Alex Tsakiris, Four Questions About the Future of Skeptiko |414|

Can you define that term a little, please?

David

"Blobbist" = You know...those that say the goal is to totally lose one's individuality and merge with the One Mind, never to return to individuality.

That's the core of the ideology.

Usually it is paired with the notion that "God" is also a blob of sorts. To a Blobbist, God is just everything and everything is good. The purpose of the illusion of the experience of being an individual is merely God playing with himself to have adventures. There is no moral imperative or purpose because it's all God and God is good. Even Hitler was just God playing hide and seek with himself. We're all God. A pebble is God. A could is God. A lizard is God, etc, etc ad nauseum.

See Stan Groff as a prime example.

Someone mention Bruce Seigel upstream - A good guy who I used to talk to a lot about these matters, but another Blobbist for sure.
 
Last edited:
Oneness is recognized in many different religious and spiritual traditions as well as by spirits and atheists.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/03/realizing-ultimate.html
You might have heard it said that "we are all one". What does that mean? The quotes below explain it. These quotes from: an ancient text, an advanced meditator, a near-death experiencer, a spirit communicating through an evidential mediums, a materialist atheist , Christian scripture, Christian theologians, a Native American medicine man, a Jewish Scholar of the Kabbalah, and a Sufi philosopher, all describe something very similar ...
 
Last edited:
Sunfellow should be more specific about which eastern perspectives he is talking about, they are not all the same. And he should explain what he means by "zombies" - I am not aware of anyone who has experienced a non-dual state (including myself) who has lost himself in the primordial soup.
 
"Blobbist" = You know...those that say the goal is to totally lose one's individuality and merge with the One Mind, never to return to individuality.

That's the core of the ideology.

Usually it is paired with the notion that "God" is also a blob of sorts. To a Blobbist, God is just everything and everything is good. The purpose of the illusion of the experience of being an individual is merely God playing with himself to have adventures. There is no moral imperative or purpose because it's all God and God is good. Even Hitler was just God playing hide and seek with himself. We're all God. A pebble is God. A could is God. A lizard is God, etc, etc ad nauseum.

See Stan Groff as a prime example.

Someone mention Bruce Seigel upstream - A good guy who I used to talk to a lot about these matters, but another Blobbist for sure.
I tend to agree - though I suppose it might look different from
They deny the reason they were created. They seem to hate their own existence, even if they deny that is the case.
Yes - I agree - we are presumably here for a purpose, and it isn't to deny ourselves.
David
 
IMO, the Buddhists and other blobbists - especially of of the new age bent - are basically getting it wrong. They deny the reason they were created. They seem to hate their own existence, even if they deny that is the case.
Hatred is certainly harmful. I'd place the addressing of hate as a more vital topic than esoteric matters.
 
#4 Deception and Evil
The biggest deception that occurs is when we deceive ourselves. We try to understand what we perceive with our senses and we make up stories to explain it, usually not by using logic, but by contriving scenarios that minimize cognitive dissonance. Sometimes the stories are true, sometimes they are fiction.

People have a tendency to see evil where it does not exist. The arguments made by the other side in any debate will always seem to be wrong, even if those arguments are defending a legitimate opinion. This can create the impressionism that the underlying opinion is wrong when it is actaully not right or wrong it is just an opinion. Explanation below ...


Why Won’t They Listen? ‘The Righteous Mind,’ by Jonathan Haidt By WILLIAM SALETAN SUNDAY BOOK REVIEW MARCH 23, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/the-righteous-mind-by-jonathan-haidt.html
The problem isn’t that people don’t reason. They do reason. But their arguments aim to support their conclusions, not yours. Reason doesn’t work like a judge or teacher, impartially weighing evidence or guiding us to wisdom. It works more like a lawyer or press secretary, justifying our acts and judgments to others.​

Scott Adams, who in addition to being the author of the comic strip Dilbert, is a trained hypnotist. In an interview on FoxNews@Night with Shannon Bream on March 19, 2018, Scott Adams explained that hypnotism teaches us that people don't use logic to make decisions even though we think we do. (2:59: youtu.be/vLhcrbtbCEg?t=2m59s):
We humans ignore facts but we think we don't. The great illusion of life is that we're rational beings making rational decisions most of the time. But when you become a hypnotist, the first thing you learn is that that's backwards and that mostly we're deciding based on our team, our feelings, our emotions, irrational reasons, we make our decision and then we rationalize it no matter how tortured that rationalization is."​

https://www.economist.com/news/book...g-knowledge-between-minds-making-people-think
People overestimate how well they understand how things work. Direct evidence for this comes from the psychological laboratory. The great Yale psychologist Frank Keil and his students first demonstrated the illusion of explanatory depth, what we call the knowledge illusion. He asked people how well they understand how everyday objects (zippers, toilets, ballpoint pens) work. On average, people felt they had a reasonable understanding (at the middle of a 7-point scale). Then Keil asked them to explain how they work. People failed miserably. For the most part, people just can’t articulate the mechanisms that drive even the simplest things.​

The arguments made by the other side in a political debate will always seem to be wrong, even if those arguments are defending a legitimate opinion. This can create the impressionism that the underlying opinion is wrong when it is actaully not right or wrong it is just an opinion.

I see political debates as debates between people who have chosen a side and then use reason to defend that side. But ultimately they are defending an opinion. Both sides have legitimate opinions and no amount of data or logic is going to make someone change their political opinion any more than it could cause them to change their favorite color or flavor of ice cream.

The issue of abortion is a clear example. Is the unborn baby a human that deserves the same human rights and legal protections as someone who has been born? That is always going to be a matter of opinion and "logical" arguments don't have the force necessary to change someone's mind.

The problem is that people have different standards for what is acceptable evidence. They are willing to believe any tenuous hypothesis or weakly supported theory that supports their side but cannot believe evidence when it goes against their side. So they may have a legitimate opinion but they end up supporting it with what seems to the other side as utter nonsense -their evidence may be good or poor but it will always seem nonsense to the other side.

I think our society would be a lot better off if this was understood better in the general population so that people could recognize that different opinions are not wrong or stupid or evil even if the arguments seem to flawed.

The arguments made by the other side in a political debate will always seem to be wrong, even if those arguments are defending a legitimate opinion. This can create the impressionism that the underlying opinion is wrong when it is actaully not right or wrong it is just an opinion.
 
I listened contemplatively to this solo show on September 7, 2019. I then wrote up a document that were my answers at that time. Note that today is only 33 days after I performed this exercise and so, why I am stating this is because, if I answered these questions today, my answers would be an expansion upon where I was at on September 7, 2019. Still, to honor the effort of Alex, I have chosen to post what I wrote up on that day (with very small edits to clean up the responses as my original was only in draft form).

Question 1 -

One (a) – “Are we biological robots in a meaningless universe?”

No (it is not the question anymore for Alex or myself and many others)

One (b) – “How can this [the consideration that consciousness doesn’t even exist] still be propped up as a real question among what are supposed to be the intellectual elites of science?” “How and why are they promoting such nonsense?”


My answer to this is -

Because they are wittingly or unwittingly part of the technocrat ruling class and the likely driver is that they, as an individualized expression within consciousness, perhaps consciously but most certainly subconsciously are located on the fear side of “the single line graph” instead of on the “everything is OK” side of the graph which is referenced with regard to Question Two.

Any individuated expression of consciousness and/or a collective of individuated expressions of consciousness that are consciously or subconsciously anchored in this fear zone has a motivation to escape the fear zone. Some have determined the way to achieve that is to control the rest of us… the masses for example from the view of “the controlling elite.” (Not all that may be considered by some of us as “elite” are part of “the controlling elite.” Additionally, those that could fit well in the group “the controlling elite” are not necessarily in conscious, active conspiracy with each other – but they usually recognize shared view points and that then translates to working together in some ways and fighting over power, territory in other instances – in either case, they are engaged with each other).

Of course, the controlling elite document, study, analyze their progress and thus further validate to themselves “their plan” by measuring their success (or not, but clearly they are seeing more and more success than failure) in achieving the goal of dominant (or complete) control. Thus, their usage of power manifests most prolifically in the measurable world (material realm) which, as we know, the human body is subject to. By using the material world as their measuring stick, they focus more and more upon it and thus focus less and less on that which extends beyond materiality. They are becoming meaningless themselves though they may one day achieve physical (or isolated, individuated mind) immortality, but they’ll lose the connection to that possibility known as eternal life (I am using this term to imply “the soul” be their such).

The controlling elite’s ultimate goal is to control all available options for each and every human body vehicle and to be able to manipulate that vehicle so that the individualized mind is more easily controlled because the filtering mechanism (“the brain”) has been artificially hijacked from its natural, organic growth trajectory. We are pushed in the direction of being “made” into meaningless robots (at least from the POV of one’s physical body). But the soul (again, be there such) may have its own determination and thus influence as to what time/what world, it may “enter into” when it is post transition from a lifetime on Earth at a time like this. The goal of these elite appears to be the cutting off of one’s connection to the aspect of their being that desires, meaning, meaningful exploration and “living lives” laced with fulfilling experiences where meaning arises both within and without and sometimes simultaneously – like synchronicities.

The dilemma may be expressed in this question - when does this control encroach their own group? Because it is pretty easy to see the ultimate outcome of such an endeavor is that a single human being (the eventual “King of the Mountain” –) finds himself in control of the physical world. And this is the path of [metaphor here] “the Antichrist.” It is the view of some known as the Traditionalists that “the Antichrist” is simply a system. But if the system achieves its goal, there will be a single physical being ruling all.

Side Note: I don’t “do” religion and I don’t take give energy to religious prophecies (any more) but the metaphors they provide are useful and that is why I utilize them.

In looking at this, and by the way I define the word “life” I would say that this system really represents a system of “antilife.” And I see that the ultimate dichotomy is life / antilife.

Life, for me, is individualized consciousness which perceives at its level of individualization that it has freedom to explore that which it perceives is not itself and to have the capacity to make choices for itself as to what to explore and how to explore it all within consciousness as considered to be via monistic idealism. When that freedom is perceived to no longer exist, usually the individualized expression of consciousness no longer wishes to exist anymore as it is confined from exploration and this sort of experience is, for me - antilife.

In addition, life (to me and from this perspective) is about relationship because we are perceiving others exploring as well. Perhaps we choose the life of a hermit to avoid relationship. Perhaps we were dropped off on an island at birth and somehow survived and appear alone yet still, that specific individualized expression of consciousness sees, hears, touches that which it may perceive not to be itself and thus cannot avoid relationship. Relationship is an inseparable component of life (at our individualized level of being… the whirlpool of Bernardo Kastrup) and indeed, perhaps, along with choice, an equally important component of the exploration of all possibility of life.


Note: Some of what I wrote above was influenced by my experience of Alex’s interview with Jasun Horsley who I sought out on the internet and started listening to his podcasts, reading his blogs and then had the pleasure of having a few video conversations with him. Jasun is a really wonderful human being and I am grateful for my time with him. Jasun's site - https://auticulture.com/

And so, having shared that bit about Jasun, one of the podcasts he did was a conversation he had with Charles Upton. Charles Upton wrote a book called – The System of Antichrist: Truth and Falsehood in Postmodernism and the New Age (here). Its not what you might think (if dogmatic is your concern) though Upton is of the school of the Traditionalists and convinced things, at least at the level of the material world, are not getting better, only getting worse.

My own view, because I am one of those silly “ever hopeful” types, is that there may be something the Traditionalists have not considered like that which is suggested in the book, Syntropy: The Spirit of Love (here) but I have now gone too far for this post… hopefully I can get to Syntropy down the road.
 
I listened contemplatively to this solo show on September 7, 2019. I then wrote up a document that were my answers at that time. Note that today is only 33 days after I performed this exercise and so, why I am stating this is because, if I answered these questions today, my answers would be an expansion upon where I was at on September 7, 2019. Still, to honor the effort of Alex, I have chosen to post what I wrote up on that day (with very small edits to clean up the responses as my original was only in draft form).

Question 1 -

One (a) – “Are we biological robots in a meaningless universe?”

No (it is not the question anymore for Alex or myself and many others)

One (b) – “How can this [the consideration that consciousness doesn’t even exist] still be propped up as a real question among what are supposed to be the intellectual elites of science?” “How and why are they promoting such nonsense?”


My answer to this is -

Because they are wittingly or unwittingly part of the technocrat ruling class and the likely driver is that they, as an individualized expression within consciousness, perhaps consciously but most certainly subconsciously are located on the fear side of “the single line graph” instead of on the “everything is OK” side of the graph which is referenced with regard to Question Two.

Any individuated expression of consciousness and/or a collective of individuated expressions of consciousness that are consciously or subconsciously anchored in this fear zone has a motivation to escape the fear zone. Some have determined the way to achieve that is to control the rest of us… the masses for example from the view of “the controlling elite.” (Not all that may be considered by some of us as “elite” are part of “the controlling elite.” Additionally, those that could fit well in the group “the controlling elite” are not necessarily in conscious, active conspiracy with each other – but they usually recognize shared view points and that then translates to working together in some ways and fighting over power, territory in other instances – in either case, they are engaged with each other).

Of course, the controlling elite document, study, analyze their progress and thus further validate to themselves “their plan” by measuring their success (or not, but clearly they are seeing more and more success than failure) in achieving the goal of dominant (or complete) control. Thus, their usage of power manifests most prolifically in the measurable world (material realm) which, as we know, the human body is subject to. By using the material world as their measuring stick, they focus more and more upon it and thus focus less and less on that which extends beyond materiality. They are becoming meaningless themselves though they may one day achieve physical (or isolated, individuated mind) immortality, but they’ll lose the connection to that possibility known as eternal life (I am using this term to imply “the soul” be their such).

The controlling elite’s ultimate goal is to control all available options for each and every human body vehicle and to be able to manipulate that vehicle so that the individualized mind is more easily controlled because the filtering mechanism (“the brain”) has been artificially hijacked from its natural, organic growth trajectory. We are pushed in the direction of being “made” into meaningless robots (at least from the POV of one’s physical body). But the soul (again, be there such) may have its own determination and thus influence as to what time/what world, it may “enter into” when it is post transition from a lifetime on Earth at a time like this. The goal of these elite appears to be the cutting off of one’s connection to the aspect of their being that desires, meaning, meaningful exploration and “living lives” laced with fulfilling experiences where meaning arises both within and without and sometimes simultaneously – like synchronicities.

The dilemma may be expressed in this question - when does this control encroach their own group? Because it is pretty easy to see the ultimate outcome of such an endeavor is that a single human being (the eventual “King of the Mountain” –) finds himself in control of the physical world. And this is the path of [metaphor here] “the Antichrist.” It is the view of some known as the Traditionalists that “the Antichrist” is simply a system. But if the system achieves its goal, there will be a single physical being ruling all.

Side Note: I don’t “do” religion and I don’t take give energy to religious prophecies (any more) but the metaphors they provide are useful and that is why I utilize them.

In looking at this, and by the way I define the word “life” I would say that this system really represents a system of “antilife.” And I see that the ultimate dichotomy is life / antilife.

Life, for me, is individualized consciousness which perceives at its level of individualization that it has freedom to explore that which it perceives is not itself and to have the capacity to make choices for itself as to what to explore and how to explore it all within consciousness as considered to be via monistic idealism. When that freedom is perceived to no longer exist, usually the individualized expression of consciousness no longer wishes to exist anymore as it is confined from exploration and this sort of experience is, for me - antilife.

In addition, life (to me and from this perspective) is about relationship because we are perceiving others exploring as well. Perhaps we choose the life of a hermit to avoid relationship. Perhaps we were dropped off on an island at birth and somehow survived and appear alone yet still, that specific individualized expression of consciousness sees, hears, touches that which it may perceive not to be itself and thus cannot avoid relationship. Relationship is an inseparable component of life (at our individualized level of being… the whirlpool of Bernardo Kastrup) and indeed, perhaps, along with choice, an equally important component of the exploration of all possibility of life.


Note: Some of what I wrote above was influenced by my experience of Alex’s interview with Jasun Horsley who I sought out on the internet and started listening to his podcasts, reading his blogs and then had the pleasure of having a few video conversations with him. Jasun is a really wonderful human being and I am grateful for my time with him. Jasun's site - https://auticulture.com/

And so, having shared that bit about Jasun, one of the podcasts he did was a conversation he had with Charles Upton. Charles Upton wrote a book called – The System of Antichrist: Truth and Falsehood in Postmodernism and the New Age (here). Its not what you might think (if dogmatic is your concern) though Upton is of the school of the Traditionalists and convinced things, at least at the level of the material world, are not getting better, only getting worse.

My own view, because I am one of those silly “ever hopeful” types, is that there may be something the Traditionalists have not considered like that which is suggested in the book, Syntropy: The Spirit of Love (here) but I have now gone too far for this post… hopefully I can get to Syntropy down the road.
Lots of great stuff here. Too much to comment on all at once. Love the part about control being a response to fear. But I think we have to factor in the dark / evil / nasty as well.

We got to get Jasun back on skeptiko, eh?
 
Yes, Jasun has been, for me, a wonderful person to have met and to have started to get to know. My favorite thing is that Jason, in the right circumstances or through the right medium, is not afraid to share about his most personal vulnerabilities (which, in some cases, resulted in some pretty harrowing experiences). I also think he's quite a talented writer, a true writer.

Note, My post above (regarding Question 1) was actually always only meant for myself... it is in my journal. Thus it is long and rambly. The writing was a result of documenting a thought flow where I then attempted to structuralize it a bit. I have also done the same for the three other questions and will be posting this as well. If there was a thing here or there that someone picked out to explore, good, I think I only want to show an example of the provocations your (Alex's) discussions create in some of your listeners... The next question (Question 2) will demonstrate a true, real world example of the impact on another, some of your discussions had. Truly and incredibly life changing.
 
But I think we have to factor in the dark / evil / nasty as well.

I hope one day to share my explorations into all that as well as share the "views" I have about what's "behind" all that. I can't do this now because I experienced a recent and significant shift with regards to all that (I believe a most healthy one) and am still attempting to put it all together well enough to articulate it. The grander picture covers "UFO," "alien," EDs (extradimensionals/interdimensionals), demonics, "angels", superliminal travel, transuniversal, psi-experience/talent and how they all appear to play a role with each other but most importantly, how we might be playing a critical and significant role (and few even suspect this) as to "that which manifests" and how, then we interpret it.
 
Before I go into Question Two I sometimes have interjected my own thoughts, notes or clarifications and I use brackets when I do this. Also, I capitalize words all and only to emphasize my respect for how I am using the words - not to "religiosize" them.

Question Two – relates to “There is this fundamental sense of discontent at the root of our psychology” [I plot this to the left of the zero point on a representative graph]. And current psychology considers this to be “normal.” “…there’s this little shift that happens way at the bottom of your psychology [I call this “at the depth of your individualized being”] away from that fundamental sense of discontentment and towards a sense that everything is really OK.” [This is to the right of the zero point on the graph].

So question two considers… is this our “normal” [fundamental discontentment]?” (air quotes are emphasized by Alex in his usage of the word ‘normal’) and if so, is there a way to change that?

Question two is… based on “we have this condition, we are in this predicament [of discontent] and then, is this predicament that our mind has created this continual dialogue of fundamental dissatisfaction with the way things are and is it possible to change that state, that consciousness [that individualized being’s conscious perception]. Is it possible to raise it [this state]?”

Yes, it is possible but is it truly what each individualized expression of consciousness really wants to do? Some may perceive the outcome to create the effect of boredom, which may be perceived as less desirable that living in a constant state of discontent. Note Alex points out this perpetual state of dissatisfaction, perpetual discontentment with that internal dialogue that’s going on in our head as the key factor of this question.



This internal dialogue… hummmmm. A possible solution (some claim IS the solution) -

Pure non-dualism (Advaita Vedanta for example) should essentially eliminate the internal dialogue, yes? In my case, I got bored living in that bliss. The following is how I resolved it.

I have concluded that if the average human was/is capable of reaching a more comprehensive understanding of the nature and science of being they would/should achieve acquisition of at least two new things – One, they would achieve a greater sense of security (with secondary benefits such as a lowering of faux security that comes from “hope” and “faith” - meaning faith based on an artificial construct such as is provided by religions, especially the more dogmatic ones). Two, by acquiring a more accurate understanding of the nature and science of being with respect to the individualized being, one achieves a greater understanding of their impact on their own experience but also (and as I strive to do and sadly fail all too often) their impact on the experience of others. In short, one raises their understanding of their own personal responsibility as a part of the whole.

For example, Alex went on an exploration a decade or so ago and had the good idea, the wherewithal and the discipline to share his exploration with the world (if they could understand English or if the discussions were transcribed and translated).

I am fortunate that my native language is English and I was fortunate to have achieved “connection to” one of Alex’s interviews, I believe the first was with Rupert Sheldrake right after I watched his banned TED talk. I then listened to other discussions as well. The conversations with Dean Radin were very important for me. [As an aside and just now, I decided to go look at the list of shows and unbelievably I see that Sheldrake was Alex's first show and Radin the second]. Another set of discussions - Miguel Connor, for me, fantastic. "Write your own gospel and live your own myth." And the subjects explored… all right up my alley, psi, OBE, science "out of the box,” and my very most favorite subject (and what I would be brave enough to claim I am sort of an export on) – synchronicity. But the one that was life changing for me, literally, was when I came upon Alex’s discussion with Bernardo Kastrup – #248 - 248. Bernardo Kastrup Says Materialism is Baloney — July 1, 2014. And I only discovered this interview in the spring of 2016.

I bought Bernardo’s book and read it contemplatively in late May and through June of 2016. The most significant thing I got out of it was true hope which I would rather call – confidence that we as (Earth) humans might escape the trap of a world view based on materialism. In fact, to me – one direction… materialism, leads to a collective experience devoid of the possibility of “soul.”

For understanding I write the following - I use the term soul having nothing to do with anything religious. I use the term all and only to suggest “the containment of individualized consciousness that survives the physical death of a body vehicle and thus, by implication, suggests “it” might have existed prior to that particular physical body’s birth.” It is (IMO) the realm of “soul” (and individualized soul) where meaning meets with all aspects of experience as sort of a feature of what I call “Real Life” that is then reflected upon by one’s individualized mind and thus, consciousness as a whole. I see this all occurring within consciousness and I, like Kastrup, view consciousness as a single whole and is fundamental to all – he calls this “monistic idealism.” So for me, (and though I intellectually view this as only a theory but I operate as if the theory is true), it appears to me that an individual “soul” (as I mean it to be in the above description) is like stars in the universe and the universe is this single consciousness (using this last statement as a metaphor only).

And so, for me, materialism is “soul death.” It is anti-Life. The establishment of materialism as the collective (and only) world view ends in the death of meaning. It is my current opinion that anyone who holds the cosmological metaphysical world view of materialism (whether consciously or not… in fact most folks never consider it in any true contemplative way), live a life devoid of meaning or when they experience the emotions which suggest meaning (like loving someone in a relationship) they are restricted (and this is not often if ever consciously contemplated… it is too painful) that all they have is this one life and thus their relationships are (and their individual existence is) restricted to this one life. There are many, many other negatives related to the world view of materialism.

But then also, to live (to exist) with a world view based on materialism, so much of what I have come to experience that I label with the term (yes, capitalized so as to highlight its wonderfulness but not to “religiosize” it (yes, I make up words) – Real Life is lost, cannot occur or, if/when It peaks Its head above the water, is never recognize and thus never begins to grow. For me, Real Life is living a life that extends beyond the five senses and thus is open to and actively explores a greater range of potential experience including all forms of psi-experience, other worldly experiences, synchronicities (on steroids) and I term as “the exploration of the nature and science of being” with as little personal limitation and pre-conclusion as one can possibly muster. Experince at this level of being doesn't have to have anything to do with any religions paradigm. In fact (and IMO), involving a religious paradigm clouds any exploration of the nature and science of being.

And so, with regards to Alex’s second question, specifically, is there a way to change that?

Well guess what? I did. And guess what played the most significant role in how that happened? Alex’s shared discussions.

When I became consciously committed to establishing “monistic idealism” as my primary operational cosmological metaphysical world view, my life officially became Real Life and I have never looked back. And guess who has benefited from this the most? My loved ones, my family, my friends… and in extension, those I pass on the street and thus, logically, those I may never meet. IMO, this is the key to the change “my opinion” believes is more than a need in our world, it is right next to a must.

Again, I emphasize this and all the rest above is only my opinion.
 
Last edited:
"Blobbist" = You know...those that say the goal is to totally lose one's individuality and merge with the One Mind, never to return to individuality.

That's the core of the ideology.

Usually it is paired with the notion that "God" is also a blob of sorts. To a Blobbist, God is just everything and everything is good. The purpose of the illusion of the experience of being an individual is merely God playing with himself to have adventures. There is no moral imperative or purpose because it's all God and God is good. Even Hitler was just God playing hide and seek with himself. We're all God. A pebble is God. A could is God. A lizard is God, etc, etc ad nauseum.

See Stan Groff as a prime example.

Someone mention Bruce Seigel upstream - A good guy who I used to talk to a lot about these matters, but another Blobbist for sure.

LOL!! Blobbing is a great way to frame this activity. This is what I call a pseudo-theory placeholder. It is a bucket into which one dumps every unknown, hate-based, fear-based and unexplained observation - add in a jigger of virtue - then you shake it up like a vodka martini, and then get drunk on the encompassing paradigm which can explain everything, anything and nothing all at the same time.

This top-down ontology can often masquerade as spirituality, just as fake skepticism can masquerade as epistemology from the bottom up.

So, in terms of your framing of Blobbism, if we take this practice and then assign a defining constraint to it, one eventually derives a definition of God from it (one has to think about this for a little bit... in order to perceive the inevitable result)

God: Ω • ⊕ Any entity which has been ceded ongoing power, yet at the same time retains an ongoing lack of accountability. A standard employed by a proxy agent, as a virtual mass in the social leveraging of a victim.
 
Last edited:
Hi "The Ethical Skeptical,"

This post is of yours is incredible because when I first read it, I was thinking you were stimulated to make the post after what I had just written. Then I realized, I hadn't posted it yet! Now maybe there was a wee bit of stimulation generated by my last post or maybe (attempting to shed my sometimes dominant egocentricity), my posts had nothing to do with why you made post #253.

Still, I have not yet posted my responses to Questions 3 and 4 yet (which certainly have the capability of generating the type of response as post #253).

I see Eric Newhill's post at the top of this page and thus likely my post only alerted you to the thread. And thus my post didn't play a role.

That's what I have my money on now (my ego has been put back in its box, for now).
 
I see Eric Newhill's post at the top of this page and thus likely my post only alerted you to the thread. And thus my post didn't play a role.

That's what I have my money on now (my ego has been put back in its box, for now).

Your post did alert me to the entire thread yes. Either that or common voices whisper in common haunts. We can leave that in epoché . :)
 
God: Ω • ⊕ Any entity which has been ceded ongoing power, yet at the same time retains an ongoing lack of accountability. A standard employed by a proxy agent, as a virtual mass in the social leveraging of a victim.
Which also leaves us with the philosophical circular conundrum in the form of this:

A putative Actual-God, would not be able to tolerate the being God.

This serves to introduce the threshold of ignosticism - a version of epoché based atheism, which is not founded upon zombie-nihilism nor any presupposed exclusion or solely ontological assumption.
 
Last edited:
I feel quite out of my league here on this forum.

Sometimes I read a post of two lines and in it are words (that I never knew but quickly look up, understand and learn) that point to ideas I, after doing my basic homework, somewhat, maybe mostly understand.

And then I get this sense of "reading between the lines" where then I might conclude... ohhhh, they lean towards a world view bias that seems anchored towards "materialism" or, at the other end of the spectrum, they may reveal a bias towards something that could be considered "religious" even if in the slightest way. Or, they are basically open minded but yet seem to always require "proof" to open more fully to some of the cutting edge theories. (For example - the ideas suggested in Beyond Biocentrism).

And I feel like I am the only one (sometimes) who is certainly not a materialist and yet "doesn't do" religion (much less needs religion). When people ask me "what do you do," my answer has become, "I explore the nature and science of being." No religion yet not restricted by a world view based on materialism.

Regardless... I still feel compelled to post what I wrote up for Question 3 and Question 4. I have developed my own "visual framework" of "being" yet I know if the reader reads more into it (like hierarchy for example) that really is their own interpretation, and not mine or my intent to convey. If they see it as suggesting religion, that's on the reader. They are missing my most important Tier Two operational protocol which is "Modify, adjust, expand or completely throw out any currently held assumption for any good reason presented at anytime."

I only have one Tier One assumption and that is (as Kastrup calls it), monistic idealism. Where I go within that primary operational assumption is my own direction and I have not read anything from Kastrup that suggests the possibility of "individualized consciousness containment that surives the passing of the physical body vehicle." This possibility is my primary Tier Two assumption.
 
I have not read anything from Kastrup that suggests the possibility of "individualized consciousness containment that surives the passing of the physical body vehicle."

It's there though. See, for example, the following quote from page 183 of the Kindle edition of Why Materialism Is Baloney (footnote elided):

"The question, of course, is whether self-reflective awareness disappears completely upon physical death. This depends on the topographical and topological details of the human psychic structure, which are not known. If the ego is the only loop in the human psychic structure, then physical death indeed eliminates all self-reflectiveness. But it is conceivable that the psychic structure entails an underlying, partial, not-so-tightly-closed loop underneath the egoic loop. I say this because many Near-Death Experiences seem to suggest that a degree of self-reflectiveness and personal identity survive death. In this case, the ego would be a tight loop perched on top of another partial loop. Assuming that physical death entails the dissolution of only the egoic loop on top, then our awareness would ‘fall back’ onto the underlying partial loop, preserving a degree of self-reflectiveness".
 
It's there though. See, for example, the following quote from page 183 of the Kindle edition of Why Materialism Is Baloney (footnote elided):

"The question, of course, is whether self-reflective awareness disappears completely upon physical death. This depends on the topographical and topological details of the human psychic structure, which are not known. If the ego is the only loop in the human psychic structure, then physical death indeed eliminates all self-reflectiveness. But it is conceivable that the psychic structure entails an underlying, partial, not-so-tightly-closed loop underneath the egoic loop. I say this because many Near-Death Experiences seem to suggest that a degree of self-reflectiveness and personal identity survive death. In this case, the ego would be a tight loop perched on top of another partial loop. Assuming that physical death entails the dissolution of only the egoic loop on top, then our awareness would ‘fall back’ onto the underlying partial loop, preserving a degree of self-reflectiveness".

Yes, Yes and I remember reading that and I remember a sense of hope (because I like my wants, wishes and desires) that someone who I respect for being a cutting edge, intelligent thinker (way above my league) would, within their world view, would make a case for "soul" but I recall coming away from reading the book with a concern he did not much make that case. But in reading this quote, I agree... he is suggesting a "containment of 'self'" that survives disconnection from the "egoic loop."

I remember that at the time, I held onto an idea that might be described as the "soul ego" (contained, unbroken self awareness - something maybe I could call "a soul identity." Indeed, now, I remember that was what played a role in my conclusion.

Thank you for pointing this out.
 
Back
Top