# Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Flogged Misconceptions Frequently Flogged Misconceptions ## Actualism is Materialistic Reductionism / Naive Realism
| All I can say is that you seem to have taken a totally empiricist’s materialism and somehow mixed it up with spiritual realization, which is a very odd combination, if you ask me.
| As far as I see it you freed yourself from what is called ‘Satan’ or ‘Dragon’ or ‘Soul’ in the different traditions, that is, the passionate instincts. That’s great. But now you get stuck in a totally materialistic reductionism.
| I defy anyone to honestly answer ‘show me the doer’ and not realize that the doer is a mere construct or concept, fabricated by several forms of conditioning. I also recognize that words/dialog attempting to describe this are merely concepts themselves, and that we shouldn’t get too hung up on them. In fact, we have to be very careful not to think that the words are any more than that ... a common error in this list. It is after all a very jnana bunch, and I know I have made the mistake of thinking that intellectual reductionism can possibly result in real freedom of any sort.
| Richard (and list subscribers): After reviewing yet more of the actualfreedom.com.au website material, I see Richard is deeply mistaken and confused about the nature of apperception. This confusion stems chiefly from the mistaken and then systematised interpretations he has made of his experience of and his alleged ‘extinguishing’ of ‘affective feelings (emotions and passions and calentures)’. (...) Richard gives a couple of good reasons for his particular attention to the affective. First, he’s basically drilling down through the cognitive to the most substrate and bodily level: (...) Second, and most significantly, this drill-down locates for Richard a central proposition of ‘Actualism’ a neurological freedom, posited in surprising detail: (...) Under this eliminative reduction, Richard is compelled to say things like: ‘[Apperceptive awareness] is bodily awareness ... as the senses (and not through the senses)’. (...)
| Richard is confused about the use of ‘eliminative reduction’. He says: ‘Incidentally, I am not indulging in reductionism when I talk of elimination ... the extirpation of the affective faculty is an experiential occurrence and not an analytical, philosophical, intellectual or academic issue to be dealt with conceptually or by the stroke of a pen’. It should be clear that by ‘eliminative reduction’ I’m not focusing on the simple fact that Richard is eliminating the affective faculty. (...) There can be no question that Richard’s drill-down through the affective (feeling) is an eliminative reduction to the senses.
| You have no right to announce that your Third way is the only way and that all other ways fit into your simplistic categorisation scheme as normal or spiritual and thus FALSE.
| I am interested, however, in where telepathy fits into your materialistic belief system?
| You want to believe that materiality is eternal – ‘beginningless’ and ‘endless’: the ultimate materialistic, atheistic trip.
| Eliciting anything in particular from Richard is not the point. Exposure of Richard’s character to an audience is where it’s at. Watching Richard’s attempts to control audience perception is fascinating and revealing. How could I possibly snipe away at Richard? There’s nothing to shoot at, remember? It’s all water off a ducks back, remember? * ‘Fly in the face of popular wisdom’? Not likely. You’d like to be special but your particular brand of naive realism* is the most common wisdom of all. (* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naive_realism).
| Regression is actualism second name and some people don’t like to grow-up, taking decisions on their own. I bet that Richard’s mother was a very possessive person, over caring for him. Btw, nature is a substitute for mother and Richard had an enduring love affair with mother nature not to mention his fascination with the ocean.
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