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PSP also PP
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Dec 15, 2014 - 05:45pm PT
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Tvash ; what are you refering to?
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cintune
climber
The Utility Muffin Research Kitchen
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Dec 15, 2014 - 05:52pm PT
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Did anyone see the Mindfulness segment on 60 minutes last night. Might have been a re-run.
That just struck me as unintentionally hilarious on several levels.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 15, 2014 - 09:57pm PT
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Idealization is the process by which scientific models assume facts about the phenomenon being modeled that are strictly false but make models easier to understand or solve
But you are right - it makes no difference in our everyday lives.
John, my sense of this is that what you believe is that there really is solid and lasting "stuff" at the bottom of it all, and my friends, at least, insist that there is not. This is not done as a convenience to make the measuring easier or at any rate possible, rather because that stuff really has physical extent - really.
And the task of understanding what this means in our everyday life is what meditation is all about. When Mike said Mindfulness is about an empty mind, that very empty mind underscores that all we see and hear and feel and believe has no physical root once you go down far enough. As an intellectual concept it makes no difference minute to minute, busy as we are engaging stuff.
PS: My take on "idealization" in science is a little different than I think what you are driving at. This is a huge debate in philosophy, going back to Husserl and even before. The basic idea goes back to they guys trying to measure aspects of a falling object. They found it was not necessary to account for air resistance "when determining the acceleration of a falling bowling ball, and doing so would be more complicated. In this case, air resistance is idealized to be zero. Although this is not strictly true, it is a good approximation because its effect is negligible compared to that of gravity."
JL
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 15, 2014 - 10:12pm PT
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The silly idea that mindfulness can't be learned.
Of course it can. That's how it spreads.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 16, 2014 - 01:34am PT
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TVASH sez: The silly idea that mindfulness can't be learned.
What's silly is that a PhD dood like Mike can study mindfulness for 4 decades under some of the best teachers out there and then Tvash comes along and insists that Mike is mistaken - and what's more, Tvash believes himself implicitly. That is the trance I spoke of earlier.
Tvash - mindfulness (Vapassana in meditation argot) it not the technique, but what arises out of consciously tracking body sensations. What arises will come at you in various waves. First is the content - and the fact that the triger for most all thoughts are sensations, which are the cognitive and emotional drivers of most of our experience. Later comes the open or raw awareness that is experiencing this content.
I've noticed that many people who are quantifiers by nature are loathe to admit that don't know something, and here, Tvash, instead of asking a question to discover what it is that Mike was driving at, simply dismisses the comment out of hand and out of mind.
Why not go to a Vapassana retreat for a week or so and tell us once you have some milage under your belt. We'd be all ears.
JL
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 16, 2014 - 02:42am PT
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a). Plenty of buffoons with PhDs out there, as anyone whose had the universty experience can readily attest.
b) Flowcharting mindfulness (tee hee) says nothing at all about whether or not it can be learned. A PhD type studying mindfulness for four decades would seem to indicate that it can be learned, no?
c) A Vapassana retreat is not the only path to mindfulness, which, after all, has many aspects. which has many aspects. Has the alpha monkey escaped the enlightenment reservation for another whoring junket in Put Down Town? Or is this just another No Thing banner ad?
d) These simple revelations are what I got you for Christmas. Have a merry.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Dec 16, 2014 - 03:29am PT
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Tvash, you betray your ignorance by suggesting that a "buffoon" (Mike) was "studying" Vapassana for four decades.
My friend, we will bring you up to speed on this stuff kicking and screaming, but we won't give up on you.
Amigo, you don't "study" Vapassana as you would study electronics or math or climbing anchors. You PRACTICE it in a way totally different than you would study a discursive subject.
The reason that you - and especially smart people like you with strong projections they believe to the extent of them being trance states - have been instructed and advised by PS and others to seek instruction is for your own good. Sans instruction, taking the "cowboy" route (aka self-reliance) , you invariably end up inventing your own practice. Not advised. You will simply reinforce your existing biases. There's also the fun of telling know-it-alls they need to get schooled on something totally outside their field of expertise. And the dead giveaway of this is the idea that you can just crush the esoteric arts on your own.
Your comments about "whoring downtown junkets" are telling, and one wonders if you would refer to a math course in the same way. After all, taking courses is simply the art of availing yourself of experts to steepen your learning curve. And that, I believe, is the sticking point with a lot of quantifiers per the nuances of mind, and attention training. They won't accept that there are experts out there per this work in the same way there are experts in every other field. What we have, instead, are Dingus' "preachers," and wo wo masters, and people in Nehru coats.
This silly talk is the meditation version of the science geek with the ten pens in his pocket, the wing tips and high water pants, and the sad but simple fact that he couldn't get laid with a thousand dollar bill. While this might approximate the personhood of Fruity, it cannot possibly be a reliable description of the other quantifiers on this thread. Of course it can't.
But the fact is, Tvash, if you are satisfied with your progress in the esoteric arts, good on you. The structured approach is not for every one, just like college is not for everyone, filled as it is with "buffoons."
JL
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 16, 2014 - 07:56am PT
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Taliban gunmen stormed into a Pakistan school today and killed about 130, most of them children.
Maajid Nawaz
126 dead, lots children. If grievances radicalise Muslims against things,can we now get radicalised against Pak Taliban & Islamist ideology?
Dec 16 2014 Retweet
.....
Observation: I bet all the Taliban that attacked the Pakistani school were male.
Motion: The world would be a safer place if the female to male ratio was not 50/50 but 80/20 or even 90/10.
If the future endures, maybe something like this might prove a stable, sustainable yet evolving arrangement. With a planetary population of 1 - 3 billion, that would be something I'd like to see.
Seen pictures of a Manila suburb lately?
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Dec 16, 2014 - 08:40am PT
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You've got my vote, Dr Strangelove.
Alpha - didn't read your latest Monkey On A Keyboard sequel. The first line didn't peak my interest for some reason. Points for thematic consistency though 8€]
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WBraun
climber
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Dec 16, 2014 - 08:43am PT
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world would be a safer place if the female to male ratio was not 50/50 but 80/20 or even 90/10.
For a guy who claims to be this big know it all about science, so called scientific facts and sh!t
can't even get the fact right that females have always outnumber males on this planet.
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Dec 16, 2014 - 09:23am PT
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. With a planetary population of 1 - 3 billion, that would be something I'd like to see.
you should'a been aruond in the 1800's then! The Cowboy days!
Isn't funny how all cowboy movies in the last century portray a "Good Guy" and a "Bad Guy"!
Seems like the evil animal which is Evolution has had this in her sights the whole time
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 16, 2014 - 09:48am PT
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Dingus, imagine it... It's Sunday, your poolside, your dozen or so children splashing and frolicking in the water, their mothers there too by your side, everyone content, happy. A peaceful (pre-programmed) passing in your sleep at age 65.* A clean, sustainable environment. No threats on the horizon. What's not to love?
:)
*See Star Trek TNG: Resolution.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 16, 2014 - 09:52am PT
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Nature's a tough mistress.
As you know, She always has the last word, She'll cull an over-population one way or another.
Don't shoot the messenger (science, foresight, whatever).
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Dec 16, 2014 - 09:58am PT
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Tvash:
Learning has you engaged.
Can one learn to learn? (A number of people in cognitive science has said that is BS—sorry, education people. Studies of expertise say that learning is domain-specific.) Instead, learning seems to be about opening-up, not focus (or closing-down). Play describes learning more than hard, disciplined, controlled willfulness. (What is “play?”)
“Mindfulness” is partially an issue of letting-go of points of stability and anchors of certainty. There is nothing to learn in mindfulness other than there is nothing to learn. Learning to let-go—trying not to try—is paradoxical. (It’s the central argument in Wu Wei, or the Tao’s “action of non-action,” in the writings by Confucius, Lao-Tzu, Mencius, and Zhuangzi.) Do you try? Do you not try? Do you try just a little bit? How does it work? Can one “engineer” flow climbing up a steep crack or a smooth apron? How does one paint, compose, dance with insight artistically? How does one improvise? How does one connect to the unconscious?
What is learning, and what gets learned? Most people think it’s knowledge. Cognitive science argues that there is content (knowledge structures), routines (procedures), and experiences (knowledge wrapped up in episodic memories—viz., stories). There is also “embodied” or “grounded cognition” which is understanding developed by the body first, later realized consciously.
What do people “know” about “being,” about “creativity,” about “experience,” about “subjectivity,” about “consciousness,” about “emotions,” about “wide-open awareness” (without elaborations or categorizations), about “flow,” about “being here and now”?
Let’s not use “know” when we mean “aware.” Way different. Knowledge can be learned; awareness cannot be said, modeled, or characterized. Awareness appears to be forever open, fresh, infinitely nuanced, and presents an absence about itself.
ST readers have an abiding faith in the power of intelligence (rationality), of education, of knowledge of objects, of imaginative conceptualization. All can be learned. But there appear to be some “things” that don’t fall into those categories.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 16, 2014 - 09:59am PT
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A peaceful (pre-programmed) passing in your sleep at age 65.
The wonders of science!
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 16, 2014 - 10:12am PT
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You boys are much much too pessimistic.
P.S. Paul, do you really want to be an elder? if not an uber-elder? Have you given it much thought? Only you know. I ask because a lot esp in this culture haven't. They just let it come around, as a matter of course.
I have given it a lot of thought over the years, decades, really. You know the piece about the wild thing that doesn't feel sorry for itself. There should be another about the wild thing that isn't an elder. It would make a fine mythic or narrative element.
No eldership for me. Certainly no uber-eldership. Value judgment, of course. Something I started coming to terms with a long time ago now.
But this is a very personal thing, I get that.
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The messengers are the first to fall. Sorry.
You personalized it. I didn't.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Dec 16, 2014 - 10:14am PT
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JL:
all we see and hear and feel and believe has no physical root once you go down far enough
Have you gone down to the Planck length?
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Dec 16, 2014 - 10:14am PT
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ST readers have an abiding faith in the power of intelligence (rationality), of education, of knowledge of objects, of imaginative conceptualization. All can be learned. But there appear to be some “things” that don’t fall into those categories.
Perhaps true, though Socrates felt something like virtue could be taught and does a remarkable job of proving it in his dialogue with Protagoras. Socrates throws a beautiful monkey wrench into the notions of pure subjectivity found in sophist philosophy and, for that matter, much of contemporary relativism. Of course he (Socrates) was a buffoon though...
Also: I am an elder and I like it. Should I go die because science has determined I've passed a useful threshold? And the Muslims are evil?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 16, 2014 - 10:19am PT
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Dingus, once again, you miss another possible interpretation or perspective. As you know, sometimes a sentence can be read more than one way. I said it was something I'd like to see (perhaps from the perspe of a museum diorama of the future or from Sagan's ship of the imagination hovering over Planet 851.998078), period; not necessarily something I'd wan't to participate in; different perspectives.
I'd like to see it - for its potential viability. An exercise of the imagination. An exercise in what might be possible.
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Dec 16, 2014 - 10:23am PT
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Also: I am an elder and I like it. Should I go die because science has determined I've passed a useful threshold... and the Muslims are evil?
Easy does it my friend, lol!.
Right out of the gate, I said it was a value judgement and a very personal thing. Congrats on your eldership. If it's what you want, I hope you live to 110! :)
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re: eldership, resolution
Eldership, the pros and cons thereof, wouldn't be the easiest topic to discuss at this site of all places, lol! Nor would any Resolution*, say as a new "tradition in progress" for instance started by millenials.
*after the Star Trek TNG episode
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