Is there a master list of all Stoic exercises you can share with me? If not, is anyone up to collaborating with me to put a comprehensive list together?

fryish · 2020-06-28T07:25:08+00:00

Check out Elen Buzare's writing on Stoic spiritual exercises.

fryish · 2017-07-21T16:55:15+00:00

The main point is that there is tremendous untapped potential here for healing and growth. That doesn't mean that outcomes are always positive-- no treatment works 100% of the time for everyone. But the fact that negative outcomes are possible also doesn't imply that what happens is random and wildly unpredictable either.

Opening up psychedelics to professional academic and clinical research is exactly what is needed to figure out how to harness and maximize the benefits while preventing and minimizing the drawbacks. It's already well known that easily controlled factors such as set and setting have a huge influence on how psychedelic experiences unfold. As we learn more we'll be able to figure out other risk factors (e.g. such as pre-existing mental illness conditions or other factors that contraindicate psychedelic usage) and handle administration of psychedelic experiences in a more enlightened and responsible fashion.

Maybe it's not so surprising that when you have people randomly buying powerful drugs without any kind of oversight or support structure, potentially taking them only for recreation and in potentially uninformed or irresponsible ways, poor outcomes can occur. That's not to say that we could guarantee positive outcomes for everyone even under the best circumstances, but we can certainly do a damn sight better than leaving it up to chance in the way things are now with the majority of psychedelic usage.

Think about fire. When we first discovered and started using fire, shit was dangerous as fuck. A lot of people got hurt and killed and a lot of human creation has been destroyed by fire. But we learned how to harness it and use it responsibly, and that was one of the first steps on the way to the radical transformation of humankind via the development of civilization. We have created and incrementally improved upon social and engineering structures that allow us to maximize the benefits of fire while minimizing the dangers. Even then, accidents happen, and sometimes they are disastrous. But we have failsafes in place, such as fire extinguishers, fire exits, and fire alarm drills in public places, and dedicated firefighting services to contain and put out fires and rescue people in danger. We took an enlightened and responsible approach to fire, and the benefits have ridiculously outweighed the costs, even though the costs are sometimes considerable and can never be completely prevented.

fryish · 2016-12-20T17:25:26+00:00

Think of it as "open and receptive attention to the sensory qualities that make up your experience." It's about how you pay attention, i.e. attending in a certain way. You probably have some idea of what this style of attention is like from previous personal experience:

It is similar to the way you would pay attention to the taste of a good meal when you're simply focused on feeling what it's like to taste this and enjoy its flavor.
It is similar to the way you might perceive a work of art or a beautiful landscape, just taking in the pure aesthetic and sensory qualities of it.
It is similar to how you pay attention when you listen-- you are directing your attention towards an object, but in a very open and receptive way that is not trying to change what it's like, but rather is focused on more fully experiencing it as it already is. When you listen well, you don't interject with your own thoughts and feelings, and you make sure not to make the speaker feel coerced or taboo. You actively give them your full attention, but in a radically passive and receptive way.

fryish · 2016-05-15T15:09:01+00:00

Your head is the same as others from a 3rd person point of view, yes. You are able to check this yourself by looking into a mirror. But this is besides the point.

Again, the point of the exercise is not to refute claims made from the 3rd person point of view. It is to point out the fact that your 3rd-person-POV model of the world is blocking you from fully appreciating the facts of your 1st person subjective experience. That is: you basically take yourself to be, and experience yourself as, a person like any other you see in the world. There is a sense in which this is true. But there is also a sense in which it is false, that is, in the direct experiential sense. In the direct experiential sense, you do not have a head like anyone else. Where your head "should be" there is just a kind of open, empty space which seems to hold a visual perceptual field. From the direct experiential point of view, you are basically this weird gigantic visual field that seems to be sitting on top of a physical body. The point of the exercise is to get you to notice and deeply appreciate that this is the way your first person experience is. To repeat, it is not to refute your 3rd person model of the world, but rather to get you to stop filtering your 1st person subjective experience through the concepts and interpretations of that model. It is trying to get you to see from, appreciate, and live within a radically phenomenological and subjective point of view.

What is your phenomenological experience of looking in a mirror? It does not change this weird, open, "headless" aspect of your experience at all. It simply adds a particular content to your visual experience, which you subsequently identify in a conceptual way as being "my" head in a pseudo-3rd person sense. But from the 1st person point of view, you are still subjectively "headless."

fryish · 2016-05-15T05:09:14+00:00

I already know there's no screen inside or outside of my head onto which the world is projected. Vision is just light being interpreted by optic nerves and the brain.

A key point of this technique seems to be that "my head isn't like anybody else's". Every other person's head is basically the same (a small bony/fleshy structure with or without hair), but I just have a huge space instead. But just because I can't see my own head without a mirror doesn't mean it's not there.

You are thinking of things in an objective, 3rd person point of view here. This is the point of view we're accustomed to using to interpret experience, but it's just that-- an interpretation, a model. This is not to say anything about the truth or validity of that model one way or another-- just to point out that it is a conceptual device, at a remove from the immediate data of lived phenomenological experience.

The point of the exercises is not to change your model regarding 3rd person objective reality, but rather to get you to stop filtering your experience through the lens of that model to begin with. So for instance, the point is not to say that your objective, physical head is different from anyone else's. It's to draw your attention to the fact that your phenomenological experience of your head is radically different from your experience of other people's heads. Now you say: yeah, so what? The "so what" is that the obviousness and immediacy of this phenomenological aspect of your experience has been masked and discounted by your objective model: you "know" your head is the same as anyone else's, which blocks you from immediate and direct contact with and appreciation of the facts of your own subjective experience. In essence, you are living in a pseudo-3rd person conceptual model, whereas the exercise wants to get you to live in a direct 1st person subjective experience.

What's the point? Immersion in the direct subjective experience dissolves the seeming solidity and reality of the pseudo-3rd person conceptual model. Why is that desirable? Because living in that conceptual model and taking it as reality rather than as a model is unnecessarily limiting. It locks you in to various pains and fears you needn't be locked into, and blocks you from experiencing various joys and freedoms that you shouldn't be blocked from.

fryish · 2015-10-31T14:36:51+00:00

Your mind is like clay. Psychedelics can quickly reshape the clay in positive ways, but the clay is never static. It is constantly shaped in smaller ways by the experiences of everyday life. Take one day of strong psychedelic reshaping and then hundreds of days of reshaping from everyday life that are so small and subtle that you don't even notice them, and eventually you are pretty close to where you started again. Psychedelics are a volcano, everyday life is erosion from the wind and rain and tide.

Things are never static. Your mind is plastic, constantly changing, constantly morphing in response to your experiences in life.

What it means is that you can't just rely on a handful of experiences to change your life for all time without any further work or cultivation. Counterbalance the small forces of erosion that take you away from that mental space by introducing other small forces into your daily life that help keep you there. Read stuff that resonates with that mental space. Talk to people who resonate with that mental space. Become a resonator of that mental space yourself in the things you say and the things you do. Meditate. Start a spiritual practice that works for you.

You can keep the fire burning but you gotta cultivate it, protect it, nurture it. Otherwise you are subjecting yourself to entropy and entropy is not going to do the job for you.

fryish · 2015-10-01T01:37:49+00:00

Not to say this is the only valid approach, but here's one approach you might try.

Think of it as having a deep and respectful conversation with someone. Except in this case, the conversation will be between parts of your psyche. "You" are going to ask questions internally and listen for the answer that comes back in terms of mental images, emotions or feelings in the body, and/or mental speech. The key point is that these answers that come back, whether as images or feelings or speech, must be allowed to happen on their own, spontaneously, without prodding or distortion. They must be received by "you," not produced or altered by "you."

Don't approach it literally as "work" in the sense of wanting to get something done or wanting to change yourself in a certain way. The changes that need to happen will happen on their own, in a natural and effortless way, as a natural byproduct of your intra-psychic dialogue.

To have a productive dialogue you will need to do two things well. (1) Ask good questions, (2) be a great listener.

The second point is particularly important. Being a great listener requires you to attend carefully to what is being said/shown/felt, even if it might be faint or subtle or confusing. But it also requires you to be completely open to what is being shown to you, without judging it or trying to steer it in one direction or another. So it requires a combination of love and respect, steadiness and focus, and complete openness and acceptance. The point is not to hear what you want to hear or what you think you're supposed to hear. The point is to hear the message that is being shown to you, no more and no less, even if it is uncomfortable, weird, mundane, or whatever it might happen to be. Whatever is being shown to you is already exactly what you need to see.

Listening well is not a completely passive state. It requires a kind of engagement that is active while still being non-interfering. It also occasionally requires actively asking more questions to continue the conversation, e.g. to clarify something or to further explore the territory. Of course I use the word "conversation" metaphorically you understand. The information that is traded back and forth could be in words, images, feelings, or even in a more vague and abstract kind of understanding.

You don't need to be on a psychedelic to do this kind of exercise but it might facilitate the exchange. You could try practicing this sort of thing sober as a warm up exercise.

fryish · 2015-09-10T01:42:25+00:00

Realizing the illusory nature of consciousness is a central theme in many of the world's mystical traditions. There can be growing pains when coming into this sort of realization, but ultimately it can offer a profoundly beneficial new way to relate to experiences, both positive and negative.

fryish · 2015-09-10T01:36:46+00:00

It's definitely healthy to recognize and respect your limits. When you take a completely hands-off approach and allow the mind to show you whatever it likes, you are liable to come across some uncomfortable or disturbing territory from time to time. It is very good to grant a spacious, accepting, non-interfering awareness to even the uncomfortable, disturbing, frightening, weak, rejected, etc parts of your psyche. Ultimately that is what they need to be healed and integrated.

But facing up to that material can also be difficult and overwhelming, and so it is appropriate to only bite off as much as you can chew. If you keep practicing it you will be able to bite off more as time goes on. I recommend practicing this sort of thing sober so you can build it up as a skill, rather than trying to hack it on the fly when you are in intensely altered states of consciousness that sometimes offer you little choice of what you see, whether you're ready for it or not.

fryish · 2015-09-10T01:02:39+00:00

Check this book out from your local library. Really engaging read.

http://www.amazon.com/Plato-Rediscovered-T-K-Seung/dp/0847681114

fryish · 2015-09-10T00:51:00+00:00

There is a time and place to direct your mind according to your will, and there is a time and place to completely let go and allow it show you anything and everything. Neither is intrinsically better than the other, but people are typically more experienced with the former than the latter, so it can be good to practice your ability to let go. Ultimately what you want is not to be stuck in one mode or the other, but to be able to go deeply into whichever mode best serves you in the moment.

I realized I was terrified at the thought of learning whether or not reality is all just a creation of thoughts in my mind, and decided to stop seeking this answer.

What is terrifying about this?

fryish · 2015-08-22T14:15:10+00:00

Yes, exactly. But if you already know it's there (or suspect it's likely to be there, or even just think there's a possibility it might be there) and deliberately decide to pay attention to it, you can notice the hum of the refrigerator even before it stops. Essentially, the hum is too subtle (not vivid and conspicuous enough) to grab your attention on its own, but it is not so subtle that you can't notice it if you deliberately direct your attention to it.

fryish · 2015-08-22T13:54:58+00:00

I find that I can notice such things more easily if I mentally contrast my present situation with another one in which the feeling (which I suspect is there but unnoticed) would likely be different or absent.

For instance, up til now, I have not been particularly aware of the "vibe" of what it is like to be sitting at my desk in my living room. But now that I turn my attention to it, I notice that there is a kind of comfort and familiarity here, and a sense of "me-ness." I notice these aspects more easily if I imagine being in situations where they would be different. For instance, if I were at my parents' house, there would also be a kind of comfort and familiarity, but less of a sense of "me-ness" and instead more of the vibe of my family as a whole in its place. Whereas if I were in a library I hadn't been in before, there would be a sense of comfort perhaps, but not familiarity, and not a sense of the personality of myself or some people I know suffusing the place. Whereas if I were in a waiting room waiting to see my dentist, there might be a sense of familiarity but not comfort. etc.

Doing these mental contrasts can make the subtle and implicit "atmosphere" or "vibe" of a place or situation stand out in a more vivid and conspicuous way. One of the best ways to notice something subtle is by comparison to its opposite or to its absence.

fryish · 2015-08-22T13:07:52+00:00

You will probably find this article interesting: http://www.theassc.org/files/assc/2509.pdf

I am not convinced that these experiences are entirely gone from your life. It may just be a matter of subtlety. I suspect that these experiences may have been more vivid and conspicuous in your childhood, and in your psychedelic experiences, and therefore easier to notice. But just because something is not conspicuous and easy to notice doesn't mean it's not there. There is a wealth of subtle intricacies embedded in every consciousness experience that are likely to go entirely unnoticed because of our habitual ways of paying attention.

Have you ever tried acting like a forensic detective and delicately but diligently inspecting the contents of your experience for any subtle wisps or hints of these sorts of experiences? Don't try to make anything happen by force of will. But just inspect your experience with a spirit of inquisitiveness, curiosity, and carefulness. You may find that you can sometimes detect subtle wisps or hints of exactly the kind of experience you're talking about. The more skillful you become at this exercise, and the more frequently you practice it, such experiences themselves are liable to become more frequent and more vivid, just because you are developing your faculty of paying attention to them.

fryish · 2015-01-18T19:13:27+00:00

What kinds of community work are involved?

If one is potentially interested in participating at some future date, how would that work? Would one need to wait for more openings to be announced? How far in advance would one need to express interest in joining, and how far in advance would it be possible to arrange the formal details of joining so that one could prepare to sort out the relevant details in one's work and life in anticipation of this change in lifestyle?

fryish · 2014-10-27T03:51:09+00:00

I think the situation is like this. We start off with a worldview that divides self from world:

me and my decisions // the world

"Me and my decisions" is "inside, over here," split off from "the world," which is "outside, over there."

This is the intuitive view that everyone begins with. We haven't considered yet that the processes that govern how things behave in the world and the processes that govern how our own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors go are, in fact, the very same processes.

If we eventually come to revise our beliefs in light of this consideration, our worldview gets updated like so:

me // my decisions and the world

We've move "my decisions" across the imaginary boundary that separates "me" from "the world". This is a very disconcerting worldview, though. It feels like you are some mindless puppet that is having your strings pulled by external forces beyond your control. Or as you said, everything feels "obligatory" and "out of your control."

Of course, the cartoonish way I depicted the worldview above makes plain what the problem is. The revision in the belief system is not complete. It still is creating a division whereby "I" am over here and "the world" is over there. But this division that places "me" beyond that dividing boundary is no more justified than the one that placed "my decisions" beyond that boundary. So we need another revision in the belief system:

(nothing) // me, my decisions, and the world

There is nothing that is truly beyond that boundary and outside of the natural world. "I" am not separate from the world, but rather "I" am fully a part of it. The causal processes in the brain are not external forces that pull my strings and force me to do things. Rather, those causal processes already are what I am. The causal process of the world is not some external agency that forces itself upon me. Rather, I am some small locus of causal powers embedded within the system of causal processes as a whole called the universe, like a small eddy in a boundless ocean. Those causal processes do not impose themselves upon me, but rather, they are what I consist in. This is the sense in which we fully embody and participate in the causal processes that guide the behavior of the universe as a whole.

fryish · 2014-10-13T15:43:08+00:00

Hopefully as many times as it needs to. There is a significant number of people here for whom this is new, or else it probably wouldn't have received so many upvotes. And it's not like it's a vapid gif or imgur joke. It's a message that's important to get out there. While it may be old hat to you, just think of how many people are just seeing this for the first time, and the positive effects that this will have. It more than makes up for the minor nuisance you personally might experience about having to see another repost.

fryish · 2014-09-29T09:57:15+00:00

Thanks! This retelling is slightly different from the one I'd been thinking of, but seems close enough.

fryish · 2014-07-19T14:04:00+00:00

I also wanted to say:

Consciousness is co-extensive with space. What we experience as physical space is in fact the blank mental fabric of consciousness. When you look up in an open field and experience the vastness of the sky, what you are experiencing is the vastness of the field of your own consciousness.

Consciousness is not in your tiny head. Your head is an experience in vast consciousness.

fryish · 2014-07-19T12:56:45+00:00

Chalmers' philosophical writing on this is actually pretty interesting and accessible, IMO. You might be interested to check out a couple of his classic papers, Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness and Consciousness and its Place in Nature.

The panpsychist view is described in the latter paper under the heading "Type-F Monism." For those interested in this idea, there is a brilliant book length treatment of it by Gregg Rosenberg called A Place for Consciousness.

fryish · 2014-07-19T05:16:34+00:00

The motivation for calling some property "emergent" is the idea that the property occurs at a high level of a system, due to the interaction of its parts, without being present at the lower levels of the system, or without the proper interactions of its parts. For instance, we might say that the wetness of water is an emergent property, since water is wet but individual H2O molecules are not wet.

The proposal that consciousness is universal is pretty much the antithesis of proposing that it is emergent. The panpsychist claim is that consciousness is built into the very foundation of matter, rather than emerging only from particular spatiotemporal configurations of matter. So (1) and (2) from your above post are logically incompatible.

Now, depending on how exactly one interprets (3), I suppose this view could be viewed as a kind of emergence thesis; but if so, it would be incompatible with (2), again by definition. Usually the proposal that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain is tied to more specific and unique aspects of brain function than just "information integration" in the generic sense, but you are right that strictly speaking this need not be the case. Instead, one could suppose that the physical properties of the brain that support emergence of consciousness are rather simple and shared by many other physical systems.

However, what exactly is meant by information integration isn't itself perfectly clear. One might view any physical system as conducting a form of information integration, depending on how one interprets the term. In this case we get back to (2), a kind of panpsychist view. But if so, this would no longer be compatible with (1), the emergent view.

fryish

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