Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
|
|
|
Aug 27, 2015 - 06:17pm PT
|
|
|
paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
|
|
|
Aug 27, 2015 - 07:28pm PT
|
I wonder what it's like to let go of irony for awhile. Destabilizing perhaps but maybe refreshing.
|
|
healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
|
|
|
Aug 27, 2015 - 07:36pm PT
|
I’m from Missouri
With three words, and after all these years, suddenly everything is clear.
|
|
cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
|
|
|
Aug 27, 2015 - 08:34pm PT
|
If plants had a forum, there would probably be some of them posting to a thread called "What is Photosynthesis?" And there would be that one plant who would keep insisting that the ones who just wanted to boil it all down to sterile objective measurements had it all wrong.
|
|
BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
|
|
|
Aug 27, 2015 - 08:39pm PT
|
^^^ Or maybe 'What is Color'
;)
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Aug 27, 2015 - 10:03pm PT
|
Cintune:
Wonderful! Ha-ha.
healyje:
I'm glad you have it clear! (I don't, but it's good to hear that someone like you does. Really.)
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Aug 27, 2015 - 10:05pm PT
|
And, Paul:
I don't think you are one, but you have the mind of a spiritualist, it seems to me. I agree with DMT; your writing can be a pleasure to read.
|
|
jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
|
|
|
Aug 30, 2015 - 05:54pm PT
|
It also means that you cannot, so to speak, understand the objective at depth by merely studying the subjective, and vica versa (JL)
When I read what you write about subjective vs objective - each a tool of investigation in its bailiwick - you seem to be trying to conjure up a kind of equivalence between the two, eschewing any sort of relative ranking. Distantly similar to attempts to form an equivalence between research degrees and ashram time.
I'm not saying equality , but more a judicial equivalence. I think most of us would support Brain giving rise to Mind, but would not support Mind giving rise to Brain. There is no evidence whatsoever that mind exists as anything other than a product of brain. It might seem like it when in a meditative state, but you really aren't thinking clearly in such a state. You strive not to think at all.
|
|
WBraun
climber
|
|
|
Aug 30, 2015 - 06:51pm PT
|
Modern scientists study the motor car (the living entities gross physical material body) and then theorize it created and assembled itself with no one creating it or assembling it by evolution and then it drives itself with no driver (soul).
Such stupid insane people ......
|
|
crankster
Trad climber
No. Tahoe
|
|
|
Aug 30, 2015 - 08:07pm PT
|
^^
Can I get dressing with this word salad?
|
|
High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
|
|
re: alpha meditation
So I just had a satisfying alpha-meditation (aka discursive thinking) session. I feel it was productive. Seemed like I was pulling a solution, or at least a potential solution, out of the mental hat (space) left and right without any let up for at least a couple minutes there. I'll test them later throughout the day to see how many of them panned out as solutions to the day's upcoming work-task problems.
I do some of my best thinking (meditation) in the early morning.
alpha meditation - discursive thinking. free association with an object of focus (purposes: varied, eg play, creative problem solving)
beta meditation - discursive thinking, free association without an object of focus (purposes: varied, eg play, creative problem solving)
gamma meditation - procedural thinking aka regimented thinking (purposes: varied, eg problem solving, routine task completion)
delta meditation - intentional nonthinking, ego unbinding, judgment unbinding (purposes: varied, eg relaxation, recovery, anxiety stress reduction)
eta meditation - study, subject study (purpose: learning)
kappa meditation - watching, or more generally sensing (purpose: learning)
You gotta love it. Whatever you choose to call it...
thinking, meditation, the mental life. All I know is that
I'd be a mess without it.
|
|
MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
Looking for “solutions” and valuing “productivity” may not be appropriate orientations. Of course such things arise as appearances, but see them as merely appearances. You seem to be looking at it very technically.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
I still need to try and answer Ed's questing: How do we learn how to meditate. But I need more time than I have right now. Hope to answer soon. It's an excellent question full of twists and turns and a good example of the notion that with mind, a direct path is sometimes the longest.
46 posts... almost two weeks ago...
and not that it is required, but my point is that we have an enormous body of work on "science studies" and largely because the process of doing science is completely open and accessible to anyone who wants to learn about it... in some ways that is an essential part of any description of science methodology. Where science is not open, the "science" so produced is always suspect.
The openness of meditation methodology, or if you will, the "experiential method" is tremendously less accessible, and oddly not subject to much criticism by the "method" philosophers... In some ways this points to the inequivalence of the two ways of understanding "mind."
So without reference to the scientific methodology, it would be very useful to have a description of this "experiential" approach.
I fully understand that one might say that it is beyond description, and I'm willing to accept that as an answer, but I also believe that there is little to discuss (being beyond description) in terms as a comparison with the scientific approach, which can be fully discussed.
the humor in this cartoon makes the point...
|
|
paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
|
|
Of course there is the notion of "incorrigible knowledge." The idea that in such knowledge it is impossible to be in error as in my tooth hurts. The dentist doesn't say well pain is just a subjective experience and before I treat you I need repeatable evidence proving you actually are in pain. And it's hard to deny the efficacy created by large numbers of anecdotal descriptions of meditation. The clarity of science might spoil us a bit in considering the messy stuff of the mind but I don't see how that would make discussion a problem.
|
|
Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
one might say that it is beyond description
One might also say that it is beyond belief. When I consider my own experiences, I really have nothing to compare it to. After reading the various positions that people hold so dear, I'm not sure they would have any frame of reference either. So your point is well taken, Ed.
I also think that what John Gill says about definition of terms is important.
How can a body of knowledge be built when the words we choose have no guarantee of consensus. Expediency and personal experience among other things, so color our word choices that even when you are trying to listen and understand, there is no foundation to come back to for feedback. Everyone is going in their own direction and trying to express what they experience with their own vernacular without trying to achieve even a hint of commonality. Everyone wants to heard so bad that they forget how to listen.
|
|
PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
|
|
https://www.facebook.com/emptygatezen/videos/vb.77858692859/10153441793482860/?type=2&theater
Here is an interesting video clip about meditation and thinking. Cuts through some of the speculating about trying to not think during meditation.
I posted this last week, a short video about thinking and meditation and debunks HFCS speculation that discursive thinking is thought of as lesser than and can give Ed an idea about a method of meditation. the speaker (jason Quinn) was a former zen monk and sat numerous ( 9 to 10)100 day retreats and is certified to teach in the kwan Um school of Zen and runs the santa clara empty gate zen group.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
what is "discursive thinking" ?
"The idea that in such knowledge it is impossible to be in error as in my tooth hurts. The dentist doesn't say well pain is just a subjective experience and before I treat you I need repeatable evidence proving you actually are in pain. And it's hard to deny the efficacy created by large numbers of anecdotal descriptions of meditation. "
but, having been to the doctor with severe pain, and having the doctor discuss the diagnostics and tell me in conclusion: "we believe you're in pain, we just don't see what is causing the pain" makes me wonder what the perception of pain is all about... as we know, perception is a layer on top of "reality" and serves an important function of approximating that reality to a much simpler, "effective model" of reality. In terms of evolution (as a recently posted link explained) what that effective model does is not approximate an observer-less "truth" but rather an observer-ful view of what is important for the individual, and by extension, the population of those individuals.
So if you want to call "pain" a "truth" you are certainly entitled to... but explaining pain is far from simple, and it may be because we think of pain as "incorrigible knowledge" but it is "just" the way our perception works, as dictated by our evolution.
Pain is subjective, as are miracles... we will not agree on them as objective "truths."
|
|
Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
a mental construct.
|
|
paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
|
|
So if you want to call "pain" a "truth" you are certainly entitled to... but explaining pain is far from simple, and it may be because we think of pain as "incorrigible knowledge" but it is "just" the way our perception works, as dictated by our evolution.
I wouldn't call pain an objective truth but it is nonetheless a reality and I suppose that's the difficult point. Does a scientific measured analysis fail in this regard? Or is this a realm simply outside the boundaries of science?
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!