I am the Ubermensch, and I can prove it. Or at least, I've made a great deal of progress towards this end.

Yes, I realize it's an annoying and egotistical claim. But it seems like a good hook to get people to at least click on the link to this post.

The General Idea:

First, I will define what I mean by Ubermensch. By this, I just mean that I can generate my own values in an objective way, and that I have a higher level of consciousness than most other people.

Now I have to define what I mean by consciousness. I do not think that consciousness is very mysterious. Everything we experience of the world is a model inside our heads. We cannot directly experience the true nature of anything (even tangible things like water or rocks). We only have our experience of the thing; the sensory experiences, and our mental model for how our sensory experiences fit together. So, for instance, a model of a rock is probably anything hard and brittle which is found outside and probably has dull colors. A more complete scientific model might involve chemical composition or the mineral lattice structure. But it's still just a model. In the same way, consciousness is just a model for the self.

So, when I claim that I have a higher level of consciousness than other people, it is not mystical mumbo-jumbo. It means that I have a more complete and functional working model for myself than most other people. I will tell you exactly how that is shortly.

I do not claim to have achieved absolute consciousness, or mystical enlightenment, or anything like that. It is probably not possible to be 100% conscious. That would involve being simultaneously aware of all physical, emotional, and mental processes within the self. There is a good reason to think that not only is this very difficult, but it's impossible. If you are aware of yourself thinking, then that in itself is a kind of thought, and 100% consciousness would have to involve being aware of that thought too. So, you'd run into the problem of thinking about thoughts thinking about thoughts ad infinitum. So, I don't think it's possible to reach a final "end" to understanding the self, but it's possible to make a great deal more progress than most have done. It is probably always necessary that a large part of what goes on inside of a thinking machine's head is unconscious.


Necessary Phenomenology:

It is the nature of our experience that sensory experiences come in from the outside, outside of our control (apart from being able to close our eyes). Factual information (of the kind which is true or false) is learned only from sensory experience (such as, "I am male: True or False", can be determined by looking at my body parts).

Logic is innate in the brain, and it judges for consistency. But logic cannot determine unique factual truth, because there are an infinite number of logically consistent systems. Logic can rule out what is impossible without sensory evidence, but it can't tell you what uniquely actually is.

Values are the 3rd part of our experience, and they are arbitrarily asserted. They are arbitrarily asserted, because there is nothing you can point to in the material world to prove or disprove a given value proposition (see the is-ought dilemma). You can assert your values arbitrarily, but it is easy to assert values that are inconsistent with one another, or with sensory information. Because I care about truth, I take a great deal of care in asserting my values. Also, you assign your values by telling yourself that you believe in it, and then acting on it. Those values that you espouse but do not practice are only pretense.


Psychological Model:

Here is the psychological model I made up for conscious assignment of values.

Values -> Emotions -> Thoughts -> Actions

To be more specific, an emotion necessarily arises in response to a perceived event relevant to one's values.

To give an example, if you thought somebody had stolen your money, you'd probably be mad, because anger is the feeling which responds to perceived attacks on things that you care about. There are 2 ways to consciously change an emotion: 1. change your perception of the event (in this case, that would mean realizing that you had lost the money and that nobody had stolen it) 2. change your values (convince yourself that you don't care about the money).

I have for several years been in the habit of consciously and deliberately changing my emotional state by this method. This is a large part of what convinces me that I have a higher level of consciousness than most people. Most people do not realize that their emotions are under conscious control. But I don't just choose what I do; I chose what I want to do.

All emotions have their own logic. Happiness is the acquisition of something good. Contentedness is the possession of the minimally necessary good things. Sadness is the loss of something good. Relief is the loss of something bad. Mourning is letting go of something that you had previously thought was important. There are many more emotions, but I won't list them all.


Mourning and Despair:

Mourning is of particular importance to psychological development. You cannot become different than you are now unless you are willing to mourn. You have to let the old self die.

Despair is related. Despair is when you realize that you can't have what you want. Most people think despair is a pit. But it is only a pit if you are unwilling to mourn (let go of) that thing that you can't have. If you are willing to mourn, then despair is a tunnel. If you have mourned properly, then when you pass through despair, you cannot go back in by the same route.

If you have never felt despair and let go of an old self, then you are not a developed person. You have the same values which you had as a baby, which are the same as your ancestors had 10 million years ago (material comfort and social status). This is how most people are.


Pride and Delusion:

Pride consists of lies that you tell yourself to make yourself feel good. I think it is highly connected to despair. People tell themselves lies to make themselves feel good, so that they do not have to let go of false comfort or a false self-image.

Humility, by contrast, is just being honest with the self. It is impossible unless you are willing to feel discomfort.

We are hardwired to seek after the good and avoid the bad, hence, pride is a temptation that we all face. I believe that in order to be psychologically capable of being humble (not attaching ourselves to false good feelings), it is necessary to be able to find goodness outside the self to replace it with. Developing a concept of God and love for that God is useful for this.


Example of My First Use of My Technique:

One day I realized that when I am grumpy due to hunger, it means that I care more about the feeling of discomfort in my gut than I do the people that I am being grumpy with. I wanted to think of myself as a developed and spiritual person, so this thought was humiliating. Whenever grumpiness arose again, this thought returned, and I was humiliated, and the anger subsided. After only a few days, I no longer had emotional reactions to common physical pains. I am literally able to starve myself (I once went 3 days without food or water during a fast in a monastery), stub my toe, put my hand in an icebath for an arbitrary length of time (like after 10 minutes my wife complains that I'm waiting too long at that exhibit in the museum, meanwhile a dozen other people quit the ice bath after a few seconds), etc, and have no emotional reaction. <-- If the sentences I write with parentheses are too long, try reading it while skipping over the parentheses.

As for the ice bath, my hand was probably close to freezing. I felt the physical pain just fine, but I didn't care very much. I have actually hurt myself badly a couple times by ignoring my physical pain since I first learned how to do this. If you learn how to do it too, I'd suggest paying extra attention to your physical needs, because your spontaneous reactions won't keep you safe anymore. Like right now I'm trying to lose weight (I gained weight due to an injury that prevented exercise). I could very easily just fast until I fainted (I've done it before), but that would not be good for my health while I'm up and about. So, I am just skipping meals on my days off, since the light-headedness that causes is not dangerous when I'm alone in my room.

I've heard people say that being "hangry" is an innate part of their personality. I do not think it is. This is because I used to think the same about myself, but now I see it was just due to immaturity. You do not need to emotionally react to physical sensations.

I am not able to use this technique on situations that I have not experienced before. So, if I were to unexpectedly experience a severe pain that I had not previously experienced (such as a broken bone, or appendicitis), I think I would likely have some emotional reaction. But if I had time and energy to collect my thoughts, such techniques would make the pain more bearable, and I'd probably behave more appropriately to the situation than I would without such techniques.


On Willingness to Know Truth:

One day a number of years ago, I had the thought that if I want friends, I should talk to people who think similarly to myself. But if I want to learn, then I should talk to people that I disagree with. So, I resolved to only initiate conversations with people that I didn't already agree with (either I disagreed with them, or I didn't have a strong opinion). I assumed while listening to them that everything I believed was wrong, and everything they believed was right, and then tried to work through to see if I could make a coherent world-view out of their beliefs. I changed many of my opinions during this time, and become more solid in the beliefs that I did not change. After about 2 years, it became tiring to me to keep debunking the same stupid ideas over and over again, so I quit only talking to people I disagreed with. At the end of this period, I had formed many beliefs about how the world works which have no name. There was no one on Earth with whom I could stand in the same place and look in the same direction. I have only become more alone since that time as I have continued to develop.

Since I am the only person I have ever heard of who has ever done anything like this, I think that is good evidence that I am among the most-interested in truth of all humans I have ever heard of. This is not hard to do, since most humans don't care about truth at all. Most people do not believe in the values they espouse ("diversity", "equality", "justice", etc), but only say those words because they think it will make them popular with other people who say the same words. It is very tiring to converse with these people (most people) when I am trying to say words that have actual meaning.


Other Psychological Games You Can Play:

Identifying One's Emotional State:

Values -> Emotions -> Thoughts -> Actions

Before trying other games, I'd highly recommend playing this game for a while. Use the above-mentioned psychological model to become self-aware. I will not be offended if you use other techniques (such as meditation, or dream interpretation) in addition to, or instead of this technique.

It seems true that being angry without knowing that you are angry is a very low state of consciousness. Knowing that you are angry is a little higher, knowing why you are angry is higher than that, and being able to consciously choose to only be angry at the appropriate time is higher than that. None of the other techniques here will be possible if you aren't aware of what's actually going on first. If you have not yet gotten to the point where you know what you are feeling and why, then you need to figure that out first.

Most things we do are habits, so it's usually best to focus on just learning one new skill at a time (such as by playing one of these games). When one new habit has become firm, you can try another.

Do What your Conscience Says:

I am not the first to think of this, but it's a very good game to play.

Identifying Offense:

The feeling of offense comes from hatred of facts. If you love truth, then it is always wrong. So, I have been in the habit for a long time of always noticing when I'm offended and then trying to find fault in myself. It's been a while since I've been offended much anymore, however.

It is possible to be offended by an idea by itself, or by a set of circumstances. For example, most people do not find flat-Earthism offensive, because they find it ridiculous. But if they were to learn that their kids were being taught flat-Earthism in school, then they might be offended by that circumstance. So, it may be useful when looking for offense to be able to distinguish between hatred of facts in-and-of themselves (such as things that put you in a bad light, or which are just uncomfortable), and hatred for your actual life circumstances, although you may be able to accept the reality of those circumstances.

I know many things of both a political and a scientific nature which would cause offense. I will not tell them to you, because then many people would hate me, and this message would be less likely to be received. If you want to find out what they are, then go look at what offends you.

Worry:

Worry comes from being overly concerned with things that are outside of your control. If they were in your control, then you would just fix those circumstances, and not worry. So this sense of "worry" is always futile.

Glad Game:

I learned the glad game from the book, "Pollyanna". Pollyanna teaches you a great secret of the universe: that values can be arbitrarily asserted, and that you are free to do this. It is literally an inalienable right to be able to assert your own values, so long as you are alive. Your life, liberty, and property can be taken from you, but your capacity to judge the world as you wish (so long as you still live) cannot be taken from you.

Pride Filter:

It occurred to me one day that the only thing I have the experience of truly being able to control is my effort. The results of my actions may turn out differently than I intended, due to circumstances outside of my control. But I can always control what I am trying to do. Therefore, I reasoned that congratulating myself for things outside of my control was dishonest. I concluded that there were only 2 valid reasons to be happy:

Self-congratulation for good effort
Gratitude for things outside of my control

So, like if I do a good job at work, or make my wife happy, then I congratulate myself for my good effort (if I feel good about doing good, then it makes me want to do it again), and feel grateful about the circumstances (such as my genes, the remnants of rule of law, other people giving me a chance, etc) that made it possible for the good outcome to occur. I reject all other good feelings (such as pride in my intelligence, or that my parents' money makes the mistakes I have made in life less costly to me).

I found this technique to be amongst the most brutal that I have invented. For one, it's cognitively draining to judge all my thoughts like this. Secondly, it is emotionally draining to deny one's self so many pleasures. Due to its draining nature, I invented a more pleasurable one (the following).

Give Glory to God:

This is the game I have been playing for a while now. Instead of trying to see good in myself, I try to see good in the world around me that would be there whether I was here to see it or not. Partly this includes judging other people the same as myself (feeling good for what other people have done the same as I would if I had done it myself), partly it includes trying to see beauty in natural and abstract things just the way they are (like cosmology, or the theory of evolution). It is still kind of hard (partially because of my natural selfishness), but easier than the pride filter. I agree with Paul that focusing on doing what is good is better than focusing on not doing what is bad. It gets easier and more pleasurable with time.

It is as a result of this particular game that I had the thoughts which I included in my earlier post on God, which basically nobody understood.