How to control what you see, stop feeling pain... How to learn doing things that are not natural

[StaySharp]

The title is far from perfect but the real core of this thread just won't fit into one line. I've learned from past attempts of making overly detailed threads though, so bear with me while I make this as short and concise as I can, so no one gets lost along the way. Premise: Think about when you learned how to use your body, like your hands, or holding breath, thinking simple things like 1+1=2 and other comparatively simple things you could still learn or have learned, like playing a certain game, swimming... Now imagine being in your brain, setting behind an unfathomably huge panel of buttons, sliders and all kinds of other input devices. A normal life during a normal human life span is hardly going to scratch the surface of what this panel can do and there are some simple reasons for that. 1. Humans didn't need to in order to survive 2. Most of the really fancy things you can do hardly provide tangible input while attempting to learn how to do them And the second point is what this thread is all about. We'll get there in a moment. Now, imagine you completely forgot how to use one of your hands, or maybe one of your feet, how to move one of your eyes... you get it, whatever your current body allows you to imagine. If you attempt to relearn how to use that body part you'll be examining and randomly using your inner control panel until you find some of the right buttons and sliders and the body part you forgot how to control moves or twitches in some way. You got some tangible input that you can use while further examining the control panel and learning how to use which kind of input, when and how. For example you can think of the muscles in your body as countless sliders between relaxed and contracted, and addressing each of them makes your body move immediately so learning how to use them is relatively easy, and you're predisposed to having a easy time learning how to control them, because if you wouldn't be, you'd probably be dead. Now for something possible, but MUCH more complicated. Imagine you want to learn how to see something that is not there. You're looking at a white wall and want to imagine a black shape on top of it and you want to clearly see it, eyes wide open. How would you do that? As a human you're not predisposed in the slightest to do something like that. There's a lot of exercises other people have invented that you could try, like starting with closed eyes, trying to change the phosphene's you see. Chances are you're going to have an excessively hard time even when you have a few ideas of where to start and what to try, because you're not just working with a simple slider as with muscles that provides an immediate feedback, but rather you need to address a whole sector of your control panel correctly at once before you're even going to begin seeing some results. So, during the initial phase of learning how to do that you'll suffer from a gap between your input and the results. And this is the question of this thread: How can you imagine dealing with this gap in order to learn things that are far from natural? Like seeing/hearing/smelling/tasting/feeling things that aren't present outside of your own mind, turning your sensory pain input on/off at will, as a male turning your refractory period off, falling asleep at will... I'm searching for general answers, not specific techniques for specific things. And now for some additional info, if you only care for the core of this thread and have an answer to drop, skip the rest. My own answer: My most relevant answer is LSD. But because humans are outrageously stupid on a level that makes me wonder why some people's heads don't just spontaneously implode from the vacuum inside, LSD is illegal pretty much anywhere. Despite thousands of hard facts that clearly point out that the dangers of using LSD are incomparable to cigarettes and alcohol, and I don't mean LSD being the dangerous thing here. Also LSD has a lot of potentially beneficial medical applications whereas alcohol and cigarettes are hardly useful for anything else than loosening up a bit and causing tremendous harm. The only countable deaths LSD ever caused are those from stupid/uninformed people that killed themselves under the influence of LSD, as for alcohol and cigarettes... I don't even dare to guess their death toll. The gap between psychoactive and dangerous doses is so large no one ever managed to die from an overdose of LSD... There are half-legal alternatives in theory but it's just a generally problematic topic when it really shouldn't be. But I digress, this thread is not for ranting about stupid, senseless and idiotic laws. So why LSD you might ask, if you haven't bothered researching stuff like psychedelics. Since mankind has finally conducted studies on LSD again after inexcusable scientific abstinence for years we now know that LSD increases connectivity in the brain, which in simple terms means that on LSD parts of your brain are gonna talk to each other that normally don't do so. Ever. As such the stuff you see isn't gonna be dictated solely by your normal visual input anymore. To come back to the control panel metaphor, LSD temporarily creates tons of new links between different input methods, and some of them will have immediate effect of on your visual perception. Thus in case of trying to learn seeing things that aren't actually there, LSD helps by doing 2 things. 1. The visual hallucinations under the influence of LSD provide immediate feedback and thus bridge the input-feedback gap you would normally suffer from when sober 2. By linking up a lot more than just the initial part of the brain responsible for vision to your visual perception the array of possible inputs to try experimenting with sharply increases, which means you get a larger sample size to learn from Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying LSD is gonna do some wonders and you'll just drop a load, go on a single trip and become superhuman over night. But I do sincerely believe it can make an insanely difficult task a good bit easier. But it's still gonna be very difficult, and LSD isn't gonna replace researching yourself, and you'll still need a lot of time and practice. Also, dreams might be able to help with this, but I'm not quite sure how to transfer from dreams into reality and vice versa yet. How I got the idea for this thread: Fitting to the main theme of this forum, it was a dream that caused me to think about this again and with this detail. Skipping all the unnecessary details, the dream (not lucid) was about me doing sexual experiments, to be precise I completely separated the link between sexual pleasure and cumming, thus in turn eliminating the refractory period, removing the upper pleasure cap and allowing the pleasure to constantly grow without it forcibly declining after a temporary high. Suffice to say the dream was insanely pleasurable, more so than real sex probably. If you're male, chances are you're going to know that sexual pleasure is severely limited by the dreaded refractory period. You get a small high of pleasure and then the body just kills off the feeling which is highly frustrating at best. There are techniques to alleviate this problem, usually involving training the CP muscle and preventing ejaculation during the orgasm which also prevents the refractory period. Those are all only physical workarounds however, not solutions to the actual problem. Given the dream I suspect there is a chance that you could actually learn doing what I did in the dream, in real life. What supports this theory is that once on my life I had a freak occurrence where indeed I had 2 orgasms in insanely fast succession, completely skipping the refractory period from the first orgasm without me ever finding out how or why. I noticed that the way I attempted to sever this link in the dream involved experimenting with my inner control panel in a way that felt similar to trying to learn visualizing, which is ultimately what brought me here.

[Dreamwalkwr]

I just want to put in my 2 cents here about LSD. Yes, I've tried it. It's not tge easiest drug to control, it makes you see things that aren't there...really, not seeing spirits either just walking down the street chatting to your buddies who are actually back at the party wondering where the hell you disappeared to. It's not something I'd use to expand my mind. Also, there are cases of getting a bad hit and being a mental veggie the rest of your life. In my 20's when I waitressed there was this guy who always rode a bike everywhere and would hold conversations all the time with himself. There was no having a real conversation with the guy, it was like he never got over that last LSD trip. one day one of the other regulars told me this guys story. Said he had been a brilliant business man, smart guy, successful but he had a bad hit of LSD and was never the same. Not something I'd be willing to risk myself.

[StaySharp]

bad hit of LSD That's one of the reasons LSD should be legal, and it's a reason that is enough by itself. LSD doesn't ever appear in nature and while LSD itself is harmless when used correctly... the chemicals that are used and created when making LSD are not, in fact the ingredients and side products of making LSD are highly dangerous. That's why impure LSD can cause what you mentioned, permanent damage. And impure LSD is a direct result of it being illegal, because if it's illegal no official place can produce it, no official producers means no regulation and no quality checks. So pretty much all actual LSD comes from some illegal lab, made solely for profit. (Brain)Dead customers don't pay so it's not like people have much intent to produce impure LSD, but often the people making LSD aren't professionals, but rather some (wannabe) drug lords that are in it for the profit and nothing else. Due to the war against drugs, procuring LSD and pretty much any other drug is always connected to these kinds of dangers. And that's also why I won't ever recommend anyone to go out and try psychedelics, even if they can be great for personal development, even if I'd really like to recommend them. Because politicians that have as much of a clue of what they're doing as I know what the surface of the Sun tastes like declared the war on drugs, you always have the chance of getting impure stuff. That is, if you even get what you paid for at all, because if you bought a blotter of LSD from some shifty dealer it might not even be LSD in the first place. Actually the same holds true for alcohol. The production of certain types of beverages can yield methanol as a side product which also causes permanent damage like blindness or even death. How often do you hear about methanol poisonings due to alcohol poisoning? Hardly ever at all. And if, then it was in 99% of all cases some illegal brewery. If you'd make alcohol illegal, you'd get the same risk of bad hits when illegally procuring alcohol as you currently have with LSD. Likewise make LSD legal and you'd practically extinguish the risk of bad hits. Also, what better way to kill off drug cartels by legalizing the drugs they're dealing with? If official sides would provide high quality safe drugs and proper and complete information on how to use them and how not to... the drug cartels would crumble by themselves, no one would have a reason to buy their stuff.

[Amedee]

Hi,I would try it but without taking any drugs what's the point if I'm not sharp I'm going to use my head and monitor all the buttons I will imagine exist I have to control the scene thar I will be creating as for the title of this thread that's what attracted me in the first place and I'm game but I insist without drugs believe me we can do it I have mastered before the art of not feeling pain it's all with a clear head I'll tell you about it later

[OneUp]

I've done LSD over 7 times. Each time I would do it just once a month. All 7 of those times I never once had a bad trip. Sure I would see "scary things" but it didn't affect me considering my level of self awareness and my mindset made me realize "hey the weird shit you're seeing isn't real. You're taking LSD remember that". A "bad hit" is typically very rare. Even with research drugs, the high may be different, but the trip all still depends on your state of mind. It's a psychedelic. LSD is known for opening up the deepest parts of you and making you aware of the darkest and brightest parts about you. If you have the right mindset and are taking the drug with prior knowledge of whats going to happen, I'd say it's extremely easy to control(with average doses). I tripped 5 out of the 7 times at my friends house and his parents never found out. Hell, I even talked to them while tripping and my friend said I was acting perfectly fine. Be careful with your expectations with LSD as that can control your trip. In my 20's when I waitressed there was this guy who always rode a bike everywhere and would hold conversations all the time with himself. There was no having a real conversation with the guy, it was like he never got over that last LSD trip. one day one of the other regulars told me this guys story. Said he had been a brilliant business man, smart guy, successful but he had a bad hit of LSD and was never the same. Not something I'd be willing to risk myself. So from the sounds of this, this guy's case, all respect to him, is extremely rare. If you're willing to base whether or not you'd do a certain drug off of one guys bad experience, drugs in general are not for you at all. No hard feelings towards you though. With literally any drug(even the legal ones) there is a possibility that you could experience the bad side of it, it's not just with LSD.

[snoop]

Street LSD is notorious for not even being LSD. There are a plethora of psychedelic (and for that matter, dissociative) hallucinogenic drugs out there, many of which are small enough molecules to fit on tabs/hits. Some of them, like any of the n-bome family, are actually incredibly dangerous to take without knowing the actual dosage, unlike some of the better studied psychedelics like LSD or mushrooms. In fact, they can actually kill you or cause permanent brain damage (iirc from overheating). Some people really aren't suited to take hallucinogens, and for them to choose not to is both commendable and the right choice. Honestly OP, dissociatives alone or in combination with psychedelics sound more like what you want for the ideas you're throwing around. Have you tried any before? If you're more keen on psychedelics, try combining both. They get rid of the negative effects both both, and amplify the good effects of both, imo/ime. In regards to a bad trip, I had a real problem with drugs before (that I'm still kind of working through, but have made a lot of progress on), and hallucinogens (namely dissociatives, but psychedelics too) are the ones I used (use rarely now I should say) the most. I've tripped on a large number of psychedelic and dissociative drugs, and far too many times for me to mention it without being somewhat embarrassed. I've never had what I consider a bad trip, although there are plenty of them that have had negative portions, sometimes very negative, but mostly due to my wanton abuse and just how much I was taking. Never was it something I would consider scarring or something I couldn't learn from. The fact of the matter is that it seems many people are not this mentally resilient. I'm not trying to toot my own horn, this is in response to OneUp. I find the idea of a bad trip being as awful, terrifying, or scarring as people make them out to be myself, but I've read enough reports and seen enough people actually go through it that I accept and recognize it to be something that isn't overblown. Many people do not react to negativity or traumatic experiences well at all, and often in fact tend to make them spiral even more out of control. Some people are scarred for years and whatnot, but, I do want to address the story of the guy that never came back. It's a really vague tale of he-said-she-said that makes its way everywhere, just like the one where someone on LSD thought they turned into a glass of orange juice for life and one day tipped over or something. If somebody really goes crazy from something like this, it isn't from the drug itself. It's from a predisposition toward some kind of schizo-spectrum disorder that they were born with. Stress, whether it's from drugs or life, can bring that out of people and cause a psychotic episode. The drug will not simply cause somebody to go insane for the rest of their life. As far as controlling the drugs--when you do them as often I did, it was very easy to control them, even at megadoses and heroic doses (which I tended to do more often than not because if I didn't lose myself almost completely I didn't really feel like I properly tripped). However, trying to do this sober can't really go much further than advanced visualization and being really good at meditation. Otherwise, lucid dreaming is the realm you should shoot for. Otherwise, just take the drugs. I thought for a minute this was a necrobump of a thread that showed up like 5 years ago with some guy wishing he had schizophrenia, having no idea what it was really like. I remember wringing him out for that one. For anyone who thinks it'd be fun or cool, take a minute to think about what you're asking for. I've had quite a few psychotic episodes from my drug use. While not scarring, they were definitely some pretty fucked up experiences. They are very interesting for me to think back on today, from an educational and experiential standpoint, but it's nothing you want to experience. I'm simply making the most of the experiences I've already had. If I had to number the times I've had a psychotic break (one of which lasted 3 days), I'd say I've had around 6. Which is to say, compared to how much and how often I was doing the drugs I was doing, was extremely lucky. Take it from me, it was really, really fucking stupid, and definitely not worth it to go so hard on those drugs. I know, who would think it would be? At the time though, I didn't care what happened to me, so I'm just leaving a warning for anyone who is of a similar mind set and just doesn't care to think of themselves like they should.

[StaySharp]

Honestly OP, dissociatives alone or in combination with psychedelics sound more like what you want for the ideas you're throwing around. Have you tried any before? If you're more keen on psychedelics, try combining both. They get rid of the negative effects both both, and amplify the good effects of both, imo/ime. I never did combine these, and never thought about doing so either, so there's another idea to ponder about, thanks. I only ever took 2 substances that were not doctor prescribed, a nootropic and a psychedelic, both legal. Currently anyway. I had only 2 run-ins with an legal LSD analogue which has done some wonders and allowed me insights that would have hardly been possible without. In fact before trying these I spent literally hundreds of hours on research and over-thinking it again and again, while also pondering about how to get psychedelics, safely and easily, which, as all the answers have already said, is far from easy. In fact I was one of those I-don't-do-drugs-fools until my unilateral scientific interest eventually impacted in the realm of drugs and psychedelics, and I learned that almost everything I thought I knew about drugs was borderline bullshit. LSD being more dangerous than alcohol? I think not. Before taking stuff I always prepare for maximum safety and I don't use drugs that are seriously harmful such as alcohol, cigarettes, cocaine... As such I see myself hardly at any risk of abusing any drug, ever. What dissociatives and combinations are you talking about? Any dangers or legality issues? Both trips followed the same pattern for me, after taking the stuff I was almost braindead (aka I was spacing out) for 1-2 hours and then a phase of over 10-hour long perfect mental clarity settled in. This state of clarity is perfect to research your own mind because you get to experiment with stuff you usually can't access, and all that without the drug impacting the mind in any negative way whatsoever. For example I spent hours tapping into the "face recognition software" of my brain, doing things like zooming in on eyes or applying mathematical filters to my vision. For example I could copy the image of one eye onto the other to replace it. And some filters... it's hard to describe in words but they essentially took parts of the eye (iris and pupil to be precise) copied, rotated and partially overlayered the original picture, creating sharp cuts in the eye. If I take stuff again, I'm not even sure which dosage to take, higher dosages might unlock some more fancy stuff, but taking smaller doses means staying closer to the sober state which in theory should make it easier to apply the things learned during the trip to an everyday sober state. For now I tend to stay on very low doses because it's just more useful for research. And what I really plan on doing is "hacking" my brain. I know the possibility is there and I can think of thousands of ways this could improve quality of life in ways absolutely nothing else on earth can. I also am aware of the fact that this is gonna get insanely difficult. I have little direction for my goals as from what I can fathom few people even got so far as to actually try stuff like this, and even fewer people had any success whatsoever. For example if you'd learn extended visualization abilities you could predraw entire pictures in your head, project them onto a piece of paper and start tracing the lines, it'd make drawing infinitely easier. You could condition yourself to see a permanent HUD in your field of vision. Crazy stuff like that. Hi,I would try it but without taking any drugs what's the point if I'm not sharp I'm going to use my head and monitor all the buttons I will imagine exist I have to control the scene thar I will be creating as for the title of this thread that's what attracted me in the first place and I'm game but I insist without drugs believe me we can do it I have mastered before the art of not feeling pain it's all with a clear head I'll tell you about it later As mentioned, not all drugs take away sharpness of the mind. LSD taken in low enough doses and with correct set and setting won't impact your sharpness one bit. People under the influence of LSD can be so perfectly clear in the head you wouldn't have a chance in hell of figuring out whether they took anything. Alas this thread is indeed delving a bit too one-sided into drugs, and I would love to hear some more non-drug related techniques and ideas to attain such control. There is for example self-suggestion, or even better Tulpae. I ultimately want a fully functional Tulpa because I believe it'll be an integral part of the path I have to construct to get there. But this path shall lead so far I can't just randomly go into one direction, I need to know as many options and possibilites, to hand-craft the most precise path there is for me. And by collecting this stuff other people might use the information to try the same.

[Dreamwalkwr]

Anyone here read Terry Pratchets Discworld books? Maybe we should legalize everything including crime but like the books, assasins guilds have rules, theives guild has rules, etc.. if you like reading its a very fun series lol

[StaySharp]

Anyone here read Terry Pratchets Discworld books? Maybe we should legalize everything including crime but like the books, assasins guilds have rules, theives guild has rules, etc.. if you like reading its a very fun series lol I'm not really one for reading (for recreation at least, if it's science or stuff that's different) but my wife did read it. And I wouldn't go as far as legalizing everything But the law does indeed prohibit the most stupid things at times, often not just counterintuitive but also counterproductive. On the other hand it also allows the most stupidest things at times. Like lobbying.

[Amedee]

I didn't read terry pratchets sbook but I don't think I would like such read even as a game legalizing crimes ,imagine no law abiding citizens we are in a mess as it is,criminals ,thieves ,and assassins have no scruples!so legal or illegal law or no law the least of their worries for me lets find books that educate this generation that is getting the leftovers of a civilization that has gone wild and immoral

[Dreamwalkwr]

It's really a fun read full of orks and witches lol but I read a lot so sometimes a silly book is just refreshing. I do however agree about the state of this generation. It seems every generation becomes just a little more desensitized morally.

[StaySharp]

I do however agree about the state of this generation. It seems every generation becomes just a little more desensitized morally. >Rant incoming At least I know I'm not part of the problem, but I have to agree for the largest part, though morals are massively lacking in mankind as a whole, not just the younger generations. I hate seeing my own generation do the shit it does. But I pretty much hate any discernible group of humans for different reasons and I'm rather misanthropic, quite frankly I'd feel stupid if I wouldn't be misanthropic. Like, I hate countless old people for their "My life is almost over so I do shit the next generation has to deal with, YOLO" attitude. See the poll statistics for the Brexit, the older the voters were, the more likely they voted to leave. Fracking. Wars. After all they wouldn't have to deal with the consequences anywhere as long as the next generations. I hate the middle-aged people for reproducing like blasted rabbits in 24/7 heat. The world is already overpopulated. But every time we get close to an assumed upper limit of population someone says a few more couldn't hurt. We have long passed the point of too many humans. Oh and it's mostly the stupid people reproducing too, mistreating their children or teaching them crap, sending them off into a bad live of their own, equipped with everything they need to ruin other lives as well. My wife wasn't raised as a living being but as a status symbol that could be dressed up and that conveniently manages to walk by itself so you don't need to carry it either. And then her mother talks about phantasies of us making a lot of money, building a house, letting her move in and taking care of her when she grew old. Why'd I take care of that hideous person? As a thanks for all the physical scars my wife has because her mother is just careless and stupid? "Hey there's a dog warning sign on my friends garden, and I should call him so he can put the dog away, but nah, I have my little daughter here to play meatshield." and guess who the friggin' dog attacked. "Hey let's swing that hot iron around like a lunatic, and oops, that was my daughters neck." or "Let's switch my fuckbuddy once every 6 months and pick really bad partners too so my daughter can grow up around some really bad examples of make humans" Yeah that's just great. How in the name of all forces in the universe does a person like that think she deserves to be taken care of by us when she grows old? I can't eat as much as I want to vomit from such delusional thoughts. And it's all true, personally experienced by my wife. I had to spent years with her trying to help her get over even just half of the psychological problems her parents and grandparents gave to her. Ugh. Young people? I hate the younger generation in my country for tending more to racism and general right bullcrap again, decently symbolized by the AFD. And young people tend more towards such fun activites as "Set the hobo on fire" or "Wrap animals completely up in Tape" or the universally acclaimed "Drink till you beat up random strangers or drop dead yourself" I hate pretty much 99% of humans for their blatant omnidirectional ignorance, and the term "innocent civilian" seems laughable to me at best. You stand by and watch as atrocities happen, you're part of what makes them happen in the first place. As long as catastrophes are happening on this planet in the way they do right now there is hardly one single person I would call innocent, I won't even call myself innocent because the bare fact I'm not spending my entire life trying to fix stuff feels wrong. But at the very least I'm working and planning every day how to leave a positive impact. Oh, you could call children innocent till a certain age, when they couldn't even grasp that it'll be up to them to help fixing this mess. I hate children because they're annoying as hell, thanks nature. Oh and talking about nature, there's such nice things like AIDS, genetic diseases, ticks (they don't even have a friggin' ecological niche, unlike mosquitoes) and the most stupidest of problems you could come up with on purpose. Summit of creation my ass. Should nature be protected? Hell yes! Is it really all that great? Hell no! Humans suck, nature sucks and the entire earth sucks. Not sure why we haven't turned into a black hole yet considering just how much everything here sucks. I do however pay utter respect to any and all exceptions and actual decent human beings as few as there might be, when I actually meet them. That is, I pay respect to people that I feel have earned it. If some old shits demand respect just cause they're old, but they have deeply rotten souls, I will verbally spit them in the face like I'd do with anyone else. You don't earn my respect by growing old and watching everything go down the gutter, you earn my respect for treating people the way they deserve to be treated and actually busting a nut trying to help people/animals. /rant Okay that makes 2 rants, one about drug laws and one about humans in general... Moving on and back to topic. I feel like there might be more that can be done, I'll keep thinking about it. Maybe there's something more direct to the learning process itself? EDIT: Turns out the inspiration of the dream I mentioned in the initial post (the one with the sexual experimentation) is already bearing some fruit and I'm quite fascinated right now. In the dream I severed the link between pleasure and the actual orgasm, resulting in the removal of any pleasure cap and the complete avoidance of a refractory period. Suffice to say I've tried to remember the feeling of the dream and replicate results in real life, hobby scientist with few restrains like I am, and a few days later I actually managed to. Well, I did the exact opposite of what I wanted to, that is consciously triggering a refractory period without any orgasm, but it's progress never the less. I figure that just as in learning to control breathing, learning how to breath consciously will come along with learning how to stop breathing consciously. And I think the general feeling of interfering with the normal processes here can be transferred, I feel I have a better idea of how to work with the internal control panel now. So I'll be moving the list from above down to this edit and add a point. Quite suspiciously I got an unpleasant feeling in my head afterwards, not sure if it's related. If it is I'd take it as a good sign. So here's a small summary of ideas that were mentioned in this thread so far: Psychedelics(+dissociatives) which can potentially help extending input and feedback to make researching yourself easier Dreams, because with enough control they can be used like simulators (maybe you can even do more direct things in dreams like rewiring some stuff in your brain) Tulpae, because a thoughtform, as a second consciousness inside yourself, is born with a control and perspective that is substantially different from the host Self-suggestion, though this is just an thought I had, not sure how useful it'd actually be If you try to learn something unnatural, pick more than one goal, what you learn on one front might be transferred to another and vice versa even on seemingly unrelated things

[Dreamwalkwr]

Wow, lol! And I thought I was anti people. I stick to myself and trust no one..I find it's best this way, less disappointment. I feel for your wife and think it's admirable that you seem to genuinely love and care for her well being. Good for you. Most people are just too selfish to look beyond themselves to genuinely care for another the way they should. I've decided that maybe the reason why certain things in my life aren't so great is maybe I'm paying off karma. I try and treat others well but I always end up with them thinking it's fake or they can walk all over me. So I have to be a bitch too just so assholes don't take advantage of my nice side and use me. I do care about people but I keep my distance emotionally from most. Those I let in isually just hurt me, I feel like I give and give and get crapped on for all my effort. Depressing actually. Life's a bitch and so are most people.

[Descensus]

Sorry, are you saying that feeling pain is not natural?

[StaySharp]

Wow, lol! And I thought I was anti people. I stick to myself and trust no one..I find it's best this way, less disappointment. I feel for your wife and think it's admirable that you seem to genuinely love and care for her well being. Good for you. Most people are just too selfish to look beyond themselves to genuinely care for another the way they should. I've decided that maybe the reason why certain things in my life aren't so great is maybe I'm paying off karma. I try and treat others well but I always end up with them thinking it's fake or they can walk all over me. So I have to be a bitch too just so assholes don't take advantage of my nice side and use me. I do care about people but I keep my distance emotionally from most. Those I let in isually just hurt me, I feel like I give and give and get crapped on for all my effort. Depressing actually. Life's a bitch and so are most people. Yeah, I have a very sharp and drastic view of the world, and I've changed and re-iterated it countless of times. Take for example the so called "good" and "evil" and their horrible perception in society. People label things good or evil for the stupidest reasons. Some say people that follow a certain religion are evil, even if they deeply care for others. Some may call people of their own religion good, even if they make others suffer on a daily basis. With my current morality I only determine good and evil in one single way, pleasure is good (yo, I'm taking about pleasure in general, not sexual) and suffering is evil. Someone's living his life in ignorance, ultimately bringing more suffering to the world than pleasure? He/she is evil, even if just a bit. Someone not just deeply cares for his family but also tries to make the lives of others better? That person I would call good. A politician acts to make the lives of a few rich people that already have it good even a tiny bit better at the expense of making life for like 80% of the population worse? That person is the pure definition of evil, more so than almost any villain in any game or movie I can think of. Someone kills a single person to prevent him/her taking the lives of other people that deeply cared about life and brought more pleasure to the world than suffering? He has killed someone, which is in itself bad, but his action has ultimately made the world a better place, so he is good regardless. I have a deep care and interest for life as a whole, and I love it with all my heart. I believe that any sentient being, whatever race, gender or beliefs should be able to live a fulfilled life. And I also believe that anyone has forfeited his right to live who believes others have not deserved their life for any reason less than those persons being evil, as in bringing more suffering to the world than anything else. But with the world being like it is and this drastic view... I'd have to consider most people evil. If the worst part of mankind were to die, any single individual that brings more suffering to the world than pleasure, I wouldn't shed one tear, I wouldn't even bat an eye. However many digits the death toll would be. But on the inside I'm crying for any single decent sentient being that dies on this god-forsaken planet everyday. If there is a god, fuck him for creating this place. If god were to show himself undeniably to everyone globally tomorrow I still wouldn't be his follower, for anyone who creates a world like this has no reason to be followed and believed in. I do my best to bring good to the world, and unlike other people I don't think of it as being selfless. No, I'm in fact 100% egoistical for my desire to change the world to a better place. I want to know how it feels to live my life without caring for a thing in the world, but I don't want to be an ignorant bastard. The only way to ever feel that is to live in a better world, and that doesn't happen by itself. When I help others, I help myself. Sorry, are you saying that feeling pain is not natural? No feeling pain is natural, and it's natures utterly corrupted way of ensuring survival via making lifeforms vary of avoiding things that cause them pain. I see pain as perfectly natural, which doesn't mean I agree with the way nature and our bodies handle it one bit. When I say that I want to learn not to feel pain then I'm thinking of it as an logical step in evolution. Physical pain hinders us. If we were to get a simple non-bothering but clear signal that something's wrong, and what we'd all be off better. Humans couldn't torture each other as simply either. When humans designed PCs, I doubt anyone ever really thought they should feel pain, or make us feel pain, it's all just simple error messages. And why would anyone? It's a flawed concept. The same for organic lifeforms would be pretty cool. I think differently about mental pain. Without the ability to feel mental pain we would lose compassion. And compassion is one of the most important foundations for decent sentient beings there is. Sigh... going off on tangents again, but I'd like to believe I'm at least providing something interest to read and discuss about. I have no new ideas about the main topic of getting more control to report for now though.

[snoop]

I know it's not core to the thread's purpose, but I really have to argue against your ideas about pain. Maybe there is potential for a better system to exist, but I think that giving us a sense that something is "wrong" but it isn't as intrusive or can simply be ignored is a very poor model to run off of for survival. Pain is not merely a hindrance. Your ideas about it seem to rely heavily on the assumption that we will always be civilized and that society doesn't have a chance of failing, and in a way it also assumes that children can and do have the perspective of adults when it comes to pain. Let's start with my point about children. If pain were merely a signal that alerts us to something, but it isn't intrusive, bad, or downright what we experience as painful, how would children effectively learn to be safe? They would depend on role models and mentors entirely when it comes to learning safe practices, which assumes there will always be a role model or mentor. Teenagers, for instance, even with pain being as powerful of a deterrent as it is, still engage in very risky behavior. Employ your suggested system of pain and imagine the results. Children only know not to touch the stove again after doing the it the first time and experiencing pain and a lasting burn. They don't need to be told over and over not to touch it if they actually wind up touching one. Your system allows curiosity and desire to trump doing something that can destroy your body and even kill you. People also like to do things they are told not to, the whole forbidden fruit thing. The only reason people don't wind up doing things that are guaranteed or have a very high risk of causing them pain when told not to (as they get older) is because they already know how much they dislike pain and how awful it is. Ignoring all this, if you start with a clean slate and have to learn everything about getting hurt yourself, the danger everything poses cannot possibly be understood without a previous understanding of what dangerous actions can result. You are set up, in that case, to fail. The only thing that we know of that can bridge the gap of that lack of understanding is the discomfort pain causes. The bit about society possibly failing is also tied into the concept about children. We could regress so far that we wind up having to learn to do things by ourselves again by simple experience, and without anyone to teach us anything. Not only that, but we wouldn't have the medical prowess, nor the technology to correct whatever issues come up as a result of this essentially impact-less system of pain you propose. Humans are honestly barely out of the jungle, and society is incredibly fragile. It's a big mistake to assume things will always be good enough that we can afford to make pain essentially painless, and simply have it as a somewhat annoying pop up that we can simply dismiss. A better system is actually one we already use--drugs. We can interrupt pain signals (opioids), interfere with the ability to sense pain at all (dissociative anesthetics), and even simply induce an unconscious state to get through the pain (anesthetics, etc.). Better yet, we can't simply abuse this system and use it whenever we want--withdrawal effects or other complications (cognitive deficits that take possibly weeks to go away, as with dissociatives) prevent us from being able to engage in every risky behavior we simply feel like because we can simply make the pain go away. And that there is the biggest issue with doing away with pain as we know it: as with just about everything humans do, we will take things too far. It would be far too easy to engage in risky behavior, simply because the only downside is possibly losing your limbs, being maimed, or death. That, and the prolonged inability to function properly as a result of the number of broken bones and everything that will go up as a result of this reduced punishment for being risky. Making it easy to forgo safety is just a bad idea.

[StaySharp]

I know it's not core to the thread's purpose, but I really have to argue against your ideas about pain... You are of course right and I agree with the absolutely largest part. I've phrased my opinion much too simple and focused to stand up against this form of criticism. Most importantly I forgot to mention that one of the primary premises for a pain system as I have described it is a mental state similar to mine in certain regards. I personally have no need whatsoever to have any pain system tell me I maybe should consider not breaking my arm, because I'm fully aware of just how much I need my arm, and my body in general to function. For me an error message would do everything that pain does, and even more beyond that. "Deep cut. Minor blood loss. Infection danger." would be all I need to hear to immediately take care of the wound. But yeah, this isn't gonna just work for everyone if you'd suddenly invoke it in every human right now, obviously. People that do stupid stuff for stupid reasons weren't really accounted for in my original equation. Though to be honest... maybe it would be good to have them be able to freely be idiotic without pain in their ways as a way of natural selection, because humans have completely taken out nature's way of selecting individuals and progressing evolution. Quite frankly though in terms of reproduction and perpetuation of traits I have to say that both nature and humans handle it in atrociously inefficient ways right now. Harsh natural selection is good at mustering out any overly bad short term mutation, as such are an instant death spell in nature. Neither hunter nor pray animals will be able to survive without properly working legs for example, or some crippling genetic disease. The immediate dispatching of such individuals prevents those bad traits from propagating. But this system is inherently cruel, of course humans would strive to get away from it. And it does nothing to fix smaller long term bugs in design either. Take the muscle that controls your vocal folds for example, I'm sure it was the recurrent laryngeal nerve. It travels down to your heart before going upwards to your vocal folds. That's stupid design, and nature's natural selection isn't ever going to be fixing. Humans don't do it better either. We've taken out the whole cruel survival of the fittest problem, instead we've added the issue of no selection at all. Humans just breed where they want, how they want and with whom they want. And if babies are born they will be kept alive at any cost and the resulting humans can reproduce in any way they want again. Genetic diseases and countless smaller and larger issues are almost completely free to propagate through the human species, which isn't good. It's not good at all. I understand that people have a desire to reproduce with loved ones, as sex and reproduction are just deeply linked. I understand the desire to not ever have anything die. Still I really think mankind should start paying organized attention to how we reproduce. I think having to live today with many families that have children that aren't 100% related by blood to their parents and are results of planned reproduction is a very little price to pay for having much more healthy and as such also happy future generations. It doesn't seem like humans are anywhere near being ready for this though. I'm going off on tangents again. And obviously children wouldn't work without pain. We are born outstandingly stupid and we only get a slight chance to get intelligent as we grow up, a chance few people seem to make use of. The absence of pain would be... exactly as you said, problematic. In order to get rid of physical pain completely from the start we'd have to change so substantially we'd hardly be human anymore. Not that that'd be a bad thing but it's nothing any of us has to worry about today either way. Which brings me back to the topic, as of today you can only learn to subvert pain permanently and without repercussions through painstaking mental self-exploration and exercise. Which probably is a good thing, because completely safe pain killers would be problematic I guess.