Comments on: Steve Pavlina Hurts My Brain

By: Alrenous

Alrenous — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:22:14 +0000

You got it exactly right. I’m shocked and confused; nobody gets it right!

Although it’s more accurate to say that Steve is failing in communication. He believes in objective reality and intention-manifestation. He calls his rationalization for this ’subjective reality.’

This is probably just because he can’t accept that while effective for him, the beliefs are not actually explainable (at least, so far.)

By: lyzazel

lyzazel — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 13:33:07 +0000

Nice catch.

By: Marcus

Marcus — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 17:00:35 +0000

Good one Yeah I agree, but I won´t believe it

By: White Shadow

White Shadow — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:53:40 +0000

Saying that there’s something that “we have been fooled to believe” also implicitly says that our belief is incorrect, which in turn means that there exists a more correct/accurate belief.

I think it’s just that the “accurate” belief is subconciously perceived as being on a different meta-level, and so even a belief about beliefs isn’t considered in light of itself (no recursion).

By: Marcus

Marcus — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:18:24 +0000

Steve Pavlina is not more accurate then you are. He is just trying to explain this to the best of his ability so that it fits as many people´s world view as possible. There is no accurate or inaccurate, that is just something we have been fooled to believe.

By: White Shadow

White Shadow — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 00:49:57 +0000

Sure, 100% certainty is a rare/nonexistant thing in the real world. But I’ve read that (according to evolutionary psychology) we are hardwired to want that certainty, that concrete opinion.

Believing you create your own reality would seem to help keep us more honest, even if what we believe isnt always the way things turn out.

This is a good point.

Personally, I’d generalize this to “beliefs that help us better achieve our goals are good.” For example, if your goal was to fly into space, the belief in Newton’s physics, gravity, etc would be useful and “good”, while the belief that you could jump to the Moon if you trained every day… probably not.

Of course, it’s hard to apply this criteria to most of self-development writings, as they typically include the universal escape clause “it didn’t work because you didn’t really believe/intend/trust in the higher intelligence”.

Arrgh, okay, I’m going to sleep now.

By: R. Richard Hobbs

R. Richard Hobbs — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 00:18:54 +0000

Perhaps you are trying to hard to make what the guy is saying too “concrete”… and maybe he is guilty of overselling himself as someone who is capable of making matters in your life “concrete”. In my 50 years I have found most things in life to neither be 100% or completely false either, that is, other than things that people might say that are deliberately false and / or misleading, but I try, as most people do, to surround myself with people that are likely to minimize that happenning.

Believing you create your own reality would seem to help keep us more honest, even if what we believe isnt always the way things turn out.

Hope any of this makes sense instead of sounding like incoherent rambling.

I’m with White Shadow: “I could probably go on about this for hours though ”

By: White Shadow

White Shadow — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 23:23:24 +0000

Yeah, you might need a bit of background to really grok what it’s all about. But in this case my point can be summarised in a relatively straightforward way : Steve says reality is subjective, and then goes on to say that his view of reality (which is by his own definition subjective) is somehow more “real” than other views (and the scientific view in particular). It just doesn’t follow.

I could probably go on about this for hours though

By: AndrewYY

AndrewYY — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 23:13:15 +0000

… I am thoroughly confused by absolutely everything you and Steve Pavlina wrote… An interesting read though