Excited to learn

[raymundo]

It feels like a part of my physical makeup.

I react physically to the twists and turns of the story. Especially to the fear. When I think about it, I feel rigid and like I want to shake and scream but I cannot. It feels like this story is part of my body itself, and I'm locked into it.

Those sensations of pain are what bring me back to it. As though I am stuck playing a character who has very much to fear and cannot relax even for a second. As though I can *decide* to let it go but my body remains in it.

I'm not sure *who* is experiencing this. I am beginning to understand that there is no particular, distinct person involved. And yet, I am terrified to let go of the thing which seems to be keeping me terrified.

[raymundo]

Part of the fear is a fear of losing control. The lie of the Self gives me a sense of structure. In the past, I have lost control due to alcoholism and mental illness, and I cringe when I think about it. Giving up the Self would be surrendering control and structure, and even if those things are deceptions, I am afraid to let them go.

[Ilona]

Yes, I hear you, it's bloody scary to let go!
But consider this- you are in an amusement park and you are on a rollecoaster ride. You sit in the first car and you hold on to the wheel, that gives an illusion of driving. You are on the ride and you think you are driving the car. But the car is on the rails and you can not turn right or left and make it go where you think it should. So if you let go of the wheel on that ride, what happens?
Play along here, tell me what could be lost if you pulled your arms of the wheel?

Sending love

[raymundo]

Today, I let go of the bar.

I was having a miserable day at work, interrogating myself and getting angry with who I perceive myself to be.

I noticed that there were two distinct voices duking it out.

It dawned on me that both of these voices, my delusional boss, and my harried coworkers... none of them were really there. None of this was really happening. It's all a play of illusions, and, rather quickly, it will be over. It already is over because it never really began.

It became very clear to me that THIS was causing my suffering. Wanting it to be different. Wanting to be some other self that could control all of this.

Now I feel... weird. Sort of empty. My heart is still pounding, rather aggressively. Adrenalin is still pumping. But I can't go back to exactly where I was when I was taking this seriously. It seems so OBVIOUS now.

[Ilona]

It became very clear to me that THIS was causing my suffering. Wanting it to be different. Wanting to be some other self that could control all of this.

great to notice! wanting this to be something different is the suffering.
and what is that wants this to be different?

It seems so OBVIOUS now.

tell me more! what looks different?

sending love

[raymundo]

I don't think that thought - things ought to be different - is the property of any distinct entity or identity. I am not sure from where it arose or why it did. I think that it has something significant to do with human suffering and that, although there that suffering is not necessarily optional, there is path through it, and a life beyond the self down that path.

This all seems much more clear to me now that I've done a bit of detective work on it. I mean, I always *suspected* this, but I always nevertheless behaved as if the self *was* real, partly just in case it was, partly because I wanted to be in sync with everyone around me. Mostly out of blind habit.

But all that pressure and fear was itself part of the story. It was a very complex story. It had begun to reflect on itself, like a work of postmodern art.

It cracks me up a bit now.

[Ilona]

It cracks me up a bit now.

haha, great. when you see the obviousness of what is, it is kinda funny, how all those years it was missed..
can you say with a big fat YES, it is clear, that i/ the separate self, is an illusion?
if not, what is there, that still needs to be looked at?

sending love

[raymundo]

x1000 YES!

It's difficult to prove a negative, but I am now confident in saying that the Self story is about as real as Russell's Teapot or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The smart money is strongly against it.

[Ilona]

Wonderful!!!
1000X smiles

are you ready for so called final questions?

[raymundo]

Let's do this. :)

[Ilona]

Sweet! Here are final questions.

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?

2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works from your own experience. Describe it fully as you see it now.

3) How does it feel to see this? What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days.

4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?

5) Can you talk about decision, intention, free will, choice and control? What makes things happen? How does it work? What are you responsible for? Give examples from experience.

6) Anything to add?

Please answer in full, when ready.

Much love

[raymundo]

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?

No. None that I can discern. It exists only as a fiction that I found convincing for a long time.

2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works from your own experience. Describe it fully as you see it now.

As soon as I began to interact with others, I began to regard them as separate, and in many cases potentially dangerous. I sensed that I had a distinct self that I needed to protect to keep it from being crushed and wiped out of existence.

In my experience, the self is both a mutation on the basic survival instinct and a tribute to our penchant for telling stories and searching for patterns in chaos. I simply reached the point where the story had become more trouble than it was worth, and I began to see that it was hurting me, not helping me.

3) How does it feel to see this? What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days.

Much as newly minted atheists really start to notice expressions such as "god bless you," I notice the role of the fictitious Self in things that I read and conversations that I have. I am am aware of how the ideas being presented would look different without the assumption of the Self that is encoded within them. I am reluctant to bring it up because I know it will sound impossibly weird to others, but it seems more obvious to me the more that I keep testing it out.

I have a melancholy sense of freedom, of being free of the elaborate stories I told about my Self and the promises that I made for its future glory. I feel very much that I am starting from scratch and that I am quite ignorant and rather helpless at life, more so than I had realized.

4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?

Several weeks on end of intense anxiety and self-loathing, to the point where I was seriously suicidal, ready to give up not just the Self but the whole of experience. It simply wasn't worth it anymore. It gave me the courage to really look into it, like Sherlock Holmes looking for truth at all costs, with diligence and meticulous attention to detail. I decided to save myself by letting my Self die.

5) Can you talk about decision, intention, free will, choice and control? What makes things happen? How does it work? What are you responsible for? Give examples from experience.

We are not free to make choices we do not know we have - there can be no choices without constraints. If we don't understand all the mechanics behind our decision-making - and I don't think any of us does, including people like LessWrong who desperately want to - then I don't think there is such a thing in reality as the thing we mean when we talk about Free Will. But I don't think No Free Will is necessarily the end of the world.

I believe that if we discard the concept of the Self and act in accordance with the knowledge that we are all part of the same whole, and that all true interests are shared interests, we will act better and be kinder to each other without having to struggle to do so or to calculate what's in it for us every time we ruminate over what seems like an important decision.

6) Anything to add?

Thank you! This has been a revelatory course of study for me and has changed my life permanently.

[Ilona]

Thank you for answers, dear Raymundo.

I decided to save myself by letting my Self die.

what happened then? did a self die? was it ever there? can you expand here a little.

much love

[raymundo]

I let the story drop. I stopped believing in it and started questioning it. It was never about a real person or thing.

[Ilona]

Is there any doubt?