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yanqui
climber
Balcarce, Argentina
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Gill's on a roll!
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Nobel prize.
Circadian biology for the win!
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/health/nobel-prize-medicine.html
A day of celebration for mitochondriacs everywhere!
With exquisite precision, our inner clock adapts our physiology to the dramatically different phases of the day. The clock regulates critical functions such as behavior, hormone levels, sleep, body temperature and metabolism. Our wellbeing is affected when there is a temporary mismatch between our external environment and this internal biological clock, for example when we travel across several time zones and experience "jet lag." There are also indications that chronic misalignment between our lifestyle and the rhythm dictated by our inner timekeeper is associated with increased risk for various diseases.
The " increased risk" referred to in the above is largely manifest in higher mitochondrial heteroplasmy rates.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171002092603.htm
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_perception
Time has always fascinated me. Particularly the perception of time's passage and actual chronological intervals. Is time continuous or discrete? In my computer programs, of course, it's the latter. But the time-based contours in the complex plane, z(t), look very smooth and unbroken to the naked eye.
I'm in the process of writing a note on complex time, T=a+ib, and the logical twists are puzzling. Although complex (imaginary) time has a role in physics, the conceptual or philosophical framework is difficult to pin down.
The most interesting thing that has popped up in the last few days is the notion of constructing a contour that terminates at an attractor by distorting time in one aspect of the formula, while keeping time normal in the other aspect. It works.
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WBraun
climber
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The gross materialists meet God in his impersonal feature as TIME.
The gross materialists are always subordinate to TIME and are always forced to serve Time.
There's no escape from TIME ever for the gross materialists .....
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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It might be useful to think of "complex time" as a special case of a metric with two time dimensions in some odd generalization of our normal space-time, that is, we often write the metric:
(x₁, x₂, x₃, it)
(with c=1) so that when you form the Cartesian length you get the "length" right... better is to just define the metric tensor: (1,1,1,-1)
but if you have complex time you've "added" another dimension, so why not just have something like:
(x₁, x₂, x₃, t₁, t₂)
and propose another metric (not sure what the implications are).
These distinct time dimensions "act" like time, independently. Generally imaginary time, Euclidean space with the metric (1,1,1,1) will cause oscillating solutions to "decay away" leaving only the ground states of a particular dynamical system.
Local time translation symmetries are related to global energy conservation by way of Noether's Theorem, another possible avenue to pursue your ideas.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Thanks, Ed. I've come across the notion of replacing t with it in the spacetime metric to produce the normal Euclidean metric in 4-D. But these days I work only in the complex plane with relatively elementary ideas based on time normalization to [0,1].
In a time-dependent vector field f(z,t) with attracting fixed points a(t) contours z(t) progress along path lines toward the final a(1), but usually stop short of that value; z(1) ‡ a(1). By manipulating time in one part of the algorithm, but not in the other part, I can "force" the contour to a(1).
This is part of a fantasy mathematical analogy in the complex plane of Lem's "Ergodic Theory of History", in which certain events seemingly form strong attractors so that minor deviations in an "events contour" (a continuum of events over time, governed by some mysterious event vector field) still have the contour converging to that attractor. The opposite of the "butterfly effect" over a time period. Starting at any number of points z (events) leads to the same historical attractor.
I.e., minor deviations in history have little to no effect on the outcome.
But this is simply distorting real time. For complex time, I look at contour-producing DEs, dz/dt=f(z,t), and use dz/dT=f(z,T), with T=u+iv. Each such contour in complex time reduces to a usual contour in real time. Very simple stuff. See what you can get into in retirement?
The intellectual equivalent of carving wooden ducks.
;>)
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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This morning a woman asked me, "Sir, how do you plan to spend eternity?" I started to tell her, but she seemed not to have the time for my answer. I had met the same woman a year or more ago and she had asked the same question.
After the first meeting with this woman I went home and got out a piece of paper and wrote, 'How I Plan to Spend Eternity' at the top.
I had a lot of good ideas about how to spend eternity, but in the end I was pretty sure I would be spending eternity rather like I had spent the previous 13 billion years, with the brief exception of what we would call my 'life.'
I reconstructed the past with all the particles that make me today flying through space, condensing into suns, transmuting into a variety of elements, flying into space again, condensing into the solar system, etc., etc. Although I could follow all the bits (imaginatively) I could not be sure they were just me, more than me, or less than me.
But, being human, I went back to planning how to spend the next 5 minutes.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 4, 2017 - 08:12pm PT
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John asks, "Where did I put the no-thing?"
Here's a technical look at unpacking what John is saying. Thank Anadi for most of the following.
One of the tricky parts of the internal adventures is realizing that we are in a relationship with the experience of reality prior to objects - all from a certain internal point of reference that serves as our ground. That is, a meditator is not merely in a state of being or consciousness: he is also interpreting that state. Whatever his state is, the place from which he views his experience is his primal point of reference – his base.
For me, the most interesting and intense phase came when specific techniques were used to erode and dissolve that base, which always has its own process but four principal phases have been recognized for centuries and they roughly correspond to "The Four Jhanas Without Form."
"The fifth jhana can be seen as the first proper state beyond all gross and subtle forms of mind. However, here one is still objectifying one’s state too much, perceiving it as ‘space.’ This is because one is still conditioned by the first four jhanas to use an object for support in meditation.
Sometimes the entry into the fifth jhana is described as a practice in which one begins by focusing on an object of concentration (called ‘kasina’) and then forgets the object itself. What remains is the absence of an object that, due to our habit of ‘looking’ (that is, John "looking" for no-thing), we experience as ‘space.’ In reality there is not just space, but the perception of space and the base, which is independent from it (which is our subjectivity or ground of perception).
"In the fifth jhana, the base of boundless space, one has found an abiding place beyond the observer without having understood its significance – one still does not know who one is. In addition, one is not conscious of relationship between the observer and the base, which is conscious me. Here, conscious me is present, but the observer has not surrendered to it properly."
The actual technique to plunging into the formless Jhanas (it's just a word) varies according to one's tradition and teacher, and this kind of work is IME far outside the province of mainstream meditation, probably because it makes so little sense at the outset. Though most meditators will plateau at the threshold of the 5th Jhana, which at best is merely a signpost.
The technique, if you can call it that, is not so much what you are doing, rather what you are NOT doing: not concentrating, not observing, not closed focusing (on things/objects - including thoughts, feelings, sensations, memories/plans), and most of all, not paying attention. All the while remaining alert and present.
The path or progression of encountering the Four Jhanas without Form is helpful because the work is so slippery at this point, and the material overlaps willy nilly, that one can easily get lost or stall out without a few signposts. Not concentrating, no paying attention (this after years of paying attention to your breath etc) is the means of setting up the conditions for the work on formless or objectless adventures to naturally unfold.
I have never been a fan of discursive descriptions about any of this, favoring just to climb the route, so to speak, and draw my conclusions. But having a bare bones breakdown (like one page) about the Immaterial Jhanas, and what was normally involved, was of critical importance, at least for me.
If you want an internal adventure, try sitting quietly for a few minutes and remaining totally alert and present, see what happens when you quite concentrating, paying attention, or observing. For many, they find their attention pooling in a kind of dead spot in the middle of their head - not realizing that this happens from observing and focusing on that spot.
Sort of like juggling quicksilver. But doable - and then the adventure takes off from there. Right now I'm only talking about the conditions usually required for lift off.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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In reality there is not just space, but the perception of space and the base, which is independent from it (which is our subjectivity or ground of perception).
It is amazing that you can write about space and the perception of space, and not consider that there is "mind" and the "perception of mind" and that these are separate. But in particular, one might confuse one's subjective experience as "the real deal" itself... and not a perception of that experience.
This confusion is the driving force of this thread.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 5, 2017 - 09:18am PT
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For anyone interested in this stuff, you can compare the last five Jhanas with the Five Degrees of Realization attributed to Tung-shan in the The Five Degrees of Tozan, as well as the five "types" of Zen in The Five Varieties of Zen.
All of this material can be approached in a totally secular way, sans belief, idols, worshiping, faith in miracles, men in fancy robes, Gods, spirits, spooks, woo, and so forth. You are essentially just exploring the preconditions to perception.
Somewhere in the adventure a person finds that perception hinges on having something to perceive, achieved by paying attention, concentrating, narrow focusing - in a word, "keeping track" of some input that "you" can process, notice, evaluate, and "know." Once those functions relax and melt away - to varying degrees - the base of perception starts to dissolve.
And Ed wrote: It is amazing that you can write about space and the perception of space, and not consider that there is "mind" and the "perception of mind" and that these are separate.
You're getting ahead of yourself, Ed. Don't think for a second that people working on these questions over the centuries did "not consider" what you just said. There is a progression involved with working with the immaterial Jhanas, and the first one is working with space. The eighth works with "perception of mind," and perception itself, specifically with the base of perception. But you can't just go there anymore than you can skip 5.10 and 5.11 and jump into 5.12. You can, actually, but you're bound to flounder. That's why there is a progression. You work up to it.
But again, you bring up good points but it seems a little strange that you would think those points would be lost on the many who have worked as hard on this material as you have worked on your physics.
Part of working with the 5th Jhana is letting go with trying to wrangle the "real deal," which one can only do through paying attention or focusing on your perception of the real deal as contrasted with the false or imaginary deal. When attempts to grasp one and all deals - real or imagined - are relaxed, THAT'S when the adventure begins with the preconditions that give rise to all deals.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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First Person Science
BY THE DALAI LAMA|
A comprehensive scientific study of consciousness must embrace both third person and first person methods: it cannot ignore the phenomenological reality of subjective experience but must observe all the rules of scientific rigor. So the critical question is this: Can we envision a scientific methodology for the study of consciousness whereby a robust first person method, which does full justice to the phenomenology of experience, can be combined with the objectivist perspective of the study of the brain?
Here I feel a close collaboration between modern science and the contemplative traditions, such as Buddhism, could prove beneficial. Buddhism has a long history of investigation into the nature of mind and its various aspects—this is effectively what Buddhist meditation and its critical analysis constitute. Unlike that of modern science, Buddhism’s approach has been primarily from first-person experience.
The contemplative method, as developed by Buddhism, is an empirical use of introspection, sustained by rigorous training in technique and robust testing of the reliability of experience. All meditatively valid subjective experiences must be verifiable both through repetition by the same practitioner and through other individuals being able to attain the same state by the same practice. If they are thus verified, such states may be taken to be universal, at any rate for human beings.
The Buddhist understanding of mind is primarily derived from empirical observations grounded in the phenomenology of experience, which includes the contemplative techniques of meditation. Working models of the mind and its various aspects and functions are generated on this basis; they are then subjected to sustained critical and philosophical analysis and empirical testing through both meditation and mindful observation.
For example, if we want to observe how our perceptions work, we may train our mind in attention and learn to observe the rising and falling of perceptual processes on a moment by moment basis. This is an empirical process that results in firsthand knowledge of a certain aspect of how the mind works. We may use that knowledge to reduce the effect of emotions such as anger or resentment (indeed, meditation practitioners in search of overcoming mental affliction would wish to do this), but my point here is that this process offers a first person empirical method with relation to mind.
From The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. © 2005 by The Dalai Lama. Used by permission of The Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
David Gabriel Fischer
Shambhala Sun - Mar '12
https://WWW.LIONSROAR.COM/FIRST-PERSON-SCIENCE-MARCH-2012/
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 5, 2017 - 12:19pm PT
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That's a great quote, Jan, and it underscores what was said on the Sam Harris podcast that Fruity posted last week - that at this time, the only comprehensive approach to mind will perforce involve many disciplines. Mind is where Type A Naturalism dead ends, IME.
That much said, it seems strange and perhaps a little short sighted that Ed and others would thrutch around, demanding that the findings folks bring back from the subjective adventures make perfect discursive sense. And this coming from a man who studies quantum mechanics, a field to which Richard Feynman said, "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."
What Feynman was surely saying is that there are swaths of reality, as we perceive them, that don't yield to classical, logical descriptions, but which Ed nevertheless is expecting to issue from the 1st person adventures.
Another Feynman quote worth mentioning in this regard: "We do not know what the rules of the game are; all we are allowed to do is to watch the playing. Of course, if we watch long enough, we may eventually catch on to a few of the rules. The rules of the game are what we mean by fundamental physics."
Most of us acknowledge two basic phenomenon in reality: objective and subjective. One way to probe the objective is through physics. One way to probe the subjective is through wrangling with the Four Immaterial Jhanas.
There are many more.
Ultimately, the "rules of the game" are probably ungraspable, or at any rate not final; but some fundamentals of mind can nevertheless be derived from careful investigation and centuries of shared, 1st person findings and rigorous peer review - as the Dali Lama so clearly stated.
That these finding don't square with classical thinking should come as no surprise to anyone who has worked with either the objective or the subjective at any telling depth.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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All meditatively valid subjective experiences must be verifiable both through repetition by the same practitioner and through other individuals being able to attain the same state by the same practice.
Okay. How do the various individuals verify that they have had the same subjective experience and/or attained the same state?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 5, 2017 - 02:52pm PT
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MH2. Through vigorous personal interviews. That's the value of having a qualified teacher in anything, one who has tracked the progress of the student over a period of time and through a long drill of specific practices.
I think a sticking point for many who are advocates of hardcore naturalism is that, looking at this from the outside, they want the equivalent of the predictions found in natural science, some output that they can wrangle from a 3rd person perspective, not understanding that the lack of this is not proof that the teachers mentioned don't really "know," or that "they only think that that know."
If you really want to know the answer to your question, the only sure fire way is to jump into the work and find out for yourself how it all works. One of the lasting mottoes for any of this is to never take another person's word for it, no matter how highly esteemed he or she might be. The knowing in 1st person work must be grounded in 1st person first and foremost. Then you can start casting about in the 3rd person.
Bridging that gap is the work for the next generation, IMO, when the study of mind will go fully multi-discipline. We all just groping our way at the crossroads. The value of someone like Sam Harris is in his ability to bridge both worlds, and to know the terrain of both. Some in the objective camp are loath to entertain the idea of multi-discipline approaches to mind, feeling they somehow will be giving ground to religions kooks. This is a quaint outlook reserved for duffers, IME. It is also NEVER proposed by ANYONE who actually has one foot in both camps. Only by those who feel they are defending their own ground. I believe fear of the unknown is behind this.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Me: My wife asked, "Honey, where did you put the no-thing?" I replied, "In the empty drawer."
Largo: John asks, "Where did I put the no-thing?"
This illustrates a major difficulty on this thread. Do I need to say more?
At some point I suspect an "empty awareness" neuron will be found, but that still leaves the problem of how that trance condition arises in the mind of the practitioner. I don't see a lot of hope for reconciling the neuroscientific with the spiritual aspects of mind. But it seems obvious that neuronal activities underlie those spiritual experiences.
What Feynman was surely saying is that there are swaths of reality, as we perceive them, that don't yield to classical, logical descriptions
And here we go again, trying to form analogies with physics, hoping that will lend credence to Eastern religious practices. Keep on, keep on.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 5, 2017 - 04:31pm PT
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I don't see a lot of hope for reconciling the neuroscientific with the spiritual aspects of mind.
--
Neither do I, John, that's why I have always taken an empirical approach to mind. As many do. If you'll look at the descriptors of the 4 Immaterial Jhanaas, you will find no "spiritual" language, nor yet inferences, whatsoever. Harris has been clear on this point - that those involved in the subjective adventures - as he has - all have to get out of religion business. I couldn't agree more.
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But it seems obvious that neuronal activities underlie those spiritual experiences.
Again, I'm not at all sure what you mean by "spiritual." When technical terms like focus, awareness, attention, and so forth are used, and spoken of in strictly technical ways, one wonders what in fact you are meaning trotting out a dog-eared conception of "spiritual." Maybe you could explain what, exactly, you mean by that, because in my experience, it makes no sense at all. But then I have no idea what experiences you have had to lead you to use such terms, and how you hope to clarify the conversation by doing so.
Also, "underly" often gets conflated with "caused," or sourced, and this is vastly misleading because some believe that ALL aspects of mind are the direct result of dancing neurons, which greatly limits the field of investigation, IMO. That much said, brain is unquestionably a key factor in consciousness as I understand it. The fact that we need the input of other disciplines beside neuroscience to understand mind is no knock on the former, though Type A Naturalists might think so.
And John, I wasn't "trying" to draw analogies to physics, I WAS doing so, and at no time did I try to draw said analogies to "spiritual practices."
And why shouldn't I draw analogies?
But most of all, what on earth ever made you think we need a physicists nod to vouchsafe what goes on in the subjective adventures? That's as silly as saying Ed is trying to curry the Dali Lama's favor to add luster to his equations. But it does, in a canny way, try and make Naturalism the gold standard for all of this, and imagining that I am and should seek verification by that group is simply betraying your own biases.
Fact is, there seems to be one seamless reality, comprised of objective and subjective sides of the same coin. References to physics are used to illustrate that in both fields, understanding in classical terms runs aground. If there is something in there that you disagree with, or that this doesn't square with your understanding, I'm sure we'd love to hear all about it. But as is your insistence to pot shot the conversation with pejorative slights about religion, where they don't fit at all, seems misguided. How do they drive the conversation forward? What new insight or data are they bringing forth?
Put differently, in what manner do you suggest one might take in studying the subjective adventures that would be free and clear of "spiritual" woo, and what, exactly, would you be dealing with?
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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If you really want to know the answer to your question,
I like your answer, JL. Direct and clear. Thanks.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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"Harris has been clear on this point - that those involved in the subjective adventures - as he has - all have to get out of religion business."
I couldn't agree more.
Largo, nice to see.
Would you also agree "subjective adventures" could include:
(1) introspection (remember Harris and Metzinger lamented the West didn't follow up on this as a study or discipline as fully as it could have - following, eg, William James' interest)?
(2) incorporating principles, lessons and facts from psychology incl, now more than ever, evolutionary psychology?
Said conversation re consciousness and self (mind) was chock-full of allusions to evolutionary psychology if you recall (eg, model-self and adaptive delusion systems, as evolutionary products; over tens of millions of years). It could use more currency or inclusion here on this thread, no? Introspection, too, not as a replacement for meditation but in addition to meditation.
Mental Life 101 - Mental Life 404: (a) introspection studies (b) evolutionary psychology studies (c) meditation studies (d) neuroscience studies.
Knowing what we now know from the vantage point of 21st c sciences across the board, study of either (a) the mental life or (b) mind-brain relations is simply incomplete in the absence of (1) Evolution and Evolutionary Psychology; (2) Introspection Studies; (3) Neuroscience.
Pursuant to the Harris Metzinger conversation: do you agree that it is likely that there is an underlying brain architecture millions of years in the making as evolutionary product that corresponds to our subjective sense of a "self-model" that "identifies" with various "objects of consciousness"?
If either of these two inquiries I've posed is unclear, please let me know, I'll try to clarify. So you can answer. I'm sure you agree they're pretty basic to any serious "mind fundamentals" inquiry.
...
"Buddhism’s philosophy, insight, and practices would benefit more people if they were not presented as a religion." -Harris
http://www.samharris.org/media/killing-the-buddha.pdf
...
Aside from the H-M conversation re consciousness and self, what did you make of those other items, that: (a) the species is approaching bottlenecks over the next couple hundred years (basis for much pessimism); (b) the internal mental conflicts (of our "innerworld") that have arisen in modern man between his primal biases (eg, existence bias) and his cognitive self-model strongly influenced by cultural evolution (modern understanding largely due to science); (c) the BAAN scenario where we have a benevolent Super AI that decides to pull the plug on all life on the planet due to its benevolent decision making that net suffering outweighs joy; (d) religions are evolved belief systems featuring "death denial" as adaptive delusion systems (in our mental life, some delusion is adaptive); (e) a full 80% of humanity across the world still locked into some sort of "death denial" system (major influence if not ball and chain on one's mental life, no?); (f) a great many secular Buddhists and Buddhist teachers still embrace, still internalize, "death denial" as delusion, as means to giving their lives meaning.
Just food for thought, really.
Pursuant to the subject matter of this thread, personally I gave the Harris Metzinger exchange an A Grade.
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