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But it will get you rich!

Ok, some Buddhists people in the past committed crimes and so the whole philosophy of Buddhism should be discredited and have nothing to learn from? That's not how it works bro. This sounds a lot like some Homo sapiens did horrible things in the past, so all humans are sinful and should be discredited.

Another logical fallacy: many people have developed a strong pride of self as you mentioned, and many of those same people did not do bad things -> So A must be there to cause, or is a necessary condition of B, and without A means more crimes.

It only took me one trip on dissociatives to realise how much my sensory experience is dependent on small changes in my brain chemistry. Kind of shattered the illusion of reality being this stable, objective thing. Everyone is different and it makes sense therefore that their subjective experience of reality is at least somewhat different to mine.

Even from a physics perspective we know that what we experience is at best an approximation of reality. Vision is basically just radar with high resolution. There’s a lot missing.

You should look up evolutionary and cultural psychology, specifically the Gene-Culture Co-evolution approach, which is trying to scientifically investigate the synergy between genes and culture, and what consequences it has for our evolution.

Ignorance is bliss one might say. I do disagree with the anecdote, though. I think that the people who are the most mentally healthy are those who have done the mental work and have moved past it. They're not going to get hit with an existential crisis when they actually come to terms with their mortality when they hit 35.

People may seem mentally healthy until they suddenly aren't. It's not until you've danced in the void that you're truly healthy.

Natural steady state... Your choice of words here is remarkable. Are you into spirituality as well?

The comments here seem to treat it as basically saying "boo team individuality, go team collectivism", and push back against it. But if I interpret it correctly, the message here is closer to "don't strawman yourself", i.e. don't aspire to nail down your essence, because you're likely to declare success prematurely, and then you'll serve that model of yourself that you have built rather than your true self.

What is this article even about? I don't think this person knows much about neither existential philosphy nor psychology of wellbeing.

"But here is the inconvenient truth: “I am a party/career, coffee/tea, outdoor/indoor, [insert any description] person” is largely a function of the desire to fit in some social groups, to follow what is considered socially “cool”, or the fear of being asked what you like and not knowing how to answer."

Yes, to the first thing - sociality is extremely important for the wellbeing of humans. I dont know what the author mean by the cool part or fear part...

Also, look at this quote:

"Buddhists also agree. Dwelling on the concept of a unitary “self” is foolish because this will lead you astray from the true essence of existence, which is selfless and relational"

What buddhists? What true essence of existence? How do you know what it is about, if it even exists?

​

"Here is the thing, the inclination to use certain words to describe things likely has no valuable basis, it is simply a habit of mimicking what others have been saying (this explains why the “now you” and the “child you” feel completely different as your information circle changes)."

Yes of course - we are social animals, mimicking others is a good way to create relations - which are super important for our wellbeing. But wait, would the author want us to use *no words* to describe things? And whats up with that use of "likely", why is it likely? Does the author just want to sound academical?

"Useful data comes from genuine real-world effects of your actions — an experimental kind of data instead of generating a dummy dataset with a “for-loop” inside your head."

What does this even mean. USEFUL data - doesnt that depend on the situation? If i want to figure out if i'd rather eat a banana or an apple, wouldn't i want to think about that?

"Remember, you are what you do to the world (a verb), not who you think you are (a noun). Nature is completely blind to the latter, it only reacts to the former"

"Nature" doesn't do anything. Or does the author assume that it is some kind of agent? Isnt our brains nature as well? I feel like my body can react to my thoughts, like if i think about something sad, i will cry tears of water and salt etc.

"Solidifying your “self” — what kind of person you are, your ideal preferences, your becoming, is always dangerous. That’s how Hitler went his own way and destroyed a whole “race”."

What does Hitl... I'm just gonna ignor this one

"The ego of solidifying “me”, “us”, the “one true God” is the leading cause of the extinction of diversity"

I have no idea what any of this means.

If you are interested in the psychology of wellbeing, there is a lot of research that suggests that we tend to have positive illusions about ourselves - meaning that we think that we are better than the average, more happy etc. This seems to be really good for our mental health for a wide range of reasons. S. E. Taylor "Illusions and wellbeing" 1988 is an interesting meta-paper on this topic.

{Nietzsche has entered the chat}

If you trust those experieences as they are, there is no need to leap any faith.

>If you do not have a self, then you are not reading this right now. Without a self, you do not exist as a person. You - do not exist. You are your 'self'. Without a 'self' you are a shell, a philosophical zombie, a mindless thing that has no thoughts, no feeling, no anything.

Why do think someone disconnected from their true self would have no thoughts or feeling?

How do you know your thoughts and feelings are authentically yours? Just because you experience something doesn't make your 'self' necessarily something tangible and independent from perception.

They also reveal illusions

In those cases emotion has overwhelmed reason. Higher reasoning and analysis are literally not functioning when emotions are so strong. I would argue they don't have access to most of their knowledge in those moments.

All emotions are primal, though, as the limbic system is one of the oldest parts of the brain, developing much earlier than the faculties of reason. Are you suggesting only emotional responses you deem 'bad' are primal and uneducated?

They hate because their experiences trained those coping responses and those coping systems worked effectively to protect them. Those responses are often still protecting them. They didn't just mimic others to learn deeply held responses, they almost certainly had traumatic experiences that provoked the creation of strong defenses the rnateojg motivators to keep those responses. Any attempt to highlight those defenses, triggers them.

I don't see how any of that relates to intelligence, though. Self awareness and emotional management skills would be more accurate in my mind, neither rof which are intelligence. Intellect is not a characteristic of emotions at all, it's a characteristic of reason, a faculty that is often in directly competition with the emotions of the limbic system for driving behavior.

This is why I think people who are easy to emotion, or mostly drive by emotion, may use 'emotional intelligence' as a term to gain validation and elevate emotion to the same level of respect and value as reason, especially when they may not possess much of capacity for reason.

I may not know anything is real, but I know I have a self, because that self is writing this.

You may not know anything is real, but you know you have a self, because that is what is reading this.

If you do not have a self, then you are not reading this right now. Without a self, you do not exist as a person. You - do not exist. You are your 'self'. Without a 'self' you are a shell, a philosophical zombie, a mindless thing that has no thoughts, no feeling, no anything.

That is how you know. Your senses could be lying to you. You could be hallucinating everything - even this response. You could be a brain in a jar - but there is still a you, asking the question of me. That self that you are, regardless of any outside information, clearly exists. You are experiencing it. It is the one thing you can say you truly experience.

How can you say your 'self' is real when you, yourself, concede your view of the world is influenced by perception, habits and socialisation. I'm just curious why you think the self is independent from being skewed by such perceptions?

What? That was incoherent. That sentence doesn't make any sense. I don't have a clue what you are trying to say.

Just because reality is coloured by your perceptions doesn't make your perceptions any more 'real' though.

Okay, can you do better? Show me a way to convey phenomenology in, like, a single, short, concise paragraph. I mean, other than just copy-pasting a dictionary definition or whatever - something that would really get the idea across.

Maybe you can do better than I. I would be interested to see that - I know I like writing a little too much.

Speaking of psychology, this author lost all credibility with me the moment they cited a different result on the discredited Myers-Briggs as evidence of a changing ‘self.’

That test was designed by laymen, holds no scientific merit, and often gives a different result depending just on your mood, let alone retaking it years apart.

I believe the modern term is you better check yo self before you wreck yo self

Yes! But the answer has been mostly forgotten by our current civilisation

Assumption that mental stability is understood. Who says what is mentally stable? Is it mentally stable to do the same thing everyday, destroying the mind body and soul, to be able to purchase consumer goods, which are only desired due to advanced manipulation by cooperate entities, whose only desire is to gain material wealth on a mass scale. Is that really mental stability?

Is it mentally stable to pass the homeless man on the street without as much as considering that anyone of us could be that man within mere months upon losing your job? Is it mentally stable to ignore that, when you are able to understand how you would feel if another ignored you in that same situation?

One day, you think one thing. The next day, you think the next thing. One day you 'love' the girl, the next day you cant remember her face. You are not the personality, the narrative, the perceived reflection of yourself in others treatment of you. You are not the result of the conditioning you received. You are not the theory of evolution, your thoughts, or even your ability to think. You are not the pathways in your brain, or a 'concept' you believe originated in the brain.

I don't know what I am, but I can rule out what Im not. If I can demolish the 'self', and still exist, then I was never that 'self'. I merely assumed I was out of ignorance.

Language and that inner voice have become an integral part of humans. But I sometimes can enforce a "voiceless" sequence of thoughts if I am thinking about visual problems that are on the abstract side. The interesting thing is, I find it not to be an inferior form of thinking, it helps me get to the important picture and mechanics better than "word-based" thinking, which tends to get bog down in detail.