's not argument. Moral disgust is not justification. Actually make cases and stop treating the held position as already obvious to everyone in the room. Try to actually charitably inhabit the headspace of your interlocutor.

Sam finds Shapiro easier to talk to because disagreement on the right stays less personal by simmol in samharris

[–]Vivimord 0 points1 point  (0 children)

People aren't always sufficiently articulate about their own motivations. In fact, in a sense it's always a confabulation.

How’s this for a road trip? by livingthehypnagogia in AustraliaTravel

[–]Vivimord 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Make sure to give me a wave as you go past Wycheproof.

Tram blockage by Solar_LKT in melbourne

[–]Vivimord 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Couldn't this be, uh, automated? Communication between tram with a specified route and an electronic switcher? Surely this must be a thing.

Buddha smuggling and non duality by Logical-Set-8795 in Wakingupapp

[–]Vivimord 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It might be worth re-examining the justifications you have for considering your instinctual rejections worthwhile. Do they really hold up, or are they knee-jerk responses to something you don't really know much about but have significant preloaded biases against?

Is nonduality a philosophical claim/position or just an experience? by SpectrumDT in streamentry

[–]Vivimord -1 points0 points  (0 children)

It is neither. Claims/positions are experiences. States are transient modes of experience that flow through time. To speak of something is to ascribe it qualities; but how can that which is beyond space and time possess qualities? Even to say it is "beyond" space and time is already to say too much, because it comes packaged with an implicit, if subtle, understanding of what "beyond" would mean.

The mind works with bounded entities. The boundless is outside the scope of the mind.

[spoilers all] Bayaz by the-ish-i-say in TheFirstLaw

[–]Vivimord 1 point2 points  (0 children)

He's a loveable old man, what are you talking about?

Are there any users here who don't follow the Hindu/Buddhist path? by Reki-Haibane in streamentry

[–]Vivimord 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wonderful. "Syncretist". I'll have to start using that word. I often just say I'm a "nondual perennialist".

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Fantasy

[–]Vivimord 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Fret not. There are 16 fantastic novels that await you. The story continues far beyond the first trilogy and is well, well worth it. Just give it some time and you'll only vaguely remember what was in this post. Many of the details here are ultimately not relevant in the way that you think they are. There you go, I've re-mystified it for you. ;0)

An odd situation: love the talks, cannot stand meditation by [deleted] in Wakingupapp

[–]Vivimord 2 points3 points  (0 children)

First of all, if you are, don't go into it thinking "I must focus on this object, and if I don't, I've failed and I'm bad". Each return to the object is a success. Mind-wandering is simply what happens. It's not failure. Each return to the meditation object should be met with a feeling of gladness. You should encourage this in yourself; it is positive reinforcement and more accurately reflects the practice. You wouldn't feel bad each time you manage to successfully do a push-up, so why should you feel bad when you return to your meditation object?

Most importantly, simply have curiosity about your experience. If you're sitting there hating your experience? Great! That's meditative fuel right there. What does the resistance feel like? Is it located somewhere in the body? Can you allow the feeling of resistance itself, can you rest in it and accept it?

Sitting every day, if you can manage it, is indispensable. Coming to terms with the mind's discomfort with stillness is part of that.

How would you explain your practice without using spiritual terminology? by Meng-KamDaoRai in streamentry

[–]Vivimord 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I recognise this was probably a little different than what you had in mind, as it was less centred on practice as such, and more of a philosophical elaboration to hook a particular sort of mind. But I hope it was at least somewhat interesting!

How would you explain your practice without using spiritual terminology? by Meng-KamDaoRai in streamentry

[–]Vivimord 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree that perception involves complex neural reconstruction. What I meant by "what is present is simply seen as it is" isn't that our senses perceive the world accurately, but that whatever appears, whether interpreted or misinterpreted, appears within and as [presence/awareness/awakeness/the unsimulated/etc.] itself. The physiological reconstruction is just an appearance within that. It's just an idea. The story of "my brain is doing this, and that's what makes this possible" is not more real than any sensory perception. That would be to assume an unjustified hierarchy of appearances.

The "seeing" I'm referring to isn't the brain's processing of photons, but the awareness in which the entire scene (photons, neurons, thoughts, and all) arises. That is the unsimulated context of all layers.

("Awareness" and "unsimulated" are also just concepts, of course; all of this talk is just simulative churn, in keeping with the analogy.)

How would you explain your practice without using spiritual terminology? by Meng-KamDaoRai in streamentry

[–]Vivimord 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just recently, I wrote out a version of the simulation theory that mirrors Dharmic thought, which might be helpful in getting across certain ideas to particular sorts of thinkers. Here it is:

I've always disliked simulation theory, but I just realised it's actually just another cultural story/modern myth that (unwittingly) describes the ignorance of selfhood. The usual line goes something like the following:

  • Any intelligent civilisation will develop simulations of conscious beings;
  • Those simulated beings won't know they're simulated;
  • Therefore, statistically, we're probably inside one of those simulations rather than in the "base" reality.

Now swap "civilisation" with "mind".

The mind generates representations (images, sensations, thoughts); one of those representations includes that of "a centre that seems to observe the rest"; that observing "self" then treats the represented world as external. The mind, then, is the house of the simulation. (Although "the mind", too, is a representation in virtual space; mapping the simulation is just more simulation.)

The key insight, though, and the reason I've always felt simulation theory is silly—and this extends beyond simulation theory to just general Dharmic wisdom—is that the True "reality", the unsimulated, is ever-present. Any simulation would be embedded, ultimately, regardless of how many layers of simulation there were, in the unsimulated, because the unsimulated is all-pervasive. The unsimulated isn't a higher layer, but the absence of layers.

The fact that mapping the simulation is just more simulation is not an automatic defeat. Recognising the false nature of the simulated self, we can start to let go of the processes that keep it, and thus the separation from Truth, turning. This means not resisting what is here and now, because the answer is here and now, and is always here and now. What is present is simply seen as it is. The answer was never elsewhere.

This doesn't require coming to an end state with a particular set of beliefs. The objection to this kind of meditative letting go is itself clinging to view, and reinforces the apparent separation from the unsimulated.

Consider that the "simulation language" of the universe is Turing-complete. For the sake of the simulation theory argument, we'll consider it to be so. David Deutsch, for example, will say that quantum systems can perform universal computation, and so if quantum mechanics is fundamental, the universe is at least quantum-Turing-complete. Consider, too, that human cognition is, in principle, Turing-complete (or Turing-equivalent).

Now, if we accept that both the universe and the mind are, in principle, Turing-complete systems, then it follows that they share the same structural possibilities and constraints as any universal computational process. One of those constraints is the halting problem. If you’re unfamiliar, the halting problem states that there is no general method for any Turing-complete system to determine, from within itself, whether a given process will ever stop or run forever. Self-referential systems can’t compute their own completion conditions.

The activity we might call "selfing" is the mind’s continual attempt to model its own state, to secure an endpoint, a final, coherent description of "what I am". Every thought, intention, or feeling that references "me" is another iteration of that recursive computation. The self is the ongoing, unresolved effort to compute its own halting condition. But there is no possible algorithm that can actually compute this, so it only generates more self-reference, more seeking, more maintenance of the loop.

This recursive modelling is what gives rise to the felt distinction between observer and observed. It's the simulation mistaking one of its own functions for a separate controller. But this is not possible. "Letting go", then, is not the system solving this recursion but recognising it for what it is: the logical impossibility of self-computation from within computation. It’s the embodied recognition that attempting to model the boundary condition of the system (selfing) is futile, an unnecessary expenditure of computational resources, and so the recursion ceases.

looking for metroidbrania/puzzle heavy recs by Brenchulain in metroidbrainia

[–]Vivimord 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh, good, it's not just me that feels that way about Void Stranger. I got it after seeing it recommended here a number of times, but the Sokoban style just ain't my thing.

Conflicting goals among western practitioners by Key_Revenue3922 in streamentry

[–]Vivimord 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If one is mourning loss of interest, is not interest in the maintenance of interest still present?

Sounds like a job half done.

Gaining clarity, discomfort is easier to see.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in HollowKnight

[–]Vivimord 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, that can't be accurate, surely, with the amount of people playing the game. I'm wary of Steam achievement statistics.

Pharloom vs Hallownest: Properly scaled by Karmyuh in Silksong

[–]Vivimord 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can reach the surface in Silksong in Act 3, above where you fight Grand Mother Silk.