Andrés Gómez Emilsson | The Purple Pill: What Happens When You Take the Blue and the Red Pill at the Same Time? @/Andr%C3%A9sG%C3%B3mezEmilsson | Uploaded May 2021 | Updated October 2024, 2 hours ago.
"The Purple Pill is the pill that gives you both high hedonic tone and an unprejudiced open-ended approach to the pursuit of truth. For losing truth is to lose it all, but to lose it all is only bad because it makes you and others suffer in the wider universe." - The Purple Pill (Qualia Computing)
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In this talk I explain that the "Blue vs. Red Pill" trope relies on a false dichotomy. You don't need to choose between depressive realism and comforting illusions. Put differently, you don't need to choose between truth and happiness. High hedonic tone is not incompatible with one's representational accuracy of causal structures. The world, and the existence of *experiential* heaven and hell, can be understood without curling into a ball and crying your way to sleep. More so, *effective* and *persistent* action towards the good requires that you don't believe in this false dichotomy, for sustainable altruistic productivity necessitates both accurate models and positive motivations. Thus, the aspiring paradise engineer ought to be willing to take the Purple Pill to move onwards.
I advocate having a balanced portfolio of (1) efforts to minimize experiential hell, (2) techniques to increase the hedonic baseline sustainably, and (3) methods to reliably experience peak states of consciousness in a sane way.
I do not think that spending 100% of one's time in "destroying hell" is a sustainable approach to life because it does not allow you to "reinvest" in the conditions that gave rise to one's goodness to begin with (otherwise you become more of a martyr than an effective player in the field!). More so, the relationship between suffering and productivity is non-trivial, which means that to just helping people who suffer extremely does not generally pay off in terms of productive action towards the cause in the future. Hence, improving baseline is just as important: it is precisely what allows people to go from near zero productivity to a high level of productivity. Finally, the benefits of having access to reliable, pro-social ultra-blissful states of consciousness should not be underestimated. They are an important piece of the puzzle because they motivate the "animal self" and are deeply reassuring. Thus, as a "package", I see a lot of potential in simultaneously reducing negative extremes, improving the baseline, and achieving new heights of bliss. This, to me, is what I see as the path forward.
Topics I cover span: Trungpa's "Spiritual Materialism" (the attitude of using exalted states of consciousness to "decorate our ego"), optimization problems/reinvesting in the good, sane in-group/out-group dynamics, the game theory of virtue signaling, and the importance of having an explicit commitment to the wellbeing of all sentient beings (to prevent value drift).
~Qualia of the Day: Spiritual Materialism~
Relevant links:
The Purple Pill - qualiacomputing.com/2018/12/18/the-purple-pill
Spiritual Materialism - Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche (Dorje Dradul) -Shambhala - youtu.be/dLAaEP6R6Zg
More Dakka (TheZvi) - thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/12/02/more-dakka
More Dakka in Medicine - qualiacomputing.com/2019/09/06/more-dakka-in-medicine
Healing Trauma with Neural Annealing - qualiacomputing.com/2021/05/08/healing-trauma-with-neural-annealing
THE NO PILL MOVEMENT (Why Neo Is Still In The Matrix And How To Transcend It) (Frank Yang) - youtu.be/8XPE9qRl8yk
Cluster Headache Frequency Follows a Long-Tail Distribution (thanks to Harlan Stewart for running the survey!!!) - forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/XLrzi6TrCqhTMtf8d/cluster-headache-frequency-follows-a-long-tail-distribution
Treating Cluster Headaches Using N,N-DMT and Other Tryptamines (Quintin Frerichs) - qualiacomputing.com/2019/08/05/treating-cluster-headaches-using-nn-dmt-and-other-tryptamines
OPIS initiative on access to psilocybin for cluster headaches (Jonathan Leighton & Manu Herrán) - forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wfXrMmKcD6eLEbS6R/opis-initiative-on-access-to-psilocybin-for-cluster
Is Enlightenment Compatible with Sex Scandals? (Scott Alexander) - slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/16/is-enlightenment-compatible-with-sex-scandals
Discussion on Fanaticism - qualiacomputing.com/2015/02/28/discussion-of-fanaticism
Open Individualism and Antinatalism: If God could be killed, it’d be dead already - qualiacomputing.com/2018/07/23/open-individualism-and-antinatalism-if-god-could-be-killed-itd-be-dead-already
Work Religion - qualiacomputing.com/2016/05/11/work-religion
I: All Anyone Cares About is Consciousness (Andrew Zuckerman) - andzuck.com/blog/care
II: Donating to QRI Today is Like Buying Bitcoin in 2010 (Andrew Zuckerman) - andzuck.com/blog/qri-btc
YACHT - Paradise Engineering - youtu.be/7n6f53f3Cmw
Thanks Mike Johnson and David Pearce for conversations.
"The Purple Pill is the pill that gives you both high hedonic tone and an unprejudiced open-ended approach to the pursuit of truth. For losing truth is to lose it all, but to lose it all is only bad because it makes you and others suffer in the wider universe." - The Purple Pill (Qualia Computing)
-------------------------------------------------
In this talk I explain that the "Blue vs. Red Pill" trope relies on a false dichotomy. You don't need to choose between depressive realism and comforting illusions. Put differently, you don't need to choose between truth and happiness. High hedonic tone is not incompatible with one's representational accuracy of causal structures. The world, and the existence of *experiential* heaven and hell, can be understood without curling into a ball and crying your way to sleep. More so, *effective* and *persistent* action towards the good requires that you don't believe in this false dichotomy, for sustainable altruistic productivity necessitates both accurate models and positive motivations. Thus, the aspiring paradise engineer ought to be willing to take the Purple Pill to move onwards.
I advocate having a balanced portfolio of (1) efforts to minimize experiential hell, (2) techniques to increase the hedonic baseline sustainably, and (3) methods to reliably experience peak states of consciousness in a sane way.
I do not think that spending 100% of one's time in "destroying hell" is a sustainable approach to life because it does not allow you to "reinvest" in the conditions that gave rise to one's goodness to begin with (otherwise you become more of a martyr than an effective player in the field!). More so, the relationship between suffering and productivity is non-trivial, which means that to just helping people who suffer extremely does not generally pay off in terms of productive action towards the cause in the future. Hence, improving baseline is just as important: it is precisely what allows people to go from near zero productivity to a high level of productivity. Finally, the benefits of having access to reliable, pro-social ultra-blissful states of consciousness should not be underestimated. They are an important piece of the puzzle because they motivate the "animal self" and are deeply reassuring. Thus, as a "package", I see a lot of potential in simultaneously reducing negative extremes, improving the baseline, and achieving new heights of bliss. This, to me, is what I see as the path forward.
Topics I cover span: Trungpa's "Spiritual Materialism" (the attitude of using exalted states of consciousness to "decorate our ego"), optimization problems/reinvesting in the good, sane in-group/out-group dynamics, the game theory of virtue signaling, and the importance of having an explicit commitment to the wellbeing of all sentient beings (to prevent value drift).
~Qualia of the Day: Spiritual Materialism~
Relevant links:
The Purple Pill - qualiacomputing.com/2018/12/18/the-purple-pill
Spiritual Materialism - Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche (Dorje Dradul) -Shambhala - youtu.be/dLAaEP6R6Zg
More Dakka (TheZvi) - thezvi.wordpress.com/2017/12/02/more-dakka
More Dakka in Medicine - qualiacomputing.com/2019/09/06/more-dakka-in-medicine
Healing Trauma with Neural Annealing - qualiacomputing.com/2021/05/08/healing-trauma-with-neural-annealing
THE NO PILL MOVEMENT (Why Neo Is Still In The Matrix And How To Transcend It) (Frank Yang) - youtu.be/8XPE9qRl8yk
Cluster Headache Frequency Follows a Long-Tail Distribution (thanks to Harlan Stewart for running the survey!!!) - forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/XLrzi6TrCqhTMtf8d/cluster-headache-frequency-follows-a-long-tail-distribution
Treating Cluster Headaches Using N,N-DMT and Other Tryptamines (Quintin Frerichs) - qualiacomputing.com/2019/08/05/treating-cluster-headaches-using-nn-dmt-and-other-tryptamines
OPIS initiative on access to psilocybin for cluster headaches (Jonathan Leighton & Manu Herrán) - forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/wfXrMmKcD6eLEbS6R/opis-initiative-on-access-to-psilocybin-for-cluster
Is Enlightenment Compatible with Sex Scandals? (Scott Alexander) - slatestarcodex.com/2019/10/16/is-enlightenment-compatible-with-sex-scandals
Discussion on Fanaticism - qualiacomputing.com/2015/02/28/discussion-of-fanaticism
Open Individualism and Antinatalism: If God could be killed, it’d be dead already - qualiacomputing.com/2018/07/23/open-individualism-and-antinatalism-if-god-could-be-killed-itd-be-dead-already
Work Religion - qualiacomputing.com/2016/05/11/work-religion
I: All Anyone Cares About is Consciousness (Andrew Zuckerman) - andzuck.com/blog/care
II: Donating to QRI Today is Like Buying Bitcoin in 2010 (Andrew Zuckerman) - andzuck.com/blog/qri-btc
YACHT - Paradise Engineering - youtu.be/7n6f53f3Cmw
Thanks Mike Johnson and David Pearce for conversations.
