This thread may be unpopular; so be it. If I reach a single person, that is enough.
Seven years ago, I discovered my life's purpose -- but didn't realize it at the time. I had discovered Buddhism, and this notion that one could attain perfect happiness without a single material possession instantly lifted up my spirit from the depths it had remained in since childhood, since I had learned of death, and had heard those stories of children who become orphans from a plane crash, knowing that the only thing separating us from them is a stroke of luck. And that chasing any happiness in this world is to embrace a dice roll with a good probability of immense suffering. You can call it silly, but to single-digit-age me, consigning yourself to fate like this was more or less insane, and that was only confirmed by the large quantity of childhood suffering outside of my control. So from there I ducked out of (most) socializing to learn everything I could, unconsciously in response to this issue.
When I discovered Buddhism, I was truly elated for the first time in years, to this doctrine promising everything that I had desired. But as I dug deeper, I encountered problems with this scripture, and meditation and so on that could only build to one conclusion: Enlightenment is not real. The pieces building up to this conclusion are too numerous to list, but essentially there is little evidence to believe in a state of enlightenment qua profound transformation of your moment-to-moment experience where the problem of change is solved. What does happen though is a non-dualist revelation analogous to the mystic experiences of all religions. In fact, for the Hindus and Jains it was this experience that led to liberation in the next life. Nothing came afterward. Now consider that yoga and meditation were practiced in India for a solid millennium before Buddhism, and if such a state existed the Hindus and Jains would have surely noted it. So this revelation is quite achievable, but it is functionally the end of the mystic path. There is almost no evidence to suggest otherwise.
Now, why am I writing this post...? Because I can't accept that outcome. I refuse to believe it simply ends there, and we have a healthy amount of evidence that is largely ignored which gives us reason to be skeptics. Here's a brief list:
- Meditative jhanas exist, and they are (allegedly) the most pleasant sensation a human can experience, they can be sustained for hours, and demand very little energy. These show up on brain scans.
- You can take drugs in a lucid dream, and this produces the effects of the drug (for the majority). What's more, if you imagine a drug you've never tried, it will match whatever you expect to occur.
- The human body functions remarkably well on drugs, or in other altered states of consciousness.
- LSD has been observed to produce virtually any symptoms imaginable, or even no symptoms at all.
- LSD-like effects may be obtained easily through hyperventilation, at no cost to oneself (save a little energy).
- I have myself replicated some effects of alcohol and cough syrup through meditation.
- Predictive processing is a fact at this point; we humans play an active role in constructing our perceptions.
- Meditation has effects on the parasympathetic nervous system we did not know were possible until recently. Wim Hoff and Tummo do as well.
Hence the following conclusion:
- There is little reason to believe in the "No free lunch" theory of human happiness, that is to say, that our good must be obtained at some expense.
You can take a very, very tentative stance that our body's homeostasis lends itself to survival by default, but that perhaps by some mysterious process this homeostasis may be changed, and so effects that are normally won through bitter exertion are now had easily.
I am aware this is fringe -- probably too fringe for here, honestly. But be aware you are my best shot. The Buddhists are too dogmatic, the dreamers are too "spiritual". There is clearly something worth investigating here, but apparently nobody is doing so. My tag is crashestoearth on discord, but I'm responsive here as well. Add me if you're curious, and skeptics too please chime in. If you are a Buddhist dogmatist though I'm not interested. Thanks for reading.
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Notes -
Your conclusions so far sound about right, except I don't think that hyperventilation and LSD are harmless (You could develop HPPD for instance).
Everything else seems true. Human happiness is not zero-sum, this is trivial to conclude since it's possible to experience more suffering than happiness. This implies that the opposite is possible, and that our brains just prevent this because the negative bias helps with survival. In other words, you're trying to hack your own reward centers, and your brain made this difficult to do because it knows that it can be dangerous. If you try to lucid dream and your dream characters get angry with you, it's probably for the same reason.
What further path are you hoping for? That you can learn to control or influence reality with willpower, that you can shift into a better timeline/reality by adjusting your energy, that you can re-program yourself, that you can live in constant bliss or reach a higher level of consciousness?
Some say that deep meditation allows us to realize that we're one with everyone, meet "god" or some infinite source of energy (gateway process, etc), experience "non-duality" (this is just messing with the human perception which separates things), or to be able to contact anyone connected to the earths magnetic field.
Some say that beliefs can influence the world, that the world matches your level of energy/chakra/frequency/vibration, that you and the world are one (Hermetic principles), that the questions you ask decide what questions you get (John Wheeler), that human consciousness controls the wave function collapse (this direction unifies mysticism and science a bit), or that reality is agreement (that everything is a game. The EST seminars go in this direction a bit in their approach to enlightenment).
You can program yourself, hypnotize yourself and others, manipulate your own belief structures and other fun stuff. Every article on here is high-quality, and I recommend reading it because it contains a bunch of warnings that I don't want you to lose out on: https://cognitiveengineer.blogspot.com/2011/11/resources.html
Living in constant bliss (which should be possible given that these mechanisms don't rely on dopamine or other neurotransmitters, but occur in the processing of sensations) probably just requires a strong concentration, then to focus on a pleasant experience in your body, and keep the focus such that a feedback-loop occurs. When your focus is strong enough, it will feel like a hand grabbing the object of focus. This is likely the origin of the idea of telekinesis. In states of mania or otherwise inflated confidence, your willpower might also be so strong that it feels like you can do anything (and you may actually manage to do some things that in retrospec are impressive)
I've also read about egregores, divining, magic, the collective unconsciousness, synchronicities, demons, DMT creatures, oracles, the law of attraction, etc. And I can probably explain these logically and kill the fun. I could also give you reasons to believe in them, just to keep things a little interesting. Man, I should really spend my time better. Oh well.
"Trusting the universe" helps peace of mind. Not trying to control what you can't control saves a lot of cognitive energy, which is probably why it's recommended by so many spiritual people (to me, they're just a type of psychologists though). Anyway, I've written enough for now. Which parts interest you?
Good stuff, thanks for the links.
Hereabouts. The more perception-related stuff like reality shifting and kasina meditation is like playing with fire. I do recall hearing that the Tibetans practice some kind of "emotional alchemy", where one emotion is changed into another, and that this is one of the most dangerous meditations on earth as if it backfires you can go insane or become a psychopathic murderer and the likes, but maybe that's hearsay. There is though a staple of Vajrayana, where you "become" the pure embodiment of some emotion or idea for a time, like a "demon of hatred", but this is just embracing a current emotion and letting it all out, which is what we all do during therapy. Pretty simple.
This is basically the process behind all serious meditative/psychedelic states, no? Some kind of feedback loop. The dhyanas are triggered by noticing some pleasant tingles in the hands, and with your brain in a very plastic and vulnerable state, the observation of these tingles magnifies the sensation, and on repeat observations the feeling builds, up until you reach immense pleasure. And this is qualitatively different from a high state of samadhi, which is typically based on a cool feeling of the breath, and so manifests more as a profound relaxation.
But a feedback loop like that simply doesn't happen while sober, and it is evidently not something you can condition through meditation (with our current knowledge). But there is a whole bunch of crap related to kundalini awakening that seems potentially promising, but feels like digging through your weird old relative's house where everything's dirty and smells weird. Mainly I just don't have any good leads. Perhaps you do though.
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