*related=http://videosift.com/video/True-Detective-Rusts-existential-musings-about-religion

True Detective: Rust's existential musings about religion has been added as a related post - related requested by Trancecoach.

Henri The Existential Cat - Halloween has been added as a related post - related requested by grinter.

Order Kids Bob 22 for all your favorite neo existential hits!

Yes, probably in that case you would not be intuiting, but inferring. That is perhaps one of the funny things about intuition. Once you do understand those concepts, have you 'lost' your ability to intuit about such things?

That may account for why so many people (dare I say) fear science. As you say though, looked at another way, by learning and deeply internalizing the previously unintuitive concepts, you develop a more complex and Truer form of intuition. A person, however, who cannot or will not put forth the effort to internalize unintuitive concepts is condemned to live in a world governed by strange principles they do not understand. I can see how that may be a disturbing and frightening way to live.

The easy way out, of course, is to say, "it is god's will that the world works this way, and god's will is unknowable." I can see the comfort that can be found in that, and even a glimmer of wisdom there, so I should make the disclaimer that I don't believe this is a bad thing *when applied with intelligence and thoughtfulness.*

Naturally, it doesn't have to be 'god' either. It could simply be an acceptance that some things are beyond what can be truly understood in a single lifetime. Personally, I try to find some sort of a balance--particularly because I'm an engineer and sometimes I just have to accept that something works without really understanding how. For instance, I rely a good deal on quantum mechanical phenomena that I only understand in the crudest sense, and I just have to be satisfied that I can, without any genuine intuitive understanding, mechanically manipulate symbols on a page and create something that nevertheless works. Attempting to intuit on that level (though it may be fun as an exercise), is beyond me personally, and properly in the realm of academia. It's why I have so much respect for this guy and his silly spinning wheel.

As for things like existential questions of the soul and free will and all that? Well, I'm already way too far off topic, and I only got this far because of the couple glasses of wine I had with dinner.

In response to a question posed above about this being number 1, there is something about watching people who are very good at their jobs working that I find appealing. I'm not sure why, really. Another example would be the Spanish bricklayer video a week or so back.

Look at shinyblurry- smart but clearly crippled by unhelpful dogma that has exacerbated rather than reduced the inherent existential trauma in being a conscious organism apparently spontaneously existing in a mindbogglingly vast and uncaring Universe (even these minimalist words are necessarily reductive). He can justify bombing, spreading aids and even openly destroying the environment for personal economic gain to accelerate the 'day of judgement'. (No joke, all in HIS posts on THIS SITE).

Also, you should learn more about the Jonestown massacre before speaking so causally about people desperate enough to knowingly drink poison and give it to their children in the hope that it will somehow make things better.

You need to start making more sense fast Yogi or those with brains are going to consider you a fool and stop wasting time on you.

Anyone who has half an hour spare, I suggest reading below about a man's struggle with existentialism and some disturbed inner demons:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/12/ff-john-mcafees-last-stand/

The question seems pretty inane to me. I mean, are we talking about a sort of pascal's wager thing here or are we literally asking what the null hypothesis of atheism is?

The consequences of being wrong shouldn't have any impact on your decision. It is not evidence one way or the other. If you want to get really existential you might as well ask, "What if I am wrong about ME existing".

He still didn't answer her question. He turned it back on her to make a different point.
I would like to hear him answer that particular existential question.

I have never heard such a bunch of codswaddle in my years of studying psychology. Aside from the outdated and wildly prejudiced anti-Freud ramble, which is apparently still 'hip' to do, the entire field of existential psychology dedicates decades of study to this approach, whereas this twit makes it sound like something you can pick up as you go along as long as you're young and think you're Diana Troy.

You can't 'just be' with someone in psychosis. It takes a lot of training and experience to even navigate to the place in consciousness of an ordinary individual, never mind that of someone having a psychotic break.

Also, the perpetual stream of images of people having 'happy moments' all over the place like a hallmark card machine gun should be the first indicator to you that this is shameless profiteering.

a visualization of the existential dilemma of modernity: nonlocal presence and divided attention.

LOL! What a nosedive. From one kid who has a pretty proper grasp on existentialism, to a baseball fan.

To me there is no controversy. Whatever this stuff is it changes lives.It is difficult. I have never felt so alone yet so alive, transformed. I lived in an existential world, for some reason I believed in nothing. Never in my wildest dreams of taking mushrooms or acid did I ever think it had an actual link to who a person really is on an infinite and universal scale. Yet, here it is, the minimalist strain of tryptamine. Like TMK said, it is twenty years of pharmacology, art history, religion and philosophy all in a toke that lasts for ten minutes more or less. I was a speculator, a doubter as well...just like you probably are right now. If you doubt then you should shed the ten minutes of your life to find out. What are you afraid of? The immensity of truth? To know this is not the end? To know that real existence exists outside of this bark, these bones, these plants, this world, this universe? Become aware; this is our destiny, our compass, real evolution. FUCK capitalism with a sick dick.

Interesting read, but I'm surprised that there was no mention of the Holocene extinction. Given the current rate of extinction, especially of plants, we could be looking at a complete ecological collapse in the not too distant future. It seems like a more serious existential threat than asteroids or rampant AI in that it's actually happening as opposed to something that might happen or could happen.

I want to talk about something that to my regard is pure lunacy. But, to me, though I appreciate the doubters, the ones who question everything; would change their attitudes completely. None of the atheists should go on ranting until they take the ultimate bungie jump a human can have: DMT. One thing I would note is that I do not know if it was put there by aliens, evil spirits, sacred spirits, the Earth itself, God. No, I do not know and no one knows. I do not know if there is a price to be paid by having witnessed the underpinnings of technology, soul, afterlife, the universe, consciousness, the brain or whatever the hell it is. I have no idea, I just know that this experience is as real as fuck. Mind blowing. Scary. Terrible and healing all at the same time.

I was agnostic going into this, did not believe in soul, appreciate string theory, quantum mechanics but do not believe in it at some factual level, did not believe in any sort of God, or the afterlife. In mere seconds all my notions of what I thought or did not think or could never had merely thought up, all my permeating existential beliefs were thrown off like a nuclear bomb had gone off; revealing some partial truth of what we really are, witnessing an alien computer program, based on simple equations that manifests consciousness itself. Not a new conclusion and one I thought only drug addled scifi writer or schizos would ever believe.

It were as though I had found some way to put my head into the Large Hadron Collider itself whilst every proton turned into Higgs Boson; I then found out that this is not uncommon for such an experience. I know that can sound incredibly narcissistic, incredulous, unbearable, impossible. But what I got out of it was humble and that is another story.

There are experiences out there in which a person can feel as though they had been thrown into another dimension, experienced the Big Bang and met Gods of the Ultimate Power, they may or may not be and died on levels not many ever knew possible. In mere seconds the regular doors of perception are shut and a new life is born. That is where it gets tricky.

Until any of these guys can figure out why the human mind can explode on an infinite universe level of pure digital consciousness, think it can perceive these things and witness them on all levels and in new ways and come back to a normal human life in a normal brain without having in fact died? Well, I think they ought to stop talking and do more research. We have no facts and an experience like that will make it very apparent that the walls of reality can be so easily shattered to see new alien worlds, languages, dimensions, spirits, births and rebirths beyond all human comprehension. It sounds like the ultimate atheist experience, right? Not at all, it leaves room for something of the highest power that is manifested through pretty much any religion. We have to remember... you have to go to school, you have to get a job, we get wrapped up in our world. We have to act like we know what we are talking about and I am saying there is no evidence out there to support the fact that anyone can say that there is absolutely no God. There is absolutely no afterlife. Anyone that feels that they know anything about the nature of reality and who they are or what any of it means and apply lectures to it in the event that they become so arrogant and stubborn that they say what they think is absolutely correct when it is not accounted for by science, should do this. Do it after a lot of research. I say science but it is a paradox, I believe in Science first and foremost, it is our hope for tangible evolution, repeatable fact, but I am fairly sure this is something Science will never figure out. And after reading a similar experience: http://ewwty.com/2012/02/24/dimethyltryptamine-dmt-experience it seems in this experience there are some reoccurring themes. Science has so far written this off in the easiest way it can: to call it a psychedelic or a hallucinogen. So, find out. We know absolutely nothing in a very non existential way.