The Intersection of Experience, Identity, and Reality

Diana Pula emphasizes that experiences are the essence of reality, transcending mere conceptual understanding.

### Exploring the Nature of Reality, Identity, and Truth
* 🧠 Professor Diana Pula discusses the complexities of identity and spirituality, suggesting that interpretations of divinity can be **misunderstood**, as many may **misinterpret their experiences**.
* 🌌 She emphasizes the importance of community in practices like meditation and psychedelics, highlighting that **insights gained should be shared rather than dismissed**.
* 🔍 Pula references "Plato's Cave" and the "dark night of the Soul," explaining that the journey involves realizing that **initial perceptions of reality may be illusions**, leading to a **deeper understanding of what is truly real**.
* 💭 The conversation touches on the nature of experience, asserting that **experiences are the core of reality**, and while theories may provide narratives, they should not overshadow the **immediacy of personal experiences**.
* 🌊 The ego is described as a **necessary tool for navigation in life**, but it is distinct from one's **true subjectivity**, which is a **more profound aspect of identity**.
* ⚖ The dialogue culminates in a discussion on values, where the **importance of truth and reality** is underscored, with both participants agreeing that **dedicating oneself to truth** is synonymous with **engaging with reality**.
* 🌱 Ultimately, the conversation encourages **embracing experiences and the truths they reveal**, as well as recognizing the **interconnectedness of individual identities** within the larger framework of existence.
* 🎙 The podcast invites listeners to explore these profound topics further, promising insights into **consciousness, free will, and the nature of reality**.

when I was speaking to this professor of religion named Diana Pula, she was saying, "Kurt, don't worry that half of the world thinks that I am God and so on because you don't know what they mean by that. I don't have the, like, I have an

idea of what they mean. They could be misinterpreting what they mean. They could be wrong. At the same time, millions and billions of people have been wrong. All of these practices, meditation and psychedelics, they're meant to be done with the community, and all these

insights." She said she would imagine if you went to some leader and you told them this insight, they'd be like, "Oh no, no, no, that's what that, that's completely wrong. Like you're not, you are not God, like you are an aspect of God or

whatever it may be." And then she also said, "The Plato's Cave journey is what's, what's happening, or the dark night of the Soul." She used that phrase. She said, "The actual full story of that, or you think this is reality, the wall you come out, you feel like that's

an illusion. Then the end of the story is to somehow realize that what you thought was real in the beginning is indeed real. It's just real in another manner, like somehow more real." And then I remember something Bernardo that you said, "Look at this, this we think of as solid, we feel

it, there's solidity to it. Yet, we look at it through a microscope and we say, "Yeah, the atoms are far apart. This, this solidity is an illusion." That's if you take materialism as primary. What if you take your conscious experience? No, no, this is solid

This actually is solid. There's something real about that. There's something real about this table. There's something real about me inhabiting this world. I can go through this process where I feel like, oh, that's all an illusion. But then there's this quote about T.S. Eliot that

the point of the journey is to come back where you started and know the place for the first time. I feel like that. I'm slowly starting where I feel the reality of this more. I feel it, but then there's a nagging part of me that's like, yeah,

you're tricking yourself, G. You're tricking yourself. We let our theories hijack the reality of our experiences and that's a tragedy. Experiences are not nothing, they're the only thing that is really real. That's not just abstraction, so it

doesn't matter that you, oh, there are atoms here and then the distance between the electron orbitals and the nucleus is enormous relative to the, to the diameter of the particles themselves. Yeah, it's all true, but you experience this. You hold this. It has weight, it has texture.

It feels moist and it satiates my thirst. This is all real stuff now. A conceptual understanding, a conceptual narrative behind that may be true or not, but it doesn't take away from the experience. Whatever this is, it is an experience and it is real as such. The problem is that

we, we, we are in a society which implicitly tells us experiences in themselves are nothing. It's the thing that lies behind the experience that counts. That, that's absolutely nonsensical. All we have is experience. The narrative behind it can help us

develop a certain understanding but not by robbing us of the immediacy of experience, which ultimately is all we have. We can add understanding to that, but that understanding is a layer on top of the immediacy of experience. And look, the ego exists; it's a tool. Without it, I

wouldn't know which mouth to bring the fork to. So there is something there that we call the ego. Now, is it your subjectivity in and of itself, or not? That's a valid question. I would answer that the ego is not your subjectivity. It's a certain

configuration of experiences or a narrative within your subjectivity. And yes, idealism ultimately is a form of cosmic solipsism, and you can dip your toes in those waters and you recoil from it. I call it the vertigo of eternity.

Um, it's a place that, um, is very hard to visit, very hard to confront, um, which may be a clue to why we are here, you know, in this form. Um, but maturing has always to do with poking you out of your comfort zone and and and and buffeting you a

little, uh, and and you just have to hold the boat together so we can continue to navigate and not sink. But I I don't think there is anything intrinsically bad about the fact that the waters are trying, it's it's trying stuff, uh, and

that's how we progress. And I I'm not a prophet, I'm not going to predict your future. And you come from a different place than than me. Your life has a different context. What holds true for me may not hold true for you, doesn't hold true for you.

but now I'm going to do exactly what I said I wouldn't do, which is make a prediction, sure. So forgive me for that, okay? But there will come a moment when you realize that your problems will dissipate, not because you answered your questions, but because you

no longer feel the need to ask them. Yeah, I'll leave it at that, okay? So Chris, whatever thoughts come to you, and then we can move on to another couple of questions. I'm sorry to go on this aside, you were just communicating with your own highest level of identity, that's so

okay, that's that's basically God, and the reason you are able to communicate with God is that you are an aspect of God, right? God is reality, he's the Ultimate Reality. He almost has to be that way otherwise it makes no sense to go to something to God, okay? You are a part of

God, and you are a stratum of God's identity, simple as that. And you give rise to things, and your experiences, they are identities. Your experiences, experience is not something that can, it is, it's one unitary, you know, coherent thing, and yet it can be teased

apart into this idea of form and substance, okay? It's basically an experience is an interface. It's an interface between you and reality. It's you accepting input from the outside world or internal input from yourself, okay? And transducing it and then turning

that into a thought or into behavior, okay? This is this is what it is, this is what it's doing for you. So your experiences, even your your purely mental experiences are of utmost value to you. They are identities that are that are a part of your identity, and you are a part

of a greater identity okay so you've got this continuum of identities all right and it's it's a nested it's it's kind of a you know it's a it's a Russian doll so it's it's you know Matryoshka you Matryoshka dolls I forget

anyway basically it's one thing nested within another you've got a highest level of identity your identity is nested in it and your experiences are nested in you they're all identities okay putting all of those things together is what it seems to me that

you're doing a very very valuable thing so I'm saying keep up the good work well hey man like any compliment from you is it's an honor so let's just end this with what you all value what do you value most most Chris what do I value most uh

God what's the identity of reality um and of course supporting and and aiding the fulfillment of reality I believe that reality actually has a goal a teleological purpose that it that it is that it is determined by its structure basically it's built into what it is and

that it is my job to fulfill help reality fulfill that that that its goals its teleological impetus which derives from its structure because I'm a part of it and it's my own highest level of identity and it's my job to help it just

as as it helps me okay I'm carried within it I exist within it so I'm going to return the favor and I'm going to try to reinforce it as much as I can that's what's valuable to me and then of course we have all of the things that are

valuable to everybody you know the idea of of love you know I mean I have a wife I have a home I have you know pets I have dogs that uh that love me you know the taste of a good meal you know or a good drink right having fun with your friends

right going out and enjoying nature all of those things are valuable to me but the one the one basic imperative that I feel is to integrate with reality perfectly help reality reinforce itself right because that's all there is there is nothing outside of that you try to

extricate yourself from reality like like the the Buddhists are trying to do and you end up in Nirvana and you're nothing your identity has at that point fused without a the entire universe and you no longer have an individual identity at all your identity is a

self-distributed thing that covers everything and you have lost your identity as you know okay you're here and you feel your individual identity and that's very very important okay your job your job the the job of your identity is not only to enjoy life as

you were put here to do but also to help life and to help reality reinforce itself right that's what I consider B Bernardo uh the answer I will give you is not the answer I would like to give you I would like to tell you I value

love the most relationships the most human decency and justice um n is struggled with this question and he answered power power is what cons he considered the most important the will to power in contrast to Freud's will to pleasure um but the truth is and you

know part of maturing is accepting your own truths and knowing the truths about yourself even when you don't like it the truth is that for me the most important thing is truth and that um I'd probably surrender everything else to stare the truth in the face whatever the

price whatever the cost that for me is is is the highest calling it's how I'm put together it's not how I wish I was put together um to to prioritize truth above all else is not trivial yeah again he was very explicit about that he said why do we

want to know the truth truth what's the point he he thought it was ridiculous it was a knee-jerk reflex that if we thought it through we would abandon it it's not about what is true um and I I've meditated on that for

years I I went to the extreme of visiting the places where he had those thoughts which thank goodness are recorded we know where he was and I probably stood within a meter of where he stood um but at at the end of all that struggle it's it's the truth that shines

through and the truth is my highest commitment is the truth that that's how I am I I yeah I hate it in a sense but that's how I am thank you all so much for coming out this was thank you thank you all this was well enlightening in many ways okay

I would just once again repeat after that after that that inspiring comment by Bernardo that truth and reality are basically two ways of looking at the same thing when you say that's real or something is real you are saying that it is true okay and when you say that

Something is true, you're saying that it's real. So in dedicating yourself to truth, you also dedicate yourself to reality. And both of our combats, both what what what, both of us said combined in this one truth, this one real truth, the same thing. If you enjoyed that

clip, then the full podcast is out right now. You can click around here, enjoy, subscribe to Theories of Everything to get notified of upcoming podcasts as there are new full-length podcasts every week on the topics of mathematics, physics, Consciousness, Free Will, and AI.

This Life Is Fundamentally Important

Curt Jaimungal

Discussion on Religious Experiences and Misinterpretations

Diana Pula's perspective on people misinterpreting religious experiences.

Importance of community in practices like meditation and psychedelics.

Potential reactions from religious leaders to spiritual insights.

The Plato's Cave allegory and the dark night of the soul.

Bernardo's perspective on the illusion of solidity.

Returning to the starting point with a new understanding.

The danger of letting theories overshadow experiences.

The importance of sensory experience over abstract concepts.

Society's tendency to undervalue direct experience.

Understanding as a layer on top of immediate experience.

Distinction between ego and subjectivity.

Idealism as a form of cosmic solipsism and the 'vertigo of eternity'.

Maturity as stepping outside of one's comfort zone.

The speaker's prediction about the dissipation of problems.

Problems dissipating not through answers, but lack of need to ask.

Identity, God, and Experience as Interface

Communicating with one's highest level of identity (God).

The nature of God and our relationship to it.

Experience as an interface between self and reality.

The value of experiences as identities within a larger identity.

Nested identities as a 'Matryoshka doll' analogy.

Personal Values and the Purpose of Reality

Chris's highest value: understanding the identity of reality.

Reality having a teleological purpose and the role in fulfilling it.

Other values: love, relationships, experiences of life.

The potential loss of individual identity in seeking Nirvana.

Bernardo's perspective on his highest value: truth.

The importance of accepting one's truths, even if unpleasant.

Nietzsche's perspective on the value of truth.

Bernardo's unwavering commitment to truth.

Truth and reality as two sides of the same coin.

Summary of the shared perspective on truth and reality.