Purposes and goals of mindfucks

[Captain Utopia]

I started writing an essay but, mercifully, I think a summary might work better.

Apart from fun/new experiences, is there any point to mindfucking oneself once you've bootstrapped yourself to a certain level of awareness?

Assignment #1: write an essay on the point of a mindfuck.

I see two broad categories of mindfuck - one which works with large memesets/tropes and seems more of a scattershot approach, like leaving tracts around a city - I see its impact as either accumulative or direct (lightning-bolt inspiration), but either way it increases receptivity if done in a way which doesn't actively make people turn off. The chick-tracts seem to have this memetic fault, although in that case it might just be built into the business model.

The second category of mindfuck involves the internal thought processes/memes, which tend to be significantly more nimble and dynamic. Especially when they camouflage themselves - the evolution aspect gives a strong expectation that your bad habits will find other ways to express themselves, rather like a game of hungry hungry hippos. So meta-programming requires an individual to become aware of their own thought processes/triggers and debug them, sometimes with the luxury of foresight, but often with the associated complexities of doing this in real time.

The social mindfuck does not seem strictly required to push an individual into self-mindfucking/meta-programming, but it probably helps. This sub-culture for instance, seems geared towards that, and does appear more effective at it than mainstream culture - which reflects the respective motivations.

You could try to scribble a third mindfuck category out - that of the group-mind as a tangible form of consciousness. I can't think of any examples of mind-fucks at that level - societies tend to happily march themselves into disaster without a second thought - but perhaps it can be found in individuals escaping the sinking ship of any ideology?

So it seems cleaner to think of it in various recursions as societies and individuals influence each other with increasing levels of sophistication. If so, the point of any mindfuck would be to increase intelligence - we are the universe exploring itself, etc.

This may be kicked in the shins with "No - a mindfuck is just for fun". This construct doesn't disagree with that, but unfortunately can't do so without appearing smug.

By which I mean - if there are literally endless ways to mindfuck yourself, and countless reality tunnels to explore - then a totally random exploration of them will be interesting but will stand a terrible chance of being 'big I' illuminating in any way.

Assignment #2: rewrite assignment #1 to answer this question.

It still seems valid to me.

I.e. Is it possible to use the scientific method to map out the problem space towards the end of recognising the "ultimate mindfuck" (of the current selection) which leads to the most robust reality tunnel currently known? Is there any evidence that the appearance of multiple "truths" is not itself an illusion?

Assignment #3: do assignments #1 and #2 if you still think this paragraph makes sense.

I'm failing these assignments, since I did and I do. The existence of multiple realities does not grant them equality.

[Template]

The Tao you can discuss is not the true Tao.  (Alternate forms: replace Tao with System, Way, or Chao)

Existence of multiple realities is a matter of speculation in physics.

Humans have had a lot of success by assuming that there's one big Reality, with all of us getting a fairly accurate impression of the area close to ourselves, allowing for instinctive and learned bias and limitation of the senses.

What do you seek?  The Truth?  Truth?  truth?

"Robustness" is probably a subjective idea.  If you want a good subjective metric for reality tunnels, use "pleasurable" or "fun".  They won't do you wrong.  If you want an objective metric, "contributory to a long life, possibly with high reproductive chances" approximates the default setting.  It was good enough for some of your ancestors, almost certainly...

[Thurnez Isa]

I started writing an essay but, mercifully, I think a summary might work better.

damn

and I was expecting a five paragraph essay with an introduction and conclusion

[Captain Utopia]

The Tao you can discuss is not the true Tao.  (Alternate forms: replace Tao with System, Way, or Chao)

Who says?

Existence of multiple realities is a matter of speculation in physics.

By that measure, so is a single reality.

Humans have had a lot of success by assuming that there's one big Reality, with all of us getting a fairly accurate impression of the area close to ourselves, allowing for instinctive and learned bias and limitation of the senses.

What, exactly, are pointing at when you use the word "success"? The accidental set of reality tunnels we observe the universe from, were we haven't quite destroyed ourselves yet in a variety of amusing ways, is the anthropic principle 101.

What do you seek?  The Truth?  Truth?  truth?

What have you got?

"Robustness" is probably a subjective idea.  If you want a good subjective metric for reality tunnels, use "pleasurable" or "fun".  They won't do you wrong.

So, given the choice, you'd happily plug yourself into the matrix if it gave you a program which guaranteed that for you?

If you want an objective metric, "contributory to a long life, possibly with high reproductive chances" approximates the default setting.  It was good enough for some of your ancestors, almost certainly...

Flinging shit with bare hands, and hanging around in a zoo all day, is seemingly good enough for my ancestors. They'd be pissed if they thought I'd willingly settle for such an existence. Not to mention my DNA which sacrificed many fleshy robots to get to where it is today - it wants progress.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Flinging shit with bare hands, and hanging around in a zoo all day, is seemingly good enough for my ancestors.

Did you just diss yourself? That would have to be some really really recent evolution. Or... Ota Benga was your grandpa?!?!?!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Existence of multiple realities is a matter of speculation in physics.

By that measure, so is a single reality.

Are you saying that there is no evidence that this reality exists?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Existence of multiple realities is a matter of speculation in physics.

By that measure, so is a single reality.

Are you saying that there is no evidence that this reality exists?

Of course there is no evidence... unless you consider this crazy shared hallucination that every single hallucination of a person on the hallucinatory planet  seems to generally share... or at least we hallucinate that its shared... For all we know, right this second we could all be typing things like

OH GOD PLEASE SAVE ME FROM THIS INSANE HUMAN AND THEIR MAD HALLUCINATIONS THAT ALL OF THIS EXISTS... AND ALSO FROM BAD PHILOSOPHICAL SOPHISTRY ON THE INTERNETS

and someone might be typing back:

NO, SUCK IT

But all we see are these masochistic petty ramblings of humans desperate to find some other humans to relate to because thats the shared hallucination.

Damn hallucinations.

[Captain Utopia]

Existence of multiple realities is a matter of speculation in physics.

By that measure, so is a single reality.

Are you saying that there is no evidence that this reality exists?

No, I was just pointing out the pointlessness of the original premise.

[Captain Utopia]

Flinging shit with bare hands, and hanging around in a zoo all day, is seemingly good enough for my ancestors.

Did you just diss yourself? That would have to be some really really recent evolution. Or... Ota Benga was your grandpa?!?!?!

If we share ~99% of our DNA with chimps, that doesn't seem so far away as to not consider them ancestors.

[Thurnez Isa]

Flinging shit with bare hands, and hanging around in a zoo all day, is seemingly good enough for my ancestors.

Did you just diss yourself? That would have to be some really really recent evolution. Or... Ota Benga was your grandpa?!?!?!

If we share ~99% of our DNA with chimps, that doesn't seem so far away as to not consider them ancestors.

only if you consider you cousins ancestors

[Captain Utopia]

Flinging shit with bare hands, and hanging around in a zoo all day, is seemingly good enough for my ancestors.

Did you just diss yourself? That would have to be some really really recent evolution. Or... Ota Benga was your grandpa?!?!?!

If we share ~99% of our DNA with chimps, that doesn't seem so far away as to not consider them ancestors.

only if you consider you cousins ancestors

Huh?

[Thurnez Isa]

primates and chimps share a common ancestor
they aren't our ancestors
just like you and cousins share a common ancestor

[Captain Utopia]

primates and chimps share a common ancestor
they aren't are ancestors

Oh - oops - fair point.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Existence of multiple realities is a matter of speculation in physics.

By that measure, so is a single reality.

Are you saying that there is no evidence that this reality exists?

No, I was just pointing out the pointlessness of the original premise.

But logically speaking, there is no flaw. There is, from a physics perspective, ample evidence that this reality exists. There is no evidence that multiple realities exist. Therefore, the existence of multiple realities is speculation, but the existence of a single reality (this one) is not.

[Captain Utopia]

Existence of multiple realities is a matter of speculation in physics.

By that measure, so is a single reality.

Are you saying that there is no evidence that this reality exists?

No, I was just pointing out the pointlessness of the original premise.

But logically speaking, there is no flaw. There is, from a physics perspective, ample evidence that this reality exists. There is no evidence that multiple realities exist. Therefore, the existence of multiple realities is speculation, but the existence of a single reality (this one) is not.

If that's true, then I was wrong.

Back to the original point though, the OP didn't mention quantum effects, nor require them implicitly.