This is a reply to a comment on the article 'Self requisite for causation'. This is a sidetrack from the essay but it is an interesting set of musings nonetheless.

I am kind of convinced that there is, or has been, no a selves ever on the Earth. For animals I think all vertebrates have phenomenal, attentional, and cognitive self models. I don't know much about invertebrates.

Hi, glad you enjoyed the post and thanks for bringing this up!

It is certainly fascinating to uncover the similarities that organisms share, especially when it comes to consciousness and cognition. It is always mind blowing looking in to this field but there is always the danger of anthropomorphising - where we assign the attributes of humans to animals.

This is where 'the hard problem' really comes in to play, since there is no way we could even begin to imagine what 'other experience' was like. That being said though, it is not in the realms of fantasy to imagine that other neural networks support phenomenal consciousness in other vertebrates.

I think you are quite right to discount the possibility in creatures which lack neuronal functioning, such as insects. However, me might ask where do we draw the line?

As a thought experiment we might look at simpler brain structures until we find a species with one neuron say. We would then likely suggest that it is too simple to be conscious. Then we would be obliged, according to our categorisations of conscious & non conscious beings, to account for what level of neuronal functioning - i.e. number of neurons and patterns of firing etc. - is requisite for consciousness.

This problem is intractable and can only ever be an inference within the constraints of our hard problem of consciousness. Interestingly it also asks many more questions too such as, is there a golden ratio for neuronal functioning?

Is degree of consciousness something linearly or logarithmically related to neuron complexity?

Is consciousness some kind of on/off state that only occurs once a threshold has been reached?

In this sense, we are currently shut out of an answer to these problems and our attribution of what species are, or are not conscious, is nothing more than arbitrary guesswork. Add to this the problem of other minds, and the fellow sceptics among us have a field day everyday!

However, a recent article in New Scientist suggests that consciousness arises from temporal stable states in neuron firings, that last hundredths of a second. This really is interesting and may hold a key to unlocking this problem. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22630164.500-sparks-of-consciousness-mapped-in-most-detail-yet.html

It is at least intuitive that chimpanzees and the like have quite a rich phenomenal experience. As far as the existence of self model is concerned, I have previously postulated that it arose as a structural requirement necessary before language appeared. 

I wrote an article about it in 2011 You will probably find it interesting but you will have to forgive my poor writing style and RT style erroneous reasoning as it was written before I was versed in philosophy! 

http://ghostvirus2011.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/origins-of-self.html

In any case, the kinds of brain function we would be looking at would include episodic memory i.e. remembering events, the re-sequencing of 'nyeeps' (chunks of phenomenal data), behavioural recognition, and crucially, awareness of another's knowledge or cognitive ability.

The kind of example behaviours we would see from this functioning might include evidence of planning according to past experience, ability to make tools, noticing the intentions of others, and demonstrating awareness of whether others have noticed danger.

Interestingly, all these attributes are displayed by different members of the ape family. Crucially, this leads us to suggest that the self model is not limited to humans, and allows us to postulate that the brains modelling of the world in a relational capacity to the body that contains and protects it, is a function that could have evolved and is present in other species. There we have a plausible explanation of what self hood really is, instead of trying to say it is an entity divided from the 'objective world' as such.

As far as agency is concerned, I would suggest self hood consists in embodied human agency manifested as phenomenal experience. I.e. we are not something calling the shots separate from the brain, or passing judgement on the phenomena that arises, or rearranging 'nyeeps' in to new sequences to make plans.

'We' are nothing but the manifestation of the appearance of phenomenal experience arising within the brain as it goes about its business in the world. Hence, we can demonstrate the lack of control and free will that we thought we had because life lives itself, it always has without the need for bringing a separate 'you' in to the equation.

Naturally, we throw up many more questions (its always a can of worms!) such as, am I committed to saying consciousness is epiphenomena? How do we suppose there really is an external world in which these brains subsist? - I could go on but there is plenty to chew on here and I hope to explore these questions in my future ramblings!

The aim of self requisite for causation was not to 'convince' you there were never any selves, it was more to trash dualism and really question the suppositions upon which the notion of selves are based. 

Its not much use for me to convince anyone one model of reality is true over the other, however, I do want you to look in experience. Admittedly here we are dealing with the logical end of the bargain and I hope this helps to highlight the untested assumptions we have never dared or even thought about questioning.

I did not want to spend too much time covering old ground but felt it necessary to put the past firmly behind me. I want to discuss the problems of the old approach and convincingly answer this question.

“What is the difference between this approach I am now working on and that of Ruthless Truth & Truth Strike?”

Skeletons in the Closet

When I say “there is no you”, what I really mean is that there is no division between experiencer and experience.

It is perhaps more unpalatable but not so difficult to comprehend if we consider it in this way. What we think of as 'me' or 'ourself' is an entity that directs the bodies actions and thinking. However, this is an illusion as it actually happens automatically, life lives itself. There is no entity separate from experience calling the shots in what we perceive as our life. Our experience consists of a modelling process that allows the brain to think abstractly. This modelling process actually constructs what we call 'I' or 'ourselves' through language and other phenomena, and is simply a representation or 'self model' of a person.

What this actually means is the person that we think we are is simply a series of thoughts produced by the brain. In other words what you conceive of as 'me', or 'yourself', is nothing more than a thought.

To outline our conceptions, if we had our five senses and our visceral (felt) bodily experiences removed what would be left? Us westerners commonly like to think for the most part we are some entity, or thinking thing, that exists independently from the external world. This is known as dualism and most often we hold the belief that we are a soul of some sort, especially if we have developed our own particular belief through religious and spiritual channels. If you are a scientist like myself you might hold to a more materialistic explanation.

Given that 'no self' might be unpalatable for some people it is worth mentioning this is a widely accepted philosophical position given numerous support by philosophers and neuroscientists. A few books worth checking out here are 'The ego tunnel' - Thomas Metzinger, 'The Ego Trick' - Julian Baggini, and 'The Self Illusion' - Bruce Hood. There is also a book called the “User Illusion” - Tor Nørretranders which explores consciousness and the idea that it is a simulation. These go in to a lot of depth on the subject and dispense and replicate many of the counterarguments that I have used in the past, as well as present many new ones.

If your goal on this site is to realise Anatta, I would suggest that you don't fill your head with concepts as this makes exploring this phenomena more difficult. This is for the simple reason that you are more prone to conceptualise about the phenomena you experience. I realise that a degree of intellectual understanding is absolutely necessary, however, a balance needs to be achieved.

In an ideal world someone would come here naïve and pick up the tools to test the claim and then do the reading I outlined above. However, this is far from an ideal world and we need some degree of convincing that this insight is possible before we look in to the possibility. This takes us to a fundamental problem with the RT and TS methodologies, which I will highlight shortly.

The Pillars of the Acropolis

It was back in 2010 that a juncture was made between this conventional philosophy of self as illusion, and what came to be known as Ruthless Truth, and subsequently Truth Strike. A British philosopher called Ciaran Healy managed to find in his investigations that it was possible to recognise this illusion of self by looking deeply in to our direct experience. This is known properly as phenomenology in academic circles, we just called it 'looking'. Essentially, the idea of these sites was to facilitate an intense phenomenological investigation which could rapidly yield the insight of Anatta. There are various groups who still guide people through this process, such as Liberation Unleashed, and Hall of Mirrors which can be found on the web.

When this experience of Anatta was initially realised, it provided the means to disrupt negative thought patterns and bought great understanding to the nature of reality. At this point in time we genuinely believed Ciaran had discovered the psychological trigger for enlightenment and that we had become enlightened. From that point on we mistakenly believed we were responsible for waking the world up from its delusion. We believed we had discovered the key to ending suffering in the world and we had a duty to humanity to show this to everyone. However, we later discovered that this is what the Buddhists call an 'arising and passing' event, that is simply known in their doctrine as 'Anatta', which translates as 'not self'.

It is now pertinent to discuss why the RT and TS organisations failed, and investigate the premises that they relied on to assert their arguments and conduct their methodologies. The ethos of these organisations was to help seekers realise this same insight of Anatta. This was done through the process of introspection and getting the seeker to question the presuppositions that they logically held through a phenomenological investigation. While some people managed to complete the process, many others failed, and many more still, tried to argue about whether this insight was possible without even bothering to do any investigation.

It was the custom at the time to tear their arguments apart and make piercing attacks against their identity. This was known as harpooning because they could not leave the argument with their vanity intact and this trapped them in dialogue. This was a deliberate ploy to ensure that they could not escape as their vanity would not allow them. This allowed us to lance out their delusion and show how they were subject to incoherent thinking patterns, in the hope that they would actually notice them and realise they were deluding themselves. This was very effective when we used to troll forums and trapped people there in front of their peers. There was always someone who would take the bait simply on the principle that they could rubbish someones argument to make themselves look good in front of their peers. What happened was that it would end up in a real mess as they frantically tried to reinforce their delusion.

The illusion of self centres around how our self model is perceived by other people. By driving an iron stake right through their vanity, they could not bear to see their image shattered, and they would desperately fight to maintain this illusion to themselves and their peers. This would cause all kind of incoherent excuses to come out in desperation and they would always launch personal attacks against us. We would seize on this and highlight this to the victim and everyone on the forum. In this sense, there was no escape them as we tried to humiliate them into looking at the truth.

This spectacularly backfired though. Most often we alienated ourselves by trying to impose our viewpoint on others. Most of the time their friends would rally round to try and support them. Even though we demolished their arguments, they would simply point out our aggressive tone and use this as a justification not to look. We used to justify this by calling it tough love and for those few we managed to free it seemed worth it initially. We believed that if we could free enough people from their false self, this movement would take on a life of its own and we could realistically end suffering in the world.

Lofty ambitions, indeed. However, this sent a massive wave of negativity through many spirituality forums, and throughout the internet. In this sense these organisations have a bad name and are infamous in many circles, as are the very people who used to run and operate them. This would include yours truly. Yes, I regret some of it but I think there are only positives to be gained from this point onwards, and I have only the desire to explore further and cast what we have discovered in to a tool set that anyone can pick up and use.

There was a problem underpinning the entire process of all these endeavours all along, that no amount of ad hominem attacks could cover over. Essentially, the premise of what we were doing was claiming to people that they could introspect in to their own minds, and gain a realisation that would allow them to get a handle on their suffering to a degree. This sounds like a rather miraculous happening and here it is plain to see that not only did it require a degree of belief in the concept of no self, it also required that there could never be any kind of objective proof whether this was possible. Not to mention that the idea of no self confounds peoples beliefs and runs contrary to the Advaitan teachings of true self.

Testimonials

'[N]o testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish.' (Hume, 1748)

To outline the first problem vividly we can start to look at the faults in this aspect related to what constituted a proof of the Anatta claim.

To start with the claim that there is no self sounds strange and when one starts extolling the said benefits this may sound to good to be true. In fact we could go as far as to claim it is somewhat miraculous. Now what evidence can we present to assert the proposition 'there is no you'?

All we can ever present is a demolition of arguments for the existence of the self, and a set of testimonies that this insight is possible. When we come to rest on testimony we are immediately in trouble. We can run Hume's argument against miracles here and effectively demolish any such notions of testimony ever being reliable. It would be no more absurd to suppose that on the third day Jesus arose from the dead by forming a belief based on the testimony of the apostles. Since much of the early work on these forums was not done with any methodology, this renders it invalid from a scientific perspective even if we were to produce phenomenological accounts from each person. There may be some value in revisiting this area but since I have no need to try and demonstrate it to anyone, it seems redundant to any pressing lines of enquiry I shall endeavour to follow in future.

We are naturally inclined to be suspicious of any testimony that is not agreeable with our experience and this is why RT and TS were always facing an uphill struggle. It is of little wonder we could only resort to ad hominem insults and trying to destroy peoples credibility when they would not look. This led us to try and shock people in to looking with brute force tactics. However, when you see people acting in such a manner you should be as concerned as when you have a pack of rabid Jehova's witnesses banging on your door to present you with the 'truth'. All this ad hominem stuff ever did was undermine any of the work we tried to do and failure was the only possible outcome.

The Belief in 'No Self'

'A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence' (Hume, 1739)

To compound matters further, in order for someone to investigate Anatta it is necessary that there is a belief in the possibility of realising it. It should be of little wonder that much of the work that had been done was founded on convincing someone they should investigate this area. Without a belief in at least the possibility that this insight can be realised, then it is clear that there would be no such investigation. This principle was highlighted many times by people who came to these forums with no intention of looking.

Of course, Buddhist's and other spiritual sources claim Anatta is possible, but again we are back on the shaky grounds of testimony. For this reason, we had this two pronged problem to deal with where we had to encourage the idea of possibility, and have only recourse to testimony and showing how common arguments for the existence of the self were false. After this point, it was only possible to reach a subjective truth of no self by looking, which is problematic in of itself. Ultimately this is not demonstrable in any objective capacity, unless you actually do the grunt work of looking. Then the problem becomes how do we know that this experience is possible?

Alas, words escape me here.

From my silence it is reasonable to conclude that I have no argument to support the former chain of reasoning. You may choose to examine your experience or turn your nose up at the idea of Anatta, safe in the knowledge that I cannot give you any logical justification for exploring the possibility. I have tried in vain to find a solution to logically explain Anatta in the past but I am afraid it is a fools errand. It seems all I can do is lay out all the arguments for the self that do not work, and then cast them as signs that mark out the wrong path.

I will point to the possibility of Anatta but I can only point to Buddhist doctrine and Metzinger et al's claims. I agree with the aspect of Anatta being realisable but I am not a subscriber to everything Bhuddhism says on the whole, since it is riddled with its own dogmas. I will be challenging arguments for the self which are grounded in fiction and I will also argue that qualitative methodologies such as phenomenology follow the scientific method and are valid methodologies. In this sense we are going to stay within the bounds of the scientific method but I realise the burden is on me to argue for the validity of phenomenological enquiry. This is not a position that is widely accepted although it has started making inroads in some circles of academia, especially in social psychology.

Of course, in the RT days we were enthusiastic about promoting Anatta regardless as there was no doubt in our minds about Anatta being true. However, we were working against these problems from the beginning. There is no doubt that without a solid logical argument to present this case it would always be suspect in the mind of a fair enquirer and this would mean people would be put off the idea. Many more were put off the idea when we remember the vile tirades that RT were famed for, and the negativity I bought to the table at TS. This was why many walked away or did not bother investigating. All we had really achieved was to put people off something that could become a force for good. That is why I have no desire to ever go back to any endeavour that is based on a format of 'liberating' people.

Argumentum ad ignorantiam

'The connection between these propositions is not intuitive. There is required a medium, which may enable the mind to draw such an inference, if indeed it be drawn by reasoning and argument.' (Hume, 1739)

Any arguments for the self, when conceived to be an independent entity from experience, are incoherent and based in circular logic. However, the conclusion 'no self' can be perceived to boil down to the argument from ignorance fallacy. In the same way that we cannot prove that God does not exist, we cannot prove the self does not exist. There is no way to prove the non-existence of some particular thing. Whilst no coherent argument can be formulated to argue for the existence of the self we cannot show somethings non-exsistence.

Whilst this apparent absurdity meant that many people challenged this idea of no self, from our perspective it was not a case of seeing that there was no self that existed which would be clearly absurd. I think this was one of the most misunderstood parts of any of our work. The realisation of Anatta meant 'no self' was simply a real consequence of our truly understanding this aspect of reality. To gain this insight is simply a matter of seeing the phenomena of what we would call 'me' or 'self' for what it really is, which is this.

An illusion propagated by language, and belief.

What this problem always boiled down to in our explanations and discourse, was simply a misunderstanding of language and its inherent tendency of creating dualistic notions of persons separate from the body. It was far easier and less confusing to transmit the message in the form of there is 'no you', or there is 'no self'. This meant there was no ambiguity and allowed someone to be laser focussed on their investigation. Any other conception clouds matters for seekers in my opinion, and for this reason we had many people attack us nihilists who denied our own existence. The one thing I can be certain of is that there is experience happening, and in this experience there is a self model that produces a real illusion of self.

The truth is, the appearance of self is simply constructed from a set of feedback processes that tricks the brain in to believing the conscious 'projection' or 'self model' is a thinking thing independent from the body. This trick makes the psychological experience of phenomena seem like it is happening to an entity independent of the sensory apparatus itself. I tricks us in to thinking the feeling of pain is happening to us, and we are an entity that has conscious volition over the body. In reality there is just the experience of pain and of a story about being responsible for the bodies actions before and after the manner.

The realisation of Anatta is simply a pattern interrupt to the faculties of thinking that maintain this illusion. This does not mean these patterns do not continue. It simply means that there is direct understanding of the illusory nature of the self, which cannot believed to be an entity separate from experience any longer.

The brains volition over the body, as you will discover if you investigate is mostly unconscious and we can demonstrate this scientifically through phenomenological investigation. However, this does not mean that conscious decision making does not feedback in to the process of volition. In fact this is one of the reasons why this illusion is so convincing.

It is clear that the degree of feedback involved with phenomena that we experience, and that of which we have no appearance of volition, is complex. Whilst I do not subscribe to an unconscious mind as traditionally conceived, it is evident that we are not conscious of many of the brains processes, and for this reason I have labelled it in this manner.

Thought, no doubt, does feedback in to these processes and we see this clearly evidenced with 'seeing as' influencing our perception. I wrote an article last year which treats of this phenomenon more fully, but a magic eye picture should serve as an example here. Given that thought clearly does influence the bodies faculties, it is here where we like to insert the thinker, which we refer to as 'I' or 'me'.

At this point, we believe we are some entity calling the shots that has concrete existence separate from these processes, however, this 'I' is completely illusory. When we investigate conscious mental processes, we see them actually happening of their own accord. These cannot be manipulated by a 'self' since when we investigate the conscious mechanisms of experience, we discover that they are autonomous from the illusory story of the self model. In this sense the phenomena of self hood is a real phenomenon that exists in real life, and is probably responsible for facilitating what we know as civilisation. However, it is certainly not 'you', nor is it a tangible, separate, object in reality that plays a causal role in driving the bodies actions or cognitions.

Like the water in the mirage is a real illusion, so is that which you call 'me'.

The internal dialogue, or internal chatter we are aware of that constructs our life story is simply a metaphor of human agency doing what it does best, which is living life. I do want to focus on how believing in this evolving metaphor of our lives can cause us problems but for now, we should be satisfied that this simple misunderstanding was the root cause of many arguments. To put it simply, realising no self is simply coming to the direct understanding that the mental phenomena that constructs our notions of being a person in the world, simply points to nothing tangible in real life, it is just a story. Life lives itself and it always has done We can wake up to this by investigating it or choose to ignore it.

From here, we could launch into arguments such as 'I' refers to the brain, 'I' refers to the body, and this is where we used to get people to look and investigate, in order to discover these counter arguments are false through experience. It is the quizzical nature we have to solve this puzzle that attracted people to the idea of no self, before the madness of RT & TS ensued.

The Great Eastern

“I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement”. (Hume, 1739)

We can also point to further problems here, when we consider the paradox of Eastern thinking. To outline this briefly I will simply state the apparent contradictions that the Buddhist doctrine of Anatta faces with Advaitan conceptions.

The claims 'no self' and 'true self' are contradictory at first glance.

However, upon investigating they are simply two different linguistic constructions of one and the same 'thing', or more appropriately 'no-thing'. In this sense, Advaiatan's subscribe to the conception that the true self is all that is, which is equivalent to Brahman or god. This is a fundamentally distinct conception of God and bears no resemblance to the monotheistic religions of Christianity and Islam etc as it is a pantheist conception of god. Since Advaita is a religion, they point to the expression of existence as divine and this is what they mean by true self. There are various derivatives of this line of thinking, such as 'I' is the universal consciousness experiencing itself, or 'I' is the intelligent awareness, or the knowing hereness, or whatever spiritual concept you prefer, if that is your inclination.

The Buddhist's conception in comparison seems to be more nihilistic. When we say no self, we seem to be implicitly denying that there is any being that exists. Here though, we would appear to be denying the existence of Brahman or all that is, and our spiritual concepts. However, if we take this to mean that there is no dualism between experience and experiencer, as I explained earlier in the post, then there is no reason to deny that that there is no expression of existence which manifests as our experience. Advaitan's refer to consciousness as the true self and Bhuddist's refer to there being no self separate from Buddha nature. In this sense there is no contradiction here, they are two different linguistic constructions of one and the same thing.

Bhudda nature and true self can be taken to mean one and the same thing, although they are conceived differently in their respective doctrines.

Whether these two doctrines agree about the existence of God seems to be a moot point here. What we can see is they are pointing at two different conceptions of the self, and really there is no paradox. However, what used to happen back in the days of RT and TS was that we used to have big arguments with Advaitan folks, about the status of the very proposition and the existence of self!

Considering we were both arguing about different things, it was little wonder that we found any common ground. The Advaitan doctrine implicitly presupposes true self, and it is of little wonder they found the no self proposition contrary to their religious beliefs. True self in Advaitan speak means universal consciousness, or God. So to say no self to them is inflammatory and contradictory, even though we mean something completely different with no self!

In this sense, it can be argued that both are relevant, they are the same thing for all intensive purposes. I certainly prefer the nihilistic conception to this day since it clearly delineates between how Westerners define the self as an 'individual agent', separate from the mental phenomena that appears in experience.

There are two choices that can be made here by a fair enquirer, when we look at spiritual and materialist doctrines. We can implicitly assume that reality is a divine expression, or we can point to a materialist doctrine which we know as science. Here, if we make a choice we are presupposing particular ontologies and we are in the grounds of metaphysics, which can only come from belief about the nature of reality.

I confess that I have no reason to believe one doctrine over the other in concrete terms, so in this sense, I am open minded until experience presents me with an impression to form a clear idea. Personally, I am satisfied that I will never have such an impression since this is forever beyond the realms of possible experience, and I can only ever form an obscure idea. We may come to know the properties or nature of reality but these are understandings derived from experience and not from the pages of any doctrine.

Having explained this conception, and the problems faced by these organisations I can now turn to the question I set myself at the beginning. How is what I am doing now any different?

Well, I hope that I have properly demonstrated the shaky grounds on which the RT and TS approaches were founded on. I cannot hope to build anything on the ruins of these approaches and as we abandon the ship wreck to rot away on the sands, we have a new world to explore. Clearly, I cannot present a logical argument for the insight of Anatta being realised, however, I can certainly provide the tools for the phenomonological investigation that we used. This represents the salvage from these stricken vessels, and then it is up to someone to take the steps afterwards to realise Anatta if they think it is something they want to do.

What have I just achieved here?

I have demolished any claim I might have to Anatta being demonstrable and relegated myself from a supposed teacher to an explorer of reality. Anything I do claim can be replicated on the solid grounds of experience and my claim to Annatta is simply my personal experience, which you are not required to agree or disagree with. I say the Buddhist's were correct in this aspect, it is up to you whether you want to explore the possibility beyond any phenomenological investigation you can do here. For my part, it is not an area I want to argue about any further as I am going to take it as a given that we are not an entity separate from experience.

I am just another fair enquirer on the bus of life, I feel all the bumps and discomforts, and the joys of stretching my legs and looking at the view when we pull over. I have my own delusion as does everyone else, I only hope that we can stay on the path and forge ahead to make new discoveries in human nature. There is no you in the conventional sense but you may feel free to call reality, life, or awareness 'I' if you really feel compelled to do so. There is no contradiction here and there never was a problem since it always boiled down to language.

We can construct different linguistic formulations for different purposes and there are many definitions that we can apply to the world 'self'. As long as we can agree on the formulation we are using in communication, we can avoid future problems. When I say 'self' you must take it to mean a thinking thing separate from, and pulling the strings of experience. Other people say the self is awareness, or consciusness. Some even say it is the intelligent knowing, or life itself. In whatever way you conceive these things it is very clear that these are something different to the common sense conception we have of being discrete causal 'selves' in the world which I am challenging here. We need not deny there is awareness, which is clearly the canvass upon which life unfolds, but equating this to something to identify with or our true self is a completely different project to what I have in mind here.

This is where much of the trouble arose from in the early days, I hope I have ironed this out to pave the way for future understanding, and rebuild the bridges we stormed over and destroyed by recklessly throwing fire and brimstone around the place.

The problem from the start in any of these endeavours was really in going about things with an ad hominem approach to make up for the shortcomings of the TS and RT foundations. This was where all the problems arose from, and clearly there is little point in arguing about 'no self' in this manner. I just hope that you make the journey and be sceptical of anything you see along the way, I am certain you will see what is true for yourself.

I guess the main field of exploration for me now is determining what does really exist. For instance, there is conscious intelligence, the experience of phenomena, and the appearance of being a moral person in world, whether or not we agree if this person is illusory or not. It is in these avenues we can explore and develop our understanding and endeavour to expand our insights in to human nature and the phenomenon of experience.

Clerk: All rise.

Judge: Please be seated.

Judge: This hearing is now in session and we will examine case 1,2847, the virtual community versus Mr Virus. Would the defence proceed to make their opening statement. I believe you will be representing your 'self' Mr Virus?

Mr Virus: No your honour, there is no self just a representation.

Judge: You impudent tone will cause me to hold you in contempt of court, are you aware of the grave allegations that face you?

Mr Virus: Yes sir, I am trying to be accurate, however, I have to grant that language is dualistic anyway and I promise not to let obstructions such as this interfere with my explanation.

Judge: Very well then, please proceed.

Mr Virus: Thank you your honour. Lets get straight in to it and ask why Truth Strike ran to a halt? This is probably the burning question on your mind, since at the end of 2012 we stopped accepting new members on to the site and we have let it stand dormant since. Naturally, there are a wealth of reasons why things have turned out this way and some exciting changes are coming up now which I want to share.

Before I answer the question I will outline what I hope to achieve in setting out the defence, and just mention that I am going to dig really deep to expose not only my own shortcomings, but also those of Truth Strike as an organisation and allow you, the good jury and court, to scrutinise every detail of this case.

Essentially, I am going to be turning the lance on to TS and Ghostvirus, and I am going to scrutinise the theoretical underpinnings and thought processes by using the very tool that we used for enquiry in to the self. No stone is going to be left unturned and whilst this is going to be damming, I believe it is absolutely necessary that there is a revolution in the way we go about doing things.

What I really hope to achieve here is expose the limitations of our approach and crack TS wide open to expose the hubris that was unchallenged from day one, and demonstrate how we are guilty of only compassion for humanity.

Then we will show what principles are worthwhile which we have always exacted ourselves to, and then demolish the rest.

Once this is accomplished I can set down the burden of TS and RT, safe in the knowledge that they were doomed to fail right from the start, and were the remnants of a strategy that bought so much negativity to the table, but were steps in bringing about the catharsis of an endeavour to explore new frontiers in human understanding.

I want to focus on the positives that have come out of Truth Strikes endeavours and all the good things we have achieved before we launch an attack upon it. To start with we all deserved a nice long break since we have been undertaking this research program for a long time without a hiatus. It takes its toll eventually and I think we had all ran out of steam and needed some time to recuperate.

Upon this well deserved break the TS staff have had some time to relax and step out of the frame, having been working on this project without stopping. In this sense, we have had time to assess what we have achieved and where we want to go next, having fulfilled one of our ambitious objectives. This objective was a bold one, but perhaps represents one of the easier objectives.

I think we can all congratulate ourselves on the success of our outcome because accomplishing this was no mean feat, although this should only be a sober celebration and perhaps we may have to hang our heads in shame?

I have to concede immediately; hand on heart, were the means justified by the end we accomplished? I will leave you, the members of the jury, to deduce your own conclusions, but for now we will ask what is this objective that we achieved?

Judge: Do go on Mr Virus.

Mr Virus: This point has marked a watershed for us and TS has really paid off as a project now, in this regard our endeavours over the past two years have been an outstanding success. What we have mapped out is a schema of the mechanism of human delusion from which we can now start to analyse and number crunch.

Throughout the work in TS and RT, what we have accomplished is perhaps one of the most unrestricted qualitative surveys in to the notion of self hood, that has ever been undertaken, and this has all been done in the public domain.

It is unique in the sense that not only has a phenomenological paradigm been championed by each fair enquirer who has stepped up to the plate, this enquiry has also been tempered by a discursive analysis.

In layman's terms phenomenology is simply looking at the mental phenomena that arise in ones experience, and by discursive I simply mean that an analysis of the discourse between people on the forum threads, where contradictions and assumptions were highlighted.

In this sense, a powerful tool has been forged, however, this does not mean it is exempt from theoretical problems. These will have to be discussed in future, in relation to qualitative methodologies, but this plays in to a broader discussion between proponents of certain psychological standpoints, and philosophical ideas, which I cannot hope to do justice to now.

This very issue has produced its own debates in the annuls of academic philosophy and I will assume that some of these will crop up again, however, I am satisfied that there are many arguments that grant validity to qualitative approaches in psychology, and it is to these that we could start to base any methodological underpinning on in future.

From this research project we have developed some robust tools for enquiry and feel that we can provide the means to uncover every sticking point in an investigation to the self, and also every ad hoc variation of arguments for self hood that do not work.

Whilst this will be the next phase of our work, this leads us on to discussing our motivation for this whole project, and the reasons for maintaining and participating in TS.

Firstly, our primary goal was to put an end to greed, misery, and suffering in the world which was derived from the illusion of self.

Secondly, as an investigation in to the aspects of the core mechanism of human delusion.

From our primary goal or end game, we derived many other reasons to engage in 'liberating' people, but I think we can safely say that we failed completely on our primary goal of ending suffering in the world.

Lets face it, it was a far flung hope at best, more akin to wishing on a star. With a goal such as this for the basis of us facilitating enquiry, half of the foundations were built on sand and thus we see a disconnect from reality. It is of little wonder that the original RT mob were not interested in coming back to join us.

Hindsight is a good thing, but I think the absence of Laserpig, Kevin, Guilliano, Unison, Viv, Thassa, Chris, and numerous other screen names from the RT days who never stayed in the fray with us, speaks volumes about we were doing. Furthermore, many of those that we did liberate from the illusion of self had no impetus to hang around or get involved in our work.

Quite simply, this delusion, although based in doing something positive, was the basis of our entire approach and we should feel foolish for having stuck dogmatically to this ideology. To be fair, it was done with the best of intentions, however, I am sure Adolf Hitler had only good intentions for Germany before the madness took hold, and thus no such argument of good intentionality is sufficient to exonerate us for our dogmatically asserted ideology, which found its sources in none other than RT's old poisonous doctrine, which thankfully we can lay to rest.

In spite of this intentionality argument of mine carrying no weight, I still believe it is worth setting out the position we took in an attempt to construct an accurate reflection of the mindset involved at the time.

No self, in real life...

Our intention from the outset was to carry on the positive aspect of the work of RT, which was the fact that we were waking people up from their slumber. Rather than just giving up we still believed, that by running in to the road and smashing someone out of the way of an oncoming lorry, that we were doing the world a favour.

We were trying to foist this discovery on to everyone and even now, we still believe it has application for reducing cognitive dissonance, suffering and greed in the world. In a sense we are still motivated to carry on with our work even after the implosion of RT, and the initial lack of success with TS as a platform for freeing vast quantities of people, however, forcing the message down peoples throats is not going to cut it any more, and it is going to have to become open to scrutiny from all quarters.

The central claim we have made, has never been shown to be doubtful. Having seen the front cover of New Scientist, dated 23^rd February, it is plain that there is no self, and our main claim has been vindicated by mainstream science. From this point on there is no need for any of us to try and advance the proposition: there is no self, since not only is it philosophically iron clad, it has been empirically demonstrated that free will and all the other things that we believe are necessary for the self to play a causal role in life, are illusory.

In a sense, it felt great seeing that article knowing that everything we championed and all the ridicule we endured, was finally worth the price ultimately, and represents a massive blow to all the dualists and metaphysicians who went great lengths to pretend to follow the procedures of philosophy, and advance sophisms in the name of their religion or spiritual system. To be vindicated of our claim after all our hard work was great, but this is not the full story and our claim is not fully vindicated yet.

If any fair enquirer started to look in to the claim we made, most often they discovered that it appeared there was no self in real life. However, the difference between knowing this and experiencing this, was where people got trapped in the looking process and arrived at an intellectual understanding where they could not get the breakthrough. Hence on many of the threads in TS and RT, we had people trying to get this breakthrough of walking through 'the gate'. The intellectual understanding of no self is now vindicated in the most reputable mainstream science journal in Britain, and it is apparent that no more do we have to argue for the proposition; there is no self. However, our claim does encompass an experiential aspect that the intellectual understanding does not encompass alone, and it is to this aspect that we make a further claim.

It is possible to directly experience this characteristic of no self, and this represents a life transforming experience.

This is where our future endeavours will take us, but no more do we have to argue about the possibility of no self, since all it takes is a phenomenological investigation to test it out. In that respect, there is no need for any of us to defend anything, or promote a view point any more. The time for that has passed and it seems only pertinent that we jettison the baggage and make a clean break. If a fair enquirer chooses they are not interested in no-self, then it is no longer incumbent on any of us to convince them otherwise. We can lead a horse to water but we cannot make it drink, however, a horse can find water of its own accord and it is here where we will focus in future.

However, why did we try and take the other forceful approach in the first place? Why did we try to force this idea down peoples throats at all costs, and in the process make some serious mistakes?

Winding back the clock, you have to appreciate that we were merely a bunch of westerners who had a life changing insight in the beginning. The initial profundity was so strong that along with Ciaran, we believed that we had discovered the key to enlightenment and with that key it presented a real opportunity of ending suffering in the world.

The end of suffering... an opportunity in real life to end the suffering and misery of billions that arose at the hands of humanities foul and darkest side.

It is kind of funny now looking back that we genuinely believed this was the case. We actually genuinely believed that we had a shot at ending human suffering. So, we took it and gave it everything we had. Of course, we had no chance of accomplishing this goal and we were deluded for thinking we were, but I hold my hand up and admit that I actually believed in this possibility.

Why is it that we had no chance of accomplishing this goal at RT?

Resistance

Firstly, the resistance we met from the very enslaved we were trying to free was strong, the very notions of “kill the lie” and “you do not exist” were enough to arouse the strongest resistance in people. The only way to smash this resistance apart was to destroy their integrity and this encompassed vile and ruthless attacks on their identity, whilst delivering killer blows to their arguments by highlighting their circular logic. It was not pretty and it was unsustainable keeping the burning intensity up that was required to free someone for a long period.

It was a mammoth task and for every person we did free, we sent scores of others running for cover even to the point where we were branded as a cult, even though we did not court membership or have any kind of financial incentives. The resistance that we saw was circular logic in any case which could be crushed easily, and the abject delusion we saw in not only the spiritual community, but the world at large only served to fuel the fire of hatred towards what we perceived as a toxic lie that had enslaved humanity.

At TS, the culture was changed a little where we toned the character assassinations to a degree but they were still present, having authored much negativity with my hand. Simply trying to tone down this aspect at TS did not work, since the exact same principle was evidently displayed time and time again, and thus the results were always going to be similar. In order to change at a fundamental level, this aspect of our work must be completely demolished and purged from anything we do in future.

Divisions

Secondly, we drove deep divisions between ourselves and the spiritual community. Whilst I do think there is a lot we could have learned from various people, in many respects we delivered a wake up call to the masses of deluded seekers. This is not to claim that we are not deluded and they are, as that would certainly be an untenable claim for me to make, since I am fully aware that delusion resides in me that has not been removed. However, seeing people who had been chasing their tails for twenty years really highlighted the amount of falsity, hubris, and deceptions prevalent in the whole virtual spiritual community.

Seeing people spouting out their hippy peace and love crap and parroting Advaitan doctrine under the delusion that their gurus would save them from their misery was really sad to see. Whilst it may be a better alternative subscription to the hostility and negativity prevalent in our society, it was clear to see that they identified with seeking and wanted to passively transcend all the horrors and suffering in their lives, whilst failing to face up to the truth. Naturally, people don't like being told this and we created deep divisions between ourselves and the spiritual community. Similarly, we did not like being told we were deluded either and hence I make no claim to who is more deluded, we can just agree that the following proposition has universality to anyone engaged in enquiry.

People fall in to different traps and part of the process of facing up to the truth, is discovering the ways in which the mind deceives.

Clearly, “consciousness is”, “I am the universe”, “there is just this”, and every other ad hoc idiom, are just multiple realisations of the same indescribable nature. The worrying thing is simply that many who parrot this derive a spiritual self from it, because they do not have direct experience of no self, they merely hold it as a conceptual understanding. Even those who have experienced no self can easily get trapped in this mindset too, and cling on to the insight, much like I did.

Aside from correcting these lines of reasoning, there is much we could learn from those who try other methodologies in the spiritual community, no doubt. There were some who tried to reach out to us and we attacked them with great vigour, even those who wanted to point to the fresh tracks we were making in the sand, as we wandered off the road of possibility in to the barren desert of dogmatism. In that sense, with TS we started to see a gradual shift towards accepting people who were engaged in the honest varieties of spirituality instead of simply attacking them.

However, I did far too little to engage with these folks and didn't move round to this way of thinking fast enough, although, this transition would be evidenced on my blog post 'Eastern Promise' dated March 2012. I still shunned them away even after this blog post admittedly, when they were simply trying to reach out to me and I must confess, I can only appear utterly foolish for my ignorance.

Ignorance

Finally, the very notion of enlightenment we were initially arguing for was a myth. No self was genuinely perceived to be enlightenment at the time, such was the profound shift in our psychology. At the time we genuinely believed this was the case and it must have been evident to anyone else that we were far from enlightened. In fact, I am trying not to laugh at the very notion your honour as I say this. Even within the ranks of RT it soon became apparent that we weren't enlightened and this led to the notion of denying the reality of enlightenment itself.

Simply, if this was not enlightenment then enlightenment must be a myth was the premise upon which this reasoning was based. A fools errand quite simply, and this marked the down fall of RT since our claim was delusional. Things changed with TS however, since we started from a position that encompassed the fact we were not enlightened, unfortunately, we were still ignorant enough to believe that we should force this upon people.

What we should have done is made it available for those want to find an important part of the jigsaw puzzle of truth. No-self represents the corners, which are ultimately a piece, of a broader puzzle.

LOOKing at No-Self

The way in which I conceive the no-self insight after two years consists in the following points of reference, to which I will try and spell out plainly.

Firstly, it is not enlightenment, a claim that TS has been fortunate enough never to make. Anyone believing that no-self alone is enlightenment, has evidently been deceived by reason and one need only look honestly at their direct experience to satisfy themselves that they are not entirely free from delusion.

Secondly, it is what the Buddhist's call an 'arising and passing'. However, it is safe to say that the previous psychological structuring of beliefs and assumptions that filtered reality as 'I' perceived it, which was also believed to be permanent and immutable, was drastically changed forever. In this sense there is no turning back to life before having this insight, it is a one way ticket. For all intensive purposes, it is an earth shattering moment and it is easy to see how we fell for the illusion directly behind it at the time. It would be pertinent to say that I have never met anyone who regretted the no-self insight, and I would like to hear from anyone who believes it has had an adverse affect on them.

Moreover, the very notion of 'arising and passing' demonstrates that it must pass. Too often were we trying to cling on to the profundity of this insight, and we treated it as an end in itself rather than as a means.

Thirdly, it is a direct understanding in to one of Buddha's three characteristics; the characteristic of 'no self'. On this basis, one does not understand the three characteristics in their entirety, I merely have a conceptual understanding of suffering and impermanence, but realisation of the characteristic of no self. In this sense, there are many seekers who have been engaged in twenty plus years of seeking and are so hopelessly lost that they have not had this insight, which people are capable of mustering the honesty to see in less than a day in some cases.

This is not to say that they may not have had realisations about impermanence or suffering, which I have not, and any claim to who is more deluded is worthless in any case.

This leads me on to, I have to admit, a conjecture here. When asking why is it that some people cannot muster the honesty to LOOK, my only suggestion is that they perhaps need to investigate the other of Buddha's characteristics first. It is merely our assumption that anyone can get this with the requisite honesty, it may be that a deeper understanding of other areas may be required first. This seems to fit the observation, however, we cannot accept this without any qualitative, or objective grounding.

Essentially, our assumption of people simply being cowardly and dishonest is not really tenable and it never was in this respect.

When viewed as a lie that squirms about in its host and needs to be destroyed, viz Ruthless Truth, it may be pertinent to suggest that those that cannot see it are cowards. However, when viewed as a complex web of delusion it is simply that one is unable to LOOK honestly, and it is nothing to do with cowardice, since in my experience I can see that people really want to get this and they acknowledge their fear but want to get the process out of the way.

Only when smashing apart their identity and using a brute force method of liberation could it be right to term someone a coward. When the cowardice term was used it was simply a rhetorical device to drop a breeze block on a deluded chain of thought, and snap the seeker back in to reality. It may be true that they are being dishonest, but this led me to place a caveat on this assumption where I would state “we do not mean a conniving dishonesty”.

It is not that a fair enquirer is dishonest at all, it is simply that they are reverting back to their programmed loop of reasoning and not applying honesty.

In that sense we can ask does it follow that a lack of honesty inherently means dishonesty? Indeed, if conniving intentions are abound then it would be, however, if there is no intention of dishonesty then the negative connotation that this word holds is not really applicable. If viewed as a “lie” that has enslaved its host then dishonesty seems the right word to use, but it seems that this way of looking at the false self is a situated knowledge, where the context of this view impacted upon our own view point, and as a result these negative connotations arose in the circumstances.

The truth is, one is simply not following the procedure correctly and reverting back to the programmed loops of thought instead of looking. When people are “looping”, they are simply stuck in a thought loop of belief that they have not tried to step out of by LOOKing. We could term this dishonesty, since it is the antithesis of honest enquiry but it is not an accurate reflection of what is happening, especially when someone is trying their best to crack the no-self insight. They have simply not worked their honesty to a sufficient capacity to enable them to do this.

Of course, one of the appeals of RT was that it was utterly ruthless and used negativity against the lie of self, and it caused such a furore initially, that it quickly gained momentum. This could not have been done with kind words and gentle encouragement if the truth is to be told, even though the LU crew managed to refine the liberation process to encompass this aspect later. Essentially, the early success of RT and the large exposure it gained was in part due to this negativity, and quite simply, the brute force leverage this method gave in liberating people and crushing their lies was a useful tool.

However, I don't think it is feasible anymore, although the many threads of some past liberations that included this negativity, would be useful for those who are trying to crack the no-self insight. There are indeed an abundant amount of abusive threads in the annuls of our forum and whilst this is a shameful thing, some good has come out of it.

Did the means justify the end? I fear I am in no position to make such a judgement but if it serves people in the future to get free then at least a positive aspect could arises from the hostility and to this end, it has helped to free people. But, we should not have to revert to this negativity again when this characteristic of no-self has so much benefit for humanity at large, and so much potential to be explored.

To this end, it marks an abject failure on my part as I have simply tarred a force for good and real change in the world with so much negativity.

Those that have difficulty seeing no-self would perhaps benefit from breaking down beliefs in other areas first. LOOKing is the simplest of things, it does require a bit of courage to step out of this looping, but so does bungee jumping. Given enough time and reassurance, one will take the plunge eventually, or will decide to back out, but by chanting coward at them it is not really conducive to being kind and encouraging. In this sense, the no-self enquiry represents a real step in the right direction for some, however, it represents the transition to the starting point of 'square one' on a long journey of discovery of facing up to the truth, one in which it is easy to stray from the beaten path.

Indeed, it is the start of a journey, and one where a fair enquirer has no grounding in any kind of spiritual practice, or other kind of discipline, so it can take a while to find those feet post-self and start to venture towards discovery.

Detached

One notion that was under represented from the inception of RT and certainly should have been viewed as a major benefit is the notion of non-attachment. The difficulty in trying to explain non attachment in real terms is particularly difficult but in order to conceptualise it, we can simply say that one no longer derives a sense of self from their attachments. Desire is apparently a real thing in folk psychology, although giving an objective definition is fraught with problems. I this sense we can characterise it as a heuristic motivational state and say that desire motivates us to do things.

We have a natural propensity to invest in to the accomplishment of our desires, however the insight of no self diminishes this level of investment. In this way one is still prone to have ambitions and desire, however, the attachment we derive from fulfilling our desires, or in other words, the self that we aspire to be through the fulfilment of our desires, is not seen to be as such an important consideration any more. Trying to characterise the 'gravitas' of the insight of no self is, perhaps, the hardest thing. Trying to describe how phenomena lack the weight the used to have, and how things we used to perceive as highly important no longer affect us in the same way is a very difficult description to make. Since in experience we can only use vague metaphors like gravity, intensity etc, the deficiencies of language for describing experience are only too clear.

The power of the mind in inflicting deceit is evident in the fact that one may be in pitch black because of a power cut, and drive themselves in to a momentary panic by imagining all sorts of things, perhaps even ghosts. It is plain that our fanciful ideas may affect us in various ways, but we can see that some thoughts do not have such an affect on us. It is to this comparison I can point in trying to describe how the phenomenology of a sense self is diminished in power, although this is not a static complex and it remains in flux.

For this reason if one attends to their phenomena one can see the foundations of these kind of attachments. However, if one leaves their ideas unattended, they may well see a sense of reality granted to these foundations, to which other ideas can be laid on top. It then takes some investigation to demolish these foundations again and remain attendant to the new ideas that may form.

In this sense, like Tetris, one needs to keep on eye on where the blocks fall and should we glance away for too long we start to have a structure that builds up since the blocks just keep coming, much like thoughts, and it takes a little more work to negate the structure than if we had focussed intently on the structure we were creating. However, if we start on the hard difficulty setting we see a pre-existing structure, to which we can try and negate by inserting the blocks in the correct places. Much like with our pre-exisiting beliefs, we can start to slowly break down this complex and this is done with 'acceptance' of things that may be uncomfortable, 'SEEing' the falsity of things that might be comforting, and also seeing the empty nature of phenomena, and the lack of inherent existence in the world.

A conceptual understanding is useless for this kind of work and here is where some good old fashioned honesty and looking is required. In that sense, one cannot stop LOOKing post self and one must be attended to all phenomena or else such a structure of belief may form, from which cognitions can begin to feedback in to thought. Whilst the Tetris metaphor is illustrative it in no way conveys any ontological (in relation to being) meaning, and for this reason it will only strike a chord with anyone post self. That aside, it makes sense to try and conceptualise the way in which being post self, you actually have an angle to start to LOOK at experience as it is and try to remove the falsity on which the mind relies on for support. For this reason, the view I adopted over a year ago is simply this.

The no-self insight reveals a valuable tool for enquiry.

The insight of no-self represents an investigative tool where one is more easily able to determine where the fictions of the mind are affecting the results of that enquiry. If one chooses to set aside their honesty, one can fly off beyond the bounds of experience to create fanciful metaphysical speculations. We need only to turn to the sophistry of certain spiritual teachings to see that this is evident in those who have been past this point in their enquiry. No self does not necessarily mean one can be honest, it is like a muscle that must be worked regularly or it will atrophy.

Greed

It is now pertinent to demonstrate the application of no-self to suffering and greed. As has been noted previously, the false self does represent the core mechanism of human suffering. This is not to say that seeing it as an inert cognitive structure means one can never suffer again but simply one's capacity to perpetuate negative thinking patterns is diminished in capability. Now, one has to hold themselves in some esteem, since we are dealing with complex social worlds and were we to remove the capacity for reflecting on our cognitions, in relation to others, then we would lack the facilities for deeming when our behaviour is appropriate.

In this sense, low self-esteem is actually a mechanism where our shortcomings are highlighted, in order for us to take steps to do things better in the future. Naturally, thinking negatively can result in downward spirals of this esteem, and we can further drag our opinion of ourselves down in relation to others and end up in cascades of negativity, which may lead to depression and the like. Essentially, the insight of no self allows one to step out of this cycle to a degree, and one is no longer chained to trying to maintain a charade to other people. Now this is not to say the process itself stops, but what I am saying that its power is considerably diminished.

Bearing in mind this aspect of the diminished power of representation that the mind inflicts on us we can now turn to the notion of greed, which we can characterise as a disproportionate desire that is not satisfied in a normal manner. The usual characterisation of greed is that of a rich banker, who despite his possessions, still strives for millions in bonuses. Of course, we can look to the fact that one is hardly going to not desire money, but we can point to a broken economic system that encourages this unhealthy desire, and a vain society that holds materialism as the ultimate end.

At no point is this desire satisfied in the banker, and basically the theme is simply unchecked motivation where the means becomes more important than the ends. The very notion of a perceived sense of self that one aspires to be is derived through the orientation of the false self and its vain accomplishments in the eyes of others. In this sense, we have a positive feedback cycle characterised as 'more wants more'. Greed is not limited to bankers obviously, we can look to the unchecked desires in ourselves and we need only look at the striving, the yearning, and the suffering of the modern world to see that greed is an endemic problem.

Whilst no-self is not an off switch, I hold firm to the claim that the capacity to fool ourselves in this way is diminished, and the ability to deceive ourselves to stay in patterns that support this type of pattern is severely negated.

A world with less greed than we see now is a more realistic aspiration, and highlighting the shaky grounds upon which our political and economic systems are based, would better serve grounds for an open debate about how the notion of individualism in society, is grounded in fiction.

Whilst the individualist paradigm does have valid points, we do have individual ontologies after all, it also makes fictitious claims that when exposed may well undermine our society as it is. It may turn out that this is the best way to organise society, however, it might be fun, or even very dangerous, finding out what foundations will collapse, and what institutions would burn.

This is a voyage of discovery that may not be pleasant, however, it is necessary as human beings to completely tear down that which no longer serves us, and clearly the state of affairs as a consumer society, is a deluded and unsustainable aspiration, no matter how much we want to believe that it is not. I make no claim to any political leanings, but a system based on honesty and reality would serve us better than the set of foundations we currently have.

In summary, post-self one can see that thought feeds back in to cognitive patterns and their severity becomes amplified if not attended to. What I noticed initially, was that I was able to circumvent negativity by denying that the thought was happening to anyone. Essentially this is a bypass where one is evading their thoughts instead of facing up to them, a mistake pointed out by Adyashanti.

Over time, I have developed my skills in honesty, and I have had to face up to problems in my life instead of avoiding them. Basically, all that is perceived as negativity, is actually conducive to ones drive for survival. Instead of categorising it as bad, one must see these things as necessary. For instance, you feel bad for not getting a job, this is the catalyst to prepare better for next time. When seen in this regard, we view negativity, when not in a spiral of dysfunctional thinking, as a necessity of human existence and this does not have to cause suffering because of attachments to our desires.

In my eyes, this is how I see the insight of no-self and I have tried to be as critical as I can to attend to the weaknesses in my past approach.

Naturally, I plead guilty on the charges of dogmatism where indicated, and I hope the court will take this in to consideration.

Judge: You realise the significance of this admission, it may harm your case?

Mr Virus: Indeed your honour, but I swore to uphold the truth and if the jury are to make an informed judgement then they must be aware of the facts whether the facts are conducive to painting a good picture or not. That aside your honour, I think we can be satisfied that we achieved our secondary goal in mapping out our phenomenological investigation and I would like to say thank you and well done to all the staff involved at TS for all their hard work and perseverance in this joint endeavour, which we all achieved by focus and commitment.

I will, in due course, give a full critique of our methods of procedure and the application of this study which has been two years in the making. It requires a degree of number crunching, categorisation, and conclusions to be drawn from group discussions and trials of these ideas, but rest assured I will also be turning the critique on the epistemological aspect of this project and highlight its own shortcomings, failings, and of course where it really shines and why this is one of the most unique studies ever accomplished, for reasons beyond the freedom paradigm that we championed.

Prosecution: Objection, the defence has no such critique at the moment, therefore it should be inadmissible in this case.

Judge: Sustained, may I remind you Mr Virus that you are only to refer to exhibits in this court room.

Mr Virus: Very well, this is an exciting achievement, however, as I mentioned this should be a muted celebration as we look upon the trail of destruction that we have left in our wake, and it is to this matter now that we stand accused, and to which we must now face up to serious allegations of misconduct.

Clearly, the many threads of delusion we have evidenced on TS, and some of the pitiful rebuttals in the face of absurdity, have shown the degrees in which people unconsciously construct elaborate deceptions. We can look to those engaged in metaphysics who attempted to masquerade as philosophers by donning its disguise and imitating its procedures. We can also look to those in the spiritual community who were engaged in wanton acts of deception and sophistry, not only with themselves, but with others who wanted to transcend the suffering in their lives.

Watching people following these gurus blindly, knowing full well that they were being led down the garden path, did make me sad, but that was a horrifying reality to which we have seen evidenced countless times. I will demonstrate under cross examination that, in fact, we made no claim to be teachers and any such allegations are completely groundless.

The defence rests its case....

Judge: Thank you Mr Virus, would the prosecution please call their first witness to the stand.

Prosecution: I call Mr virus to the stand please.

To be continued....