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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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as for learning about mediative states, etc, I don't think it is even close to being "science" in even the most liberal definition. As we see on this thread, there is a difference in opinion/interpretation/understanding/learning regarding meditative states, meditation technique, and all that, and no way to resolve it.
I'm not sure we should judge anything from this thread and I do see how all the different claims could be confusing. Part of the problem is that some are still sectarian and not trying to look at it in an unbiased fashion. I think it will take many masters, or maybe many lay people from many different schools to work out the equivalences and the differences, and we are only at the beginning of that. This initiative was begun by the Dalai Lama for monastics only about ten years ago.
Probably as some have suggested, it will only become a science in the modern sense when it is separated from all religion. The problem is that technique without ethics and compassion won't produce much except individual experiences.
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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Jan,
Probably as some have suggested, it will only become a science in the modern sense when it is separated from all religion. The problem is that technique without ethics and compassion won't produce much except individual experiences.
Science? I hope there are always people confident enough to say no to any goals thru meditation as there are many other paths in life that work fine without it.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Al Steck!
Nice video.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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EH said "experience itself is something that is not "innate" but something we learn about, something we learn how to interpret and how to describe, actually something we learn to have."
This statement may get at one of the cruxs of meditation. I would re-word this and say experience is "innate"and how we interpret it is our construction and becomes our constructed life. With the meditation tool you can have an opportunity to view the experience and see that labeling the experience is just labeling the experience not the experience. Right and wrong, good and bad are constructs not "innate"; I, me and you are constructs all discursive is a construct; not "innate".
Obviously we need the constructs to buy groceries but they are not "innate".
The key instruction from a meditation POV is that the constructs are not a problem unless you get attached to them; once you become attached to a construct then it runs your life rather than have the free open mind to recognize that construct is causing you great suffering and letting it go. If you can't see the constructs you are like a blind person; meditation is a tool to help you realize the constructs are only that. Some say it exposes the unconsciousness.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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constructs can lead you astray, but they are also a part of the way our behaviors adapted, for instance:
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(17)30972-7
Humans, but Not Deep Neural Networks, Often Miss Giant Targets in Scenes
Miguel P. Eckstein, Kathryn Koehler, Lauren E. Welbourne, Emre Akbas
Summary
Even with great advances in machine vision, animals are still unmatched in their ability to visually search complex scenes. Animals from bees [1, 2] to birds [3] to humans [4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12] learn about the statistical relations in visual environments to guide and aid their search for targets. Here, we investigate a novel manner in which humans utilize rapidly acquired information about scenes by guiding search toward likely target sizes. We show that humans often miss targets when their size is inconsistent with the rest of the scene, even when the targets were made larger and more salient and observers fixated the target. In contrast, we show that state-of-the-art deep neural networks do not exhibit such deficits in finding mis-scaled targets but, unlike humans, can be fooled by target-shaped distractors that are inconsistent with the expected target’s size within the scene. Thus, it is not a human deficiency to miss targets when they are inconsistent in size with the scene; instead, it is a byproduct of a useful strategy that the brain has implemented to rapidly discount potential distractors.
see the NYTimes article:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/06/science/why-we-miss-things-in-front-of-us.html
While our perception of the world may be an approximation to the "real world," we do not come to those perceptions as merely a product of our culture, but as the result of evolutionary adaptation. Those perceptions "run our lives" at all levels, and is essential to our living. It has seemed strange to me to consider them an inhibition to enlightenment, they are a part of our very being, and largely responsible for our being.
We may learn to interpret these perceptions in a cultural context, but science helps us understand both the culture, and the perception.
Meditation may provide a way of "playing around" with those perceptions, but there is no way to escape them, even "meditation" is a perception, and something we learn, so having a cultural and social dimension.
[dis]claimer: I read the entire article, both in the NYTimes and in Current Biology the summary is provided from the paper, and the links to allow you to read them if you are interested.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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once you become attached to a construct then it runs your life rather than have the free open mind to recognize that construct is causing you great suffering and letting it go.
PSP also PP,
Could you explain what you mean by 'construct?' Can a person employ constructs without suffering, in the absence of a meditative practice?
Again, I think there is more to this than meditation alone can encompass.
Your analogy to a blind person has a long tradition in Western thought.
Does this come anywhere near to what you mean when you refer to constructs?
When a child learns the use of the word ‘water’ in the usual way,
the facts about the teaching situations determine not only that the
child forms an idea of water, but also that the idea is involved in the
requisite normal beliefs about water, and that the idea is connected
to the normal ways of recognizing water. This phenomenon, of the
linguistic propagation of normal ideas, makes it a good bet that any
speaker of our language has a normal idea of any property that is
expressed by a common word or phrase.’ This is a simple point,
but one that is of great importance for understanding the intricate
relations among ideas, concepts and words.
Having Ideas and Having the Concept
Mind and Language
Volume 4 Issue 4
article first published online: 5 May 2007
My excerpts are taken from philosopher Mark Crimmins. His article in Mind and Language begins with the statement, "Philosophers too often have been unfair to the blind."
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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Human social behavior has evolved out of the structure of the evolved human brain. However, many of these structures are no longer useful. Take for example, the notion that God loves a certain tribe or religion more than others. This was great for tribal unity and purpose. In times of great suffering when many would have been tempted to leave the group or commit suicide, thus diminishing the survival prospects of the others, the idea that they had a unique gift or burden in relation to the deity, to survive and represent him (always a him) enabled group cohesion and survival and gave people enough of a purpose to go on having children.
Fast forward a mere 2,000 years and these very ideas are threatening our survival as in the turmoil of the Middle East. Three great religions and three distinct tribes (two of them with the same father Abraham, but different mothers) all vying for the same small piece of real estate because they are special and have a unique relationship to the deity. What worked for tens of thousands of years suddenly threatens their survival and everyone else's.
I think in the face of this that the claims of meditation, that one can change one's views and behavior by seeing reality as it is, will definitely be an improvement. Meanwhile, if you can come to these conclusions on your own with the help of science, wonderful. As they say in the east, there are many paths to the top of the mountain.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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As they say in the east, there are many paths to the top of the mountain.
I think the east and west, maybe even the East and West, and North and South, can agree on that.
Depending on what you mean by a path.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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That's a huge can of worms with another huge can of policing action worms wishing to control the meaning of the can of worms.
That adds a layer of complication to Shakespeare that I was not aware of.
The worm turns
See Henry VI, Part 3
edit:
"To whom do lions cast their gentle looks? Not to the beast that would usurp their den. The smallest worm will turn being trodden on, And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood."
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado & Nepal
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It seems grammar policing is contagious.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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As they say in the east, there are many paths to the top of the mountain
Attention Wizard: Need a Feynman path integral to narrow down the choices!
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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EH said "While our perception of the world may be an approximation to the "real world," we do not come to those perceptions as merely a product of our culture, but as the result of evolutionary adaptation. Those perceptions "run our lives" at all levels, and is essential to our living. It has seemed strange to me to consider them an inhibition to enlightenment, they are a part of our very being, and largely responsible for our being.
We may learn to interpret these perceptions in a cultural context, but science helps us understand both the culture, and the perception.
Meditation may provide a way of "playing around" with those perceptions, but there is no way to escape them, even "meditation" is a perception, and something we learn, so having a cultural and social dimension."
Not really sure what your saying here. Perceiving is just perceiving but then we construct a story of the perception and that story is the construction. The story will be a problem if we become become "attached " and hold it ridgidly . This attachment will cause suffering for us and likely those we hang out with. The meditation tool in used to see this construct and the attachment to it in order to provide us an opportunity to let the attachment (story ) go or to hold it much more openly.
The constructs /interpretations make it possible for us to get the groceries; a very important thing and we both fully agree on this. Constructs are only an inhibition to "enlightenment" if you are attached to them. Otherwise (not attached to them) they are the path to "enlightenment" i.e. when you are suffering it is because you attached to a construct or numerous constructs (stories). A classic case is not wanting to be sick when you are sick. The not wanting to be sick has nothing to do with the sickness it is an added story.
My guess is the culture /family constructs are the worst(cause the most suffering) to be attached to.
And as far as trying to escape perceptions ; I don't ever recall saying that? Seems like an oxymoron .
MH: I think I have explained construction here and as far as the blind person reference I agree it doesn't work.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Not really sure what your saying here. Perceiving is just perceiving but then we construct a story of the perception and that story is the construction. The story will be a problem if we become become "attached " and hold it ridgidly . This attachment will cause suffering for us and likely those we hang out with. The meditation tool in used to see this construct and the attachment to it in order to provide us an opportunity to let the attachment (story ) go or to hold it much more openly.
if I dare say, you are too attached to the non-attachment thing...
I'm saying that "perceiving" is not just "perceiving" the act of perception imposes an approximation of the world, it is an approximation of the world... You don't see the large toothbrush but you see the small one, in that moment, your perception leads you to draw an incorrect conclusion about the scene.
That experience, now in the past, doesn't have any memory of their being a large toothbrush in it, it is lost to you, when you look again, a new experience with new information, you see it.
You can make a story up about it, it doesn't change anything.
Now if you expand those sorts of perceptual approximations to all of your thoughts, including those about what you are conscious/aware/mindful/etc. of, then you begin to see where my skepticism comes from in terms of interpreting subjective experience.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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I'm saying that "perceiving" is not just "perceiving" the act of perception imposes an approximation of the world, it is an approximation of the world... You don't see the large toothbrush but you see the small one, in that moment, your perception leads you to draw an incorrect conclusion about the scene.
Perhaps true but nevertheless what a perception is remains a mystery, an unfathomed mystery, and perception remains, like thought, a word impossible to define. What is it to perceive and how can we understand perception as a thing in itself? Who is perceiving and what is that entity (the who) that can perceive? And finally what is the evolutionary advantage of the misperception of the world around us? It would seem that evolution would ensure the accuracy of our senses and our "perceptions" as inevitable to that evolutionary process.
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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paul roehl,
It would seem that evolution would ensure the accuracy of our senses and our "perceptions" as inevitable to that evolutionary process.
The play Our Town by Thornton Wilder questions the likelihood of perfect/better? perception.
One of the constraints of evolution towards accurate perception is the available free energy. The process of perception only needs to be accurate enough locally to ensure survival & reproduction when measured by the drive of evolution. As perception accuracy increases it seems brain size would have to grow and hence energy needs. The extra energy is likely better spent elsewhere.
And that is the evolutionary advantage of the misperception of the world around us ? ...
Emily of Our Town realizes how much of the present moment she missed in real life and wonders why. The stage manager shouts, "It can't be that way" -- perfect perception of the present moment. Wilder had a grasp of this idea in 1938.
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Dingus McGee
Social climber
Where Safety trumps Leaving No Trace
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If we were all born enlightened would we still have religious fanatics? Science fanatics?
Would we still have the Stephan Paddocks and Donald Trump?
Scientific Am mentions that about 150 yr ago someone speculated there might soon be a telegraph in every house.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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It seems grammar policing is contagious.
Wherever I attempt to correct grammar it would be in the style of the Keystone Cops. My perception of grammar is as mysterious as anything paul talks about. All that analysis on how words acquire meaning, but the word "grammar" and many other words associated with it are only mist to me. If you say or write, "participle," my free association jumps to "vegetable."
I have a good recollection of grade school when our teacher first began talking about grammar and how my mind went blank. Why did we need words to label other words? Didn't we already know how to speak and read and write? To this day I shudder at the use of "conjunction" and "preposition" to refer to little words we use all the time.
PSP also PP,
I have no recollection of your own views on what you mean by "construction." The fault lies with me, I am sure (see above.)
edit:
But I asked because of having lately read a working philosopher go into detail on the difference between ideas and concepts. One needs to be careful when using words since any word usually has more than one meaning.
second edit:
Is a construction a story about a perception? Could you simplify by just saying "stories?" I get the feeling that the word "construction" is used to lend an air of the artificial so that meditation can be credited with seeing through the artifice.
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WBraun
climber
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Dennett: from Freedom Evolves (New York: Penguin, 2003)
Human beings “are made of mindless robots and nothing else, no non-physical, non-robotic ingredients at all.”
Robots, by definition, do not have consciences and do not act as free agents.
External entities always tell them what to do and they act on those orders.
Dennett argues that consciousness itself is an illusion.
Anyone that subscribes to this horsesh!t is certified insane.
Who is this external entity controlling Dennett and telling him this horsesh!t?
Obviously his own demented mind .......
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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"Anyone that subscribes to this horsesh!t is certified insane... Who is this external entity controlling Dennett and telling him this horsesh!t?... Obviously his own demented mind ......." -WB
"Werner is by several yardsticks the most solid person posting here..." -MH2
You think if Dennis Rodman were posting here, he'd be deemed pretty "solid" too? lol
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WBraun
climber
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So ....
HFCS agrees that he and Dennett are both certified insane .....
Dennett argues that consciousness itself is an illusion.
Even a robot has consciousness, it's firmware (static consciousness) written by living dynamic conscious being) until again updated by a living dynamic conscious being.
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