GENIUS FORUMS

Doubtful. McKenna apparently socializes and has certain emotional responses, according to the excerpts I've seen. Well McKenna says he does not even think he is a human on planet, earth. He believes most people are crazy except him. He thinks family career love etc are nutty pursuits. At the start ...

Just so everyone knows, David Quinn is a total fraud. Dan and Kevin don't acknowledge this, but here's the scoop: The deal with David is that he has a personality disorder which mimics certain characteristics of spiritual realization - namely, non-emotionalism. David doesn't experience emotions to ...

So in your view, what does it mean to know something? I see that that is a key question. Is that understanding one of those ones which can't be adequately described to another person? I think writing clarifies ideas for you a lot so I really appreciate your questions as I have been pondering these ...

I read his books out of order. I stumbled on the 2nd one, and then later read the 1st. If I would have picked up the 1st one first, I would have written him off as an arrogant a-hole after 20 pages and put it down, I think. Thanks for the tip. I am now reading his second book and seems pretty spot ...

is it ever really possible to accurately define anything at all? I think to define something is to approximate it in terms of shared experiences. Extremely limited but very useful. Language is a means to communicate experience in an extremely constricted framework. For example if you have seen a ti...

McKenna may be play-acting the part of the contrarian zen master, but you say he lacks depth because he believes that all will find truth eventually, which means consciousness surviving death. The instant belittling of such opinions, in my opinion, shows lack of depth, rigidity, and lack of imagina...

I think in most seekers mind the conception of enlightenment is a psychological state free from suffering and a perennial state of bliss and understanding. Freedom from confusion and suffering. Perhaps most have experienced this state in fleeting moments. So Enlightenment is defined as this state 24...

divine focus wrote: No definitions are precise. Language is a game.

What is your definition (conception) of Enlightenment?

the fact that everyone will end up fully "enlightened", regardless of the "path" they take to get there. So if I have to be interested in something, this seems like a good choice- watching the homeward migration of souls. And if I have to keep a job this seems like a good one. S...

P 233 2nd para

All this praise heaped on Jed caused me to pick up his first book. I would say that the praise is undeserved; McKenna is just play-acting the part of the contrarian Zen master. If you have any doubts about his philosophical depth look at the following passage. Success in realizing ones nature is abs...

I think it is quite funny, Carl is a parody genius.

You know, I used to think I had some sort of a handle on economics. But this stuff with oil dropping from $140 to $60 in the space of a few months, and the insane stuff going on in the stock market - I just have no idea what's going on. The conventional wisdom is that oil is dropping as hedge funds...

I suppose we should also advise people to stop wearing glasses too. Who needs a crutch like that when they have their own eyes? If they can't see well, they just aren't focusing hard enough, or controlling their vision processing neurons, or whatever. Isn't the point of enlightenment to reach a per...

So? That is not a good argument that meds are not helpful in the long-term. Meds may be useful in the long term, but they are like a crutch. Is it not better to walk crutch free? I suspect that the drug companies do not wish to develop cures for anything, they just want to develop medicines that ar...

Doctors hate prescribing drugs for a lifetime, but mental illnesses do not go away. There is no more cure for schizophrenia than there is for Down's Syndrome. But there are the interests of the drug companies to consider, and it may well be that they do want a lifetime of prescription meds. Perhaps...

As far as these drugs (anti-depressants, etc.) being a 'dignified solution', I would be able to say something about this because my younger sister has been using these drugs for about 10 years, and I have watched her personality and her intelligence slowly decline. I am not sure personally if that ...

Sher, No and no. They don't rewire you for good, but for long enough for you to step out of the deep pit you created for yourself. Then, you can lower the dosage gradually, until you wean yourself completely. So they provide a temporary respite and you may rewire your behavior within that brief peri...

What the anti-depressants did for me was change my attitude, very drastically. I was unable to have painful thoughts. Life seemed like a bowl of cherries, no matter how much tragedy there was. I just didn't give a shit about anything. Before taking the drugs, my depression was so deep, and so debil...

A country that is mostly rural, with a small population that values the environment, and is not as dependent on big trade, and run mostly by white people. My pick would be New Zealand if I could move tomorrow. Multinationals are destroying Canada in my opinion. Large numbers of foreigners are movin...

On the contrary, you exist, because who else posted this thread.

Nothing comes into existence other than by way of the moment we grant it identity. One might say that's when we're born. Can you say when you were born? I can't. I was born when my mind was able to create a model of itself (and in mind I include the body too) as separate from the world, this would ...

Dan Rowden wrote: We've always existed in different forms.

What is the use of this statement. It has no content, the self is the self referential construct of the mind, therefore it is born somewhere, and thus are you too.

What could happen: The US continues inflating their dollar by pumping more money into failed companies that cannot be saved, and getting in the way of financial corrections by trying to prop up the economy with more monetary debit, which could result in the total collapse of their dollar, which wil...

Science doesn't even attempt to answer questions about the way things are. All science is able and satisfied with doing is making accurate predictions. It makes no claims regarding the truth of anything. Isn't that what all knowledge is? Modeling and prediction. What is truth except the closeness o...