--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Jul 28, 2005, at 8:01 AM, TurquoiseB wrote: > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> > >> States of consciousness have physiological signatures, regardless > >> of mental "content." > > > > Might I remind you that this is a hypotheis that has been > > taught to you, one that you hope is true but do not know > > is true? > > Pavlov's meditator?
More like Heisenberg's Hunch. :-) When one sets out to measure a phenomenon, one's expectations and assumptions, if present, cannot help but affect what is "found." Many scientists go into their experiments on the nature of states of consciousness "wearing" an assumption that states of consciousness are physiologically different, and that difference is measurable. They *expect* to find differences. And so they do. Their expectations create the differences. But the differences do not necessarily have anything to do with the different states of consciousness. IMO they have more to do with the nature of expectation that the scientists bring to the experiment. I think that experiments such as the ones you posted recently, about the real-world, practical-over-time benefits of meditation, are valuable and probably valuable, in that they would interest more people in the possible benefits of meditation. But experiments to prove the existence of something that has never even been *described* accurately in the entire history of human experience, and by definition *cannot* be? Give me a break. Scientists attempting to pinpoint the physiological nature of enlightenment *will* find things that they believe are indicators of enlightenment. They will find these things because they expect to find them. But the things they find may not necessarily have anything to do with enlightenment. One need look no further back than the original Wallace experiments and their emphasis on the presence of certain types of brainwaves to see this tendency to "find" what one already expects to find. Wallace found a bunch of brainwaves that, because of the nature of his belief in TM and what Maharishi had told him, he *expected* to find something. And he did. He associated these brainwave patterns with transcendence. Well, as time has passed it's turned out that these patterns occur in many circumstances, as a result of many different things, and thus probably has no real relationship to transcendence, right? But it seemed like a logical scientific "find" at the time. My suspicion is that this is *exactly* what is going to happen with future experiments that set out to find a physiological counterpart to enlightenment. The scientists are definitely going to find things. They *expect* to find things, so they will. And it'll seem to make sense at the time, and everyone in the TM movement (or whatever movement is spon- soring the experiments) will be excited because at last they'll have "proof" that enlightenment exists and what physiological indicators "make it" enlightenment. And this excitement will last for a year or two, and then someone will notice that the "indicators" also show up as a result of, say, eating too much chili. And the whole process will start all over again. :-) That's my feeling for what will happen as a result of the desire to scientifically validate enlightenment. I could be wrong. I often am. But I don't think I am in this case. I don't see the universe having created something (enlightenment) that has defied descrip- tion for this long (millennia) just up and relinquishing its mysteries just because people are afraid to accept their own subjective experience as sufficient "proof" of enlightenment. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
