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It’s Not a ‘Stream’ of Consciousness

53 pointsby pldpldabout 10 years ago

12 comments

satxabout 10 years ago
The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, trained as a physicist, welcomed, encouraged Western science to validate Transcendental Meditation, a mechanical mantra repetition technique, with the stress on lack of effort which is opposed to mindfulness, concentration, self-observation, and other effortful techniques.<p>Electro-encephalographs of TM meditators, after just a few weeks of initiation into TM technique, show the various brain waves frequencies spreading from back to front, plus left-right hemispheric synchrony, and increasing in amplitude. This behaviour was seen a few decades ago, and is even more verified lately as detectors and signal processing advanced.<p>Was do the data mean? That&#x27;s less &quot;scientific&quot;, but clearly something is happening, and subjective reports are that it&#x27;s a very positive experience with benefits that last outside of meditation.<p>Why does this behavior persist, is repeatable across many TM meditators, even neophyte meditators? It suggests, verifies even, that the TM technique recognizes inherent properties, abilities, behavior of the human brain.<p>Again, the benefits, if any, meditative sessions causing whole-brain wave synchrony, coherence, and increased wave amplitude? You&#x27;ll have to ask TM meditators.
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akyuabout 10 years ago
This seems like trying to understand how a car engine works by listening to the pitch of the sound it makes. Sure you can deduce somethings, but you aren&#x27;t really going to understand the engine.
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asifjamilabout 10 years ago
The view of brain oscillations driving (or even partially modulating) neural activity is further supported by research involving stimulating the brain using Alternating Currents [1] I&#x27;m currently doing my PhD on this topic, and it seems so far that targeting AC (with an entrained frequency) to various motor-related neural networks can actually <i>enhance</i> the motor skill and even motor learning.<p>Brain oscillations are quite phenomenal, and the causal role of these synchronisations still require further research.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dx.doi.org&#x2F;10.1016&#x2F;j.cub.2012.05.021" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dx.doi.org&#x2F;10.1016&#x2F;j.cub.2012.05.021</a>
hyperpapeabout 10 years ago
This is fascinating stuff, but what it means for how we think about conscious experience is quite open for discussion. We can&#x27;t jump to either the consclusion that our conscious experience is not a &quot;stream&quot; or that the brain &quot;fills in&quot; the gaps.<p>It&#x27;s been a long time since I&#x27;ve read about this stuff, but there&#x27;s work by Daniel Dennett (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;cogprints.org&#x2F;267&#x2F;1&#x2F;fillin.htm" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;cogprints.org&#x2F;267&#x2F;1&#x2F;fillin.htm</a>), and Alva Noe (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.alvanoe.com&#x2F;action-in-perception&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.alvanoe.com&#x2F;action-in-perception&#x2F;</a>) that&#x27;s quite relevant.
nabla9about 10 years ago
This is also the experience of experienced meditators in awareness type of meditation (mindfulness, vipasssana, shikantaza, silent illumination).<p>If you keep the focus in current moment prolonged periods of time, it&#x27;s equivalent of &quot;temporal zooming&quot;. Somewhere near 20-25 ms (40hz) is the &quot;time resolution limit&quot;. In the limit sensations – thoughts are also considered sensations – come in as separate units and you experience the content of consciousness as very fast &quot;flickering&quot;. There are units in higher resolution too, but they can be divided into these nuggets.<p>Concentrative type meditation (deep samadhi states, jahnas) is somewhat different experience because it shuts down most sensations.
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dreenabout 10 years ago
So essentially we have an event loop, right.
A_COMPUTERabout 10 years ago
This seems similar to Alfred North Whitehead&#x27;s idea of pulses&#x2F;buds of perception, from the 1920&#x27;s, sans the metaphysical aspect.
cgioabout 10 years ago
The metaphor I use in my research is the anapnoe of consciousness from the greek word for breathing.
karmakazeabout 10 years ago
I&#x27;m likening the &#x27;chucks&#x27; to be undergoing wavelet transforms.
entelechy0about 10 years ago
Just because a stream of water is composed of particles called water molecules doesn&#x27;t make it any less of a stream.
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gojomoabout 10 years ago
It&#x27;s a flipbook!
dschiptsovabout 10 years ago
It is &quot;awareness&quot; - what newborn babies have (born with).
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