Where to begin - Part I here
An introduction to dishonesty - here

What is the self?

3. Changing the story to fit the contradictory facts you are faced with.

We can think about a simple line of enquiry and see where it ends up taking us.  What does the self actually consist of, or what does the word 'I' refer to in real life?

You may think the self is the body since it is your leg, your hand and so forth. Or, you may even think the self is the mind, or perhaps a combination of both. There are a wide array of theories but you obviously have your own intuitions. For this exercise though, I want you to grab a pen or open a .txt document. 

All I want you to do is write down what the self is briefly in several words. It definitely doesn't need to be a paragraph of iambic pentameter or anything like that, in fact for this exercise, less is more. I don't want you to over think this, so just go with your gut or what common sense tells you.

Once you have done that I want you to close your notepad and I am going to send you to my website for some reading, since there is little value in repeating what has already been said in the past. I outlined this aspect clearly and I think it is worthwhile to acquaint yourself with an introduction to the philosophical problem of identity, and this may be the perfect time to get a cup of tea!

Please read the two parts of this article before we crack on.

Identical Intuition - Part I

Identical Intuition - Part II

Now, having just read these I want you to think carefully about whether you want to change the original answer you gave to the question “What is the self?” Open up the notepad again and see if you want to revise your answer in light of being acquainted with the problem of identity.

If we say “The self is the mind” then how do we account for the idea that new experiences are constantly changing us and then claim we are the same thing that persists over time? We are completely different people now from when we were children, and we think differently - hopefully.

That being so, then how is it possible that minds provide continuity? If we were the mind then how can something dynamic and constantly changing be the same thing? This contradicts the very principle of identity. 

If we say “The self is the body”, we run in to the Theseus paradox. 

If we say “The self is a combination of the body and the mind” then how can you say two wrongs are able to make a right? Both are paradoxical so how can combining the two solve the paradox? 

Of course, there are other theories available than just these and you are free to change your mind. If you have not changed your mind, you obviously have a more nuanced view of the self and have already done some investigating. 

If you have changed your answer though, you have adjusted your view in light of this new knowledge, and you are now incoherent with your original belief. In this instance you have made a substantial change in your belief which is at odds with your former world-view. 

This.

This is exactly the kind of thing you need to be aware of. If you have fallen in to the trap of changing your position then congratulations - you have just come across your dishonesty. This is actually a good thing though! 

Allow me to explain. A major part of doing this process is to realise where you are being dishonest and subtly trying to shift your framework of thinking to warp anomalies in to your world-view. 

If we analyse this a little, what we have is a contradiction in terms. One story is saying the self is the mind X and then there is the changing of the story to; the self is Y, or saying the self = X+Y I.e a combination of body and mind. Without one actually saying to themselves “I am already right”, they are actually rationalising their assumption in this manner. 
They assumed they were correct all along and this contradiction in terms is just a small detail they had previously overlooked. Crucially though, this direct contradiction goes by unnoticed and does not make one realise that their entire framework of thinking rests on this view.

To outline this, if I were to say “A crab is a fish” you might look at me like a madman. After you laugh at me and explain that crabs are amphibious, I might concede a crab is a crustacean but I might ask “Maybe it is part fish?” 
At this stage, you would shake your head and conclude that I haven't a clue of what I'm talking about, and that I would benefit from a lesson in marine biology. 

The fact that I had never looked in to marine biology meant I had an impoverished world view but yet, I was still bold enough to assert my reasoning about crabs. Your laughing at me was sufficient to make sure I noticed that I had to revise my classification of marine species, but this was the first time I had been challenged. 

If I answered honestly here, I would have to say I didn't know a thing about marine biology and would do well to look in to it and investigate it. This would mean that my view of ocean species was unfounded and my lacklustre education was to blame. If I was to proclaim that I was right regardless of the contradiction I faced then you would rightly regard this as foaming at the mouth delusion. 

So how is it that one can maintain their convictions so resolutely in the face of absurdity?

It is only by completely deluding myself that I could continue to believe that crabs were part fish and refuse to look at any evidence that suggests otherwise. It is also the case that I could delude myself about the rest of my knowledge about marine species, which I would resolutely claim “Must still be true”. 

This does illustrate an example of the mechanism of dishonesty that you WILL uncover during this process, however, this is only a surface veneer. The crab example is a rather fishy example of how absurd it is to usurp contradictions in to our framework of thinking. However, this is EXACTLY the mechanism we are using when we reason about the self. 

Now consider that you are a social being that has a loosely defined identity within society, and has a place within a group of friends, family, and other peers. Now you might tell a story about 'you' in relation to these people. This story is obviously predicated on this 'you'. 
However, when you change this definition of what 'you' is, we are not talking about a trivial example of changing a story - we are talking about changing the ontological conditions necessary for your world view to work. Your framework of thinking entails that the world is made up of certain entities and this is requisite for the possibility of 'you' to exist as an agent in charge of 'your life'. 

There is a big difference here between simply changing the trivial stories we tell ourselves, and making fundamental changes to our ontology.

It is a common state of affairs where we have no need to question the nature of the self, and had you not come across this website or any of the others out there, then you would still be ignorant about it. However, we are in the business of challenging 'the story' and we need to be aware of how we make subtle changes in our beliefs about the self.
So, dishonesty, entails that you will find yourself making shifts in your ontological viewpoint to maintain this facade of self. Even if you didn't change your view in the exercise, you still need to be vigilant for when this is happening and recognise your dishonesty when it arises. 

When you find yourself jumping from the self is Z, to the self is W, or the self = X+Y, or formulate some other ad-hoc derivative theory, it is here where you will find dishonesty arising. This comes about from changing your original standpoint to fit the facts you are now presented with, in order to preserve your world view.  

Circular Reasoning

Interestingly, this is one of the most startling phenomenon I have ever witnessed as regards to human delusion. One of the main patterns we saw occurring again and again on Truth Strike and Ruthless Truth was that everyone used to follow a pattern of circular logic to maintain the story. 

4. Enaging in circular logic

They would often reason the self is X. When challenged and this view became untenable they would then reason that the self is Y instead. When this view crumbled they would then jump to the self is a combination of X +Y. 
When this was torn down they would then jump to a completely new theory of self and claim the self was Z all along. When this was demonstrated to be false they would then, unbelievably, go back to claim the self is X with an even stronger degree of conviction. 

Remarkably, when their circular reasoning and ontological changes were clearly highlighted they would resort to attacking us instead of admit that they had contradicted themselves! We would see people literally slither like a snake from one position to the other without actually questioning their fairy tale. 
They would desperately try to buttress their deluded world-view by going out on an all out attack, and it was here that we tore their ego to shreds in the hope that they would see their mistakes. 

This was where we were able to make breakthroughs and get them to witness their dishonesty, or realise that they were beyond the stages of us being able to snap them out of their deluded fantasy. 

Those who made it through the looking process actually had the courage to realise that this contradiction meant they were being dishonest with themselves. For the most part, there were many who could not cope with being wrong and we had to bear witness to some very laughable and desperately embarrassing threads, as people tried to cling to nonsense in an attempt to keep their vanity intact. 

Ironically, even when their contradictions were stuffed in front of their faces they would refuse to recognise them, since they were so concerned with trying to prop up their ego. These forums I used to partake in taught me that delusion can be such a powerful force that it could literally blind people to reality. 

That is why recognising your own dishonesty is one of the keys to getting traction in this investigation, and why I am harping on endlessly about it. 

I cannot stress this enough. 

The ability for people to engage in doublethink  as regards to their ontological reasoning, and not recognise it, is one of the more sinister aspects of dishonesty. You have to be on the look out for when you are making subtle shifts in your belief system to try and fit what you find in to your framework of thinking. 
This occurs most often when you take a fixed position on what the self is. This pattern played itself out on many threads I encountered on Ruthless Truth and Truth Strike and we will focus on an example shortly of this process. 

This pattern of dishonesty is the core mechanism of human delusion.

Now you are aware of it you can look out for this pattern arising, and it will become a handy tool during your investigation. It used to be the case we would point this out to people and tear their ego apart. 
Instead, you can recognise this pattern playing out armed with the knowledge that you will expect it to be occurring. You have to train yourself in the art of recognising dishonesty but it soon develops with a little effort.

Looping

Before we dispense with dishonesty entirely, there is another form in which it occurred. I tried to call this 'looping' to distinguish it from this shift in belief I have labelled as a pattern of dishonesty. This looping entails that you are not changing your belief subtly, but are engaged in perpetuating the same belief, even in the face of contradictory evidence. 

I call this looping simply because it is analogous to a tape loop droning on and on. If we are only reasoning within the confines our assumptions, we will yield the same results over and over. The delusion can blind you to reality and cause you to ignore contradictory evidence right in front of your face. 

Obviously, circular logic is the engine of dishonesty and the recognition of it renders it inert. It is only through dishonestly engaging in looping through a circle that we can maintain the facade of self. This usually affects theists as standard but I have even seen this affecting philosophically minded people too. 
This is counter intuitive as you would expect philosophers to be more open minded, however, direct experience taught me this was not always the case. The tactic of some was to argue about definitions instead of actually looking.  

This actually makes it harder  to unravel the layers of false thinking, and makes people more prone to this phenomena of looping. This is easy to overcome though, since you need only ask what does this line of reasoning presuppose? Then you investigate those presuppositions by looking for evidence in reality instead of worrying about terminological definitions and dialectical arguments. 
If you actually care about the truth then you need to question your cherished assumptions and opinions. If you really think that something exists then you should have no problem demonstrating it.

However, what used to happen most often was that some folk would use the ad nauseum argumentation strategy instead of look. This is simply because they wanted me to justify why they should look and frame me as a person that failed to convince them, when what they should have done is questioned their own assumptions.  This was simply a slithering form of cowardice.

This pattern also used to play out in everyone's enquiry to a degree. When people got stuck it was because they were not challenging the constraints within which they think, and were investigating within their framework of presuppositions. It is hard to explain how to think outside the box but essentially you need to start banging against the walls to see if they really have solidity.

I will not tell you this is going to be easy since you will get frustrated and stuck during your enquiry. The trick is though, to keep going and keep challenging. As long as you are looking for the truth and challenging the constraints of your theory about the self, then you are bound to stumble on it eventually.

Next we will see how powerful a force delusion can be with a real life example from the annuls of Truth Strike. 

TBC...

Where to begin - Part I here
An introduction to dishonesty - here

Having outlined this mechanism of dishonesty and shown how easy it is to slip in to it, we need to take a broad look at where we are situated. If we can be dishonest about something that simple then we do have to ask questions about whether our entire world-view is founded on honesty. What we often find is that it is based on our second mechanism of dishonesty which is this. 

2. Reasoning about an unvalidated assumption using another unvalidated assumption as the basis for the inference.

To illustrate this by analogy it is like arguing about the contents of a box, which you have never looked inside, and then using this assumption as the basis for your argument. 

I accept that a fair enquirer such as yourself may think I am being unnecessarily patronising in saying this, but I have to mention it since it was one of the most common aspects of dishonesty we used to come across in the TS days. 

An example of such an argument is: 'There is a self because I can think when I want to'. 

This kind of argument is derived from not looking in to and investigating the aspects of free will regarding our thinking. Then, it is a simple matter of using this reasoning to assert a self which has, hitherto, never been observed. 
In both sides of this proposition a fallacy has been committed but it is not so much that I can or should convince someone the self doesn't exist. However, if they were to look inside the box, so to speak, and examine their free will regarding thinking then maybe they would see this was questionable. Then they might look in to the self after seeing this assumption was untrue.

This kind of investigation is all I can ever hope to achieve in writing any piece here. I cannot convince you about the self, but hopefully I can convince you to look inside the box (and see if the cat is dead or alive Schrödinger! :).

To most people the fact I have mentioned this might seem absurd but the simple fact of the matter is that is scarily common. The depths of your brains deceit will shock you when you start investigating - I can promise you that much. I should also jog your memory that our first pattern was 'resting on prior assumptions without testing their validity' - We are simply dealing with an extension of the first pattern. 

This pattern is so common because we have had a lifetime of learning about the world, social conventions, learning coping skills, observing others, making our own mistakes, and of course being exposed to our education system. I think in one sense that it could be labelled as an 'indoctrination system'. 

The reason for this is that we are spoon fed an ideology from a young age and this shapes the way we grow up and the thoughts we form about the world. 

For instance, if we compared a Nazi ideology to our own, we would find it somewhat abhorrent that school kids were taught they were superior to all other beings and that these others were 'untermensch'. 

In our own education system we were relentlessly hammered with a more tolerant ideology of others, which I think makes for a better society, but the fact remains that it is still ideological. 

Naturally, if we could cram the best knowledge of the best historical tried and tested ideas and principles in to a training program, it makes sense we have an education system. 
This is not without its own set of problems and the way in which the education system was implemented was rightly criticised by Schopenhauer back in the 1800s and has never actually been addressed even to this day. 

He made the simple observation that our knowledge  in education arises from books and lectures, and rarely from experience. If you think back to the evidence based learning you did at school, maybe you will remember your science classes with fond memories. However, when you think about it you would concede that the majority of your studies were simply taken on faith that the teacher was a legitimate authority in possession of the facts. 

What leads us to think that these facts we learn are legitimate is that disciplines such as mathematics and the English language are consistent and internally coherent. In these fields there is certainly little in the way of contradiction until we start learning more English words, especially those with two meanings, or getting in to 'Godels incompleteness theorem' with mathematics for example.

Disciplines such as history (my favourite subject at school) paved the way for our critical thinking faculties and taught us to question versions of events. However, I later learned that we are taught a certain version of history in English schools and it was only when I went travelling and met others from Europe and wider, I realised the horrors that we had inflicted upon the world in our imperial days. 

To say we are taught a skewed version of history was an understatement. In Irish schools they teach a more in depth account of the potato famine and the vile horrors that the English inflicted upon starving masses. At our school though it was merely acknowledged that this happened and the atrocities were simply ignored. 
This certainly did not interfere with general consensus that we won many wars, were victorious in colonising the largest empire the world had seen, single handedly kick started the industrial revolution, and paved the way for the modern world. 

The fact of the matter is that in many ways our knowledge is given to us in the form of concepts and these are learned from books and lectures. I am sure you will also agree that since you left school a fair proportion of the information we derive from TV documentaries, other people, and the like, is 'reported knowledge' rather than derived from your experience. 

A clear example of this is regarding outer space. Whilst you may have observed a blurred distant dot that was allegedly the moon through a telescope that shook all over the place as a  youngster, much of our knowledge here is purely conceptual. Yet we know a fair amount about the solar system without ever actually going in to outer space. 

Cheeeeese Gromit?!

We take it on faith that the moon is not made from cheese but we have never bothered going there to look!

Whilst there is nothing wrong with reported knowledge and you can apply this to your own life usefully and critically reflect on it, it points to the fact that Schopenhauer's observation rings true. Whilst we may have had some practical lessons and even questioned some of the concepts we learn, I'm sure you will not be inclined to disagree with me when I say that much of our knowledge is second hand. 

Much more of our knowledge than we previously recognised is not actually derived from discovering it for ourselves experientially, it is conceptually taken on faith from a trusted authority.

We take a lot of things on faith  from authority and it would be plainly be absurd for me to try and suggest that this is a bad idea. Conversely, there are many things we have learned from our experience too, namely social skills, coping skills and using tools, driving cars etc. 
It makes sense that we are indoctrinated with a code of how to behave towards each other and are packed full of the most up to date concepts ready to take out in to the adult world. There is nothing wrong with this but we simply have to recognise that not all of the 'facts' we have learned are necessarily true. 

Whilst much of our knowledge is consistent, we merely have to open ourselves up to the possibility that some of it may not be true.

If we take the self as an example, I think you will find that you were never taught anything about it. Your  earlier existence entailed that 'you' were responsible for your actions and that you felt shame and humiliation when you were scolded by teachers and parents. Later you learned that all thinking is in a relational capacity to ones self, in relation to others, material needs, goals etc.

The fact of the matter is you were never explicitly taught any of this stuff, and if you ever did question it it was when you first encountered a philosophy class or came across someone else's viewpoint. It is simply a prosaic observation that this account is the way we view the world as 'selves' without ever having ever made it explicit. We simply assume our existence without ever working it out logically and our experience reinforces this notion of our being subjects in the world.

All we have to do really is start to investigate this area thoroughly  and check out whether our assumptions were true. 

When it comes to the bigger questions like why are we here? Or what is the meaning of life? We are told not to worry about such things and our philosophical inclinations are curtailed from a young age. I was lucky enough to rediscover them with a sense of vigour back when I investigated this no self malarkey.  

Your curiosity cannot be buried forever. That nagging doubt you feel about your place in the world, and what it all means, arises from starting out with a distorted view of the world. This view is based purely on the groundless assumptions our brain made about us being some kind of entity having the experience of the world, that we took as a given without ever questioning this notion. 

A Given Framework Of Thinking

With limited information our brain fills in the blanks and makes assumptions necessary to fit the framework of facts we are presented with. We are hammered relentlessly by advertisers who play on our primordial fears of being ostracised by our peer group, or try to associate the most mundane and banal items with positive images of fun. Take any advert and look at the images it portrays. Then  take the item itself independently from the advert and see if it excites you quite so much. It's just a fucking ice cream right?! 

You get people in offices sat there all day trying to associate unconnected things like 'healthy lifestyle' with chemically laden food. This pattern is actually played out to us on the receiving end relentlessly. It is not so much that we take these things as truth, it merely reinforces the view that we are deficient in some way, or of some need, and that these products can fill this void in your life.

Some of the adverts try to elicit us in to feeling an emotional connection to the protagonist. The fact of the matter remains is that it actually works. If it didn't, then why would it be a multi million business? 

I would like to say it doesn't work on me as such but when I find myself having to shop around for insurance, what are the first places that spring to my mind? Confused.com, Go Compare etc (In the UK). If I am honest, I am a sucker like the rest of the masses despite not wanting to be. 
I am already familiar with these companies and the way they arise in my mind when I want insurance is because when I listen to the radio they are there, when I watch TV they are there. You could literally spend a whole day and have one of their adverts appear every 15 – 20 minutes drumming in to your brain. 

I tend to stay away from TV and read books instead, and I also try to avoid listening to local radio, so I am not subjected to the relentless advertising which I have come to despise. I also have ad blockers on my web browser and I delete marketing messages without reading them. 
The thing to note is that even though we may try and insulate ourselves from this relentless stream of BS, it still has an effect on us because we absorb the things around us that either grab our attention, or pass us by unaware. 

It is impossible for your mind not be polluted with these cultural artefacts.

The fact that confused.com and go compare spring to mind is not because  you have the remotest interest in insurance products, it is their aggressive advertising practices which means you can't help that they spring to mind when you have the ball ache of hunting for a cheaper insurance renewal.

More alarming is the active influence in society which emanates from the news and print media. When we engage with any form of media we are being deliberately led to think in a certain manner and their goal is to convince us that their account is correct. If we think about communication in its most basic form we use it to influence people. 

Even if we are telling the time or talking about the weather, we are in some way attempting to influence another person to believe the facts we may be in possession of.

Politically speaking, matters are far far worse than we may think. What we have is not a debate in this country, but parameters to contain any real debate. Mention Karl Marx and be ready for some opinion editorial piece , by someone who never read a single page of Marx's work, to tell you what a wretched political system he advocated. 

Whilst Mr Marx's positive thesis has been laid to waste and has been a proven failure in practice, his criticisms of the capitalist system are poignant and as valid as ever. However, these howling contradictions he highlighted within this system are generally ignored. 

We might ask how is it that we can ignore such howling contradictions that render the capitalist system as broken? The way in which in this done is by the media repeatedly portraying Marxism as a failed system and by extension we  simply assume that he never had any good insights about the current system that organises society at large, since these are never mentioned anywhere. 

By framing Marx as a villain they propagate the ad hominem fallacy by trying to slur his character and make it sound as though he had nothing valuable to say.

It should be no surprise that it is the wealth accumulating to the top 1% and various other things that the power elite want to maintain. Their vested interest is in maintaining the status quo is in order to propagate the favourable arrangements that they and their cronies enjoy at the expense of the common man. 

It should not be too difficult for you to see that the majority of Britain's media is owned by the wealthy and they try to keep control of the parameters of the debate. 

As Noam Chomsky said: 
'The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum' (Chomsky, 1998).

The media in this country have pulled off a coup de tat. By silencing genuine and poignant criticisms of the capitalist systems they have effectively silenced this aspect of the debate. Where do we ever get to hear any meaningful debate these days? 
Rather than being presented with the arguments for each side, we have opinion pieces which aim to influence us by appealing to our emotions rather than present any kind of rational debate.

The reason for this is that we are apathetic to what is going on and most people don't want to hear about the debate. If we were to present the debate it would take up multiple pages and lets face it, most people are more inclined to read a few paragraphs that sum it up simply, and arouse their emotions, than engage in any real critical thinking.

This is because critical thinking and philosophy are boring to most people. 

Period. 

It is asking a lot for the layman to engage in any kind of debate that goes way over their heads. However, some of us are condemned to the compulsion of a life of picking away at orthodoxy and exploring the implications of our discoveries.

To say that capitalism is flawed is missing the bigger picture since there are definitely virtues of such a system. Communism is hardly going to solve the problem and has its own major flaws and contradictions. However, the way in which neo-liberal economic orthodoxy is failing us is in that the state is deregulating restraints on business and curtailing the liberties of its citizens. 

You need only read about the way our governments have been busted for spying on its citizens (viz. Snowden) yet allow companies like Amazon to avoid paying its fair share of tax. The fact of the matter is that corporate power has infiltrated our democracy. Economic priorities trump the very people whom the economic practice of capitalism is meant to serve. 

Keynes (1936) described it as 'The worm that had been gnawing at the insides of modern civilisation... the over-valuation of the economic criterion'. Nearly one hundred years later we are still faced with the same problem and there has been little impetus for society to move on from this dead end of thinking (we are in a post modern crisis of capitalism).

Our priorities have been skewed by our indolence to the real debate we should be having and the fact of the matter is that economics are prioritised above human well being and that of the fragile planet upon which we live. To my mind the right / left split in politics is a false dichotomy that pits one aspect of human nature against the other. I am not the first to call for a new politics but what we have currently is broken in many ways. 

Whilst we have got sidetracked here, what we have shown is that what we see and hear is controlled in the sense that an orthodoxy is entrenched, and alternative views silenced. The internet is the greatest threat to this control of information so have the government responded to it?

They are starting to ban certain sites, curtail freedom of speech and our military have even created an army of pro government propaganda trolls. 

If we were not influenced so much by society then why would there be a need to go to such lengths to control the narrative, and why would the Chinese government, for example, attempt to throttle free speech on the internet? Clearly certain narratives are dominant and are reproduced across society. Big narratives are ideologically determined by the media and often go unchallenged. These form the basis of political discourse and try to make it more palatable to the everyday layman by simplifying things. 

'Ideas are dangerous, but the man to whom they are most dangerous is the man of no ideas. The man of no ideas will find the first idea fly to his head like wine to the head of a teetotaller' (G. K. Chesterton, 1905).

Here we can give an example of how narratives proliferate the mindset of a nation.

Bertie lives in a reclusive village and is a reader of a propaganda rag that masquerades as a newspaper. In the pages of the 'Daily Fail' it speaks of the horrors of foreign immigrants coming over here to maliciously steal our jobs and pillage our benefits system. 

Bertie has never seen an immigrant before but he doesn't need to. He has all the facts he needs to know already. He can go down the pub in the evening and recite these horror stories. As he slams down his drink proclaiming that immigrants have ruined this country, his compatriots nod along in unanimous agreement.

Perhaps if Bertie left his insular village and went out to meet some of these 'horrendous' immigrants who have only 'come here to commit crime and cheat us', he might discover that most of them are the same as us. They want enough money to have a decent standard of living, and be happy. 

Many are prepared to work hard for this opportunity and have left their families behind to try and escape the poverty trap they found themselves in. Others have fled war zones and risked their lives by placing themselves in the clutches of people smugglers who profit from desperation.

Immigrants are a convenient scapegoat for the abject failings of successive governments. Whilst immigration inevitably causes some problems, it is more convenient for the government to say it is immigrants who have put public services, such as the NHS, under strain than to admit that their philosophical outlook is completely broken and is failing its citizens.

Check out the scandalous PFI contracts as a clear example of how Neo Liberal economic orthodxy is bleeding us dry.  Then compare how many stories about PFI contracts and immigrants there are. Do you see a pattern occurring? What did you make of the expose at 25:30? Is this legalised institutional corruption bleeding the taxpayer dry, or is the problem really eastern Europeans working a shitty minimum wage job and paying taxes?

In any case, Bertie may come across a bad example that reinforces his stereotype, or he may meet someone who challenges his view. The point here is that whatever experience he has, at least he can reason from the solid grounds of direct experience instead of a reported knowledge that was designed to fit an ideological viewpoint. That's a start at least.

Whilst Bertie might end up committing another fallacy by tarring everyone with the same brush, at least he has made an effort to see if his assumptions were true, even if he doesn't change his convictions. 

The moral of this story is simply that it is so easy and common place to reason from untested assumptions, that it is natural for us to absorb narrative accounts and use these as a basis to draw conclusions. Most often,  we simply absorb the conclusions we are spoon fed by society that may or may not have a factual basis. 

The important thing to realise here is that we are now in the business of checking our assumptions and conclusions with a fine toothed comb, and we are aware that this pattern of dishonesty is so common place that we often don't realise we are doing it. Unlike Bertie, we cannot rest on mere generalisations derived from our limited experience either. 

We are going to have to dig much deeper.  

It is not honest enquiry to say “I must exist” without actually checking all the assumptions. Naturally, the difficulty in looking at no self arises from the standpoint of being in the world as a supposed participant. We cannot simply reason that we don't exist as this is contradictory information to our experience so far in life. Nor can we do detached objective enquiry, since we are always already within the bounds of our cultural preconceptions that shape how we process that knowledge.  

It should now be not so shocking to you to conceive that if it is possible for adults with a brain to absorb narrative accounts from propaganda gutter journalism, then the possibilities for polluting a young inquisitive mind, that lacks critical thinking faculties are unlimited. We need only consider folly such as the tooth fairy, god, and father christmas for examples of perpetrating deception.

Your teachers, parents, and society at large, had a head start in telling you things were a certain way and, unlike the father christmas story, you never once stopped to question what you were told. 

It might seem obvious and intuitive that we are an agent pulling the strings behind our experience. Once we start to peel back our assumptions and unearth our dishonesty though, we discover that there is not much logical basis for our assertions and that our received 'default wisdom' is quite empty. 

We may assert that there is some being in the tree telling its leaves how to grow but this is just as empty an assertion as claiming there is a self that directs the thoughts and actions. Our enquiry therefore, is not focussed on logically denying our existence or assessing dialectical arguments endlessly. 

We have to look at the phenomena unfolding in reality at the present moment. 

Crucially though, we also have to be aware this enquiry can be distorted by our taken for granted beliefs and assumptions and this is where dishonesty comes in to play for the fair enquirer. By utilising looking, and logic as a tool, we can actually discover the doublethink in which we are engaged, which supports the notion of being an independent entity living in an internal world that directs the bodies actions in an external world.

By now you should have a very solid grasp that we cannot take anything for granted – we have to do the work and test it out. 

In this manner, we need to be vigilant of when we are using untested assumptions and investigate them instead. We also need to drop any reasoning that are extended from any untested assumptions. We will look at a comprehensive example later on, but for now you need to be aware that this pattern is so very very easy to fall in to, and infects a surprising facet of what we think of as 'truth'.  

It is now pertinent to turn our attention to begin to look at how we conceptualise this self on an intuitive level...




The Fairytale of Dishonesty >

Where to begin - Part I here
An introduction to dishonesty - here

Let us think about the actions of the body. Do they all just happen of their own accord, or do they require any conscious thought? Perhaps we could try and take conscious control of certain actions. Can you, for example, influence and regulate the rate at which you synthesise ATP from Glycogen, or even metabolise proteins, and produce insulin? 

Can this be done?

If you are reading this and then immediately answer no, then in all likelihood you are being dishonest. Unless you can clearly remember sitting there previously, and trying to manipulate these processes that do not, apparently, come in to consciousness, then you are taking it on faith that this is a true state of affairs without actually testing it. 
This is not honest enquiry, it is simply resting on the assumption that this is a taken for granted matter of fact. 

This is simply dishonesty at work. Welcome to the first pattern of dishonesty that the brain engages in.

1. Resting on prior assumptions without actually testing their validity.

The way that dishonesty comes in to play is that we are merely resting on such assumptions rather than engaging in testing their validity. To equate this to a real world example it is like claiming you know what the contents of a box are without actually opening it and looking inside. 

The tin can may be labelled as crab meat and every tin you have ever seen, you were told had the same contents time and time again. It didn't occur to you that smugglers were putting diamonds in the tins!

Have you ever been so convinced of an assumption that you have made plans only for them to fall apart because your assumption was wrong? Assumptions are useful don't get me wrong, however, we are now in the business of testing them.

Going back to our example, if you cannot think of a specific experience or you have a vague intuition that something 'must' or 'just is' true, then it probably requires that you investigate it. 
What I want you to do now is actually get a feel for this process and look to see if your reasoning was actually true. Can you control the synthesis of glycogen from ATP in your cells or insulin production? Is there any phenomenon that appears to contradict your world view? 

Take 30 seconds or so to actually try this out and for once in your life,  and you will have momentarily engaged in honest looking. 

Actually do this right now...

…

… ...

There, that wasn't so hard was it? 

This honesty lark is not complicated at all, it is the most simple act of looking for the truth. 

That is all that is required

There is no magical looking or anything esoteric about this at all. It is just making sure that we actually look to see if our assumptions are true. If you can keep this at the forefront of your mind instead of trying to imagine what no self is 'like', or trying to deny the self exists then you will actually be more inclined to look instead of think about it.

Anyway, as you could see during the exercise these kinds of processes happen of their own accord and cannot be manipulated simply by willing them. No phenomenon appears in our awareness to suggest that there is any control of these processes. 
It may seem a little trivial to do this but we have utilised looking at direct experience to see if we can manipulate these processes and we have discovered that the following proposition is necessarily true: That there are certain aspects of physiology that we cannot consciously control. 

We can also logically work on this because we can suggest conditions under which our logic holds. For example, if we were asleep or in a coma it does not require that we were are involved in these processes to make them work. Clearly, it is not necessary that we are conscious of these processes. 
Were it requisite that we consciously had to will these states we would have no explanation for why these processes occur during our sleep or in the event we were comatose for example. 

If we could refute this line of reasoning just once we could discard it, however, we have discovered that consciously willing is neither necessary nor sufficient for causing these processes. Part of doing things in this way is that we don't rest on this as universal truth because it is impossible to prove a negative. 
We also acknowledge that this reasoning is based on other suppositions such as there being a real physical brain that regulates our metabolism, and some 'thing' that is conscious to try and look to see if it can manipulate these brain states. 

We could have worked this out from logic and infer that we don't have the ability to will certain things like this to happen. We do not will ourselves to sneeze for example and we can extend this argument to other physiological processes. 
The point here though is that by extending the same argument we create an assumption that this idea has universal applicability. Whilst in this case, our assumption was true, the point is we actually looked for evidence in direct experience and that is all you ever have to do when you are engaged in this looking.

It is not complicated at all, it is simply looking at the truth of direct experience.

However though, we have to leave open the possibility that we may find sufficient cause through simply willing the action to occur at some point in the future. We might be able to take control of certain processes eventually by training ourselves, for example. It may also be the case that other people might report that they can manipulate these processes. 
You are testing your assumptions and that means that you have to be agnostic about other claims and trust only your own direct experience. It might seem that we are looking for absolute certainty when we are using honesty, however, in light of the lack of evidence in empirical reality, we have to concede there is no evidence to suggest that our willing is a sufficient cause for our metabolic function. 

I am sure there are very few, if any, that would argue against this conclusion but we must leave open the possibility nevertheless. Before we go any further I think it is important to make a clarification on the above paragraph. You will have noticed that I wrote 'It might seem that we are looking for absolute certainty'. In one sense we want to be sure that what we have found is true. However, the truth of the matter is we are actually dealing in uncertainty. This is because we are challenging our preconceived notions and assumptions. 

Once we demonstrate the fallibility of our preconceptions, we actually find we are increasing our uncertainty about the world. 

Where we thought we'd find foundations of certainty, we actually find these notions are quite empty which can be a little disconcerting. In essence, we are highlighting how our belief structures are groundless. These structures become more unstable throughout this investigation, and hence this is directly correlated with the overall sense of uncertainty that we may begin to feel. If anything, where we thought things were black and white we actually find shades of grey.

We should take away the fact that we need to make sure our ideas conform in a one-to-one relationship with reality, and this is done with experiential validity aka looking. We also accept that where we expect to find certainty we actually find uncertainty, simply because we cannot prove the non-existence of things. 
Proclaiming that something does not exist is actually dishonest as it is committing the argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy. As you go through the process and unravel the fiction, you will start to get leverage on the difference between concepts, and phenomena that have a real existence in real life.

In doing things this way we have to leave open the possibility that an experiential proof that confounds our findings may arise at some time in the future. However, until such time as one presents itself in your direct experience, it is not valid to use possibility as the basis for further reasoning. 
An example of this is time travel. 
Yes, we cannot prove it is definitely impossible in the future as this is committing the argument from ignorance fallacy. However, this is certainly not grounds for us to reason that, therefore, time travel is possible and then rest our entire world view on this assumption, or reason from the possibility.

A more relevant example of this is the self. Without an experientially validated proof of what the self is, it would make sense to suspend any reasoning based on it without having ascertained what it is we are actually reasoning about. Naturally, you should expect that you will be finding uncertainty about the concept of your self during this investigation but this leads us on to our second mechanism of dishonesty.


The Dishonesty of Assumption >

Where to begin - Part I here

Dishonesty - An Introduction

This word has a negative connotation straight off the bat. It does suggest that there is a degree of conniving and plotting, much like in the sense of perpetrating a scam on some poor unsuspecting victim. 
As a matter of fact dishonesty is just as toxic as this metaphor makes out, however, the conniving and scheming aspect is done entirely by your brain. 

It is in fact you who are both the unsuspecting victim and blissfully unaware of the deceit your mind is perpetrating all the time to prop up the facade the constitutes 'your world' – but fear not. 

The whole purpose of this investigation is to root out and shine the light on this dishonesty. 

You will find I make unkind references to religion frequently in my work but I do not blame the adherents, it is actually this core mechanism of human dysfunction that riles me. The depths of dishonesty to which we all sink will literally shock you, once you start to explore what is happening. 
Back in the Ruthless Truth days we use to refer to it as 'the lie'. When we used to spot patterns of delusion within our own ranks, we used to cry “There is lie in you”. In the context of this view of the self as a 'lie' it seemed pertinent to label it as 'wretched dishonesty'. 

I will concede here that nobody likes to be told they are dishonest. To come across this site for the first time and be told that all your life you have been engaged in wretched dishonesty is hardly going to endear you to me. 

That being said though, if you have the nous to investigate no self be prepared to discover the uncomfortable truth. 

I am not here to make this more palatable or persuade you that you need this no self insight, I am primarily interested in studying this as a curiosity and I happen to think that others would benefit from my previous work. For this reason I am laying out some of the tools one can use, and I will be presenting some of my findings whilst working out in the field. 
You are not required to undertake this investigation so if the notion that you are dishonest upsets you then please walk away now. I take it as a given that our starting point is being wrapped up in an intricate fantasy story that is held together at the seams by dishonesty. 

Whilst there are a number of narratives available in which to view this process, the only things that are important for us to note here are that dishonesty is a very destructive force against humanity and we are all unconsciously engaged it in some way. Some more than others. It is probably worth mentioning that I was drowning in wretched dishonesty when I started this journey, so you are probably not as much of an extreme case as I was!

Crucially though, we have to recognise that it is not our fault that we are dishonest. 

It is pointless looking back at what life threw at us and how we built psychological defences to cope with the world. It is also pointless blaming others and making accusations of dishonesty. We are already engaged in dishonesty and we have to accept that we will find it when the story begins to unravel. 
We certainly didn't intend to deceive ourselves from the outset but, unfortunately, that is what happens ultimately. It is up to us to start and dispel our ignorance and test our taken for granted assumptions. The first step is actually gathering the honesty and courage to be willing to face up to what we find. 

Dishonesty can only be perpetuated continuously in the absence of truth. 

The Ruthless Truth and Truth Strike Days

One of the reasons I do not masquerade as a  so called 'liberator' anymore is because I realised that no-self as an end, in itself, is a trapping. There is further to go and there is no sense in which it is a final liberation. 

However, it must be remarked that it opens up great vistas and insights in to the human condition, and for that I am grateful. 

That being said I still fall foul of dishonesty from time to time, and it is not so much that one  vanquishes it after seeing through the illusion. 
It is such an ingrained response to coping with the world, that it still happens. One must be vigilant and continue to look at the mechanisms.

The second reason I stopped 'liberating' was because I realised that I was swimming against the current. Trying to take on dishonesty and fight it with fire was a fruitless endeavour. To give an analogy it was like fighting a hydra. Once you chopped one head off, another would grow back immediately and the creature would be far more riled this time. 

Credit to Moonscream: http://moonscream.deviantart.com/gallery/26906822/Pencils-And-Ink

Once I turned my back on doing this I was glad to walk away from it. The depths of deceit that some people were engaged in absolutely sickened me. This dishonesty is the core mechanism of human delusion , and it was not pleasant trying to battle it. 
All the fire and brimstone that came out of ruthless truth and truth strike was never directed at the person, but it was directed at this mechanism. Persistence would usually win the day but it was at a great cost to my time and it was disheartening to think that humanity was held in its clutches. 

Instead of doing this, I feel it is better to let people find the truth themselves and now I am no longer burdened with trying to wage a futile and demoralising war against psychological defence mechanisms and peoples inherent dishonesty.

It is now your prerogative to try and bring in to awareness the mechanisms of delusion.

Having being acquainted with fighting human delusion, I am now a weary veteran and have an intimate understanding of the mechanisms we use to delude ourselves, and can tell you some of the downright bizarre phenomena that I discovered when dealing with peoples psychological defences. 
It is not so much that you need to rote learn these or anything, but once you get an idea of what to look for, it will become apparent that this is actually happening in real life. Once you start investigating, you will witness the mechanisms of dishonesty playing out and they become easier to spot. 

Honesty is not some simple resolve to be honest, it is actually being attuned to the way in which we live in a fantasy world. This world is held together by assumptions which are contradicted by what we discover when we begin looking. 

Seeing the truth is what loosens the stranglehold of dishonesty.

Truth is a very relative term and is an empty concept in of itself. If by truth we mean it is derived from direct experience then this is what I am talking about. However, when we investigate this area we actually discover that most of our ideas about the self are given to us within the constraints of a social construct. 
If you adopt the view that all of this knowledge has been framed through a socially shared cultural context which has never been challenged, then it should now make sense to you now that challenging the constraints of this context piece by piece, is exactly what we will be doing.    

So, the best way to do this is to give a very basic example of looking at real life and investigate the way we draw our conclusions. From here, we can have a glimpse of the process and look at the way we use the information derived from experience. 



The Ease of Dishonesty >