I located this page http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Affective_death_spiralThis process creates theories that are believed for their own sake and organizations that exist solely to perpetuate themselves, especially when combined with the social dynamics of groupthink.
It is worth pointing out that an Actual Freedom is not a “theory” let alone something to bolster one’s “beliefs” upon (and let alone forming an identity around it). Richard is the first actually free person; and others who have personally seen him verified (to an extent possible) the absence of affective reactions (followed by carefree interactions, for instance). Richard himself was once diagnosed by a psychiatrist who reported the following conditions (abeit in psychiatric terms):
‘depersonalisation’ (selflessness … the absence of an entity that is called ego and Soul or self and Self).
‘alexithymia’ (the absence of the affective faculty … no emotions, passions or calentures whatsoever).
‘derealisation’ (the condition of having lost one’s grip on reality … the ‘real world’ is nowhere to be found).
‘anhedonia’ (the inability to affectively feel pleasure … no hormonal secretions means hedonism is not possible).
And several other actually free people too have reported similar experiences (total absence of the affective faculty), confirmed by their friends, relatives and daily experiences.
Above all, everyone who experienced a PCE was able to verify it for themselves.
It is indeed possible that Richard and others are deluded, but with the increasing number of people getting actually free, and the increasing ease of living/interactions one can find meanwhile (till the first PCE), it is hard to see how this is a delusion.
That said, personal experiences (such as an Actual Freedom) can ultimately only be verified by one’s own conscious experience, which is an ongoing gaiety/ease in everyday life and interactions marked by lesser and lesser affective biases.
Bringing a psychiatrist in to this is good: you have offered evidence that does not rely on reports of subjective experiences. But it is still weak evidence; there are many other hypotheses that explain the evidence, and several of them are much more probable.
An example of what I consider strong evidence: a person who had their brain imaged by an fMRI while performing some set of relatively simple mental tasks both before and after experiencing a PCE had radically different results.
That would not entirely convince me, but it would certainly make me take your claims much more seriously. If there had been ten such experiments, all ten people who claimed PCEs had similar results, and the experiments had been verifiably performed in a sound way, I would then almost certainly devote significant resources to achieving a PCE.
This not the only evidence I would accept, of course, but that should give you an idea of the type and the strength necessary. And if you can’t provide such evidence, well, alas.
On a related note, further links to the actualfreedom.com.au website will be ignored. I have made an effort to read the material there in hopes of better comprehending your claims, but the process is too painful for me to get very far, and this is part of the reason why I’m not taking you seriously. When someone has made an effort to present a large body of work on a topic but has not made an effort to present said work in a way that is easy for other human beings to read, they are usually not very credible. To be clear, I am referring to the website’s poorly-designed navigation, plethora of spelling and grammatical errors, and the use of the HTML tag.
An example of what I consider strong evidence: a person who had their brain imaged by an fMRI while performing some set of relatively simple mental tasks both before and after experiencing a PCE had radically different results.
That would not entirely convince me, but it would certainly make me take your claims much more seriously. If there had been ten such experiments, all ten people who claimed PCEs had similar results, and the experiments had been verifiably performed in a sound way, I would then almost certainly devote significant resources to achieving a PCE.
There have been some studies on meditation and MRIs that you may be interested in.
I’ve seen a couple of those, and consider them significant evidence that certain meditation techniques are useful. As naivecortex is claiming that PCEs have effects much more dramatic than meditation, I would expect to see MRI data that is correspondingly stronger.
An example of what I consider strong evidence: a person who had their brain imaged by an fMRI while performing some set of relatively simple mental tasks both before and after experiencing a PCE had radically different results.
It is indeed a strong neurological evidence. It is a pity that Richard have denied all requests to take a brain scan for reasons pertaining to personal preference (he was more interested in the experiential/practical inclinations to be happy/harmless). Recent actually free people may have different preferences (Trent—a member of DhO that is actually free—is on record saying that he would be willing to undergo such tests if he is fully told what it is about, and if he appraises it to be safe).
A neurological study still will not give a full picture of a PCE. The scientists have not been able to locate the identity/self anywhere in the brain, let alone detect its absence. Nor do I have any ideas as to the way measuring/detecting the subjective experience of sensuous delight (that is the quality of a PCE). As far as I can tell, the only sort of things to be gleaned from a brain scan is the (significant) presence/absence of feelings/emotions, the sort of things that Richard writes about when he reports his ongoing experience: no wide-eyed staring, no increase in heart-beat, no rapid breathing, no adrenaline-tensed muscle tone, no sweaty palms, no blood draining from the face, no dry mouth, no cortisol-induced heightened awareness.
And if you can’t provide such evidence, well, alas.
Ok. I have no doubt that empirical evidence can dispel the last intellectual excuse to take something new to human experience seriously (which is why I have come to favor the idea of taking a brain scan); however, so far at least, actualists’ primary motivation seems to be either the (memory of a) PCE or a curiosity to experiment with a method to have just more fun in life.
I have made an effort to read the material there in hopes of better comprehending your claims, but the process is too painful for me to get very far, and this is part of the reason why I’m not taking you seriously.
There have been several complains about not only the website, but also the way of its presentation (Richard’s prose-style have lead many to see himself as egoist/prick, for instance). I too have made a rather hasty/brief initial post here, which perhaps added to all sorts of incorrect impressions (religious, cultic). What you said about the website—along with the incorrect impressions from even the freethinkers—further confirms my view that the way the content is presented (along with the inaccessibility of layout) in the AF website is not the ideal. I first took note of this when reading Daniel Ingram’s notes on PCE, which is simple and straight to the point. (Of course, I have nothing to criticize against much of the content of what is said in the AF website).
To be clear, I am referring to the website’s poorly-designed navigation
Harmanjit once wrote a consolidation of essential content from the AF website here which is perhaps useful for an introduction.
Actual freedom is a tried and tested way of being happy and harmless in the world as it actually is … stripped of the veneer of normal reality or Greater Reality which is super-imposed by the psychological and/or psychic entity within the body.
and
Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony)
and
For a start, one needs to fully acknowledge the biological imperative (the instinctual passions) which are the root cause of all the ills of humankind.
and
The Summum Bonum of all the many and varied disciplines – be it philosophy or psychology, physics or metaphysics, cosmology or sociology, theology or spirituality – has been to sanction the protracted doctrinal assumption that a god, by whatever name, is in charge of the universe.
...nope, sorry. I’m done. Pursuing this is no longer worth my time. My estimated probability that there’s any worth at all to what Richard has to say is now negligibly close to zero.
I am not clear as to what point you were trying to make in relationship to all the quotes above except the last one which, without any context, seems absurd to me in some respects. With respect to the first bold text—“psychic” - what the word refers to is the identity that is tangled in the web of psychic currents, which further refers to the affective vibes (eg: sadness of one person creating a bad vibe among others; “loving atmosphere” and so on).
But as an actual freedom from human condition “is no longer worth your time”—then it makes no sense for both of us to continue this discussion.
You know, it’s pretty obvious that you care about our opinion of your movement, otherwise you wouldn’t be spending so much time and effort trying to convince us. That’s substantial evidence against your claim that it produces a lack of sense of self or attachment. You’re really shooting yourself in the foot.
A neurological study still will not give a full picture of a PCE. The scientists have not been able to locate the identity/self anywhere in the brain, let alone detect its absence
Yes they have, at least in the sense that you are referring to. And they can provoke the suppression of this self with magnetic stimulation.
You on the other hand are completely incapable of suppressing the identity/self. You are tied up in it far more than the average person.
Ha, and where is the evidence for that? Is it too much to ask for evidence in a forum pertaining to human rationality?
[...] to actively seek neurological dysfunction.
Sorry, there seems to be a misunderstanding. I should have perhaps written clearly; psychiatry being a field dealing with dysfunctional peoples (i.e., dysfunctional identities involved with feelings) the psychiatrist who diagnosed Richard of course had to label (without choice) his sensuous / non-affective ongoing mode of experience in psychiatric terms (whose normal meaning pertaining to identities-with-feelings do not apply to a person with no identity/feelngs).
Is it too much to ask for evidence in a forum pertaining to human rationality?
Sometimes, yes. It depends on how it is used. And I know you did’t really want me to give an answer to your question. But that’s the point. “Where is your evidence?” is just a bunch of verbal symbols that say very little to do with ‘rationality’. If the meaning and intended function of the phrase is equivalent to “Your mom is a cult!” but translated to the vernacular of a different subculture then it says absolutely nothing about rational beliefs. The vast majority of demands “where is your evidence?” that I have encountered have been blatant bullshit (too much time arguing with MENSAns). Your usage is not that bad. Nevertheless, your implied argument relies on an answer (‘No’) for the rhetorical question, which it does not get.
Sorry, there seems to be a misunderstanding. I should have perhaps written clearly; psychiatry being a field dealing with dysfunctional peoples (i.e., dysfunctional identities involved with feelings) the psychiatrist who diagnosed Richard of course had to label (without choice) his sensuous / non-affective ongoing mode of experience in psychiatric terms (whose normal meaning pertaining to identities-with-feelings do not apply to a person with no identity/feelngs).
I do understand the distinction you are making here. Richard still sounds like a total fruitloop but I agree that the labels and diagnoses formalized in the psychiatric tradition can be misleading, particularly when they emphasize superficial symptoms and disorder rather than referring more directly to trends in the underlying neurological state that are causing the observed behaviors or thoughts.
I located this page http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Affective_death_spiral This process creates theories that are believed for their own sake and organizations that exist solely to perpetuate themselves, especially when combined with the social dynamics of groupthink.
It is worth pointing out that an Actual Freedom is not a “theory” let alone something to bolster one’s “beliefs” upon (and let alone forming an identity around it). Richard is the first actually free person; and others who have personally seen him verified (to an extent possible) the absence of affective reactions (followed by carefree interactions, for instance). Richard himself was once diagnosed by a psychiatrist who reported the following conditions (abeit in psychiatric terms):
‘depersonalisation’ (selflessness … the absence of an entity that is called ego and Soul or self and Self).
‘alexithymia’ (the absence of the affective faculty … no emotions, passions or calentures whatsoever).
‘derealisation’ (the condition of having lost one’s grip on reality … the ‘real world’ is nowhere to be found).
‘anhedonia’ (the inability to affectively feel pleasure … no hormonal secretions means hedonism is not possible).
And several other actually free people too have reported similar experiences (total absence of the affective faculty), confirmed by their friends, relatives and daily experiences.
Above all, everyone who experienced a PCE was able to verify it for themselves.
It is indeed possible that Richard and others are deluded, but with the increasing number of people getting actually free, and the increasing ease of living/interactions one can find meanwhile (till the first PCE), it is hard to see how this is a delusion.
That said, personal experiences (such as an Actual Freedom) can ultimately only be verified by one’s own conscious experience, which is an ongoing gaiety/ease in everyday life and interactions marked by lesser and lesser affective biases.
Bringing a psychiatrist in to this is good: you have offered evidence that does not rely on reports of subjective experiences. But it is still weak evidence; there are many other hypotheses that explain the evidence, and several of them are much more probable.
An example of what I consider strong evidence: a person who had their brain imaged by an fMRI while performing some set of relatively simple mental tasks both before and after experiencing a PCE had radically different results.
That would not entirely convince me, but it would certainly make me take your claims much more seriously. If there had been ten such experiments, all ten people who claimed PCEs had similar results, and the experiments had been verifiably performed in a sound way, I would then almost certainly devote significant resources to achieving a PCE.
This not the only evidence I would accept, of course, but that should give you an idea of the type and the strength necessary. And if you can’t provide such evidence, well, alas.
On a related note, further links to the actualfreedom.com.au website will be ignored. I have made an effort to read the material there in hopes of better comprehending your claims, but the process is too painful for me to get very far, and this is part of the reason why I’m not taking you seriously. When someone has made an effort to present a large body of work on a topic but has not made an effort to present said work in a way that is easy for other human beings to read, they are usually not very credible. To be clear, I am referring to the website’s poorly-designed navigation, plethora of spelling and grammatical errors, and the use of the HTML tag.
There have been some studies on meditation and MRIs that you may be interested in.
I’ve seen a couple of those, and consider them significant evidence that certain meditation techniques are useful. As naivecortex is claiming that PCEs have effects much more dramatic than meditation, I would expect to see MRI data that is correspondingly stronger.
It is indeed a strong neurological evidence. It is a pity that Richard have denied all requests to take a brain scan for reasons pertaining to personal preference (he was more interested in the experiential/practical inclinations to be happy/harmless). Recent actually free people may have different preferences (Trent—a member of DhO that is actually free—is on record saying that he would be willing to undergo such tests if he is fully told what it is about, and if he appraises it to be safe).
A neurological study still will not give a full picture of a PCE. The scientists have not been able to locate the identity/self anywhere in the brain, let alone detect its absence. Nor do I have any ideas as to the way measuring/detecting the subjective experience of sensuous delight (that is the quality of a PCE). As far as I can tell, the only sort of things to be gleaned from a brain scan is the (significant) presence/absence of feelings/emotions, the sort of things that Richard writes about when he reports his ongoing experience: no wide-eyed staring, no increase in heart-beat, no rapid breathing, no adrenaline-tensed muscle tone, no sweaty palms, no blood draining from the face, no dry mouth, no cortisol-induced heightened awareness.
Ok. I have no doubt that empirical evidence can dispel the last intellectual excuse to take something new to human experience seriously (which is why I have come to favor the idea of taking a brain scan); however, so far at least, actualists’ primary motivation seems to be either the (memory of a) PCE or a curiosity to experiment with a method to have just more fun in life.
There have been several complains about not only the website, but also the way of its presentation (Richard’s prose-style have lead many to see himself as egoist/prick, for instance). I too have made a rather hasty/brief initial post here, which perhaps added to all sorts of incorrect impressions (religious, cultic). What you said about the website—along with the incorrect impressions from even the freethinkers—further confirms my view that the way the content is presented (along with the inaccessibility of layout) in the AF website is not the ideal. I first took note of this when reading Daniel Ingram’s notes on PCE, which is simple and straight to the point. (Of course, I have nothing to criticize against much of the content of what is said in the AF website).
Harmanjit once wrote a consolidation of essential content from the AF website here which is perhaps useful for an introduction.
Let’s see...
and
and
and
...nope, sorry. I’m done. Pursuing this is no longer worth my time. My estimated probability that there’s any worth at all to what Richard has to say is now negligibly close to zero.
I am not clear as to what point you were trying to make in relationship to all the quotes above except the last one which, without any context, seems absurd to me in some respects. With respect to the first bold text—“psychic” - what the word refers to is the identity that is tangled in the web of psychic currents, which further refers to the affective vibes (eg: sadness of one person creating a bad vibe among others; “loving atmosphere” and so on).
But as an actual freedom from human condition “is no longer worth your time”—then it makes no sense for both of us to continue this discussion.
You know, it’s pretty obvious that you care about our opinion of your movement, otherwise you wouldn’t be spending so much time and effort trying to convince us. That’s substantial evidence against your claim that it produces a lack of sense of self or attachment. You’re really shooting yourself in the foot.
Yes they have, at least in the sense that you are referring to. And they can provoke the suppression of this self with magnetic stimulation.
You on the other hand are completely incapable of suppressing the identity/self. You are tied up in it far more than the average person.
Wow… a cult formed to actively seek neurological dysfunction.
Ha, and where is the evidence for that? Is it too much to ask for evidence in a forum pertaining to human rationality?
Sorry, there seems to be a misunderstanding. I should have perhaps written clearly; psychiatry being a field dealing with dysfunctional peoples (i.e., dysfunctional identities involved with feelings) the psychiatrist who diagnosed Richard of course had to label (without choice) his sensuous / non-affective ongoing mode of experience in psychiatric terms (whose normal meaning pertaining to identities-with-feelings do not apply to a person with no identity/feelngs).
here
Sometimes, yes. It depends on how it is used. And I know you did’t really want me to give an answer to your question. But that’s the point. “Where is your evidence?” is just a bunch of verbal symbols that say very little to do with ‘rationality’. If the meaning and intended function of the phrase is equivalent to “Your mom is a cult!” but translated to the vernacular of a different subculture then it says absolutely nothing about rational beliefs. The vast majority of demands “where is your evidence?” that I have encountered have been blatant bullshit (too much time arguing with MENSAns). Your usage is not that bad. Nevertheless, your implied argument relies on an answer (‘No’) for the rhetorical question, which it does not get.
I do understand the distinction you are making here. Richard still sounds like a total fruitloop but I agree that the labels and diagnoses formalized in the psychiatric tradition can be misleading, particularly when they emphasize superficial symptoms and disorder rather than referring more directly to trends in the underlying neurological state that are causing the observed behaviors or thoughts.