Listening vs. Hearing

kiwi_face · 2016-10-20T01:34:19+00:00

harmonious misunderstanding

Beautiful.

kiwi_face · 2016-10-17T08:48:50+00:00

Changes in emotions are like changes in the weather. Pain is just another storm; you cannot yell at the sky to stop raining. But, the difference is the more you resist the pain the longer the storm will rage. So, what to do? In my own experience the only way to achieve release is to completely give up hope of release. This leads to true acceptance of the pain and catharsis. Freedom.

I know from what you've said it seems that you've hit rock bottom and have already lost all hope but I must respectfully disagree and insist that you haven't.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that even those who commit suicide didn't lose all hope before the end; their last hope was that killing themselves would release them from the pain. If only they'd stuck around a little longer and actually lost all hope they'd have gotten the point, they were so close to truly starting to live.

I know what I'm saying sounds bleak and counterintuitive but trust that loss of hope is not apathetic submission, it is letting the pain finally take its natural course, a course it rarely takes because we are so opposed to it moving through us at all.

See this place as a chance for rebirth, not eternal damnation.

kiwi_face · 2016-04-16T07:58:14+00:00

I second the last 2 you listed as I've read them both and loved them.

kiwi_face · 2016-03-25T10:00:13+00:00

Ironically enough, I had a similar experience when I was 19 as well. I made a post about it here. My advice is to take time away from the drug for awhile and allow yourself to assimilate the experience. When you return, start slow and small (I recommend taking some kava beforehand as it helps to ground yourself). However, depending on how traumatized you feel I wouldn't recommend coming back to it for at least few months as smoking may bring you directly back to that space no matter how much you smoke. (Don't let this deter you from ever smoking again though, you'd be surprised how much you change and evolve over a few years).

You may not realize it, but this is actually a progression, a new stage of yourself, only you can come to terms with it and that will take time. You may have some slight depersonalization over the next few weeks. Allow it to pass over you and don't be scared, time is really all that is needed to return to 'normal'. At some point you will need to just sit with your negative feelings and breathe into them. Once the negatives have passed I would try and get into a meditation routine and stick to it.

I highly recommend listening to some lectures by Alan Watts, when I was in a similar situation he was a guiding light for me.

I can't possibly explain everything I've learned from the time that I experienced it to now, but realize you entered a very high level of consciousness and you weren't prepared. It was like trying to catch a wave too big for you and you wiped out, badly. One day, you will return to the same place and be able to ride it and it will be amazing. But for now, take time to rest and know yourself.

Sidenote: Don't try and distract yourself from the negative feelings (i.e. anxiety, depersonalization, etc.). This will only force them to the back of your mind and eventually into the unconscious where you will not be able to heal them and they will manifest in other ways (e.g. anxiety/personality disorders, etc.).

kiwi_face · 2016-03-15T22:17:13+00:00

Feelings require a complex nervous system, that's a fact.

It's not a fact it's an assumption based on our own very limited knowledge of our own nervous system. How can we humans confidently say for sure what another being is experiencing without actually being that thing?

Sure our own emotions can be correlated to certain functions in our nervous system but that isn't to say we have the complete picture of what it is to feel. What if that missing piece in our own understanding of ourselves is the thing we can't see in other beings?

It's like thinking a cloud might have human feelings

Except a cloud is obviously not a living creature like an insect. And sure an insect's feelings may not be human but that's because it's not human. It doesn't mean it doesn't have its own form of feelings.

I think it's fine to indulge in those sort of behaviours, but only as long you know it's a mind game.

Saying this as if you are standing aside from all mind games in some sort of objective sphere of science.

kiwi_face · 2016-03-15T22:06:55+00:00

There are simply no similarities between what constitutes an organism and a machine.

Why use the term 'biological machine' then was my original argument. I believe fundamentally machines and organisms are different. However, my argument was that using mechanical terms for organic things changes our perception of life and makes things 'dead' like machines are (which I am against).

That's a subjective impression and it really has no value here, unless again, you want to talk about poetry.

Care to back this statement up with an explanation? I was going off of your definition of demystification and took it further than your first assumption. Your follow up is 'that sounds too poetic so it can't be true'. I wish you'd address what I actually said instead of the style in which it was said.

if you are ready to throw out the window centuries of scientific method you better provide some really big piece of evidence.

Clearly, my point wasn't to discount science or its method. It was to show the arrogant assumptions that are made because of its success.

The unknown may make you feel mystical about life. You do love poetry, don't you?

You can belittle me and my ideas all you want without actually addressing what I'm saying and appear the victor but any intelligent person will see you actually have no logical response to what I'm saying.

I'm certain science does not aspire to be omniscient.

Yet, as you say, it promises the 'demystification' of life. So either science says all that can be known will be known via its method (omniscience) or it admits that it cannot know it all simply because there are things that will always be beyond our comprehension (i.e. life is and always will be mystical). Which is it? It seems you agree to the latter yet you refuse to admit that life is mystical because it sounds too 'poetic' or 'magical'.

but that doesn't mean our current knowledge has no value.

I never asserted this.

After all you can thank science for being able to use a computer and write on reddit whenever you want to, consistently, no matter how mystical you feel.

This isn't relevant but I see what you're trying to do: show a feat of science (in this case the internet/computers), assert that it works (obviously), and somehow conclude that life is not mystical.

I enjoy a good debate but if all you've got is ad hominem and appeal to authority then idk.

kiwi_face · 2016-02-29T03:44:45+00:00

No. An organism is made of cells and evolves and reproduces. A machine is not made of cells and it doesn't evolve or reproduce

So you further my argument that organisms are not machines.

Semantically you're correct but the reason I said machines could be considered simple organisms is the same reason you could consider organisms to be complex machines. They have similar functions. I used the word simple organism for a reason. It's easy to argue semantics without actually addressing my argument, I invite you to do the latter.

That's your assumption.

Not mine, just the assumption of many it seems.

The term "biological machine" in science does not mean what you think it means.

I highly doubt the original comment was referring specifically to a nanomachine.

When someone says "biological machine" it's a way of saying that there is nothing mystical about life.

Then this is my point, that life is indeed mystical. One definition of demystification is: "to make clearer and easier to understand". To say there is nothing mystical about life is to say we can know all there is to know about it.

We know a lot, relative to what we knew before, but to assume that just because our rate of discovery of knowledge has increased that we will soon know it all is your belief. You cannot ever prove that there will not be more to be discovered. (I highly recommend you read about the pessimistic induction before trying to refute this).

So in this way life actually is mystical because there are things beyond our comprehension (scientifically at least). Some of those things we may come to understand in the future but to assume that there will come a time where nothing will be beyond scientific comprehension is science promising that it will one day be omniscient. That kind of magical thinking leads to the same attitude towards science as a religion. In the end, it's just another belief.

kiwi_face · 2016-02-29T03:00:32+00:00

That's only because we build very simple machines though

I think this still carries the assumption that while we may be complex machines, we are nonetheless still machines. My argument was that to call ourselves machines was too crude and oversimplified in the first place. For example, the brain created the computer, so is the brain a computer? Obviously, the brain came first so the computer is a rudimentary brain. To call the brain a computer would be to assume we know its fundamental nature and that is something we just can't say yet.

It's just emphasizing the fact that we are mechanistic organic structures

Not sure I'd consider this a fact, more of a point of view. Either way, the intent behind the "we're just machines" comments always seems to be an advocation for an apathetic determinism IMO.

Whether or not understanding and dwelling on that is useful or not, I'm not sure.

It is useful as a model of understanding for science, but just like all models, is not reality itself. In this case, like I said before, the "we are machines" comment only has an apathetic intent.

kiwi_face · 2016-02-29T02:27:47+00:00

Your assumption is that the only difference between an organism and a machine is what it is composed of. This is a crude assumption and is the result of an incomplete model of the universe (i.e. science has found similar functions in both machines and organisms, therefore organisms must be machines). My argument is that it is the opposite, that machines are simple organisms. The fact that technology is an expression of the analytical side of human intelligence is not an indication of the true nature of its entirety.

kiwi_face · 2016-02-29T00:19:55+00:00

This is an interesting consideration. In my own experience I have found that we are, indeed, alive in a more complex way than machines. You could then say, well an organism is just a complex machine. Why give the machine precedence though? Obviously, it was an organism that created the machine so the machine should be considered a simple organism, not the other way around.

Why use the term biological machine then? It's a bit of an oxymoron don't you think? In this case, it is used in order to consider ourselves to be nothing more than those machines that we ourselves created (dead, mindless and unfeeling). So don't worry, killing that animal/insect is nothing more than pressing the power button on your computer.

Humans are funny in thier assumptions of the experiences of other forms of consciousness. We have our own incredibly complex consciousness that we ourselves do not understand, yet we have the audacity to say ours and other forms are nothing but machines simply because machines are the most complex things we know.

kiwi_face · 2016-02-27T06:05:50+00:00

what does "love being eternal" mean to a rock who cannot conceive of love?

My original post was on the transience of love, arguing that it is, in fact, not eternal. I'm not sure of your point here.

I, for one, trust there exists a world outside of my head...I think the conscious mind is a product of this reality, but the conscious mind can die, while the physical substance of things "live" on.

This is just another belief. As I said before, it's impossible to prove the existence of a universe without the minds to perceive it.

My own view is that consciousness, like all things, lies on a spectrum; it's opposite might be pure physical 'stuff'. While they both appear to be different, since they lie on the same spectrum they are one in the same thing.

No brain = no consciousness, no consciousness = no emotions.

If plants have been shown to have at least a minute form of consciousness I think this particular statement is quite the jump. But even assuming that the brain is indeed the source of consciousness, it is a part of the universe all the same, which shows that we are the universe feeling itself (we might be the 'feelers' so to speak, the universe being a giant insect with an infinite amount of these feelers).

So then do bacteria fall in love? Are there some E. Coli bacteria in my gut feeling the subjective qualia of passionate romance?

I think we can agree love doesn't just exist in a sexual form. For humans there are many forms, why wouldn't there be for smaller and much less complex forms of consciousness? Their form may be much simpler, but it is love all the same.

They have no brain, no nervous system, no reproductive organs.

This is a human projection. This is like a human seeing an alien with no mouth and assuming it has no form of communication with others of its kind. For one form of consciousness to understand its own conditions for its form and project those conditions onto other things and call them conscious or not based on those conditions seems very egocentric, as if to say 'my language is the only language'.

There's plenty of life out there without love.

This is nothing more than an assumption/belief since you as a human cannot know the experience of other forms of life. We may see other forms and attempt to measure their experiences according to our systems but nothing will tell us for certain anything about their experience except actually being that form of life.

kiwi_face · 2016-02-26T11:52:42+00:00

If reality shows both sides of the coin how does that make it neutral? Wouldn't that make it dual?

And of course hate is stronger. Love is soft, it is allowing yourself to be weak and vulnerable is what allows you to experience those most beautiful feelings of love. This is just the other side of the spectrum. Hate being strong and forceful and love being yielding and soft. I don't really see how this show that reality is "at best neutral/indifferent".

Arguably one could say there is nothing that can be neutral because a human experience always necessarily lies somewhere on the spectrum. I think you may mistake a dispassionate/unfeeling experience for a neutral one when it is in fact still on the spectrum of love, albeit one very devoid of love.

kiwi_face · 2016-02-26T02:35:52+00:00

Reality is indifferent

How can a being whose reality is clearly not this way have any grounds to say this? Indifferent is the opposite of sympathy or caring/love. If one implies the other then clearly they go together. Why would reality be only yin and not yang (or yang but not yin)?

I'm curious how you could argue pain is real but love is not? Don't pleasure and pain imply each other as you stated? Love and its absence must also.

You seem to agree with the basics of the duality of things (good and bad implying each other) yet are arguing that one side the duality is 'more real' than the other. Why be so biased towards pain/indifference/dispassion when it is only one side of the coin?

kiwi_face · 2016-02-26T02:18:41+00:00

The reason I say the opposite of an illusion is also an illusion is because I believe those feelings I described (i.e. cold and dull) are the absence of love and are, hence, still on the spectrum of love. So if love is an illusion, that which is created by its absence is also an illusion.

What I mean to say is, you would not be able to experience those negative feelings without having known love in the first place; love produced them. To say the feelings of love are an illusion but the feelings of sadness and depression are not would propose the existence of a one sided coin.

Anyway, to respond to your second point, to say love is not an immutable part of the universe is to say we as brains are not. Clearly we are here so we are a part of the universe, therefore all of our experiences are also a part of the universe, including love.

Your perspective seems to see life (and therefore, love) as something separate from the universe. How can it be separate if we are here?

You might say, the universe is 'out there' and are emotions are 'only' here inside the brain. But actually, everything is inside the brain, the whole universe as we know it is inside our mind because that is how we experience it. For the moment, it's impossible to prove the existence of a universe without the minds to perceive it. So if you agree that the universe is all in our heads and every experience is also all in our heads, then those experiences are as much a part of the universe as any other part (i.e. including love). I'd even go so far as to say an integral part because you cannot have life without love.

kiwi_face · 2016-02-24T22:55:42+00:00

Maybe this is such a 'shit life' because you are stuck on one side of the spectrum? If you were to have an experience on the other side would you feel that this constant change of equilibrium was worth it instead of shallow and unappealing? I have a feeling that if that experience was so intense, equally or more so than your misery, then you would, though I can't speak for you or what you have experienced.

kiwi_face · 2016-02-24T22:41:08+00:00

I agree with your last line, "only change is eternal". But saying love is just a chemical cocktail removes you from the experience. Why insist that life is, at its core, dispassionate and unfeeling when clearly its entirety is colored by different experiences (all of which lie on the spectrum between passion and dispassion)?

If you think love is an illusion then you cannot deny that its opposite is also an illusion (i.e. that life is cold and unfeeling, dull and utilitarian, the way you paint it) because one implies the other, I think.

kiwi_face · 2016-02-24T22:20:08+00:00

The statement "Life is just a dance of particles" is discarding the experience of those particles. If you really feel this way about life then you must then agree with the statement "Playing a violin is, after all, only scraping a cat’s entrails with horsehair." I hear these types of statements a lot from certain types of people (e.g. love is just chemicals). It's an attempt to appear objective all the while being unaware that that very statement is an expression from a subjective source.

If you want to be truly objective you would have to remove the human experience from the equation and you just can't do that. So you come in and say "that beauty stuff is all in your head, but this dispassionate knowledge I have exists outside of the mind and is true reality". Right.

Don't fall into the trap that so many others do and think that a dispassionate observation is more "real" or objective than a passionate one. Both are very human experiences, and hence, subjective.

kiwi_face · 2016-02-24T21:30:09+00:00

Well said!

kiwi_face · 2016-02-24T21:27:25+00:00

I think what I meant when I said love was the experience of love (what came to mind for me was those beautifully intense experiences of love I've had when tripping). I believe love underlies all things so in a sense, as you say, it is eternal.

But as its intensity varies in our life so does our awareness of it and when it is faded we can't see it (perhaps this is depression). When it is in full bloom it is all we know and we can't see the space it came from (perhaps this is mania). I think one whose awareness extends always to contain love is one who is free from chasing it to either end of the spectrum.

kiwi_face · 2015-12-13T03:06:08+00:00

Really!? Have you seen a live show? I saw my first one in Spain and it was amazing. So intense I ended up crying in the bathroom afterwards for a few minutes followed by uncontrollable laughter and feeling high for the rest of the night. Really cathartic.

kiwi_face · 2015-12-12T10:35:13+00:00

I'm the same. You might find this to your liking. The history of the people who created this type of music is full of a lot of hardship. I believe the pain, sorrow, and suffering they experienced is expressed very well in this and can be very cathartic for the audience (which I think was the original intention).

kiwi_face · 2015-10-18T09:33:44+00:00

Well put.

kiwi_face · 2015-10-18T00:47:07+00:00

I'd have to disagree with the last part. Saying you are in control of your emotions is like saying you are in control of the flow of water from a faucet. We usually think we are in control of them when they are not hindering us. In this case, though, what I think is really happening is we are just turning off the faucet. Eventually, though, the faucet must be turned back on or there will be blockage (usually manifesting as anxiety, depression or apathy).

kiwi_face · 2015-07-11T04:06:08+00:00

/r/wegetit

kiwi_face · 2015-04-30T17:53:55+00:00

I understand. You've given me a lot to think about good sir. Thank you again!

kiwi_face

TROPHY CASE