A small issue that arises when dealing with political issues.....

Moonbeam · May 12, 2025

Political beliefs are a form of self identification and by self we can infer ego. Having the right political beliefs makes you better than someone who has wrong ideas. Behind every political person, therefore, there is a political belief and a motivation to believe it is correct.

And therein lies the problem. Everything that anybody believes by virtue of being a belief is false if it can't be logically proven. This is fundamental logic but because of that ego identification and the need to be right nobody will see that nor will they get very far in logically disproving this. This is a taboo subject that will produce hatred to anybody who speaks of it. Are you mad yet?

We argue politics because if we are wrong in our beliefs we imagine we will be thrown overboard in an endless meaningless sea so we have to be right. But that is just a feeling that is believed to be real.

Everywhere there is a war of somewhere in the world between trying to prove they are right by might because they believe in lies. Here in this forum we prove our superiority by intimidation. Isn't that funny? People who know nothing trying to convince others their ignorance is better than the an other already also equally ignorant. Truth for those who imagine they know it is hard to accept. How to you tell people who know nothing they are profoundly ignorant without making them feel profoundly ignorant like they have been insulted with all of their lives. There is simply the truth to which we personally and individually turn into insult even if just presented as data. Good luck! Perhaps there is a truth that isn't a belief which would suggest it would be something beyond words.

dank69 · May 12, 2025

There's an old saying that you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into. Most people feel their way into beliefs. They don't know any better. Until a person becomes aware just how easy it is for others to "push their buttons" what chance do they have?

Even after becoming aware, it is still a constant struggle against a constant barrage of influences, and that doesn't even address the subconscious. Until we as a society add training to recognize those influences to our core curriculums, very little progress will be made.

HomerJS · May 13, 2025

Sounds like you are defending the end of education. After all if people think the world if flat you will never convince them otherwise

Moonbeam · May 13, 2025

dank69 said:
There's an old saying that you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.

This makes supremely good sense to me as it fits perfectly with what I think related to this, namely that we took the positions we did out of Stockholm syndrome. We adopted those notions of truth we were told were true under the pain of punishment for non compliance and the threat of abandonment as children dependent on others to survive. It was not a choice and the product is seething anger at the world that did that to us, never to be expressed, of course. We had it eat it to live. To change course now would be to reject the conditioning and feel all the fear that caused us to surrender.

dank69 said:
Most people feel their way into beliefs.

So I would say we believed our way into a condition where we would not feel what we were forced to feel in order not to feel it.

dank69 said:
They don't know any better.

What we can't allow ourselves to believe is that it is better to know than not know because, again, it requires rejecting the conditioning we accepted to survive. It would feel just like we are going to die.

dank69 said:
Until a person becomes aware just how easy it is for others to "push their buttons" what chance do they have?

I think we actively seek having them pushed like a moth to the flame. We unconsciously know what it takes to heal so we seek ego destruction by seeking out threats while actually getting better at denial. This is paradoxical and difficult to explain.

dank69 said:
Even after becoming aware, it is still a constant struggle against a constant barrage of influences, and that doesn't even address the subconscious. Until we as a society add training to recognize those influences to our core curriculums, very little progress will be made.

I could not agree more. We have to become aware of what we desperately do not want to see. Enlighten teachers have techniques to do this. I know about them but I can't teach them. I don't think fully de conditioning oneself is easy. Love your post.

Moonbeam · May 13, 2025

HomerJS said:
Sounds like you are defending the end of education. After all if people think the world if flat you will never convince them otherwise

A donkey loaded with books remains a donkey. A saying

Education in my opinion needs to be of the kind dank69 spoke of above. In addition to being educated, what shall we say, spiritually? psychologically?, choose your poison, we there is nothing wrong that I see with the acquisition of knowledge and capacity. We need to care for ourselves in the world and hopefully to the degree we can take care of lots of others. But I think there are profound problems with education as we see it here in the US. Lots of good things too.

One problem you can see especially with highly successful people, i.e. people who have made lots of money, is that they become convinced that because they can do one thing well they know everything. It doesn't work that way I am sure you agree.

There is a great teaching story that touches on this, in my opinion about two brothers, one who devoted himself to mechanical fish, and another to a magical wooden horse purported to be able carry you to your heart's desire. It made me think a lot about what my heart's desire could be. As for mechanical fish, I do like air conditioning etc.

Well just out of curiosity I looked on the internet and found it:

The Magic Horse: A Sufi Teaching Story

The saying is: “Those who want fish can achieve much through fish, and those who do not know their heart’s desire may first have to hear the story of the wooden horse.” The Magic Horse is a Sufi te…

bobmschwartz.com

interchange · May 13, 2025

What is human society without a form of tribal organization?

There are those of us that can function apart from it, or at least further apart than most. I do wonder if this is a luxury afforded only because of willing participation from others.

Moonbeam · May 13, 2025

interchange said:
What is human society without a form of tribal organization?

There are those of us that can function apart from it, or at least further apart than most. I do wonder if this is a luxury afforded only because of willing participation from others.

The first think I do is try to understand the meaning of your words. My first question relates to society and tribal organization. One question I have from that is speculation that they might actually be the same thing so you can't have human society without tribal organization. But since it would be odd to think of them as being identical and then have a question about what one minus the other would be, such a question being nonsensical, I then assume you mean by each different things. So I picture instead human society as a collection of people, seven or eight billion or so and I know that those numbers are made up of all manner of tribes.

Then I wonder about what lies behind the question as you add a later comment. That tells me I should be considering an answer to that question before sharing my feelings about what you then wonder about.

So can a non-tribal society exist and what would it look like? My answer is that I don't know. What I do think is true is that some societies are far more psychologically healthy for people than others and that the less healthy a tribal unit is the more they will not want to know it, that identity providing its members a sense of self worth and meaning, at least as I see it.

So I would guess that the less self aware a tribe of people is of it's uniqueness coupled with a lesser need to identify with it for self identification and meaning, the less self attachment to the the concept represented by tribal such people would have. It's like a fish saying to itself, how great I am because I am a water being. There is no other kind of being for most fish. Language is the process of naming and discriminating between things. Without words for ideas they do not exist.

So a tribe or a society that does not have a concept that it is different or better than others would be incapable of affording others freedom from it because there would be no bonds to break nor any awareness such bonds could exist. My opinion.

Also I would say that being a social primate, I think joy in the company of others is genetic. The reasons we need to separate ourselves from tribalism is that the tribalism we know of, our own, is sick and harms being joy. Detachment helps to break bonds that create emotional prisons and ego identification. Religions practice renunciation for this reason, I think.

Fruthermore, another implication I see in your comment is that detachment based on willing participation is historically rare which is why I think real knowledge is transmitted in secret. Whack a Mole is everywhere. The cultural landscape I think is littered with the detritus of such secret schools. A saying comes to mind. The patient may die of snakebite before the serum arrives from Iraq.

Jaskalas · May 13, 2025

Moonbeam said:
A small issue that arises when dealing with political issues....

Well you see, we ARE only human....

And we do our best to conserve energy. Which often means "finding out for ourselves" is quite rare, and instead we simply decide who to trust. Who to place our faith in.
It is a constant choice that we must make, to believe our own lying eyes... or not to. To spend the energy to judge something, or to just follow the pack we have chosen.

These forums are a sort of testament to that. If we all truly had the time and the energy, the Discussion Club may have taken off and been used. Instead we are reduced to a specter of intellectual discussion. Where it is oft just aping our own opinions on things. Right or wrong we just want to tell people where we stand. It may be shaky ground, but it is usually all we have given the time provided.

Moonbeam · May 13, 2025

Jaskalas said:
Well you see, we ARE only human....

And we do our best to conserve energy. Which often means "finding out for ourselves" is quite rare, and instead we simply decide who to trust. Who to place our faith in.
It is a constant choice that we must make, to believe our own lying eyes... or not to. To spend the energy to judge something, or to just follow the pack we have chosen.

These forums are a sort of testament to that. If we all truly had the time and the energy, the Discussion Club may have taken off and been used. Instead we are reduced to a specter of intellectual discussion. Where it is oft just aping our own opinions on things. Right or wrong we just want to tell people where we stand. It may be shaky ground, but it is usually all we have given the time provided.

You have made a number of assertions here that are not things I have any logical proof of. I call such assertions unconscious assumptions you accept as true for that reason.

When you say we are all human for sample you use the word human according an unconscious assumption that what is human nature is what it is to me. But since you have never proven to me that what you call human nature actually is human nature I have to dismiss your ideas because you know things I do not. For me human nature I used to believe I knew but I discovered that everything I believed was false in the sense I described, I could not prove my beliefs to be right. If discovered via direct experience that human nature for me was what remains of the self after a shipwreck. What is absent beliefs. I have this urge to howl at the moon and swing from trees.

All the ideas you express, all the excuses you make for how we seem to you to be are all there to prevent the onset of terror if you dropped your guard and truly relaxed.

Pontius Dilate · May 13, 2025

Moonbeam said:
You have made a number of assertions here that are not things I have any logical proof of. I call such assertions unconscious assumptions you accept as true for that reason.

You do this all the time and claim direct experience as your get out of jail free card. This does not further any conversation.

Moonbeam · May 14, 2025

Pontius Dilate said:
You do this all the time and claim direct experience as your get out of jail free card. This does not further any conversation.

Of course, since as you say, as I always make such a claim, I do so having been reminded many many times of just what you say here, but I can't recall the argument being put in terms of a get out of jail free card. That part I find interesting. It very much was a get out of jail free card for me in the sense that in a revelatory split second I went from a most agonizing and black state of hopelessness and misery to falling peacefully asleep. In a flash I knew everything or more accurately any need to know anything disappeared. state of existential suffering. I was free from prison but it cost me everything I believed. Essentially since what you lose is dangerous delusions, not only was it actually free it was also a gift. Suddenly I was rich.

But I think what you mean is that I use the claim of direct experience as if it lent some validity to my argument as far as others are concerned, like you imagine that by me saying so I imagine myself to be convincing, entitled not to engage is logical proof, something like that.

But that makes no sense to me. If I know something by direct experience those words should mean to me what they mean to you and if I am talking about a direct experience, whatever that is, that I may or may not actually have had and you definitely haven't, you won't have much idea at all of what I am talking about. I don't really have any get out of jail free card. I know you don't know what I am talking about so just how would my referring to direct experience possibly help to convince you that what I say I know is real. I don't believe anything you believe that you can't prove. In the same way I ceased to believe what I used to believe. You can't know if that's true. I can only say it is so the question is why.

The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon but if someone who has never seen the moon sees it because someone pointed, they are in for an experience enjoyed by us and our ancestors for millions of years.

That there is a different form of knowing, when the observer and the observed are one, can be seen all over the place if you have a willingness to look. Good luck!

Pontius Dilate · May 14, 2025

Moonbeam said:
Of course, since as you say, as I always make such a claim, I do so having been reminded many many times of just what you say here, but I can't recall the argument being put in terms of a get out of jail free card. That part I find interesting. It very much was a get out of jail free card for me in the sense that in a revelatory split second I went from a most agonizing and black state of hopelessness and misery to falling peacefully asleep. In a flash I knew everything or more accurately any need to know anything disappeared. state of existential suffering. I was free from prison but it cost me everything I believed. Essentially since what you lose is dangerous delusions, not only was it actually free it was also a gift. Suddenly I was rich.

But I think what you mean is that I use the claim of direct experience as if it lent some validity to my argument as far as others are concerned, like you imagine that by me saying so I imagine myself to be convincing, entitled not to engage is logical proof, something like that.

But that makes no sense to me. If I know something by direct experience those words should mean to me what they mean to you and if I am talking about a direct experience, whatever that is, that I may or may not actually have had and you definitely haven't, you won't have much idea at all of what I am talking about. I don't really have any get out of jail free card. I know you don't know what I am talking about so just how would my referring to direct experience possibly help to convince you that what I say I know is real. I don't believe anything you believe that you can't prove. In the same way I ceased to believe what I used to believe. You can't know if that's true. I can only say it is so the question is why.

The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon but if someone who has never seen the moon sees it because someone pointed, they are in for an experience enjoyed by us and our ancestors for millions of years.

That there is a different form of knowing, when the observer and the observed are one, can be seen all over the place if you have a willingness to look. Good luck!

Your reply to Jaskalas is a negation. You tell him his assertions are unaccompanied by logical proof therefore they are unconscious assumptions and thus you dismiss them. Anyone could say the same of you, that you make assertions without logical proof which can therefore be dismissed. Your way around this is to put yourself in a special category of having had a direct experience, of being possessed of a different form of knowing. You tell Jaskalas that his ideas are excuses he makes to avoid an experience.

Your response is a kind of indirect ad hominem where you tell the person their opinions are unsupported by logical proof, created unconsciously and held for reasons unknown to them but known to you, and are therefore irrelevant to you. Instead of asking questions, challenging implications, offering evidence you say, "What you say is wrong and you don't even know why you say it." It's a negation, a conversation ender, and your stock in trade.

Moonbeam · May 14, 2025

Pontius Dilate said:
Your reply to Jaskalas is a negation. You tell him his assertions are unaccompanied by logical proof therefore they are unconscious assumptions and thus you dismiss them. Anyone could say the same of you, that you make assertions without logical proof which can therefore be dismissed. Your way around this is to put yourself in a special category of having had a direct experience, of being possessed of a different form of knowing. You tell Jaskalas that his ideas are excuses he makes to avoid an experience.

Yes, I am saying this is the unenlightened human condition, true of him, true of you, true of me, and true in each of those cases but of course in my opinion, because I have experienced a different state, a state in which that truth revealed itself by ending.

I will tell you a story. In a city with many apartments built close to an elevated rail a train would come by every morning at 4:15 AM. One morning, owing to a signal outage, the train didn’t come and thousands of people sat up in bed saying, What the hell was that.”

Pontius Dilate said:
Your response is a kind of indirect ad hominem where you tell the person their opinions are unsupported by logical proof, created unconsciously and held for reasons unknown to them but known to you, and are therefore irrelevant to you.

Not exactly correct. Everything you say I do is not an attack, but will feel like an attack when I tell you this is the unenlightened human condition. Our condition is that we can’t be reached by truth because that truth offends our ego. Why, because we were painfully humiliated long ago and had to deny feeling that bad to survive. We do not want to feel what we really do feel and thereby keep ourselves sick.

Furthermore, there is no way to prove to people anything they do not for any reason want to believe. You can’t tell a conservative how victim mentality the state he or she lives in, why would you or I be different? They will rationalize away any facts that reveal their hypocrisy, why would we do differently. Nobody wants to see this.

Pontius Dilate said:
Instead of asking questions, challenging implications, offering evidence you say, "What you say is wrong and you don't even know why you say it." It's a negation, a conversation ender, and your stock in trade.

And if the human condition is a negation of reality and what I say is real, what then? Won’t it be you who ends the conversation?

If we don’t know what we feel, don’t want to know, and don’t want to know we don’t want to know and what we feel is self hate, would that not be a prison maintained by this blindness to fact, a fact that will never be a fact because we unconsciously avoid it?

Imagine that someone you wish you could help out of sympathy for the fact they have this horribly cruel and unmerciful enemy you cant protect them from because that enemy is themselves, what will you do? Are they not going to really get upset to be told they need to see who their real enemy is rather than its projection if they wish to be free from torture? What if that torture is there because it is believed to be deserved and everything the person believes is designed to justify that feeling? I reject such belief coming from you. You can’t prove to me you are worthless. That’s only true of me.

Pontius Dilate · May 14, 2025

Moonbeam said:
Yes, I am saying this is the unenlightened human condition, true of him, true of you, true of me, and true in each of those cases but of course in my opinion, because I have experienced a different state, a state in which that truth revealed itself by ending.

Yes, I know.

Moonbeam said:
Not exactly correct. Everything you say I do is not an attack, but will feel like an attack when I tell you this is the unenlightened human condition. Our condition is that we can’t be reached by truth because that truth offends our ego. Why, because we were painfully humiliated long ago and had to deny feeling that bad to survive. We do not want to feel what we really do feel and thereby keep ourselves sick.

It is correct, you address the person instead of what they say, because what they say is irrelevant to you.

Moonbeam said:
Furthermore, there is no way to prove to people anything they do not for any reason want to believe. You can’t tell a conservative how victim mentality the state he or she lives in, why would you or I be different? They will rationalize away any facts that reveal their hypocrisy, why would we do differently. Nobody wants to see this.

There are other reasons to participate in this forum than to try to prove things to people, but ultimately if no one is capable of accepting and evaluating new information, or old information restated, there's no purpose in any discourse whatsoever. We're all just writing disconnected blogs.

Moonbeam said:
And if the human condition is a negation of reality and what I say is real, what then? Won’t it be you who ends the conversation?

The human condition being a negation of reality doesn't follow from anything that was said, it's a non sequitur. What you say is of course real to you. If your only response is to tell me what I say comes from unconscious assumptions, is unknown to you, does not come with a logical proof and thus you dismiss it, how am I to continue the conversation? What could I possibly say that you would deign to admit as worthy of your consideration?

Moonbeam said:
If we don’t know what we feel, don’t want to know, and don’t want to know we don’t want to know and what we feel is self hate, would that not be a prison maintained by this blindness to fact, a fact that will never be a fact because we unconsciously avoid it?

Imagine that someone you wish you could help out of sympathy for the fact they have this horribly cruel and unmerciful enemy you cant protect them from because that enemy is themselves, what will you do? Are they not going to really get upset to be told they need to see who their real enemy is rather than its projection if they wish to be free from torture? What if that torture is there because it is believed to be deserved and everything the person believes is designed to justify that feeling? I reject such belief coming from you. You can’t prove to me you are worthless. That’s only true of me.

You need not reject such a belief from me for it is not a belief I hold and would not offer to prove. I appreciate you creating this little strawman of me to tell you what I believe so that you may reject it in kindness and self-deprecation.

Moonbeam · May 15, 2025

Pontius Dilate said:
Yes, I know.

Let me try a different angle. Do you think what I believe is regarded by many to be a most profound scientific discovery by Sigmund Freud that of the existence of unconscious motivations is scientifically valid. Do you believe as a result of that being scientifically valid that people can tick this or that way without conscious awareness they are driven by unconscious feelings. If you do look at what I have said in that light and if you do not then what is there to say. Anybody who has undergone psychoanalysis and experienced psychological healing by bring what is dark into light will know that opinion is wrong.

And how would they know? Do you know when you are feeling well and when you feel sick?

There are two ways I can think of not to know you are sick, anesthesia and amnesia.

Psychoanalysis is a methodology or process by which one can get in touch with what a person really feels. A deep dive will lead to the discovery of self hate and traumatic experiences that required we buy into such nonsense.

Just imagine somebody figures out that people are unconsciously motivated by feelings they don’t know they are feeling and it’s considered revolutionary discovery but for some strange reason few give it much thought today. Is that true of you?

Have you ever considered that if people hated themselves and didn’t know it, how badly they would screw up the world?

Have you considered anything I have said worthy of consideration? Pleas know I am not looking for that. I am saying that what I see as truth means that you have to feel disrespected when you hear it. It’s always the messenger who gets shot for bad news even though the bad news is that we are on a path to extinction and all because of denial of what we really feel.

You may or may not answer. That is ok either way, but if you do reply I would like your opinion of the concepts I mentioned regarding psychoanalysis. Is the unconscious a real thing or not, could you be unaware that you may be motivated by feelings you are unaware you feel?

Pontius Dilate · May 15, 2025

Moonbeam said:
Let me try a different angle. Do you think what I believe is regarded by many to be a most profound scientific discovery by Sigmund Freud that of the existence of unconscious motivations is scientifically valid. Do you believe as a result of that being scientifically valid that people can tick this or that way without conscious awareness they are driven by unconscious feelings. If you do look at what I have said in that light and if you do not then what is there to say. Anybody who has undergone psychoanalysis and experienced psychological healing by bring what is dark into light will know that opinion is wrong.

And how would they know? Do you know when you are feeling well and when you feel sick?

There are two ways I can think of not to know you are sick, anesthesia and amnesia.

Psychoanalysis is a methodology or process by which one can get in touch with what a person really feels. A deep dive will lead to the discovery of self hate and traumatic experiences that required we buy into such nonsense.

Just imagine somebody figures out that people are unconsciously motivated by feelings they don’t know they are feeling and it’s considered revolutionary discovery but for some strange reason few give it much thought today. Is that true of you?

Have you ever considered that if people hated themselves and didn’t know it, how badly they would screw up the world?

Have you considered anything I have said worthy of consideration? Pleas know I am not looking for that. I am saying that what I see as truth means that you have to feel disrespected when you hear it. It’s always the messenger who gets shot for bad news even though the bad news is that we are on a path to extinction and all because of denial of what we really feel.

You may or may not answer. That is ok either way, but if you do reply I would like your opinion of the concepts I mentioned regarding psychoanalysis. Is the unconscious a real thing or not, could you be unaware that you may be motivated by feelings you are unaware you feel?

Yes, I am familiar with psychoanalysis, I do believe that Freud's observations of unconscious motivations leading to unhealthy behavior is valid. I have experienced psychoanalysis as well as other therapeutic methods such as CBT and EMDR. I have experienced psychological trauma and psychological healing. I have suffered from depression my entire adult life. I have spent years exploring the pathways of my mind both with and without therapeutic assistance, uncovering the whys and wherefores of my feelings and behavior.

What I object to is your use of this to shut people down, to implicitly assume that they don't understand their own motivations in order to completely disregard what they say. You have posted effectively the same thing thousands of times on this forum. You don't know what I know, you haven't lived my experiences, or Jaskalas's, or anyone else's. You're welcome to respond with, "Hey, I'm happy for you, and imma let you finish, but you don't know what you're talking about because you don't know yourself. Here's the good news though, I'm here to help show you the light!" but it literally doesn't go anywhere.

So in the main I don't have any issue with your core concepts. I object to how you use them as a rhetorical tool. It's like being in the proximity of a black hole. Inevitably, and much sooner rather than later, one gets pulled directly to your singularity. Time and space no longer have any meaning, we just radiate away into nothing as all information is lost.

Moonbeam · May 15, 2025

Pontius Dilate said:
Yes, I am familiar with psychoanalysis, I do believe that Freud's observations of unconscious motivations leading to unhealthy behavior is valid. I have experienced psychoanalysis as well as other therapeutic methods such as CBT and EMDR. I have experienced psychological trauma and psychological healing. I have suffered from depression my entire adult life. I have spent years exploring the pathways of my mind both with and without therapeutic assistance, uncovering the whys and wherefores of my feelings and behavior.

So then you are aware that the whys and the wherefores are derived from experiences that left you hating yourself? That self hate is they key to everything? I began with this:

"Political beliefs are a form of self identification and by self we can infer ego. Having the right political beliefs makes you better than someone who has wrong ideas. Behind every political person, therefore, there is a political belief and a motivation to believe it is correct.

And therein lies the problem. Everything that anybody believes by virtue of being a belief is false if it can't be logically proven. This is fundamental logic but because of that ego identification and the need to be right nobody will see that nor will they get very far in logically disproving this."

What you have done in my opinion is tell me your story as you think it to be and I am saying that what you feel is what really determines your reality and not what you believe, the stories you tell yourself about who you are. The two, what you feel and what you believe to be true can be different things. I suggest further that people resent being told that because the difference between what we feel and what we believe are motivated by the second being there to deny the first. My interest is 'is what I just said here the truth?'.

Pontius Dilate said:
What I object to is your use of this to shut people down, to implicitly assume that they don't understand their own motivations in order to completely disregard what they say. You have posted effectively the same thing thousands of times on this forum. You don't know what I know, you haven't lived my experiences, or Jaskalas's, or anyone else's. You're welcome to respond with, "Hey, I'm happy for you, and imma let you finish, but you don't know what you're talking about because you don't know yourself.

The next thing I said was:

"This is a taboo subject that will produce hatred to anybody who speaks of it. Are you mad yet?"

The question to me isn't that you object. I knew that coming in. It's pretty universal in my opinion. The question for me is is why you object, why do I feel just like you do. My answer is that you are projecting on me the fact that you have been disrespected, that you were made to eat your feelings and never express them, that there is a division within you that creates loneliness and longing and misery and that life is the misery it is because we have to contain all that rage or be flushed down the tubes.

Pontius Dilate said:
Here's the good news though, I'm here to help show you the light!" but it literally doesn't go anywhere.

This makes me laugh in a good way. I hear a sense of humor and then a statement of universal truth.

Pontius Dilate said:
So in the main I don't have any issue with your core concepts. I object to how you use them as a rhetorical tool. It's like being in the proximity of a black hole. Inevitably, and much sooner rather than later, one gets pulled directly to your singularity. Time and space no longer have any meaning, we just radiate away into nothing as all information is lost.

Self hate is a black hole, a catch 22. All truth about how we really feel will disappear into one. And yet here and there people do escape. I could be wrong. What do you think?

I am not a person of faith but I belief those with sufficient faith that life is good step right over their self hate and produce allegories of truth like this:

(A Psalm of David.) The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Pontius Dilate · May 15, 2025

Moonbeam said:
So then you are aware that the whys and the wherefores are derived from experiences that left you hating yourself? That self hate is they key to everything? I began with this:

I am aware you believe self hate to be the key to everything. It is a profoundly tiny foundation on which to build a universal theory of human consciousness.

Moonbeam said:
"Political beliefs are a form of self identification and by self we can infer ego. Having the right political beliefs makes you better than someone who has wrong ideas. Behind every political person, therefore, there is a political belief and a motivation to believe it is correct.

And therein lies the problem. Everything that anybody believes by virtue of being a belief is false if it can't be logically proven. This is fundamental logic but because of that ego identification and the need to be right nobody will see that nor will they get very far in logically disproving this."

A series of simplistic unsupported assertions followed by a false statement. If I believe something that cannot be logically proven, it does not mean that it's false. It means it cannot be logically proven.

Moonbeam said:
What you have done in my opinion is tell me your story as you think it to be and I am saying that what you feel is what really determines your reality and not what you believe, the stories you tell yourself about who you are. The two, what you feel and what you believe to be true can be different things. I suggest further that people resent being told that because the difference between what we feel and what we believe are motivated by the second being there to deny the first. My interest is 'is what I just said here the truth?'.

I agree that the beliefs one holds about oneself, or professes to hold, and one's feelings are different things and can be potentially contradictory. You seem to be suggesting my beliefs and my feelings are not in harmony. If so, how do you know this? Can you prove it logically?

Moonbeam said:
The question to me isn't that you object. I knew that coming in. It's pretty universal in my opinion. The question for me is is why you object, why do I feel just like you do. My answer is that you are projecting on me the fact that you have been disrespected, that you were made to eat your feelings and never express them, that there is a division within you that creates loneliness and longing and misery and that life is the misery it is because we have to contain all that rage or be flushed down the tubes.

Here you are psychoanalyzing me based on 100 posts on this forum at the maximum. You do not lack confidence! But you will forgive me if I do not accept your assessment.

Moonbeam said:
Self hate is a black hole, a catch 22. All truth about how we really feel will disappear into one. And yet here and there people do escape. I could be wrong. What do you think?

I am not a person of faith but I belief those with sufficient faith that life is good step right over their self hate and produce allegories of truth like this:

Human consciousness exists in a continuum, not in a binary state. That is a beautiful psalm, thank you for posting that.

Moonbeam · May 15, 2025

Pontius Dilate said:
I am aware you believe self hate to be the key to everything. It is a profoundly tiny foundation on which to build a universal theory of human consciousness.

Naturally this is an opinion that differs from mine. I believe there are many states of consciousness from fully conscious to sound asleep and that the degree to which a person sleeps is based on how afraid he or she is of what they will remember if their self awareness were to increase. The fear I believe is of feeling again what we as awake children, having not yet gone to sleep, having been put down for being real, unable to hide our needs from people who felt so bad about themselves that our needs only told them they were failures as parents.

At root then this oh so simple notion what we hate ourselves and transmit it to the next generation accounts for the phemonenon of mental illness and its essential universality. Can you offer a better explanation? How about why a simple thing because nobody wants to see it could in fact be the cause of human mental misery beyond the inevitable pain of corporal existence.

Pontius Dilate said:
A series of simplistic unsupported assertions followed by a false statement. If I believe something that cannot be logically proven, it does not mean that it's false. It means it cannot be logically proven.

I think we are talking about an age old problem. When different people have widely convergent theories of reality, how does a third party distinguish real from false or gradations. In the Bible, again not a religious orthodox person here, it says we shall know hem by their fruits. Perhaps also it comes down to a matter of seriousness and need. A dying man might drink water others would describe as dangerous. That happened to me. I wasn’t just depressed, I was disfunctionally miserable. That disappeared in a flash and never came back leaving me with but a momentary flash of comprehension but enough to never again suffer existential misery. And it also left me with a feeling I could recognize remarkable men. Just saying. Not trying to convince you of anything here.

Pontius Dilate said:
I agree that the beliefs one holds about oneself, or professes to hold, and one's feelings are different things and can be potentially contradictory. You seem to be suggesting my beliefs and my feelings are not in harmony. If so, how do you know this? Can you prove it logically?

Of course not. I am saying consider the possibility openly. How would you ever see otherwise than as you do if you believe you already know something you actually may not. I not saying I know and you don’t. For me what I call knowledge is the lack of certainty, knowing you don’t know and then knowing that those who do claim to know don’t know either. Only the humble, the meek are open to knew information. This is again what is meant, I think by, least you be a little child ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. I understand how conceited it sounds to say this.

Pontius Dilate said:
Here you are psychoanalyzing me based on 100 posts on this forum at the maximum. You do not lack confidence! But you will forgive me if I do not accept your assessment.

That is perfectly fine with me. You have done well in my opinion allowing us a chance to share opinions. I think what I know is of profound value and all of it was from exposure to those I found in my life for reasons I can’t fathom, to have been remarkable people. I can never be grateful enough.

Pontius Dilate said:
Human consciousness exists in a continuum, not in a binary state. That is a beautiful psalm, thank you for posting that.

This I do not agree with. There is a binary truth, asleep or awake and a continuum of different kinde is sleep. I believe that awakening ends thought and fear and time, a supernova event in which love explodes from within when his presence, deeply hidden, rust forth as love and light where the lover and the beloved are one. It is all so very simple.

woolfe9998 · May 15, 2025

HomerJS said:
Sounds like you are defending the end of education. After all if people think the world if flat you will never convince them otherwise

Education is the answer, or at least, it would have been before we became irrevocably screwed.

My take on what the OP is discussing is this.

These are repetitive cognitive errors that humans make. What I mean by cognitive error is forming a belief that does not accord with objective reality. These errors happen less because of limitations of intelligence and more because most humans are unable to prevent their emotions from corrupting their reasoning, leading to desired conclusions rather than correct ones. These emotions emerge from instinct. So, for example, tribalism, meaning to identify with an in-group and hate or fear an out group, is instinctive.

Examples of cognitive errors produced by overinvestment in this instinct are too numerous to discuss, but we can use the blaming of the Jews for the Black Death of the 14th century, resulting in pogroms all over Europe and the expulsion of the Jews from England. It's tribalism - the Jews were blamed because they had a different set of religious beliefs and were an out group; causing a cognitive error - the Jews didn't really cause the Black Death as there never was any evidence adduced. And importantly, the error produced concrete actions - expulsions and killings.

For more concrete actions taken as a result of repetitive cognitive errors, just see the results of the American presidential elections in 2016 and 2024. Because it's instinct, humans haven't changed. Nor was it ever any different in between or before these events. In all human history, the majority of humans have been made to believe anything those manipulating them wanted them to believe.

One thing is different today though, but only by degrees: education. In medieval Europe everyone but aristocracy and clergy, most of whom were aristocracy, was uneducated. Mostly illiterate. One thing you lack when uneducated is knowledge, so the common man might have known what was already known by the educated by 1350, that the plague came from the far east and hence could not have been created by the Jews because there weren't any in what is present day China. But it also confers a desire to acquire more knowledge, then to use one's own brain to form correct conclusions instead just believing whatever the fat bastard on television said just because he doesn't like the same people you don't like.

Education doesn't immunize the individual from these errors, but it helps a lot. Just look at the re-sorting of the electorate in the Trump era, where uneducated dems migrated to Trump while educated reps migrated to dems.

We are in a war on ignorance, and the educated are losing right now in part because there aren't enough of us.

Jaskalas · May 16, 2025

HomerJS said:
Sounds like you are defending the end of education. After all if people think the world if flat you will never convince them otherwise

I happened to miss this comment earlier....
For its meaning could be directed towards my dour musings of late.

I think the difference is, education has a time and a place. We always need it, but we may not always be capable of receiving.
It'd be like invading Iraq and pretending we could give them peace and democracy. Instead we gave them ISIS.
Granted, I don't really know how well they are hanging in there these days. Was it worth it in the end?

Okay... education in Afghanistan then. We tried to install a Government. Human rights. We failed.
I posit that education first requires subjugation. A common foundation upon which to form or force an understanding.

Free speech alone is not enough. You say the world is round, flat earthers deny reality. Now we currently have an overwhelming majority over them... but backslides do occur. Americans used to believe in vaccines. We are capable of rapidly losing our grasp on science and education. On an objective reality in a fascist state hell bent on appeasing a fucking madman. Where media drives propaganda and social media is nothing more than the monster screaming loudest.

Democracy needs education, but education also needs a healthy and stable Democracy. To find a people who still value it.
The problem with political issues and political speech these days, is that our people share no common objective reality.
We have lost that, and now the Emperor will come for us all soon enough.

Moonbeam · May 16, 2025

Jaskalas said:
I happened to miss this comment earlier....
For its meaning could be directed towards my dour musings of late.

I think the difference is, education has a time and a place. We always need it, but we may not always be capable of receiving.
It'd be like invading Iraq and pretending we could give them peace and democracy. Instead we gave them ISIS.
Granted, I don't really know how well they are hanging in there these days. Was it worth it in the end?

Okay... education in Afghanistan then. We tried to install a Government. Human rights. We failed.
I posit that education first requires subjugation. A common foundation upon which to form or force an understanding.

Free speech alone is not enough. You say the world is round, flat earthers deny reality. Now we currently have an overwhelming majority over them... but backslides do occur. Americans used to believe in vaccines. We are capable of rapidly losing our grasp on science and education. On an objective reality in a fascist state hell bent on appeasing a fucking madman. Where media drives propaganda and social media is nothing more than the monster screaming loudest.

Democracy needs education, but education also needs a healthy and stable Democracy. To find a people who still value it.
The problem with political issues and political speech these days, is that our people share no common objective reality.
We have lost that, and now the Emperor will come for us all soon enough.

Imagine you went through a fascist dictatorship and a concentration camp as a child and suppressed all memory of it to survive by feeling that you really deserved it, do you think you wouldn't tend to project that fear at the drop of a hat as anxiety about tomorrow? It would also be hard to answer that question if you don't know what you really feel. But if anything like that were true than your fears would be such a needless waste. You had to have acquired an antipathy toward fascism from somewhere to feel empathy for those who have to endure it.

Pontius Dilate · May 16, 2025

Moonbeam said:
Naturally this is an opinion that differs from mine. I believe there are many states of consciousness from fully conscious to sound asleep and that the degree to which a person sleeps is based on how afraid he or she is of what they will remember if their self awareness were to increase. The fear I believe is of feeling again what we as awake children, having not yet gone to sleep, having been put down for being real, unable to hide our needs from people who felt so bad about themselves that our needs only told them they were failures as parents.

At root then this oh so simple notion what we hate ourselves and transmit it to the next generation accounts for the phemonenon of mental illness and its essential universality. Can you offer a better explanation? How about why a simple thing because nobody wants to see it could in fact be the cause of human mental misery beyond the inevitable pain of corporal existence.

Circling back to the beginning of our conversation, my point is that you use all of this to respond to someone, "Your words come from an unconscious place inside yourself of which you are not even aware, therefore I dismiss them." I just wish you could see how unproductive and frankly disrespectful this is.

Moonbeam said:
Of course not. I am saying consider the possibility openly. How would you ever see otherwise than as you do if you believe you already know something you actually may not. I not saying I know and you don’t. For me what I call knowledge is the lack of certainty, knowing you don’t know and then knowing that those who do claim to know don’t know either. Only the humble, the meek are open to knew information. This is again what is meant, I think by, least you be a little child ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. I understand how conceited it sounds to say this.

I do consider the possibility, I always have and I always will. I am not a certain person. I question everything, including my feelings, my beliefs, my assumptions.

On this topic, you are the most certain person of whom I am aware. You are so certain you feel at ease to repeatedly tell people they don't know themselves, that they aren't truly aware of the beliefs and assumptions underpinning what they say, that they are sick and asleep. Your certainty in this realm appears to be absolute and unshakable. Perhaps you are even correct, that the psychological foundation of all people everywhere is self hate brought on by being put down as a child. Perhaps it is that simple.

On the other hand, perhaps not. Perhaps there is a broader scope of human physiology and experiences that provide the foundation of our consciousness, of which self hate is but a small part and not the primary factor for everyone. Perhaps it would be more productive, regardless of your certainty, to give people the benefit of the doubt in this realm, to start from the assumption that they are engaging in good faith and honesty until evidence suggests otherwise.

Moonbeam · May 16, 2025

Pontius Dilate said:
Circling back to the beginning of our conversation, my point is that you use all of this to respond to someone, "Your words come from an unconscious place inside yourself of which you are not even aware, therefore I dismiss them." I just wish you could see how unproductive and frankly disrespectful this is.

I thank you for expressing these feelings about the effect of my approach. I think what you say is both honest and factual but I am hoping quite misunderstood. Let me try to express what I said while describing the context in which said that originally.

You express later in this post that on this subject I am anything but doubtful that self hate is the hidden puppet master pulling the strings of our actions and rationalizations to maintain that dependent relationship. Keeping that in mind what do you think I hear when someone dismisses all of this as unreal.

I hear people demanding I give credit to the rationalizations produced by their self hate, a plea to buy into those delusions, to say yes your self hate is a good thing and you should stick with it. Not going to happen where I am conscious enough to not fall into that enabler trap.

I know it’s really unpleasant to consider we hate ourselves but that isn’t all I say. I sai that’s the bad news. The good news is there is nothing really wrong with except for that belief which is actually a lie. So what I so rudely dismiss in others is buying into those lies. It naturally offensive because the puppet master will hear it as a threat and dismiss the dismissal in the way it came into existence as a child by being put down.

I am aware that is going to happen. Self hate is a catch 22. The one thing we need to understand is that we have a problem with self hate but we won’t look there because we already feel we are worthless. The damage is done and as children we could not escape. We can now.

Pontius Dilate said:
I do consider the possibility, I always have and I always will. I am not a certain person. I question everything, including my feelings, my beliefs, my assumptions.

What happened to me when I did that was the loss of faith in everything I held sacred, the loss of any sense that life was worth living, that it had meaning, that good and evil, the difference couldn’t matter less, endless and inescapable blackness and hopeless depression, all of which disappears in a flash of realization.

Pontius Dilate said:
On this topic, you are the most certain person of whom I am aware. You are so certain you feel at ease to repeatedly tell people they don't know themselves, that they aren't truly aware of the beliefs and assumptions underpinning what they say, that they are sick and asleep. Your certainty in this realm appears to be absolute and unshakable.

But of what am I certain. What I am certain about is that the sacred cows I so treasured that gave meaning to my ego, these unexamined and assumedly correct piles of bullshit I was fed as a part of our Western culture insane asylum that has conditioned my thinking were in fact a mental prison. And why am I sure? I would say that it isn’t logic or belief that tells you that one psychological state is better than another just as holding hands with a lover isn’t the same as sticking your hand in a fire. That I was abjectly miserable to absolutely at pease is a single second, left quite a bit of sense as to which was the better place.

And since all of that experience would not have been possible without the failed attempt to logically prove the garbage I believed in, to be unable owing to some strange compulsion never to lie, to see it was a lie, when I hear others say they know things I hear belief like those I failed to prove. I do not know what others believe they do because I do not have that faith, but I do know which condition leads to what place, heaven or hell as allegory for psychological states.

Pontius Dilate said:
Perhaps you are even correct, that the psychological foundation of all people everywhere is self hate brought on by being put down as a child. Perhaps it is that simple.

I recommend this for continued consideration especially the part about it actually being a lie.

Pontius Dilate said:
On the other hand, perhaps not. Perhaps there is a broader scope of human physiology and experiences that provide the foundation of our consciousness, of which self hate is but a small part and not the primary factor for everyone. Perhaps it would be more productive, regardless of your certainty, to give people the benefit of the doubt in this realm, to start from the assumption that they are engaging in good faith and honesty until evidence suggests otherwise.

I start with the certainty that there is a state of conscious awareness that is called many things and I will call the joy of being and is the birthright of every human being.

Pontius Dilate · May 17, 2025

Moonbeam said:
You express later in this post that on this subject I am anything but doubtful that self hate is the hidden puppet master pulling the strings of our actions and rationalizations to maintain that dependent relationship. Keeping that in mind what do you think I hear when someone dismisses all of this as unreal.

I hear people demanding I give credit to the rationalizations produced by their self hate, a plea to buy into those delusions, to say yes your self hate is a good thing and you should stick with it. Not going to happen where I am conscious enough to not fall into that enabler trap.

I know it’s really unpleasant to consider we hate ourselves but that isn’t all I say. I sai that’s the bad news. The good news is there is nothing really wrong with except for that belief which is actually a lie. So what I so rudely dismiss in others is buying into those lies. It naturally offensive because the puppet master will hear it as a threat and dismiss the dismissal in the way it came into existence as a child by being put down.

I am aware that is going to happen. Self hate is a catch 22. The one thing we need to understand is that we have a problem with self hate but we won’t look there because we already feel we are worthless. The damage is done and as children we could not escape. We can now.

I think this is a crucial insight. You hear a response with a disagreeable opinion as a negation of you. You read Jaskalas's post and concluded that they were directly dismissing your ideas, which is tantamount to demanding that you accept what they say is true when you know it to be false. To me he was just responding with his opinion like others did. You made his post about you. This is what I meant about giving people the benefit of the doubt, starting from an assumption of good faith. It's possible you already have a history with Jaskalas and have concluded that when he responds he is always fundamentally attacking you, I don't know. I don't think so because you have responded this way with many forum members in many different contexts. I am certain you periodically get dismissive responses. I've responded dismissively towards you. I really believe Jaskalas was sharing their opinion. I ask you to consider whether you are the one who is making it about you rather than the respondent.

A small issue that arises when dealing with political issues.....

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