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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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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...
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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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.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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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.
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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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.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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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."
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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a mental construct.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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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?
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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I've been pondering the nature of 'hive mind' or community mind and think about what it might mean about the decision process of the human mind.
That's a big topic, Dingus. Yes, the movements of bird flocks, herds of caribou, and swarms of army ants can be roughly reproduced in simulations based on a short list of simple rules for how each individual makes its own choices and how it responds to its neighbors. That doesn't mean that the groups work the way the simulations do.
The Hebb Synapse is a simple rule for how the strength of a connection between two neurons may change according to the activity of each neuron. However, it hasn't opened the door to building machines that can do what the brain does.
If there are simple rules for group behavior, it might be worth asking if they are inherited or learned, and also whether one of the rules is that any strictly rule-based behavior is easy for a predator to learn and take advantage of.
You mention randomness in behavior, but examples of truly random movement are rare.
Every night thousands of crows roost together in a woods in a suburb of Vancouver. Every day they fly for miles to find food. People have wondered whether the crows exchange information about food sources, what with all the noise they make at the roost. Bernd Heinrich in Mind of the Raven offers a simpler idea with evidence to back it up. Some of the birds will have found a good food supply the previous day. Those birds will know where to go the next day. They are more likely to get a head start because they know where the food is and want to get there early. Other birds only need to watch which birds leave first and then follow them. No vocal communication is needed.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I wouldn't call pain an objective truth but it is nonetheless a reality and I suppose that's the difficult point.
perhaps a reality, but perhaps it is something individual and "not real" who knows who is actually feeling pain, and who is just saying they are feeling pain? or who should be feeling pain?
do you?
Does a scientific measured analysis fail in this regard?
the very issue we're discussing is based on scientific analysis... which is objective... and the fact that there isn't a clear mechanism describing pain, and the conclusions of it's subjective nature, are due to those scientific analyses. If in the end we have an understanding of pain, and an understanding of the limitations of our popular notions of pain, it is not a scientific failure.
Or is this a realm simply outside the boundaries of science?
Nothing is outside the boundaries of science, nothing is outside the boundaries of art, etc... why not look at these phenomenon in all of the different ways we have to look at them?
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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The body is a biological apparatus that in various ways registers and displays the results of internal electrochemical processes. The degrees of pain are registered in an analogue rather than digital fashion, although when asked about the degree of pain we can place it roughly on a digital scale of one to ten.
Better not to activate this particular biological instrument. Stick with an ohm meter.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Ed: Nothing is outside the boundaries of science, nothing is outside the boundaries of art, etc...
Science constructs its understanding, and that understanding is particular.
Nothing lies outside of Reality.
“A vikalpa is a thought-construct. Vikalpas are various mental counters through which man carries on the business of life. Vikalpas may refer to things of the external world like trees and flowers or various images, fancies, etc. of the mind. In vikalpa mind sets a limit to one particular thing or idea, and differentiates it from the rest; mind constructs a “particular” by means of thought which it marks off from the rest of the world from other ideas. Each vikalpa has two aspects; the positive aspect consists of the idea that is selected, and the negative consists of the rest that are set aside or rejected. Vikalpas are concerned with the particulars. Secondly, vikalpas are relational: i.e., there is always a subject-object in vikalpas. Reality is non-relational, there is no object outside of Reality. Therefore vikalpas are unable to grasp Reality.”
(Jaideva Singh, in his commentary on the “Vijnanabhairava” which was written around the 8th Century)
Largo, Werner, PSP, and others didn’t make this stuff up. Yet, this stuff can be seen by anyone who has the discipline to look. It’s not exactly hidden. It’s right in front of you; it’s your consciousness. But that is not amenable to objective measurement or consensus. It cannot be defined. Even Singh’s explanation is heavy-handed, as is mine.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2015 - 09:13am PT
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Ed, I haven't forgotten to get into "How to learn how to meditate," which is really, how to eventually not-do anything, including responding to our conditioned impulses.
But I've been swamped with stuff including my oldest daughter having a kid and wrangling the Adidas team over on the Eiger. I'm in Zurich now, and my girlfriend's (Swiss) dad went into the hospital for a procedure cha cha cha. Lotta sh#t coming down.
Anyhow, soon as I get a chance I'll jog down my ideas and experiences.
JL
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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But that is not amenable to objective measurement
Not true. If your skull was physically opened up and your cerebrum scrambled like an egg you would conclude that consciousness is associated with the proper biologic functioning of the brain and CNS.
This is a type of crude observationally-based association which tells us more about consciousness than any activity bereft of measurement.
Even cavemen must have deducted something like the same after obvious head injuries sometimes resulted in the altering of personality.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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my oldest daughter having a kid
Congratulations Grandpa!! 8^D
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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everything we talk about, including "no thing" is a construct...
to participate in the conversation we create constructs
to read an 8th century text is a way of extending that conversation, and including archaic constructs
I take it from the continued participation of the set of people engaged on this thread that we continue to create constructs to enable our engagement on this topic.
Anyone can see this who is sitting with their terminal in front of them reading and responding to this thread.
Reality as we know it is a construct...
reality as we don't know it escapes our conversation here... however we can speculate over methods to achieving knowing, which is OP's launching initiative.
What a method does to achieve that knowing requires a construct of both the method, and the new knowledge...
I guess we're all in construction here.
No rush Largo... we're all busy and this topic isn't time critical...
congratulations on the arrival of your daughter's child
best wishes to your girlfriend's father and family
bravo on your continued deanship of American climbing
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Before thinking mind, which can be experienced, in many different ways ; meditation being one of them, is without thinking constructs.
But more important is the recognition that thinking is a construct and not becoming attached to these constructs.
Your right Ed everything is a construct, most people don't recognize that and all you have to do is look at conflicts to see that. The old my idea (strongly held belief construct) is right and your idea (construct) is wrong so it is time for physical conflict! seems absurd doesn't it.
It is interesting when the thinking falls away (or takes a seat far in the back of the room) during meditation ; the next thing (for me) that becomes front and center are the emotions ( i am starting to think they are constructs also). They are raw and powerful; the tendency is to push the unpleasant ones away and grasp the pleasant ones (forms of attachment). The practice is to just observe and be with them not touching them not labeling them; typically the practice is to just stay with the breath no matter how ecstatic or unecstatic the feeling. if you can do that and not try to manipulate the process the emotional energy typically dissipates to an equanimity where things are just as they are; with no need to change or manipulate the moment.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I think that the breathe centering is also an "attachment" and that eventually you have to give that up too...
emotions are highly tied to hormonal states in the body, and it isn't unreasonable that one can manipulate them in a practice... providing a physical link to the "subtle energy" my teachers talk about...
one will make a construct to understand and explain...
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