Author Topic: Psychological Benefits of Disillusionment  (Read 1060 times)

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Nation of One

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Psychological Benefits of Disillusionment
« on: April 12, 2017, 10:55:28 pm »
Do you think there may be benefits to experiencing devastating disillusionment?

I mean, once the initial shock fades, our we not better off having overcome an illusion or delusion, even if that delusion or self-deception was gratifying to the ego?

I really think this experiment involving studying fundamentals is having some unintended consequences that may enable me to be less critical of myself.

Did I expect everything to come easy to me?  Am I surprised to discover that I actually have to THINK?  God forbid I should have to struggle to think!

Maybe we are wired similarly in that we experience moments of self-loathing.

I suppose each of us struggles with our own personal set of demons.
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

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forthebirds

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Re: Psychological Benefits of Disillusionment
« Reply #1 on: July 16, 2017, 11:47:00 pm »
It kind of reminds me of this scene I saw in one of the newer Indiana Jones movies. If you haven't seen it, here comes a spoiler (or what I can remember of it): the villain of the movie ends up coming into contact with what I believe are aliens. they have the power to basically give her all of their knowledge. She demands to know everything, and they grant her wish. During the process, she can't handle whatever thoughts are going into her mind. She doesn't want it anymore, but it's too late. She dies.

This is the price of truth. It's the price of breaking all of the glass in the house of mirrors. Lift the veil and you might see either a terrifying blackness or a blinding white. When I was reading books on what most people called at that time, "conspiracy theories" - shadow governments, extraterrestrials, other dimensions, etc., it was a sort of horrible experience. My mind was clouded, and I felt like I was high and depressed, and in a dream -state for many days. I remember telling someone that I felt like the world lost all color. That was around the time that many friends vanished. I consider myself lucky to have been able to stomach a lot of it while keeping what I see as my original self still in tact. But still, things like this, even just being able to look at the world with enough sense or gut feeling to say, "something is not right here" can greatly alter one's perspective - so much that it gets to a point when sometimes it becomes very difficult to converse with most people. Fortunately, I still have vices that I can use as tools to interact with society at times ;P

forthebirds

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Re: Psychological Benefits of Disillusionment
« Reply #2 on: July 16, 2017, 11:48:05 pm »
found the clip:


Holden

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Re: Psychological Benefits of Disillusionment
« Reply #3 on: July 17, 2017, 01:06:22 pm »
Forthebirds,
I have experienced similar state of mind too.I find the confusion very disturbing.
You are right in that our minds are not properly  equipped to understand the "reality" per se.
All we can ever have is a version of reality.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

forthebirds

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Re: Psychological Benefits of Disillusionment
« Reply #4 on: July 17, 2017, 01:58:44 pm »
Well look at it like this: can you teach a dog astronomy? Engineering? Or even cooking? It seems that their brains are only capable of understanding a few simple thoughts, mostly instinctual, and commands, only with training (does this not sounds like most of humanity today?). We could be in a similar position, with more intelligent beings looking down on us, saying, "You have no idea what else is out there. You don't even have the ability to understand it." It can give a lot of weight to the expression, "beyond imagination." Imagination, as far as it can expand, is still greatly limited by our understanding and experience. Do not believe me? Try to imagine a color that does not exist.
« Last Edit: July 17, 2017, 02:00:31 pm by forthebirds »

Holden

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Re: Psychological Benefits of Disillusionment
« Reply #5 on: July 18, 2017, 10:38:11 am »
I agree with you.The raw material that is given to our senses is subjective in nature ,which means ,that there might be no ground for the world independent of the subject that perceives the world:everything we perceive might be an illusion.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

forthebirds

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Re: Psychological Benefits of Disillusionment
« Reply #6 on: July 19, 2017, 02:50:05 pm »
What's real? That's up to whoever's consciousness is more powerful.



Yes, none of it is real. But at the same time, we make it "real."

Holden

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To Forthebirds
« Reply #7 on: July 20, 2017, 01:11:22 pm »
Forthebirds,thanks for your response.

I suggest that much of what we consider to be reality is shaped by the perceiving mind. The mind does not passively receive information provided by the senses. Rather, it actively shapes and makes sense of that information. If all the events in our experience take place in time, that is because our mind arranges sensory experience in a temporal progression, and if we perceive that some events cause other events, that is because our mind makes sense of events in terms of cause and effect. A person wearing blue-tinted sunglasses sees everything in a bluish light: the mind wears unremovable time-tinted and causation-tinted sunglasses, so that all our experience necessarily takes place in time and obeys the laws of causation.
Time and space are pure intuitions of our faculty of sensibility, and concepts of physics such as causation and inertia are pure intuitions of our faculty of understanding. Sensory experience only makes sense because our faculty of sensibility processes it, organizing it according to our intuitions . Events that take place in space and time would still be a meaningless jumble if it were not for our faculty of understanding, which organizes experience according to the concepts, like causation.
If time and space, among other things, are constructs of the mind, we might wonder what is actually “out there,” independent of our minds.  We cannot know for certain. Our senses react to stimuli that come from outside the mind, but we only have knowledge of how they appear to us once they have been processed by our faculties .We can have no certain knowledge about their nature.

By the way,I have been meaning to ask you this:what are your thoughts on procreation?
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

forthebirds

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Re: Psychological Benefits of Disillusionment
« Reply #8 on: July 20, 2017, 02:42:21 pm »
Yes, it's hard to grasp but I agree with what you are saying. It's like our brains are still trying to understand what the Big Bang did. Once there was nothing, and in a boom, there was motion, chain of events, relativity -
 something being here and something being there. And to "see" it, we made the concept of time.

To decode
We encode

Thoughts on procreation? On making babies? I see it as another statement of Godhood. Man can paint a picture, write a book, and also create another man. Copy/paste, copy/paste. Duplicate DNA. It's creation and recreation.

It is as man walks the world saying that we humans are powerless to shape our lives, yet humanity is doing even more than shaping, it is creating life all of the time. We poor, unknowingly powerful souls. Wake up!

Holden

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Re: Psychological Benefits of Disillusionment
« Reply #9 on: July 21, 2017, 08:44:28 pm »
If having one child is re/creation,having each additional child is likewise a re/creation and not something to be viewed as economically burdensome or unaffordable. When a couple seeks to control family size via birth control they are thus "rejecting God's blessings" he might otherwise give and possibly breaking his commandment to "be fruitful and multiply".

Is that what you are implying?
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

Nation of One

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Re: Psychological Benefits of Disillusionment
« Reply #10 on: July 21, 2017, 10:02:25 pm »
Quote from: forthebirds
It is as [though] man walks the world saying that we humans are powerless to shape our lives, yet humanity is doing even more than shaping, it is creating life all of the time. We poor, unknowingly powerful souls. Wake up!

Forthebirds,

I write the following with the utmost self-restraint as I have been irritable over the past several days and I do not want to misdirect my inner frustrations.  I think your estimation of humanity's "power" may be naive and somewhat delusional.  Man has a difficult time walking to the corner store for a six-pack of beer, and a great many crystal-meth snorting alpha-males bring children into the world then take morbid delight in having someone at their mercy, someone to torment.

Anyway, the other computer is finished compiling xorg-x11, so it beckons me to get back to work.  I have become a slave to just getting systems up and running, "copying and pasting" commands to unpack and compile thousands of lines of code that are beyond my comprehension.

While there is a certain delight in being involved in this process, it certainly does not make me feel very powerful. 

Anyway, as I said, I have been quite irritable and obsessed with technical stuff I would rather not discuss here.  You see, I don't want to pollute this site with technical jargon.  There are countless other sites for that kind of stuff.   Out of respect for the few who visit this message board, I will keep my technical notes separate.  I have write my notes from the command line, and very few are philosophical.  Most are highly technical and tedious, as though my brain has been hijacked by the machinery.

Do you remember the robot in Hitch Hikers Guide to the Universe?

Any way.  I just want to let you few souls know that I do lurk a bit, and I am so preoccupied ... the machines have gotten so great a hold on my brain, that I have not take the time to write anything here.

Also, I did not want to write something quick or insulting out of respect.  I do not wish to discourage you from expressing yourself.   I am sure you are aware that I do not think humans are divine creatures.

In fact, even if the world itself were "god", it would just be a synonym for the word "world" and nothing worthy of being worshiped.

Eh ... please don't take offense.  I suppose I am a rather bitter man.
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

~ Tabak und Kaffee Süchtigen ~

forthebirds

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Re: Psychological Benefits of Disillusionment
« Reply #11 on: July 22, 2017, 12:54:20 am »
If having one child is re/creation,having each additional child is likewise a re/creation and not something to be viewed as economically burdensome or unaffordable.

Who says it is also not to be viewed as how you put it? Economically burdensome and unaffordable. Can a thing not be a blessing as well as a curse? A weapon as well as a tool? Do not mistake my words as something that is only positive. Nature is as beautiful as it is deadly.

When a couple seeks to control family size via birth control they are thus "rejecting God's blessings" he might otherwise give and possibly breaking his commandment to "be fruitful and multiply".

Is that what you are implying?

Ah, I think I see where this is going. Holden, just to set the record as straight as I can with words, when I say that I believe in God, how do I best put this... I do not believe in the same god that you may think I believe in. My god does not see having a child as a blessing more so than he does, choosing not to have one, while f*cking someone's brains out. That is one of my vices and I do not apologize for it. And what's more, He/She/It does not give much of a sh*t if we reject anything that might be considered a blessing. So "be fruitful and multiply" is not a part of my spirituality, nor is any other commandment. My god has no commandments - only suggestions, and as I say, he does not care whether we do or do not follow them. So no, I am not implying what you said. Does this make sense in response to your question?

~~~

Raskolnikov, it has been a long time since I have spoken with you. Good to "see" you again :)


Forthebirds,

I write the following with the utmost self-restraint as I have been irritable over the past several days and I do not want to misdirect my inner frustrations.  I think your estimation of humanity's "power" may be naive and somewhat delusional.

Self-restraint? That does not seem like you. Well to respond to what you said, as someone with your view on humanity and life in general, I am not surprised that you think that. I am sure that in the past, I have mentioned before that I am no antinatalist. But still, I can relate to the reasons why you think what you do. The world is made of many views, and had any number of events happened differently, I could have certainly never ended up on this forum at all. But I can always respect that you are in disagreement with the world. I am too. And that is enough for me. As for my estimation of our power being naive and delusional... ~H~, remember this - we're all mad here. Every single person on this rock is probably at least a little bit insane. So to that, I will only say "fair enough" and leave it at that. If you want to call me or my ideas delusional, you'll get no argument from me about it. Just remember who it is that is typing those words. I respect your madness. Do you respect mine?

Man has a difficult time walking to the corner store for a six-pack of beer, and a great many crystal-meth snorting alpha-males bring children into the world then take morbid delight in having someone at their mercy, someone to torment.

Okay. But what is your point to that? Man also understands the chemistry of that crystal meth. Man is also Mozart and Einstein. Man is you, compiling xorg-x11. I don't even know what that is. And I do remember that robot. He was sad but cute. I am very much aware of how you feel, Raskolnikov. Though I have stated several times in posts throughout the years of my beliefs. Perhaps it was on one of the other sites and maybe you have forgotten or did not fully know? Don't you remember how positive that other man was.. I forget his name, but we three once shared some heated discussions back then, as he seemed to become frustrated with your disposition. I enjoyed his conversations and was disappointed to see him go. But still, I chose to follow your journey through this side of the net, because it is not as important to me, if you feel existance should be done with - I think what is more important to me are the reasons why you think so. And I believe that somewhere in that bleakness, is a key that unifies us in this struggle of life.

In a way, this is your home, Raskolnikov. You can talk about whatever you want, be it mathematics or code or your outlook on life. You can also insult me if you like, or try to ;) You can call me a fool, or even worse, a gort :gasp:, but you will not hurt my feelings. Though if you ever want me to stop, please say so. As much as I think you would never wish to silence anyone, I would never desire to taint anyone else's area of thought, especially not yours, as I know from experience how important those places can be. Either way, these are the kinds of subjects, where at least in my view, 2, or even 3 opposing sides can be right at the same time.

Peace, H. If you really are in a bitter mood, it is very understandable and very much in your right.
« Last Edit: July 22, 2017, 01:01:29 am by forthebirds »

Holden

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Forthebirds,
I was not intentionally trying to set up a trap for you.But if you felt so then I am sorry for my poor choice of words. You see,I should have known what your ideas on the topic would be as I am a bit familiar with Icke's thought.

There are a number of things which I admire in you-you don't take the surface appearance for the true thing-in-itself.
You also are not happy with the present state of affairs.Neither am I. I do wish Icke would speak on how his ideas would map onto the philosophy of Hume,Kant and Schopenhauer.
Let me put it this way, there are a lot of Reps around,as you put it, & there certainly is a lot of sinister energy around, I vouch for that myself.I truly,honestly believe that we are living in a kind of matrix too.Have you watched the movie "The Matrix Reloaded? It is Schopenhauer's book (with the title in the original German -Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung) that the Persephone character pulls to open the door to the Keymaker..Please keep in mind that the world you perceive around yourself is most assuredly a mental construct (or mental picture) that is created by your brain from data conveyed by the nerves. It is not the world directly, it is a "representation" of the world. The only thing which is known to you directly (at least in part), is yourself, and therein lies the will(Reps?), forever hungry, all of your emotions being its acts within the field of time.  Keep well and keep looking.
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

forthebirds

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To Holden
« Reply #13 on: July 23, 2017, 01:10:24 pm »
Holden, I do not think you set a trap for me, but I may have needed to be more direct with some of my views. But that is fine, and the reason why I attempted to explain. I hope that it helped clear some things up. I know that there are a lot of stigmas to the word "God" like commandments/control and sin/shame. It is very sad that a concept that could be so liberating is so disempowering. But that is by design. Either way, Holden, I appreciate you asking these questions of me, rather than just making assumptions. So thanks for that. And if you ever feel a desire to ask anything else about it, I would be happy to explain as best as I can. It's a strange conundrum I put myself in, where, despite my deep feelings for Divinity, because the way I see God is so different than many I come across, I feel I sometimes relate more to those who are so much against the idea of any of it. Sometimes I feel like I am worshipping a trickster. But in the greater scope of things, it's not unlike any other perspective. They are all pretty crazy to me. Maybe I am delusional. Maybe I am naive. Maybe I am much more than that... or less, and maybe I do not care. I am what I am, and that is... content.

I just saw that video you posted of Icke. I think he was surrounded by petty minds. As soon as he started to make sense, they went right for the "lizard man" question. It's so easy to dismiss everything when you skip ahead that far. If any one of them was religious, he could have thrown it back and asked, "And you believe there is an invisible man in the clouds?" "Or a bad man with horns under the ground?" To have an open mind must be very hard for these people.

you don't take the surface appearance for the true thing-in-itself.
I can't. Or I try very hard not to. When the veil was lifted, all bets were off. That's why I agree with your ideas about fake realities. And I would dare to continue pushing for boundaries.
If life is a program, maybe a god is the "man behind the program," and maybe there is a program behind Her. And on and on it may go. That is a point I reached when I considered my god a trickster. It is VERY difficult to explain this in words, because so much of it is feeling... but in a way, I tested my own theories on God. This is something many people of religion fear, which is why they hate so much, other religions - it threatens their belief system on life - it threatens their sanity. I tested my own theories and the results were that I shattered parts of what I thought I understood. For a moment I really felt very afraid - like I was going to fall apart from the inside out - starting with my mind and ending with my life. But something more interesting happened - I gained a new perspective. This has been one of the more interesting events in my life, and I wish I could share it more, but it was almost only a moment in time. Inside my head, it was much, much longer.

I would be interested in how Icke views certain schools of thought as well, but Icke is doing what he does best - following where the clues lead him. Yes, I have seen that movie. Thank you for pointing that book out to me, which I did not know!

To be clear, I will use the long word. I believe all emotions that are sponsored by fear are for the reptilians to devour.
« Last Edit: July 23, 2017, 04:20:20 pm by forthebirds »

forthebirds

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Re: Psychological Benefits of Disillusionment
« Reply #14 on: July 23, 2017, 01:22:58 pm »
All in all, what does it mean? It's a very good question to me.



I will confess to you that some of the most impactful words that came to my head as a child by... call it whatever you want, God or imagination, were, "Nothing really matters." This can be taken a number of ways, but apply it to the false reality, and there you have it.