I’m honestly flummoxed about how to create the type of post you’re suggesting. Given the clarity of everything else you’ve written here about this, I’m inclined to believe you. And I’d much like to write that post, or see it written. Any pointers?
Thanks! Okay, some pointers :) You asked for them!
Your writing style is characteristcally evocative—the kind of writing I’d use to point at the majesty of stars, the tragedy of death, and the grandeur of all that could be. It’s emotional, and that is perhaps both its strength and its weakness.
You have the right style to conjure strong feelings around things one already believes and endorses (perfect for Solstice), but perhaps less so to convince people of things they’re skeptical of. A pastor’s rousing sermon about Jesus’s love for all mankind, while moving to his congregation, does little to convince me about the matter.
Attitude
Unfortunately, it seems that people who don’t know how to intentionally Look literally cannot conceptually understand what Looking is for . . .
I emphatically reject this. You’ve observed that you don’t feel understood when you explain your experience and inferred that this is a deficiency on the part of the listener rather than the explainer. I think that’s the wrong inference, even if many explainers have struggled similarly. Explaining is hard. But even supposing you are completely right, most listeners are not going to respond charitably to claims of “you couldn’t possibly understand”. (I’ll be directly harsh and say I think accusing someone of not engaging in good faith rather than doubting your own communication is suggestive of the wrong attitude.)
Rightly or wrongly, beneath the post there is an undertone with a few sentiments: “Oh my god, guys!!”, “This is something really, really important and you couldn’t possibly understand, I’m frustrated”, and “You don’t get it! Only special people get it.” (And perhaps a hint of enjoying the fact you have a special secret that others don’t. We’re all human, after all.)
The tone I think would be persuasive is along the lines of “I think I’m onto something big, I think it’s had big benefits, I’d like you too benefit too, this is difficult to convey, but please hear out my best case.”
Content
At the end of the day, I think this is about providing a clear and solid case for why you believe what you believe. Sketching out it lightly, the case I might make could look like:
Observations: I spent time meditating; I have experienced benefits X and Y.
Model: Meditation and minfulness consist of moving parts A1, A2, A3, which predict results X and Y. (Here are my models of neuroscience, attention, etc.)
Claim: Meditation and mindfulness practice has given me be benefits X and Y.
Listeners might then doubt any of the pieces. They might be incredulous that I experienced such exteme benefits (your claims are pretty extreme), they might doubt that even if I experienced these benefits, that they were attritutable to what I’m claiming is the cause (rather than say, placebo or mania), or they might find my model implausible (brains don’t work that way!). But at least if I have a 3rd person, mechanistic model, we can argue about its correctness.
Maybe I should add that we can analogize Kensho/enlightenment to consciousness. If we imagine some unconscious AIs modelling the possible existence, possible purpose, and expected observations you would get if humans have this “consciousness” thing, I think they could reasonably do that even if there was no way for them to experience consciousness from the inside with their own minds. They could talk about how it worked and what its benefits were without “seeing” it from the inside. I think they could use that understanding to decide if they want to self-modify to have consciousness, and that a convincing case could be made “from the outside”.
Summing up a rambly response, I think a good post on enlightenment has at least one of the following:
1) Your observations, inferences, and why the reader should trust them.
2) A 3rd party perspective, mechanistic model for how enlightenment works and the resultant predictions.
To close, the post I’d write would large be this is what I’ve experienced, this is the evidence, and this is my model for WHY.
One more pointer—clarity on the purpose of a post is paramount. From your comments, it seems like a few different purposes got mixed in:
a) Kensho/Looking are very powerful, I want to motivate you to try them.
b) There is a puzzle around communicating things which you can only conceptually understand once you’ve experienced them. (I’d focus mostly on the puzzle and make it clear Kensho is but an example in this post.)
There’s a dictum: “1) Tell them what you’re going to tell them, 2) Tell them, 3) Tell them what you’ve told them.” Going by your CFAR classes too, I feel like you don’t like telling people what you’re going to tell them (you even want them to be confused). I think this unsurprisingly results in confusion.
I do feel some exasperation. You’re right in picking up on that.
My experience is that even when I’m not exasperated, this doesn’t convey to people who haven’t done any Looking. I don’t mean that as a judgment against anyone; it’s just a really strong phenomenon, and I think it’s getting conflated with my frustration.
But I’ll take your push-back seriously and reflect on this.
They might be incredulous that I experienced such exteme benefits
Even if the believe that Valentine has actually got those extreme benefits that’s going to make them believe that Valentine is doing something special and not something very basic.
In New Age circles you have plenty of people who believes in the magical powers of enlightment and who spent years searching for it with nothing to show for it. The openness about making extreme claims is one of the key differences that distinguishes New Age thinking from other spiritual traditions and the empiric results of it are poor.
Thanks! Okay, some pointers :) You asked for them!
Your writing style is characteristcally evocative—the kind of writing I’d use to point at the majesty of stars, the tragedy of death, and the grandeur of all that could be. It’s emotional, and that is perhaps both its strength and its weakness.
You have the right style to conjure strong feelings around things one already believes and endorses (perfect for Solstice), but perhaps less so to convince people of things they’re skeptical of. A pastor’s rousing sermon about Jesus’s love for all mankind, while moving to his congregation, does little to convince me about the matter.
Attitude
I emphatically reject this. You’ve observed that you don’t feel understood when you explain your experience and inferred that this is a deficiency on the part of the listener rather than the explainer. I think that’s the wrong inference, even if many explainers have struggled similarly. Explaining is hard. But even supposing you are completely right, most listeners are not going to respond charitably to claims of “you couldn’t possibly understand”. (I’ll be directly harsh and say I think accusing someone of not engaging in good faith rather than doubting your own communication is suggestive of the wrong attitude.)
Rightly or wrongly, beneath the post there is an undertone with a few sentiments: “Oh my god, guys!!”, “This is something really, really important and you couldn’t possibly understand, I’m frustrated”, and “You don’t get it! Only special people get it.” (And perhaps a hint of enjoying the fact you have a special secret that others don’t. We’re all human, after all.)
The tone I think would be persuasive is along the lines of “I think I’m onto something big, I think it’s had big benefits, I’d like you too benefit too, this is difficult to convey, but please hear out my best case.”
Content
At the end of the day, I think this is about providing a clear and solid case for why you believe what you believe. Sketching out it lightly, the case I might make could look like:
Listeners might then doubt any of the pieces. They might be incredulous that I experienced such exteme benefits (your claims are pretty extreme), they might doubt that even if I experienced these benefits, that they were attritutable to what I’m claiming is the cause (rather than say, placebo or mania), or they might find my model implausible (brains don’t work that way!). But at least if I have a 3rd person, mechanistic model, we can argue about its correctness.
Maybe I should add that we can analogize Kensho/enlightenment to consciousness. If we imagine some unconscious AIs modelling the possible existence, possible purpose, and expected observations you would get if humans have this “consciousness” thing, I think they could reasonably do that even if there was no way for them to experience consciousness from the inside with their own minds. They could talk about how it worked and what its benefits were without “seeing” it from the inside. I think they could use that understanding to decide if they want to self-modify to have consciousness, and that a convincing case could be made “from the outside”.
Summing up a rambly response, I think a good post on enlightenment has at least one of the following:
1) Your observations, inferences, and why the reader should trust them.
2) A 3rd party perspective, mechanistic model for how enlightenment works and the resultant predictions.
To close, the post I’d write would large be this is what I’ve experienced, this is the evidence, and this is my model for WHY.
One more pointer—clarity on the purpose of a post is paramount. From your comments, it seems like a few different purposes got mixed in:
a) Kensho/Looking are very powerful, I want to motivate you to try them.
b) There is a puzzle around communicating things which you can only conceptually understand once you’ve experienced them. (I’d focus mostly on the puzzle and make it clear Kensho is but an example in this post.)
There’s a dictum: “1) Tell them what you’re going to tell them, 2) Tell them, 3) Tell them what you’ve told them.” Going by your CFAR classes too, I feel like you don’t like telling people what you’re going to tell them (you even want them to be confused). I think this unsurprisingly results in confusion.
Thanks, this is clear and appreciated.
I do feel some exasperation. You’re right in picking up on that.
My experience is that even when I’m not exasperated, this doesn’t convey to people who haven’t done any Looking. I don’t mean that as a judgment against anyone; it’s just a really strong phenomenon, and I think it’s getting conflated with my frustration.
But I’ll take your push-back seriously and reflect on this.
Thanks. :-)
Even if the believe that Valentine has actually got those extreme benefits that’s going to make them believe that Valentine is doing something special and not something very basic.
In New Age circles you have plenty of people who believes in the magical powers of enlightment and who spent years searching for it with nothing to show for it. The openness about making extreme claims is one of the key differences that distinguishes New Age thinking from other spiritual traditions and the empiric results of it are poor.