So you’re enlightened. Ok. Now what? What do you understand now that you did not understand before? What do you know now that you did not know before? What can you do now that you could not do before? What have you gained?
(Quick terminology thing: “enlightened” is kind of a type error, but if we force it to mean something coherent, then I’m not enlightened. In Buddhism one might say that I’ve reached stream-entry but not full Buddhahood.)
So… I’ll answer your question. But first, I’d ask you to notice the combative tone that I think is easy to read in what you’ve written. This puts me in an odd position: if I just answer, then you’re incentivized to poke and prod in a combative way. If I object to the frame, it’s easy for the audience to see me as weaseling out of falsifiability. I’m speaking to this directly because that’s not the tone I want here: I’d rather just offer what I can and work together to see truth clearly. I know that’s not the standard tone of Less Wrong; I’ve been around a while. But it’s a tone I prefer, so it’s what I’ll use.
So! With that… I think I answered some of this in my reply to Ben. It’s not exhaustive and doesn’t really speak that much to what I understand/know now, but I currently think it’s what you’re looking for. Let me know if you were hoping for something different.
(And why should anyone want this thing? Or should they?)
“Should” is a broken concept here. All y’all can do what you like! You can want this, or not, however you see fit.
…but in that, I’m yanking your chain a little bit. In this case I think I can answer your question in a way you’ll find more satisfying:
If you learn how to Look, you can see things that you can learn to interpret as novel patterns. This gives you a lot more room to do some pretty epic stuff.
…but explaining that more concretely is really best left for the upcoming post.
Can you say how? (Was it drugs?)
I’ll say how in the upcoming post.
Also, as a matter of game theory: I currently think it’s a bit dangerous to have people record in public whether they have done something that’s currently quite illegal. For the most part, people will tend to say “no” if they haven’t, which means answers of “no comment” are evidence of “yes”. Because of this, I’m implementing a strategy of answering “no comment” along with this explanation to illustrate both that I say “no comment” regardless of the true answer, and also why.
It’s illegal to take most drugs in most jurisdictions. It’s not illegal to travel to a location where it’s legal to consume then and then consume them in that jurisdiction.
Drug legality also differs a lot in different countries. Germany for example has at the moment legal 1PLSD which is an LSD analgoue that likely gets processed the same way in the brain (there’s an additional group on it that the body likely removes before it has effects).
In cases where it’s useful to communicate knowledge gained from drug experiments it might be worthwhile to create the plausible impression that the experiment was done in a jurisdiction where it’s legal.
It sounds like you’re basically saying “all will be explained in my upcoming post”. Fair enough. I look forward to reading it. (This ordering is very much not ideal, imo, but that happens sometimes.)
Re: how this “kensho” state was achieved, and whether it was drugs or not:
You are, of course, right that it’s imprudent to admit to illegal drug use on a public Internet forum. Your policy of a “no comment” response, if asked directly, is a sensible one. (It also sounds like it was not drugs in this case, because then—presumably—you would not be planning to tell us about it in your upcoming post.)
But, in the counterfactual case where…
… you did achieve your not-really-enlightenment-but-something-related state via drug use, and then…
… made a blog post about having achieved this state, without revealing how…
… because it would be imprudent to admit to drug use…
… then, in that scenario, you would have done this, knowing in advance that you would refuse to reveal this crucial fact, if asked.
(“Crucial”, I say, because let’s face it—“I dropped acid and had a mystical experience and uncovered Truths, which, alas, it is nigh-impossible to put into words” is… not, shall we say, an exceedingly interesting story, nor a particularly novel one.)
In that scenario, writing this post would, of course, be quite unethical!
Anyhow, it sounds like my concern doesn’t apply here, which is gratifying.
(Quick terminology thing: “enlightened” is kind of a type error, but if we force it to mean something coherent, then I’m not enlightened. In Buddhism one might say that I’ve reached stream-entry but not full Buddhahood.)
So… I’ll answer your question. But first, I’d ask you to notice the combative tone that I think is easy to read in what you’ve written. This puts me in an odd position: if I just answer, then you’re incentivized to poke and prod in a combative way. If I object to the frame, it’s easy for the audience to see me as weaseling out of falsifiability. I’m speaking to this directly because that’s not the tone I want here: I’d rather just offer what I can and work together to see truth clearly. I know that’s not the standard tone of Less Wrong; I’ve been around a while. But it’s a tone I prefer, so it’s what I’ll use.
So! With that… I think I answered some of this in my reply to Ben. It’s not exhaustive and doesn’t really speak that much to what I understand/know now, but I currently think it’s what you’re looking for. Let me know if you were hoping for something different.
“Should” is a broken concept here. All y’all can do what you like! You can want this, or not, however you see fit.
…but in that, I’m yanking your chain a little bit. In this case I think I can answer your question in a way you’ll find more satisfying:
If you learn how to Look, you can see things that you can learn to interpret as novel patterns. This gives you a lot more room to do some pretty epic stuff.
…but explaining that more concretely is really best left for the upcoming post.
I’ll say how in the upcoming post.
Also, as a matter of game theory: I currently think it’s a bit dangerous to have people record in public whether they have done something that’s currently quite illegal. For the most part, people will tend to say “no” if they haven’t, which means answers of “no comment” are evidence of “yes”. Because of this, I’m implementing a strategy of answering “no comment” along with this explanation to illustrate both that I say “no comment” regardless of the true answer, and also why.
It’s illegal to take most drugs in most jurisdictions. It’s not illegal to travel to a location where it’s legal to consume then and then consume them in that jurisdiction.
Drug legality also differs a lot in different countries. Germany for example has at the moment legal 1PLSD which is an LSD analgoue that likely gets processed the same way in the brain (there’s an additional group on it that the body likely removes before it has effects).
In cases where it’s useful to communicate knowledge gained from drug experiments it might be worthwhile to create the plausible impression that the experiment was done in a jurisdiction where it’s legal.
It sounds like you’re basically saying “all will be explained in my upcoming post”. Fair enough. I look forward to reading it. (This ordering is very much not ideal, imo, but that happens sometimes.)
Re: how this “kensho” state was achieved, and whether it was drugs or not:
You are, of course, right that it’s imprudent to admit to illegal drug use on a public Internet forum. Your policy of a “no comment” response, if asked directly, is a sensible one. (It also sounds like it was not drugs in this case, because then—presumably—you would not be planning to tell us about it in your upcoming post.)
But, in the counterfactual case where…
… you did achieve your not-really-enlightenment-but-something-related state via drug use, and then…
… made a blog post about having achieved this state, without revealing how…
… because it would be imprudent to admit to drug use…
… then, in that scenario, you would have done this, knowing in advance that you would refuse to reveal this crucial fact, if asked.
(“Crucial”, I say, because let’s face it—“I dropped acid and had a mystical experience and uncovered Truths, which, alas, it is nigh-impossible to put into words” is… not, shall we say, an exceedingly interesting story, nor a particularly novel one.)
In that scenario, writing this post would, of course, be quite unethical!
Anyhow, it sounds like my concern doesn’t apply here, which is gratifying.