GENIUS FORUMS

Yes, for there to be enlightenment there must first be delusion, and delusion in humans involves egotism and suffering, but no, suffering should not be on the list of things 'to do' towards becoming enlightened. You do not focus on or invoke suffering in order to gain ground towards enlightenment. Y...

Hi Rhett, it's been a while since I've seen you post here. How have you been? As for Trump, my views have developed over the years as well on the topic. Three years ago I started here, before the final election. the naked, personal ambition coated with a truck load of staggering braggadocio. That h...

That just looks like an attempt at a personal attack, bluster, suggesting an inability to hold ground if you engaged with the topic. There is no ground being combated, at least not of the philosophical variety. You like all other reactionaries have simply decided to project onto a crumbling politic...

That just looks like an attempt at a personal attack, bluster, suggesting an inability to hold ground if you engaged with the topic.

Suffering is a motivator. But suffering in and of itself doesnt create awakening.

Maximiliano, what do you think makes that awakening happen?

Jupiviv, Trump's or his advisers methods of reducing illegal immigration may be worthy of serious criticism at times, but if you value wisdom and the best possible statistics around the world, then i think you should support the restoration, maintenance and improvements to the leading organisations ...

Eric, what do you think makes this awakening occur?

Okay.

So if becoming enlightened is about, as you say, "trying to make sense of the world", how do you see it as different to science, or different at all?

I havent been here for a long time.

Is there anyone here genuinely seeking enlightenment?

I dont claim to be an expert on Trump, but i do have some views and will share them. Initially, i was almost totally against Trump, and the more i learned the more that view was reinforced. I have seen a documentary about him and his mafia and con man past. I still hold those specific pieces of data...

These days i am seeing two poles, people that call any distinction regarding culture, religion or DNA as racist, if they so choose, and people that say there is no such thing as race and therefore no such thing as racism. I dont see value in either of these. My personal view is that racism ought onl...

Hi Rhett. Surely I can understand some of this but and material i have written on the internet can be used against me... Although I'm not familiar with your older posts, does that mean you don't support anymore what you once wrote? Or gained some new insights or changed perspective? Or do you try t...

From "Topica" Mar 15, 2005: Following is a list of Genius-L contributors who have been most significant in some way to the list over the years (offered in something very roughly like chronological order). My apologies to anyone I may have forgotten or anyone I've left out who feel they ou...

I see it this way. The core of the ego is the false belief in an inherently existent self, and the padding is the confusion and suffering and other associated behaviours that arise from it. Egolessness is thus the absence of these. The egoless state involves intellectual discernment about what is go...

If there was such a thing as having no ego, which I think is probably impossible, then this person would have no problem with me coming over and blowing their head off with a shotgun. Ego keeps you alive. A person without ego would likely act against your attempt to blow their head off, and would d...

Rather than think in terms of compassion or disdain, which typically invoke emotions, i think in terms of how things are, how they could best be, and how to influence them from the former to the latter.

It's hard to think of a non-egotistical term (or one that doesn't convey an emotional state) to express the desire or will that something should cease to exist or that you want it to disappear from the face of reality. Whenever we regard something as 'not good', 'wrong', 'undesirable', a 'problem',...

Rhett, In saying that you are missing that cultures are just as much programmed towards reproduction. And cultures are also programmed to thwart behaviours that threaten reproduction, such as the pursuit of wisdom. I don't like using the word culture because it is such a large scale concept that do...

A waitress serving in a restaurant appears rude to the customers. A) The woman is actually a nice person but has recently experienced depressive events. B) The Woman is evidently self-centered without concern for others. C) Not enough information is available to ascertain the character of the woman...

To minus anything from life/earth is evil and the bigger the minus the greater the evil. like everything there are degrees of evil, eg;Eating meat vs Hitler! It is unfortunately the common case that the eradication of evil is seen as evil, indeed a greater evil that most other evils. People get rea...

And cultures are also programmed to thwart behaviours that threaten reproduction, such as the pursuit of wisdom. Not quite. Cultures have only one side, by nature. It thrives on its own machina. The anti reproduction exists only as an unseen enemy. The end of life, support etc. Until such time as t...

Enlightenment is the absence of delusion. When delusion is absent, the mind can accurately assess that delusion is absent.

Reprodution culture isn't the right way to put it, we are biological organisms that are programmed to replicate our genes in the same way that a plant is programmed to seed every spring. In saying that you are missing that cultures are just as much programmed towards reproduction. And cultures are ...

"Reproduction culture," sums up a certain scientifically centered worldview that seeks to express animate life forms as exclusively propelled towards, well... reproduction. IMHO, this topic neatly encapsulates the fact that much of what passes for science when viewed philosophically is re...