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Dreaming Outside Our Heads

29 points by tintinnabula 10y ago

openfuture 10y ago
Tim Parks book 'teach us to sit still' is what got me to start a regular meditation practise but only because I enjoyed how hard headed he was and unwilling to accept the obvious positive effect it had on him. This post feels a little bit similar where the other guy is just schooling him and his objections are feeble. Which got me to think, is this the modern equivalence of this [1]? [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wfNl2L0Gf8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wfNl2L0Gf8
mvdwoord 10y ago
"But this sun that feels “now” to you is the sun that shone eight minutes ago. The moon is closer, but it’s still more than a second away from the effect it produces in your body. If this were a starry night, the stars composing the Ursa Major would be scattered between 80 and 128 years away." Right.. Because the photons hit you 8 minutes ago and you feel them now? or They traveled for 8 minutes and are actually hitting you now? Stopped reading there.
- givan 10y ago
  I think that what he wants to say that is difficult to locate the "now", if you read a little more he explains it more clearly. "the quickest neural processes still require tens of milliseconds to complete as electronic and chemical signals travel back and forth across the meters of neural circuitry packed in our brains. So even for the neuroscientists the physical stuff that they view as constituting our conscious experience is spread over space and time, albeit tiny spaces. In fact, if we wanted to be really rigorous and consider only what is present at one instant in time, the world as we know it would disappear. Sounds, light, voices, gestures, actions, words, all require a flexible notion of nowness that encompasses more than a single instant."
sebringj 10y ago
Manzotti conflates the scientifically observable with the subjective. Because it sounds intellectual, it gets voted on Hacker News? Manzotti will shit himself when he puts on VR goggles or takes LSD. What will he do then?
xaedes 10y ago
> The only thing that has the properties of the experience is the object itself. I would say, the only thing that has the properties of the experience is the _experience_ itself.

29 points by tintinnabula 10y ago

Tim Parks book 'teach us to sit still' is what got me to start a regular meditation practise but only because I enjoyed how hard headed he was and unwilling to accept the obvious positive effect it had on him. This post feels a little bit similar where the other guy is just schooling him and his objections are feeble. Which got me to think, is this the modern equivalence of this [1]? [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wfNl2L0Gf8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wfNl2L0Gf8

mvdwoord 10y ago

"But this sun that feels “now” to you is the sun that shone eight minutes ago. The moon is closer, but it’s still more than a second away from the effect it produces in your body. If this were a starry night, the stars composing the Ursa Major would be scattered between 80 and 128 years away." Right.. Because the photons hit you 8 minutes ago and you feel them now? or They traveled for 8 minutes and are actually hitting you now? Stopped reading there.

givan 10y ago
I think that what he wants to say that is difficult to locate the "now", if you read a little more he explains it more clearly. "the quickest neural processes still require tens of milliseconds to complete as electronic and chemical signals travel back and forth across the meters of neural circuitry packed in our brains. So even for the neuroscientists the physical stuff that they view as constituting our conscious experience is spread over space and time, albeit tiny spaces. In fact, if we wanted to be really rigorous and consider only what is present at one instant in time, the world as we know it would disappear. Sounds, light, voices, gestures, actions, words, all require a flexible notion of nowness that encompasses more than a single instant."

sebringj 10y ago

Manzotti conflates the scientifically observable with the subjective. Because it sounds intellectual, it gets voted on Hacker News? Manzotti will shit himself when he puts on VR goggles or takes LSD. What will he do then?

xaedes 10y ago

> The only thing that has the properties of the experience is the object itself. I would say, the only thing that has the properties of the experience is the _experience_ itself.