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The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

aeon.co

211–220 of 250 posts

Re: The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The two line take-away is: care less about material things. Gee.. nobody said that before, 2000+ years ago. Did they? Yes, seriously, how is this news? Every single spiritual teacher, every religion, even every motivational coach will tell you this in the first hours of their teachings. How is this new? Yes, it takes time to integrate it, it is not enough to just read about but what the article is going to integrat…

"Everyone says so" is not sufficient justification to accept something as true. It does indicate that there may be something to be investigated, but I personally can't even begin to believe stuff like this on someone's word alone. Even if it's everyone on Earth but me. It might be that it's beneficial to "care less about material things", but what does that even mean? I can't just randomly decide how much I care and…

> I can't just randomly decide how much I care and don't care about something, so what can be done to actually effect that change?

You absolutely can. There are many ways to do it. (to change how much you attribute your inner value to something like material success, how you view it in your inner world.)

If you feel like you have tried and you can't change a life outlook like that, it is likely that there are other aspects of your mind and psyche that are stopping you like a hidden fear, a childhood trauma, other beliefs that you need to investigate first before you can change this one, you might need more experience before you even become aware of this part of your consciousness, etc. Any good spiritual teacher or psychologist or therapist can help with this. There are clear reliable effective ways and techniques to do this.

If you don't see the point in doing it, or don't even understand what it is that you would likely change, it means you are not ready to tackle this part of your consciousness at all, it means you are working out other parts right now that need to be done first. But then it is not really a problem either, is it?

Re: The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

#212

Sanity is the ability to correctly perceive what is real. Hypersanity, then, is a nonsense term used to sell books.

That's about relativity. Most of the people are conventionally (and clinically) considered sane while almost all of us suffer from all sorts of cognitive biases and unreasonable illusory beliefs. I don't know how many but I'm sure many people also have extremely low (hardly too much above that of a anon-lucid dreamer) levels of conscious self-awareness, introspection, rational reflection and self-regulation skills (not because they were born "NPCs" but because they have never been taught nor had to exercise these things). Yet, again, all these people are diagnosed as sane. So, when sanity standards are so low, it makes sense to introduce the "hypersanity" category to describe a person whose mindfulness and rationality skills are developed well above average.

Re: The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

#213

>But what if there were another route to hypersanity Em, there are many, including Zen, Yoga, and Mysticism.

These do not help everybody. For many people (including many of those who practice it and even those who "believe in" spirituality) yoga is nothing but a kind of physical exercise. As for mysticism - trying to practice it seems more prone to make you insane than hypersane, it's not for everybody. As for Zen - many people will probably just fail to get it, get bored and give up trying at some point.

Re: The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

#214
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'true belief' is a philosophical term used in epistemology. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-pragmatic/ The question is 'what does it mean for something to be true', since Hume and Kant largely demolished any possibility that we can access 'objective truth'. http://www.autodidactproject.org/other/panova1.html "On these grounds, David Hume posits two systems of reality: the first—the reality of perceptions and…

I never said that 'good' was an objective measure. Quite the opposite, in fact. I quite explicitly said that rationality is about acting toward achieving what is 'good' for oneself.

I wonder whether you are reading my comments with an open mind, or just trying to find something you can disagree with. I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm trying to give you a framework to understand your own opinion.

When you say sanity=success, you are expressing something that is purely an opinion, and can never be anything more than an opinion, based on what you think success is, and your belief that in order to succeed according to your personal definition people have to be sane, or that sanity is just the same thing as being able to achieve your goals.

- What if I feel very guilty and I think I deserve to suffer? I'm sure you're already getting ready to type "if suffering is your goal that just means you are succeeding at suffering!" Fine.

- What if you feel like you can't go on, so you kill yourself? Are you sane because you are succeeding at killing yourself? Maybe so.

- What if my goal is to go temporarily insane to see what that is like? Then you are claiming that I'm only sane if I'm insane... It gets worse though, because what if I fail to go insane, even though it's what I put all my effort into every day? No matter what I just can't make myself insane. Well actually, then I'm not succeeding, so it turns out that by failing to go insane I've succeeded at going insane... which makes me sane.

Re: The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

#215
post #2

This article talks about sanity, but doesn't really state what it is. What it describes is essentially just alternative perspectives born out of those rejecting, or rejected by, society. This state has indeed produced profound ideas, but it has also produced even more nonsense ideas. The article makes the classical mistake of the binary: There's the mainstream, and the higher "hypersane". Unfortunately things aren't…

You can use the scientific method to dictate amongst alternatives simply by asking about levels of satisfaction, health, etc.

Re: The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The two line take-away is: care less about material things. Gee.. nobody said that before, 2000+ years ago. Did they? Yes, seriously, how is this news? Every single spiritual teacher, every religion, even every motivational coach will tell you this in the first hours of their teachings. How is this new? Yes, it takes time to integrate it, it is not enough to just read about but what the article is going to integrat…

"Everyone says so" is not sufficient justification to accept something as true. It does indicate that there may be something to be investigated, but I personally can't even begin to believe stuff like this on someone's word alone. Even if it's everyone on Earth but me. It might be that it's beneficial to "care less about material things", but what does that even mean? I can't just randomly decide how much I care and…

The mind and its outlook is like any other aspect of human nature and the body in that it takes repeated practice/exercise/etc. for improvement. This is one purported reason why those that attend weekly religious service have higher levels of life satisfaction, i.e. being told weekly to contemplate these things exercises the mind and improves life quality (on average).

Re: The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

#217
post #170

Based on this article, there is absolutely no way to distinguish "Hypersanity" from just plain old insanity. Rationality is systematized winning. Unless your actions are benefitting yourself in some significant way, you cannot be considered rational. However, you cannot determine a person's inner drivers from the outside. Therefore, you cannot tell, based purely on their actions, whether they are winning (where winni…

Unless their action involves measurable metrics to gauge happiness, etc.

Re: The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it comes to 'hunt your own food' then no, 'living with nature' that will would starve billions. While Big Ag feeds them, in a fragile pipeline of varying yields and weather. Its 'privileged' to preach that nonsense to apartment-dwelling two-shift-working people with barely the time to visit the bodega on the way home. Its 'privileged' to imagine this approach to live could be for more than indigenous peoples (rapi…

You're projecting a lot of things onto what I'm saying. I never claimed hunter-gatherer was for everyone. Getting back to nature is. That's science. Privilege is there to be shared. This includes privileged wisdom. Indigenous cultures are dying out due to settlers and colonizers decimating their lands, cultures, and people. This is not news. It has nothing to do with their way of life, aside from not having developed…

And I repeat, 'getting back to nature' is a pipe dream for most people, living on a cement street in an apartment 25 stories up. Which is over half of everybody already, and growing.

Re: The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

#219
post #189
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To what end? If we accept the heat death of the universe and the fact nothing can go faster than light everything is bound to disappear. Trying to better Earth based life is useless. Then why bother trying to attain something higher? Just maximize your own pleasure until your conscience disappear. Suicide by psychedelic use is the only "hypersane" response.

The unvoiced assumption here is that the universe is fundamentally knowable through rational materialism. Among the many things we've learned from science is that there are real phenomena that we cannot perceive. We use microscopes, telescopes, x-ray machines and other sensors of all kinds which create simulacra of the real phenomena which we can perceive. Extend the analogy to our brains -- consider that there are l…

It’s not hard philosophy but I recommend Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

Re: The hypersane are among us, if only we are prepared to look

#220
post #16

My interpretation of the point the author is trying to make: The 'hypersane' are those among us who have realized, for better or for worse, that the traditional things that most in a society strive for - material wealth, social status, conformity to social structures, etc. - aren't really the keys to happiness and that when you "awaken" (and become hypersane, I suppose) you realize that along with those things come s…

I think this quote sums up my thoughts pretty well: > Seek the company of those who search for truth; run from those who have found it. In the end, the cosmos don't care what we believe, or value, or strive for. We will die all the same. Our species will become extinct. And the universe will end.

And 600 years ago most people in existence were certain that the earth was flat. Just over 100 years ago we had no understanding of quantum physics and just over 65-70 years ago we had no idea that DNA existed.

The way you wondered your remark places you in that second camp. Irony can be a clever tool, but I’m left wondering if it was intentional.

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