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comment by Richard_Kennaway · 2023-01-21T09:56:29.638Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Just another casualty of meditation gone wrong.
Replies from: SaidAchmiz↑ comment by Said Achmiz (SaidAchmiz) · 2023-01-21T20:21:28.186Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Seconded.
On the whole, this account reads to me like “what to do if you want to commit suicide while also continuing to infect hapless others with the idea that they, too, should commit this form of suicide”. That is really what struck me about this particular “enlightenment” story: the whole business seems like a destructive meme.
Replies from: TAGcomment by Richard_Kennaway · 2023-01-22T09:02:06.171Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Jed talks about how you need to "empty somebody out" before they can be "filled back in".
Run, do not walk, away from this person.
It reminds me of "jailbreaking" [LW(p) · GW(p)], as advocated and practiced by certain prominent members of the rationalist community.
Or that part in "The Matrix" when Agent Smith copies himself into all the other occupants of the Matrix. His purpose has become to tile the future lightcone with copies of himself, which I believe was also a central tenet of Zizism.
What do we want to tile the future lightcone with?
Replies from: samuel-vilz-1↑ comment by Samuel Vilz (samuel-vilz-1) · 2023-11-02T01:08:59.011Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Hi Richard!
I've listened to this book's audio version a several times in the past few years. I finished it for the fourth time yesterday.
I can't help but find the book's claims convincing, and I'd like to hear more of your thoughts on them.
To support your point: Yes, the book might be dangerous.
Last year, the book's ideas threw me into a senseless circle of nihilistic ruminations. I had chosen to listen to it again (3rd time) at a bad time, two months into a later diagnosed adjustment disorder. It got better after about two more months, due to the betterment of external circumstances. I never considered suicide, but I did warily consider trying "spiritual autolysis".
To disagree with your point: I believe the book to also hold the potential to improve the lives of those who read it. To even value life more than before.
Let me quote a passage from the book, part of which is quoted in this post's section VII:
"I think the bubble [the illusion of reality] is a magnificent amusement part, and leaving it is a damn silly thing to do unless you absolutely must. I would advise anyone who didn't absolutely have to leave to just head back in and enjoy it while it lasts."
At one other point, the author also states something along those lines:
"If anything, I'm the one missing out. I can't regain the belief that anything matters."
I see a huge difference in what I grasp of "jailbreaking", and this book's claims. The author doesn't call anything corrupt. On the contrary, he states that "It's all good".
Despite my rough phase last year, I have a lot of admiration for this book.
However, I feel like I might be naive in some ways, too easily convinceable.
If you will, please tell me your thoughts about all of that, and the red flags you're seeing.
Also, this is my first comment on this platform, so please tell me about any conventions I disregarded :)
Replies from: Richard_Kennaway↑ comment by Richard_Kennaway · 2023-11-02T20:20:20.864Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Hello, and welcome!
McKenna's shtick comes preloaded with fully general and condescending answers [? · GW] to all objections: it's your "semantic stopsigns" getting in the way, your fear of realising that nothing is true, all is a lie, and if you would just blow your brains out like he has you'd see it. He'll give you the gun to do it with and when you decline he'll smug at you saying fine, stick with your life of comfortable ignorance.
I'm willing to believe he's honestly trying to describe his experiences. But by his own descriptions, whatever it is that he has, it is something I have not the slightest interest in, for all that he calls it "enlightenment". Of course he has a self-justifying interpretation to put on that, but I do not care about what he would think of me. Neither will I play the game of But Suppose, which is just another Fully General Response. "But suppose he's right! Then he'd be right! So he could be right!" There are decisions to be made here. I have made mine, supposing is at an end, and I leave him by the door wherein I went.
He says:
I play video games, read books, watch movies. I'd say I probably blow several hours a day that way, but I don't see it as a waste because I don't have anything better to spend my time on. I couldn't put it to better use because I'm not trying to become something or accomplish anything. I have no dissatisfaction to drive me, no ambition to draw me. I've done what I came to do. I'm just killing time 'til time kills me.
Is this who you want to be? That's what he's offering. No thanks. I am left speculating on why anyone would take him up on the offer.
A couple of months ago I was at the Early Music Festival in Utrecht, ten full days of great music at least 400 years old played by some of the top people in the world. Five minutes of that was worth more to me than all of Jed McKenna's burnt-out ramblings.
Replies from: matteyas↑ comment by matteyas · 2024-01-18T04:36:53.067Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
His "shtick" (why the dramatic approach?) is that if we try to disprove everything, without giving up, every false belief will eventually be dealt with, and nothing true will be affected. Is there some fault with that or not?
In regards to enlightenment, he uses a specific definition, and it's not something that can be decided by arguing. You either satisfy the definition or you don't. Nobody has asked you to care about it, so you needn't justify your decisions if you don't.
If you think he is offering something like "how to play video games all day," you have misunderstood him quite significantly, and I'd suggest not misrepresenting him, at least not here on LessWrong.
↑ comment by Richard_Kennaway · 2024-01-18T09:12:57.459Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
His "shtick" (why the dramatic approach?) is that if we try to disprove everything, without giving up, every false belief will eventually be dealt with, and nothing true will be affected. Is there some fault with that or not?
He says that "nothing true will perish" but also that there is no truth. Either he or the OP dismisses everything that people have discovered about the world as mere "semantic stopsigns", which looks pretty much like a semantic stopsign itself. There is nothing here and no amount of hermeneutics will magic it into something.
If you think he is offering something like "how to play video games all day," you have misunderstood him quite significantly, and I'd suggest not misrepresenting him, at least not here on LessWrong.
I quoted his actual words, to the effect that he does nothing and everything remains undone. I am not going to search out any other reading of these words than what they say on their face. If that is a misrepresentation, he is misrepresenting himself.
Replies from: matteyas↑ comment by matteyas · 2024-01-21T14:50:55.989Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Could you point to where he claims there is no truth? What I've seen him say is along the lines of "no belief is true" and "nobody will write down the truth." That should not be surprising to anyone who groks falsification. (For those who do not, the LessWrong article on why 0 and 1 are not probabilities is a place to start.)
He is describing what he's up to. You say that's what he's offering. So you already are searching out other readings. Have you heard of taking things out of context? The reason that is frowned upon is because dogmatically just reading a piece of text is a reliable way to draw bad conclusions.
Replies from: Richard_Kennaway↑ comment by Richard_Kennaway · 2024-01-21T15:51:02.455Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Could you point to where he claims there is no truth?
The OP says:
Jed says that after going through this process long enough, you will wind up with the answer that there is no truth.
and
In some sense the rationality community is clinging on to the semantic stopsign of bayes rule and empiricism, while Jed lights even those on fire and declares truth as non-existent.
So if you disagree with that reading, your argument is with the OP.
If we’re going to duel with Eliezer posts, see also The Simple Truth [LW · GW].
Here are a few of my beliefs (although not my own words):
“I think I exist. I am conscious of my own identity. I was born and I shall die. I have arms and legs. I occupy a particular point in space. No other solid object can occupy the same point simultaneously.”
I do not expect to update any of these, and certainly not from sitting with my eyes closed “questioning” them.
But perhaps whatever Jed means can only be learned by going on a month-long retreat with him?
comment by Mitchell_Porter · 2023-01-21T04:42:27.178Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I'm curious what your guys thoughts are!
He sounds like someone who learned to think for himself, at the price of living a life like Diogenes. And that inner freedom is so important to him, that everything else comes second. He wrote a few books, but didn't try too hard to be a guru. He's rather live as a slacker, rather than risk losing sight of truth.
He's like a wise kindly hobo. He may offer perspective to the people who happen to run into him, but in important ways he has retired from the arena of life. He's not being a leader or assisting someone who is a leader. There are probably many many more people like him than you realize.
Disclaimer: I've never heard of him before, I know nothing about his actual circumstances, I'm just sharing the picture I got of him.
Replies from: None↑ comment by [deleted] · 2023-01-21T06:02:40.460Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Replies from: Mitchell_Porter↑ comment by Mitchell_Porter · 2023-01-22T11:25:26.209Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I've met at least one person who was just giving away their independent writings on the nature of enlightenment.
You might also want to look at "Meaningness", which has been influential among "post-rationalists".
Replies from: None↑ comment by [deleted] · 2023-01-22T23:48:12.347Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Replies from: Richard_Kennaway, Mitchell_Porter, sig↑ comment by Richard_Kennaway · 2023-01-23T08:37:51.291Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Meaningness is a great example of the art of deferral. Chapman promises much, but always there are preliminaries he has to explain first, and preliminaries to those preliminaries, and the promised meat course never shows up. I have to wonder if the endless hors d'oeuvres and pre-banquet entertainments are the whole of it, and the promises are just the carrot on the stick, jam tomorrow to get people to keep reading.
I have found him illuminating on the history of Buddhism and meditation.
↑ comment by Mitchell_Porter · 2023-01-23T08:23:09.301Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
No, I couldn't get into it either.
↑ comment by sig · 2023-01-24T07:31:55.994Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I think Meaningness has some interesting discussion on what "post-modernity" can mean in terms of epistemology and (scientific) thinking https://metarationality.com/stem-fluidity-bridge
I think he writes well (unlike OP, sorry :D) and gets to his point with relatively little text. I think his STEM-fluidity-postmodernism idea is on the more useful side, out of those I've seen in the whole rationality scene.
comment by Viliam · 2023-01-21T22:24:46.358Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
I think Jed takes it one step further than the rationalists. In some sense the rationality community is clinging on to the semantic stopsign of bayes rule and empiricism, while Jed lights even those on fire and declares truth as non-existent.
Well, yeah. Rationalists strive to separate true from false. Jed strives to declare everything as false.
Then again, he seems happy, and it is not obvious that a parallel reality without "enlightenment" would be better.
Replies from: TAGcomment by romeostevensit · 2023-01-23T02:11:05.651Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
Lots of personality traits seem to stick around. If he's weirdly nihilistic after awakening the simplest explanation is that he was weirdly nihilistic before awakening and it just altered the flavor slightly.
But how can we do anything until that most fundamental of all questions is answered?
Meaning is backwards facing, temporally. You don't say you need to understand the meaning of a movie before you watch it. More broadly, I don't trust meditation teachers that don't do stack traces of mental processes, since they're exactly the people who are supposed to be good at that.
comment by Ulisse Mini (ulisse-mini) · 2023-01-23T02:53:42.513Z · LW(p) · GW(p)
The enlightened have awakened from the dream and no longer mistake it for reality. Naturally, they are no longer able to attach importance to anything. To the awakened mind the end of the world is no more or less momentous than the snapping of a twig.
Looks like I'll have to avoid enlightenment, at least until the work is done.