also, economics imagine someone has a GREAT point of view. It would really help me, a ton. They try to explain it to me. It sounds crazy. I say "this sounds crazy". They say "trust me - after 200 hours of listening, you'll get it". I - w no proof of utility - say "no"
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Replying to @MorlockP @random_eddie
this could be called a market failure perhaps there should be some contract / instrument that makes evangelization a paying enterprise. Guy finds a fiscal backer, signs him up, gets me to sign "I will listen for 200 hours...for $20,000" contract. He pays me, I listen >>>
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Replying to @MorlockP @random_eddie
at end I AM convinced, and clause 2 of the contract is invoked "if I agree that this is great and has > $40,000 of utility, I will pay back the $20,000 I received, plus another $5k". Short of that, truths with high bar to entrance will be underdelivered, no?
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Replying to @MorlockP
You're treating as abstract a comment that I meant very concretely. I was talking specifically about various claims regarding meditation, enlightenment, and certain aspects of Eastern philosophy / religious traditions.
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Replying to @MorlockP
Okay, fair enough. Some people say that enlightenment can't be explained. ("GET OUT OF THE CAR!") I respond that one of these two is true: a) "It can't be explained BY YOU. But it could be explained." or b) "That's not enlightenment. It's just bullshit."
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Replying to @random_eddie
We're on the same page. 99% I tend to think that it's almost always BS. ...but I'm open to the idea that "can't" means "usually isn't", and that there are some things that human brains can't learn via words but only by practice.
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Replying to @MorlockP
I'll go a step further, and absolutely agree that one cannot experience "what it's like" without actually experiencing it. And that there are aspects of experience that are important and which cannot be conveyed. But people conflate this with being unable to "understand" it.
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Replying to @random_eddie @MorlockP
You can't get a blind person to see by telling them what it's like. But you can help them to understand what vision is.
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Replying to @random_eddie
I've met a Buddhist initiate (friend of
@maradydd's) who used to be a coder. His brain worked the way mine did, and he was able to explain, sperg to sperg, some of what he found of value in that path. 5 min w him >>> 10 hours reading hippie crap1 reply 1 retweet 3 likes
as far as I can recall / correctly interpret, his stance was something like: (a) relief of anxiety and worry (b) creation of a NEW utility function g() where g(x) > f(x) for most inputs life will throw at you
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That sounds like a reasonable mapping to many of the descriptions I've read of what to expect from "enlightenment" and/or some of the practices intended to lead to it.
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There's also the translation problem. Time spent with a quality translation of a yogic text also >> hippies trying to explain it who map Western concepts onto the teaching in the process.
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