All scientific thought experiments start with imagining a scenario. Through this imaginary scenario I am supposed to arrive at logical outcomes which I can then either validate myself or trust that others have, or can, at any time. I am led to believe that this is useful because it allows me or an imagined us to replicate these same experiments in order to create or learn more. More learning for the sake of knowledge, or for the practical purpose of creating something. I am supposed to believe that both these — learning and producing — are valuable and therefore desirable to the imagined us. Learning more and producing more are intrinsically good. That is what I am supposed to believe.
I step back for a moment and question this simple act of imagination, and the underlying assumption of the value of anything I might derive from it. Every thought experiment and scientific conclusion is based on imaginary constructs. Constructs I cannot confirm to exist in my moment, or ever. I must just assume they exist somewhere and somehow, and that inferences from these imaginary schemes are meaningful and valuable because they allow me to know more and create more. Knowing more is assumed to be valuable because it allows me to do more. Creating more is also assumed to be valuable because creation is the entire point of being.
That is a lot of assumptions that I have never examined. Yes, I have spent my entire moment imagining and preparing to create, and creating. The ultimate objective in my awakening is to create something that the imagined us wants to consume either as a service, or as knowledge. And then capitalize on that value by selling it back to the people, hopefully for a profit.
As the Iamist, I start with value in the form of desire. Knowledge is meaningless unless it is valuable. And it is only valuable if it helps me achieve what I desire. But what do I desire? As the Iamist I recognize that my very state of desire is an illness. It is this state of desire that is the source of all the pain I experience. I desire the end of my desire.
Therefore any knowledge which does not contribute to my principle desire to end my desire is detrimental because it leads me away from what I desire. Thought experiments based on imaginary events cannot ever lead me back toward the end of my desire. They can only deflect my attention away from solving my fundamental problem toward an imaginary problem that is useless. To escape my awakening I must focus on solving problems that lead me Home — to the place where I have no desire. Pondering political, scientific, and social problems and their potential solutions has no relationship to ending my desire, and therefore is a distraction. But worse than a distraction, they further entangle me within the illness of my awakening, for once I acknowledge that these are problems in need of solutions, I take my eyes away from the only problem there is: I desire.
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12/18/22 – This is the first time I referred to myself as “the Iamist”, not “an Iamist”. There are not others. I must not make space for the “imagined us”; I must repossess my language in its entirety.