The True Nature of All

[tcaudilllg]

WARNING: THIS COULD BE REALLY DISTURBING... if you are discomforted by deep thoughts about death, DO NOT READ FURTHER.


Recently I had been experiencing a "death anxiety" created from focusing too much on the inevitability of aging, the idea that everyone dies someday. (brought about in part by my grandmother's passing). This line of thought had been furthered by reading Kafka's Metamorphosis, which describes the death of its protagonist in gruesome detail. I contemplated the horror of losing function and being trapped in a blind oblivion... then I came at once to a point where the thought lost all meaning, seemed acceptable even. I realized that the chemical in me which processed fear must have run itself down... the thought of death was no longer frightening because my instincts had diverged. Makes sense -- fear exists as a chemical after all. I realized that death was, paradoxically, both fearful and not fearful because subjectivity is shaped by objective factors. Remove the associative criterion between meanings and emotions, causal relationships between meanings and emotions can be swapped out.

(don't think about this too hard... I experimented with it myself and it almost drove me insane, led me to try to fix my own emotions by forcing my mind to feel a certain way... I got out of it by observing such manipulation a form of evil to be abjured).

What if a person could use emotional cycles, shared by many people, to their advantage? What if they had a will to shape them at all? I had long been confused by the idea that something static and enduring like emotional significance could change; but now I understand it can go -- with utter absurd strangeness -- on and off. Imagine what a person could do by wearing down a population's sense of emotional significance... an entire nation's emotions could be manipulated.

[Beautiful sky]

Thanks for the warning....see YAAAA....bye. (That would be me!)

[Brilliand]

Yeah, what kind of reliability do you expect to get out of this? Adapt to how people are now, to get the advantage, and they'll just adapt to you right back. I guess you'd get some interesting change... it takes more than a simple algorithm to control the whole world, though.

Also, I think what happened to you wasn't running out of fear chemicals... I think it was subconsciously realizing the fear was pointless and shutting down the flow until such a time as it could do something useful. Basically you were just wasting your fear so your subconscious put a stop to it.

[xerx]

God Kafka is incredible. The stories are just so seethingly miserable and embarrassing. He really piles it on. And the PoLR-centric parts of the stories are my favorite by far, when pompous bureaucrats and entire courts pop out of thin air to accuse him of mismanagement, while he's huddled scared for his existence. I highly recommend reading Kafka when you're depressed.

I read that he was a depressive, an avoidant, had body dysmorphic syndrome, and was maybe even schizotypal. He lost his virginity to a prostitute and the experience made him disgusted with women for most of the rest of his anxiety-ridden life. His father was pretty much an asshole too.

[tcaudilllg]

Yeah, what kind of reliability do you expect to get out of this? Adapt to how people are now, to get the advantage, and they'll just adapt to you right back. I guess you'd get some interesting change... it takes more than a simple algorithm to control the whole world, though.

Also, I think what happened to you wasn't running out of fear chemicals... I think it was subconsciously realizing the fear was pointless and shutting down the flow until such a time as it could do something useful. Basically you were just wasting your fear so your subconscious put a stop to it.

Really. Fascinating.

You guys responded pretty much like I expect you to. Ti was also another part of my breakout from the trap -- I could feel beta Ti taking over and drawing me back to humanity.

First a person would have to be internally driven to try to control people in this way. Even if there was no reliability, they might try to do it anyway, and that's the point. But now, think about those Nazi rallies. They had a purpose, didn't they? You may be right that the subconscious took over... ingenious observation. And would you believe it, I'm OK with it.

I guess you really are God. Or at least one hell of an angel.

You actually accomplished the end of Persona 3. You're my hero, buddy.

God Kafka is incredible. The stories are just so seethingly miserable and embarrassing. He really piles it on. And the PoLR-centric parts of the stories are my favorite by far, when pompous bureaucrats and entire courts pop out of thin air to accuse him of mismanagement, while he's huddled scared for his existence. I highly recommend reading Kafka when you're depressed.

I read that he was a depressive, an avoidant, had body dysmorphic syndrome, and was maybe even schizotypal. He lost his virginity to a prostitute and the experience made him disgusted with women for most of the rest of his anxiety-ridden life. His father was pretty much an asshole too.

I had to read Metamorphosis for class. Man, I swear, I honestly had to contemplate whether or not I would end up like Gregor (not as a roach, but as a failure) ... it was a wrenching read.

I'll say one thing: I would not think it an honor to end up like Kafka.

[Airman]

read something from the buddha. he talks about impermanence all the time. death is inevitable. according to him existence has three marks:
anatman= non-self, the self is not a solid thing as it seems, it is constantly changing and existence is not personal like it seems to be. the person is an illusion.
anityam= impermanence, everything decays.
dukkha= unsatisfactoriness, suffering, stress.

he´s much brighter than all these kafka´s and look alikes all put together.

[Blaze]

WARNING: THIS COULD BE REALLY DISTURBING... if you are discomforted by deep thoughts about death, DO NOT READ FURTHER.


Recently I had been experiencing a "death anxiety" created from focusing too much on the inevitability of aging, the idea that everyone dies someday. (brought about in part by my grandmother's passing). This line of thought had been furthered by reading Kafka's Metamorphosis, which describes the death of its protagonist in gruesome detail. I contemplated the horror of losing function and being trapped in a blind oblivion... then I came at once to a point where the thought lost all meaning, seemed acceptable even. I realized that the chemical in me which processed fear must have run itself down... the thought of death was no longer frightening because my instincts had diverged. Makes sense -- fear exists as a chemical after all. I realized that death was, paradoxically, both fearful and not fearful because subjectivity is shaped by objective factors. Remove the associative criterion between meanings and emotions, causal relationships between meanings and emotions can be swapped out.

(don't think about this too hard... I experimented with it myself and it almost drove me insane, led me to try to fix my own emotions by forcing my mind to feel a certain way... I got out of it by observing such manipulation a form of evil to be abjured).

What if a person could use emotional cycles, shared by many people, to their advantage? What if they had a will to shape them at all? I had long been confused by the idea that something static and enduring like emotional significance could change; but now I understand it can go -- with utter absurd strangeness -- on and off. Imagine what a person could do by wearing down a population's sense of emotional significance... an entire nation's emotions could be manipulated.

i think it's called communism.

[tcaudilllg]

i think it's called communism.

My point exactly.

[The Exception]

Die on Purpose | Raptitude.com

[Brilliand]

You actually accomplished the end of Persona 3. You're my hero, buddy.

Okay... what's Persona 3?

[Krig the Viking]

I've had similar thoughts, regarding the nature of pain. Why does pain hurt? After all, it's merely a series of electrical signals sent through the nervous system, just like other, more pleasant forms of touch. It's mere information, interpreted by some part of my brain as negative stimuli. It seems like it shouldn't be an impossible task to rewrite the software of my brain to encode a different response to this "pain" signal. Sometimes when I stub my toe or whatever, I try to perceive it as just an informational signal, not "pain".

In the end, we're really just a psyche hooked up to a few sensory inputs. Our entire understanding of the world is based upon our consciousness and unconsciousness interpreting the signals received from our sensory inputs. We really have no objective way of being certain that the signals received from our sensory inputs are accurate. That's why I tend to express truth statements in terms of percentages of probability. I can't be 100% certain that the evidence about the world I have gathered through my sensory inputs is accurate, but I can be 99.9% certain, based on things like internal logical consistency of the evidence, etc.

But yeah. The world is a much less certain thing than most people would like to believe. And that's without even getting into things like quantum physics.

[Logos]

I've had similar thoughts, regarding the nature of pain. Why does pain hurt? After all, it's merely a series of electrical signals sent through the nervous system, just like other, more pleasant forms of touch. It's mere information, interpreted by some part of my brain as negative stimuli. It seems like it shouldn't be an impossible task to rewrite the software of my brain to encode a different response to this "pain" signal. Sometimes when I stub my toe or whatever, I try to perceive it as just an informational signal, not "pain".

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." ~ Bene Gesserit mantra from Dune used by Paul Atreides during a test with a neural pain inducer.

[crazedrat]

kafka sounds like an awesome guy i'll look into him

[Exodus]

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." ~ Bene Gesserit mantra from Dune used by Paul Atreides during a test with a neural pain inducer.

Has anyone actually done this? It will change your life.

[Kaze]

Okay... what's Persona 3?

A rather badass Japanese RPG. Persona 4 is better though. Less emo, more scooby doo.

[silverchris9]

I was reading Anna Karenina and then I came to this. It was interesting.

I've had similar thoughts, but I reverse the priorities (obviously) so that if you unbundle the subjective factors (dissociate things that you have previously linked, undoing metonymies--if metonymy is contiguity ---> identity), sure the objective factors will change. I think that's the inside-outside dichotomy that shapes itself everywhere. And just think, if we didn't have houses, if we didn't have caves, that would never present itself to us. And houses are man-made inventions (although I suppose shelter is not). And surely if houses can be trusted, so can airplanes? So that I can write a poem about flying?

Physics is probably moving towards making us remember the power we have over our subjective experience. Can you get rid of pain? Probably not, at least not without undoing several more important things. It's like screwing with the registry on a PC. Sooner or later, you're going to fuck something up and your computer WILL stop working. But the soul has a tremendous amount of power over the body (and isn't it funny that the power of the soul over the body depends upon the power of the body upon the soul? or at least the mind).

Anyway, I will find the void grown luminous etc., etc. Nothing's gonna change my world. We make tropes against the devil because we know him for ourselves. Religious faith is at this point undeniable. Either it coheres or it has no center. How can the falcon turn and turn in the widening gyre when there is no center upon which to turn? I want to live in the indeterminate world, and to do so I remember that both absolutes are true. But how is it to make poetry out of sin (that is, the world is both everything and nothing, and can therefore be an admixture of the two--but we want the world to be Original, and therefore everything that it is and nothing less)?

I had to listen to Schoenberg for class yesterday. You know what was funny? He sounded campy. I think it's because we're scared of him. I was glad I had listened to the Dichterliebe before though, because he's clearly perverting the Dichterliebe. Schoenberg is an unfortunate case. I don't think the world is as dim as you all want to believe it is. But I feel so unsteady when I read about Anna Karenina. Yes, the world is a glittering surface. Did Tolstoy foresee communism? Reading about his Petersberg, I understand how. He must have been an unhappy man.

I am travelling into the maze, and I will thread my way back out again. Maybe that's what "From Blank to Blank" is about somehow. Lately I don't know if what I thought about Dickenson is true or not. But I suspect the realization was true, even if it was not strictly true of Dickenson. To truly change perspectives is to die, and yet everything must settle back into convention, like a scab or a bruise settles over a wound (that was what she was thinking of in "After great pain..."). And yet, to die is gain, 'tis glee to live. Loss gain death life all bundled up into one great moment, and each one is each, read antithetically.

Reticence is the reason we survive. We hesitate before the immensity of the cosmos. We wait before we pierce the beautiful dark lady. We are uncertain, we fumble. To be reticent is to remember one's mother at the door of the prostitute. One need not turn back. One need only hesitate, and then swerve.

Just as it is in the world so it is in the soul. What is it that saves me? It is reticence, closely allied to propriety. Curiously, it does not save you once you are in the void. It saves you just outside it. Keats was reticent, brilliantly. Milton even was reticent, and that before such terrible, terrible powers as I believe could have reshaped nature after his own hand (and perhaps has, me unknowing). We do not like to imagine reticence of Homer, or of Shakespeare (and Hamlet overcame his reticence), but what if they too were holding back. They also did not like the awful speed. I hesitate before knocking at the awesome door of my soul and---you'll like this, tcaud---it looks like that blue obelisk thingy from Xenosaga, you know, the thing that's like the gateway to the other dimension, and it has the magical powers...? I'm describing it badly, sorry, 'cause I've never actually played the game, I only wiki'd it... The hesitation is the saving moment, like Frodo hesitates before slipping on the ring---just enough time for Gollum to catch up. Reticence is the last result of an intuition, or a memory. It is more than self-limitation, because self-limitation really isn't much at all. It is holding one's self back, that same self undiminished. It is another part of the self, a second self, stronger, reenvisioning the first. It is an act of redaction, of creative editorializing, of self-revision, of self-overhearing, of self-foreseeing and acting upon it.

We are all majestically self-foreseeing in our luminous hearts, and to know one's self is to know one's self in time, and act upon it. To be wise is to act in accordance with what we know (and thus wisdom is a property of the will, or the bridge between the will and reason). And yet this is the Christian sort of wisdom, to which we oppose the Greek sort: wisdom is to get along in the world. This wisdom breaks down under scrutiny, which is why we are glad for Aristotelian logic, which finally tropes against tragic wisdom (because it's all about Logos, or interior logic).

I have to get back to Anna Karenina (I've only finished the first book--and yet, thou wouldst not believe, Horatio, how all here's ill about my heart), because the class I'm reading it for is far and away my favorite, and because my friend wants me to read Crime and Punishment so badly, but will he read Walt Whitman? We are good friends, but I wonder at our kinship of the soul. He is a corrective for me, it seems. Fitting, for someone who believes in reticence.

I can't help but think we're repeating the English pattern. Repetition with a difference, pap allus used to say!

[Creepy-male]

Lol.

At any rate everyone has to at some point come up with some way to come to terms with their death anxiety. The most primitive form of this is simply denial (and also were everyone starts), which I would strongly encourage against. There are other methods from which you can build up ways of dealing with death anxiety.

At the highest level, you can liberate yourself from the fear of death and be free to live your life without the effects of death anxiety opressing you. To me this is ideal.

Its not like you de-value your life and want to die, but rather that you learn to come to terms with your fears so you can master this anxiety. Its still there, it still exists, but it doesn't hold power over some higher aspect of yourself. That higher aspect of yourself then is liberated from fear and can function as what rules your willpower and lifeforce.

This is a vague and symbolic way of putting it, but the idea of an anxiety is also a very vague and symbolic thing, you can't hold an anxiety in your hand, its a feeling you experience as a concious entity.

The idea isn't to destroy fear completely and repress it into an apathetic obvilion, or else all your other feelings go down the hole with it. Your left as an empty husk of human emotion, since all your feelings are interconnected into some matrix which characterizes you as an individual.

Anyways dynamicism. This interconnetion of feeling, it is not a static block, its a dynamic flow. Peoples emotional nature is very much an analogue to a story, it evolves and unfolds and takes turns, all in a pursuit of some resolution. This describe the change.

Is it possible you've repressed your death anxiety and your projecting the injustice of some oppresive society to represent this anxiety as a way of overcoming this death anxiety is some symbolic form?

[tcaudilllg]

Is it possible you've repressed your death anxiety and your projecting the injustice of some oppressive society to represent this anxiety as a way of overcoming this death anxiety is some symbolic form?

I've been meaning to get to that. My grandmother was always concerned that the devil was going to take the souls of her family to hell... she projected, in a sense, her fear of death onto the devil (as Christians do). Element-wise, the idea of the devil is a temptation to think in terms of autonomous activity (itself associated with social disobligation), although with the paradox of the devil only threatening the Christian community -- society as a whole is benefitted by the use of autonomous thought, which can be the fuel of creation. This requires a Jesus thread, doesn't it?

[crazedrat]

I don't think christianity can be reduced to conformity. there are some deeper meanings than that

[krieger]

The True Nature of All
WARNING: THIS COULD BE REALLY DISTURBING

[Creepy-male]

that is classic lmao

[tcaudilllg]

The temptation was to dominate one's own mind by insisting on the self-regulation of cognition. The idea was "why should I be subject to my own mind? If my mind is a machine, I should be able to control it." It was an experience of looking at oneself as a causal actor and trying to shape the causality of subjective experience by one's own "will". But of course the mind can't do that... it can only trap itself into a self-controlling loop. (and that experience, for the several minutes it continued, was indeed marked by a pain pressure around the left temple).

[Kaze]

Death.... or morbidity.. can be a great impetus for a life affirming outlook (ironically). I had a friend who was murdered at 17, and his death shook me and lot of my circle of friends up to STOP fucking up. Also, my own inner turmoil/depression/what have you that comes and goes sometimes is like a slingshot that makes me realize how much there's to do out there.

I wish there was a better way to be inspired to live, but I guess this is how I tick. Telling myself how short life can be.

Now all I need is more money.

[tcaudilllg]

Also, what do you want to achieve by posting? Do you want to learn from what others have to tell, or do you just want to express your own thoughts? I'd like to know before spending energy on your posts. Your topics interest me, but your threads confuse me.

You talk about it as if it's a dichotomy, but the two aren't mutually exclusive.

To explain though, "The True Nature of All" is a reference to a song from a videogame, Valkyrie Profile. What is described was a paradoxical logic, which is associated with discordancy. It was a fitting title, because it refers to the role that understanding the information elements can play (and does play, in my practice) in critical analysis. If something doesn't make sense at the IM level, it doesn't make sense, period.

Bottom line is dude, I've been around. I've explained my ideas in detail many times. I do not feel obligated to explain my ideas to everyone on an individual basis. If you need help understanding my ideas, you can request that help. My website, linked to in my sig, is an excellent starting point.

[Brilliand]

The temptation was to dominate one's own mind by insisting on the self-regulation of cognition. The idea was "why should I be subject to my own mind? If my mind is a machine, I should be able to control it." It was an experience of looking at oneself as a causal actor and trying to shape the causality of subjective experience by one's own "will". But of course the mind can't do that... it can only trap itself into a self-controlling loop. (and that experience, for the several minutes it continued, was indeed marked by a pain pressure around the left temple).

The pain indicates to me that you were doing it wrong - willpower is not a great way to do anything (though I would have some reservations about giving this advice to an ego). Now, I agree that you shouldn't expect to achieve much by sticking a self-controlling loop in your brain (though this could be effective for repairing internal conflict), but you should at least be able to not achieve anything negative.

[Creepy-male]

The temptation was to dominate one's own mind by insisting on the self-regulation of cognition. The idea was "why should I be subject to my own mind? If my mind is a machine, I should be able to control it." It was an experience of looking at oneself as a causal actor and trying to shape the causality of subjective experience by one's own "will". But of course the mind can't do that... it can only trap itself into a self-controlling loop. (and that experience, for the several minutes it continued, was indeed marked by a pain pressure around the left temple).

I don't know but sometimes its helpful to make the division between mind, body, and spirit.

Where body is purely physical
Mind consists of concious thoughts and memories
and Spirit consists of deep emotions which make up the core of your identity and perceived purpose as an individual

In this sense, the mind and spirit must work together without tension and conflict. If ones concious thoughts conflict with their sense of identity and deeper emotions this creates a mind-spirit problem.

This can be solved by searching for some solution which can reconcile these tensions.

This is what I'd suggest.

BTW I don't want to place an emphasis on the mysticism of the concept of a "spirit" so instead I used a solid psychological interpretation.

It sounds like perhaps your thoughts may be running into terrority that strongly conflicts with your emotional core. This of course can lead to strength if you can ultimately reconcile the two. I'd like to make you aware of the fact you refer to the above process as "looking at oneself as a casual actor" and instilling particular behaviors in yourself out of will power. This sort of process seems like a strong association with willpower of the mind and action of the body.

just some ideas.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

Now, I agree that you shouldn't expect to achieve much by sticking a self-controlling loop in your brain (though this could be effective for repairing internal conflict), but you should at least be able to not achieve anything negative.

I doubt that's true. Negative things will still happen, albeit very slowly. Because of entropy. Everything is slowly dying, no matter what. So 'just getting in the nature of things' isn't always good advice.

Look I sense most of you are trying to make everything better by going inside of yourself alone for the answers. The truth is, no matter how we alter our perceptions, life is a struggle. It's going to be hard, and anybody who tells you otherwise is trying to tell you something. Bad and unexpected things happen constantly to us. It takes effort, sweat and tears to overcome it but when you do you're all the better for it.

Life isn't about the punches you make, it's how well you take your hits.

The only way to make life easier is to simply not live it. But that's why the world and civilization is so polluted and fucked up, not enough people are simply living. They turn the good guys into neurotic messes that just post about idealizing life on internet message boards. I'm not saying I'm anything better than you, but perhaps you just need to go out and observe life awhile without holding on to any perception or insight. You will see how crazy and random it all is, how you can't really make any sense of it BUT IT IS IN THAT harshness that I think we grow stronger.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

I don't know man. It's like people want to be told what they want to hear when I just want the truth. I know what I want to hear and it feels so great if I get what I want, but that probably won't happen, so therefore- I'm just going to have to get used to the harsh hard knocks of reality and life.

It's just that you guys are spoiled and you don't realize it. Everybody is so locked in. Meanwhile the real world, the outside world smells like this huge fart. It's so disgusting. But people think everything is okay cause they locked themselves in a 'work' and then 'home' and then they safely buy their groceries every week and they think life is great. They just trapped themselves in a corner. And they idealize who they want and such and meanwhile they don't realize that it's usually the extrovert making the introvert co-dependent, lifeless and useless.

But I mean in all reality what can you do? You can't fix how shitty and smelly the world is, you can only sort of accept it and join in and do what you can to nudge people to make better choices that aren't self-destructive. But I mean I see people heading down the wrong path when my Ni so easily. SO I SCREAM AT THEM TO CHANGE but it just ends up a battle of hypocrisy. We all just keep telling these neat, tied up in pretty bows stories of shit that isn't true. Can't anybody be real, we made a mess of this reality. It's time to go outside of ourselves and FIX IT like real men and stop all this faggy psychobabble. it is really weak. it's time to do what sean would tell ya and stop being victims and start being heroes. NOW.

Just do it. I opened the door to you. Just fix the outside circumstances of what you can fix and stop thinking you have to go inward for the solution, even if you are an introvert because THAT IS NOT THE WAY TO ANYTHING. The bad guys have made it where you think something is wrong with you that needs fixing, it's not true. You just need to exert your power more to external stimulation. You can actually effect things! You are not these incorporeal weak thoughts that just sigh in the distance never to be manifested again. Ideals can be REAL...if you work for it!!!

[crazedrat]

self repeating loop ...
That's likely the Se function which you're trying to obliterate

[xerx]

I take back what I said about Kafka being definitely Te PoLR. I think Se PoLR would make as much if not more sense. His [probably] supervisor or conflictor father really seems like an overconfident, imposing and self-important subtype of Se dominant, probably ST, and most of Kafka's issues with his body were a result of his father forcing notions of physical confidence and strength down his throat. He absolutely loathed him more than any other person in existence.

What I like best about his style is the way he puts himself in an absurd premise then takes it ruthlessly to its most painful or embarrassing conclusion. Like the punishment device in The Colony. I can't really prove this, but being totally detached when referring to oneself in a meticulously deprecating manner, as if he were merely citing facts about the situation and taking them to their logical conclusion, as in coldly (and truthfully from his perspective) categorizing himself as weak or insignificant, I associate with Ti.

This also includes all feelings that results from knowing or not knowing objects and phenomena — curiosity, respect, fear, and a sense of the logicalness or illogicalness of things, as well as a sense of one's own power or powerlessness before different objects.

His protagonist's powerlessness and fear due to the irrationality of the absurd situation he's in are common themes. As is his protagonist's expectation that the situation will resolve itself rationally and logically by the end; though that never happens.

The only problem is that his stories are not conceptual at all.