It occurs to me that since this debate is about me and my subjective experiences, there’s really no way for either of us to win. Even if we got a whole bunch of people with different incomes and did an experiment on me to see which ones I was more attracted to, the result of the experiment would be subjective and there would be no way for anyone to know I wasn’t pretending.
I still think that there are ways to know what’s going on inside you with relatively good certainty. Part of the reason I believe this is because I’m able to change myself, meaning that I am able to decide to feel a different way and accomplish that. I don’t mean to say I can decide to experience pleasure instead of pain if I bang my toe, but that I am able to dig around in the belief system behind my feelings, figure out what ideas are in there, improve the ideas, and translate that change over to the emotional part of me so that I react to the new ideas emotionally. If I was wrong about my motivations, this would not work, so the fact that I can do this supports the idea that I’m able to figure out what I’m thinking with a pretty high degree of accuracy. I would like to write an article about how I do this at some point because it’s been a really useful skill for me, and I want to share. But right now I’ve got a lot on my plate. I think it’s best for us to discontinue this debate about whether or not my subjective experiences match my perceptions or your expectations, and if you want to tear apart my writings on how I change myself later, you can.
Your links are bookmarked, so if your purpose was to make sure I was aware of them, I’ve got them. Thanks.
It occurs to me that since this debate is about me and my subjective experiences, there’s really no way for either of us to win. Even if we got a whole bunch of people with different incomes and did an experiment on me to see which ones I was more attracted to, the result of the experiment would be subjective and there would be no way for anyone to know I wasn’t pretending.
I still think that there are ways to know what’s going on inside you with relatively good certainty. Part of the reason I believe this is because I’m able to change myself, meaning that I am able to decide to feel a different way and accomplish that. I don’t mean to say I can decide to experience pleasure instead of pain if I bang my toe, but that I am able to dig around in the belief system behind my feelings, figure out what ideas are in there, improve the ideas, and translate that change over to the emotional part of me so that I react to the new ideas emotionally. If I was wrong about my motivations, this would not work, so the fact that I can do this supports the idea that I’m able to figure out what I’m thinking with a pretty high degree of accuracy. I would like to write an article about how I do this at some point because it’s been a really useful skill for me, and I want to share. But right now I’ve got a lot on my plate. I think it’s best for us to discontinue this debate about whether or not my subjective experiences match my perceptions or your expectations, and if you want to tear apart my writings on how I change myself later, you can.
Your links are bookmarked, so if your purpose was to make sure I was aware of them, I’ve got them. Thanks.