Using field research (Meditation) to discover Consciousness

[Swami]

On Fri Aug 24, 2018 8:39 pm, TSGracchus stated the following:

So you think that flipping coins and checking the I Ching, or laying out Tarot cards, or astrology will substitute for science?

Meditation can calm the mind. But it has not produced scientific discovery.

But, by all means, ignore or discard the findings of "Western science" and consult the lint in your navel for answers.

The statements above clearly show a lack of knowledge and experience with meditative practices. It also shows intolerance. As I proposed before, scientists can discover the origins and nature of consciousness and the Universe using field research. You have no evidence that my approach would not work because you lack the experience that I have with meditation. Your proposal is for science to continue in its failed reductionistic and materialistic approach. Centuries have passed and reducto-materialism has still left mankind with the same important questions that we've been asking since our beginning.

""insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."


Let us address some of your claims and show why science needs to adopt meditation as a means to knowledge.

Why should scientist use meditation?
You stated that meditation "only calms the mind" but you're incorrect. Science shows that meditation leads to higher states of consciousness, changes in brain structure, and to emotional well-being. Science needs to be able to deal with consciousness directly instead of relying on "correlates" of consciousness. Meditation just so happens to be an effective first-person approach to deal with consciousness directly. No one has had more first-person experience with all levels of consciousness than the Eastern religionists - some 2,500 years worth of experience. It's only reasonable that scientists collaborate with Buddhists, Hindus, etc. Many are starting to do just that so that should tell you something!!

How does meditation lead to knowledge?
The simple answer is that meditation leads to a state and experience of pure consciousness. In that state, you can explore and experience how consciousness in its most pure form works which of course opens the door to direct "knowledge".

Locke and Hume, believed that we could gain knowledge about the mind through a careful examination of inner experience. If it is true that meditation makes
available certain kinds of inner experience that would not otherwise be possible, then those forms of experience might possibly result in new knowledge.

At the same time, many contemporary researchers in psychology may object to relying on a method of introspection to learn about the mind. In the past, philosophers and armchair psychologists, relying on introspection, have arrived at widely varying conclusions; they have also missed basic facts about how minds work that can be established by simple experiments. Psychologists might argue that introspection simply allows people to project their hypotheses and presuppositions onto their experience and does not help us learn new truths about how the mind works. Only careful experiments, carried out with scienti�c rigor and from a third-person point of view, can reveal such truths.

Buddhists could reply by drawing a distinction between trained and untrained introspection. In most people, they could argue, the faculty of attention is weak and undeveloped, and, as a result, attempts at serious introspection will typically be overwhelmed by various forms of distraction. But those who, through meditation practice, reduce the intensity and frequency of distractions and gradually develop their capacity for attention are eventually able to look at mental phenomena and see them as they actually are.

------------
Article quotations taken from Dr. Charles Goodman article, Buddhist Meditation Theory and Practice. http://www.academia.edu/36937894/Buddhi ... actice.pdf
You don't have to download anything. Just scroll down and the article will start showing up.

[Swami]

In principle I can agree with your sentiments above.
However, I caution against making similar statements which reflect a similar intolerance.

I would say that the 'western mindset' and the 'eastern mindset' are two branches of the same mind going off in those particular directions to see where they might lead, in relation to that overall minds agenda.
Advising scientists who derive their thinking from the western branch to investigate the mind in the manner of the eastern is rather pointless for reasons you have already laid out in your argument.

Thanks for those links. I did not know a member essay section was part of the forum. I've read a few of your essays already... good stuff

I agree with you that I have to watch not to get caught up in my views against the Western science. Contrary to what TSGracchus stated, I am certain that there are some differences between West and East in how they approach mind and medicine. Here's how one yogi explained the difference,

The yoga psychology starts with that conclusion with which Western psychology ends. This is very interesting. The highest conclusion and discovery of Western psychology is the starting point of Eastern psychology, especially the psychology of yoga. While the psychoanalyst and the psychologist of the West tell us that the world of society is the reality with which you have to conform in order that you may be psychologically normal, yoga psychology tells us that here you begin your study of your real nature. Patanjali is a great guide to us in this respect.

According to yoga psychology, the consciousness of an object is not a natural state of things. To be conscious of an object is not a happy thing. You need not pat yourself on your back merely because you are able to see something outside very clearly. Yoga will pity you rather than applaud you or give you a certificate because you are seeing an object outside.

The seeing of an object outside, or the consciousness of something external, is regarded in yoga as an unnatural condition of consciousness. Why is it unnatural? You see how yoga psychology differs from Western psychology. The Western psychologist would be happy to be aware of as many things in the world as possible. That is why he tries to go to the moon and to Jupiter, and so on. But we pity ourselves if that should be the state of affairs in our case.

Here is the natural and real way to perceive things in yogic tradition- experience everything as SELF:

Mitchell was experiencing a spontaneous glimpse of what the sages of the yoga tradition call higher consciousness—a direct, intuitive experience of the infinite field of awareness that underlies and pervades the entire universe. When this experience is fully expanded, different traditions give it different names—samadhi, nirvana, enlightenment, turiya, shunyata, Brahman, Christ Consciousness, Absolute Truth, Atman, God, the Self, Supreme Consciousness—but whatever they call it, spiritual masters tell us that this experience of an all-pervasive consciousness reveals the truth about ourselves and the world we inhabit: it is all One. There is no division, no multiplicity, no separation. Everything—the astonishing variety of living beings; nature’s myriad shapes, textures, and forms; the sun, the stars, the clouds, and the wind in the trees—all of it is a manifestation of an indivisible field of Consciousness. The goal of human life, the sages tell us, is to meet that Consciousness within ourselves and to know ourselves as That.

The greatest contrast can be seen in the green text and red text.

First article quotations from Swami Krishnananda site:
https://www.swami-krishnananda.org/disc/disc_300.html

Second article quotations come from here:
https://yogainternational.com/article/v ... sciousness

[Swami]

I would suggest that this is a silly as suggesting that if mechanics want to learn how to design and repair cars they should just drive a lot of cars.

The experience of driving cars contributes absolutely nothing to the knowledge of how cars are designed or how they do what they do.

This is an excellent analogy! I would say though that consciousness is ontologically subjective. It must be explored subjectively, that is, each one of us doing our own experiments in consciousness. When scientists are studying consciousness, they are only doing so "indirectly" via neural correlates. So they are not working on the car itself. Here's some relevant insight on why scientists have not discovered consciousness,

To sum up, the modern West has developed a sophisticated science of behavioral and neural correlates of consciousness, but no science of consciousness itself, for it has failed to develop sophisticated, rigorous means of exploring the mental phenomena firsthand. And this is the first step toward developing an empirical science of any class of natural phenomena. Thus, with regard to exploring the nature, origins, and potentials of consciousness, cognitive scientists and neuroscientists are more like astrologers, who carefully examine correlates between celestial and terrestrial phenomena, than astronomers, who carefully examine celestial phenomena themselves.

Taken from book, Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge by B. Alan Wallace - pg. 57

Despite its lofty goals, twentieth-century psychology has not solved the questions which motivated its inception. Twentieth-century psychology has failed because it was based on a limited understanding of consciousness. It studied active processes of knowing—perceptions, thoughts, or feelings—and lacked awareness of deeper levels of the mind underlying active mental processes. Because its understanding of consciousness has been incomplete, psychology has remained a fragmented study of more superficial expressed aspects of the individual and has spawned only isolated areas of investigation, rather than successful grand theories. Working from fragmented models, the complex and multi-dimensional problems facing the individual and society have not been adequately addressed. The basic argument of this paper is that through understanding of a unified level of consciousness posited to underlie all aspects of life—mental, physical, behavioral, and environmental—one can answer the fundamen-tal questions of psychology and fulfill its practical promise to mankind. This full understanding of consciousness is the contribution that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has made to bring fulfillment to the aspirations of twentieth-century psychology, as formally structured in Maharishi Vedic PsychologySM.

pdf: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... ajklalr5kb

In fact, we have already seen this method fail repeatedly. There are countless examples of philosophers throughout history who have intensely "meditated" on their own consciousness in an attempt to explain consciousness. Thus far this method has produced no credible or verifiable results. In fact, many of the "guesses" that philosopher have made have turned out to be wrong.

The knowledge gained from my experience tends to be about a different level of existence or of pure consciousness. I don't believe anyone would claim that this knowledge alone would explain the details of all other levels. But this knowledge can be combined with scientific knowledge to get a clearer picture of how all levels of reality work.

[Swami]

I am not willing to invest a lot of time immersing myself in eastern religions because I am not searching for anything in my life that would benefit from such an effort. But I do field research outside of a lab as my job, which includes atmospheric gas measurements from high altitude balloon and aircraft platforms, some similar industrial applications, and various other projects that come along. And although I am not in the field of brain research myself, a quick Google search shows many links to studies of meditation from a scientific perspective, and research into how the brain works in general. I've mentioned a recent book I read here several times before which goes into some detail by just one researcher (Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts, by Stanislas Dehaene).

But this kind of research is still in the early stages, and there is no reason to believe at this point that consciousness will not be "figured out" by science and turn out to indeed be nothing more than an emergent property of the brain. That seems a reasonable default position to take given that supernatural, "god is involved", or similar explanations for anything have never, in any case, been shown to be the correct explanation. Zero for some large number of cases. On the other hand, science has been hugely successful in explaining nature and providing us with the technology to study things like consciousness with reasonable propects for success in describing its origin and nature, without getting involved with eastern religions or meditation.

I've read what several Western thinkers think about consciousness and I'm less than impressed. They're not exploring deep enough and they certainly don't speak to my experiences. Mind does not equal consciousness. There is a direct, i.e. first-person approach, that can be fined tuned to produce more accurate observations of consciousness but scientists are unwilling to "experience" this for themselves.

In regards to immersing yourself in Eastern religions, I'd also recommend to not do that, as well. Hinduism for instance is very difficult to understand. I usually resort to reading companion books about the religion. I also read commentaries from yogis who not only know the religion but also have lots of experiences. My favorites so far are Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Swami Krishnananda. Or you can start simple and deal with one aspect at a time, like OBEs. Pick up a good guide book on how to have out-of-body experiences.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 13 by Razorsedge]

There is a direct, i.e. first-person approach, that can be fined tuned to produce more accurate observations of consciousness but scientists are unwilling to "experience" this for themselves.

That's because experimental science is concerned with designing experiments whose results can be combined with observations and analyzed within the context of prior knowledge to arrive at better explanations for nature and its behavior. What you are describing is a philosophical exercise, and the results of that are likely to produce several few billion descriptions of that consciousness is, because every person may have a different experience. This kind of exercise does not advance the science of explaining the mechanisms underlying how the brain manifests consciousness, but may provide data for philosophers to ponder.

Pick up a good guide book on how to have out-of-body experiences.

Uhh ... no thanks. If these kinds of things are subject to a recipe for how to have them (without placing a person into a certain semi-conscious state and inducing their perception artificially), I think I'd believe in them even less. If I ever gained an interest in eastern religions I would certainly grab a book and read about them, but at this point I have no such interest and don't believe they could provide any hard, scientific insights into how consciousness works (ie. no mechanistic information, but only philosophical).

[William]

[Replying to post 14 by DrNoGods]

That's because experimental science is concerned with designing experiments whose results can be combined with observations and analyzed within the context of prior knowledge to arrive at better explanations for nature and its behavior. What you are describing is a philosophical exercise, and the results of that are likely to produce several few billion descriptions of that consciousness is, because every person may have a different experience. This kind of exercise does not advance the science of explaining the mechanisms underlying how the brain manifests consciousness, but may provide data for philosophers to ponder.

I think the point is that typical western philosophy heavily assumes that there are mechanisms underlying how the brain manifests consciousness, whereas eastern thinking already has a good idea of what consciousness actually is and the brain is not where consciousness is 'created'.

Rather, eastern philosophy generically has the notion that consciousness was never created. but has always existed.

Science and materialism work well together because one is describing the other - non- moralistically.

There are not 'several few billion descriptions of that consciousness is' re eastern thinking. Every person DOES have a different experience, which is the nature of consciousness and the subjectivity consciousness naturally experiences through things which can be experienced.

Consciousness of itself can only be experienced one way. What consciousness can experience is more or less infinite.

Science is basically useless as a device to explain consciousness. Science is specific in helping consciousness explain materiel things.

This is specifically why the explanation "consciousness is an emergent property of the [materiel] brain" flies in the face of logic, because science has not and can not show this to be the actual case.
Scientists on the other hand, can and do interpret the data as allowing and accepting the notion "the brain creates consciousness" as the truth of the matter.

This is the point where things move from actual science into the philosophy of scientism. A different subject from science.

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 15 by William]

This is specifically why the explanation "consciousness is an emergent property of the [materiel] brain" flies in the face of logic, because science has not and can not show this to be the actual case.

Please explain why science cannot show that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. There is no evidence that points to it being anything but that.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 15 by William]

... whereas eastern thinking already has a good idea of what consciousness actually is and the brain is not where consciousness is 'created'.

Are you saying that this is what eastern thinking thinks is the case (fair enough), or that this actually is the case (if so, based on what evidence)? As brunumb stated, there is no evidence to suggest that consciousness is NOT an emergent property of the brain ... and claims to the contrary don't seem to have anything to support them other than wishful thinking.

Science is basically useless as a device to explain consciousness.

Unless consciousness is indeed an emergent property of the brain, in which case science has a very good chance of eventually explaining it.

This is specifically why the explanation "consciousness is an emergent property of the [materiel] brain" flies in the face of logic, because science has not and can not show this to be the actual case.
Scientists on the other hand, can and do interpret the data as allowing and accepting the notion "the brain creates consciousness" as the truth of the matter.

You can't claim that science absolutely "can not" eventually show that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. That shuts the door completely, and data that is available is consistent with the idea that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain. I know you have other ideas, but the amount of data that is available to support the emergent property scenario is infinitely greater than the data for any alternative explanation, because such data does not exist.

Real science (as opposed to "scientism which is always the word thrown out to denigrate science when it conflicts with a position) has to look at the problem objectively and continue to try and put the pieces of the puzzle together. If science took the position that consciousness was an unsolvable problem right from the start and never investigated it further, that would be a failure of science as a discipline. Until it can be shown that consciousness is indeed a mystical force or property of some sort (which has not yet been done), it makes sense to continue to study it by crafting experiments that can shed more light on the mechanisms involved. Nothing to date has falsified the idea that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, so science can march on trying to work out the details.

[Swami]

That's because experimental science is concerned with designing experiments whose results can be combined with observations and analyzed within the context of prior knowledge to arrive at better explanations for nature and its behavior. What you are describing is a philosophical exercise, and the results of that are likely to produce several few billion descriptions of that consciousness is, because every person may have a different experience. This kind of exercise does not advance the science of explaining the mechanisms underlying how the brain manifests consciousness, but may provide data for philosophers to ponder.

This is an excuse. The scientific method is not set in stone. The problem is that subjective experience gets a bad rap because of its history in early psychology.

Wilhelm Wundt‟s method of “introspection� lost its place due some defects it had. The main criticism against the introspective method was its subjective nature. I would argue that the major reason behind the failure of introspective method in western psychology is that the methods used by Wundt for this purpose were not perfect. In spite of drawbacks, introspection was considered to be the only good method for quite long time in the history of psychological studies. Nevertheless, the introspective method in Buddhist psychology has occupied a distinct place since the Buddha used it in a correct and appropriate way. The major reason to establish the introspective method in Buddhism as successful research method is the Buddha preaches his disciples to have a constant reflection on what they do, what they say and what they think.

To Buddhist psychology, one who develops introspection as a research method can read his/her mind as well as the minds of others too. For the Buddha, the best way to get reliable information about someone‟s mind is by allowing the relevant person to see his or her mind by himself or herself rather than observing it from a third person‟s point of view.

An analytical study of “introspection� in Buddhist and western psychology
Wickrama Kankanamge Don Keerthirathne School of Philosophy and Social Development Shandong University in Jinan, PR China Pasdunrata National College of Education, Sri Lanka
pdf

Introspection via meditation can be improved with training. This is something that Western scientists are seemingly not open to. More on this from the same article:

In our modern world it has always been assumed . . . that in order to observe oneself all that is required is for a person to "look within." No one ever imagines that self-observation may be a highly disciplined skill which requires longer training than any other skill we know.... The ... bad reputation of "introspection" ... results from the particular notion that all by himself and without guidance and training, a man can come to accurate and unmixed observations of his own thought and perception. In contrast to this one could very well say that the heart of the psychological disciplines in the East and the ancient Western world consists of training at self-study.
Jacob Needleman

Shapiro, Diana H. MEDITATION AS AN ALTERED STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS: CONTRIBUTIONS OF WESTERN BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1983,Vol. 15,No.1
pdf: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... OPQls5GaB3


As for the billions of different experiences that you bring up, I think people should also focus on the general commonalities as explained here:

He noted that there may be strong belief systems, suggestion, and demand characteristics operating, but then suggests that the hypothesis of demand characteristics is not consistent with the fact that the highest mystic experiences are similar in their basic content despite wide differences in cultural backgrounds and expectations: a) feeling of incommunicability, b) transcendence of sense modalities, c) absence of specific content, such as images and ideas, and d) feelings of unity with the ultimate.

Shapiro, Diana H. MEDITATION AS AN ALTERED STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS: CONTRIBUTIONS OF WESTERN BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1983,Vol. 15,No.1
pdf: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... OPQls5GaB3

[Divine Insight]

The knowledge gained from my experience tends to be about a different level of existence or of pure consciousness. I don't believe anyone would claim that this knowledge alone would explain the details of all other levels. But this knowledge can be combined with scientific knowledge to get a clearer picture of how all levels of reality work.

I agree with what you are saying here.

Where I disagree with your general argument is with the idea that scientists don't already do this.

I mean, you appear to be arguing that scientists don't consider their own subjective experience of consciousness when postulating theories of how consciousness might actually work. I would argue that they do. Some even actually do mediate.

There just hasn't been any major breakthroughs by scientists who include mediation as a part of their study of consciousness. Therefore I would simply conclude that apparently meditation doesn't have all that much to offer, otherwise scientists who do practice meditation would have a leg up on those who don't. And we don't see this being the case.

By the way, where did you get the idea that scientist refuse, ignore, or otherwise don't take their subjective experience of consciousness into consideration?

You might argue that there are no major scientific papers that describe progress in this area. But might that simply be because no one has been able to make any progress using purely subjective conscious experiences?

Let's not forget that all scientists are not "Westerners". There are many scientists from Eastern nations like India, China, Japan, etc., who were brought up in cultures that value meditation and even suggest the things you are suggesting. So it's not like all scientists are just ignorant of the claims made by Eastern Mystical Cultures.

I think they do take these things into consideration and just haven't seen any promising results from pure introspection. At least nothing that would suggest how consciousness might actually work.

Are you familiar with the work of Marvin Minsky and his book "Society of Mind"? His approach is indeed an approach that considers subjective experience and how we actually think about things and react to specific situations.

So I think some scientist do consider consciousness from this perspective. In fact, I would even say that Minsky has suggested quite a good description of how a brain actually thinks and constructs a "self". Of course, his organization is also based on logic and reason as well. But it wouldn't do much good to toss out logic and reason.

In fact, you say that scientists have failed to explain consciousness, but for all we know Marvin Minsky may have already explained it and we just don't yet fully understand why his explanation is true. This wouldn't be the first time that a scientist had made an important discovery only to be recognized for his work long after he has passed on.

So for all we know we may have the explanation for consciousness in our hands already and simply don't yet realize it.

I personally believe that consciousness may very well be explained as some form of logical processing feedback loop. And this is basically what Minsky is suggesting as well. Only Minsky envisions many feedback loops working together.

I'm personally not sold on the idea that there needs to be more than two. In fact, it seems to me (intuitively) that if there were more than two feedback loops this would cause more than "one" self. This could even be an explanation for multiple-personality disorder where a brain starts thinking that it is more than one person.

I'm getting off into the realm of speculation here. But getting back to the point of the thread. I would just like to summarize the following two points.

1. I think you are incorrect to say that scientists don't already take subjective experience, and techniques like mediation, hypnotism, etc, into consideration.

and

2. We may actually already have an explanation for consciousness and simply haven't yet recognize that it is correct.

Marvin Minsky isn't the only one who has proposed models for consciousness. So it's not like we have no clue at all. Proposals are being made all the time. The problem is in being able to find a way to test that they are correct.

Keep in mind that we currently don't even have a way to verify externally that a human (or any other animal) is actually having a conscious experience. Currently all we can say is that they are behaving as though they are having a conscious experience.

In much the same way, we may not be able to "test" Marvin Minsky's model to know whether it's correct or not. If that's the case, then we can hardly say that we dosn't have an explanation for consciousness. All we can say is that we have no way to test whether or not a given explanation is true or false.

We can't even test whether or not a human is having a subjective experience. All we can do is ask them and take their word for it when they say they are.

So it may not be an explanation that is lacking, but rather what we lack is a way to test whether any given hypothesis is actually true or not.

How can you say that scientist have no explanation for consciousness if you have no way to test whether their explanations are true or false?

[William]

[Replying to post 16 by brunumb]

[Replying to post 16 by brunumb]

Please explain why science cannot show that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain.

Science is basically useless as a device to explain consciousness. Science is specific in helping consciousness explain materiel things.

This is specifically why the explanation "consciousness is an emergent property of the [materiel] brain" flies in the face of logic, because science has not and can not show this to be the actual case.
Scientists on the other hand, can and do interpret the data as allowing and accepting the notion "the brain creates consciousness" as the truth of the matter.

This is the point where things move from actual science into the philosophy of scientism. A different subject from science.