I don’t know if I fully get you, but you also nailed it on the head.
In such situation, I think the one weird trick would be to invent a belief system that actively denies being one. To teach people a dogma that would (among other things) insist that there is no dogma, you just see the reality as it is (unlike all the other people, who merely see their dogmas). To invent rituals that consist (among other things) of telling yourself repeatedly that you have no rituals (unlike all the other people). To have leaders that deny being leaders (and yet they are surrounded by followers who obey them, but hey that’s just how reality is).
So, basically… science.
Science is the best cult because it convincingly denies being one at all, disguising itself as truth itself.
I think it’s worth admiring science and appreciating it for all the good things it has provided.
And I think it has its limitations, and people should start waking up soon to the fact that if the world is destroyed, humans all destroyed, etc. then science played an instrumental and causal role in that, and part of that is the insanity and evil within that particular cult / worldview.
The part that you quoted was originally supposed to end by: “So, basically… Buddhism”, but then I noticed it actually applies to science, too. Because it’s both, kind of. By trying to get out of systems, you create something that people from outside will describe as yet another system. (And they will include it into the set of systems they are trying to get out of.)
Is there an end to this? I don’t know, really. (Also, it reminds of this.)
I think what many people do is apply this step once. They get out of the system that their parents and/or school created for them, and that’s it.
Some people do this step twice or more. For example, first they rebel against their parents. Then they realize that their rebellion was kinda stupid and perhaps there is more to life than smoking marijuana, so they get out of that system, too. And that’s it. Or they join a cult, and then they leave it. Etc.
Some people notice that this is a sequence—that you can probably do an arbitrary number of steps, always believing that now you are getting out of systems, when in hindsight you have always just adopted yet another system. But even if you notice this, what can you do about it? Is there a way out that isn’t just another iteration of the same?
The problem is that even noticing the sequence and trying to design a solution such as “I will never get attached to any system; I will keep abandoning them the moment I notice that there is such a thing; and I will always suspect that anything I see is such a thing”, is… yet another system. One that is more meta, and perhaps therefore more aesthetically appealing, but a system nonetheless.
Another option is to give up and say “yeah, it’s systems all the way down; and this one is the one I feel most comfortable with, so I am staying here”. So you stay consciously there; or maybe halfway there and halfway in the next level, because you actually do recognize your current system as a system...
One person’s “the true way to see reality” is another person’s “game people play”. I am not saying that the accusation is always true; I am just saying the accusation is always there, and sometimes it is true.
Here some people would defend by saying that there always is a true uncorrupted version of something and also a ritualized system made out of it, and that you shouldn’t judge True Christianity by the flaws of the ordinary Christians, shouldn’t judge True Buddhism by the flaws of the ordinary Buddhists, shouldn’t judge True Scientific Mindset by the flaws of ordinary people in academia, and shouldn’t just True Rationality by the flaws of the ordinary aspiring rationalists. -- And this also is an ancient game, where one side keeps accusing the other of not being charitable and failing the ideological Turing test, and the other side defends by calling it the no-true-X fallacy.
Another question is whether some pure unmediated access to reality is even possible. We always start with some priors; we interpret the evidence using the perspectives we currently have. (Not being aware of one’s priors is not the same as having no priors.) Then again, having only the options of being more wrong or less wrong, it makes sense to prefer the latter.
(And there is a difference between where you are; and where other people report to be, and whether you believe them. The fact that I believe that I am free of systems and see the reality as it is should be a very weak evidence for you, because this is practically what everyone believes regardless of where they are.)
I don’t know if I fully get you, but you also nailed it on the head.
Science is the best cult because it convincingly denies being one at all, disguising itself as truth itself.
I think it’s worth admiring science and appreciating it for all the good things it has provided.
And I think it has its limitations, and people should start waking up soon to the fact that if the world is destroyed, humans all destroyed, etc. then science played an instrumental and causal role in that, and part of that is the insanity and evil within that particular cult / worldview.
The part that you quoted was originally supposed to end by: “So, basically… Buddhism”, but then I noticed it actually applies to science, too. Because it’s both, kind of. By trying to get out of systems, you create something that people from outside will describe as yet another system. (And they will include it into the set of systems they are trying to get out of.)
Is there an end to this? I don’t know, really. (Also, it reminds of this.)
I think what many people do is apply this step once. They get out of the system that their parents and/or school created for them, and that’s it.
Some people do this step twice or more. For example, first they rebel against their parents. Then they realize that their rebellion was kinda stupid and perhaps there is more to life than smoking marijuana, so they get out of that system, too. And that’s it. Or they join a cult, and then they leave it. Etc.
Some people notice that this is a sequence—that you can probably do an arbitrary number of steps, always believing that now you are getting out of systems, when in hindsight you have always just adopted yet another system. But even if you notice this, what can you do about it? Is there a way out that isn’t just another iteration of the same?
The problem is that even noticing the sequence and trying to design a solution such as “I will never get attached to any system; I will keep abandoning them the moment I notice that there is such a thing; and I will always suspect that anything I see is such a thing”, is… yet another system. One that is more meta, and perhaps therefore more aesthetically appealing, but a system nonetheless.
Another option is to give up and say “yeah, it’s systems all the way down; and this one is the one I feel most comfortable with, so I am staying here”. So you stay consciously there; or maybe halfway there and halfway in the next level, because you actually do recognize your current system as a system...
One person’s “the true way to see reality” is another person’s “game people play”. I am not saying that the accusation is always true; I am just saying the accusation is always there, and sometimes it is true.
Here some people would defend by saying that there always is a true uncorrupted version of something and also a ritualized system made out of it, and that you shouldn’t judge True Christianity by the flaws of the ordinary Christians, shouldn’t judge True Buddhism by the flaws of the ordinary Buddhists, shouldn’t judge True Scientific Mindset by the flaws of ordinary people in academia, and shouldn’t just True Rationality by the flaws of the ordinary aspiring rationalists. -- And this also is an ancient game, where one side keeps accusing the other of not being charitable and failing the ideological Turing test, and the other side defends by calling it the no-true-X fallacy.
Another question is whether some pure unmediated access to reality is even possible. We always start with some priors; we interpret the evidence using the perspectives we currently have. (Not being aware of one’s priors is not the same as having no priors.) Then again, having only the options of being more wrong or less wrong, it makes sense to prefer the latter.
(And there is a difference between where you are; and where other people report to be, and whether you believe them. The fact that I believe that I am free of systems and see the reality as it is should be a very weak evidence for you, because this is practically what everyone believes regardless of where they are.)