Meditation and Mind Science

Yeah, she's great. I need to get more familiar with her work. Thanks for the link.

Very interesting article, which I haven't had time to do justice to-- computer problems are severely limiting my access.

But a bright idea popped into my head as I glanced over it: that the emptiness of self [and other] is the insight of relativity, counter to the materialist faith that is dominant now. It comes back to 'what the definition of "is" is.'

Any 'being' both does not exist [as a fixed, material entity] and 'exists' as a momentary alignment of factors-- like a rainbow. Or you could say, beings appear, but they do not exist, because when conditions shift, they disappear. Our unquestioning materialism seeks to reduce this paradox to yes-- exists-- or no-- does not exist. Because materialism admits of only the two possibilities, and discounts the 'frame story.'

[And so to my regularly programmed scheduling-- officially to work.]

These kind of articles are always interesting, *but* also always raise a bit of a question for me. If neuroscience or physics had nothing whatsoever to say about Buddhism, would that make it bad, wrong, stupid or worthless? It may simply be that for whatever reason there are a lot of academics and/or scientists in the same social circles or communities as a lot of Buddhists, thus the "look meditation really does have an effect! science said so!" articles. As if thousands of meditators over thousands of years were all deluded fools?

Thoughts?

Given that buddha-dharma has always supposed to have been a supremely empirical practice, it doesn't seem like one really should have to do too much reconciliation.

That is, I think the history of modern science, in the context of religious practice, has been characterized by the tension between skepticism and apologia, because the religious context in which science developed (viz. Christianity) was one of faith in distinctly non-natural occurrences. But the main point of Buddhism—especially Theravada and Zen, if you ask me, the two most hard-nosed, introspective disciplines—has been, 'Here are tools for the relief of suffering.' The Buddha went on, graciously, to say, 'Investigate them, and if they don't work, drop them,' but even if he hadn't, it still only makes claims about testable occurrences that happen to the human subject. So when we turn the attention of modern science to meditation, I think we should be careful to shed the assumptions and postures that accompany the normal science/faith relationships, where empiricism is a tool used either to refute religious claims, or to triumphantly counter previous refutations.

@cmarti - this particular article didn't seem to go there, no, but it put me in mind of a more general trend.

@crux - I always liked that about the Buddha - "try it, see if it works" - works in a broader context, too, in other practices.

For many examples of the neuroscience/Buddhism overlap, I recommend people listen to Josh Korda's talks at Dharma Punx NYC. He illustrates what's so elegant and essentially non-problematic about that sort of thing, because he regularly uses neuroscientific examples to illustrate his dharma points. So in his case it's not just a sort of, 'You see? We were right!', but really giving the listener more tools and facets to understand the essential lessons. What's rather pleasing, in other words, is that you can talk about brain scans or you can talk about rickety chariots, and both techniques help to illuminate understanding of the dharma.

What's rather pleasing, in other words, is that you can talk about brain scans or you can talk about rickety chariots, and both techniques help to illuminate understanding of the dharma.


-cruxdestruct

lol with a bit of editing this would make a great t-shirt great point though.

I think we can distinguish between the tendency of all times and places to use metaphors from daily life, on the one hand, and the more recent tendency to use some findings of science to support some religious claims. This is what makes me wary about "quantum consciousness" ideas in the New Age mileu for example; because there is a move to tie the ultimate validity of an ancient phenomenological discipline to the findings of one school of physics which may be tossed out next decade or century.

Some 19th century materialists also had fond things to say about "Buddhism" but they were totally constructing a notion of buddhism to fit their biases and I think this happens with the more fringe stuff like quantum mysticism. Neuroscience and related disciplines on the other hand have very precise things to offer the meditative traditions in at least two ways:

one) providing descriptions of the results of practice that are 'sellable" in our current cultural climate and

two) perhaps offering some shortcuts to achieving our phenomenological goal of ending suffering and/or awakening based on quirks of brain physiology which could suggest particularly direct and effective experiential methods of creating the kinds of brain change which are correlated with reduced suffering.

For instance, much research has been done on ways to optimize neuroplasticity through diet, relationships, exercise, and behavioral tricks which could all be used to enhance the capacity of practice to create lasting brain change. I can foresee, for example, meditation retreats in which the daily round is constructed explicitly in such a way as to increase neuroplasticity and thus enhance the effects of practice. Perhaps we will find that elements of traditional contemplative cultures sometimes do just that and sometimes inhibit that.

I think neuroscience has actually learned a lot in the past ten or fifteen years about things like neuroplasticity from studying meditators and look forward to what the discipline may have to offer in return, far beyond another language for "validating" contemplative traditions, towards actually helping to facilitate the process of becoming free.

Yow!
Classical physics posits that "things" exist through time but as changing entities. Relativity posits that "things" exist only in relation to other things. Quantum physics posits that "things" wink in and out of existence as entities according to probabilities in predetermined (quantized) quantities and times.
It's all good.


-cmarti

And then there are the current attempts to express physics in terms of information or as the operation of the simple rules of cellular automata. This is particularly intriguing to me. A cellular automaton is a grid consisting of empty or filled cells. Time is step-wise, as in any game like checkers or chess. On the transition from one time step to the next, cells will fill or empty according to a simple set of rules. For example, a rule might be that any cell with filled cells on two of its sides will become filled, while any cell with filled cells on three or four of its sides will become empty, and a cell with one adjacent filled cell or none will remain unchanged. One curious thing about this very simple type of game is that it can generate enormous complexity.

The whole idea for this originated with a mathematician named J. H. Conway who called the game "Life." In pre-computer days, playing this game with pencil and paper produced a few little amusing phenomena. Using computers to run millions of moves, and many varied iterations of the game, produced some amazing results. Stephan Wolfram (among others) has written extensively about this.

Some physicists have already been able to come close to modeling Newtonian physics and quantum physics through cellular automata. Einsteinian relativity is still a problem though, because space and time are deformed by mass and acceleration, which are not easily accounted for in the rigid grid of cellular space.

In terms of the phenomena observed in concentration states of the Zen or Vipassana sort, I see a considerable resonance with the "granularity" of the cellular automaton model. One observes "mind moments" like discrete steps or frames, with "nothingness" in between each of them. Existence is each step. Non-existence is the no-time/no-space transitional "moment" between each "moment" of existence. What's more, "existence" and "non-existence" are mutually dependent. I would say that both inhere in the Great (name THAT what you will!).

Mike "Gozen"

Scientists:

Is the idea of something being "solid" completely wrong?

only if by solid you mean solid, mike. otherwise it's just fine

Right. And getting hit on the head by a brick in a dream hurts too sometimes, just to make our definition even more slippery

Anyone remember that story about Milerepa? Down in the valley the local Rinpoche PHD decides he's had enough of watching his students go up the mountain to listen to teachings from the dirty naked man, so he decides to go on up there and show the ignorant yogi for a fool.

So he gets up there and interrupts Milerepa's teaching and challenges him to dharma combat. Milerepa goes sure, whatever makes you happy man. Go for it.

PHD Monk: Is space solid or not?

Milerepa mimes "knocking" on space, making a knocking sound by clicking his tongue.

PHD monk stifles a laugh, thinking man this guy's a doofus. Okay Mr. Yogi, how about stone? Is it solid or not?

Milerepa puts his hand through a rock and PHD monk poops himself, apologizes, requests teachings etc.

Fascinating. I wonder if this relates in any way to "flow" states, where one often experiences being in the right place at the right time, ready for things that happen even before they happen?

Weirdness!

Interesting results from that study. I'm no statistician but it seemed like there is some evidence supporting "presentiment" if not precognition, which is intriguing.

Right, which is part of what intrigues me about it. Another recent example of a similar finding had to do with above-probability results of spikes in physiological measures preceding the flashing of an emotionally arousing photo. Basically if I recall correctly there was no difference when the picture about to flash was emotionally neutral, but when it displayed a violent or sexually explicit image there were statistically significant spikes in physiological arousal levels before the picture appeared. Like in Gary's link, this is presentiment, or pre/unconscious physiological response to future event rather than conscious precognition.

If there isn't really any such thing as time (in an absolute sense anyway), how does that factor in?

If there isn't really any such thing as time (in an absolute sense anyway), how does that factor in?


-ona

I'd have to hear you elaborate on what you mean by this to comment. Do you mean, no time as in quantum theory, in which on the quantum level "events" have no forward or backward? Or do you mean, no time in the phenomenological sense, that there is change occurring yet since nothing exists in a solid way, there are no "things" happening, and so no overarching absolute time against which movements of change can be judged as having absolute durations? Or what?

Personally, I lean towards the Tibetan descriptions of this sort of thing. The idea is that time is open dimensional, unfixed. The "future", in the sense of possible configurations of experience here-and-now, is like a cloud of probabilities which is implicitly present here and now. The more we rely on direct clarity, immediate simple knowing, the more this cloud of probabilities that shimmers around here-and-now sense perceptions becomes evident. The more we rely on indirect, conceptual modes of "knowing", the less vivid is our experience of actual here-and-now, and the subtle elements of here-and-now are the first to be eclipsed by our obsessions with representational thinking and emotional reactivity.

In my limited but impossible-to-deny experience with explicit precognitive experience, there is a phenomenological connection between what is happening in "inner space", the means of knowing being relied on as per above, and the relative clarity and literalness of the sidhi.

Namely, when "inner space" is filled with mental representations and emotional reactions, and those are the means of knowing, there is little clarity. When there is more reliance on direct clarity, immediate naked awareness, inner space tends to become more empty and still, and can even collapse, resulting in profound stillness and clarity. But if it doesn't collapse then instead of representations and emotions, there can be explicit (but hard to explain) perceptions which are just like physical perceptions except not bound by 4D spacetime, but rather from one dimension up so to speak, so that what is "time" from our 4D point of view is space. The experience I had was of the next several minutes of physical percepts condensed into a single moment of inner perception, as if perceiving a still 4D physical object (rather than the normal perception of changing 3D objects, with "change' the 4th dimension), followed by the experience of living through those moments in normal 3D space with one time dimension. I have reflected on the experience and I can think of no way I would have known what was about to happen with such literal and completely specific detail in order to fabricate an experience of "intuition" out of subconscious knowledge.

Maybe that's what you mean by "no absolute time"? This resonates with my understanding of the implications of Einstein's relativity, when divorced from his ideological commitment to a finite Universe. Divorced from that metaphysic, Relativity points to spacetime as an open continuum in which the next dimension "up" is perceived as time, so for a 3D body, the fourth dimension is time. Yet it is possible to catch a glimpse of a 4D object, which would be functionally equivalent to seeing the future and/or the past. For a 2D consciousness, a 3D spatial object would appear to be a infinite cloud of implicit possible "moments" of explicit 2D experience (ever read flatland?) Whew, geek-mode off