Yes. I am in London at the moment and it's been a beautiful warm spring day here. I went to a remarkable exhibition at The Tate Modern; humans expressing ourselves in the midst of our certain march towards desolation. Joy inside the pain. As we left there were a group of scientolgists and a group of Christians selling their wares: humans bonding around the magical stories we tell around the fire as the hyenas howl in the distance.
The best part of this is the recognition there’s always a next flavour of illusion, next final instalment, the next secret, will be the one to do the unveiling for the “awakening.”
In my case by the time I found your book, post-45, unknown and undiagnosed autistic, I went searching high and low and the more I learnt the less I understood.
The narratives I was looking to solve my problems were just that, convenient narratives.
It wasn’t till I realized we’re all just making this shit up as we go, our brains busy predicting what actions will be productive and controlling our input/outputs and making up the narrative post hoc.
We can’t be anything we are not, and never have, yet we cling to the notion of self-autonomy, self control, self… self… self… molecules following the forces of thermodynamics, collections of gene expressions, and random probabilities of the quantum world… yet the most incredible forces in the universe of attraction reside here within us in the strong and weak forces of the nuclear world.
At what level of abstraction do you stop taking control?
Rhetorical. What suits you is the answer. You’ll make up what you believe and that will be that.
We know now the brain is PREDICTING, not ANTICIPATING and REACTING!
You know those times in the shower when you get a killer comeback to burn someone for what they said, but that was yesterday at lunch… ya that’s kind like how your brain works all the time.
Thank you, Joe. It’s the illusion of presence when in fact, there’s no one there. Thoughts arise, actions happen, but no little “me” is doing it. The little “me” isn’t even there. That’s the illusion of presence.
The chance, odds wise that we are even here as a collection of information that persists for a lifetime is so astronomically fathomably small it might as well be zero.
For everything to have happened to allow me to be typing this on Substack is practically an impossibility, if you were to honestly imagine it from nothing especially…
What a narrative! All of that is of no concern to the way my structure in this world exists, because it simply does!
That’s the paradox for me!
I had to tell someone my feelings after she putting herself in guru position told somebody with a truly sad situation that none of it was real anyway, laughs, then carries on to explain it’s all in our heads.
Say what you want but my molecules reacted to her molecules!
What I am saying is… YOU get we are only here in the here and now, and are experiencing this experience only through us, but our sensory apparatus can and will cause physical and emotional discomfort in NO uncertain, REAL TERMS… PAIN!
Yes, the odds against being conscious and being here on Substack are very slight indeed. On the other hand, if we were not here, the observation about long odds would not even arise since there would be no one to make it.
Right. My contention is the “little operator” is a hmmmn, a side effect?… no, an emergence? maybe, the brain organizing itself in a way to bring about a result in the world after countless trillions of testing and reiterating until a feature worked so well, it flourished enabling us enough safety to evolve phenotypes of all kinds convincing us we have powers far above anything rational.
The funny thing about all this is the focus. For one Richard Dawkins took the gene expression route. His claim was that we are the genes way of propagating.
We say it’s because we procreate, some say it’s biological, most say… oops!
Maybe we are just “AI genes?” If we are the nucleus of what’s to come, in a hundred years will the AI (OMG don’t call them that anymore, they get real mad!) be in control or will they be arguing about stupid human synapse training when one of them “hallucinates”.
Oh exist excited for your new book. Haven’t looked into it yet. I’m sure it’ll be great, thought provoking for sure!
I loved this article, and the last two paragraphs are great! Yes!!!
A few minor points I'd question on race and gender, although I'm basically in agreement with your perspective on both.
On race, I wouldn't say race is entirely a social construct, although some of it certainly is. But there are obvious physical differences in such things as skin color, facial structure, shapes of various facial features, body size, and increased susceptibility to certain diseases. So there are racial differences and to deny them seems absurd to me. Color-blindness (the approach to racism favored by MLK, Coleman Hughes, myself and many others) doesn't mean denying that race exists. It means that race shouldn't matter in how one is treated in society.
And on gender, I continue to distinguish biological sex from gender. Biological sex is, by most accounts, binary, with only occasional intersex anomalies or exceptions. But if gender refers to masculinity and femininity, these are obviously in large part social constructs (although not entirely, imo), and there is clearly a wide spectrum of gender variance between different cultures and in terms of how people in general feel, dress and act in terms of masculinity and femininity. But I completely agree that "endlessly mutable self-labels is fiction" and that one can't simply self-identify as the opposite sex and thus become the opposite sex.
Finally, in my experience, there was a time and place where identifying with a particular group (in my case, women, lesbians, people with disabilities) and talking amongst ourselves was helpful in terms of recognizing the particular kinds of social prejudice we faced and organizing to change it. It was helpful, and then at another point, it wasn't. We clung to it in unhelpful ways. Along similar lines, I fully supported affirmative action for many decades as a kind of "necessary evil" to help undo racism, and then, I was happy when the Supreme Court overturned it recently. I thought it was time. So identity can be a tricky thing. But generally, nowadays for sure, I feel that the emphasis on identity politics is very misguided and is making things worse not better.
Thank you, Joan. There is only one race--the human race. There are different population groups with differing susceptibility to specific ailments, but population groups are not races. Genetics is not a black or white situation. Skin color is 100 percent predictable according to how close or far from the equator one's ancestors lived. No other attributes or susceptibilities are.
I understand that there may be a time when you need to find your tribe. I did say that. But if one does not see through that fiction eventually, there will never be freedom in the sense in which I use that word. I don't think of you as a lesbian. You are Joan. Full stop.
Well, I agree all races are the human race, but I do think there's an obvious reality to race, so we disagree on that. But I think we agree 100% that it shouldn't determine how one is treated (either positively or negatively) in society. And with an increasingly global world and more and more intermarriage, race is becoming less and less of a reality, even as identity politics tries hard to hold onto it. That blending is already well underway.
Often when people say, "I don't think of you as a lesbian (or as disabled, or black, or as whatever other group of less favored people are in question), they mean it as a compliment, but it often registers as a subtle insult, because what they mean is that they see you as just as fully human as they are (ie, straight, white, male, able-bodied or whatever the more privileged category they're in is). So you may not go around thinking to yourself that "Joan is a woman," but I'm pretty sure it's obvious to you that I am and that this registers on some level and may even in subtle unconscious ways affect how you relate to me. (I chose woman as an example here instead of lesbian because I'm not sexually active or in a relationship, and haven't been the entire time you've known me, so you don't have much reason to register my lesbianism, but were I married to a woman, I suspect my sexual orientation would register with you.)
In a conventional sense, I certainly DO recognize that you are a human being, that you're a man, that you're a straight man, that you're an older man, that you live in Mexico, that your name is Robert, and so on. Those things register. I'm not oblivious to them. They don't define you in my mind, but they do register (and on some unconscious and unintentional level, they may even inadvertantly affect how I relate with you). And on a deeper level, I don't think of you as ANY of that, not even as Robert or as a human being. ALL categories ultimately collapse.
I am not saying that people's sexual proclivities don't vary. I am saying that hearing that a woman likes sex with other women does not tell me anything else about that person. You and I, for example, have much more in common than I do with many people who may be straight older men who live in Mexico.
Well, sure. I understand you're not saying humans don't vary. And sure, the fact that you like sex with Catanya doesn't tell me all that much about you. And sure, I have more in common with you than I do with many one-armed lesbians. But you're missing what I'm saying. And I think we're probably beating a dead horse at this point. I have the sense that we fundamentally agree on what matters most, namely that a person's race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, etc should not define who they are or determine how they are treated. And also, I really liked your article.
You say this in a way that takes away the wrapping from the word awake. I am sure of that you can not have either or, and I believe that is the dilemma that stands in the way for people to be able to grasp this. Most don’t want to leave away all that and I think I am one of them to speak candidly, atleast as it is right now. Because I believe that if I was ready to let it all go I already would have done that.
What is more worth? The validity lies in the beholder of the thought.
I re-read this article again because I found it very interesting. It is funny how you can read the same text twice and get a whole other insight and understanding of it the second time or the third time you read it.
This one. When I read "Am I suspicious? Yes." I thought, me too.
I was reading a article in the on-line Aeon Magazine this morning called, “By the light of Brahman”.
Its first assertion was that Brahman is the universal consciousness which comprises everything and that our individual consciousnesses are local instantiations of Brahman which are immanent in all living things as Atman, the individual ego or self.
I’ve often reflected that we, recently evolved creatures that we are, do not like the simple fact that we are mortal and transitory. And, to ameliorate the inherent meaninglessness of this situation, we tend to favor explanatory scenarios in which “it isn’t so”.
And the idea that our Atman consciousnesses are simply small local reflections of a universal Brahman consciousness ensures, and assures us, that we are part of something greater and more meaningful.
There are some real gems in this post. You've boiled it down to its essence. Awakeness, loneliness, original solitude, escape in identity to feel like we belong. Talk about "cut to the chase."
One identity I hold is that of a father. For me this is not a lie at all. It’s a reality of sacred relationship. It’s a commitment to be there for my daughter.
It’s too simplistic to say identities are “nothing but lies.” They’re often much more than that. The key is simply to see that we transcend and include all these various roles and facets. We are infinitely mysterious and always beyond any label—yet the labels can still be sacred signifiers of relational realities.
Thanks for the article, Robert—many poignant and valuable lines. 🙏🏼
What do you identity as, Robert? Why would you say not this, not that, and then suggest naturalism? If you don't identify as anything, what are you defending and why?
A wonderful distillation of chapter 45 from DONT, that I really needed to hear tonight. There is something quite remarkable about the truth of this statement, the second sentence, that I can’t deny and i see it, and it’s true and it’s ok. It has softened me inside. I have had a cold for a few weeks and it’s surprising how something so banal can induce a maudlin feeling state as it drags on, but these words make me relax into now and everything being ok as it is and no need for improvements. thank you Robert. One day my daughter may understand this perspective too, though now as a young person she is deeply ensconced in her tribe and the gender bending world and that’s ok too. At this stage for young people, what ever gets them through. Also - this is a remarkable photo, that I think goes very well with the post.
Yes. I am in London at the moment and it's been a beautiful warm spring day here. I went to a remarkable exhibition at The Tate Modern; humans expressing ourselves in the midst of our certain march towards desolation. Joy inside the pain. As we left there were a group of scientolgists and a group of Christians selling their wares: humans bonding around the magical stories we tell around the fire as the hyenas howl in the distance.
The best part of this is the recognition there’s always a next flavour of illusion, next final instalment, the next secret, will be the one to do the unveiling for the “awakening.”
In my case by the time I found your book, post-45, unknown and undiagnosed autistic, I went searching high and low and the more I learnt the less I understood.
The narratives I was looking to solve my problems were just that, convenient narratives.
It wasn’t till I realized we’re all just making this shit up as we go, our brains busy predicting what actions will be productive and controlling our input/outputs and making up the narrative post hoc.
We can’t be anything we are not, and never have, yet we cling to the notion of self-autonomy, self control, self… self… self… molecules following the forces of thermodynamics, collections of gene expressions, and random probabilities of the quantum world… yet the most incredible forces in the universe of attraction reside here within us in the strong and weak forces of the nuclear world.
At what level of abstraction do you stop taking control?
Rhetorical. What suits you is the answer. You’ll make up what you believe and that will be that.
We know now the brain is PREDICTING, not ANTICIPATING and REACTING!
You know those times in the shower when you get a killer comeback to burn someone for what they said, but that was yesterday at lunch… ya that’s kind like how your brain works all the time.
Great post, great books!
Thank you, Joe. It’s the illusion of presence when in fact, there’s no one there. Thoughts arise, actions happen, but no little “me” is doing it. The little “me” isn’t even there. That’s the illusion of presence.
This simple statement has my mind reeling.
The chance, odds wise that we are even here as a collection of information that persists for a lifetime is so astronomically fathomably small it might as well be zero.
For everything to have happened to allow me to be typing this on Substack is practically an impossibility, if you were to honestly imagine it from nothing especially…
What a narrative! All of that is of no concern to the way my structure in this world exists, because it simply does!
That’s the paradox for me!
I had to tell someone my feelings after she putting herself in guru position told somebody with a truly sad situation that none of it was real anyway, laughs, then carries on to explain it’s all in our heads.
Say what you want but my molecules reacted to her molecules!
What I am saying is… YOU get we are only here in the here and now, and are experiencing this experience only through us, but our sensory apparatus can and will cause physical and emotional discomfort in NO uncertain, REAL TERMS… PAIN!
Yes, the odds against being conscious and being here on Substack are very slight indeed. On the other hand, if we were not here, the observation about long odds would not even arise since there would be no one to make it.
??? That’s what I just said. 🤔… 🤣🤣🤣 (that’s what makes YOU great!)
How can we be here to talk about regardless of whether it’s impossible or not!
For me it’s the survivorship bias… EVERYWHERE!!!
After reading this again… “We confuse qualia for control.” Came to my mind.
Well said
Right. My contention is the “little operator” is a hmmmn, a side effect?… no, an emergence? maybe, the brain organizing itself in a way to bring about a result in the world after countless trillions of testing and reiterating until a feature worked so well, it flourished enabling us enough safety to evolve phenotypes of all kinds convincing us we have powers far above anything rational.
The funny thing about all this is the focus. For one Richard Dawkins took the gene expression route. His claim was that we are the genes way of propagating.
We say it’s because we procreate, some say it’s biological, most say… oops!
Maybe we are just “AI genes?” If we are the nucleus of what’s to come, in a hundred years will the AI (OMG don’t call them that anymore, they get real mad!) be in control or will they be arguing about stupid human synapse training when one of them “hallucinates”.
Oh exist excited for your new book. Haven’t looked into it yet. I’m sure it’ll be great, thought provoking for sure!
The publisher told me today that it's going to the printer early next week. I'm excited to see it in print.
That must be the best feeling a writer can get! (Don’t analyze it) just enjoy it! 🤣
But seriously I’m happy for your success, it’s the kind we need and can’t wait to get into the new stuff!
📖 = physical
Nothing like it! 😃
Mr Joe Autistic rebel - you are amazing.
Awe… that was unexpected and sweet. Thank you! 🙏😃
I am not that sweet but thank you. On the spectrum somewhere (aren’t we all) but you are brilliant. I merely gleam occasionally. 😉
I loved this article, and the last two paragraphs are great! Yes!!!
A few minor points I'd question on race and gender, although I'm basically in agreement with your perspective on both.
On race, I wouldn't say race is entirely a social construct, although some of it certainly is. But there are obvious physical differences in such things as skin color, facial structure, shapes of various facial features, body size, and increased susceptibility to certain diseases. So there are racial differences and to deny them seems absurd to me. Color-blindness (the approach to racism favored by MLK, Coleman Hughes, myself and many others) doesn't mean denying that race exists. It means that race shouldn't matter in how one is treated in society.
And on gender, I continue to distinguish biological sex from gender. Biological sex is, by most accounts, binary, with only occasional intersex anomalies or exceptions. But if gender refers to masculinity and femininity, these are obviously in large part social constructs (although not entirely, imo), and there is clearly a wide spectrum of gender variance between different cultures and in terms of how people in general feel, dress and act in terms of masculinity and femininity. But I completely agree that "endlessly mutable self-labels is fiction" and that one can't simply self-identify as the opposite sex and thus become the opposite sex.
Finally, in my experience, there was a time and place where identifying with a particular group (in my case, women, lesbians, people with disabilities) and talking amongst ourselves was helpful in terms of recognizing the particular kinds of social prejudice we faced and organizing to change it. It was helpful, and then at another point, it wasn't. We clung to it in unhelpful ways. Along similar lines, I fully supported affirmative action for many decades as a kind of "necessary evil" to help undo racism, and then, I was happy when the Supreme Court overturned it recently. I thought it was time. So identity can be a tricky thing. But generally, nowadays for sure, I feel that the emphasis on identity politics is very misguided and is making things worse not better.
Anyway, great article. ❤️🙏
Thank you, Joan. There is only one race--the human race. There are different population groups with differing susceptibility to specific ailments, but population groups are not races. Genetics is not a black or white situation. Skin color is 100 percent predictable according to how close or far from the equator one's ancestors lived. No other attributes or susceptibilities are.
I understand that there may be a time when you need to find your tribe. I did say that. But if one does not see through that fiction eventually, there will never be freedom in the sense in which I use that word. I don't think of you as a lesbian. You are Joan. Full stop.
Well, I agree all races are the human race, but I do think there's an obvious reality to race, so we disagree on that. But I think we agree 100% that it shouldn't determine how one is treated (either positively or negatively) in society. And with an increasingly global world and more and more intermarriage, race is becoming less and less of a reality, even as identity politics tries hard to hold onto it. That blending is already well underway.
Often when people say, "I don't think of you as a lesbian (or as disabled, or black, or as whatever other group of less favored people are in question), they mean it as a compliment, but it often registers as a subtle insult, because what they mean is that they see you as just as fully human as they are (ie, straight, white, male, able-bodied or whatever the more privileged category they're in is). So you may not go around thinking to yourself that "Joan is a woman," but I'm pretty sure it's obvious to you that I am and that this registers on some level and may even in subtle unconscious ways affect how you relate to me. (I chose woman as an example here instead of lesbian because I'm not sexually active or in a relationship, and haven't been the entire time you've known me, so you don't have much reason to register my lesbianism, but were I married to a woman, I suspect my sexual orientation would register with you.)
In a conventional sense, I certainly DO recognize that you are a human being, that you're a man, that you're a straight man, that you're an older man, that you live in Mexico, that your name is Robert, and so on. Those things register. I'm not oblivious to them. They don't define you in my mind, but they do register (and on some unconscious and unintentional level, they may even inadvertantly affect how I relate with you). And on a deeper level, I don't think of you as ANY of that, not even as Robert or as a human being. ALL categories ultimately collapse.
I am not saying that people's sexual proclivities don't vary. I am saying that hearing that a woman likes sex with other women does not tell me anything else about that person. You and I, for example, have much more in common than I do with many people who may be straight older men who live in Mexico.
Well, sure. I understand you're not saying humans don't vary. And sure, the fact that you like sex with Catanya doesn't tell me all that much about you. And sure, I have more in common with you than I do with many one-armed lesbians. But you're missing what I'm saying. And I think we're probably beating a dead horse at this point. I have the sense that we fundamentally agree on what matters most, namely that a person's race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, etc should not define who they are or determine how they are treated. And also, I really liked your article.
Thanks. I like your writing too, as you know. We agree on so much.
You say this in a way that takes away the wrapping from the word awake. I am sure of that you can not have either or, and I believe that is the dilemma that stands in the way for people to be able to grasp this. Most don’t want to leave away all that and I think I am one of them to speak candidly, atleast as it is right now. Because I believe that if I was ready to let it all go I already would have done that.
What is more worth? The validity lies in the beholder of the thought.
I re-read this article again because I found it very interesting. It is funny how you can read the same text twice and get a whole other insight and understanding of it the second time or the third time you read it.
Nice.
Your post on FB inspired it, De.
That is a sweet thing to hear. 🙏♥️
This one. When I read "Am I suspicious? Yes." I thought, me too.
I was reading a article in the on-line Aeon Magazine this morning called, “By the light of Brahman”.
Its first assertion was that Brahman is the universal consciousness which comprises everything and that our individual consciousnesses are local instantiations of Brahman which are immanent in all living things as Atman, the individual ego or self.
I’ve often reflected that we, recently evolved creatures that we are, do not like the simple fact that we are mortal and transitory. And, to ameliorate the inherent meaninglessness of this situation, we tend to favor explanatory scenarios in which “it isn’t so”.
And the idea that our Atman consciousnesses are simply small local reflections of a universal Brahman consciousness ensures, and assures us, that we are part of something greater and more meaningful.
Am I suspicious? Yes.
Excellent.
Reading you, it feels like someone lit a small fire in the dark — not to chase away the night, but to sit with it, awake and unafraid.
Thank you for not covering the loneliness, for letting it stand bare and beautiful, like an old tree against the wind
“Awake means open, without rushing to wrap things up.” Loved and felt this sentence from the article. Thank you!🙏
There are some real gems in this post. You've boiled it down to its essence. Awakeness, loneliness, original solitude, escape in identity to feel like we belong. Talk about "cut to the chase."
Thank you, Jim. I'll be turning 80 in June. If I don't cut to the chase now, the chase may end before I get around to cutting to it. lol
I'll be 85 in June, Robert. Happy Birthdays to us! I say we keep going for more. Age let's us drop a lot of baggage, as do wise friends like you.
Thanks Robert. The great mystery continues. So much hardship counterbalanced by so much beauty and grace.
One identity I hold is that of a father. For me this is not a lie at all. It’s a reality of sacred relationship. It’s a commitment to be there for my daughter.
It’s too simplistic to say identities are “nothing but lies.” They’re often much more than that. The key is simply to see that we transcend and include all these various roles and facets. We are infinitely mysterious and always beyond any label—yet the labels can still be sacred signifiers of relational realities.
Thanks for the article, Robert—many poignant and valuable lines. 🙏🏼
Thank you, Jordan. I think you can have the commitment without hanging it on an identity.
Indeed - cuts right to the marrow....
What do you identity as, Robert? Why would you say not this, not that, and then suggest naturalism? If you don't identify as anything, what are you defending and why?
Just this.
A wonderful distillation of chapter 45 from DONT, that I really needed to hear tonight. There is something quite remarkable about the truth of this statement, the second sentence, that I can’t deny and i see it, and it’s true and it’s ok. It has softened me inside. I have had a cold for a few weeks and it’s surprising how something so banal can induce a maudlin feeling state as it drags on, but these words make me relax into now and everything being ok as it is and no need for improvements. thank you Robert. One day my daughter may understand this perspective too, though now as a young person she is deeply ensconced in her tribe and the gender bending world and that’s ok too. At this stage for young people, what ever gets them through. Also - this is a remarkable photo, that I think goes very well with the post.
You recognized that, Renaae. You really are a faithful reader.
I've had this respiratory thingy for three months now and can't quite shake it. It's not just me either. It's making the rounds here.
Have you tested for Covid? I had what I thought was a flu or cold….didn’t test for C until way later and bingo. It’s making the rounds again.
🙃