Unself-focused

A theme in New Wine for the End Times: get your focus off yourself and serve God and others, and God will remove your sinful habits.

Not being self-focused is essential to salvation in MSL. In fact, caring about your own salvation can be self-focused. To be saved (to really love God), you have to put God before your salvation. God wants you to be saved, and because he does, you should do what it takes (on your end) to be saved. But your main focus is to love and trust him, not to somehow live forever apart from that.

Note: How Many Speakers Can There Be?

This note was originally written to go with Testing / Improving MSL.

How many Speakers can there be? There must be at least one. This one consists of "experience bodies", units of experience. Currently, as I type this in my bedroom, I am experiencing one field of experience. I hear a helicopter outside and feel the chair I sit in. This is all one experience body. It's the whole world I live in, and I know of outside things because of what happens in it.

When the Speaker experiences all other beings in order to speak the word of the universe to us, it may be the case that it incorporates all experience bodies into itself. In that case, it is the universe, but in a sense is distinct from many parts of the universe. In that case, there is only one universe, and one Speaker.

Or, it may be the case that the Speaker only contacts, but does not incorporate, all other beings. How would that connection work? I think that contact (mere touching rather than incorporation), between conscious beings, would involve the two beings having experience bodies with identical contents (one being's experience body being reflected by at least one of the other being's), that would necessarily track each other. The will of one being could affect the contents of both experience bodies.

In the case that the Speaker only contacts, rather than incorporates, everything that exists in the universe, then it contains its own experience bodies (those peculiar to it) as well as a reflection of everything else. A second Speaker has to contain its own experience bodies, as well as a reflection of everything else -- which includes the reflections made by the first Speaker. But once the second Speaker makes those reflections, the first Speaker has to reflect all of the second Speaker's new reflections. This rapidly increases the number of experience bodies that have to exist.

Is there an infinite supply of experience bodies? If not, then the supply would rapidly run out, and one or both Speakers could not speak the universe to people. I tend to think there are no actual infinities, and that the burden of proof is on people who want to say that there are, or could be.

So this gets us to lean toward saying there's only one Speaker, but doesn't get us all the way, since someone may show that actual infinities exist, or could exist.

Do Speakers constantly speak the word of the universe? Or could they just take breaks from it? I feel like I have an intuitive sense of the whole of reality, whatever that cashes out to. In my most "in the moment" moments, it might just be my own experience body that I'm in with its present experiences. Other times that whole of reality image expands to include things I don't see at the time, perhaps even to the distant past and future, stars, quarks, all other minds. But I always relate in some way to the whole of reality, no matter how I construe it in the moment. I think this is a fundamental part of being a conscious being, that you see what you see, sensorily, noetically, and imaginally, and see that it is everything. The word of the whole of reality is being spoken to everyone, which connects to all that there is -- the word of the universe.

Another thought: imagine that there are two Speakers who speak the universe to people. How different could they be? They would experience each other, and thus have the exact same thoughts and feelings. If they did, how could they intend different things? What else is there to a person other than their experiences? Perhaps the decisions that those experiences make (their free wills). In other words, if there are two experience bodies that are contacting each other and thus have identical contents, they differ by having different wills, and these two wills negotiate depending on their power to determine the experience within the two experience bodies. So if there were two persons who had exactly the same experiences, who contacted each other, but had opposing wills, what would that look like? Maybe the two wills would be like adding two vectors, and reduce to one new vector, one new will. In that case, any two Speakers who speak the universe at the same time would automatically merge into one person with the same experiences and will. Maybe there could in some sense be internal conflict in them due to the two non-aligned wills that make up the one resultant will, but like any person with internal conflict, they could relate to the outside world as one person, and experience themselves as one person albeit with inner conflict. Or it may be the case that two free wills that merge leave no conscious trace of their conflict.

Reading List Postview: The Long Reflection

I read some articles and books about the Long Reflection. I don't have a lot to add to the preview for this reading list (which goes in depth in considering problems with the Long Reflection and ways I think it should, will, or would turn out), other than the notes I have taken on the readings, and also the reviews of the two books I included in the list, On the Genealogy of Morality and Teaching Children to Care.

I wish I could be more helpful in relating what I got from my readings with the issues from the preview, to be able to write a nice summary here, but I guess this will have to do, for now, or for the foreseeable future.

Morality as Cloud

Morality could be a cloud. It is constantly changing and is seen from many different angles. It is sometimes roiling and ready to put out lightning and hail. Other times it is light, complex, puffy, and calm, lit up by sunlight. Other times it is thin and even has a break that lets the sun through.

So people say different things about this cloud at different times, and say different things from different physical locations (in different countries). But, everyone sees a cloud. (That we all say "should" is us all seeing the same cloud, even if we disagree on what should be.)

ASI Centralizing Technological Development?

Here's a line of thinking I'm not totally certain on, but which currently seems plausible to me:

If ASI doesn't take over us, we will take over it (probably). When we take over it, we will do so by actors (public or private) having power over it.

Research and development is difficult. I read somewhere that we use 10x as many researchers to get the same "amount of science" we used to. Perhaps really good tech gains are most efficiently realized through higher IQ beings (1,000 100-IQ people are less likely than one Einstein to come up with a theory of relativity). So maybe ASI will have a comparative advantage in research, and thus in technological development.

Currently, "anyone" can make a tech startup that could in theory go on to revolutionize/shake up/disrupt the world. But, if ASI is way better at innovation than humans, then the humans will tend to either work with the ASI, or not be able to compete. This means that whatever actors control ASI will be able to control technological development.

The actors that control ASI and technology may be more, or less, accountable to things like "the truth" or "the public". (More, or less, than the decentralized cloud/drift version of things we have currently.)

"From" and "To"

Something I cut from another post:

I think that we can locate value in what people do, and an action is both "from" an actor and "to" a goal. On the "from" side, people do things for petty reasons with petty views of themselves, or, they can do things for non-petty (ambitious? noble? something else?) reasons. (Or, in a more, or less, petty spirit, or with a more, or less, petty heart or soul.) And then when they are acting "to" a goal, that goal could be more petty, or by contrast, more large-aimed. I think that the best "from" component to action is "the cross", in some form emulating Jesus, especially insofar as he went to the literal cross. (A rough idea of "the cross".)

Perfection, Control, the Small Things

In principle, the goals of perfection and control, that things turn out the best way possible, are of utmost importance (by definition). But perfection and control themselves are spiritually dangerous. Not even God perfects and controls everything, so why should we? Behaving irrationally with respect to what is best is (at least sometimes) better than being rational, if it keeps you from succumbing to perfection and control.

In order to actually do good on any big scale, and to be whole-hearted and to give all your strength, you have to trust ... something (de dicto) ... which is to some extent, or entirely, really you trusting God (de re). Otherwise you'll worry about small risks of your own life, fearful of dying, shame, failure, or others. These will make you be responsible, in a bad way. Your temporal (and, metaphorically, "spatial") horizons will be clamped down on by that responsibility. You won't be able to believe God when he appears to you, telling you to bless the whole.

In order to love, to have deep feelings and deep intentions, you have to trust.

Perhaps there is a tradeoff, between being good at being responsible for the little things, and being good at being responsible for the big things. Whether we can accomplish big things in our lives is largely up to a lot of things beyond our control, but we can approach life as people who are responsible for what is big (deep, real, the heart of the problem), and risk neglecting some of the things that are shallower, less real, less the heart of the problem. The little details that are crucial are part of something bigger.

Reciprocal Relationship with God

When we are young, we need to feel like we are loved. We need attention, fun, and validation as well. If we are young enough, we need people to give these things to us, and it is right to provide such things for those who really have to have them. But, if those are provided in such a way that people are kept from growing up, they do serious harm and are possibly worse in the long run than if the children are not given enough attention, fun, and validation.

As we grow up, perhaps we need to be loved, or perhaps we do not. But all of us must learn to love, and that is the most important part of maturing. If we put "to love" first, we must be willing to give up "being loved".

Adult children have a kind of equality in their relationships with their parents. There is a kind of reciprocalness to the relationships. The children relate to their parents similarly to how the parents relate to them.

God is our father and he is not bound to us because we love him. He is bound to us because he loves us. So, if we are to have a reciprocal relationship with him, we should be bound to him not because he loves us, but because we love him. We someday have to love in a mature way, in order to love as God loves and have the heart that God has.

If God does not love, then he loses his legitimacy and ceases to exist. For God, to love is life or death. But he can survive not being loved.

Obligation vs. Desert Love

Love often requires going through the desert, in which you do not feel like loving. Obligation also makes you do what you do not feel like doing. Love is good and obligation is bad (those words used in this paragraph). When we love in the desert, we still love, with who we are, although with what we are, we do not want to love. But when we do things out of obligation, we feel like not doing what we do out of who we are. Why do we act out of obligation? Perhaps out of fear for ourselves or out of our own hungers, or maybe other reasons. A test for whether you are doing good out of desert love, or out of obligation: do you resent what you do? Generally, love does not resent the difficulties and sacrifices that go with it.

It is better to choose desert love over obligation, and, I guess, counterintuitive though that sounds, it is entirely up to our free choice as to which we choose. "Who we are" is somehow entirely within our power to shape, although it doesn't feel like it. Perhaps there is a certain level of service that "what we are" can sustain, and given that, it is entirely up to us whether we pursue it out of love (including desert love), or out or obligation.

(When you love someone or something for long enough, you will enter periods of the desert, where it doesn't feel good or you don't feel like remaining committed. If it is only "what you are" that doesn't feel like it, then that's fine (although subjectively it's hard and can be hard practically as well). But if "who you are" doesn't feel like doing good, that is not such a good thing. Perhaps if you intend to love someone or something, you may at first obligate yourself fakely. But that is not so bad, since really you ("who you are") want to love.)

Good Fakeness

Normally I am against fakeness (at least, I aspire to be). But I think a certain kind of fakeness is instrumental in becoming real. Better to increase your fakeness temporarily if it leads to you becoming more real in the long run.

Children (or other young people), sometimes begin to be a real ... something ... or to embody a real value, by being seemingly or really insincere in valuing it, by acting as though they are something they seemingly or really are not.

When we sleep, we pretend to be asleep, as though inviting the spirit of unconsciousness into ourselves by acting like it, maybe to show we are kin to it. Some spirits need to trust us to make their homes in us.

It's true that people who exhibit an immature or fake form of a role or value may not be reliable at that point, if you want someone to do a job or validate a value. But their fakeness may be headed toward greater realness.

Note that if you aspire to pursue "good fakeness", you have to go to realness at some point or else it ends up being just fakeness.

MSLN and Mormonism?

A commenter on this blog pointed out similarities between the New Wine System and Mormonism. Looking at Wikipedia didn't disconfirm what they said.

I think I will regret saying too much before I do my own studying. But a few questions seem okay to ask now.

Does this mean that there is an existing religion (Mormonism) that has something like the MSLN motivational structure? It might be hard to isolate one idea's effect on a culture's motivation, since there might be a lot of other factors. But I would guess that it could give an idea what one New Wine religion looks like, if you could "control for confounders".

Mormonism may have a New Wine structure "on the books" (present in its teachings somewhere) but not emphasize it socially (not really preach it). Is Mormonism "evangelical" (about keeping people out of hell) or is it "civilizational" (about making a functioning society in this life), "people-pleasing" (about reassuring, strengthening, catering to its people and their felt needs), or something else other than "evangelical"? I would guess that it's a mix of all three, and the mix is regulated with preaching rather than teaching. At least that's how things seem (to me) to work in mainstream Christianity. If Mormonism downplays the risk of being lost, or fails to mention it, it would be different than MSLN, although it might still be a basically New Wine-reflecting thing.

Usually I have thought that the Bible gains credence from its compatibility with the New Wine System (and/or legitimism). If God is the God of MSLN, then if he produced a revelation, it would most likely be a New Wine- and legitimism-compatible teaching. Maybe this means that if we found such a teaching, we should try to do what it says, assuming that it certainly could be from God -- we being "searchers" for opportunities to please God, we would reach out toward possible ways to align ourselves with him. Plausibly, LDS scripture as a whole (Bible + books specific to LDS canon) is New Wine, and is compatible with legitimism. Does this mean that MSLN gives credence to the LDS canon? What would be the implications of that? (How does this "giving credence" thing work?)

Well, now I someday intend to read the LDS canon and some secondary materials. I can add that to my list of things to do.

The Story of Life Not Over

Perhaps one of the reasons why people do not contemplate looking for the truth on a deep level, or going to look how to do the really right thing that they can do, is because they feel, for some reason, that their lives are over. Not so much that they expect to die in a few months -- if they actually believe that, and it's true, then maybe there isn't much more left to do in their lives. But rather, "life being over" in the sense that the moment has passed, like a band that has its big moment in the sun, leaves a mark on the record of music, and then recedes to a long twilight in which they record, tour, or fade out. Some people say that once you get married, your life is over, as though the succession of dates before marriage shape you, and when you settle into your final self, "life is over". (It had better be your final self, since you've chosen your final mate.)

Is life really over? If you think it is, it is. The truth is something outside of you and your life. If it is still true that there are people who suffer, and who are at risk of the second death, then you have an ethical reason to call into question your interpretation of your life being over.

The Truth of Evil Implies Action

To see the truth of evil is to see that it should not be. This implies action. (Similarly to see the truth of good is to see that it should be, which may also imply action.) So you can't see the moral truth without acting (or willing to act, in case you don't have the ability to act). If you can choose to have the ability to act, or to act more effectively, doing so follows from seeing the moral truth.

We have reactions to evil things which are not necessarily the recognition of the wrongness of them. Perhaps evil makes us sad or feel powerless. To look on evil, when it makes us feel too powerless to will that it not be, is not to see that it should not be.

Personal Incoherence From Relentless Habitus

One possible way that people can have multiple personalities is that for some part of their lives they develop their authentic view of the world -- just them and truth. Then, they maintain that authentic view in a container within them, while being surrounded by people who push the habitus of the social environment on them. But, to be in that container keeps them shut off from people around them. Sometimes this is sustainable, but limits their ability to speak to other people. Other times it is unsustainable. The ocean waves of convention beat them down until the container breaks. Then, they start identifying with their role in the habitus, but also with their authentic view that still remains. They switch between identifying with one and the other, and thus become incoherent on the level of the I. Before, they knew who they were and saw the role they played in society as a role. But now, the "actor" begins to lose their distinction from the role they play.

People in exile or captivity may struggle to remain themselves, and sometimes become incoherent.

Holiness from the Role You Play

You can fight your sins one by one, or, from another perspective, can try to train yourself out of bad behaviors one by one. If you don't have success, or if you find that you can't keep ahead of them (your focus on one of them means you can't focus on others which come back, perhaps), then maybe you need to take a different tack.

Humans are often actors and wear spirits and roles. Sometimes you have a choice of which spirit to take in, or role to play. You could take in the spirit of Smerdyakov, Dmitri, Ivan, or Alyosha. Or the role of "member in good standing of your society, political tribe, or family of origin or choice". You could try to take on the spirit of Jesus, or of Mary or Moses. Your behaviors will follow from the role you play, which is bound to the spirit of the character. In this way you can do greater good than by dealing with individual behaviors. (Or perhaps greater harm, depending on the role chosen.)

Who do you love? / Who do you fear?

Sometimes I ask of myself "Who do you love?" when I am drawn toward something or someone other than God. Who am I putting first in my intentions and emotions? Who am I most committed to?

Sometimes I ask of myself "Who do you fear?" when I am afraid of some reality other than God. A reality might limit me, but I choose if the idea of a reality limits me, more than the reality itself does. What I fear is what I consider real. What I fear most is what I consider most real. So, who do I fear?

Both Teeth-gritting and Natural Love

Humans are motivated to get what they want, because they want it. Sometimes we can be motivated to do things because of some sort of external force. Perhaps some definition of virtue is "doing what you don't feel like doing". It is virtuous to be self-sacrificing in that way. Allowing an external force to rule over you, or willfully offering yourself to that external force, is virtuous, perhaps the height of virtue. Perhaps as though the real enemy is Self and not any other evil.

The problem with that view is that we may never learn to really want what is good. We tend to value what we desire, and when we value, we love. We have to come to love the good completely someday, and if we have a capacity for "teeth-gritting" love and for "natural" love, we are not fully loving the good if we don't love it naturally. Also, we are more likely to be effective in pursuing the good if both the teeth-gritting and natural sides are working together. To the extent that effectiveness matters in pursuing the good, it is better for us to prefer to have both teeth-gritting and natural love.

So, I do what is good because it is what I want. This is my selfish desire. (There's a sense in which it isn't selfish, if I chose to naturally want to do what is good because it was the right thing to do.)

Playing at the Role of Being Human

The spirits of grieving and of romantic love are characteristically human and lean atheist. Grief claims that there is no way to bring people back from the dead, and romantic love claims that your "exceedingly great reward" is a human being and not God -- two dimensions of atheism.

There is a sense in which such feelings, as real as they are, are spiritually risky, and can set themselves up as more real than God, who is actually the most real. And yet, if we do not feel them, how can we be human? If we are not human, then ... certainly we are not trusted by humans as much, for being alien to them, and maybe one could say that there's something inherently wrong with being a human who is not maximally human, or who is alien to humanness.

Jesus wept, even though he didn't have to. He knew better, but he didn't at the same time. Perhaps for us, we can inhabit the stage play of being human, and inhabit our roles in it, but still know that we have a reality outside it.

Gifts for Difficult Times

Solomon was faced with the task of ruling Israel, a populous country. He prayed to God to give him wisdom and knowledge to help him be king.

Solomon was already wise, to recognize the difficulty of what he was facing.

I think a good exercise is to ask yourself if you are doing something difficult, or have something difficult in your future. Then, you can see what kind of gift to ask for from God.

Praying to Begin to Care for the Non-Default

Sometimes I pray for God to help me keep caring about what is non-default (distant people, future people, people's spiritual state -- like whether they fully make it to him, caring about him himself). To care about what is default is what you do when you don't care about anything, in a state of deadenedness or exhaution. But to care about the non-default requires that you have "fight" in you, to push against the default mindset. That fight tends to be or always is intentional and conscious, a moment of decision.

This tends to prove successful for me, as though caring about the non-default is something that God wants me to do and will help me with.

It's been some time since I first encountered the question of the well-being of the non-default. In some cases, I remember the mechanism of the "inciting message" being all it took to open me up to those concerns. In other cases, I can't clearly remember how I came to adopt those values -- maybe I'm only gradually adopting some of them, but I have already begun.

I can guess that maybe someone who was approaching a potential initial valuing of the non-default could pray to God to help them to value it, in parallel to how I pray to continue to value.