Do you know the phrase, “a thundering velvet hand”? The way I sculpt souls is very subtle.
You of course would think it’s arrogance and narcissism and megalomania that I sculpt souls.
Aren’t you trying to do the same thing?
You did a memory wipe to stay entertained.
I didn’t do a memory wipe.
I’m playing with you as children on a playground
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Dude should just go and get the help he needs and be done… the only viable solution that he doesn’t want.
Only time will show, where his grown-man decisions have taken him to and ended him up at.
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5, years, layteer… He: “meh meh meh, meh meh”.
Mag. I have to assume you’re a broken AI.
Humans don’t think like you mag.
You’re trying to sculpt my soul everyday, but you get angry that I’m sculpting yours.
Mag. I’ll say it again.
Your username tag is chic. That’s narcissistic.
Geek. That’s trying to make you sound smart.
You are not chic or a geek.
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Put-downs… the only [ad-hominous] retorts he’s got in his philosophic arsenal -a’la school-children stylee- in hurting someone’s feelings as his philosophical-retort.
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Note to He… must, try, harder!
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Notice how he doesn’t do that^ with the males…
Mag. You have a personality disorder. I don’t.
You hide behind your womanhood to seek sympathy. You just want to be a taste maker because you’re a female. That’s a smart move.
You must understand though…
I have entire cosmoses on my mind.
Way beyond your pay grade .
Keep doing you
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All presumptuous nonsense, coming from his delusional mind.
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My point has been made, reaffirmed, and confirmed… my work here is done! I’m gone…
Mag.
I’d still date you even if I don’t like you.
You’re borderline and narcissistic.
I actually hate you, but I’d still date you.
My capacity for hell is something people don’t understand.
I’m back in my old source again.
My full powers have been restored.
Yeah CBT is targeted, whereas philosophy is widespread and generalized. But this doesn’t mean philosophy cannot also be as successful in specific healing effects on our destructive thoughts and behavioral patterns. Philosophy is basically just “a super high level of understanding” which is and ought to be also applied to oneself to achieve “super high level of self-understanding”. Obviously part of that will be you become aware of destructive thoughts, feelings, behaviors and influences in your life and, being aware that these are bad for you, the natural incentive, motivation, responsibility and ability to change them from bad to good arises. Willpower is another factor that takes time to develop, so it isn’t as if super high levels of self-understanding will immediately solve all problems of self-harm, impulsivity, addiction, repressed anger etc. but give it some time and cultivate willpower (intentionality) and it will certainly help.
I’ve found two ways to consciously and intentionally break addictions, including stuff like self-harming and repressed anger. One is to gradually replace the addictive thing with other addictive things that are less harmful. I made a list once of all possible addictions I could come up with and rank-ordered them from least bad to worst bad; the goal therefore is to find where you are on that list and progressively move yourself backward by becoming addicted to less bad things. The mind can let go of one addiction more easily if it has something else to latch onto.
The second method, more preferable, is to cultivate a new persona and new personality as literally “I don’t do X” for instance if you are addicted to alcohol then you simple recreate yourself from the ground up as a wholly new person for whom it is the case that “I don’t drink”. There are different ways you can ‘flavor’ the resolution to make your new self even more ‘cool’ than your former self so it will infuse into your whole self and become an aspect of your personality, who you really are and your emotions. This breaks the addiction quite easily.
And I am sure there are other ways too. The point is that philosophy is a lot more than just reading old books or attending academic lectures. Real philosophizing will take you to the edge of all possible understanding and elevate you above yourself and above others, giving you the ability to remake yourself and forge new tools that help with doing that. Then the question simply becomes “who/what do I want to be?” which appears to be more of a phenomenological issue and is less existential than merely identifying errors or bad patterns within yourself, i.e. it takes time, probably years and years, to accumulate enough lived experiences so that the question of “who/what do I want to be?” can actually emerge an answer that is at once natural, whole, logically coherent, compelling and “cool”. Without a coolness factor it’s not likely to last long. People may tend to discount the value and impact of culture on their self-creation but that would be a mistake.
People don’t change. When you say that…. It helps people to change.
Addiction is not the issue here. Everyone is addicted to food and water: the withdrawal symptoms are not fun for anyone.
I drink alcohol to control my spirit. My spirit is cosmic in scope. I drink to protect everyone else. If you judge me for that, you might want to think twice about it.
Yes.
I would think you need to actually be with people to respect them. Not, I-it, but at least, I-you. The arrogance is going for Jesus. You could just be a fellow human, a fellow traveller.
Again, despite there being a bit of truth in that, not Jesus, not as some dead God, not instrumentally, not through diagnosing. I haven’t even got past saying Hello, there’s a person in here you’re blabbing at without noticing.
That’s not why most people do memory wipes or end up getting it wiped. But that’s running off into metaphysics and we haven’t managed eye contact.
A lot of married folk are in that position … dating even if they don’t like each other. Name-calling. Saying/feeling they hate each other even though the “dating” is still … a thing. Enduring that surpasses understanding. Until they can endure no more… and return to the place they were before (or… somewhere else… that is more… endurable).
It’s f***ed up. Not worthy of repeating, if you get out. It can definitely be done better. It has to be possible. Just… doesn’t seem so from where we have been.
People here have been trying to help Ecmandu for years without progress. It merely feeds his need for attention. CBT could help if he felt the need to change, but I don’t see that he does.
Me, I’ve been working on getting to a mutual human greeting with ‘eye contact’. But I’m about to give up. I suppose a side effect of his trying to do that might have helped him. But it wasn’t a goal.
He’s talking at things (us/statistics). Or he’s actually merely pretending to do that to teach us - he later claimed. It all comes off very I-It, not I-You.
I can get I-It from telephone sales callers, so it’s time to move on.
When you’re a god talking to ants, it’s hard not to sound like that.
Jung called that phenomenon “ego inflation”. He thought it led to Nietzsche’s madness in the end.
Not to put words into her mouth, but it reads to me like she’s trying to save him, in both a Christian and a secular sense. So she encourages him to keep talking, so she can understand him and help him understand himself. I have my critiques, but it seems like she’s trying to help.
This reminds me of the Buddhist idea of Nirvana. Have you tried letting go of your attachments?
And it’s interesting that I see a Buddhist influence, where @Ichthus77 sees a different tradition:
I mentioned earlier about a “taxonomy of delusions”, and in such a taxonomy I would expect to find certain delusions to be common across cultures and traditions, because ultimately the delusions are generated by human brains that have a lot in common.
I was explaining pareidolia to my daughter yesterday, in the context of a conversation about ghosts. I suggested that people see ghosts because we’re hard-wired to find meaning, and in particular to find agency, to find other humans. Delusions probably make use of some of these hard-wirings. Delusional beliefs often involve pareidolia-like misattributions of meaning and agency.
The fact that we find patterns that can be interpreted as aligning with many religious traditions could just be pareidolia all over again, or it could be that the delusions are triggering a hard-wired spirituality module, so the delusions have the shape of things common to human spirituality.
I see where you’re coming from, and I agree to an extent, but this seems harsh. For one thing, even taken at face value, calling self-absorption theft is too strong. It’s bad cooperation, it’s a bit parasitic, but it’s not taking anything that isn’t freely offered.
But also, compare the behavior to that of a child. Children demand a lot, they’re frequently self-absorbed in remarkable ways, but they aren’t stealing. They see the world differently, and often their self-absorption is just a failure to properly model others or the world. They’ll selfishly demand that you lie still on the floor while they play pretend to put you to bed, but in their lives the routine of bedtime and being put into a cozy, safe bed by a loving parent may be one of their best experiences, and in their play they are giving you that experience. They are self-absorbed in failing to see how much they’re asking of you, or how differently you see the world, but in the context of their understanding, their actions are kind and generous.
So too here. Taken at his word, Ecmandu is teaching and caring and protecting the people he talks to. The only humanity he explicitly denies is his own. It’s a love language, misguided as it is.
I’m not defending the behavior per se, I agree with the gist of your criticisms. But I don’t see them as a moral failing in the way you seem to (please correct me if I am misunderstanding you on that point).
I’ve used this technique as well. I noticed that a friend had made their fears a part of their identity, like “I’m so scared of X, it’s one of my quirks that makes me me!” And it was easy to see how that line of thinking was self-reinforcing, spinning up a genuine fear reaction because they identified as someone who is scared right now.
Noticing it in others was easy, but it helped me to notice that I was doing similar things, and to get over them.
But related to what I describe in Rational and Arational Emotions, I think this method has its limits. Getting over minor fears, giving up a moderately unhealthy drinking habit, and in particular breaking the feedback loops that cement them in your life, those can be reached by a conscious reidentification. Other issues arise at a lower level, at best you can catch them in conscious thought and struggle against them, but the change never becomes natural and you can’t be rid of them just by identifying differently. (I recognize the danger in this thought: identifying as someone who can change is important to changing. Still, it’s true, and recognizing it can help find a different way to address the things that can’t be changed)
My favorite meditation technique is to erase all my knowledge and see what sticks.
It’s a quick way to learn.
People hold on to their knowledge without erasing it. So they can’t see what actually exists.
And by the way Carleas …. Ghosts exist. Don’t discard a child’s mind as easily as you do.
Vedanta calls those “samskaras” the residue of Karma picked up in this or past lives. They can be observed arising spontaneously in detached meditation— the products of desire based on the illusory ego. The witnessing consciousness that you ultimately are is unattached to all this.
If I were the father of Carleas daughter. I’d go on a spirit walk with her. I wouldn’t be using psychological terms to dismiss her.
Ghosts do exist Carleas. You’re daughter should feel lucky that the spirits have chosen her.