09bjb

> every religion teaches intolerance to other beliefs.

Not so. Big difference (and spectrum) between a Buddhist saying "I think my way is better, try it for yourself, or don't!" and a (insert fundamentalist sect here) saying "You deserve to die if you don't think like me." You don't even have to be religious to claim the latter, some political belief systems will also do just fine.

Hmm. "Subjective experience" doesn't feel the same to me as "imagination," but they're related I suppose. My experience of the world is real, as you would probably categorize yours. Invisible and unexplainable, not at all...see the many suggestions on this page. "Unprovable"; 1) if you've experienced it directly, your proof is there but it's limited to one person, 2) all mathematical systems break down when pushed to a limit (Godel's incompleteness theorem, the necessity of different physics/math under different conditions, etc.); we're talking about a way to encompass all of these things while adhering to a concise definition, it's hard.

I actually think these academic discussions of "what is god precisely" and "how does it work" only really sway a small subset of people. IMO it's "try these techniques out for yourself and decide for yourself," not "surely this explanation of the entirety of existence will sway you!" I'm with you, I don't think there's a formal text definition of god that ever would have convinced me to "believe." Either you have a notion of a higher power or unitive/connective force and have experienced it, or you haven't and you're working with the evidence you've got (math, the Bible, whatever). Take a few psychedelics or do a bunch of meditation and you'll end up feeling like most practitioners do, which is that you have a strong ineffable experience that doesn't translate well into words. Or don't! God's just a made-up word anyway for an aspect of the universe / human experience that we have a hard time defining (one of my definitions).

I've got some gripes with Jordan Peterson's popularity but everyone needs to hear this (paraphrasing): "OK, you're going to disregard all of Christianity because there are literal untruths in the Bible? We have a word for people who insist on the literal truth of sacred texts: fundamentalists. I'm sorry, it was probably never meant to be literally true, it's describing stuff that's better understood as story/myth. You're going to have to try a little harder."

That depends on how we define god. Which is what this whole thread seems to be about :) Needless to say, yes, getting people to agree on whether they're talking about the same thing takes a lot of patience. For a certain type of person, definitely worth the effort.

Personally I didn't care at all until I had a direct experience that I couldn't explain without "spiritual" vocabulary. And now I'm embroiled in these sorts of debates for fun...

Moral questions are religious questions. Can suffering be scientifically observed and quantified? The "right direction" is a fairly large, old, and subtle debate without an easy or obvious answer. While I'm totally on board with the idea that furthering scientific knowledge is a net positive, we're definitely suffering these days from an overabundance of powerful technology and a deficit of "right direction" for that technology. Thinking deeply about what exactly the right direction is in no way strikes me as wasted intellectual effort.

Similar to something I read in a Jack Kornfield book the other day, about a Zen tradition called "just sitting" where you dispense with any goals or concepts of enlightenment and, well, just sit. Presumably it gets you somewhere...or nowhere :)

Might you need both? From what I've seen, dig deep enough in a particular hole, be it theoretical physics, statements about God, etc. and you get the paradox that two different things imply each other mutually. You can't have one without the concept of none, and you can't have none without the concept of one. See Godel's incompleteness theorem, the particle vs. wave situation, etc.

Are you saying that this concept is mostly absent from the Taoist texts you've read?

Yeah, to me the miraculous existence of anything at all, the ability to enjoy pure wonder, and a fully "unitive" experience once in a while...is more than enough for me. That God certainly lives up to its name.

Under what religious or philosophical tradition can God not be observed, even partially?

There are similar thoughts in many spiritual traditions...find your mystic or gnostic vein in any religion and you're not far away from this concept.

"God likes to play hide-n-seek, but because there is nothing outside of God, he has no one but himself to play with!" http://educateinspirechange.org/spirituality/concept-great-p...

"Theological noncognitivism" is not too far removed from "ignosticism", according to your link. Ignosticism states: the question of the existence of God is meaningless because the term "god" has no coherent and unambiguous definition. Totally valid, to the extent that saying that something that we can't bottle and stopper must be irrelevant helps anyone sleep at night.

I suppose my one point of disagreement is that the poem is philosophically aligned with Questions of God-ness being pointless...the poem doesn't strike me that way (totally subjective of course). And Buckminster Fuller was well known to have undergone a pretty profound mystical experience (whatever that means) that shaped the rest of his life.

Thank you! I'm not in NYC but these are great guidelines. Something I'll be scheduling for myself in the near future.

Wow, been digging into the AYP site. Thank you for passing this on. Some of the best stuff I've ever read, and I've read a LOT.

You'll keep coming up empty, so to speak, trying to nail down the result of spiritual disciplines into a concrete definition. Science's point of view is verifiability by repeatable, direct observation. With spiritual stuff, the healthy attitude that you'll usually get is, "try it for yourself!" The direct experience of the result usually precludes further need to verify from other perspectives.

All that said, I think understanding the science underlying the remarkable experiences people have during or as a result of "mystic" experiences (for which we have pretty decent scientific definitions; see the Johns Hopkins psychedelics questionnaires) is probably what's holding us back from spreading more and better healing. We're not going to move forward giving everyone the usual "Well, it's definitely weird, but it works, just trust me."

Disclaimer: not a Kundalini practitioner. My healing has mostly been reading-, meditation-, and psychedelic-flavored.

Where did you learn? There seems to be a large divide between the training, time, and money required to become certified, and the one-off Saturday event. I'd like to use it but I'd also like to understand how it works. Grof's book doesn't contain a how-to and the knowledge seems a bit cloistered...too much so given that it's hard to hurt yourself in this method.

I'm already "sold" on the healing potential of these modalities: psychedelics, float tanks, Lucid Lights, etc...HB would be good to add to the list, mostly because it's probably a great gateway for others to direct spiritual practice and more healing. Thank you!

> no observations we can possibly make can be statistically independent of each other.

Yep. When I'm reading these articles, "Everything Connects" is a pretty useful heuristic for flowing with apparent discrepancies in theories...although of course nailing down concrete theories and finding precise explanations for phenomena is important.

The phrasing here reminds me of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem...probably not coincidental.

> "No physical theory of local hidden variables can ever reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics."

GIT paraphrased to match: "No axiomatic system can produce all truths within that axiomatic system."

These are beautiful ideas.

I like the attitude, that we can't throw anything out completely if we're to be open to new learning...but let's categorize these effects as "epigenetics" broadly and leave Lamarckism at rest :)

> I'm not convinced that there still is that full sense of "freedom to choose" that you suggest.

I don't, and I wouldn't! The Scandinavian countries are much further along on this, but probably still don't constitute a perfectly level playing field where being a man or a woman doesn't confer advantages in certain disciplines. I'm just not holding my breath for perfect equality of outcome once the playing fields are fully level; in fact, the science points to it being pretty likely that the only way you'll get men and women to do exactly the same things in exactly the same way in exactly the same proportions is by tyrannical force, which I don't think helps either sex.

> Would you still feel as comfortable to suggest that, "... where all races have the highest levels of equality of opportunity, education, and choice in the world...is that that racial effects are actually maximized.

Sure! This one is trickier as I can't point to any society that's very far along the path of actually leveling the playing fields between races. Certainly in the U.S. the stakes are stacked abhorrently high against blacks in particular (the drug war in particular is disgustingly deliberate legislative racism, in my opinion). Many Mexicans in the U.S. are not free to choose. However, we've already run a lot of well-designed experiments that show that race is not at all correlated with intelligence, drive, job choice independent of other factors (family, education, and level of poverty, for example). Gender, on the other hand, has been shown to correlate not at all with things like intelligence, and correlate fairly tightly with things that affect your work and your choice of occupation, such as: disagreeableness (one of the strongest predictors of ending up in a leadership position), empathy, interest in people vs. interest in ideas, etc.

All categories should be open for discussion, and additional good science will gradually wither the fields/distinctions that have no predictive ability or bearing on reality (phrenology, eugenics, antiquated theories of physics, etc.).

This last statement is subjective opinion, but my assessment of the science (plus my real-world experience and fallible human schemas) tell me that we won't find perfect equality between genders once we have perfect equity between genders. That equity is absolutely worth striving for but not at the expense of good science, healthy debate, and dialogue itself, things that are at times threatened in these emotionally-charged discussions.

A man is not the same as a woman, and a man is not the equal of a woman. My only argument is that the linguistic categories of "Woman" and "Man" are useful (in everyday communication, in science and biology, etc.) and I will be slow to give them up. To pretend that no categories exist is to invite chaos, as categories are useful.

...metaphysically speaking, all categories distort, but good luck navigating the world with your eyes that wide open.

Societal expectations do play a big role, and it's an open questioned as to whether that's a Natural Rule or whether we just haven't tried other cultural configurations enough yet. And you're right, psychological gender probably does play a large role in the effects. It's helpful to note here that biological gender, psychological gender, and gender expression do not vary independently though.

Teachers, full-time mothers and fathers, and generally anyone who's in charge of raising the next generation properly, are all underpaid and arguably undervalued.

However, when you legislate away any reward for risk-takers, innovators, and all those folks you mentioned who simply work harder at the expense of something else in their lives...then you end up in a society where nobody tries, nothing happens, and everyone's pretty well subsumed into an existential crisis -like existence. What's the point of trying if it's guaranteed not to make a difference?

"They pretend to pay us, we pretend to work." - Soviet-era saying

Equality. If the usual parlance were "Gender Inequity" then we'd be talking about that instead. But that's used so little that googling "Gender Inequity" actually redirects automatically to "Gender Inequality", so the former can't be very much in use.

Instinctually, I agree with you on the effects of years of daycare on development...could you point me to one or two of your sources? I hate to be that guy on HN, just looking for some confirmation for my bias here :)

Generally speaking, equality of choice between the sexes is unequivocally a good thing...but we're going to spend years untangling the muddy notion in many people's minds that equality of outcome is expected when there is perfect equality of opportunity.

What actually happens in the Scandinavian countries, where both sexes have the highest levels of equality of opportunity, education, and choice in the world...is that that gender effects are actually maximized. Men tend to choose STEM careers and competitive paths because they are free to choose, and women tend to choose to become doctors, nurses, and part-time workers of any kind, because they are also free to choose.

Another way to say this is, there will always be Gender Inequality because the (biological) genders are not equal to each other. A woman does not equal a man, and she shouldn't. But try saying that at a dinner party...

"Really work" in this case meaning probable addiction and potential death in exchange for a month or two of pain relief. If it "really worked" as advertised (maximum of one dose needed per 12 hours) we wouldn't have this problem at all. OxyContin's much-marketed delayed release mechanism is BS and it's costing thousands of lives and livelihoods.

Agreed! I've set up matching donations for your matching donations among my friends. Thank you for supporting this cause...I think a lot of mental conditions go ignored and un-healed as a consequence of not understanding these substances well (both the benefits and side effects).

This is fantastic news! I did an actual fistpump seeing this in the HN list this morning. In my anonymous, just-another-person-on-the-internet opinion, there isn't a lot out there that holds more potential for humanity at the moment than furthering our understanding (and consequent _responsible_ use of) psychedelics.

A huge thank you to Pine for supporting healing-driven science and noticing that MAPS is doing this particularly difficult work with efficiency and integrity.