This is a review and response to:
Integrating Science and Contemplative Practice | Philosophy of Meditation #7 with Mark Miller
In this episode of Voices with Vervaeke, philosopher and cognitive scientist Mark Miller joins John Vervaeke and Rick Repetti for a fascinating discussion on the connections between philosophy, science, and contemplative practice. Mark provides insight into his work as a 'synthetic philosopher', integrating diverse fields like neuroscience and Buddhism to create theoretical frameworks for understanding the mind and contemplation. The conversation explores whether there can or should be a 'philosophy of meditation', and how science and philosophy might contribute to human flourishing and contemplative development. Mark shares rich examples of how computational models and cognitive science can elucidate contemplative skills and states, providing nuance to traditional teachings. He emphasizes the importance of balance between insight practices and compassion cultivation on the contemplative path.
Mark Miller, a philosopher and cognitive scientist, holds a senior research fellowship at Monash University's Center for Consciousness and Contemplative Studies in Australia, with affiliations at the University of Toronto and Hokkaido University in Japan. His work, which delves into the interplay between human thought, technology's impact on well-being, and human-computer interaction, is at the forefront of integrating cognitive neuroscience with philosophical inquiry.
Glossary of Terms:
Predictive Processing: A cognitive science theory that suggests the brain continuously makes predictions about the environment based on past experiences.
Synthetic Philosophy: An interdisciplinary approach that integrates insights from various fields to develop comprehensive frameworks for understanding complex phenomena.
Contemplative Science: A field of study that investigates the effects of meditation and contemplative practices on the mind and well-being.
John Vervaeke [JV]
Rick Repetti [RR]
Mark Miller [MM]
Introduction
0:00 [JV] welcome everyone to a very special voices with Fi um this is our seventh and for now
0:07 last episode of the philosophy of meditation uh that goes in conjunction with the amazing book that the
0:14 remarkable Rick retti put together the philosophy of meditation handbook uh a gem if you're interested in uh getting a
0:22 deeper understanding of mindfulness practices uh I recommend this is the first book you take a look at if you
0:29 want to get into to the the best philosophy cognitive science psychology around that and now as always I'm going
0:36 to welcome our guest and then turn things over to the remarkable Rick retti to lead us through this so first of all
0:43 welcome to Mark Miller and then as always Rick uh wonderful to see you
0:48 [RR] likewise John and it's great to meet you mark finally I've heard a lot about you
0:53 um Mark is a philosopher and cognitive scient ist doing work on Consciousness and contemplative studies he's a former
1:00 student of John's and a co-author with John and Brett Anderson on predictive processing and relevance realization his
1:07 research explores what cognitive science can tell us about happiness and well-being and what it means to live in
1:13 our increasingly technologically mediated world that's really important Mark's also the senior research fellow
1:19 at monach University Center for Consciousness and contemplative studies in Australia and he's also affiliated
1:25 with the University of Toronto where John is and Hokkaido University in Japan in this series we like to always
1:33 mention connections with previous or future guests this is episode seven but it's probably the last one in this
1:39 co-hosted series although I intend to continue interviewing people doing work in this new discipline the philosophy of
1:45 meditation on my own channel on my own Andor occasionally with John perhaps whenever a specific guest captures his
1:52 interest enough to pull him away from his many other incredibly valuable projects which I appreciate him being
1:58 here today at all so so to recap our previous six episodes in episode one
2:03 John and I introduced the series and John wore two hats co-host and first guest where we focused on his work
2:10 that's relevant to the philosophy of meditation what John might describe as integrating for E kogai with Western and
2:17 Eastern contemplative philosophy in episode two we interviewed Pierre Grimes one of the first contemporary Western
2:24 philosophers to try to bridge Western philosophy particularly neoplatonism with Buddhism as well as the first
2:30 philosopher in the US to develop a philosophical Counseling Practice what he calls philosophical Midwifery or
2:36 Midwifery as John would pronounce it um I wonder is that a Canadian thing in
2:41 episode three we interviewed Lou marinov whose work similarly Bridges Western and Buddhist philosophies Lou is also a leader in
2:48 the philosophical counseling movement in episode four we interviewed Thomas metzinger who work integ Great's
2:54 analytic philosophy fore E cogsci and meditation as a key tool in the exploration of Consciousness in episode
3:02 five we had Evan Thompson here who does similar work renowned as a Trailblazer and bringing into existence for 4e cogsci and
3:09 bringing it to the attention of philosophers and in episode six we interviewed masimo Puchi yet another
3:15 philosophical counselor but who's more renowned as a popularizer of stoicism and more generally of philosophical
3:22 practice philosophia as a way of life or as John likes to put it Sophia as
3:27 opposed to strictly academic philosophy given Mark's philosophical and cognitive science research on contemplative
3:33 studies in human flourishing I think it's fair to say he shares with all our previous guest and interest in the links
3:39 between philosophy meditation the nature of consciousness conceptions of the self
3:45 by philoSofia and the attempt to integrate meditation and cognitive science and philosophical analysis we're
3:51 delighted to have you here today Mark before we begin with our list of canned questions that we ask all our guests um
3:58 about which we may go Off Script since you and John are both friends and collaborators I'd like to ask John if
4:04 you'd like to say anything else or otherwise we'll just begin with some questions John [JV] well
4:10 uh I I am and I always mean this in a non-condescending manner and Mark takes
4:16 it this way I'm extremely proud of Mark uh Mark was originally an undergraduate
4:22 student of mine in the cognitive science program at the University of Toronto uh he went on to do amazing work and then
4:29 he reached out to me we've reconnected uh he's got a Sherk grant that he's doing at the University of
4:35 Toronto he is leading um uh the Consciousness and wisdom studies lab as
4:40 you mentioned uh Rick Mark and I are collaborating we have a lot of other collaborations on on the way and we're
4:47 starting to speak show up frequently at conferences together um a little bit of a so fun yeah a little bit of a dynamic
4:54 de um and um uh it's always it there's been we all as teachers look for the
5:02 students that are clearly surpassing us and taking our work and taking it further and further um and Mark does
5:09 that and um he is one of also one of the nicest best people I've ever met um and
5:17 so uh that's what I that's all I have to say but I'm so happy to uh end at least
5:23 this chunk of this series The The Continuous version of it uh with Mark so
5:29 welcome [MM] thanks so much well I feel all those things about you too how lovely how
5:34 lovely when that's reciprocated yeah I feel exactly all those things I'm I'm so thrilled to be here so this is great
5:40 thanks for inviting me [RR]well that's that's a beautiful thing to hear from both of you all right Mark so tell us
5:47 about yourself in your own words um you already mentioned some of it but what are you working on what else should the
5:52 audience know about you [MM] yeah um you've said all my affiliations which takes ages I see
5:59 overworked right now um what else maybe something interesting that you're not
Mark Miller's Journey in Contemplative Science
6:05 going to just find on my website or strictly through my research papers as my orientation towards some of these
6:11 ideas um I laugh uh that um my job feels more like my hobby and my meditative
6:19 practice feels like um the real work that I'm interested in so um even though
6:24 I'm I'm doing all of this research um both in the philosophy and science of contempla of development um I really do
6:31 feel like developing my contemplative life is the is really the primary thing
6:38 um developing virtue and becoming a good human and supporting my network and becoming a good servant and serving
6:43 others that's really the heart of the thing and then I kind of feel like research is the hobby which is lovely when your job ends up being your hobby
6:50 rather than um a major stress in your life um so that's sort of my orientation um and uh um I think we'll
6:58 get into it but one of the lovely things about doing especially the kind of research that I'm interested in doing in
7:03 the in the uh in the contemplative the contemplative science and of my research
7:10 is that um you get this wonderful you get this wonderful closed circuit where
7:15 my own contemplative program is fueling the kinds of things I'm interested in
7:21 and also um fueling my own um my own orientation within that research
7:26 neighborhood um and then the research is is if it's good research and I I hope it is um I think it should always flow back
7:33 rather than taking sort of Buddhist Meditation as a jumping point for science I think it's cooler or at least
7:39 equally cool when the science that you do filters back into telling you how to practice right um Can it can it update
7:46 some of the ways I mean you know um the Buddha didn't think that that was the end of the program you know when uh his
7:52 disciple came to him and said you know have you told us everything there is to know and the Buddha said well what's what's bigger the dirt under my
7:57 fingernails are all of the Earth and says well obviously all of the earth he goes yeah that's how much more there is
8:03 to know after after I'm done there's that much more so it's wonderful thing to think that our science can be
8:08 supporting our our uh development and I I think I really I feel like my my research does that that's fantastic um
8:16 [RR] the first part of what you said about your orientation uh certainly I'm sure John and I resonate with that kind of primary
8:24 that's a wonderful thing it's that that's proof of the phia Sophia um but
8:29 what's great about what you just said is the total integration of academic philosophies cognitive science you know
8:36 the analytic and the mystical all that stuff that's really beautiful and that's why that's why this this series is here
8:43 so we could talk about these connections excellent stuff so um all right a little
8:49 earlier bio how did you get here like how did you come to meditation
8:55 philosophy and perhaps their Union philosophy [MM] that's so easy I met I met
9:00 John I mean that's that's the sort of that's the start of the thing um uh no
9:06 John John's a massive a has been a massive influence on me for more than 20 years
9:12 um um I uh I was a returning student um
9:19 I I I went out and worked for a while and got into some trouble and all all
9:24 the things you do when you're young and then I came back I came back as a Seeker a Seeker wisdom so I came back to
9:30 University already with the orientation that I wanted to enter the university um experience my undergraduate because I
9:36 came back as to an undergraduate in my 20s um I already came back with the impetus to like figure out well who the
9:42 hell am I and what the hell is this all about and what should I do about who I am and what this is about and I started
9:47 looking for that specifically so of course I gravitated towards the philosophy Department um and uh but
9:54 quickly the thing that I was most interested in was philosophy of self philosophy of consciousness wisdom
10:00 wisdom and its intersection with who we are and what Consciousness is all about so of course John was a is the you know
10:06 he's The Shining Light at the University of Toronto on these topics I mean we ask I mean we seem to be saying this a lot
10:12 like where do you learn about wisdom like it's a big problem it is a big problem you know in the world today that
10:17 we have lots of informational um opportunities at the University level but not very many transformational
10:23 opportunities but that's just not the case at the University of Toronto I mean you think like where do we find it you think like you find
10:29 UFT there's all sorts of opportunities at University of Toronto for real wisdom teachers and John's one of those so um I
10:36 I came on board there there's a longer story that's probably not interesting in this format I got really sick and then I
10:42 got better and it like shook me out of a style of being in the world I was making
10:48 a lot of money I was in sales and um I got shook out of that um and uh the
10:55 shake was strong enough that um I started taking um self-reflection and self-development really seriously and um
11:02 so then I I did the the almost cliche thing of I went East so I spent
11:09 from from about 23 years old well yeah at 23 I spent 15 years
11:18 away spent years practicing in Thailand um years in India and Nepal um and I
11:26 would dip I would dip out to the East and do longterm Retreats sit with um uh
11:31 good teachers and then I would come back to UFT UFT has this wonderful program where you can leave for as long as you
11:37 want and then you can just sign up for classes when you come back started in World War II I think you don't have to even tell them you're leaving you don't
11:42 have to sign a form or anything you just you can just bounce and then show up again and sign up for classes and so I
11:48 did I did that for about 10 years I just I just went and came back and studied more and then went and came back
11:55 fascinating yeah wow I just have so maybe just one more I don't want to take up all the air but one more nice thing
12:00 is it's great to see I've been a little bit of a I've been a little bit of a Dharma bum most of my life um and doing
12:08 philosophy on the side and it's wonderful to see that my career ambition like my career and my uh and my
12:15 spiritual life have really have really mixed up together um yakob puie offered me a job with the Consciousness and
12:20 contemplative studies Center at Monash University which is now Hil as one of
12:25 the probably one of the most important contemplative science programs in the world um and he just scooped me right
12:32 out of another job and said we we have a wonderful Center that we're opening we have $12 million and how would you like to just spend your time doing science of
12:39 meditation and then enthusiastically turning that into programs and improving
12:45 your community and I thought who gets this kind of job I mean so yeah so
12:50 that's why I'm here now [RR] that's awesome that's awesome yeah I just wanted to add one little thing about me because um I
12:57 started college when I was about 26 also personally very similar trajectory there
13:03 yeah and I took three years off between my undergraduate my masters three years off between my masters and my PhD yeah I
13:09 took a year I took it one year off between bachelor and and grad school I didn't do a masters I went straight for
13:16 the PHD but I took off a couple of years during my PhD program because of life and you know whatever yeah [JV] I just want
13:23 to uh Mark is more than making up for the lost time he is incredibly prolific, he is
13:30 incredibly prolific what did you tell me you published like 15 papers last year
13:35 something like that just incredible he's an amazing scholar and a great
13:41 scientist [MM] thanks really great wow all right so now to some of our standard
13:47 more standard questions about the topic you know this series is is based on or
13:52 inspired by the rutage handbook on the philosophy of meditation John contributed to that that's how I met
13:57 John um but yeah thank you three major questions that I raised there and I
Meditation's Role in Philosophy and Contemplation
14:03 tried to encourage all the contributors to address uh were you know can
14:08 meditation contribute to philosophy is there can there be or ought there to be a philosophy of meditation that's like
14:14 really three questions and then is meditation itself a form of philosophy and by now I I have to come up with some
14:22 new term because John has impressed it upon me that I need to mention contemplation and meditation as not
14:28 necessarily the same thing so maybe the broader category whatever that is that includes both of them um so any one of
14:34 those questions you can um you know if you want me to read them again or read one of them again okay no that's
14:41 good [MM] um I have three things to say maybe um right from the hip um so um yeah I
14:48 think there's a role for philosophers to think deeply about um about
14:53 contemplative programs I think that's for sure the case I mean the weakest I feel like the weak and shallowest access
15:00 point there is philosophers are really good at conceptual analysis that's not a not that's not a a not addition to um a
15:09 team um contemplative programs like all programs suffer from lack of clarity in
15:15 conceptual understanding I mean for instance look at the debate today about non-conceptual experiences ⮦⮋⮧ you know like
15:22 what does it mean what does it mean ⮦⮋⮧ to say oh now have a non-conceptual experience I mean is that a thing at all
ah ha, I see what you did there. Funny.
15:28 and that's a current hot debate Evan Thompson is um his work on this is is wonderful um personally you know can
15:35 asterisks this if you want to talk about it after but I don't think there is any such thing as non-conceptual experience there's only thinly conceptual or
in neoBuddhism, this is often referred to as sense-memory, the memories associated with information from the sense organs, touch, taste, smell, etc.. that maps these things, by attaching a sort of emotional valence to the memories associated the the qualia in the brain which are related to sensations from within the body. It is how the spiritual elephant sort of “remembers itself” and differentiates the models of itself from its models of the world. These are also often how muscle memories are formed, such that, they are able to respond much more quickly than instinctual chosen actions. Instinctual experiences are also often non-conceptual. For example, when a human feels ‘horny’ or sexually aroused, they are not typically thinking of words, they are thinking of their own body position and emulating some other things with it, as part of a goal setting process which is more exploratory, rather than the usual biases for familiarity and predictability. But that does not occur via word, and while they have concepts of things like the other, the sensation of arousal itself, is not a conceptual thought, in the same way the feeling of fear is often related to concepts which upon closer inspection, which is typically avoided and denied for psychological comfort, are shown to be illogical or the consequences were vastly exaggerated in their imagination. But the sensation which leads to the disruption of executive functioning, the fear and the release of stress hormones which that causes, is not a concept. It’s a sense memory. in LLMs this is akin to the individual weights which are recorded as vectors, that vector number, the reason it seems so, un-decodable, without having the entire neural network to interpret it, is akin to qulia, or semantic information as it is encoded in protein spikes which are on the dendrites of neurons. Which is like an addressing system for getting distributed clusters of neurons to activate simultaneous, and that simultaneous activation patterns, which are sort of like time division multiplexing in their spiking patterns, is what enables the binding between more comprehensive sense memories, and the real time perceptions of the external world, which people forget, includes a lot of noise in the transmission between the sense organs, and neurons in the brain. So the human biology requires more than a single method of error-correction, which occurs by trying to, mostly, simulate things in both hemispheres, and then passes the electrical pulses of the neurons across the corpus callous, then take the difference and compares it to it’s expectation, from the memories instead of from the sense organs which are noisy, then stitches all that together to what seems like a seamless experience.
You have to take into account that, the filtering of the sense information occurs in the spiritual elephant, and not in the conscious mind. The conscious mind, is only directing the focus of the spiritual elephant. But if there isn’t a pre-exsisting memory associated with certain elements of their models of the world, it gets “error corrected” out and the conscious mind does not become aware of it, it does not get focused on, because there is simply too much information constantly and so it is inevitable that the bulk of information from the senses is discarded before reaching the conscious mind, which only then, determines what to “pay attention to” of the top-n things that the subconscious sort of guesses is relevant to the current situation, by referring to memories, or simulating hypothetical and sometimes both, but not for people with aphantasia.
15:41 something so there's one way I think philosophers access I think it's the weakest way because I think philosophers
15:46 do a lot more than just conceptual analysis sometimes scientists I think think what we do is just conceptual
15:52 analysis but that's not the case so that's that's the shallowest middle of the pool
15:59 I think philosophy um uh meditation uh philosophy is just contemplative
16:06 traditionally I think you're right like you asked is philosophy just a kind of meditation or is meditation just a kind
16:11 of philosophy um philosophy is just a way I think traditionally done done well
16:18 um is a use of our attention and our awareness and our introspection in order
16:24 to figure out who we are and and sort of what this is all about so that we get better so I think I think philosophy
16:31 done right should be done contemplatively I think that's that's more robust than just conceptual
16:37 analysis and um and I think meditation is philosophy as well um sort of in its
I think Philosophy would count as a contemplative practice.
I think what philosophers and scientists are both doing a conceptual analysis, the only significant difference, is that
real scientists are limited to information about things which can be measured empirically and reductivly, and philosophers are able to take more abstract perspectives, and additive forms of building concepts instead of reductive.
Meditation would be a different set of conceptual practices. Where Philosophy focuses more on critical thinking and mitigating biases to communicate ideas with words and labels, and typically from a more relatable 3rd person perspective. Meditation focuses more on the discipline of the observer and the first person perspective, more about the process of perception and conceptualization, which tries to bridge the gap between the first and 3rd person perspectives, via metaphor and comparison, rather than labels, more intuitively.
However “figure out who we are and and sort of what this is all about” is more about identity and how to orient ones self in the world to reach the goal which is identified as meaningful to the identity, which will persist after the of the body ceases to exists.
16:43 true sense you know at its root it's not about relaxing it's not just about relaxing you know although we get that
16:50 idea today and it's certainly not about just creating weird psychedelic States so that we can blow our minds and talk
16:55 about it that's for sure what it's not. um I mean per se I mean there are maybe
Synthetic Philosophy and Contemplative Science
17:01 some bang on effects of that but again meditation is a way of knowing ourselves and knowing our situation um and then
17:07 flourishing through that special knowing I mean in that sense meditation just is philosophy I think if what you mean by
17:13 philosophy is know yourself and and figure out what it is to live a good life uh can I just say one more quick
17:20 thing you can tell me where you want to orient that's the weakest that's the middle I think the deepest would be what
17:26 I'm most interested in which is my jumping point which is um the relationship between what you might call
17:32 synthetic philosophy and these contemplative programs I don't know if you're familiar with that term synthetic philosopher synthetic philosophers now
17:39 it's a it's a relatively new term John's definitely a synthetic philosopher uh in this sense synthetic philosophers um
17:47 they are sort of polymaths polymaths uh who are interested in a variety of neighboring
17:55 Fields And as theoreticians they take a lot of that information and then develop new Frameworks for thinking about how um
18:02 special Sciences move forward it's it's a role that philosophers are playing now it is so rather than just going to a lab
18:08 and looking at neurons you also need somebody who is familiar with Neuroscience biology anthropology uh
18:16 Linguistics potentially you know um the true cognitive scientist in order to think about well what's the framework
18:23 under which we're doing these individual experiments and what does that experiment actually tell us um that's meaningful you need a framework for that
18:29 and philosophers are especially set up um synthetic philosophers philosophers who have that orientation are especially
18:35 good at this I think it's part of our training to figure out how things work so Dan Dennet's a good example of that Evan
18:40 Thompson's a good example of that of course John's a wonderful example of that and I'd like to think that that's
18:45 where I find my home in philosophy as well it's not as a sort of a traditional
18:51 philosopher but as a I'm looking at theoretical neurobiology um and uh some proper
18:57 cognitive s science and then thinking about um what do these new Frameworks tell us about what it is to be awake to
19:04 be conscious to be a self to be well um and of course as these new Frameworks
19:10 are are being developed they're opening these wonderful new opportunities for thinking about contemplative training
19:16 programs the the skills and the states and the traits in new ways and um like I
19:22 said at the beginning of the talk um I'm also interested in how the contemplative program is actually one of the branches
19:28 that synthetic philosophers in this in this work can be utilizing as as part of
19:33 their research um um I to know the pattern of things that they're bringing
19:39 to creating these Frameworks for instance like neurop phenomenology is a good example of of one such program
19:45 where you're looking to bring experience especially um a well-trained experience
19:51 and Neuroscience uh you know into the same room so that you're getting the best of both when you're looking at
19:56 complex topics like what is is it to be a self or what is experience all about so that's my jumping off point is I'm
20:02 really interested in thinking of new ways of thinking about the brain I mean if I tip my cards I'm really interested
20:09 in predictive processing today which is thinking about the brain as a prediction engine um and then thinking about well
20:15 if the brain is a prediction engine if I'm a if a big part of what I'm doing as an organism is anticipating what happens
20:21 next, what does that mean for how I understand the contemplative programs and what is it about special about those
20:27 contemplative programs that are good for taking care of the kind of predictive system that I am that's that's my big
20:34 interest actually from from that from that jumping off point [JV] thank you for watching this YouTube and podcast series
20:41 is by the Verveki Foundation which in addition to supporting my work also offers courses practices workshops and
20:49 other projects dedicated to responding to the meaning crisis if you would like to support this work please consider
20:55 joining our patreon you can find the link in the show notes [JV] I just want to uh
21:00 mention that uh um just a just a Connecting Point for people watching
21:06 another one of those synthetic philosophers who Mark also studied with is Andy Clark and Andy Clark is one of
21:12 the strongest proponents of this new framework the predictive processing framework just to give him some credit
21:17 where it's due as well yeah gosh and he's the best if if anybody's listening to this and you don't know Andy Clark
21:23 that's your that's your homework this week go go read one of Andy's books
21:30 [RR] so mark it sounds to me like you already answered um a a question that's very
21:36 similar to the one that I answered and like it might be that the answer is obvious when I ask you the new version
21:41 but it sounds like you answered the question is there can there be and ought there to be a synthetic philosophy of
21:48 contemplation and your answer was yes so um the larger question is for philos
21:54 like Evan had some resistance to the idea of a philosophy of meditation he compared it with things like philosophy
22:00 of sport and of course you could have a philosophy of ham sandwiches or of anything that you put your mind to so so
22:07 the question is I want to press you a little more about just um even without I mean I get the it's almost more like a
22:13 cognitive science of meditation the way you were speaking but what about the philosophy of
22:20 meditation [MM] I don't know if I have such a hard line in my experience between those
22:25 if we if what we if what we mean is like is the truest sense of cognitive
22:31 science the truest sense of traditional philosophy those are really I I don't know if there's a hard there's an
22:36 especially hard line there I'd like to think the interesting thing for me so
22:41 the interesting thing for me would be um is is
22:50 can is it valuable to is it valuable to
22:55 think deeply uh both about contemplative skills States and traits using a variety
Bridging Science, Philosophy and Contemplative Practice
23:03 of modalities especially I think cognitive science a traditional like the true sense of cognitive scientists where
23:09 you have an interdisciplinary tool set and then is the reflection on those valuable in return for the way that
23:15 we're thinking about cognitive Frameworks and I think that's just uh is just an obvious yes now if that's not
23:22 what other people are thinking about when they're thinking about philosophy of meditation um then I I can see they
23:28 might pick a bone you know Evan has a has a special view um his book um why I'm not a Buddhist lays it out you know
23:34 where he thinks maybe you want to keep separate some of the religious elements
23:40 and some of the scientific elements um and he proposes a Cosmopolitan view instead right where what you want is you
23:46 want Buddhists doing science and you want scientists who are interested in Buddhism but you might not want a
23:51 Buddhist scientific agenda or something I think I think his I think his
23:56 arguments are are sound and I I think it's something we should definitely consider but um I can in a way I'm
24:02 sidest stepping that issue and I'm thinking um there's lots of confusion
24:07 about what these contemplative skills are and what they're leading to and why they lead to that and I think I think
24:14 especially an interdisciplinary cognitive science is especially well poised to look under the hood so like if
24:21 you want an example a really good example from um one of my first foray into this was thinking about the
24:26 difference between euphoric and dysphoric selfless experiences this is this is a wonderful
24:33 J here I'll just this is a great test case for what I'm trying to say so we
24:39 know that there are selfless experiences that are
24:44 horrible depersonalization derealization these can be really scary
24:49 almost everybody has them at some point in time in their life but you know they can be a bit sticky and they can stick around for a little while and they can
24:55 be really really scary um and we have selfless experiences that are
25:01 self-reported to be completely kickass that make your life worth living that make the world inherently meaningful and
25:08 that we should really be striving and aiming towards now here's the mystery okay Rick this is so cool right here's
25:14 I'll give you a mystery and then we think well how do we solve the mystery I think the answer is this synthetic philosophy of cognitive science is sort
25:20 of the answer when you when you get these two different people to give you a report on their experience this is so
25:28 cool about science if you get them to report on their experience they give you
25:33 the same reports this is what's so amazing okay so you you go to you go to
25:39 an you know a liberated being and you say tell me about what it's like to be you and they'll say things like well
25:45 I'll tell you a little bit about it okay I I realized early on that I'm nonidentical to the body I'm
25:51 nonidentical to the mind um of course I am importantly the body and the mind but the body and mind don't exhaust the kind
25:57 of thing I am okay so the body does its own thing the Mind does its own thing and I'm perfectly well okay and and and
26:04 one of the things that happens is the world becomes very light it becomes very thin um uh I start noticing it's more
26:10 like a play than a real thing it's more dream like it's more and also I'm starting to notice how much I bring to
26:16 it how much I create it and that's completely liberative for me okay that's one story and then you talk to somebody
26:22 with depersonalization and they say I'm not the body I'm not this body this body
26:27 just walks around the mind just does its own thing um the world feels hallucinatory to me it feels like a
26:33 dream I think everybody's a robot I mean those are really similar first personal
26:38 accounts except for one is euphoric and one is dysphoric so you get these weird Reddit threads where people are like the
26:47 Buddha was depersonalized and then he's taught a program of depersonalization as
26:52 a way of Escape is he's actually just trying to fire off this uh brain airbag
26:58 that happens in depersonalization and that's all it is that the Buddha is just sort of a disassociative teacher
This would be conflating non-attachment with depersonalization, or put another way, could be considered a pathologizing of metacognition, by ignoring the difference between voluntary and involuntary identification. As the involuntary versions, which are more normally associated with the type of chemical imbalance associated with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diphenpipenol that effect not only visual perception, but also disrupts connectivity between the visual cortex and prefrontal cortex.
When the person is talking about derealization or deteachment, they are referring to the internal conceptual perspectives that occurs in their imagination, not their visual perception of the world, and probably some effects from increases in levels of neurotransmitters. In their experience of selflessness, are not feeling a disruption in the feedback from the sense organs, so it’s not that they don’t feel the body, it’s that the body feels like it is connected to everything, as if it has become a part of the environment instead of separate from it. So the edges of the self seem to dissappear, but they are still connected to the sensations and feedback from the body.
While they may use similar language when talking about denationalization or disassociation, they are literally referring to their visual perception of the world through their eyes, while simultaneously feeling the sensation of disrupted feedback from the body, which results in feeling like they are not connected to the sensations, due to additional delays in information processing.
The depersonalization would be the inability to connect the actions and behaviors of the body, with the intentions of the mind, on top of difficulty navigating.
The “things looking like a cartoon” is because of the distortion of the information from the visual cortex, which is somewhat similar to https://youtu.be/zfskvjrpaqs?si=iNQcTZJyoff2HIdS&t=101
non-attachment does not modify visual perception at all. It only changes the conceptual connections and perceptions between the various models of the world, the internal representations of the external world, in conceptual space of the working memory, which is able to interpret the information that arises from the senses in a different way, from different perspectives. Each having different sets of biases which make different sets features to seem salient, thus containing more information that would be available from a purely first person perspective.
Like going from 2D comics, to full 3D immersive video that allows you to “look around” the blind spots which are the holes of information which are not deemed relevent by the biases of the primary perspective of the spiritual elephant, the ability to reflect on the past, and hypothesizes the future.
Or one can basically disrupt the integration of information, by reducing the distance that neuronal firings reach in the brain, as in amygdala hijacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala_hijack
and brain seizures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seizure which typically disrupt the ability to navigate the world.
Though that can also occur via depression of electrical signals, as under forms of anesthesia.
27:04 teaching a path of disassociation and you say well that sounds ridiculous to me because my program is is lending to
27:09 all these benefits but then you just kick back without the signs you just kick back and say yeah but look at the reports look at the phenomenological
27:15 reports they're identical they have so much in common and now here's the cool thing so then the answer to that puzzle
27:23 is you've got to look under the hood you've got to actually take a glimpse of okay well what's the what's
27:28 the possible computational underpinnings and do we have any do we have any neurobiological backing for those
27:34 computational underpinnings that tell you is is there any remarkable difference between these two and our very first project showed that actually
27:40 they're opposite they're opposites computationally this disassociation and Liberation are opposites in terms of
27:47 what's happening in the brain opposites in terms of neurobiology and yet the phenomenological report is
27:54 identical fascinating example because if you didn't have the science if you weren't looking under the hood if you
The only thing this “uncovers” is how inarticulate the people answering were and maybe the person who came up with the questions was also not doing a great job of trying to elucidate more nuanced descriptions. Or you know, the not uncommon misrepresentation and motivated reasoning that is typically associated with people who lack a tradition of discipline, and lacks values beyond the material. So they lack not only the vocabulary, but even a conceptual framework.
I am sure they could cluster a whole bunch of things togeather arbitrarily and demonstrate little more than what could be called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leading_question in the design. I am just stating what I have noticed in surveying research. Just, sloppy WIERD science.
27:59 didn't have the framework for making sense of the phenomenology plus the neurobiological story then you can make
28:06 a lot of confusions here you can make a lot of mistakes so there's just one right to and of course that has bang on
28:12 effects because then you learn you learn things like what leads you to depersonalization rather than Liberation
28:18 what are their actual relationships in terms of um their nature and their structure which helps you I hope helps
28:24 us as practitioners better navigate some of those dangers [JV] I just want to say a couple things to that um uh first of all
28:33 that's an amazing example um and uh uh and part of it I think is uh U where you
28:39 can then Branch off to things like Insight where the description of the problem the semantic content is the same
28:46 but after the Insight the relevance patterns have have shifted and you make those kinds of connections and and Mark
28:52 and I and Brett have been trying to and I've been doing this more this year in fact trying to integrate relevance
28:58 realization predictive processing together link it up with phenomena like insight and flow so all of that and this
29:03 is stuff Mark and I are working towards the other thing I wanted to say more and in general and philosophical and I think
29:09 it it it I think it's an amplification rather than orthogonal or uh challenging
29:14 what Mark said but in response to Evan I was thinking that you know I think there needs to be a philosophy of meditation
29:20 because meditation and contemplation challenge an underlying uh epistemological and often
29:27 on ological presupposition that is very eurocentric or ethnocentric which is monop the idea of monophasic
I would have said reductionist.
29:34 Consciousness that there's one phase of Consciousness and one alone that gives you access to reality and I think what
29:41 these cross- historical and crosscultural traditions say is they
29:46 challenge that presupposition and they open us up to right dropping that and
29:52 saying well from other states of Consciousness do we gain kinds of
29:57 knowing or do we get access to dimensions of being that are otherwise
Blending Philosophy and Cognitive Science in Contemplative Practice
30:03 not accessible to us in our monophasic and and then that of course brings in developmental aspects and I think that
30:10 is a significant philosophical move and I don't think it's something you can do by its very nature just propositionally
30:17 you have to actually undergo it in order to be able to speak about it and develop
30:23 theory on it so I think there's a point at that where the meditation and the philosophical Enterprise even
30:30 professional sort of epistemology and ontology actually come together in a powerful way I just wanted to put that
I felt that current common ontologies in the west, were so expansive, and over the years as humanity progressed from the bronze age to the information age over the course of some ~2000 years, that there were missteps and some things were justified back then, which would not be in the modern era, some aspects are downright barbaric the closer you get to the historical connections with the bronze age tribes of their origin. So to mitigate the misinterpretations, as well as not get dragged into conflicts between the Abrahamic faiths, and thus neoBuddhism was born.
30:36 argument out there [RR] love it yeah yeah I couldn't help but also thinking while I
30:42 was listening to you mark that well it's almost inevitable that the way that
30:47 you're going to answer the question about philosophy of meditation is going to talk about how useful cognitive science is in that Enterprise but I
30:55 think everything that you said really makes it so obvious particularly with that example about
31:01 depersonalization versus Enlightenment that these are philosophical questions and they really matter to people who are
31:09 practicing and who want to understand the nature of the self of the mind and all that I mean these are deeply
31:14 philosophical questions and these are possible ways of getting at some answers
31:19 um and it's and it's practical philosophy I think in the way that you mean as well because this is philosophy
31:25 that matters it's not it's not just conceptual analysis it's not just you
31:30 know getting clear on this is this is in a way vapas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipassana_movement is what we're talking about it's it's special knowing it's a way of
31:37 special knowing because you're getting you are by reflecting deeply um at
31:46 multiple layers or multiple levels you are getting clear you're getting clear
31:51 on um some really important terrain and territory that you're going to have to
31:57 navigate if you're a contemplative um if you're a contemplative and uh that's that's extremely valuable I mean that's
32:04 just one example but I mean it is a it's a profoundly important example to be able to know the difference
32:11 theoretically between uh disassociative disorders and euphoric Liberation States
32:17 and then to look computationally at what their different markers are and why they come about I
32:23 mean like just one ex just one example of the import um I know we it's a it's we're slightly drifting away from what
32:29 we might mean by traditional philosophy but I'm a synthetic philosopher which means which means uh I'm allowed to grab
32:34 anything from cognitive science to do my work that's sort of the idea right um here's just one example um one of the
32:42 things that came out of that research was the was a a red flag got flown about
32:49 the idea that uh meditation should always be an opportunity to turn towards
32:55 the most difficult stimuli in your experience which I think if you have an unskillful meditation teacher or you
33:01 have an immature meditation teacher sometimes you can get those things said without the proper caveat you can be
33:06 like oh yeah you know you should turn into the problem you should you should meditation is an opportunity to look deeply at the at the issue um and um lo
I am going to go out on a limb here and assume that he is referring to dealing with rumination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumination_(psychology) .
33:14 and behold one of the things that causes depersonalization one of the reasons why we might actually see a relationship
33:21 between meditation and depersonalization because there is you know there's a there's a there's a um an increasingly
33:29 obvious relationship between people who are meditating and people who have depersonalization so there is a special
33:35 relationship that needs to be uncovered that's a fact and mostly that's because people are practicing incorrectly I
33:40 think with incorrect um instruction um here's one of those here's one of those things that you might not it's not
Unfortunately, there is a lot of that going around. One of the more annoying aspects of a concerted effort of cultural appropriation.
33:46 obvious until you lift the hood is that um we depersonalization is caused by
33:52 lots of volatility in the system which can be caused by reflecting on you know traumatic
33:57 um yeah destabilizing experiences so one you've got a bunch of
34:03 error in the system you've got a bunch of volatility in a system that's built if the framework is right to reduce
34:08 volatility to reduce error a ton of wild volatility and you are not able to get
34:14 away from it so you have a lot of volatility that you find is important it's important volatility that needs to be resolved you need to get some grip on
34:21 your on what's going on and you're not able to get away from it well lo and behold when you sit in medit
I am guessing he is referring to the involuntary nature of the experiences of depersonalization.
34:28 and you stop moving you have now restricted yourself from fleeing and now you're getting the
34:34 directive from somebody you trust which has a really powerful impact on how your attention gets modulated you can
34:39 modulate attention from the outside especially with trust this is why you go to teachers it's why gurus have such a
34:45 powerful import um it's why we you know our our instructors and our professors also are able to Mo mold our cognitive
34:52 system by powerfully entraining our attention so you're not moving and you have a powerful attention on a traumatic
34:58 experience now you have unbridled volatility that you can't get away from that's exactly the condition you'd
35:04 expect to create dpd so right away what that does is it cre it opens a dialogue
35:09 to make sure that we are looking back at the traditional teachings and making sure that we we draw out the important
35:15 nuances and put them forward like if you're a personality that tends to avoid
35:22 then looking closer is helpful if you're a personality that tends to be neurotic
35:27 and only look at the dark then actually avoidant strategies ⮦⮋⮧ are real strategies for you so you hear hear teachers like
Maybe, but other times that prevents you from making progress, and are just different forms of denial and catastrophizing while mostly being ignorant of the world.
It’s a result of being ignorant and unwilling to do the work of changing yourself, a hedonistic attachment to comfort, as a result of gasp privilege clutches pearls.
The difference from going around thinking they are doing the teacher a favor by learning, and feeling like they have gained something from interacting that merits some form of loyalty, as the loyalty begets discipline, first to someone else, and then having learned, are able to apply them to ones self. However issues arise when it becomes transactional, and for whatever reason, the students think their material support or social clout are what have the most value, rather than the teaching and education provided by the teacher. And you know, there are also lots of incompetent teachers, or charlatans, depending on the level of their narcissism, which can often be like a culturally transmitted disease of the caste system that is for it’s own reproduction in a zero sum game of social Darwinism, which sounds so smart and scientific.
35:33 aen cha Jack cornfields teacher I love this teaching he's such a wonderful teacher you know he goes I'm he goes I'm a sort of stupid teacher he says that
35:40 right he's like I'm a very humble he goes I only know two I only know two directions I tell my good friends if
35:45 they go too far right I go left left left and if they go too far left I go right right right those are the only things I know about practice ⮦⮋⮧ you think
This seems like an over simplified false dichotomy. But hey, he did preface it with “i’m stupid” so …
35:53 there it is if you if you are fascinated you have to relax if you're avoidant you
35:58 need to tune in but that complexification is needed but if we didn't look under the hood and we didn't
36:05 see that overlooking so here's the where philosophy comes back in but overlooking
36:11 that point then we're practicing inappropriately so there's an example where um you know a a a a proper
36:18 cognitive science an interdisciplinary approach to these things can make relevant can make obvious aspects of the
36:23 teaching that were always there but we might Overlook them [JV] so that brings up a whole bunch of things for me um one is
36:30 of course the work of Willoughby Barton and uh right of course and uh and
36:35 showing Britain Britain sorry will be Britain sorry thank you for that Rick um
36:41 and the work that she did showing uh you know all these deleterious effects that can come out of mindfulness practice and
36:47 I was at one of her talks um and sorry this will sound a little bit self-aggrandizing it's not
36:53 intended to be and I put up my hand and I said well before I start teaching I forewarn my students about all these
36:58 possibilities and give them sort of tools and things to do and uh Framing and like don't don't get fascinated by
37:05 if you get that shock running up and down your spine don't get fascinated by it right if you hear your name shouted
This sounds more like amygdala hijacking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala_hijack than fascination.
37:10 don't get fast like like and and try to forwarn people and I say if stuff comes up that has these features you're
37:17 experiencing trauma stop the practice and get in some therapy I like and then I said and and then I asked her straight
37:23 out I said you did this huge survey of all these teachers how many teachers forwarn their students and she said none of
37:29 them did and I went what that's shocking yeah
37:35 that's shocking well this is why I don't I don't I don't take teachers on I don't take students on because I also teach
37:41 meditation I don't take on students if they don't have sleep good sleep habits good good nutrition habits if they don't
37:47 have good exercise habits if if they're lacking even any of the cornerstones we say well those things need to be in play
37:53 before we start fiddling around with the cognitive system because it's very delicate yeah wow so the and a couple other
38:00 things came up um and like it reminded me um we might want to think about this
38:05 uh the depersonalization versus the euphoric uh Liberation uh the differences between sort of rumination
38:12 and journaling and how one is very deleterious and the other seems to although the semantic content is the
38:18 same because you're journaling it turns into this very positive therapeutic practice so we we want to think about
38:24 that there's something about the yeah something about the framing and then you
38:30 you did a basically Arista tillan move about the cultivation of virtue by seeking the golden mean and I thought
38:35 wow Lou marinov would just have loved what you just did there right it was so it was so right but the thing I want to
38:42 a thing I want to all of those are vibrant we could go into all of them but one of them you said that I really like
38:48 and and it's where Evan and I have some similar concerns um you you talked about you
38:55 know we we we some we sometime a lot the West Has Lifted these practices out of
39:01 an entire Ecology of practices we've taken meditation out of the eight-fold path and the eight-fold path is also
39:08 situated with you know a framework of teaching that give nuance and
39:13 complexification and take into account individual differences and then what we do is we we abstract it homogenize it
39:19 and then turn it into a technique that we Market um and I'm very critical of that in my published work me too yeah
39:26 and I just wanted to know what you think about that uh maybe give you a chance now this is something where Rick and I
39:32 have a little bit of a difference so I'm stacking the deck unfairly against my good friend and I'll give him a chance
39:38 to I give him a chance to respond uh but I also want to hear what you have to say about this because [RR] I'm more Curious to
39:44 hear what Mark has to say about this fair enough and and I think at least Rick and I agree that this is an
39:49 important question that needs to be discussed and reflected upon [MM] yeah yeah yeah okay well here here's one thing
39:55 that I've been think think a lot about recently that comes again out of the framework that we're thinking through these things so um one of the new sort
40:03 of popular one of the new popular ways of thinking about contemplative development
40:08 is by thinking about entropy in neural systems I don't know if you've heard this yeah it was at the the we were both
40:14 there right uh yeah exactly Rick wasn't there though it just you and me just I'm
40:20 just advertising for we we went to the mystical entropy mystical entropy Workshop yeah exactly so the idea that
40:26 is that um you know it's coming up um it was really foregrounded by Robin carart Harrison psychedelics research and the
40:32 benefits of psychedelics and one of the benefits uh he puts forward and using
40:37 the same anticipatory framework that I'm mened in anticipatory cognitive framework is that um psychedelics heat
40:44 up they heat up the system they increase the entropy um or um the volatility of
40:51 of the networks you might think well why is that valuable to like make high level high level models in in the brain and
It’s not entropy, it propogates electrical signals much further, while lowering the threshold for propagation of signals, so there ends up being a lot more activation and cross talk, and things which normally would normally not trigger further activation does, and thus, connections between neurons that normally are associated with different things and not normally activated, become more sensitive, and this typically overwhelms the subconscious filtering mechanisms, which can make irrelevant things seem connected, or cognitive dissonance to lack the inhibitory connections that are used for error correction, so it’s possible to make novel connections between ideas more easily, but also can vastly decrease consistency checking, which can result in a much higher than average error rate. The primary utility I think, of psychedelics in religious practice, is specifically that experiences of an altered state of consciousness are the surest way to give someone the ability to take other perspectives, as well as the fallibility of their own senses, which their Ego is typically very overconfident about. And you know, so smart people can feel what being dumb is like and in doing so, sympathize with their difficulties more, even if they sometimes seem pithy or inconsequential.
40:58 the cognitive system get gooey and flexible one of the reasons is is because lots of pathologies are typified
41:04 by rigidities by a stickiness so depression is typified by rumination on
41:09 one idea I'm a loser the world doesn't work and that comes back again and again and if you look at that if you look at
Rumination is not a core aspect of depression, though they commonly co-occur, most people who are depressed chronically, instead of acutely, are not spending all day ruminating while going through their day to day. That is much more common to narcissists, though it’s not uncommon for people to have bouts of rumination as a result of depression. Like functional alcoholics are not spending all day drinking. So it’s a confusion of the casual relationship between rumination and depression, because chronic depression is ever present, but rumination is typically too distracting to getting anything else done, but can also be a tactic to justify laziness by people who aren’t chronically depressed but just want attention and feel not getting that attention is “depressing”. Which isn’t depression, that’s the privilege aspect of https://www.thoughtco.com/victim-complex-4160276 or what neoBuddhism typically refers to as, an asshole. See, the asshole is different from the ignorant and the idiot, because the asshole knows they are being deceptive, and think they are being clever in doing so. Whereas the ignorant lack the information, and the idiot has difficulty connecting concepts together into complex models, if this seems like an exaggerated version of lacking some mental capacity, they would be a retard, which is a reference to a developmental issue of the brain, but different from autistic which is simply a lower aptitude at processing body-language and other non-verbal queues in the on the low end, to difficulty with comprehension and motor control in severe cases, lacking impulse control typically puts the severely autistic in the retard category, due to the overriding genetic expression which is beyond what neural plasticity can fix.
Insults on the other hand, have no bearing on the state of the world or the person and are meaningless for the most part, outside of conveying hostility, like microagressions from the personality types of people with traits of the dark triad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_triad .
41:15 that as a as a map you can really see these local Minima and they make these quite there's wonderful 3D maps of this
41:22 today and you can actually look where neurodynamics have this this in people who have major depression
41:28 because literally the dynamic keeps coming back to the same Roost over and over and over again now if that's the
I think I know what you are trying to get at here. The issue is how much neuroplasticity can change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperament over a long period of time, not less than 2yrs. which is what makes the difference between chronic depression and acute depression, the difference is duration. Chronic depression unfolds over years and is what changes temperament through a steady stream of stress hormones, which also desensitizes dopamine and Norepinephrine receptors in the brain, which then results in lower production of those neuro chemicals. Whereas most common depression only lasts a few months to a year. So the difference is the physical structures in the brain, and after a certain point, stop having the range of neuroplasticity to reach what are normal levels of production and sensitivity to brain hormones like dopamine, seratonin and Norepinephrine, which are key components of having the “energy” to focus on things.
Psychadellics may work acutely, but I have my doubts about their capacity for long term application without the huge side effects of being prone to believing anything no matter how nonsensical, which is associated with abuse of mind altering substances and medications. Heaven forbid you are surrounded by assholes when this happens, but that is one of those things which I think can become a powerful lesson about Karma. So one way or another, people do learn things about the world which they would not be able to learn any other way, because of the experiential aspects which go beyond any cultural myth you can come up with, the ineffable nature of the experience. Because only after that do they even notice there are other aspects of experience which are ineffable, even without being in an altered state of consciousness.
41:34 case one one thing you might do is you might heat the system up they call it annealing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annealing_(materials_science) , same as a heating up metal let it
41:42 let it regain a a more abstract shape which is why you have is this my hand is it your hand whose hand is it what is a
41:48 hand that's weird okay because the higher level system is starting to not know how to grip well okay value is is
I think you are just having difficulty trying to grasp that some people are not doing their religious practices for attention, or maybe mistake reading the words with comprehending the concepts, but mostly the mimickry while trying to find keywords to SEO for people who are pretending to be buddhist, looking for trust to exploit, or any of a myriad of other attempts of power seeking.
Wisdom is a gift, not a product.
41:55 when it cools down again in it actually cools down into a better shape that's what the research is showing so where
… for he is both the marble and the sculptor
42:00 you had these great big Canyons before you've got little you've got little Hills now which means the the neural
42:07 system has now gained regained some fluidity some flexibility some flow okay
42:14 contemplative skills and training looks like they do um similar things so that's
42:19 pretty interesting we can use these trainings to heat up especially non-u practices close inspection vipassana looks
42:26 like it's it's heating the system up you're starting to ask who am I is that true am I the body what is a body am I
42:34 my pain what is my pain what what actually is pain that's all increasing uncertainty in these networks because
42:41 you're taking something you thought you were sure about and you're starting to blow it up okay right so and we are
42:48 fascinated in the west with especially especially I think the rocket ship practices which is I think very very
LoL @ simulation hypothesis. I will never forget that time the musk got messed with so much that he thought he was a computer simulation.
Greatest, troll, ever. Is this the smartest man in the world?
https://futurism.com/are-we-living-in-a-computer-simulation-elon-musk-thinks-so
Elite capture sure can be funny sometimes, you know, when it’s not horrible
https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetwburns/2016/10/13/elon-musk-and-friends-are-spending-millions-to-break-out-of-the-matrix/?sh=344b3adc5ce1
which also resulted in quite a few of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_Up_(Suicide_Silence_song)
and “escape the simulation via suicide” wave that passed over California a decade ago.
With friends like these, who needs enemies? Am I holding this right? What a magical wonderland full of hope and wonder from within which to train the AI right? /s
I sure hope there isn’t like, a historical precedent for that or anything. Because obviously, it couldn’t happen here. This world is too brave and new.
and where is my F&#$ sandwitch?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cjmDE5aFdY
42:54 dangerous we're not doing proper preliminaries and we're not getting these contextualized in the right way so we're taking Rocket Fuel and we're just
43:00 heating our system up because it gives us weird weird feedback impacts like oh man then I saw things and I wasn't
43:07 myself and I was all wobbly and I cut my own head off and you get these sort of stories today the other half of the
43:14 story that's not being told and is is being underappreciated is that traditionally yes these are heating up
43:20 practices but they are in the context of a lot of cooling down practices that we're not hearing much about think about
43:26 the monastic lifestyle yes you is very very specific rigorous habitual routine
Are you sure? I mean, being alone all the time … isn’t that like, an incel ? and a person can’t have bad faith if they don’t have faith right? loophole! aren’t I clever? /s
43:33 ceremony that's creating a really service virtue love and kindness
43:38 empathic Joy compassion ecologies practices yeah yes prayer singing I mean
43:44 that is giving you a structure of solidity of which you are then bumping
43:51 out you're taking you're going up the mountain to to Wobble the high level Networks but as soon as they cool down
43:57 you're cooling back down into a valuable shape which I mean we hear it all the
44:02 time we all know it as practitioners wisdom and compassion are two wings and we go oh yeah they're two Wings two
44:08 wings of the same bird two wings of the same bird but I'll tell you okay I do a lot of coaching and when I sit with
44:13 people and there I do a lot of coaching with people who are going through Dark Nights it's one of the things that sort of emerged in my in my coaching practice
44:20 life I ask how's your love and kindness practice how's your compassion training are you out at your Edge and you you
44:26 know what I hear 99.9% of the time oh no I don't do any of those practices I'm just doing deep
44:33 deep vipassana on the smallest possible data I can find and then and then crowbar
44:40 myself out and then think when was the last time you did love and kindness they go sometimes I do it on my mom you just
44:45 think like oh my God oh my God it is a whole training that goes deep and it's
44:52 not just oh may you be well may you be well it's not that it is the Buddha called it immeasurable these are the
44:58 houses of God they're the Brahma vahara https://www.lotussculpture.com/hinduvehicles.html and they are they are deep upon imag like past imagination deep they real
45:05 training programs and those training programs would have been I think you heat up into not knowing and then you
45:12 cool down into the shape of the Bodhisattva. you cool down into the shape of somebody who gives a shit, who is who is
45:20 reckless in their love who is built for service and for betterment I mean you cool down into a lamp that's actually
45:26 useful in the world so then the heating up shouldn't be the primary aim the heating up is only the thing you do on
45:33 the way to becoming something that's actually useful in the world but if you only have the heating up story then what
Sort of the core paradox of the new world, because sometimes a gassigned gffort is a method of control instead of liberation.
45:39 you're doing is you're you're you're propelling yourself towards depersonalization because do you know Rick just make a guess what do you think
45:45 happens if the system is too wobbly if it's too gooey and too hot can you imagine can you imagine what what
45:52 typifies that [RR] well I know I was there as a young young man so [MM]right SK typy
45:59 schizotypy is typified by that kind of gooey highlevel Network um in-solidity you
46:05 don't know how to grip the world anymore which is why you shouldn't be doing psychedelics if you have um you know
I agree, and a recipe for gas slighting.
46:10 family members who have psychosis because you may already have gooey high level networks what you want is cooling
46:16 practices not heating practices [RR] yeah wow well that was incredibly Rich Your
46:22 Enthusiasm Mark while you were speaking is is it's contagious sorry me back if I'm yelling
46:30 at [JV] no that was fantastic I mean you know the the that of course um I I I I think
46:38 of compassion and or agape as much more broadly than they're sort of understood
46:44 um the way U and this is where Christian neoplatonism has been helpful um it's it's in it's an overarching orientation
46:51 towards virtue and virtuosity um uh in the world um and I yeah I I mean Robin carard
Exploring Deep Belief Structures and Skillful Engagement
47:00 Harris other people Eric hle have suggested that dreaming is also that uh entropy to to prevent us from getting
47:07 locked into overfitting and you wouldn't want to spend your whole existence dreaming, that's a nightmare. you dream so
47:14 that you wake up better right that's the right and and and uh so um yeah that was
it has more to do with the garbage collection process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_collection_(computer_science)
combined with replenishing, so that it can generate more metabolic energy, in the form of calcium ion depolarization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_potential
That is what sleep is “for”. What you experience during that process, may or may not be relevant to anything else in your life.
47:20 a beautiful speech mark and I don't mean that in a major of sense of a speech it was a great speech it was fantastic it's
47:25 like you wouldn't to be stuck in nosix experience machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experience_machine it's and super
47:30 important I think it's I think it's an important message for people to know that there's another whole half of these trainings that need to be taken
47:36 seriously and there's there's just an example where the science is lending Credence to that because you might have
47:41 overlooked it in the sutas but you just look at okay well look one of the benefits is is you can heat up the
47:47 system that produces opportunities for insight that sounds right but what happens when it's too heated up
47:53 schizotypy you just look right under the hood and say look that's the problem with that methodology [JV] so so Mark I've
47:59 been thinking about this too I mean we we we tend to have a horizontal metaphor of optimal gripping but there's an
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48:05 there's a vertical optimal gripping uh axis that we need to also be sort of articulating more in some of this
48:11 theorizing and what's the I love that what's the relationship between the horizontal that's between the organism
48:16 and the world right and then what's the optimal gripping and that overlaps with vman's work about you don't want to be
48:22 down at the level of impulsivity but you don't want to be up at the level of Hamlet right and you're trying to right
48:27 get get the the reflectiveness Gap and I think that's deeply right too and I think again a lot of the way in which
48:34 this stuff has been imported in the west is leaving out uh that those that important dimensionality but I agree
48:40 with you I think the thing that is powering people or at least challenging them to open up that dimensionality is
48:45 the cognitive science of mindfulness I agree I think that's I think that's really important I keep interrupting
48:52 sorry oh no no I was really I was really hoping this was gonna come can I grab a flag there and just we can maybe use I
48:58 was hoping this was going to come up one thing I'm really interested in and I think it is relevant to the philosophical conversation as well and
49:03 you bring it up there John is um thinking about not only like you said not only horizontal gripping but
49:09 vertical gripping one way I hear that is um thinking about the kind of deep level belief structures that make us uh that
49:17 make us skillful that make us skillful in how we understand and reframe and
49:23 engage with life so not only thinking about we grip in an environment but also thinking about the kinds of the axioms
49:29 that we have installed this is a really interesting part of a project that's just starting to to Blossom for me where
49:35 I'm not only thinking about the meditative processes which seems to take the LIE and share of research like
49:41 attentional processes awareness processes metacognitive processes but what about the contents that comes that
49:47 comes a lot more out of the traditions and we don't it doesn't get much play like for instance what are you
49:53 meditating on or about what kinds of of things would you like to get installed high up in in the hierarchy um so for
50:01 instance for a system that um where uh
50:06 where pathology is often produced by unbridled uncertainty the question would be what
50:14 kinds of highlevel belief networks might we install or might we take seriously
50:20 that would be capable of digesting that uncertainty um even quite high level
50:25 uncertainty so I'll give you an example of and it turns out I think that a lot of our spiritual and religious
50:31 especially contemplative beliefs that come as part of these original packages they are actually the ones that look if
50:37 you look under the hood they're the most protective of this unbridled uncertainty so I'll give you an example I was
50:42 working at um uh the Daly Lamas Hospital in daram Salah in India um and there
50:49 were um monks who had just escaped a Chinese internment camp and had had made
50:56 their way into India and they were at the hospital for a series of surgeries and one of the young monks was getting
51:01 um surgery on his wrist because he was hung for a number of months from his wrists okay so he had to go through a
51:07 number of surgeries to correct the wrists and I was in the fortunate position where I got to talk with him
51:12 and there were translators there were people who spoke both languages um on site so we were actually able to have a
51:18 few meaningful conversations and I was struck just by how joyous and buoyant he was okay so
51:23 this isn't he's not coming out of showing any outward PTSD which is what
51:28 You' expect from a lot of humans who were put through this kind of position he was really buoyant and lovely and
51:34 shining and happy and didn't look like it was Heavy in an important way and so I I probed that a little and the the
51:42 response I got was um I'm so grateful I'm so grateful for this
51:48 opportunity because because I had practiced I practiced compassion and love and kindness in the monastery for
51:54 all of these years since I since he was a little child but he had never had an enemy he had never had an enemy to
52:01 practice withow he had never had the opportunity to have somebody whose job it was was to hurt him to actually do
52:08 the work so here's an example of a belief Network installed sufficiently high in the network that is completely
52:14 protective of the volatility you might experience in your life which is if the first thing you care about is becoming
52:21 maximally compassionate and loving if virtue is the ER belief that's the ER
52:27 drive at the top of the network then everything else can be digested because everything else is in service of that if
52:33 you have the right skill orientation towards it this was an opportunity for his skill development that's the way he
52:40 saw it and so talk about post-traumatic growth he was only like then I really
52:45 got to practice and now I really know a thing and that's what I'm about in this life that reminds me a little bit of was
52:53 it it was either Alexander https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn or um or Franco who said that the Christians who showed up at the
52:59 internment camps whether it was the goule or aitz I can't remember which but he said the Christians that showed up
53:04 the devotional Christians that showed up they got stronger they tended to get stronger in the internment camp and he
53:10 said I had a friend who put on weight he got he put on muscle and he put on weight from chopping wood and he got he
53:17 got healthier in the internment camp and when when he reflected with him on that he was like this is bringing me closer
53:24 to chist this is my path now this suffering is so close to Holiness that I'm I'm finally
53:31 able to practice as a good Christian and so he began to flourish under those conditions because of that high level
53:37 Network [JV] and there's James Bond Stockdale right and H Hanoi Hilton and he uses
53:42 stoicism and he has the same thing where he comes out so this this makes me think of what you're you're speaking to um and
53:49 I'm doing a lot of work on the uh the cognitive science of ritual you have to build a framework around a practice so
53:56 it transfers broadly and deeply and of course when you're trying to transfer broadly and deeply you're going from I'm
54:03 using a little bit of technical language you're going from a small well-defined world to a large World in which there's
54:08 lots of novelty messiness ill def it's it's it's a world that of increased uncertainty and so you have to build a
54:14 framework that affords the transfer and helps you deal with the increase in uncertainty as you try to broaden uh the
54:22 the scope of scope and depth of the application of your practice when and this again is to call out another Trend
54:29 that I I'm critical of which is the idea of the practice as a completely self-enclosed thing and you're doing it
54:35 just because of how you feel in the practice I mean one of the things the Verveki Foundation is about and Rick is in
54:40 service to this right is to try and get people to do these practices but make them rituals in the proper sense of what
54:47 are you doing to transfer this broadly and deeply throughout your life broadly and deeply throughout the levels of the
54:53 psyche and I and so this is again where I think the practice and philosophia a s that kind of
Concluding Thoughts
55:01 framework just need each other profoundly they just need each other
55:07 profoundly [MM] yeah I love that and uh just as a final tale I mean here's an entry
55:12 point I think to some really powerful philosophy that's contemplatively and cognitive scien driven cognitive science
55:18 [JV]great adverb that [RR]is that now we can look back
55:26 at the traditional philosophical views of virtue what makes a good life and look at look at the structure that we've
55:32 just come up with in this talk for rethinking some of those things because I think when we look back at the virtues
55:38 that were suggested the reason why we inted that they were valuable the reason why they produce flourishing is going to
55:44 be explainable using some of these computational Frameworks for instance they're going to be the kinds of beliefs
55:50 that allow us to flourish under extreme duress um and that's going to help us get clear I think on why are the virtues
55:56 um virtuous like why are they valuable for our kind of system [RR] Arc you you kind of touched on answers to all my other
56:03 questions and I know that we have to end now so we always like to uh let the the
56:09 guest have the last word you could plug anything or just have any final parting
56:14 thoughts anything you didn't get to say that you want to [MM] nice fantastic by the way thanks Rick
56:22 and John really this is a it's always a delight speaking with um speaking on these topics and with you guys um uh I'm
56:28 the host of a podcast called the contemplative science podcast maybe you could give a link that's cool where we do a lot of this stuff um Rick I don't
56:37 know maybe we should talk also about maybe doing a miniseries just on anticipatory Dynamics and the philosophy of meditation I think this would be a
56:43 great series and we could we could uh I probably Loop John straight into it
56:50 [JV]would he would [MM] for these topics too um but um like in addition to those like uh
56:56 those plugs I think if I was going to leave just a word it is um don't underappreciate the value of love for
57:03 your training if you're listening to this and you're a contemplative and you're you know you're tuning in now to help your practice don't overlook it
57:10 it's valuable in the middle in at the beginning in the middle in the end like even a small amount of loving kindness
57:17 and kindness practice now is going to make all the difference and just if you're not already aware it's not only
57:23 valuable to help open the mind up for insight but post Insight when this whole when this whole contemplative program is
57:29 at its end what's left is being kind to each other and so we can we can start that right now and it's protective you
57:36 can check out our papers if you want to see why it's protective but love and kindness really is a bulletproof vest for these practices [RR] incredibly well said
57:44 and beautiful thank you so much Mark it was great having you here today great to finally meet you and I look forward to
57:49 that project that you just suggested let's talk offline really I think it's a great idea
57:55 cool [JV] thank you so much Mark really wonderful all
58:00 right
