The world is perfect?

[Machinaforce]

@Machinaforce

Addendum: I don’t think the world is perfect. It merely is. Saying it is perfect would imply some criteria for perfection and therefor would be a value judgment. It would also imply some standard for imperfection which would violate his alleged claims of nonduality.

I never typed this up.

Edit: never mind I just realized what happened.

[Machinaforce]

@roys

A question as brief and apparently ‘simple’ as this one, is a perfect illustration of why there is so much misunderstanding between human beings. Because before anyone can even begin to think about ‘how’ to answer it … they must first clarify what the questioner means by the word ‘perfect.’

For instance, I can quite honestly say that “I think the world is perfect”, because by using that word, I mean that “The world ‘could not be other than it is right now’, at this very moment.” Therefore, it is ‘perfect.’ Similarly, there has never been any possibility of ‘anything’ being other than exactly how it is, right now. And this I believe is true for every moment that has ever been.

But of course, this then opens up a whole Pandora’s Box of related questions about time, free will, pre-destination, choices, etc.

However, most people aren’t interested in engaging in such a seemingly impossible and uninteresting enquiry and are far happier remaining within the limits of what feels right to us. I imagine the most popular approach towards answering a question which uses the word ‘perfect’ the way you have here, would be to assume the question meant something like “If every single thing in the world happened the way ‘I liked’ - then the world would be perfect.”

Nevertheless, I strongly suspect that if the world operated exactly the way you or I found ‘perfect’, it would NOT be seen as such by any other person we could find.

The moral ? “Define your terms first. Answer second.”

It seems to be a variation on that theme because he thinks that reality as it is would be absent all our judgments and values, except then we wouldn’t be human. It’s worth noting that such a view is a human thing to strive for in an ironic sense and that in an objective sense it’s not better than what we have now. Even writing that whole thing and continuing to make videos seems like he doesn’t believe it or there is some major cognitive dissonance.

[Machinaforce]

Or to what someone on the other thread said:

Everything is identical to itself, so then by force the colors mean nothing, as they are truly all the same colors. And if the colors mean nothing, the lower stages are the higher stages. So then ignorance and enlightenment are but two sides of the same coin. So, once you understand that you are ignorant and enlightened both, it is folly to continue seeking. It is the seeking which mars perfection.

[PlaceboTarget]

@Machinaforce

Everything is identical to itself, so then by force the colors mean nothing, as they are truly all the same colors.

Statements like this one make me feel Socrates should be sanctified. But for his contribution to epistemology, I guess people would still be building pyramids.

[Mangetout]

So Actualized.org’s position appears to be summed up as:

Nothing matters, you can’t change anything; you shouldn’t judge anything.

If nothing matters, why have they made hundreds of videos about it?

If you can’t change anything, who are they trying to persuade? Also, why monetize the videos? It’s not like you can change anything (such as your financial situation)

‘you shouldn’t judge anything’ IS a judgment

There’s a whole lot of purposely deep-sounding wibble on the site and channel, but at it’s heart, it is utterly insincere.

[Machinaforce]

@Mangetout

So Actualized.org’s position appears to be summed up as:

Nothing matters, you can’t change anything; you shouldn’t judge anything.

If nothing matters, why have they made hundreds of videos about it?

If you can’t change anything, who are they trying to persuade? Also, why monetize the videos? It’s not like you can change anything (such as your financial situation)

‘you shouldn’t judge anything’ IS a judgment

There’s a whole lot of purposely deep-sounding wibble on the site and channel, but at it’s heart, it is utterly insincere.

It reminds me of what the broward meditation mentioned about seeing the world in realistic way and not through our own clouded and dirty perceptions with all the “pictures” our mind takes. The way to see the world and everything in a realistic way is to drop all our judgments and opinions and values.

[Mangetout]

No, because if you drop all your judgments and opinions and values, you can no longer decide that’s the way to see the world and everything in a realistic way.

You can’t make the judgment that this is the right thing to do, if you decide to stop using judgment.

[DrFidelius]

As Bizarro once said, if the world were perfect it wouldn’t be.

And as I had said before, you need to read more fiction. It helps develop the empathic pathways of your mind and calibrate your bullshit filter.

[Machinaforce]

@DrFidelius

As Bizarro once said, if the world were perfect it wouldn’t be.

And as I had said before, you need to read more fiction. It helps develop the empathic pathways of your mind and calibrate your bullshit filter.

But in a sense I can see how he is “right” because all we are doing is describing it through our lens. Flaws are flaws because we judge them to be so and the same thing with strengths, so in a sense no one has flaws or strengths…people just ARE. It’s our judgment that makes these so but from an objective point they just ARE.

I wouldn’t say the world is perfect, just that it IS. But in a sense it seems he’s right in that you can’t improve it because that itself is a form of judging one state to be better than another. Even if you died it would be “fine”.

But you couldn’t really live through such a viewpoint and it wouldn’t make sense to tell me about it either.

[Beckdawrek]

@Machinaforce

Or to what someone on the other thread said:

Everything is identical to itself, so then by force the colors mean nothing, as they are truly all the same colors. And if the colors mean nothing, the lower stages are the higher stages. So then ignorance and enlightenment are but two sides of the same coin. So, once you understand that you are ignorant and enlightened both, it is folly to continue seeking. It is the seeking which mars perfection.

No, no, no. You forgot completely about black and white. Both ‘non’ colors as my ol’ Art prof used to say. (He was a bit batty, but NM)
And what of new colors? Fashion, car manufacturing, housewares designers mix and manipulate color every few months. Then there are patterns that read as a solid color. Which truly screws with your brain.
And, absolutely no one acknowledged my brilliant threadshit up there. ‘Arky blush’ will be the go to, you wait and see. Cars, iPhones, fashion. It will be everywhere.
Seriously, dude get out of this color crap. It’s sounding a little crazed.

(It ain’t perfect but it’s Pink, dang it)

[Machinaforce]

@Beckdawrek

No, no, no. You forgot completely about black and white. Both ‘non’ colors as my ol’ Art prof used to say. (He was a bit batty, but NM)
And what of new colors? Fashion, car manufacturing, housewares designers mix and manipulate color every few months. Then there are patterns that read as a solid color. Which truly screws with your brain.
And, absolutely no one acknowledged my brilliant threadshit up there. ‘Arky blush’ will be the go to, you wait and see. Cars, iPhones, fashion. It will be everywhere.
Seriously, dude get out of this color crap. It’s sounding a little crazed.

(It ain’t perfect but it’s Pink, dang it)

You’re missing the part where I reluctantly explain how the world is perfect, even though I don’t want to admit it. Because if it is perfect then there is no reason to do anything.

[Darren_Garrison]

@Machinaforce

Because if it is perfect then there is no reason to do anything.

And yet you move.

[begbert2]

@Machinaforce

You’re missing the part where I reluctantly explain how the world is perfect, even though I don’t want to admit it. Because if it is perfect then there is no reason to do anything.

Just checking, when you say the world is perfect, you’re actually saying that if you voluntarily choose to refrain from making judgements about the world then you will suddenly stop making negative judgements about the world, which you then erroneously decide is the same as the world being perfect. Is that a correct summary?

[Machinaforce]

@begbert2

Just checking, when you say the world is perfect, you’re actually saying that if you voluntarily choose to refrain from making judgements about the world then you will suddenly stop making negative judgements about the world, which you then erroneously decide is the same as the world being perfect. Is that a correct summary?

I was trying to follow that line of reasoning. But I think this gets at what I’m saying: The World Is Perfect

[Machinaforce]

And one little bit I forgot: https://drlwilson.com/Books/real_self.htm

[Machinaforce]

I mean the two start from a seemingly reasonable place but slowly go downhill after that.

But I think the world just is. Perfect is a judgment, but things and events just “are” and good and bad are what we make of it. Though I’m thinking that because it’s subjective it isn’t real.

[Machinaforce]

What I don’t get though is how people aren’t convinced by the paragraph? Isn’t the main argument being the world not being perfect just our own judgments and opinions about it?

[Darren_Garrison]

@Machinaforce

Isn’t the main argument being the world not being perfect just our own judgments and opinions about it?

In a perfect world, someone would sit you down and force you to diagram that sentence.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@Machinaforce

What I don’t get though is how people aren’t convinced by the paragraph? Isn’t the main argument being the world not being perfect just our own judgments and opinions about it?

Is that your opinion?

Or is it, perhaps, your judgment?

Is the argument that the world is perfect rooted in judgment and opinion — like the argument that the world isn’t?

If you tell me something is “just” my own opinion, is there some reason that should matter to me — other than my opinion of such a point? If you say a thing is “just” a question of judgment, can I do anything but — judge that remark?

[Machinaforce]

That’s what I thought that he literally contradicts himself in that paragraph by judging the world perfect and things as necessary, and then saying to drop all judgments and opinions.

But part of me thinks there is some truth to it because in my experience on the forums on his website he seems sure of what he says talking about it being a “non conceptual” truth that you just have to understand and that you have to go beyond logic and that trying to use words is just the ego fighting for control.

Another part of me thinks that objectively speaking nothing matters. You could die and it would mean nothing, there would be no flaws or strengths there would just be traits. That the subjective world we take to be reality is a dream.

Part of me wants to try and debate this on his site.