Myke Merrill, No Bad Emotions? |516|

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Myke Merrill, No Bad Emotions? |516|
by Alex Tsakiris | Aug 31 | Consciousness Science
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Dr. Myke Merrill is a trainer, consultant and pastor who thinks there are no bad emotions?
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BAM. Two hard hitters in a row!
I'm totally digging Myke Merrill, and I'm going to side with him on a lot of this episode. Will probably listen to this one 3-4 times.
I think his classification of Evil was the best I've heard yet. Totally fits the framework if there were a Satan/Lucifer whose army of fallen angels' goal is to entice men away from good.
No need for "Evil" to be a Thing, except for in it's ability to characterize the lack of Good, or the result thereof.

Digging in..

I've made this point before on the forum:
If God exists, and created our 14B y/o universe, and intended to leave no bread crumb trail, why on Earth would we expect to find bread crumbs? Why would we expect a being of that magnitude to make those type of mistakes?
If, still we insist that a Universe Creator makes mistakes that can be caught by humans, what say we make it to a Type II or Type III civilization and then regroup to take a stab at finding them?

I've also made this point before on the forum:
Many people like Bernardo Kastrup and also many of the NDE'ers want to take the indescribable liberty of applying the word "consciousness" to the afterlife (let alone eternity or God).. as if we have any thing remotely qualifying as evidence(bread crumbs, actual) that would lead us to assume that the two realms(our Realm and the Eternal Realm) are even relatable by words!!... Let alone being relatable by physics!!
I assume that our Realm is far less relatable to Heaven than it is to the existentiality of Super Mario within the 8-bit computer.


Alex, why are you asking Christians to provide bread crumbs?
Conversely, You understand that unless there's a miracle in our near future, future history books are going to say Jan 6 2021 was a terrorist plot by white supremacists?
That was 8 months ago. And you're constantly trying to debate historical veracity on the Bible (a compilation of spiritual stories, drug trips, and poems) from 2000 years ago. That's almost 4,000 Jan 6's ago!

I'd like to argue that if Jesus was the son of God, historical debate would be the last place you would confirm it.
 
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Not entirely sure why, but I liked this Myke Merill guy. His point about evil being the absence of good isn't only his, of course. It goes back to St. Augustine, who said the same thing. Think of good and evil as being not so much opposites, as being like points on the absolute temperature scale. At one end is absolute zero deg. K. At the other end are temperatures unimaginably higher. But they're all the same essential quality of thing vibrating (as it were) at different frequencies/amplitudes (f/a). Near the bottom, the f/a is low. Nearer the top, it's great.

The "moral imperative" is just a phrase. Maybe it could be expressed as the "evolutionary" imperative, or the direction one needs to go in if one is to evolve, to progress to higher f/a's of vibration. As one does that, one gets clearer and clearer perspectives; is able to see things more and more as they actually are.

The choice is a free one: to vibrate at a low or high f/a. From lower perspectives, one is concerned with ego; from higher perspectives, one is less concerned with it. At lower levels, rewards can only be material, but the dissatisfaction may be great. At higher levels, such material things as one possesses are seen as incidental, not necessary beyond a certain point; what matters is the perspective one has worked hard for, not justified by desire for material reward, but by a desire for truth. And, as one gets nearer and nearer truth, one's satisfaction increases.

"Bad people" are those vibrating at a low f/a. "Evil" is what they do in an attempt to gain greater satisfaction than they currently have. They aren't irrational, so much as terribly confused about how to increase their satisfaction. Or maybe just terribly lazy. Or both. "Better" people are less confused, less lazy, or both.

What really irks is that the confusion/laziness of "bad" people causes harm to others. But it's harm that, in the grand scheme of things -- if one believes in the immortality of the soul -- can have no permanent effect. Indeed, in some circumstances it might be exactly what is needed for evolution to take place.
 
If God exists, and created our 14B y/o universe, and intended to leave no bread crumb trail, why on Earth would we expect to find bread crumbs? Why would we expect a being of that magnitude to make those type of mistakes?

nice! I'm sure you've said before, but this has a nice new twist to it. thx.

Bernardo Kastrup and also many of the NDE'ers want to take the indescribable liberty of applying the word "consciousness" to the afterlife (let alone eternity or God).. as if ...that would lead us to assume that the two realms(our Realm and the Eternal Realm) are even relatable by words!!

kudos again... yes, big assumption to think they are "relatable by words."


Alex, why are you asking Christians to provide bread crumbs?

hold on... seems like yr pulling a 180 on me. I mean. the problem with the christian cosmology is that it's flat earth-ish right out of the gate. " if Jesus was the son of God" is a non-starter.
 
hold on... seems like yr pulling a 180 on me. I mean. the problem with the christian cosmology is that it's flat earth-ish right out of the gate. " if Jesus was the son of God" is a non-starter.

It could well be, but maybe the problem is in the definite article, often qualified by an "only" for emphasis ("the only son of God"). In Bernardo's terms, each and every one of us is a dissociated "son/daughter" (alter) of M@L. Irrespective of whether Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels was an actual person, he symbolises an example of someone vibrating at an unusually high frequency, so to speak.

In following him, in "imitation of Christ", I suspect the main mistake is to accord him a unique status, which results in his deification. In my view, he shouldn't be deified, but held as an example to be admired, and thereby serve as a role model whose behaviour is to be aspired to. This is why I still consider myself a Christian of sorts, though I long ago dispensed with dogmas such as his dying for us in order to redeem us.

I believe each one of us is responsible for his/her own "redemption", and no one can take over that responsibility for us -- the best that can be done is to point the way, either through example, or teaching, or some combination of the two. But in the end, we all have to put in the work required to "vibrate at a higher frequency", i.e. become people of greater "goodness".
 
I believe each one of us is responsible for his/her own "redemption", and no one can take over that responsibility for us -- the best that can be done is to point the way, either through example, or teaching, or some combination of the two. But in the end, we all have to put in the work required to "vibrate at a higher frequency", i.e. become people of greater "goodness".

Indeed, this tallies up with my experience well too.

I found that when you start going down that route of bettering yourself, opportunities come up in life to further that goal, and it definitely feels sometimes like something is helping you along.

You might get random moments of kindness from a stranger, or suddenly a feeling of love comes over you from 'nothing' in hard times, just to show you that there is 'something other'. It's debatable what 'that is', and where this exactly comes from, but I've noticed it empirically in my own life.

I'd be surprised if there was purely a material explanation for this, like some kind of social feedback loop that humans have.
 
Thank you again. This interview was wonderful.
hold on... seems like yr pulling a 180 on me. I mean. the problem with the christian cosmology is that it's flat earth-ish right out of the gate. " if Jesus was the son of God" is a non-starter.
Nope…
It could well be, but maybe the problem is in the definite article, often qualified by an "only" for emphasis ("the only son of God"). In Bernardo's terms, each and every one of us is a dissociated "son/daughter" (alter) of M@L. Irrespective of whether Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels was an actual person, he symbolises an example of someone vibrating at an unusually high frequency, so to speak.
And Nope…

We’re applying the deduction backwards here.

When and NDE’er brings us back a story of meeting with God, do we in-cancel-culture-style go back through their social media history to amass a list of contradictory behavior? Or, do we carve out their experience as separate from normal life and apply a different set of lenses to examine where the experience seems commensurate as something mystical or Devine?

While we obviously dont apply this same benefit of the doubt to Jesus story, do we stop to ask why not?

Answer: Simply because great claims require great corroboration.

Whereas,

I would argue that Most Likely scenario is that Jesus real life was something akin to a perma-NDE. And Most Likely the history books (Eventually the Bible) ran amuck with it.

Regardless though,

Even if Jesus was only experiencially “The Son of God” for a brief moment and all the rest of the story’s were added after the fact by propagandists, the astral bell still rings the same tone.

I’ll argue that through this lens it makes the most sense to deduce backwards… starting from the least amount of corroboratory events to demonstrate the Devine.

Otherwise….
“Nope.. can’t be A/The son of God. He healed someone on the Sabbath. What more do you need to know” (paraphrasing, obviously)

Nope: Too many virgin birth stories.

Nope: The Bible references too many astrological events.

Nope: A loving god wouldn’t blah blah blah

Nope: That pastor left that beautiful sermon and went straight to a gay bath house.

Nope: Adam and Eve were probably seeded/altered on earth by advance aliens.

Nope: The Earth is billions of years old, and one of probably trillions of habitable planets in the universe so it’s silly to think God would visit it.

I could go on.
 
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what part of the bible rises above the level of you-still-haven't-convinced-me-the-earth-isn't-flat science?

this is a re-run of:
Rick DeLano's Terrific Quantum Science Film ... - Skeptiko

Alex Tsakiris: [00:01:01] You did a great job of educating us on something that we always know, and that is how solid quantum physics is, because one of the tricks that’s been done here to get away from the philosophical implications of quantum physics, is to make it sound woo-woo or fluffy.

You just don’t get it, Rick. I mean, you don’t understand why non-Christians like me, are just stunned how any really bright, intelligent person that you are, can buy into such a wacky cosmology.

Rick DeLano: [00:01:40] There is no remote point of congruence between the straw man on your screen and the actual content of Christian revelation. Any Christian knows that instantaneously.
 
Did I listen to the same interview as everyone else?
I found the man small minded and irritating. He taught me nothing and added nothing.

00:45:22] Myke Merrill: [unclear 45:21] other was actually a legitimate option. I picked it just to annoy you.

That summed it all up for me. He didn't treat the interview or the questions seriously.

IMHO of course.
 
Not entirely sure why, but I liked this Myke Merill guy. His point about evil being the absence of good isn't only his, of course. It goes back to St. Augustine, who said the same thing. Think of good and evil as being not so much opposites, as being like points on the absolute temperature scale. At one end is absolute zero deg. K. At the other end are temperatures unimaginably higher. But they're all the same essential quality of thing vibrating (as it were) at different frequencies/amplitudes (f/a). Near the bottom, the f/a is low. Nearer the top, it's great.

The "moral imperative" is just a phrase. Maybe it could be expressed as the "evolutionary" imperative, or the direction one needs to go in if one is to evolve, to progress to higher f/a's of vibration. As one does that, one gets clearer and clearer perspectives; is able to see things more and more as they actually are.

The choice is a free one: to vibrate at a low or high f/a. From lower perspectives, one is concerned with ego; from higher perspectives, one is less concerned with it. At lower levels, rewards can only be material, but the dissatisfaction may be great. At higher levels, such material things as one possesses are seen as incidental, not necessary beyond a certain point; what matters is the perspective one has worked hard for, not justified by desire for material reward, but by a desire for truth. And, as one gets nearer and nearer truth, one's satisfaction increases.

"Bad people" are those vibrating at a low f/a. "Evil" is what they do in an attempt to gain greater satisfaction than they currently have. They aren't irrational, so much as terribly confused about how to increase their satisfaction. Or maybe just terribly lazy. Or both. "Better" people are less confused, less lazy, or both.

What really irks is that the confusion/laziness of "bad" people causes harm to others. But it's harm that, in the grand scheme of things -- if one believes in the immortality of the soul -- can have no permanent effect. Indeed, in some circumstances it might be exactly what is needed for evolution to take place.

I pretty much agree with that, but you wrote,
At lower levels, rewards can only be material, but the dissatisfaction may be great.

It seems to me that rewards are primarily non-material. I mean, you could enjoy a meal, even if it was brought to you be a robot - but robot sex would be more or less meaningless.

David
 
I thought that was a very interesting conversation. marred somewhat by too much confrontation.

I think Myke has a point about evil. He used an analogy with various physical phenomenon, and I particularly liked his analogy with heat/cold. I mean understanding that cold isn't anything, it is just a partial absence of heat, was one of the things that really amazed me when I first learned it - I'd instinctively assumed that the scale went from infinite heat to infinite cold.

The absence of heat in a flask of liquid nitrogen feels awfully real when you splash it on your skin, and if you watch a demonstration where a rubber tube is dipped in liquid nitrogen and can then be smashed, and yet cold is just that the molecules are not moving around as much as normal.

Could evil be the same kind of non-phenomenon - I wished the two of you hadn't gone skittering off into other things and discussed that issue a bit more.

I also liked his observation that some people are aware of the soul leaving the body at the moment of death.

In other respects his ideas seemed quite limitted.

BTW masks can be harmful if the user touches the mask repeatedly while wearing it. In my experience everyone wearing a mask tends to do this. Fortunately right now masks are optional in Britain but advised. I don't wear one and roughly half of people do likewise.

BTW why didn't you say that the concept that people judge themselves comes from NDE reports.

David
 
As far as as I can gather his main point point to Alex was , paraphrasing 'the spiritual can not be data driven rather experiencial. ( and therfore unprovable)... and Alex 'I follow the data wherever it leads me, and it leads to spiritual and there fore prove-able.

Strangely enough I found both point points of views coherent and correct.
..which leads me to a central thesis of mine; two seemly opposite sides of a issue can both be completely correct, even while contradicting each other, however, they probobly are not equal, as in moral relativism. Which is to say truth has gradations. Something can be more true then it's opposite truth.. they will not be equally weighted.

Btw, my vote is to have that guy back on.
 
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Did I listen to the same interview as everyone else?
I found the man small minded and irritating. He taught me nothing and added nothing.

agreed :)

I didn't seek him out... a listener suggested him. I agreed too quickly and then was unable to shake him even after I tried discouraging him from going forward with the show.
 
As far as as I can gather his main point point to Alex was , paraphrasing 'the spiritual can not be data driven rather experiencial. ( and therfore unprovable)... and Alex 'I follow the data wherever it leads me, and it leads to spiritual and there fore prove-able.

Strangely enough I found both point points of views coherent and correct.
..which leads me to a central thesis of mine; two seemly opposite sides of a issue can both be completely correct, even while contradicting each other, however, they probobly are not equal, as in moral relativism. Which is to say truth has gradations. Something can be more true then it's opposite truth.. they will not be equally weighted.

Btw, my vote is to have that guy back on.

go listen to his interview where he slams people who don't like to wear masks. he invents some 69% mask effectiveness fictitious science BS to support this idea that everyone should think like he does... because there's no good or bad emotions... unless you refuse to wear mask... that's bad.
 
go listen to his interview where he slams people who don't like to wear masks. he invents some 69% mask effectiveness fictitious science BS to support this idea that everyone should think like he does... because there's no good or bad emotions... unless you refuse to wear mask... that's bad.
Its not worth defending him on the mask thing which I find to be sheepish behavior lacking analysis as you've outlined well enough.
But i don't think that is your problem with him. You see him as a spiritual relativist and it is that which you can not abide. It's everything is all good, no judgements...and I have argued against this as well...but..spiritual ignorance, greed , power for the sake of power, and a host of other human weaknesses would /could account for deeds that speak ill of Us. Why out-blame a third party for our weaknesses. Which by doing so creates the idea of a force greater then us which we can not defend yourselves from.
The guy who kills the last Rino is a spiritually ignorant who does not respect the sacticity of all life. That's not relativistic and its not everything is all good.

That ( out sourcing fucked up acts) puts us back in the back seat the very place we are trying to get out of for millenia.
 
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Its not worth defending him on the mask thing which I find to be sheepish behavior lacking analysis as you've outlined well enough.
But i don't think that is your problem with him.

no, that is the problem. so the great debate is between the "wokeness SJWs" on one side and the " fuck you pay me" libertarians on the other. I think we all realize this is unresolvable debate... and that there's a lot of shades of grey in between those two extremes.

science is one way to navigate these waters. in this interview, Myke gets punched in the face because he's been spreading bad science... his response to getting punched in the face is what's most interesting to me. in this case, Myke retreated to some kind of philosophical relativistic nonsense. this is a very weak defense to a science argument IMO.
 
I'm unsure why Myke wanted to be on the podcast. He didn't seem to have much to say. Maybe if he'd been given more opportunities to speak, he could have laid out some philosophical foundations. I was originally going to reply that he did a poor job of defending his beliefs, but I'm not sure what he believes other than the Bible. He didn't assert anything, so there was nothing to really defend. To make it worse, he seemed uncurious.

His answers to critical belief questions were limited to his personal experiences, one not having anything to do with the other. "I've been with 70 people when they've died!" OK, do you have an insight to offer on your beliefs or a response to the question? It seemed not. It's like answering the question, "Why do you vote the way you do?" with "You've never worked in the Government, so who are you to ask that of me?" An answer that doesn't reflect any philosophical or ideological underpinnings. It sounds like he's either been living in a very uncritical environment for a long time, or misunderstood the nature of the discussion.
 
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no, that is the problem. so the great debate is between the "wokeness SJWs" on one side and the " fuck you pay me" libertarians on the other. I think we all realize this is unresolvable debate... and that there's a lot of shades of grey in between those two extremes.

science is one way to navigate these waters. in this interview, Myke gets punched in the face because he's been spreading bad science... his response to getting punched in the face is what's most interesting to me. in this case, Myke retreated to some kind of philosophical relativistic nonsense. this is a very weak defense to a science argument IMO.
Yes recall the response; if there exist a possibility, a percentage of effectiveness then its better then nothing, that's if my memory serves me correctly. And your take, there is no real-world percentage change out side the laboratory, so it's bullshit and pointless.

I have another slat, mask wearing implies randomness. That's caughting a disease and our evential death, to balance death we must say birth. So birth/death become random events. This can not be truely squared to meaning. Randomness and meaning don't fit in the same box. Hence mask wearing states life is meaningless.

I'm condensing this just for fact most people get this here so no point in droning on.
 
I'm unsure why Myke wanted to be on the podcast.

as I explained previously I tried to talk him out of it. I think he saw it as an opportunity to promote his book/biz. and I think he's a very confident guy so he didn't think keep come off looking as poorly as he did.

If you read his book / look at his website you'll see what he's selling... he's apparently quite successful at selling these services.
 
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