I now understand the process. Faith is essential, as is a scaffold in the form of an alternate worldview.
We need faith that the process will work so that we get the dopaminergic activation necessary to potentiate the new attractor states. I have this because of my cycle tour - that second encounter with nibbana showed me that it was not just drug-induced delusion. This is why you need to keep mara / doubt out.
But this is not all. We actually need the religion, and one reason enlightenment is out of reach for most of us is that our understanding of the world does not match any of the existing religions. They are at odds.
This is a reprogamming of your neural network. In order for a network to be reprogrammed, there needs to be a parallel process that you can switch to while the code is being edited.
You are usually running the [realworld] perceptual framework. This is the framework you are re-encoding.
This framework needs to be switched off in order to be changed. You need to be able to switch to another perceptual framework which does not conflict with your understanding of the world. We will call this the [scaffold].
My awakening was not in a framework because I did not believe any of the religions, so my brain made one. I finalised the scaffold yesterday and then shortly afterward my brain went into a megafork (re-observation) mode and the local minima changed into a diffused global hum, which was accompanied by fear. This recorded in buddhist circles too, before a path moment.
What this means is that the [realworld] is ready for a root-level reprogramming. It manifests as a global level processing headache, or a swelling in the cranium. Normal [forkstorms] are more local and usually confined to one side.
So what you need is the belief in the process [dopamine], and an alternate perceptual program which your brain can run while the code of [realworld] is fixed.
This is why only the most devout achieve full liberation. And this is why my mind made the scaffold of the ship / sim.
Feel free to use my scaffold if you like. I do not think it clashes with any of our current scientific understanding.
See you on the other side.
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