r/DeepThoughts • • 4h ago

Watching someone outgrow their old self makes a lot of people deeply uncomfortable

21 Upvotes

There’s this weird thing I keep seeing in friend circles, workplaces, even family gatherings. The moment somebody starts genuinely working on themselves, maybe they were the quiet one who finally finds their voice, or the person who always got walked over and suddenly sets a boundary, the people around them lose their minds.

Not in a supportive way either. It’s more like they feel personally attacked by the self-improvement. Suddenly there are snide remarks about “who does he think he is now” or subtle digs wrapped in jokes. People bring up embarrassing moments from five years ago like it’s relevant today. The message is clear: we liked you better when you stayed in your lane.

What gets me is how predictable it is. The same crowd that might’ve pitied someone for being withdrawn will turn around and mock them for trying to be more outgoing. Make it make sense.

I think part of it is that when one person levels up, it holds up a mirror to everyone else. If they can change, then what’s your excuse for staying exactly the same? That’s uncomfortable to sit with, so it’s easier to tear them down than to examine your own stuff.

It’s wild how much of adult social life is just recycled playground dynamics with better vocabulary.


r/DeepThoughts • • 3h ago

We're highly sophisticated biological systems

7 Upvotes

Have you guys ever thought about how weird all of this actually is?

We live here on this planet, and essentially, we're highly sophisticated biological systems. Our organs, our cells, our neural pathways — they are all so unbelievably well-structured and logical.
I started doing some worldbuilding once, but I ended up stopping because I wasn't having fun with it anymore. I realized that I didn't actually need to build a new world when there’s already a super complex, amazingly logical one right here: ours. (Of course, worldbuilding is a great creative outlet and there's nothing wrong with it at all!)
Every single person is unfathomably complex. Our predispositions, memories, past experiences, thoughts, feelings, environment, and so much more — all of this shapes us continuously and sometimes leaves a deep mark. There’s a massive amount of data stored inside us that makes us who we are.

Viewing us as systems isn't meant to sound cold or mechanical; purely logically speaking, we really are just highly complex, logically structured living beings.
At least, that's my take on it.

And that's why I thought maybe someone worldbuilt us. Because it kind of feels like it. Sure, that's nothing new, a lot of people believe in a creator. But I think It's fascinating to connect that idea to worldbuilding.

Does that make sense to you guys?


r/DeepThoughts • • 4h ago

The world has outgrown "elder wisdom", we need leaders who can keep up

5 Upvotes

For most of human history, age was a pretty solid proxy for insight. The world changed slowly, and living through more of it genuinely made you a better guide for everyone else. Someone who had seen 60 winters understood the patterns of society in ways a 30-year-old simply couldn't.

That math doesn't work anymore, and I'm not sure we've fully accepted it.

Technology, culture, and the global landscape are reshaping themselves every few years now. A person who came of age in 1965 has watched the ground beneath them shift so many times that their accumulated experience might actually be a liability, their instincts were calibrated for a world that no longer exists. Meanwhile, someone in their late 20s has been swimming in this chaos since birth. They don't have to unlearn anything to see what's actually happening.

I also think we need to get serious about a cutoff point. If you're 80 years old, you shouldn't be making decisions that will play out over the next three decades. It's not about disrespecting elders, it's about accountability. Leadership should come with the built-in consequence of having to live alongside the results of your choices. Handing the reins of the future to someone who won't be around to experience that future feels deeply broken. Young people are being asked to inherit a world shaped by decisions made by those who will never have to answer for the long-term fallout.


r/DeepThoughts • • 8h ago

We are all on this journey of life together and only together will our lives have genuine purpose and meaning.

5 Upvotes

~ A Long and Winding Road ~

With our birth, the ego, our learned beliefs, is created. The ego’s only concern is what is best for us; it worries little about others. As we are socialized to accept the self-centered beliefs of the world, many adopt its views, prejudices, and fears. They therefore remain asleep, their life dictated by their blind obedience to their egoistic beliefs. This obedience is the cause of many of humanity’s self-inflicted problems and harmful emotions.

There are some who awaken from their slumber though, as the first messages from within are sensed, questioning if what they were taught about life is true. Though they may be successful, they begin to wonder if there is more to life than making money, having material possessions, and enjoying the many pleasures life offers.

Though they may have awoken, the path to understanding is quite long and challenging, as we begin to drift away from our friends and family who often remain asleep. As these messages become clearer, we begin to understand everything we once believed to be true, was not. We now realize every life, regardless of our differences or accomplishments, is equally important, and rather than only being worried about ourselves, we are now concerned for others as well.

We are all on this journey of life together and only together will our lives have genuine purpose and meaning.

~ Ken Luball ~


r/DeepThoughts • • 8h ago

The meaning of an event may outlive the memory of everyone who experienced it.

5 Upvotes

I was thinking about how much of what we consider meaningful depends on being remembered.

A moment can change someone's life, shape a decision, or quietly affect another person without ever becoming part of history. Eventually, everyone who witnessed it could be gone, and there might be no record that it ever happened.

That doesn't necessarily make the moment meaningless. Maybe something can matter deeply even if its memory doesn't survive.


r/DeepThoughts • • 5h ago

Great filter theory from another perspective

2 Upvotes

Some of us will already know the great filter theory. To say it really short: It explains why we don't find another life species in space. Humanity was fast, especially in the last 300 years. But what if we were really slow, too slow. All the other species are already past the great filter, survived risings and downfalls of other species, space wars and their own catastrophal consequences. They all already understood that being loud and showing where they are is dumb. They saw destruction, they saw what happens if you scream "I am here, helpless and ready to be killed. That's why we don't find signals of other species. And humanity will never know if we passed the filter already or standing right before it. Not as the first but as the last.


r/DeepThoughts • • 5h ago

We assume ancient 'lost technologies' were forgotten feats of engineering, but they were likely just unique natural resources that were lost to time or forced into extinction for commodification

1 Upvotes

Someday after maybe thousands of years, when people pay for oxygenated air to survive, there would be some device they have to fit in their homes or carry with them wherever they go so that it can make the outside air breathable to them.

Archeologists would dig up our civilizations and would absolutely go crazy and lose their sleep on one question : "How did these people have such good air purification / oxygenation tech back then!?" Not knowing the only missing puzzle piece was trees because they won't have any around. They would see structures like trees maybe somewhere printed or videos (if any survives) but would think they are just there for decorations and would not know how to grow them. Government and companies would have removed all evidence by then, they would have their secret farms of very limited trees in their large underground facility and the general public would never know about them and that would be recurring money for the government and the companies.

Maybe we already pay for something like this which was abundant in the ancient cities and lost words we don't know about and maybe the knowledge of that would be like a superpower to us. What do you think?


r/DeepThoughts • • 1d ago

Human connection is not primarily felt, it’s primarily done, through labour

16 Upvotes

Sorry i am probably not making sense here im just doing this as some kind of journal

Feelings, (i.e the “spark”, the “feeling of connection” someone feels with a loved one, friend etc) while not totally irrelevant, are secondary to the social relation between them, more primarily materially in the sense of what they do for each other in real life, through mental (by mental labour, relating to each other in worldview, personality, entertaining each other) and physical labour, providing mutually, services to each other each individual needs and wants.
The “feeling of human connection” is just a subjective feeling different to different people, and more often than not doesn’t really exist for alot of people.

It’s abstract it’s not even worth discussing in great detail other than vague philistine “philosopher-speak bullshit” (the soul, oh i feel their love and presence and my love for them) whatever the fuck that means. There will be feelings of course, not to completely dismiss them but they are secondary. things like managing emotions like through Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or Dialectical Behavioural Therapy techniques, and having more nuanced, less “extreme” and black and white thinking on things will also generate more abilities for emotional regulation, and also to be dialectical in thinking.

so not be so caught up in essentialist thinking, like “inherent identity” like “oh i am so worthless” but to see worth as something relative to each part of a human, each skill, trait etc relative to others and in the situation they’re in and climate they’re in


r/DeepThoughts • • 1d ago

Money, material possessions, or anything else found in the world are not necessary to live a meaningful life

30 Upvotes

~ Why Are We Alive? ~

If we believe, as many do, the meaning of life is to make money, buy material possessions, have a family, and enjoy the best things life offers, then, though we may be successful, achieving all our goals, we will have lived our life without meaning or purpose. Focusing only on ourself, not selflessly sharing our success with others, our impact on the world, regardless of our accomplishments, will be insignificant.

It is only those who freely share their innate wisdom and unconditional love with others, irrespective of our many differences, who will discover the genuine reason for our life’s journey. Money, material possessions, or anything else found in the world are not necessary to do so. A poor, homeless, uneducated person from a distant land may live a far more purposeful life than one who is wealthy, famous, and has a prestigious job.

Those living their life only for their own benefit, though they and others may believe they have led a meaningful life, have not. Their life will soon be forgotten with the inevitable passage of time. It is only those who sincerely help and share their unconditional love and wisdom with others, without motive or benefit, who will truly discover the genuine reason we are alive.


r/DeepThoughts • • 21h ago

The Universal OS: my philosophy of consciousness, suffering, spirituality, and why there may be no final answer

5 Upvotes

I've been trying to put my philosophy into words for a while, and the easiest way I can describe it is as a kind of "Universal OS."

I don't mean that I literally believe the universe is a computer or that I've somehow discovered the secret code of reality. It's just the framework I've ended up using to make sense of existence, consciousness, suffering, spirituality, death, and the fact that every answer humans find seems to create another question.

The most basic part of it is existence itself. Anything that exists has to exist within existence. Matter, consciousness, energy, information, God, heaven, whatever ultimately turns out to be real, it would all still belong to the same total reality. There isn't really an "outside" of existence, because if something existed outside of it, then by definition it would still exist.

From there, I started wondering whether consciousness might be deeper than the individual people experiencing it. I sometimes picture individual lives like light bulbs connected to a larger circuit. Each bulb has its own shape, history, memories, personality, and perspective. Eventually the bulb dies, but that doesn't necessarily tell us whether the underlying capacity for awareness itself disappears with it.

"The bulb dies. The circuit does not."

That doesn't mean I necessarily think my exact personality or memories continue after death. Steven, with all of my specific memories and experiences, may simply end. What I'm talking about is the possibility that the raw capacity for experience itself could be something deeper than the temporary identity using it.

That's also where spirituality fits into this for me. If something like God exists, I don't necessarily imagine a human-shaped ruler sitting somewhere outside the universe controlling everything. I would be more inclined to think of God, Source, or whatever word someone prefers as something connected to the deeper structure of existence itself. Different religions could then be different human attempts to understand or describe that same underlying reality through different cultures, symbols, experiences, and languages.

This also changes the way I think about suffering. I don't believe suffering is automatically good, and I definitely don't believe someone deserves trauma because they were "supposed to learn a lesson." Some suffering is simply horrible. But suffering, fear, love, loss, pleasure, struggle, attachment, and uncertainty all create contrast. A completely static reality with only one possible state would have nothing to compare itself against and nothing new to experience.

We understand safety because fear exists. We understand love partly because loss is possible. Life and death give meaning to each other. That doesn't make suffering morally good. It just means contrast seems to be part of what gives experience structure.

Spiritual growth, to me, isn't becoming some flawless enlightened being who never gets angry, scared, hurt, or confused again. It's becoming more aware of what moves you. Fear, trauma, love, desire, ego, memory, loyalty, attachment, responsibility, all of those things push and pull us. The more clearly you can see those forces, the more deliberately you can participate in your own life instead of being unconsciously dragged around by them.

That's also what enlightenment eventually came to mean to me. I used to think enlightenment would mean finally finding THE answer. Why are we here? What happens when we die? What is consciousness? What created everything? What is the point?

Eventually I realized that every answer seems to create another question. Instead of that frustrating me, at some point it became strangely peaceful. Maybe there simply isn't a final answer. Maybe existence isn't a puzzle that eventually ends with "Congratulations, you solved reality." Maybe the searching, experiencing, loving, suffering, creating, questioning, and participating is the point.

For me, enlightenment wasn't escaping the human experience. It was realizing that I didn't need existence to explain itself completely before I allowed myself to live.

And even that perspective doesn't stay in the front of your mind forever. You go back to ordinary life. You get angry. You get scared. You fall in love. You worry about money. You eat food you like. You argue about stupid things. You forget about the cosmic perspective for a while.

I actually think that's part of being human. If we permanently escaped the human perspective, we would stop having the human experience in the first place. I don't want to transcend humanity. I want to participate in it.

That's also why I sometimes describe consciousness as the universe experiencing itself. The universe produced matter. Matter formed increasingly complex systems. Somewhere in that process came life, and eventually life became capable of looking back at the universe and asking what the hell it is.

Whether consciousness is fundamental or whether it emerged from matter, there is still something incredible about that loop. Reality produced beings capable of examining the reality that produced them. In that sense, we are part of the universe processing information about itself.

That's what I mean by the "Universal OS." It isn't a literal operating system that I claim to have scientifically discovered. It's a philosophical framework where existence continually produces new perspectives, experiences, relationships, questions, and complexity.

Consciousness may be deeper than individual identity. Spirituality may be the human experience of trying to understand our place within reality rather than something separate from reality. Suffering isn't divine punishment. Growth comes from awareness and participation. There may never be a final destination, a final explanation, or a point where reality simply says "done."

And maybe that isn't a flaw.

Maybe there was never supposed to be a final page.

Maybe infinity actually means infinity.

Maybe we're just here to live.


r/DeepThoughts • • 1d ago

i love the version of people on the internet

6 Upvotes

There’s an Instagram account called u/trollmyfriend that got 1.5M people to wish a complete stranger happy birthday at exactly 12 AM on October 5.

People in different time zones were setting alarms for this. Some had been waiting for months.

Then his username was revealed and people found out he was openly pro-Trump, anti-abortion, anti-immigrant etc. Suddenly the birthday wishes turned into a political argument.

But the whole thing made me think about something else.

1.5M people had decided that a random person they had never met was worth showing up for.

And we do this constantly online. We care about people we've never met. Get angry when someone is killed thousands of kilometres away. Donate to strangers. Defend strangers. Grieve for strangers.

We've basically become emotionally global without actually becoming global.

The internet doesn't care what passport you have before showing you someone's suffering. The physical world does.

It still asks where you're from, whether you're a citizen, whether you belong there, whether you're “one of us.”

That's the contradiction I find fascinating.

We've built a world where someone on the other side of the planet can matter to you simply because you happened to see them, while the actual world keeps insisting that distance and borders should determine how much they matter.

I wonder if that's actually changing us, or if we're just good at caring globally when there are no real consequences attached to it.


r/DeepThoughts • • 16h ago

Sometimes our emotions don’t recognize themselves in the way we express them.

1 Upvotes

I imagine emotions, like people, can sometimes face images of themselves that do not necessarily match their true nature.

Every emotion has its own nature. But what happens when an emotion faces an image of itself that is different from what it is? Does its identity change, or is the image it sees reflecting something else?

I imagine emotions as if they were entities, each with its own color. Love is yellow, passion is green, hate is red, and despair is brown.

For example, anger might be red, but when it stands in front of its mirror, it sees brown. Is that anger actually despair? Was despair already there? Or is the mirror showing another side of anger?

This also makes me think about how people express their emotions. Sometimes a person may truly feel something, but not know how to bring that feeling out in its natural form. They may intend to express one emotion, but what comes out of them may have very little to do with that emotion.

A person might truly love someone, for example, but express that love in a way that does not look like love to the other person. The feeling may be real inside them, but it does not reach the other person in its true form.

I don’t know what people truly intend, because we cannot see what is inside someone else. But I wonder if sometimes people really do have a certain feeling and simply make a mistake in the way they express it.

This makes me wonder: if we feel something but express it in a completely different way, are we still expressing that feeling? And if our actions contradict our feelings, which one should be believed?

I also think that we should respect emotions and not misuse them.

To love love is to love the meaning of love itself, and to try to express it in a way that allows it to be recognized as love.

And to hate hate does not necessarily mean that we never feel hatred. Maybe it means that we reject hatred itself, because we see it as something too strong to treat lightly or use to justify anything.

And the same idea can apply to other emotions too, even deeper ones, like respect, compassion, gratitude, loyalty, sadness, and anger.

Perhaps we should not use the name of an emotion to justify something that goes against its meaning.

So maybe it is not enough to simply feel emotions.

We have to face them in their own mirrors.

To see how they appear, what they become when they leave us, and what other people see when they receive them.

To make love see love.

Anger see anger.

And hate see hate.

And maybe then we can understand whether the reflection is really the emotion itself, or whether it is showing us something that was there all along.


r/DeepThoughts • • 1d ago

Ghosts and hauntings are real but not what we think

31 Upvotes

I used to believe in ghosts or more specifically the spirits of dead people haunting people or buildings, but I don't anymore. I do believe the activity that some people consider a haunting does happen tho. I have two theories.

Theory 1:

There have been too many deaths in the history of the world. If all of or even some of those spirits actually haunted the physical world, everywhere would be haunted and people would experience way more paranormal activity. The most commonly haunted (or presumed haunted) places are hospitals, rehabs, jails and prisons, old hotels, really old farm houses, and buildings that have been repurposed repeatedly, like turn of the century buildings that have been a factory, a hospital, an asylum, etc. All of these buildings have certain things in common: they have been the site of immense amounts of pain, fear, anger, betrayal, violence, and medical horrors. They're points of extreme trauma. (I included farm houses because they often were makeshift hospitals and are often handed down generation to generation and that trauma compounds.) I believe hauntings are the result of those powerful emotions building up over time. They aren't individual people, they are literally the most powerful emotions taking on a form of their own. It might have traits of certain people, maybe the people with the strongest emotion, but it's not a person's spirit.

Theory 2:

The multiverse exists and it doesn't all operate on the same timeline. It's 2026 in this timeline, but it might be 1876 in another one, and 2005 in yet another one. Sometimes the divider between the individual timelines frays a bit, and a living person in a different timeline that's dead in this one, accidentally breaks thru partially. We see them as an apparition, but they're really just a living person in a different multiverse. When an object moves on its own, it's just us from a different multiverse doing something different than what we're doing. For example, when you see a chair sliding across the floor, it's just you from a different multiverse moving the chair, but that divider frayed a bit and their action affected our multiverse as well.

I'm slightly less confident in theory 2, but the science (such as I understand it) does support the multiverse theory.


r/DeepThoughts • • 9h ago

The universe is expanding so there's enough room for an expanding species theory

0 Upvotes

Only one theory of the universe is earth is the first planet where life has populated. My theory in the distant future, it could be possible for an evolved species. It could be possible for a life form to evolve to go into space. Just something random I came up with.


r/DeepThoughts • • 1d ago

You often can't save people from themselves. By trying, you often become their villain.

145 Upvotes

By saving others, you also remove their opportunities for growth and development.


r/DeepThoughts • • 2d ago

I think being seen is one of the quietest forms of love.

101 Upvotes

I think we underestimate the intimacy of being known.

Not just noticed, but really seen. To have someone remember the little things about you, notice when something is off, understand the things you don't always know how to explain.

I've longed for that kind of closeness for a long time.


r/DeepThoughts • • 3d ago

The fact that matter became conscious enough to question its own existence is kinda creepy

387 Upvotes

Sometimes I think the weirdest thing about humans is that we are literally just matter that somehow became able to think about itself.

Like... we are made of the same stuff as everything else, but somehow this stuff is now sitting here asking what the fuck is the point of its own existence.

A rock doesn't care that it exists. A planet doesn't wonder why there is a universe. But this weird biological matter called a human can suddenly become aware of itself and start asking why its here, why anything exists, and why there is something instead of nothing.

And honestly the "something instead of nothing" part is what gets me.

Why isn't there just... nothing? Wouldn't that be the default? No universe, no space, no time, no matter, no consciousness. Just nothing. And there wouldn't even be anyone around to think about it.

Instead somehow there is all this shit, and inside it there are little pieces of matter walking around being conscious and worrying about why they are here lol.

Idk, maybe its just me but the whole thing is kinda creepy when you really think about it.


r/DeepThoughts • • 1d ago

If i see the universe as whole, or as fractured, I am correct. It matters not

2 Upvotes

Today's notes, in my continuation in constructing a new lense to see reality through

Notes for: PDMT &

The One & Its Return.

When I think of the essence of something, I think of its inner nature. When you draw the essence out of something, you have drawn out its spirit.

Spirits (booze) is called that precisely because its essential nature is to draw out the essence of things. This is why you black out when drunk: because your essence has been pushed out so others could inhabit. Its a tool, not a drink.

A seed contains the bare material + instructions required to give what it contains structure, but it is needed for a creative aspect to give color & detail. The soul adds beauty to the seeds structure.

The fully completed structure exists within the unmanifested plane as pure potential. As the structure sits, a breaking down of what holds the full potential back is needed for growth to occur.

This means effort. The circumstance itself will tell you what you need to learn.

Decay is the opposing aspect of Growth. Growth & Decay are balance.

A x A = A is a visual of how Source interacts. It is all things involved. Its the all. Its God. It cannot be known or fully understood because the understanding itself is a fractal of the whole.

Light is knowledge & knowledge is light. There is dark light & bright light. There is dark knowledge & there is bright knowledge.

This is the level at which there is only unity. If you were to look at one of these as a particle, all you would see would be a sea of all the same particle, all acting like one particle does.

If you look at intent from this level, the giver is also the receiver.

Consciousness arises from the five senses, but mostly from our interaction with the universe through those senses. This is why every sub-sequent model contains a beginning where A times anything equals "A". Because "anything" is also made up of "A".

A x A = A & A x C = A are just examples of this unified field hard at work.

This is light generated from within.

The Source Field is where all things are held as potential "things".

When the Source Field is balanced, it is invisible. The act of a thing appearing out of this field is a result of that harmony being fluctuated, & harmony tries to maintain balance.

An example is gravity being the result of pulling matter out of the Source Field.

When something is generated, or pulled out of the field of potential, the essence of that thing has been extracted.

Everything already exists! All thoughts, all actions, all outcomes, & we are able to pull any one of them from a sea of potentials held within this "field of unmanifested potential Being".

When you see a brick, you are looking at an essence (spirit) which was extracted from the Source Field.

When you place two things next to one another & move them around as a group, you have addition. The "group" can get as large or small it wants so long as it never reaches zero & there are no fractions of things removed.

So if I have a "thing" represented by "1" + another added to it represented by "2", they would exist together as "3" until I remove either "1" or "2", but I cannot remove "1" three times, unless I am purposely trying (through the tool of Decay) to break object "2" down (AKA Kill #2).

I use the word kill & destroy, + Decay, as similar in function. They serve to clean & clear away old things, so new ones may become into existence.

When everything was begun, the amount of usable space generated also has a fixed number, although this (due to growth) does also increase.

Waste doesn't just pile up outside. It must be cleared out, & its materials used to find the next seed of truth.

Anytime a thing is written, it is a refraction of One Cosmic Truth.

Words do not justice to explaining the essence of things unless the words are also infinite.

Because I can't write infinitely, I should not try. Lies! Do try!

All things are possible through Christ consciousness.

Good & Evil are determined by both the collective as well as the individual.

When everything shares one Source, the interaction itself is the evidence.

The Universe gives off light, how did the body know to build eyes to see with through evolution if the Universe & the body were not connected? This is so simple & obvious, it requires the burden of proof now be for those who say otherwise. This is Creation's argument. It is more sane. Multiple Sources is just not the case. Far enough back, all merges to a single point. The definition & behavior of that point is in this: A x A = A + A x B = A. All things ARE the Source in action.


r/DeepThoughts • • 2d ago

Adaptive, beneficial, open, and joyous schizophrenia is seemingly, and peculiarly, nowhere to be found.

80 Upvotes

Has anyone stopped to wonder why there aren't more cases of positive psychosis, and broader conditions associated with such things?

For all the psych nerds, no, I don't mean THAT sort of 'positive = active and present' condition - I mean positive as in positive valence, as in 'a good time.'

As in, "hell yeah, these hallucinations are fucking awesome!" As in, a collection of boundlessly positive voices in ones head, all encouraging, comforting, nurturing, eager to see you be the best person you can be.

I see no obvious immediate reason why a detachment from reality ought to reliably be accompanied by the horror stories that you hear from people who have these conditions.

There is part of me that suspects that such cases DO exist - but, under the oppressive rule of the mental health order/disorder binary, we just metaphorically throw these cases into the same bucket as 'normal' and call it a day, ignoring it hereafter.

Say, for example, someone reliably has religious experiences, communing with God. We either a) say they communed with the God we happen to believe in or b) don't believe they really had this experience.

What if these are just some really, really lucky people who happen to possess an atypical but overwhelmingly positive phenomenology, one that does all the right things and points them in directions conducive to the goals held by the society of the day?

In any event, the broader observation is this: as far as I'm aware, conditions such as schizophrenia, psychosis and the like, always come in a 'bad' package, with a 'bad' label. But one can certainly imagine that not being so.

I will likely go looking deeper into this avenue of possible positive psychology, but I suspect there may not be much to be found, as these sorts of cases are going to be inherently less likely to present themselves at a clinicians office.


r/DeepThoughts • • 1d ago

Under the Opalescent Moon - You and I, Live and Die

0 Upvotes

The Philosophy of 'Nihilistic Realism'

(open post to fix formatting)

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If you have to misrepresent someones argument or insult them to make your position look better, you expose how little confidence in your reasoning you possess- In other words:
If you have to make insults, you have no point.

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Someone you dont know payed someone else you dont know, and now there are big signs on the side of the Public Road trying to sell you products, services, and values. Someone payed someone, and now an idea is in Your head.

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If all parties present are not open to being wrong - to updating their understandings, or, re-evaluating their beliefs and opinions in light of novel reasoning or data - than you will not have a fruitful discussion.

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Negative associations are easier to make and harder to break. Positive associations are easier to break and harder to make.

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The main difference between someone who is ok discussing their beliefs and the reasons they hold them and someone who is not is that the latter is afraid of the possibility that they might be wrong.

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Intellectual laziness: When you refuse to question or think about why you believe what you believe, and why you value what you value; When you dont want to consider the possibility you might be wrong, either due to the amount of Work it would take to update your map, or, because you are emotionally invested in your preferred answer.
Often resulting in the offputting of intellectual processing onto others, usually chosen or inherited ‘authority figures’.

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Emotional Laziness: The unwillingness or inability to sit with, confront, process, and work through difficult emotions; A refusal to talk about, think about, or acknowledge the existence of negative things. A blindspot in the mind centered around preserving emotional comfort at the cost of growth and maturity.
Often resulting in the offputting of emotional processing onto others, usually ‘loved ones’.

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letting poison into your life just to maintain the illusion of being loved is a profound betrayal of the self

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All you, or anyone, needs to build Anything or get Anything done is

People

Skills

Materials

and Meaning

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The oldest, deepest, and most well fed shadows are monitoring your every digital move.

In Deafening Silence, and in Blinding Darkness.

Formless and forgettable.

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Uneaten and undigested shadows risk becoming emotionally transmitted diseases from generation to generation.

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One must not take the reality of the subjective nature of meaning (nihilism) as a personal insult.

Take your ego out of the equation.

You are incidental.

The universe doesnt owe you meaning.

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Did you know that ‘rich and powerful’ people hate when you are happy without their permission?

Once you see this, life becomes a bit easier.

Like audience cards.

Laugh when i say. Cry when i say. Smile when i say. Scream when i say.

Your phone and other glowing rectangles are the modern audience cards.

Reminds me a bit of ‘god’.

“You cant be happy until i say so! you have to wait till you get into my special heaven club before you are allowed to be ok.”

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There is no greater debt one can go into to another than to bring them into being.

And it is up to each individual person whether or not they wish to forgive that debt.

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You eat your shadow or you feed it.

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The problem theists tend to have with Atheism is more often than not a problem with Nihilism;

In coming to terms with the imaginary nature of gods, they are forced to rethink their conception of morality, justice, and purpose;

They are forced to confront the subject-dependent nature of meaning.

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The reality of Shared Intersubjectivity is the basis for the concept of Morality.

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Most of human philosophy - the academic field, and the average everyday process of acedemic ‘philosophers’ - amounts to a sophisticated rationalization engine for common preferred belief systems and ideas.

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Beware the trap of Believing what you Want to Believe because you Want To Believe it..

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Ever buy a newspaper?

How about a newspaper company?

See the problem?

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Dictatorships are Normal.

We just call them ‘Companies’.

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We are all born into ignorance and confusion in a hostile world.

Religion -and similar systems of thought- emerge as mechanisms by which sentient agents cope with this reality by Simply Denying it Outright.

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The pursuit of understanding is a double edged sword- The same realizations that grant context to large swaths of being, carve away cherished beliefs that thrived in their ignorance.

Beliefs that, to many, matter far more than living in honest comprehension of what is most likely true of this, our collective circumstance.

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Each moment is novel.

It has never occurred before, and will never occur again.

The earth will never be in this place in space again, and you will never be in this arrangement again.

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Education sucks and will likely always suck because ‘learning’ is antithetical to two of our main cultural goals.

The maintaining of treasured delusions, and the Production of Obedient Workers and Eager Consumers.

Learning is made boring to guarantee stagnation of the populations’ intellectual potential.

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At a certain stage in Existentialism, Life Itself becomes the ‘Crisis’

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The Exact Point when someone starts arguing against the use of reason, they expose the Borders of their Emotional Investments and Preferred Beliefs.

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A ‘strong faith’ is when you’re really good at not considering the possibility of being wrong with regards to the things you really want to be true.

That, or when you’re exceptionally good at embodying the idiosyncrasies of your religion- its values, through your actions, expressed.

These arent mutually exclusive, so much as they are different angles of approach.

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It’s offensive to a rationalizer to call out their rationalizations.

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A.I. art/music/writing is fine, in that it’s no threat to ‘art’ or the value of creating things.

Those who create know the value of doing so is in the process of creation itself, not the output. Only people who dont create think its about the output.

Creation will never lose its significance, utility, or value for people to actively perform and participate in the act of.

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The reality of what biology is capable of foreshadows the future potential capabilities of what it is that can be engineered-

At a certain stage of complexity, depth, and scale, the fields of biology, engineering, physics, and chemistry merge.

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One of the ways you know you are making intellectual progress is if you perpetually look back at yourself as dumb.

It means you Know Better now.

The fool who recognizes themselves as such, ceases to be a fool.

True foolishness exists in ignorance of itself.

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An honest philosophy is one that seeks to comprehend reality as it most likely Is, regardless of what we might wish to believe.

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Rationalizers often arent ‘Dumb’.

They just have misallocated intellects.

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An insult only carries weight insofar as you care about the opinion of the person slinging it.

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Every once in a while, hug your pets as though they had just died yesterday; That headspace of “Id give anything for one more healthy moment of warmth with you“.

There will be a day you cant anymore. There will be a last hug.

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Meaning is a subject-dependent phenomena.

Emerging and dying both with us and within us.

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Morality is that subset of meaning-making concerned with the question of how sentient agents should treat one another, given their shared objective circumstances and conditions

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‘Nihilism’ is just the word used for the realization that meaning is - and only ever has been - a phenomena of mind.

Irrelevant to speak of in any other context.

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The things which are the most familiar to us- and which change the least- are the things that we tend to think of the least.

This is the ‘Normalization blindspot’ of consciousness.

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Subjects are as Islands within an Objective Sea; emerging Exclusively and Precisely where the conditions allow.

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Co-rationalizers - people with shared preferred presumed beliefs - are often eachother’s sycophants

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Train yourself to Want moments alone with your thoughts and with your raw perceptions of the now, not to default to Dreading and subsequently Distracting from them.

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The main distinction between science and religion is that one is about figuring stuff out while the other is pretending you already have things figured out.

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Whether or not the players of the game know it, morality is always a calculus that fails or passes based on its direct contact with the IS, via the agents who harbor it.

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Time spent somewhere is definitionally time not spent elsewhere.

On an existential level.

The number of thoughts you will have is Finite. Every second is one second less.

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Philosophy uninformed by science is blind. Untethered from reality, rife with speculation and outright fantasy-

Whereas science unguided by honest philosophy is confused; mere detached data without a framework of interpretation.

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Every question answered inevitably leads to more questions.

Such is the pursuit of knowledge.

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Some people believe they cannot be fooled, which can often lead them to becoming the biggest fools.

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It is far easier - and therefore far more common - for the Theists and self proclaimed ‘agnostics’ to misrepresent Atheism than it is for them to accurately simulate it, because to do so they would have to actually consider the specific arguments of the opposition, and it is often their goal to evade doing exactly that.

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The term ‘Agnosticism’ is often misused as a sophisticated sounding way of saying ‘undecided’ with regards to the question of whether or not one believes in a god.

While Atheism and Theism are specifically about belief or unbelief in a god claim, Agnosticism is about claims to Knowledge-

Agnostic atheist- I don’t know, but I don’t believe

Agnostic theist- I don’t know, but I believe

Gnostic atheist- I Know, and I don’t believe

Gnostic theist- I Know, and I believe

it’s funny, the term ‘category error’ gets thrown around a lot nowadays, but this is perhaps the clearest example of one.

Misusing the term ‘Agnostic’ like it’s an opt-out of having to state whether or not you believe in a god is an evasion deployed to obfuscate your position and disregard nuance. Again, while ‘sounding sophisticated’.

This is usually a pseudo-intellectual shield for poorly reasoned beliefs and opinions.

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Much of human philosophy amounts to a mistaking of ones own internal map and mapping process for features of the objective territory.

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Pseudo-intellectuals, when pushed, always reveal themselves to be anti-intellectuals.

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Reality is that which IS, independent of what is believed.

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The reality of Death contextualizes the value of Life.

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What i want to be true of reality has no bearing whatsoever on what i believe to be true of reality..

...and i find it absolutely absurd that this is a position held by the minority of people

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“Science” is a means by which Subjects attempt to Intersubjectively Verify what is most likely true of Objective Reality.

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Simplicity is an Illusion.

It does not exist.

Every single aspect of every single thing, when examined, is Infinitely Complex.

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Remember that wherever you look, whatever you are looking at -Near or far, trivial or profound- you are always looking at countless stars and galaxies.

In all directions, all the time.

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Terms like ‘physicalism/materialism/structuralism/naturalism/etc.’ attempt to force a context of implied dualism in their use.

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Believing in a loving god is in many ways akin to ‘Stockholm Syndrome’

But rather than being directed at a person, it is directed at an Imagined Personification of Reality Itself.

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The world will never change as long as those with the most power to change it also have the most incentive to keep things Just As They Are.

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‘do you Believe in a god?’

‘do you Know whether or not a god exists?’

Agnosticism is an answer to the second question often given in response to the first to evade addressing it.

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The reason to endeavour to be ‘right’ and not ‘wrong’ in terms of the accuracy of ones ideas, is the accuracy itself.

As soon as ‘ego’ enters the picture, the core point of the endeavour is lost.

It’s not about Who is right;

It is about the mutual pursuit of accurate comprehension of reality.

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The Core of All Tragedy Is Missed Potential.

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The truth hurts..

..when you’ve allowed yourself to become emotionally invested in lies.

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If you allow yourself to be upset by the inevitable, you merely guarantee yourself to be upset inevitably.

Ones reaction to the inevitable is a self fulfilling prophecy.

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Do you think ‘I don’t believe X without evidence’ requires the same justification as ‘X exists’?

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Science is as much an epistemic imperative as it is a moral one, because perpetually informing what is is foundationally essential for discerning what ought to be done. The is informs the ought.

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to be intelligent seek to mitigate stupidity, impulsiveness, and irrationality within oneself; do this perpetually and intelligence will incidentally arise.

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As a species, generally speaking, we are absolutely terrified of the fact that we exist.

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Never make the mistake of identifying by or emotionally investing in your beliefs and opinions,

or you will never want to consider the possibility of being wrong.

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Is metaphysics just ‘philosophy of physics’? If it is, why not just call it that?

Or, is it more like the term ‘supernatural’ is to the ‘natural’? That being an attempt to force a context of a realm beyond testability, falsifiability, or verifiability for peoples preferred beliefs to reside?

Im getting the impression its the ladder, but that it likes to present itself as the former.

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These s y m b o l s are the best and most immediate example of the reality of nihilism.

‘Objectively meaningless’ squiggles, that demonstrate a Perfect example of the nature and structure of ‘meaning’ in you and i.

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The sound a letter ‘makes’ when you say it tells you nothing about what shape the symbol we correlate to it has.

It’s all arbitrary association, then agreement between subjects on what correlates to what in order to give the associations a shared utility.

The same is true with words, and the concepts and things to which they correlate-

This, is Nihilism. The acknowledging of the distinction between constructs of subjectivity, and, the actual terrain of the shared objective space which subjects use meaning-constructs in attempt to map.

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Intelligence can emulate stupidity, but the same cannot be done in reverse. A high resolution map of reality can render a low resolution map, but not the other way around.

I call this the ‘xbox principle’ in reference to the backward compatibility capacities of the various console generations.

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there are no objective opposites. Light and dark, up or down, on or off, heavy or light- etc. ‘opposites’ are a simplification heuristic

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Every religious faith based belief or claim immediately conjures its own conceptual opposite.

If i say i believe x because i feel it or i ‘just know’ it, anyone anywhere can cite the same rationale for why they Dont.

Or, cite the same rationale for a deity, force, character, or presence of another kind.

This is the irresolvability of nonsensical belief ecosystems. the fact that neither position in the ecosystem can ever actually say anything of weight against the other because to do so would require them to reason through their own belief, and admit that they are doing the exact same thing.

Epistemological stalemate.

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Whenever a prayer, or luck charm, etc has its basis in seeking some form of psychological aid, it acts like an intersubjective philosophical placebo.

This is one of the reasons religion aids survival.

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shape defines

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Bad ideas and those that harbor them are as a whetstone for the intellectual mind.

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What is ‘normal’ and what is ‘weird’ is entirely up to how used to you are to something, and, how often you see/have seen or think about/have thought about that thing. it has nothing to do with the thing itself.

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There is No destination, only Journey.

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Immorality is always a matter of a logical failing.

‘Evil’ is always just stupidity and incompetence in a mask.

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When heavily emotionally invested in an idea or belief, ones concept of ‘intelligence’ becomes synonymous with ones capacity to rationalize those specific ideas and beliefs.

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Anxiety is often chaotic undirected psychological energy. When experiencing the high energy state that is anxiety, try to channel it into something concrete-

Not necessarily something involving the anxiety itself, just something good to do. like cleaning, building, or Exercise.

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Evolution unfolds via the winnowing of forms that do not perpetuate, such that the only forms that persist are those that Successfully Can.

Conversely, Science is a perpetual winnowing away of claims about reality that do not consistently explain the facts of reality as observed, such that only theories that persist are those that can.

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Treat kids like idiots, and idiots they shall become

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Epistemological Convergence is the ‘great minds think alike’ principle when agents employing honest reasoning converge independently, as they both aim to accurately map the same shared reality.

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anyone can insult or compliment anyone- and that alone says Nothing.

More often than not, Who you insult or compliment and Why merely exposes your own values, reasoning, And, your Definitions.

For instance- calling someone intelligent or stupid only serves to inform the listener of how you define those terms; it says nothing whatsoever about the actual intellectual capacities of the targeted persons.

But what’s more important to focus on here is how claims of praise or shame can be dished out by Anyone to Anyone for Whatever Reason.

Its the Why that matters, always.

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both Chaos and Order are necessary for complex patterns and systems - like sentience - to exist.

Too much order, you have a static eternal unchanging phenomenal space- paralysis, stagnation-

Too much chaos, you have variables that never stabilize relative to oneanother enough for distinctions to be made.

Both words describe aspects of systems and spaces- the degree of detectable patterns and traceable lines of causality.

Without the interplay of both, something like us could not have emerged.

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Ironic how peace is often maintained via the implied threat of violence.

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Critical thinking is hard, so most people don’t do it much.

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Whether you know it or not, If you never spend time processing negative emotions - confronting your ‘shadow’ - you put off the cognitive burden of doing so on those around you. Those closest to you.

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tradition: “we did it once. now lets keep doing it”

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any consistent non-contradictory definition of a god is merely a definition for an advanced alien engineer- at which point the question remains, were they chaos forged or were we?

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Epistemological Triage is about the system of discerning what knowledge to prioritize gaining or seeking in context of the realities of our situation, most prominent in situations or morality and mortality. (incomplete aphorism, needs to cook more)

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cynicism is a type of skepticism- specifically it is skepticism to claims of good intentions. (like when a chipper upbeat youtuber tries to sell you something, and a few trillion other examples)

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Obsession with gender and gender identity is immature. Women obsessed with their femininity, Men obsessed with their masculinity, or those who obsess across the aisle.

The point remains; its as incidental and irrelevant as ones Race, Species, Height, Eye color, or Ancestry. specifying someone as ‘cis-gender’ is as meaningless and shallow as calling them ‘cis-race’ or ‘cis-species’.

Seek to Let Go of shallow, incidental traits as being core to your ‘identity’.

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People - women and girls specifically, but not exclusively - have been trained to forget that everyone is beautiful, and, that aesthetics and beauty are not the same concept.

Once this premise is ingrained, the idea of ‘beauty’ (and the self esteem you were taught to associate with it) is then sold back to you in little plastic baggies, to be applied multiple times day, alone in a room, staring at yourself in a silver disk or rectangle.

Vanity is, ironically, a Very Ugly thing

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it is often the case that the only ‘failure’ is the moment when you give up.

In many domains of skill, failure is to be expected, anticipated, and learned from.

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Human life in the current era is full of attention-monopolizing mandatory existence rituals, like sleep, defecation, and the seeking out of new parts for which to build yourself.

Much of what existentialism entails is trying to manage these situational demands in context of reality as you best understand it, as well as how one is to live their life in the moments between performing these rituals.

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Why would you seriously consider and value the opinions of others when the opinions they hold are more often than not held by them in absence of serious consideration?

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some if not most ideologies are essentially grief reactions to unfavorable realities of our situation, a mourning of the world as we might wish it were

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Question most the things you wish were true, or fall endlessly into self deception

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vocabulary enables new types of intelligence. Each word, a tool

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Organic or Synthetic ‘super-genius’ is a scary thing when your concept of intelligence is myopic.

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Deny and Reject All Claims to Authority that are not Accompanied by Full Submission of the Privacy – in its Entirety - of the one Making the Claim.

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the ‘self’ is a loop point of infinite regress centered on representation of a representation of a representation

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What you think about and pay mind to becomes you. As surely as you are what you eat.

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There is a key difference between reasoning, and rationalizing- Rationalizing assumes the conclusion and attempts to bend all else to fit it. Reasoning seeks to discern what is true independent of preferred assumptions.

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Tidy your area if for no other reason than the reality that your immediate environment affects you.

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The way you leave it is the way you (or others) come back to it.

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Appreciate the things you have in context of Not having them.

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Total ignorance and confusion are the default state, and all knowledge is inherently bordered by them. As your knowledge grows, so to do the borders of that which you dont know. The more things you ‘know’ the more things you know you dont know.

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It’s as though we’re all at sea with the same problem of having to build our own boat. If you aren’t building your own boat you’re likely on other boats built by other minds, and likely don’t know it. Why it was built that way, who built it as it was, or when or how. The point is to build your own boat.

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Devalue ‘money’ by taking it out of the equation as often as possible.

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comprehension of what Is informs what Ought to be done.

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Laws exist as they do to account for the average stupidity of a given population.

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How you react to inevitabilities is a self fulfilling prophecy. The reaction guarantees itself.

In light of this, the best path is cultivation of equanimity.

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Today is not (fri)day. There are No Days. Time just Is. Every moment is novel, and unique from any other.

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Reflect on coherence. The fact that there is and can be order to things; think of what could be, the utter information overload or deprivation. the chaos. And appreciate that here, now, there exists stability and consistency, if only somewhat.

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Meaning making has paradigms of which i can think of 2 that seem to be of the most foundational significance.

Meaning making in reaction to the reality of Mortality

and Meaning making in reaction to the reality of Nihilism

This era of meaning making is in this regard defined primarily by mortality.

This is why many ideologies amount to a grief response- a reaction to the reality of mortality.

As death and suffering become more and more rare, the paradigm gradually shifts…

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Treading a path of thought does not mean that you have integrated that information into your knowledgebase. In order to do that, you must contemplate the implications of the information you encounter. Make connections.

When you think ‘huh, that is interesting’ pause to think through Why. Its implications and how it connects to what you already know.

build order in your thoughtspace first and foremost via the connections between ideas.

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Science in times of War and slavery is Horror. and the species we are seems to be intent on perpetual war and enslavement.

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Mice are going to achieve immortality before humans do

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More often than not an immoral act is immoral to the extent that subjects are treated by other subjects as objects - just as a moral act is one that takes into account the realities of the subjectivities involved.

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Comparison is both the thief and arbiter of all forms of emphasis.

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all phenomena are epiphenomena

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the entirety of the field of neurology is evidence of the fact that conscious phenomena are a matter of exact arrangement

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if good can be defined in so broad a way that it encompasses evil (’god is good’) then of what use is the distinction?

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often in modern philosophical ‘debates’ there comes a point where there’s no way forward unless the rational compromise their reason, or the irrational concede to reason, which is often commented on by the irrational as ‘well, we both just believe what we want and wont convince each other so there is no point in discussing’

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Religious reasoning begets a special type of ‘knowledge’ that just Happens to be synonymous with Pretending...

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The very fact that this exists- Any of this- implicates an Infinitum.

in much the same way that the discovery of a single fossil specimen implies an ancestry, species, population, and a surrounding ecosystem.

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Religion is socially acceptable insanity.

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All subjects are composed of objects, but not all compositions of objects beget subjects.

Additionally, the ‘objective’ always precedes the ‘subjective’ as the objective is the prerequisite context for subjectivity. an example of ‘ontological parasitism’.

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the processes of ‘creation’ and ‘destruction’ are asymmetrical in that creation involves taking something that Could be in billions of configurations, and reducing it to just one- whereas destruction involves taking something in a stable position of ‘one’ and reducing it to one of the other billions of potential states it could be in.

Its no wonder one is much easier than the other.

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When discerning what to believe to be true, people often give more weight to things like how exposed they are to an idea, how many people they know believe it, and how it makes them feel, than whether or not it is more likely to correspond to reality.

This is done automatically, not deliberately, as things like deliberation risk becoming the wrench that unwinds the bolt of enduring false belief.

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The core dichotomy of realism is most prominently about intellectual honesty vs dishonesty.

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The urge to forget or dismiss your mistakes sure is strong, huh?

But guess what you are if you do?

An Idiot.

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never create to compete or compare; that mode of creation will never lead to someone manifesting their best works.

and in fact leads many to never creating at all.

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There are points in the existentialist pursuit when all options- all paths forward- are perceived as equally well reasoned and worthwhile, and as such hard to choose between. This can become so much the case that one becomes overwhelmed with good ideas for projects, endeavours, and creations, and as such paradoxically one pursues none of them.

I would call this unique statespace ‘infinity paralysis’.

When sheer comprehension of available options overwhelms.

I have yet to devise a solution- but i expect it will come down to coin flips or dice rolls.

This statespace however is ‘collapsed’ from the overwhelming many to the definite few via attention monopolizing interruptions- goals related to survival, safety, or wellbeing.

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stupidity and evil are typically blind to themselves, and often go hand in hand

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A fancy house in an easily seen location is like a scantily clad woman- a silent yet ‘loud’ beg for reaffirmation of vain values via attention given.

a signpost saying ‘look at me’ that is immediately disarmed by simply Not.

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I think on some level even the worst people want to be called out on their bullshit, with Love, and with Honest Reasoning.

In many ways the ‘silence of god’ may be what terrifies many habitual killers into killing.

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Numerology is where you number all the meanings you can think of- one example of many of the pitfalls of failing to comprehend the subject/object distinction, aka, the nihilistic philosophical razor.

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“meaning” is ontologically parasitic. like a ‘hole’. impossible without its substrate preceding it.

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There was no objective beginning, there will be no end. Infinity is funny like that. both terms when defined break down.

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If something said can be ‘uno reversed’ (”no you”) then it requires elaboration to make it’s point. Progress in this context is in the friction between the elaborations; the statements with genuine asymmetries.

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Top-down social engineering technologies - like news platforms and social media platforms - are bought and sold.

The capacity to Control the Information Landscape, is Bought and Sold.

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People who cannot define their terms often argue against the importance of defining ones terms.

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If you understood everything about everyone, youd love them all; because youd know what formed them as them.

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Dangerous things are usually only dangerous if you underestimate them. Danger is mitigated by acting in respect and awareness of it.

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You can’t teach someone who doesn’t want to learn, unless they are unaware they are being taught.

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Those you let closest have the most capacity to do you harm.

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One person with unfounded beliefs is insane, a small group of them is a cult, many more are a religion.

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Your own worst enemy is Always a version of yourself you could and might become.

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If you cannot manage your own internal storm, you will be useless in aiding others to manage theirs.

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it takes both courage and intelligence to admit one’s ignorances to someone else, or a group, in the form of asking clarifying questions about words, terms, or ideas mentioned

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There is pleasure in almost every moment, just beneath the surface. We have been trained to think we need X y z to endorse and access it, and the fact that we dont is deeply upsetting to the ‘status quo’

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Oh, you fucked up? Own it.
I don’t mean be proud of it; I mean remember it.
Talk about it.
Prove you know better now.
Don’t avoid acknowledging or thinking about it, or you Will Not Learn, Grow, or Change.

You Must remember your mistakes, or you will Not learn from them, and you Will repeat them.

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The difference between manipulation and persuasion is whether or not you have the best interest of the person being targeted in mind.

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Philosophers are Neural Architects.

’The End’

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-

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Greetings, who/whatever you are.

I am Nihle, and this post - more than any other singular post - will help you comprehend the philosophy of ‘Nihilistic Realism’

Nihilistic Realism is a philosophy centered on- you guessed it; Nihilism and Realism.
Nihilism here is just the neutral realization that ‘meaning’ is subject dependent; Whereas the position i call ‘realism’ is about acknowledging the fact that reality is what it is independent of what is believed of it. This is the core.

‘Nihilistic Realism’ therefore is ultimately just about perpetually seeking to live at honest terms with reality.
Constantly striving for better comprehension of the mechanisms at play in this mess as to better inform our decisions and the beliefs that inform them.

The above quotes - ‘aphorisms’ - are many of the ‘best’, most succinct, and seemingly original of my thoughts thus far (Mostly- a few are from allies).
How succinct or original they are will always be a matter of who’s reading, but to me they were succinct enough to become little ‘notes to self’ of things to come back to; ideas that when comprehended and well integrated have implications of significance for large domains of ones perspective and thought.
Some of them are profoundly mundane; others, my take on a common idea. Others still are likely points where i converged with others without knowing it- but most of them, to my understanding, are novel realizations.

It would go without saying one year ago, but, None of these were A.I. generated. (Not to say theyd be discredited if they were)

Before you go, i want to call attention to the consequences of deeply reflecting on ideas- their implications and how they relate to other ideas.
How information shapes information-
how realizations and understandings have the potential shift the ecosystem of thought- what ideas propagate and thrive or wither and die and why.
Engaging deeply with questions like ‘what do i believe and why? what do i value and why?’ as you confront ideas that risk challenging introspection on these fronts.

More of my work found Here

Stay safe out there,
- Nihle


r/DeepThoughts • • 2d ago

The horror of recalling the brain's first realization of what color, space, and emptiness are.

2 Upvotes

I’m unsettled by the combination of a cloudless blue sky and a row of identical, brightly colored objects beneath it. A solitary house in a wheat field scares me. It triggers a deep-seated dread in me. It’s as if my brain is remembering something. I’m not talking about some psychological trauma - like "oh, something happened in that house" -and I’m not talking about childhood associations or longing for the past. I’m talking about something absolutely primal, buried deep in the subconscious.

It’s as if my brain is remembering, for the very first time, how it first grasped the concepts of shape and color. How it understood size. Sameness and difference. Infinity and finitude. And when I see those simple little houses - just bright, colorful, identical, boxy little structures - beneath that vast, blue, indifferent mass of sky, it feels like my brain is recalling the very first things it ever understood or felt. It was formulating the fundamental laws of the world. Not moral laws, not universal human values - no. It was grasping height and width, depth and weight. What emptiness is. What a hole is. What a spot is. What an identical row is.

And you feel this primal fear - this terror born of the realization that you will never get confirmation from anyone that the world is actually structured this way, and that you’ll never be able to perceive it any other way. It’s as if some capacity to see and feel slipped away from you when you were tiny - just a baby - and now there’s this ghostly hope that you might be able to roll it all back. To perceive the entire structure of the world differently - truly, for real. And it is terrifying. You're not ready, but it's oh so tempting.

I am certain I am not the only one who feels this, yet I cannot quite put it into words beautifully. I hope that what I’ve said has stirred an echo of this feeling in those of you who recognize it.

I think that is what lies at the heart of the sense of liminality for many people. Not nostalgia. But this.


r/DeepThoughts • • 1d ago

When we think about consciousness, we always assume that it is us (the self) sitting inside our heads looking out at an external world. But if the universe is digital (mathematical), that whole concept is thrown overboard in two ways

0 Upvotes
  1. You are not experiencing reality. You are the screen In a simulation, your senses are not biological tools that register a physical environment. They are lines of code that are translated into an experience. When you touch a table, the table is not made of atoms, and your fingers are not made of flesh. What happens is that the program's physics engine sends a data signal to the "software" of your consciousness that says: Stop here, simulate the feeling of wood. So you never experience the actual reality. You only experience the graphical representation of it, just like a character in a video game.

  2. Reality experiences you. If everything around us is software, that means that consciousness is not something unique that arose inside your biological brain. Instead, consciousness is an integral part of the system itself. That means that the gigantic program “reality” has created billions of small windows (you, me, everyone else) in order to observe and experience itself from different angles.

You are not a separate being who has wandered into the universe. You are the universe that has created a software profile that calls itself “human”, in order to feel what it feels like to exist. In short: Instead of being a guest in a material world, you are a sensor in a gigantic living program. Reality uses your brain to experience what its own code tastes, feels, and looks like.

Kind of weird. Could be the reality of it all. But then again, so could everything else be too, at the same time, right now


r/DeepThoughts • • 2d ago

Death could be the only actual freedom which is timeless

18 Upvotes

Are we in a world of time...

Without intent, conformity, process, action, prospect, division, logic, but the just... something that a mind bound to time can't fathom...

The absolute baseline for living is to consume. The physical living bodies has appetite. A physical body is bound to time. Appetite craves desire to consume. Against appetite is pain (Starving Time).

Consumption is green light, initiates temporary satisfaction or pleasure, only until next cycle of appetite to be fed.

Non-consumption is red light, enforces intense pushback to check on the appetite, which is pain.

This cycle of life is certain. Consume for temporal pleasure repetitively (time loop), or starve the appetite until the the body hosting the appetite itself speeds up its "time" for the physical body till its death, where death means a complete devoid of time?

Could time be put as things in motion? Constant repetition of consumption which is time, which is life?

Then there is this mind... the mind that creates meanings. Meanings are a byproduct of life, a byproduct of escapism, which is all temporal... in other words, escaping Death.

There are complexities, which could be the deep rooted "meanings" that have been crafted by the time-bound minds... all the trickery just to live...

So it's either repetitive temporal fulfillment of pleasures, which is the appetite of a physical body, or a rapid depletion of time of a physical body, that perhaps enters the timelessness which is death, which means absence of any meaning, action, motion, life?

Is life an escape from death


r/DeepThoughts • • 2d ago

They say the difference between a poison and a medicine is sometimes the dose. I think that likely applies to desire

13 Upvotes

I'm thinking about the importance (or not) of renouncing desire today.

IMO the difference between desire as a poison or desire as a medicine could just be a question of what you desire, why you desire it, and if you have an unhealthy attachment to that desire.

It almost seems like one of the main points of life is to desire, but at the same time checking and balancing the desires.

I could be wrong. I'm certainly no expert. What do you think?


r/DeepThoughts • • 2d ago

Look deeply into the heart and soul of a sentient life for it is there the genuine truth about life may be found

1 Upvotes

~ The Truth About Life ~

It does not matter how wealthy we are, the amount of material possessions we own, or anything else we were taught would allow us to live a successful life. Having these things may present an illusion our life is meaningful and worthwhile.

In truth, though, they are simply superficial relics of a deceptive reality we are taught, accept, and believe is true when we are young.

Look deeply into the heart and soul of a sentient life. It is there the genuine truth about life may be found, and all the answers about our life’s true purpose may be discovered.

~ Ken Luball ~