Feb 3 2013: I've argued with more than a few naive materialists who show all the telltale signs of being threatened by discussions of personal liberation.
These commenters show all the conceits of intellectualism & materialist naivete when they accuse someone else of some infraction against rationalism (as though such a thing would constitute impropriety).
The error they unwittingly share with the spiritual materialists (whom they asperse with critiques) is that of vainglory & triumphalism.
Feb 3 2013: Thank you Colleen for making that point so concisely.
Even in my most naively materialist days of my youth I would have still found JBT's lecture utterly fascinating, engaging, & instructive.
I'm amused at these constipated & critical responses to her experiences (much less her presentation). Perhaps there something threatening to a commonly held worldview, in her description of a harrowing liberation experience.
It doesn't take a charlatan like Deepak Chopra to talk about direct experience. Jill Bolte Taylor isn't dabbling in baloney, she's talking about a very different way of encountering phenomena - one that is exceedingly vulnerable & detached from ego & self. This is the stuff of "original mind," and herein a harrowing medical condition opened a window into the most unfiltered of direct experiences.
By identifying the organic substrate that embodies these artifacts of self - of ersatz experience - JBT has made an excellent case of what neuroscience can learn from the mindfulness arts of Vipassana & Jhana meditation, and Zen / Ch'an ("don't know").
Feb 3 2013: How, Christian, would we ever construe discussion of a spiritual experience founded in an organic cause, as a bad thing?! There is nothing "spiritualistic" about a discussion of disengaging cognitive reactions from direct experience.
Spiritual, yes, spiritualistic, no. And this is no semantic quibble, because direct experience exists without philosophy, doctrine or religion: It simply *IS*. Religion & doctrine oftentimes claim to facilitate access to direct experience, but as many great minds have observed, they typically serve more to communicate hierarchy & power extrinsically from society, than to inculcate empowerment & liberation intrinsically within the votary.
Religion (the societal farrago of agendas & notions) is something wholly different from a spiritual experience (the noumenon of quintessence) - the former being a notorious corruption of the latter (e.g. the bowdlerized Jesus of the New Testament's Pauliad vs. the liberation theology of the actual Christiad).
Buddhism is no exception to this corruption, with its many instances of Buddhalotry, privilege & politics, but at least its founder spent a good forty years establishing a consistent record teaching otherwise.
In any case ... Jill Bolte Taylor did not introduce religion into her discussion, so no exception has ever been made, nor claimed otherwise.
Feb 3 2013: Meditation can in fact take one to such an experience, but it takes dedication & careful focus to get there.
The point of Buddhist meditation - if an end-product can be claimed - is to in fact attenuate two of the five mental "aggregates" (skandhas): Recognition & reactions (Skandhas #3 & #4). The delusory artifacts of "Self" are a product of Aggregate #4 (samskāra), so ameliorating those entails a significant rebalancing of Serial vs. Parallel processing (Left vs. Right hemispheric polar abilities).
It is via Insight meditation (Vipassana) or via the broader method of Zen (Dhyana) that Recognition is also attenuated. For instance, a colorful piece of cloth can be *only* experienced - even for a moment - as having only the experience of color alone, without the recognition of being a piece of fabric or part of a piece of upholstery. As unremarkable as this may sound, this is an important step in the path to alleviating the dominance of Left Brain serial processing. It is through this practice that Buddhists strive to experience "things as they actually are" without ego, preconceived notion, passion or frustration.
Once a serious meditator has in fact learned to attenuate Recognition & Reaction they are said to have attained Nirvana. It's as subject to Impermanence as any experience, but the quality of mind has changed as both a result of the training & the quintessential experience.
The upshot of mitigating reactions to extrinsic stimuli to abide in the most natural of intrinsic experiences: Happiness. Not the happiness of sensual delights or juxtaposed meanings, either, but a far more satisfying & permanent kind of happiness, of a very particular kind of detachment from turmoil & reaction. It's a nuanced view of one's own experiences.
So I do not doubt Jill Bolte Taylor did in fact have a brush with Nirvana, albeit a rather harrowing one. Where Buddhism (the practice, not the religion) & neurosci overlap there is much to learn, going both ways.
Feb 3 2013: Meditation can in fact take one to such an experience, but it takes dedication & careful focus to get there. The point of Buddhist meditation - if an end-product can be claimed - is to in fact attenuate two of the five mental "aggregates" (skandhas): Recognition & reactions (Skandhas #3 & #4). The delusory artifacts of "Self" are a product of Aggregate #4 (samskāra), so ameliorating those entails a significant rebalancing of Serial vs. Parallel processing (Left vs. Right hemispheres).
Feb 3 2013: Nirvana & samadhi are not permanent states. There are no "permanent states" of any kind, and anyone claiming such a thing would be a quack. Look very closely at the Tipitaka of the historic Buddha & he never made such a claim. Attaining Nirvana, or any of the Samadhi-form states is as subject to Anicca as anything - the changeless, the formless is a property of a new way of encountering evanescent experiences, not an absolute unchanging experience to itself.
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A comment on Conversation: Can Money Buy Happiness?
A reply on Talk: Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight
A reply on Talk: Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight
These commenters show all the conceits of intellectualism & materialist naivete when they accuse someone else of some infraction against rationalism (as though such a thing would constitute impropriety).
The error they unwittingly share with the spiritual materialists (whom they asperse with critiques) is that of vainglory & triumphalism.
A reply on Talk: Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight
Even in my most naively materialist days of my youth I would have still found JBT's lecture utterly fascinating, engaging, & instructive.
I'm amused at these constipated & critical responses to her experiences (much less her presentation). Perhaps there something threatening to a commonly held worldview, in her description of a harrowing liberation experience.
It doesn't take a charlatan like Deepak Chopra to talk about direct experience. Jill Bolte Taylor isn't dabbling in baloney, she's talking about a very different way of encountering phenomena - one that is exceedingly vulnerable & detached from ego & self. This is the stuff of "original mind," and herein a harrowing medical condition opened a window into the most unfiltered of direct experiences.
By identifying the organic substrate that embodies these artifacts of self - of ersatz experience - JBT has made an excellent case of what neuroscience can learn from the mindfulness arts of Vipassana & Jhana meditation, and Zen / Ch'an ("don't know").
A reply on Talk: Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight
(see also: Santayana, Huxley, Gotama, Jesus .... )
A reply on Talk: Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight
Spiritual, yes, spiritualistic, no. And this is no semantic quibble, because direct experience exists without philosophy, doctrine or religion: It simply *IS*. Religion & doctrine oftentimes claim to facilitate access to direct experience, but as many great minds have observed, they typically serve more to communicate hierarchy & power extrinsically from society, than to inculcate empowerment & liberation intrinsically within the votary.
Religion (the societal farrago of agendas & notions) is something wholly different from a spiritual experience (the noumenon of quintessence) - the former being a notorious corruption of the latter (e.g. the bowdlerized Jesus of the New Testament's Pauliad vs. the liberation theology of the actual Christiad).
Buddhism is no exception to this corruption, with its many instances of Buddhalotry, privilege & politics, but at least its founder spent a good forty years establishing a consistent record teaching otherwise.
In any case ... Jill Bolte Taylor did not introduce religion into her discussion, so no exception has ever been made, nor claimed otherwise.
A comment on Talk: Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight
The point of Buddhist meditation - if an end-product can be claimed - is to in fact attenuate two of the five mental "aggregates" (skandhas): Recognition & reactions (Skandhas #3 & #4). The delusory artifacts of "Self" are a product of Aggregate #4 (samskāra), so ameliorating those entails a significant rebalancing of Serial vs. Parallel processing (Left vs. Right hemispheric polar abilities).
It is via Insight meditation (Vipassana) or via the broader method of Zen (Dhyana) that Recognition is also attenuated. For instance, a colorful piece of cloth can be *only* experienced - even for a moment - as having only the experience of color alone, without the recognition of being a piece of fabric or part of a piece of upholstery. As unremarkable as this may sound, this is an important step in the path to alleviating the dominance of Left Brain serial processing. It is through this practice that Buddhists strive to experience "things as they actually are" without ego, preconceived notion, passion or frustration.
Once a serious meditator has in fact learned to attenuate Recognition & Reaction they are said to have attained Nirvana. It's as subject to Impermanence as any experience, but the quality of mind has changed as both a result of the training & the quintessential experience.
The upshot of mitigating reactions to extrinsic stimuli to abide in the most natural of intrinsic experiences: Happiness. Not the happiness of sensual delights or juxtaposed meanings, either, but a far more satisfying & permanent kind of happiness, of a very particular kind of detachment from turmoil & reaction. It's a nuanced view of one's own experiences.
So I do not doubt Jill Bolte Taylor did in fact have a brush with Nirvana, albeit a rather harrowing one. Where Buddhism (the practice, not the religion) & neurosci overlap there is much to learn, going both ways.
A reply on Talk: Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight
A reply on Talk: Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight