/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.21877058]

All of reality is a prison. The question is, what’s outside of that prison?

[Anonymous No.21877168]

>>21877058
An even bigger prison

[Anonymous No.21877190]

>what’s outside of reality?
nothing idiot

[Anonymous No.21877197]

>>21877058
The unconditioned. Transcendence.

[Anonymous No.21877210]

>>21877058
our minds. that's it.

[Anonymous No.21877213]

>>21877168
>>21877197
>>21877210
nothing real is outside of reality. are you all literally fucking retarded?

[Anonymous No.21877222]

The real question is how do you know when you're out of the cave?

[Anonymous No.21877224]

To get to the other side

[Anonymous No.21877231]

>>21877213
the question posed was what's outside of the prison. i would argue that our minds are, by a loophole

[Anonymous No.21877242]

>>21877058
Wrong.

[Anonymous No.21877248]

>>21877231
>the question posed was what's outside of the prison.
it is literally stated that reality is "a prison" and the question then asks what's outside of "that prison". it's right there in fucking post. holy shit you are dumb

[Anonymous No.21877262]

>>21877248
yeah you're right, your mind is not outside the prison

[Anonymous No.21877263]

>>21877262
yeah because it would be unreal because it would be outside of reality which is referred to in the OP as "that prison". dumbfuck.

[Anonymous No.21877264]

>>21877210
Materialism ftw

[Anonymous No.21877267]

>>21877263
i had the sudden realization that you're reality's prison warden

[Anonymous No.21877272]

>>21877058

[Anonymous No.21877274]

>>21877267
i had the sudden realization that you are a retarded schizophrenic who thinks things can be real yet not be inside reality

[Anonymous No.21877284]

>>21877274
i can think anything i want :p

[Anonymous No.21877285]

>>21877274
Langan is a Platonist but you are a hylic.

[Anonymous No.21877295]

>>21877285
thinking that reality contains unreal elements is the most hylic shit in existence and destroys truth entirely, but somehow I am the hylic

[Anonymous No.21877299]

>>21877295
i would like to hear you prove that what occurs inside someone's thoughts is contained inside of 'reality'.

[Anonymous No.21877310]

>>21877299
ummm.. the thought is real??? because it exists??? no way you are this dumb??? you must be joking???

[Anonymous No.21877321]

>>21877310
wait, so now you're lumping in existence with reality? why the need to move the goalposts? feeling hot under the collar?

[Anonymous No.21877325]

>>21877058
https://youtu.be/smuSMoD3jS0

[Anonymous No.21877344]

>>21877321
>you're lumping in existence with reality?
no fucking way. humans are finished. it's over. they are too dumb to deserve to live. at best, they will be neofeudal cattle forever, and they will be happy.

[Anonymous No.21877361]

>>21877344
we already are neofeudal cattle, always and forever (hence OP). was still fun to provoke your cockles here in this thread

[Anonymous No.21877380]

>>21877213
If you want to be pedantic, sure. 'Reality' here clearly is meant as just the physical world.

[Anonymous No.21877392]

>>21877380
what philosopher in human history has ever used the phrase "all of reality" to refer to the physical world. that makes no fucking sense

[Anonymous No.21877396]

>>21877380
OP here.

Reality is meant as everything that exists, including minds, which are mere components of the brainstem.

[Anonymous No.21877405]

>>21877058
Are you characterizing the Cave image in the Republic? Because the Republic argues something different, that political life is a cave populated by shadows that the chained cave dwellers think are real, while reality goes ignored behind them outside of the cave.

[Anonymous No.21877469]

>>21877405
the cave has a deeper meaning than just political. it refers to the blinders imposed on humanity by lack of knowledge. it's also relevant with regard to the eleusinians and their orgiastic, hallucinagenic rites

[Anonymous No.21877494]

>>21877058
Where in The Republic does Socrates describe reality as a prison? The cave analogy can just as easily be interpreted as dogma/false opinion vs truth.

[Anonymous No.21877518]

>>21877213
i think what plato meant by all his idealism was what socrate said: if you look with your eyes you are blind. socrate probably meant that when you look at something that you have already examined, you understand it, how it works, what's the machinations of it, but when you look just with your eyes and not the mind, you are lost

[Anonymous No.21877521]

>>21877058
The premise is that all real things are part of a fundamental prison, so if prison is everything then what is outside of prison is nothing, else it would be a tangible thing and thereby a prison.
Res ergo omnia, Prison is Omnia

[Anonymous No.21877523]

>>21877469
>the cave has a deeper meaning than just political. it refers to the blinders imposed on humanity by lack of knowledge.
The turn out of the cave is extra-political or transpolitical, sure, but the cave itself is political, since it's the reigning opinions of any given regime that make up the blinders to knowledge; consider that this applies equally to the Kallipolis, where its own versions of cave shadows are the noble and medicinal lies, and consider also Socrates' speech about how the city itself is always the biggest sophist.

>it's also relevant with regard to the eleusinians and their orgiastic, hallucinagenic rites
I'm doubtful of that, since the turn that makes one notice the cave entrance is a change in orientation re: understanding. It's certainly, as an image, related to the katabases of Odysseus in the Odyssey, Heracles, and Orpheus, but it's an image of political life as taking place in the land of the shades, i.e., Hades, relevant to the focus on Justice, and so punitive gods, in the Republic.

[Anonymous No.21877549]

>>21877058
>>21877190
>>21877197
>>21877248
evola addressed such an assertion himself in that one interview he did thats on youtube. there is nothing beyond reality there are only different ways of perceiving it.

[Anonymous No.21877559]

>>21877549
Evola isn't a serious metaphysician, read Langan

[Anonymous No.21877581]

>>21877559
how so? or is this just b8

[Anonymous No.21877606]

>>21877523
Your points are quite profound honestly. When limited to a scope that only contains Greco-Roman history, and taken in a context of those times and places, what you have said rings of truth.
I do, however, think that there is a larger tradition at play which is much longer lived than Greece or Rome or any other singular nation state or civilization.
Manly P. Hall, as a historian of the mysteries, deserves some credit for his research in this area. He had this to say about the cave:
>The rites of Mithras were performed in caves. Porphyry, in his Cave of the Nymphs, states that
Zarathustra (Zoroaster) was the first to consecrate a cave to the worship of God, because a cavern was symbolic of the earth, or the lower world of darkness.
And again he talks about the cave from the perspective of Norse paganism:
>The Odinic Mysteries were given in underground crypts or caves, the chambers, nine in number,
representing the Nine Worlds of the Mysteries. The candidate seeking admission was assigned the task of raising Balder from the dead.
While I would agree that many folks perceived these caves in many different ways, there is a much deeper thread of meaning that you can trace like a thread throughout the ages.

[Anonymous No.21877612]

>>21877606
Sorry for messing up the greentext...

[Anonymous No.21877662]

>>21877581
nobody who talks about "magic" as if it were something that maps truthfully onto reality is worth reading. it's like astrology.

[Anonymous No.21877721]

>>21877662
evola definitely waxed poetic about alchemy and stuff...but i never saw anything that was straight up harry potter tier. you need to back up your claims with some citations. post source quotes or i don't buy it

[Anonymous No.21877844]

>>21877606
I think my contention would have to be that the cave has to be taken o the terms presented to us, and part of that is the education subsequently introduced, namely, mathematics and dialectics, as the means by which one might, with difficulty, perhaps gain insight into the Good. If the Mysteries are relevant here, they would perhaps only be so shorn of myth and made mathematical. I suppose a kind of similarity between the Mysteries and the education outside of the cave would be the strictness over the teaching of dialectic, but that seems a formal resemblance, and it's harder to say whether there's a resemblance in content, lacking so much information on the Mysteries (it couldn't resemble the mathematical education of the Republic, or even dialectic, since those were open subjects of discussion in Athens, and talk of the Mysteries outside of their context could be punished by execution).

[Anonymous No.21877884]

>>21877844
>If the Mysteries are relevant here, they would perhaps only be so shorn of myth and made mathematical.
That's a big piece of the mysteries, is the mathematical aspect. Cave of Pythagorus, anyone? A lot of what gets turned into myth and symbol are geometrical concepts. The masonic square and compass, the 12 trials of hercules, the three little pigs....

[Anonymous No.21877976]

>>21877884
read Langan

[Anonymous No.21877999]

>>21877976
I must admit I haven't really given any attention to Langan, outside of what I've seen screenshotted here and elsewhere. Your quote is certainly describing exactly what I'm also referring to. That there are a set of symbols and mathematical principals handed down through the ages which have been the basis for much of our drawings, annotations, writings, paintings etc.

[Anonymous No.21878096]

>>21877884
This would be to conflate Mysteries in order to hold on to a reading of the Republic that the text resists, wouldn't it? Let me grant that the image of a cave is associated with Mysteries of whatever sort (Pythagorean, Orphic, Eleusian, Bacchic, etc.); this does not necessitate that the Mystery teachings associated with Pythagoras re: math are the same as those of the others. And I would have to reiterate that speaking aloud about the mysteries was punishable by death (about which, see Thucydides on Alcibiades on the eve of the Sicilian expedition), and math was a subject perfectly open for anyone to discuss in Athens (with astronomy being the exception that could potentially get a trial going, as per Apology and Laws).

The cave in the Republic is mysterious, but it's not a Mystery per se.

>>21877976
I'd have thought it would be the other way around, i.e., analogy being rather the image-makimg or poetic faculty helping math along, since similes and metaphors are basic and common analogies.

[Anonymous No.21878115]

>>21877999
the CTMU, being an explication of the necessary structure of reality, is the most concise and general description possible of these symbols and their objective content.

when you understand it, you understand things like how "the little red hen" is really a game-theoretic statement about the effectiveness of reciprocal altruism.

[Anonymous No.21878778]

>>21878115
OP here, again.
I’m an atheist.

[Anonymous No.21879063]

>>21877058
If you really want to know, then unironically study NDEs and realize that there actually is an afterlife and that we are eternal and will go to heaven unconditionally when we die, and that life is like a video game or a simulation and you actually chose to come here, and that the meaning of life is to learn to love and be kind and thrive here despite how hard it is in this world.

Here is a very persuasive argument for why NDEs are real:

https://youtu.be/U00ibBGZp7o

It emphasizes that NDErs are representative of the population as a whole, and when people go deep into the NDE, they all become convinced. As this article points out:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mysteries-consciousness/202204/does-afterlife-obviously-exist

>"Among those with the deepest experiences 100 percent came away agreeing with the statement, "An afterlife definitely exists"."

Since NDErs are representative of the population as a whole, and they are all convinced, then 100% of the population become convinced that there is an afterlife when they have a sufficiently deep NDE themselves. When you dream and wake up, you instantly realize that life is more real than your dreams. When you have an NDE, the same thing is happening, but on a higher level, as you immediately realize that life is the deep dream and the NDE world is the undeniably real world by comparison.

Or as one person quoted in pic related summarized their NDE:

>"As my soul left my body, I found myself floating in a swirling ocean of multi-colored light. At the end, I could see and feel an even brighter light pulling me toward it, and as it shined on me, I felt indescribable happiness. I remembered everything about eternity - knowing, that we had always existed, and that all of us are family. Then old friends and loved ones surrounded me, and I knew without a doubt I was home, and that I was so loved."

Needless to say, even ultraskeptical neuroscientists are convinced by really deep NDEs.

So this existence is not a prison, it is a voluntarily chosen school+game. Outside of it is infinite bliss and paradise.

[Anonymous No.21879083]

>>21879063
>If you really want to know, then unironically study NDEs and realize that there actually is an afterlife and that we are eternal and will go to heaven unconditionally when we die, and that life is like a video game or a simulation and you actually chose to come here, and that the meaning of life is to learn to love and be kind and thrive here despite how hard it is in this world.
I wish I could believe that anon, I really do

[Anonymous No.21879148]

>>21877662
youre a retard this isnt a refutation at all. i dont know enough to justify his work on magic but you seem to just be saying nothing that refutes evola nor anything that supports langan. evola was a quadruple digit IQ mystic. isnt langan just some pentecostal farmer in the south?

[Anonymous No.21879416]

>>21877058
He was talking about the MATERIAL/PHYSICAL world/reality being an illusion, ie the sensual data stream. This is different from saying that reality as a whole is an illusion. The matter world (virtual world/sensual data stream) is a subset of a larger world. Matter or energy as a fundamental ontic substance is DUMB. Get it out of your mind that materialist substance monism is true. What is really meant is that the sensual data stream is not FUNDAMENTAL, ie it is derivative and is emergent from underlying info processing, and the processor ends up being an great mind, of which we are individuated minds of this same substance. The physical world is rendered to be interfaced with 'within' these individual minds.
>>21877190
Yeah, but langan has the physical universe ITSELF as being all that there is, which is false. He has us being within the super set of physicality, which is wrong. We only INTERFACE with physicality, we are not ourselves (our consciousness) ontically physical, we are ontically MENTAL. the physical itself is ontically mental in nature as well. So langan got this backwards, though strangely, he professes to be an idealist. So he doesn't understand the implications of his own system. The universe/physicality/sensual data stream is a small subset of the reality system. is a subset of a larger reality. Langan, unfortunately for himself, used the idea of john archibald wheeler's that the universe is an output of itself, a "self simulation" which is illogical. This mistake of choice makes langan's system false in that regard.

[Anonymous No.21879713]

>>21877285
>Langan is a Platonist
Langan wrote a forward for Ayn Rand's novel Anthem.

[Anonymous No.21879739]

>>21879083
cool. how is this relevant to that post again?

[Anonymous No.21879745]

>>21878778
cool. how is this relevant to that post again?

[Anonymous No.21879750]

>>21877058
if my mind is a prison, but I'm my mind and my mind is me, am I the guard or a prisoner?

[Anonymous No.21879819]

>>21879750
Your mind is not a prison. All of reality is.

[Anonymous No.21879854]

Why is this book so gay and dry, I regret paying 20 bucks for it.
>start with the Greeks
Yeah, no. I'm going back to reading depressing literally me books after this.

[Anonymous No.21879926]

>>21877058
No such thing as "outside reality". Parmenides addresses this. The Mind is all and everything. It always has been and always will be. There are higher and lower realms that make up the great chain of being within the divine Mind. This realm we're all in at the moment is clearly a testing ground where the only true, worthwhile purpose is attaining spiritual evolution/transcendence—turning lead into gold—so that when your time comes you may move on up the great chain of being and leave this realm behind for good. Otherwise I think you just end up back here again and again. "If you die before you die you won't die when you die."

[Anonymous No.21879969]

>>21877264
Gross

Anyways this question used to scare me as a kid but we really don’t know so it’s best to remain agnostic about it because it could very well be worse than “nothing”

[Anonymous No.21879999]

>>21879926
>This realm we're all in at the moment is clearly a testing ground where the only true, worthwhile purpose is attaining spiritual evolution/transcendence—turning lead into gold—so that when your time comes you may move on up the great chain of being and leave this realm behind for good.

I don't understand this part. It's a nice thought, but it's hard to differentiate this from any number of religious fantasies. Also, it's never explained exactly what is being tested, exactly what will 'move up' and to where, why would it make a difference whether or not you transcend, why any of this happens, or why it can't just be something else entirely. That's the part I have trouble with - the part where it doesn't make any sense at all because it's just an unfounded assertion. Also, if your 'transcendence' is dependent on your life circumstances, and your encounters and access to information and so on, then billions of people are being 'left behind' just because it didn't occur to them to 'transcend' because they weren't informed about how, because a Jew hypnotized them with distractions. That sounds a bit counter-productive.
Like philosophy, metaphysical/religious writing is ok, but mostly fake. The real concern is that on a planet of 8 billion, nobody talks about anything important, ever... Gotta be able to talk about things first, then you can worry about figuring out the ultimate nature of reality later on. But talking about fixing actual present-day issues doesn't make you feel as deep...

[Anonymous No.21880057]

>>21879999
>the origins and substance of the universe including its purpose and ultimate mechanisms and how humanity is implicated in these things aren't "actual issues".
then what is, pray tell? making video games more realistic? acquiring more material resources to support your earthly existence for which you do not know the ultimate purpose or value of? sounds jewish.

[Anonymous No.21880395]

>>21879999
I think it's important not to lump in religion with genuine metaphysics/spirituality. The established religions, by design, imo, have very much bastardized people's notions of things like God, which is reduced to a bearded anthropomorphism, and all the other big question of existence. But I think there's something to the idea that we are a species with amnesia that has forgotten what, not who, we are. Reaching something like anamnesis/recollection is the way, and the philosophy/metaphysics/spirituality as the ancients practiced it represents the key with which this can be fostered within an individual. Obviously if you don't subscribe to things like the divine/inspiration/intuition then all of this will sound unfounded, as you said, but if you have any inkling for there being something we've not collectively been told/realized regarding the biggest questions of our reality then I think there's something there. At least that's where my pursuit of the truth over the years has led me to atm. I'm not claiming to have any definite answers. But I agree with you that it seems like no one on this planet talks about/is interested in anything actually important with regards to these matters, and I feel like perhaps this is because the one thing tptb truly fear more than anything else is a genuine spiritual renaissance of some sort across the west and the world since when/if it were to ever happen it would be the end of their "game" that we've all been forced to play for what seems like forever at this point.

[Anonymous No.21880422]

>>21880395
bro literally said
>But talking about fixing actual present-day issues doesn't make you feel as deep...
feel as deep as what? watching TV? he is obviously referring to philosophy. he doesn't agree with you. it's a shame all that reading doesn't help you comprehend basic contextual clues. lmao.

[Anonymous No.21880622]

>>21880422
But that's the thing. No true "action" here below can ever produce lasting and genuine change if it isn't properly oriented from above.

[Anonymous No.21880629]

>>21879819
But what is reality,
But a mirror of my own mind?

[Anonymous No.21882236]

>>21880422
>bro literally said
zoom zoom

>>21880395
I take internal development very seriously. At this point I literally believe I have psychic/magic powers. I just don't believe in picking up any old philosophy or spiritualism and following it just because it sounds nice. I like to do things in a careful and systematic way. The problems and questions surrounding reality, external and internal existence, human actions, etc. are very big, difficult, multi-faceted, and they cross too many different states of consciousness for most people to be able to intuitively link their experience across all of them and combine it into something coherent. I do pretty well with my gifts and various divergences, but it's tricky. It's also been hard doing all of this by myself.
A large-scale spiritual renaissance is what's necessary, but something like that depends on the population's ability to think, communicate, and move around freely within material reality. Also, creation of any new significant spiritual works would depend on the existence of an active and vibrant intellectual or spiritual culture, which doesn't exist and can't be created. No good! The 140 million new zoomers born each year are being programmed with some truly insane stuff. We're pretty deep into technocratic dystopia already, so we're really living on borrowed time now. I have plenty of ideas about how to fix all of this stuff, but nobody is even willing to talk about it, let alone do something about it. It's more about shitposting, and reposting quotes from random authors. If you know of any place for revolutionary/creative geniuses, please let me know.

[Anonymous No.21882306]

>>21882236
>If you know of any place for revolutionary/creative geniuses, please let me know.
there are none, because geniuses keep to themselves. i have joined several obscure communities which i can still personally name and there is no serious work being done because you don't join a community to work... you just work. anyways, have you heard of the CTMU? it's kind of literally a mathematical description of God that proves He must exist? it's author has presented it as a form of "metareligion" due to its synthetic capacity to generalize the concepts found within different religions, including moral ones? i've kind of been trying to explain this. i've even written out some simplified proofs using the kind of logic found within the CTMU, but no one seems to care. it's either "why do we need the CTMU? just read the mystics bro!" or "lol where is this guy's degree? he hasn't made a lot of money and he is also a racist. into the trash it goes." does any of what i've just written sound interesting to you?

[Anonymous No.21882386]

>>21882306
Everyone's different. It's not true that each genius work was created in a social vacuum - a ton of intellectual work has been done in cooperation or in close contact with others. Most of my friends and family are now destroyed people - suicidal, on SSRIs, alcoholics and so on, or wasting all their time on Netflix and videogames. It's like the smarter you are, the more sensitive, and the more susceptible you are to recruitment/enslavement by the system. Many generations of creative output have been squandered this way. It's discouraging. It would be nice to find a place like this board, but with more serious people.
I am subscribed to Langan on YouTube (paid member). I think he's quite funny and interesting, but I don't think he'd really stand a chance against me at full power (along with any other of the ToE people I've seen). He outputs false statements at machine-gun speeds. The racism thing is really funny, and he outright bullies interviewers. He has limited education and self-awareness. He's not fully aware of the implications of his own theory.
Anyway, all that is quite separate from the validity of his theory, which is intriguing but poorly explained. Tbh I am inclined to believe it just because I recognized and respected the honesty in his thought process - some of the stuff he says, I think nobody could come up with that shit unless they were really working honestly & earnestly, so I know he has something. I've I have my own issues with his theory, but they're mostly around the periphery since I don't understand very much about the math etc. I'd be willing to check out your stuff, but I really doubt you'd reciprocate.

[Anonymous No.21882463]

>>21882386
>It's like the smarter you are, the more sensitive, and the more susceptible you are to recruitment/enslavement by the system.
I can assure you that there is no substantial correlation between intelligence and immoral/destructive behavior.
>It's not true that each genius work was created in a social vacuum - a ton of intellectual work has been done in cooperation or in close contact with others.
Yes. But two things bear in mind. First, this kind of collaborative effort is usually reserved for the hard sciences and mathematics, rather than philosophy or metaphysics. Second, these communities, and the people in them, have been monopolized by academia. This means that if you are looking for work produced within academic circles that falls outside the circle of what academia deems acceptable, you are simply not going to find it. Unfortunately, this circle is heavily guarded and excludes the vast majority of worthwhile philosophy and metaphysics. As for the rest of your post, it comes across as a little arrogant and possibly hypocritical to say "He has limited education and self-awareness." and "I don't think he'd really stand a chance against me at full power" about an author whose work you admit - in the very same paragraph - you "don't understand very much about".
>I'd be willing to check out your stuff, but I really doubt you'd reciprocate.
You're welcome to go ahead and post it.

[Anonymous No.21882508]

>>21880395
>But I think there's something to the idea that we are a species with amnesia that has forgotten what, not who, we are. Reaching something like anamnesis/recollection is the way, and the philosophy/metaphysics/spirituality as the ancients practiced it represents the key with which this can be fostered within an individual. Obviously if you don't subscribe to things like the divine/inspiration/intuition then all of this will sound unfounded
I've only just started reading pic related and its argument seems to be that Plato is where we as Westernisers started going wrong. We started applying logic and reason to spiritual/metaphysical questions. That brought us untold progress and wealth but we lost our deep spiritual connection. I think from very brief skimming of Evola this is what he is getting at, that as 'modern' man we need to go back to something beyond religion.
The (meta) problem is that most people who try and discuss this think all modernity is wrong/Jewish.

[Anonymous No.21882548]

>>21882463
>I can assure you that there is no substantial correlation between intelligence and immoral/destructive behavior.
I think there is, that's why I mentioned it. But thanks for assuring me, I guess.
I'm not talking about a collaborative effort on a single project. Just about having a community that can support eachother in generating such projects.
>Second, these communities, and the people in them, have been monopolized by academia.
Yes. That's part of the problem I was talking about.
>about an author whose work you admit - in the very same paragraph - you "don't understand very much about".
Ah, but it was actually a new paragraph. Just no whitespace in between.
>You're welcome to go ahead and post it.
We'd run into the same problem of people either not being ready for the insight - or only pretending to understand it, like they do with Langan and others. For a lot of the stuff I've come up with, there is no language for (yet?) and it reverses many fundamental assumptions about the nature of knowledge and thought, and touches on just about every sphere of mental and physical life. I've seen a good bit of my stuff in bits and pieces elsewhere (Langan etc). but it's never anywhere close to complete, and often full of bizarre mistakes and omissions. I could go on, but I typically don't tell people about my thought process or my ideas anymore, as nothing good really comes of it. But I hope your planet does well...

[Anonymous No.21882555]

>>21882306
>anyways, have you heard of the CTMU?
By the way, I'm going to start using this line. Thank you.