yadingus

> The mind can be a contributing factor but it is absolutely not necessary. Injuries that you're entirely unconscious of can cause significant levels of stress which are measurable.

You're making a division between mind and body, stating that stress can occur without the mind.

The mind is more than the brain.

Dualism is proposing that there is a clear division between mind and body, which is your original claim that I'm debating.

> Injuries that you're entirely unconscious of can cause significant levels of stress which are measurable.

The unconscious is the mind too.

Body and mind are interdependent, without mind the body would be dead.

There's a famous quote, paraphrased:

If you can, meditate for 10 minutes a day.

If you're too busy, then meditate for 30 minutes a day.

If your body is ill and needs surgery, the aftermath of the surgery can make you feel worse for a while.

Likewise, if not understood well, not accompanied by proper understanding (which is a symptom of the western approach), it can just be poorly performed.

Quality, not quantity.

The mind is the brain and the body. Stress is generated by the mind when contacting external objects, or when reliving past trauma.

There is no such thing as an external source of stress. You can't measure how much stress an object or situation is objectively emitting, because it is a response generated by the mind itself.

As such it can only be examined by the mind itself, and with that it can be mastered.

The real source of stress is the mind.

In that analogy, compassion and love are the oxygen. If you hold on to anger and defensiveness in order to "fend for yourself" it's like failing to put on your oxygen mask because you hold on to your valuables, thinking someone is going to steal them in the middle of a plane crash.

The first step in looking after yourself is getting to know your own mind.

> Understanding emptiness

> The other points are valid to me, this one belongs in the realm of metaphysics for me.

Isn't this something both the Buddha and modern science agree on? Matter if comprised of mostly empty space. It's physics, no meta.

The other practices also have an effect on your body and mind, you just don't bother verifying it for yourself because you want an external authority to do it for you first.

You don't need to buy into the esoteric teachings, or even the core belief of reincarnation. But you don't have to reject them either. Just inform yourself on the basics and keep them in mind. "If this bit was true, what would the world be like? How would my actions impact the world? How would they impact my future self?"

In the end the whole point is reducing suffering, and the longer you wait for someone else to verify one claim or another, the longer you're going to be bound to your habitual suffering.

I've done vipassana retreats where they play audio files from Goenka's instructions. You can do the same with a phone.

I've used analogue timers to determine when to get up from my session. Please explain the difference between an analogue timer and a digital one, for this purpose.

I hope the day comes when you realize how stupid this comment is, and even more so how stupid it was to hit the reply button :)

From direct observation, people who are persuaded astrology tend to know a lot of people. You could say a sort of map to observe and predict relationships across all the people you already know and all the people you will meet is useful.

Conversely, people who are very outspoken against astrology don't have as varied, dynamic and big social circles. Hence they'd not need a "social map", and they might even lack the social intelligence to realize that other people do.

I think the fact that you find other people's beliefs frustrating says more about yourself and how you deal with the world than about the value of those beliefs.

Emotional intelligence is real, and being easily frustrated (specially when that frustration comes from being so sure that you're right and someone else is wrong) is a sign of low emotional intelligence.

bazinga

The belief that you're a completely rational being is irrational in itself. If that's the belief you hold about yourself I guarantee you can find a friend or acquaintance who can point out contradictory and irrational behavior of yours.

ok sheldon

I'd not be surprised if people who are extremely intolerant of astrology have much lower emotional intelligence than people who believe in astrology.

Astrology's biggest role is drawing a map of how people relate to each other, it's not primarily about making claims of the physical world.

I think it's more "tolerate other people's harmless views".

After all, science has undeniably caused more harm to the world than the belief in astrology.

We can also harm and destroy a lot more than we could a century ago.

point 3 seems just made up to me? Like. Why?

Here's another take:

Everything is changing and being changed. There is no "first" because the universe is not linear. And ultimately there is no actual division between "changed" and "changer". There is just "change".

This is a fun proposition and I thought about this often, but in reality it's not really that fair to ask that question if they don't know you well, in the same way someone might fail to guess your exact age or nationality by just looking at you.

That doesn't mean astrology is true, just that your question isn't as witty as you might think.

The "suffering equation" is to me the weirdest rationalization.

Whether that is true or not, I think it's more important to keep in mind that it's not our place to judge that, unless you hold some biblical belief that animals were put on earth by god to feed us. The cost of freedom must be taken into account too, it's a value not only relevant to humans.

A lot of the suffering in the world comes about because humans have an inflated sense of moral agency over things outside their scope. We have the tools to affect many beings and many lands, but not the wisdom to see the immediate and long term effects. We just see our current behavior, and then employ all kinds of mental gymnastics in order to perpetuate it. We'll go to great trouble to change the world, just so we don't have to admit we need to change our selves.

The mathematics of black holes and quantum mechanics would be incomprehensible to a mind before written language because you'd be missing a lot of levels of abstraction and imagination.

To assume that things must look significantly similar to how they've looked before, ignores that we can be in the dark about what constitutes life in the same way we've been in the past.

> This is incoherent. I don't even know how to parse it.

I can parse what he said easily. People used to look at the sun and think it was actual fire, because they only had fire on earth to compare it to. You might see something on another planet that looks like a plant so you assume it has the same biological characteristics as a plant, but that's just an assumption.

Ants don't know they lack conceptual thinking. There can be some perspective or perception that we simply don't know that we lack.

For example if there's life that exists across 7 spatial dimensions instead of 3, how would we parse it? I'm not asking as a gotcha question, if you have a legit answer I'm very curious.

If you're already doing those tasks over and over there is no point in adding them to a todo.

When I started using a todo list I was very conceptual about it "this is something that must be done, therefore it goes on the list.

But really it's more about which tasks need to be present on a list. I don't need to be reminded to eat every day, and if I do, that's the job of an alarm. On the other hand if I need to soak lentils while I make breakfast tomorrow, that might go in my todo list.

Out of curiosity, why do you need your text editor to also be a perfect file manager?

I think you severely underestimate not only how long effects can take to show, but how long and complicated it can be to fund good long term scientific studies.

There's this belief that if something has an effect, it'll just show up magically on the news after the minimum amount of time, without taking into account all the hurdles people have to go through to research. Even if you didn't have powerful companies with interests against the research being published, it would be complicated.

Wood clogs sound terrible for the health of your feet.

There's guides for making huaraches with tire rubber.

And there's also barefoot sandals that claim to last a life time (but cost like 100 bucks).