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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 11, 2015 - 02:12am PT
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Healje, one can learn a hell of a lot - straight out objectifications - about "mind" via meditation, and I went into this in technical terms (focus, raw awareness, attention = the Three Pillars of sentience) but it found no purchase here because this is a discussion group. The experiential adventures all vector off the practicum aspect, not looking at the topo, so to speak, so there is little ground to cover for those lacking any interest to "shut up and stop calculating." As Mike said, there is a vast difference between direct experience and a construct.
And when John G. said that Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form is just a simple observation, he was considering the notion as a mental construct, which was no big deal - like glancing at the topo for the Chouinard Herbert on Sentinel and saying, "So what?" Get up there with no rope, like Honnold did for 60 Minutes, and you might change your tune - who cannot see why?
Fact is, if we were collectively trying to do various things per the experiential adventures, then reporting back here about what we experienced, this thread would be cooking with gas. But we ain't. We're fiddling around with constructs based not on climbing the route, but browsing the topo and speculating.
JL
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 11, 2015 - 08:11am PT
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Dingus, what exactly is "my church?"
Meditation can be widely viewed as simple introspection. It is only one of many possible means of looking directly at our lives, sans beliefs, faith, or dogma.
If you have any other means that you would suggest, I will take a crack at them, but I'm not a religious person so anything having to do with "church" is unlikely to go far with me. But if you have some experiential approach, techniques, methods, or whatever, I'll give them a test drive for sure.
I certainly don't claim to have any exclusive on the means of looking at our lives, and in fact my favored method (no-mind meditation) is probably the least popular mode going. So suggest something else and we can cover some ground.
JL
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Sep 11, 2015 - 08:40am PT
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We're back to the issue of vocabulary. We have to use some kind of words to describe experience and having trained in a Zendo for so many years, of course Largo uses that vocabulary. What is not clear is how much of the rest of Zen (reincarnation for instance) he has incorporated. It is easy to jump to the conclusion that he believes it all, when he's just using the vocabulary.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 11, 2015 - 09:08am PT
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Dingus, let's get real for a minute.
I said that the reason this thread doesn't cover as much ground as it might is because people are generally not discussing "mind" per se, even when they want to, but as Harris and many other have pointed out, they are discussing objective functioning, brain processes, and so forth, and speculating on mind.
Neuroscientists like to say that mind is an emergent function of the brain. But none will go so far as to say the emergent function is selfsame to the brain. But since most lack any means of investigating anything save objective functioning, they often default back to phrases like: Mind is what the brain does.
Of course we are not asking just what mind does, but what it IS, and in the regards we, as subjects (NOT objects) are obliged to observe within the experiential bubble itself. If this were all that easy, psychologists would not be in such high demand, nor yet friends and family, rabbis, priests, and any other sympathetic ear that can help a soul mutually wrestle down this life or ours.
Perhaps in the larger order of things, wrangling our lives - not just our biology - is what this thread is all about. If this were easy to do, or could be entirely known through biological investigations, of course we would do so - but that path, like all perspectives, has limitations. I remember once when I was young my father, an MD, said that eventually all mental issues would be handled through medication. But this is not remotely true, and in many cases it is not understood why people respond to this or that drug, or why it might eventually even worsen the condition. In some cases a person is diagnosed on the basis of how they respond to a given drug, while we wonder why the drug works in the first instance.
So we are in the end back to looking at our lives and wondering out loud: What gives? Perhaps this is what we all have in common, those of us who keep this thread alive.
Anyhow, and as mentioned, there are many ways of observing mind, and again, rather than bicker about the ways I have so far suggested, kindly suggest some of your own, or your personal observations per mind drawn from your direct experience. Anything that is legitimately empirical.
JL
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Sep 11, 2015 - 09:11am PT
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Cogent.
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Wayno
Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
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Sep 11, 2015 - 09:12am PT
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Fact is, if we were collectively trying to do various things per the experiential adventures, then reporting back here about what we experienced, this thread would be cooking with gas. But we ain't. We're fiddling around with constructs based not on climbing the route, but browsing the topo and speculating.
Good point. Why do you suppose no-one is reporting back? Perhaps to avoid the rolling of eyes? After almost 8000 posts the level of skepticism and ridicule would keep most reports where they originated, in the mind. Take a look at the "New-Age" movement and how anything that reeks of woo is automatically marginalized to some degree or another.
As an example, take a look at something like accessing the Akashic Records. Anyone here familiar with that? I know a few people that practice this and it is interesting how they are received.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Sep 11, 2015 - 09:14am PT
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I don't see anyone here jumping to conclusions about Largo's beliefs. He has repeated himself often over the years; "The map is not the territory.", and so on. From his pulpit he uses phrases like, "fundamentalist quantifiers" to chastise the unbelievers. He claims to not be religious, but that is the way many true believers see themselves. They do not follow a religion. They know the truth.
Jan and PSP also PP and Wayno talk about meditation in a tone which does not put the uninitiated at a loss.
JL may be different because of his zendo training but the issue is not his vocabulary. More likely he has adopted the Rinzai method of rapping students with a bamboo.
Whether he sees himself as a preacher or not, he acts as one here.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Sep 11, 2015 - 09:20am PT
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A few months ago (maybe it was this thread) I made the important point that computation and quantifying were at the very root nature of consciousness itself. Far from being merely an artificial epistemological method optionally superimposed upon nature by dudes in white coats, computation is at the very heart of awareness/perception/thought whenever and wherever consciousness functions:
When you look at the hands of a clock or the streets on a map, your brain is effortlessly performing computations that tell you about the orientation of these objects. New research by UCL scientists has shown that these computations can be carried out by the microscopic branches of neurons known as dendrites, which are the receiving elements of neurons. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131027140632.htm
Without this computational,quantifying taking place in the CNS and brain at all times there could be no consciousness:
The theory, called "orchestrated objective reduction" ('Orch OR'), was first put forward in the mid-1990s by eminent mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose, FRS, Mathematical Institute and Wadham College, University of Oxford, and prominent anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff, MD, Anesthesiology, Psychology and Center for Consciousness Studies, The University of Arizona, Tucson. They suggested that quantum vibrational computations in microtubules were "orchestrated" ("Orch") by synaptic inputs and memory stored in microtubules, and terminated by Penrose "objective reduction" ('OR'), hence "Orch OR." Microtubules are major components of the cell structural skeleton. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140116085105.htm
(In 2013-2014 quantum vibrations were detected in microtubules inside brain neurons-- corroborating this theory)
Objective/subjective states of mind are two sides of the same coin of consciousness. There exists no basic unbridgeable dividing line between the two. They are not opposed to one another in their respective form or function--they simply take place in different parts of the brain. Both are made possible by materials and processes which lie at the foundations of physical existence. Both have evolved within evolutionary dictates.
If you told human consciousness to "shut up and stop quantifying" (or whatever the phrase is) and expected it to follow that advice in any real way-- death or unconsciousness would be the immediate result.Both subjective and objective states of awareness would be extinguished.
_
take a look at something like accessing the Akashic Records
This is an old idea brought to life and somewhat streamlined by Theosophists a hundred or more years ago.
If the universe could be fancifully thought of as a computer simulation then the Akashic record might be the hard drive, or one of the storage hard drives-- or better yet perhaps the laser element that conveys information to and from these hard drives to the simulation hologram surface (transport is required due to these hard drive elements and operating system being located in an alternate universe,i.e., the "astral plane". This data laser would therefore be the photonic "astral light" referred to in Theosophist literature)
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Sep 11, 2015 - 10:43am PT
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Interesting perspective on the Akashic Records Ward. Alternate universes opens up a whole new perspective doesn't it?
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Sep 11, 2015 - 10:53am PT
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Alternate universes opens up a whole new perspective doesn't it?
The alternate universe accounts for the fact that the data must be transferred from the programming universe (that other universe) to the staging platform (our universe).
When all that information first arrived that was the big bang.(A huge data dump if ever there was,to put it mildly)
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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Sep 11, 2015 - 10:53am PT
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"Form is emptiness and emptiness is form" is impossible to experience (and in the heart sutra they are talking about experience) unless you can transition to a non-dualistic relationship with the moment. I get stuck in a dualistic relationship often because I want things to be different then they are and consequently get very distracted from what is actually going on.
Some forms of buddhist meditation practice (zen, vipassna, tibetan buddhist and probably numerous others)offer a promise that if you make a genuine effort (do the work) you can become unattached to the dualistic relationship and experience a selfless, non conditioned relationship with the moment.
I have found most people are way to busy dealing with their personal stuff to pursue such a path.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Sep 11, 2015 - 11:27am PT
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If there is evidence that microtubules can do 'warm wet' quantum computation, researchers trying to develop cold dry quantum computers may take an interest.
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cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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Sep 11, 2015 - 12:07pm PT
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But none of them will go so far as to say the emergent function is selfsame to the brain.
Well, some of them do. But if mind isn't what the brain does, then what exactly does it do? Bloodflow is not selfsame to the circulatory system; breathing not selfsame to the lungs, photosynthesis not selfsame to the leaf; electricity not selfsame to the circuit - no one apparently has a problem accepting any of these as emergent functions. But to say that "mind is what the brain does" becomes such an insurmountable hurdle, the lack of refutation for which has so far only been masked by simple derision.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 11, 2015 - 12:09pm PT
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Without this computational,quantifying taking place in the CNS and brain at all times there could be no consciousness...
Not so. But I'm watching track and field on TV in Zurich and will respond to this later. This belief is not derived from empirical data.
JL
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Sep 11, 2015 - 12:39pm PT
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Not so. But I'm watching track and field on TV in Zurich and will respond to this later. This belief is not derived from empirical data.
Just give me the short answer during the commercial break.
If you are wrong, which you will be, you must send me a rasher or two of Gruyere cheese as penalty.
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cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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Sep 11, 2015 - 03:58pm PT
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Lots of ground that's already been covered here. Nice production values, though:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Sep 11, 2015 - 07:36pm PT
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Bill and Bob both decide to fully experience the expression Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. Bill Zensits for 20 years during which time he reaches his goal. Bob, a lazy and degenerate fellow carouses with women , song, drink, and drugs for 20 years and at the end of that time visits a hypnotist of renown and explains his desire. After several sessions the hypnotist puts Bob in a deep spell and tells him,"Bob, when you awake and for the rest of your life you will experience a feeling of great profundity when you hear that expression. You will know in the deepest recesses of your mind what it means, but you will have found it to be an ineffable epiphany and will be unable to communicate the meaning to anyone."
A few days later Bill and Bob meet for a beer at a local joint. Bill says, "Bob, do you now understand the deep and profound meaning of the expression?", and Bob replies, "Yes, Bill, but it cannot be expressed in words or in any other form of communication. How about you?" Bill replies, "of course I do, and like you I realize it is beyond explanation." They finish their beers and part after a brief handshake, each thinking the other hasn't a clue.
;>)
MikeL: Indirectly. From The Exorcist
Couldn't avoid spicing up WW's poetry.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Sep 12, 2015 - 08:05am PT
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PSP: I get stuck in a dualistic relationship often because I want things to be different . . . .
+1
Jgill:
I suspect you assume that there is a goal, an achievement, a place of arrival in all of this “mind work.” There isn’t. (Look up “gateless gate.”) What seems to be happening for you is that you are not perceiving the meaning of terms or pointers being used. That might be because, as Largo and PSP say, you are not “doing the work.”
And why would you? What the heck is the point of doing anything unless you get some kind of reward or improvement from it?
Seeing anything as special constitutes a glitch in the matrix. Yet that, too, is a part of the matrix.
(Your narrative is humorous. :-) Thanks.)
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Sep 12, 2015 - 02:44pm PT
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What seems to be happening for you is that you are not perceiving the meaning of terms or pointers being used. That might be because, as Largo and PSP say, you are not “doing the work.”
I cannot deny this.
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