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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   3762 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 24, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I would forgo the good feelings if it meant I’d also get to forgo the bad. But then, I’d count melancholy, dissatisfaction, and ennui as bad feelings, even though it seems to me that each of those is as much the absence of any particular emotion as it is an emotional state in itself. So the whole thing is probably impractical from the get go.

(Edited to fix grammar)

Great! You can do it, then - I speak from experience :)

The key is that there are certain feelings, termed felicitous feelings, that are distinct from the 'good' feelings in that they can occur without any specific condition triggering them. The very basic level of it is generally being in a good mood. What Richard discovered, and many have replicated, is that it's possible to minimize the 'good' and 'bad' feelings, while maximizing the felicitous feelings. The latter is important because you can't just turn feelings off completely -- that affective energy has to 'go' somewhere, and the felicitous feelings is where it can increasingly pour into.

It is possible to experience being conscious sans feelings entirely, but this is only doable by 'you' (as in the 'ego' currently thinking and the 'soul' currently feeling whilst reading this) going temporarily into abeyance in 'your' entirety. As 'you' are 'your' feelings, when 'you' go, so too do the 'feelings', because they are one and the same. This experience, termed a Pure Consciousness Experience (PCE), is where you can experientially see that you do actually exist, as a flesh and blood human being, and that the 'identity' that was just thinking and feeling itself do substantially exist, doesn't, actually. The identity is very 'real', but not actual -- exactly like Santa Claus is very real to a child, but does not actually exist. Absent identity in its entirety, life is intrinsically wondrous, enjoyable, and the universe is experienced to be what it actually is, which is intrinsically benevolent, benign, and friendly.

I cannot recommend it highly enough. For various descriptions of PCEs, see: http://actualfreedom.com.au/actualism/others/corr-pce.htm .

I must ask that you post these with your original account.

I messaged you about this

Yup. Under discussion, sorry.

Can mods officially confirm that using a second account--for whatever reasonable purpose--is categorically disallowed?

(For the record: I'm not OP, nor do I have a 2nd account)

EDIT: It is in the rules

We strongly discourage people from making alt accounts without good reason, and in the absence of a good reason, we consider alt accounts to be bannable on sight.

Alright, so alt accounts are permissible with good reasons provided.

You don't think it is weird that there are now 2 accounts, one brand new, promoting a GeoCities style fringe website no one has ever heard of all in the span of a few days? I mean the whole thing reads like new age woo and that is why it is being dismissed out of hand here.

You don't think it is weird that there are now 2 accounts, one brand new,

I had emailed this thread to @actualistclaud who, out of their own volition, chose to respond helpfully here.

promoting a GeoCities style fringe website no one has ever heard of all in the span of a few days?

Ah, but have you considered the alternative good faith interpretation that @actualistclaud is being helpful towards @Lewis2, as one fellow human being to another, given the later's clear agreement to find an alternative to good feelings (something that most people would rather not give up on)?

I mean the whole thing reads like new age woo and that is why it is being dismissed out of hand here.

Everyone is free to dismiss what they find to be non-sensical, but is it really necessary to make a flippant dismissive announcement on a public forum set up to rationally discuss various ideas, orthodox and unorthodox? Either downvote/report and move on, or be prepared to write a cogent and rational summary of why you think this is all "new age woo" (whatever that means).

You don't know what "new age woo" means? It means crystals, and 3rd eyes and chakras and acupuncture. Sailing over a garden before defeating a thief with nothing but the moral righteousness of an unchained spirit falls into that same catagory for me.

There is no "secret knowledge. It either works, and it becomes science and medicine and known physical laws, or it doesn't and should be consigned to the dustbin of history. This kind of just so story and navel gazing philosophizing falls deeply into the second catagory for me. I've know too many wanna be self help gurus. It becomes an immune response after a while. Basically, it is all BS unless you can prove something or test something.

Yup.

But the options are still “make the case” or “ignore.” Can’t just appeal to that immune response. Them’s the rules.

Same deal as how you’ve talked about religion. Even if you and I think it’s bunk, we’ve got to write with the intent of reaching theists.

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