Anger & Resentment - or Happiness and Gratitude?

Another question occurs to me that is sort of the reverse of the last post -- how does a process (mediation) change the organic structure in the brain? A lot of research says it does, at least on some level.


-cmarti

Learning to play tennis, walk, speak french or cook pancakes changes the brain, doesn't it? That's how the brain works, I thought. I'm remembering decades old biology, here, so who knows what they think these days.

Ona, you're not mistaken. Brains do not develop independent of their environments, which includes (but is not limited to) sensory experience, and both covert/private (thinking) and overt/public behaviors, social interaction, etc., etc.

I'll go out on another one of my contextualist limbs, here (as I do so often), and say that the brain can only be the cause of something when the context supports the cause/effect relation. It only appears mechanistic in nature because we rarely step outside the context where it no longer functions in this way. What is "normal" is definitely not "fixed," even though it seems that way sometimes.

That's all I'll say about that! (for now...)

I wasn't wondering about this fact but presenting it as a question like I did the awakening machine.


-cmarti

Yar.

See "International Talk Like a Pirate Day": http://www.yarr.org.uk/talk/

Yaarrrr!

I use it when I'm stymied by questions I can't guess the answers to.

I didn't get it either and no wonder! "Yarr" is spelled with TWO r's.

OMG

"... how much of an identity do you carry around that is associated with "a hard working meditator"?."

Yes, that's definitely part of it. How different is it to have had to work hard for years for something and then have a million others get the same thing almost instantaneously. Recall what I posted yesterday:

"I created this topic because I was interested in how people here feel about the possible substitution of technology for effort in regard to what we do."

-cmarti

Funny, as I was falling asleep last night, I realized you could flip the hard working meditator angle and also say this thread is about how much identity is associated with "the promise of technology".

Yarr!

Funny, as I was falling asleep last night, I realized you could flip the hard working meditator angle and also say this thread is about how much identity is associated with "the promise of technology".
Yarr!


-shargrol

Thank you.

Here's another twist. What if they invented the machine, and then discovered that for some reason they couldn't figure out, it only worked on some portion of people (half, a third, three quarters, whatever). They could not figure out why it worked on some and not on others.

What if you then ran all your family and friends through it and discovered only some of them were awakened, and the rest weren't.

What if the machine made a person 100 percent enlightened but reduced one's lifespand by 50 percent and took away their interest in sex?

depends... would it affect your interest in grilled cheese sandwiches?

Okay, you get enlightened, but you die sooner, you can never orgasm ever again, but you can also eat whatever you want and never get fat.

@shargrol - what kind of cheese on the grilled cheese?

@mike, I'm going to need to get enlightened before I can fully answer... and I'm going to need to know where the fat will go when I eat. Like, is it the sort of thing where a being in a parallel dimension winds up becoming hideously large because all I'm doing is eating hot fudge sundays with chocolate almond ice cream with french silk pie for dessert? And can I still induce orgasms in others? Could I induce them mentally after going through the machine or does it still need to be manual? Sorry for all the questions, but this is a very serious set of questions you are asking.

@ona. sadly i've never overcome the public school association of grilled cheese = white bread with "american" cheese, but I'm trying to branch out with different breads and cheeses during moments of bravery.

There's a new cafe/take out place on New Montgomery in San Francisco called, I think, "The Melt" and they specialize in making grilled cheese sandwiches with a variety of different cheeses and breads. I got one once and it still tasted like a grilled cheese sandwich.

Really, a grilled cheese SHOULD be american cheese on white bread. Anything else is grilled hipster sandwich.

Really, a grilled cheese SHOULD be american cheese on white bread. Anything else is grilled hipster sandwich.

-ona

Hipster chefs just don't know the rules.

They need to go through the enlightenment machine.

American cheese, huh? Not here in the Great NW. I grew up on Tillamook medium cheddar - the best cheese on the planet, period. Nothing else works in a grilled cheese, as far as I'm concerned.

Take that!

"Hipster chefs just don't know the rules.
They need to go through the enlightenment machine." -Mike

That brings a scary thought... what if there was a HIPSTER MACHINE!!!

Oh, wait... I think I grew in the hipster machine, aka Portland.