[sciborg2]

This is Your Brain on Buddha:

http://www.techgnosis.com/chunks.php?sec=articles&cat=buddhism&file=chunkfrom-2005-05-15-1832-0.txt

Celebrated neuro-thinkers like Daniel Dennett and Paul and Patricia Churchland are reluctant to give the "inside" of awareness or experience much explanatory weight, insisting that objective accounts of consciousness are far superior if you want to understand how the mind actually works. Such thinkers argue that subjectivity may have an undeniable intuitive appeal, but our own experience is an unreliable source of information, a morass of illusions and myths that cloud the quest to describe reality.

Yet in his 1991 book The Embodied Mind, co-written with Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch, the celebrated neuroscientist Francisco Varela insists that experience is an irreducible component of the study of the mind. "To deny the truth of our own experience in the scientific study of ourselves is not only unsatisfactory; it is to render the scientific study of ourselves without a subject matter." Varela and crew argue that while cognitive science continues to dig into the material foundations of cognition, researchers should balance their resulting models against the "disciplined, transformative analysis" of experience itself -- an analysis provided by, in their case, Buddhist meditation and philosophy. A serious student of Chogyam Trunpa, as well as the organizer of a number of formal dialogues between the Dalai Lama and Western scientists, Varela believes that Buddhism provides a sort of finely-tuned introspective tool that has been neglected in the West.

[Callan S.]

Any word on Francisco's credentials?

I think it'd be better to note that any neuroscience discovery is simply going to be viewed by that which was studied (the scientists own mind), but it's reaction to the results of the study will be unknown to it.

Ie, avoid the conceit of the 'discoveries' somehow freeing them of that which they study.

If they even get to the conceit stage - the other stage is purely mechanical - they simply have zero thoughts about that they have thoughts about the study of thoughts they just made.

Yeah, it's heavily recursive - it'll be cool in ten years, don't worry.

[Phallus Pendulus]

Cool.

I read the essay "Alan Watts and the Neuroscience of Transcendence" a couple years ago. This reminds me a bit of that essay.

[sciborg2]

@Callan:

You think neuroscience will solve consciousness in 10 years? I think we may simply be unable to answer the question, especially after I read the Interface Theory of Perception paper.

I think it sort of builds on Lehar's ideas regarding the virtual world our senses put us in & perhaps even - to an extent - C.S. Lewis's critique of reason. We're at a remove from the real world, and then we aren't even confident our interface is an accurate production of the real. How can we even evaluate our limitations using limited senses and reasoning prowess?

I know immaterialists talk about this (see "Brain as Knot of Consciousness") but you also see the more neutral side of this with the New Mysterians of McGinn and materialists like Chomsky.

Beings who evolved to run from tigers, rather than apprehending Truth, may simply be unable to scientifically understand what consciousness is.

Cool.

I read the essay "Alan Watts and the Neuroscience of Transcendence" a couple years ago. This reminds me a bit of that essay.

Thanks, will have to check that out!

[Callan S.]

Hi Saajan,

We're at a remove from the real world, and then we aren't even confident our interface is an accurate production of the real. How can we even evaluate our limitations using limited senses and reasoning prowess?

Cuts both ways, really. How can we hold onto our/various cultural beliefs about the nature of ourselves when we aren't even confident our interface is an accurate production of the real, etc?

If you allow the knife to cut you both ways, sure. But if it conveniently cuts out scientific investigation while leaving intuitions free to roam, well....... (well clearly I'll trail off into dots...)

[Royce]

I am not sure that mind can be understood by a reduction to matter, to the interactions of smaller and smaller pieces of matter. There is no smallest pieces of matter, I think. If matter is infinitely reducible, then it is not really reducible at all. Not reducible in any way that could explain consciousness. I am not sure that consciousness is a thing at all. It would be great to figure out what it is though

[sciborg2]

Cuts both ways, really. How can we hold onto our/various cultural beliefs about the nature of ourselves when we aren't even confident our interface is an accurate production of the real, etc?

That's easy enough. How? Inertia.

If you allow the knife to cut you both ways, sure. But if it conveniently cuts out scientific investigation while leaving intuitions free to roam, well....... (well clearly I'll trail off into dots...)

Well, there's always philosophy. And, if worse comes to worse, the entertaining of gnosis.

[Callan S.]

And inevitably such unverifiable stuff is someones prompt to lay sanctions against someone else. With no way for them to be wrong, because unveryfiable.

Maybe if that gnosis stuff gets sandboxed, so it can play but can't get out to the world, that could work out.

Otherwise to others it's either just someone saying they get to be in public without restraint but they hold no responsibility, or to someone else with the same gnocci attitude, a heretic.

[sciborg2]

Without free will - a concept clearly threatened by neuroscience - we're also facing the responsibility problem, but I think that's a different question than whether we can answer how consciousness works.

I suspect the answer to the latter will depend on whether the recent corroborations of Orch-OR have any lasting relevance.

=-=-=

The Ancient, Peaceful Art of Self-Generated Hallucination

...Subject 99003 described these experiences to Jared Lindahl, a researcher from Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina, who has spent years scientifically studying meditation. He and his team are the midst of a large study on meditators and their experiences, and in a recent paper they homed in on a peculiar experience many of them share: mysterious lights that appear in their mind’s eyes as they practice.

To figure out just where these lights might be coming from, Lindahl and his team talked to 28 meditators for an average of 77 minutes each. Nine of them reported “light experiences,” with descriptions much like subject 99003’s. “Sometimes there were, oftentimes, just a white spot, sometimes multiple white spots,” one said. “Sometimes the spots, or ‘little stars’ as I called them, would float together in a wave, like a group of birds migrating, but I would just let those things come and go.”...

So where are these lights coming from? They’re clearly not real, physical lights dancing in front of the meditator’s face, but rather a construction of the idle, meditating brain. What is it about meditation that opens the brain up to these kinds of hallucinations?

Not sure how we decide what is clearly not real, and what's a construction of the brain. But I am reading Berkeley's Dialogues so that might be influencing me. 

[Callan S.]

What are people are refering to with free will? Not just unpredictable - something more?

Once when I was 9 I was (ironically) walking down the family homes corridor and I was suddenly struck with the feeling I could go in any direction at any time. It only lasted a few seconds. Is it like that?

[Kellais]

I kind of like to second Callan's (rhetoric?) question. My problem with those neuroscience guys is...what are they refering to when they say "there is no free will". I mean what is free will exactly?
I'm kind of sceptical of the neurosciences (as of now, mostly for unfounded reasons i guess, as i am not very well read in the field). It is still a very young science branch and i guess we still will have to see what really is behind all this data they collect and interpret.

And i find things like "there is no free will therefore we are not responsible for what we do...." kind of thinking veeery dangerous (not sure if anyone really says that, especially not the scientists, but i am also sure that it is not a big jump for some people to make that "conclusion" and trying to reinterpret a lot of stuff in law and court etc....and this really freaks me out).

As to the OT questions ... i think it is the paradox problem of the subject they try to study. If you want to study consciousness how else do you want to collect data and compare if you are not also including your own experiences?! And i for one do not think this is a big problem. If you are aware that there is some bias in it, i think you can avoid most of the big pitfalls.

Also, i find the focusing on "the objective reality" a bit annoying. If we can accept that we work in "our reality", as that is the only one we can perceive and know, where is the problem? It can still hold true for a lot of important things and therefore have really usefull applications without it being totally "real".
Not sure if that last paragraph made sense...it's difficult to put in words, especially in english, what i mean. Oh well...i'm sure you guys will tear it appart shortly

[sciborg2]

I kind of like to second Callan's (rhetoric?) question. My problem with those neuroscience guys is...what are they refering to when they say "there is no free will". I mean what is free will exactly?

Oh, I'm not pretending to have deep philosophical grounding on the issue of free will. My point is that both immaterial ideas and materialist ones [potentially] threaten the concept of personal responsibility.

I'm kind of sceptical of the neurosciences (as of now, mostly for unfounded reasons i guess, as i am not very well read in the field). It is still a very young science branch and i guess we still will have to see what really is behind all this data they collect and interpret.

I have heard critiques of neuroscience studies as being underpowered. I'll have to go back ask around about the exact criticisms.

I think it is interesting that someone like Valera who saw consciousness as *more* and someone like Blackmore who is far more materialistic both get something out of Buddhism.

Alan Watts seems to also take on Buddhists ideas when he attempts to allay some of the existential horror about possibly being part of a clockwork universe.

As to the veracity of neuro-determinism, it's interesting to look at stuff like the "Reality Tests" done at IQOQI or Kaku mentioning Wigner's Idealism remaining a valid interpretation in his latest book.

I find myself trying to balance both outlooks - sympathy & trying not to hate the sinner comes from factoring in the tidal wave of conditioning and genetic factors that build up identity, whereas I try to maintain some hope & change that if realism is cast into doubt by some QM results there's something in me that bears responsibility for my life.

And if nothing else there's always Pinchbeck on drugs :

  "Laid out before me was the entire, intricate process of my self-development. The process was complex yet ultimately organic. The extension of the self was, I realized, a natural process akin to the blossoming of a plant. While a plant extends toward the sun throughout its life, human beings evolve internally. We rise up and flourish, or become stunted, involuted, as we react to the forces that press against us. Our growth takes place in the invisible realm of our mental space, and the unreachable sun we rise toward is knowledge -- of the self and the universe...
 
I recognized my existing self as the product of all the physical and psychological forces that had acted upon me. Yet there seemed to be something beyond all of it, something that was "mine", an energy projected from outside my biographical destiny. that energy was the self -- and the self's tremendous capacity for transformation...."

-Daniel Pinchbeck recounting his ibogaine experience in Breaking Open the Head

[Royce]

Also, i find the focusing on "the objective reality" a bit annoying. If we can accept that we work in "our reality", as that is the only one we can perceive and know

Does this not depend on what you eat, or how you train your mind? If you mean "we" as in western culture I can see your point

Alan Watts seems to also take on Buddhists ideas when he attempts to allay some of the existential horror about possibly being part of a clockwork universe.

Buddhism is a safe path to choose if you want to stay clear of existential horror. The possibilities are much more appealing To me it is what they practice which is worth the effort, not what they say.

[Kellais]

As to the veracity of neuro-determinism, it's interesting to look at stuff like the "Reality Tests" done at IQOQI or Kaku mentioning Wigner's Idealism remaining a valid interpretation in his latest book.

Totally Off-Topic, but woah, that link blew my mind. I mean i finally really followed and read all of the text behind one of your links...and wow. First off, thanks! This was a very interesting read. And secondly...this stuff is heavy. If you are well read in that stuff, hat off to you sir.
After reading this, i at least feel like i know a tiny bit so that i can post in all your QM threads Really really interesting stuff. Mindbogling and totally scary...but interesting.
And just as a sidenote - Einstein is now even more cool...sure, it very much seems like he was wrong but still...i found the anecdotes about him in this article awesome

[sciborg2]

@Kellais: I'm going to put an interview with Zeilinger from IQOQI in the QM thread. I've been looking at the history of QM & philosophy, as well as some QM relations to consciousness, but I'm only just now really getting into the real underpinnings of physics. I have a degree in math but I've not done any heavy lifting in some time. Yet these kinds of results are so incredible I'd at least like to have some understanding.

Some stuff on Valera.

Varela was a proponent of the embodied philosophy which argues that human cognition and consciousness can only be understood in terms of the enactive structures in which they arise, namely the body (understood both as a biological system and as personally, phenomenologically experienced) and the physical world with which the body interacts. He introduced into neuroscience the concepts of neurophenomenology, based on the phenomenological writings of Edmund Husserl and of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and on "first person science," in which observers examine their own conscious experience using scientifically verifiable methods.

Buddhism And Science: Promise And Perils

Quantum mechanics doesn't say Buddhism is true. It doesn't say anything.  It's a calculus that is open to many interpretations from the mundane (statistical approaches) to the mind-blowing (the many worlds interpretation).  While finding proof that mind affects subatomic behavior would be thrilling, such proof simply does not exist.

Of course there's no smoking gun but Zeilinger thinks his results at IQOQI suggest such things. Other physicists like Christopher Isham, Henry Stapp & Penrose have suggested a connection between consciousness and QM. There's also a series of experiments that support the Copenhagen Interpretation. So it seems to me the jury's still out.

Now however things have sobered up.

Again, not sure if things have sobered up so much as gotten weirder than ever when it comes to QM.

A number of talks focused on the way neuroscience and Buddhism can talk fruitfully together. Mario Beauregard, of the Neuroscience Research Center at the University of Montreal, spoke of his functional MRI studies exploring how the brain changes during contemplative practice (meditation).  The indefatigable B. Allan Wallace spoke of creating a "graduate program" for training contemplative observers who could work with scientists in studying the Mind.  Considering how young our studies of consciousness are adding trained "internal observers" to the mix, and unpacking the 2,500 years of insight into the nature of consciousness that Buddhism, holds seemed exciting indeed.

But there was more.  By its nature the Buddhist perspective is holistic and many of the researchers were, each in their own way, speaking to that holism as it manifested in their research.  Pier Luigi Luisi from the University of Rome spoke of the human genome and human evolution.  Dennis Noble of Oxford University spoke on the definitions of life in a cellular/bio-chemical context.  What was heartening was that the goal in these presentations was not to show how new theories embraced Buddhist worldviews but to ask deeper questions about perspectives and guiding metaphors.

And, of course, no discussion of Buddhism can miss the point that the goal of whole endeavor is to alleviate suffering.  "To save all beings" is a classic Buddhist phrase and appropriately talks on political and management science were also included with special emphasis on how Buddhist perspectives can support sustainable cultures.