Al Borealis, 2022 Year in Review |576|

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Al Borealis, 2022 Year in Review |576|
by Alex Tsakiris | Dec 20 | Skepticism
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Al Borealis is the creator and host of Forum Borealis where he offers a paradigm expanding deep dive into controversial, marginalized, system critical topics within culture, philosophy, and spirituality.
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I’m very much looking forward to listening to this episode. It’s been so long (2 months?) that I didn’t want to even start it until I have to to do a full listen start to finish… So instead I went to the webpage and read the first 15minutes of the transcript and I had to stop and now Im all excited to hear it.
I think (yup, just checked) Riz Virk is the last episode of Forum Borealis I heard and it was AWESOME. Al said so many awesome things about sim theory and reminders that our contemporary understanding of the theory is just that: contemporary.
I’m so glad Al and Alex did this and I know I’m gonna love it! And looking forward to discussing it.
 
Just listened to the show. I liked the drilling deep thing since exploring on the surface level between materialism and consciousness is not really leading forward. For me it would be more interesting how the consciousness thing works and how to reach higher levels so that we could pull eventually a Gandhi-thing worldwide to improve life. This whole war-thing annoys me, we should be past that. It is a waste of everything.
How to get to a more loving society in this simulation would be a good thing to explore. There is a need to hack that thing.
 
Just about 22 minutes in and had a few thoughts...

Simulation hypothesis, two versions:

Version A: We are in a simulation within a computer that is merely an advanced silicon based computer contained somewhere within this universe... this is the version that is purely materialist and is the one Alex seems most opposed too.

Version B: our computer simulations give us a metaphor for the nested holographic as-above-so-below dream-within-a-dream structure of reality. The "computer" or network (which I have dubbed “God's GAN” - Generative Adversarial Network + Hebrew word for Garden = GAN) generates our physical reality. This is the version of SH I subscribe to.

Then another point to make that got missed: regarding Mandela in prison traveling the universe… Alex is equating consciousness with freedom to transcend the limitations of the physical, and that is partially true; however, the particular experience of consciousness we have requires a particular set of limitations, problems, challenges, and frustrations of the will.

Our limitations play an equally essential role in our consciousness as our freedoms.
 
Regarding: "the earth could be flat if everyone believed it" or "if we're in a sim then the earth could be flat/round/etc all at the same time..." or "virus and no virus could be both/and..."

No...

Truth is a tool. An axe chops down a tree. A chainsaw does a more efficient job. Truth is that which enables efficient achievement of the goal.

Truth is a subjective symbolic representation of an objective pattern that is useful in achieving a goal. A lie is giving someone the wrong tool or a faulty tool that prevents them from achieving their goal and/or forces them to achieve the liar/manipulator's goal instead.

Flat earth and "no virus" are giving people faulty tools. We shouldn't put faulty tools in our toolbox. They'll hurt somebody. We can discard them. Or as Alex quoting Paul said, "don't suffer fools gladly."

Columbia is a hotbed for spooks and I think Alex probably encountered one.
 
And speaking of the Rabies denier filmmaker guy from Columbia who also worked with Obama... how crazy is it that Obama is producing a Netflix movie dramatizing Betty and Barney Hill story? has anyone heard about this?? lol ...with Obama "on the job" now, we can chalk up another mark for Alex on this planned disclosure all being part of a big psyop.
https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/ne...ie-adaptation-from-higher-ground-productions/
 
Just listened to the show. I liked the drilling deep thing since exploring on the surface level between materialism and consciousness is not really leading forward. For me it would be more interesting how the consciousness thing works and how to reach higher levels so that we could pull eventually a Gandhi-thing worldwide to improve life. This whole war-thing annoys me, we should be past that. It is a waste of everything.
How to get to a more loving society in this simulation would be a good thing to explore. There is a need to hack that thing.

We are children of conflict. We wouldn't be what we are without the various challenges to our existence including war. Our consciousness could not exist in its current form with out countless generations of experiences as both predator and prey.

A soft environment is unsustainable. It must be continually refreshed by individuals shaped by a harsh environment.

Technology (from clothes, fire, and spears, to supercomputers) solves the problems of the harsh environment creating a soft environment leading to lack of challenge, lack of purpose, mental health issues, corruption, devolution etc. This creates the multi-generational rise and fall of civilizations.

This sin wave can be dampened and stretched out by compartmentalizing... creating a boundary, a filter, (Cherubim with fiery swords at the gates of Eden) between the harsh and soft environments, between city and country, between earth and heaven and enabling entry into the soft environment only to those who succeed in the harsh one.

Earth is a crucible, a test, a harsh environment that cuts off everything which doesn't succeed. The adversary is an essential element of the generation in God's GAN.

If we want to sustain our soft technological environments and avert war we must initiate the youth with a simulated harsh environment - and perhaps that is what Earth is... we are the youth of the gods sent to a harsh environment in which the lessons of good and evil may be learned... a battleground... war on earth to deter and prevent war in heaven.
 
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Well, for future direction of the show, my 2c worth of thoughts/vote:

> firstly, either way you go, I personally I'm a big advocate of quality over quantity. An episode every few months, just whenever you feel compelled to cover something, or a new author gets your attention etc, gets my vote.
Fewer, but longer deeper dives (the bro jogans can go 4hs, pause buttons are great tool!) than having to keep up with 1-2hrs more frequently is welcome in this age of info overflow. So regardless of the final structure, less is more I think!

Also, since the show has been on pause last couple of months I went back into the archives and started at ep1 and it's been amazing. Been meaning to do it for ages, glad I have the chance now. I'm on episode 90ish, so plenty to go and I should probably wait to finish doing that before writing this, but maybe not :D


At one stage you mentioned in an interview, that most people have made their minds up on an issue, but a small crucial number can be swayed and that's who youre talking to, as they can be the eventual critical mass (when deep diving into evidence - in that case with a dogmatic-debunker but who calls themselves a sceptic).
Seemed pertinent to this episode and echoing Al's advice.

Also overall I get the impression things are trending towards a '3.0' scope of 'fine tooth combing details' to get to the truth, anyway - along with your natural impulse to expose/convince/uncover etc (even if you're not feeling that exactly right now ;) then I can't see how Skeptiko wouldn't edge towards a smaller audience of folks on the same page.
As long as theres enough balance to still challenge ideas, bring new perspectives info etc then I would vote for that over a broader brush approach. I think there's still an audience for face to face, challenging dialogue with fine tooth comb jousting, where else can one get that? (and sticking with broader brushes is ultimately wasting time now, and playing into the hands of narrative drivers, one can always go back like me and build up to 3.0 lvl - not everyone will, but the small critical mass just might).

One other thing I might suggest is consider some kind of moderator role on the show, so often someone makes a great point but it doesnt get the hashed out and things move on. Someone taking notes and tracking that and bringing everyone back ontrack occasionally until a point is resolved, would be awesome!
Almost what happened on this episode, things left unsaid about UFOs (though I think Al was talking nonsense, he seemed to have a lot more to say) and noone came away richer, only wanting.
Maybe have episodes that only focus on one or two details, and not a broader topic - even if they turn out to be 20mins or 5h, I feel too many things get carried away by the current when trying to move on and squeeze things in.


Thanks Alex, even if the podcasts totally stopped, the full back-cat series / journey / body of work, is important stuff and I've gotten a lot of out it, I'll also be touting to everyone i know it for a long time :)


PS if theres ANY way the website can be reconfigured to have episodes play in order, I'd be uber grateful. Right now they only play new>old, grr :'D
 
Just about 22 minutes in and had a few thoughts...

Simulation hypothesis, two versions:

Version A: We are in a simulation within a computer that is merely an advanced silicon based computer contained somewhere within this universe... this is the version that is purely materialist and is the one Alex seems most opposed too.

Version B: our computer simulations give us a metaphor for the nested holographic as-above-so-below dream-within-a-dream structure of reality. The "computer" or network (which I have dubbed “God's GAN” - Generative Adversarial Network + Hebrew word for Garden = GAN) generates our physical reality. This is the version of SH I subscribe to.

Then another point to make that got missed: regarding Mandela in prison traveling the universe… Alex is equating consciousness with freedom to transcend the limitations of the physical, and that is partially true; however, the particular experience of consciousness we have requires a particular set of limitations, problems, challenges, and frustrations of the will.

Our limitations play an equally essential role in our consciousness as our freedoms.

Opting for Version B
I like this dream within a dream thesis better, there you got the chance to improve the whole system by dreaming a more positive dream and act like that. Looks like also the old religions of Asis point that way.
 
Opting for Version B
I like this dream within a dream thesis better, there you got the chance to improve the whole system by dreaming a more positive dream and act like that. Looks like also the old religions of Asis point that way.

Couldn't a computer generating an evolutionary simulation eventually generate a program that takes over the operating system and installs new software that totally changes the game?

Simulation Hypothesis for kids (210 million views!)

And if you were to re-write the universal simulation, how would you make it better? More positive? Would the positive displace the negative completely? Would you eliminate the predator/prey/parasite relationships? How would you provide limitations, scarcity, adversarial competition, frustrations of the will? Would instant gratification be better? Would these modes of energy transfer be banned from your more positive simulation? How would you have a meaningful existence without goals? Having goals implies you don't have everything you want yet. This implies a frustration that motivates action. Without frustration, everything stops, no E-motion, no creation.

What does cheap energy and a lack of mortal challenge look like: Urban sprawl and Wal-mart at midnight. This is why beings on the road to godhood must be cast out of the Garden and not allowed to take hold also of the Tree of Life (free energy)... they must learn to survive by the sweat of the brow and struggle against the thorns and thistles of the land.

If you want your sim to have the Shire and Gondor you cannot neglect to include Mordor. The usefulness of the AI agent you are training can only be measured against the problems in the environment you give it to solve.

The Earth has been a hotbed of conflict for millions of years with every life hanging in the balance on the edge of survival and extinction and now in the last 2000 years or so, a blink of a cosmological eye, in our spiritual adolescence we have decided our Mother Conflict is a bitch and we could do so much better than her. Do we think if we become vegans or eat bugs the lion will lay down with the lamb?

Go back far enough in your family history and there will be someone who almost didn't make it.. someone who almost didn't succeed in becoming a parent to your ancestors. You are the product of generations who struggled to make it, who almost didn't, but finally did, and that struggle to pass on the torch of life and to encourage it to burn brighter against all odds and against all forces of man/nature/gods that seek to eradicate it is what gives your life a basic level of incredible meaning upon which you may build all other meanings of life with soul goals and self-generated pursuits.

I hate to quite literally be the devil's advocate here, but so much of "spirituality" has become ungrounded as it seeks a dis-embodied solution to end all problems and we need a problem, a challenge, a goal to be grounded. The serpent was the wisest of all the gods' creatures because the level of the adversary determines the level to which we may rise and overcome.

I have to re-share this awesome music video that K9 shared:
The message at the end is phenomenal. Life is about BOTH hardening to overcoming the gut wrenching challenges it presents to us AND learning to soften, to relax, and dance with the implicit dualities.
 
Life is about BOTH hardening to overcoming the gut wrenching challenges it presents to us AND learning to soften, to relax, and dance with the implicit dualities.
I don't necessarily disagree, but its pretty easy to ask for a proverbial source here. ;)

Or as the Dude famously put it, "Well yeah, that's just your opinion man".

Maybe what you stated is actually the entire con; the psyop. Maybe gut wrenching challenges or "iron sharpening iron" is just what we tell ourselves as a simple coping mechanism. Another movie line comes to mind from Liar Liar. Some says something like "she's pretty on the inside" and Jim Carey, bound to tell the truth, says "That's just what ugly people tell themselves". Inappropriate perhaps, but kinda funny. :)
 
Re: ET crashed craft staged? I agree that they must be. “The Gods” have been baby stepping us along the tech tree ever since they made clothes for us.

We are being cultivated. Tech provides a short term power differential that advances or encourages a group to succeed. If ET wants a tribe to prevail over their neighboring tribes because they champion their cause or like their genes they can drop some tech gifts.
 
I don't necessarily disagree, but its pretty easy to ask for a proverbial source here. ;)

Or as the Dude famously put it, "Well yeah, that's just your opinion man".

Maybe what you stated is actually the entire con; the psyop. Maybe gut wrenching challenges or "iron sharpening iron" is just what we tell ourselves as a simple coping mechanism. Another movie line comes to mind from Liar Liar. Some says something like "she's pretty on the inside" and Jim Carey, bound to tell the truth, says "That's just what ugly people tell themselves". Inappropriate perhaps, but kinda funny. :)

Silence.
 
And speaking of the Rabies denier filmmaker guy from Columbia who also worked with Obama... how crazy is it that Obama is producing a Netflix movie dramatizing Betty and Barney Hill story? has anyone heard about this?? lol ...with Obama "on the job" now, we can chalk up another mark for Alex on this planned disclosure all being part of a big psyop.
https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/ne...ie-adaptation-from-higher-ground-productions/
Here's a strange "life imitating art" idea I ran across last night watching Unsolved Mysteries w/ Captain James T. Kirk (Wm. Shatner). It did a little segment about the 20,000 person capacity underground city dug in Turkey long, long ago. That led me to CNN's story on Singapore digging facilities deep underground to handle sewage treatment & petroleum storage to save precious space on the surface. That was concluded w/ the notion to keep the upper levels for residences & a quick trip up to the sun & fresh air while keeping the subterranean depths for utilities & so forth.
This reminded me of H.G. Wells's "The Time Machine" in which the Eloy were child-like creatures who lived above ground & were fed by & then later eaten by the Morlocks, white, long-haired disgusting things that lived deep in the earth. Maybe this imaginative relationship will one day come true.
 
I’m very much looking forward to listening to this episode. It’s been so long (2 months?) that I didn’t want to even start it until I have to to do a full listen start to finish… So instead I went to the webpage and read the first 15minutes of the transcript and I had to stop and now Im all excited to hear it.
I think (yup, just checked) Riz Virk is the last episode of Forum Borealis I heard and it was AWESOME. Al said so many awesome things about sim theory and reminders that our contemporary understanding of the theory is just that: contemporary.
I’m so glad Al and Alex did this and I know I’m gonna love it! And looking forward to discussing it.
OK. Now I'm 1 hour into the show. Absolutely captivating! But now i have to work and listen the the rest this weekend.

Alex: I had to take a break and I'm not sure where i'm gonna go from here with the show:

Also Alex: Proceeds to drop a bombshell contender for Allstar Top Podcast Episode of 2022.

Classic!
 
Government Industry: Creates/Distributes a product with some small amount of fakery.
Government Industry: To protect said fakery from scrutiny, funds a campaign to funnel all fakery claims onto a grand exaggerated narrative.
Concerned Citizen: Identifies and points out actual fakery.
Educated Citizen: Unable to distinguish the claim of actual fakery from the grand exaggeration.
 
Wisdom bro. Sound of one hand clapping and all.

Better to be silent and thought wise then speak and remove all doubt.

I don't necessarily disagree, but its pretty easy to ask for a proverbial source here. ;)

Yes asking for a source is easy... a lazy way to troll. I wasn't writing an academic thesis in post above. I've been posting here about 8 years so it is all there for you if you want to see the process by which I arrived at these conclusions.

Or as the Dude famously put it, "Well yeah, that's just your opinion man".

The Dude also famously said, "I've got INFORMATION man! New shit has come to light!"

Maybe what you stated is actually the entire con; the psyop.

And maybe the Earth is flat. Get outta here...
 
Alex is equating consciousness with freedom to transcend the limitations of the physical, and that is partially true; however, the particular experience of consciousness we have requires a particular set of limitations, problems, challenges, and frustrations of the will.

I'll take partially true [[cb]]... because I think it puts a major roadblock in the way of the dominant computer-based simulation Theory model.
 
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