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The claim that science is just now catching up to Eastern philosophy has been around for quite a while. This version of it doesn't look any better to me than pa
by pdonis 3y ago
The claim that science is just now catching up to Eastern philosophy has been around for quite a while. This version of it doesn't look any better to me than past versions.
The idea that the "self" is a process rather than a thing, which is basically what this claimed "new scientific discovery" amounts to, is actually not new to cognitive science. But it's also not the same as claiming that the "self" doesn't exist. Yes, there is no particular set of neurons in the brain that corresponds to the "self". But the whole process that your brain and body are constantly executing is a reasonable scientific embodiment of your "self".
To the extent there is an Eastern philosophy counterpart to this, it is the idea that it is wrong to pick out one particular part of the whole process going on in your brain and body--say the part that constructs a "narrative" that you can speak, either to yourself or to others--and treat that as though it were something separate from the rest. Much of the teaching of, for example, meditation can be seen as simply trying to make you more aware of all the other processes that are just as much a part of your "self" as the "narrative" process. But this article is taking the opposite view: that the only candidate for your "self" is the narrative process. I don't think that is a valid reading of Eastern philosophy any more than it is a valid conclusion from the science.
- golemotron 3y ago> The idea that the "self" is a process rather than a thing, which is basically what this claimed "new scientific discovery" amounts to, is actually not new to cognitive science. It definitely isn't new. Humans reify reflexively. A more straight-forward HN-friendly example is infinity -- it's a process (algorithm) that we treat like a number.
- xvedejas 3y agoAll numbers are just processes we treat like a number. "Four" is not a "real thing", it's a mental model / description that sometimes applies to real things; infinity too.
- golemotron 3y agoThanks. Reification again.
- smegsicle 3y agoyou keep using that word
- slowmovintarget 3y agoClojure programmers are welcome here.
- falcor84 3y agoThat is indeed the right word - the way that we "concretize" processes into objects. See in particular Anna Sfard's papers on this, e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226161879_The_Gains_and_the_Pitfalls_of_Reification_-_The_Case_of_Algebra/link/553f6ad50cf2574dcf628289/download https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226161879_The_Gains...
- emptysongglass 3y agoYou appear to be trying for a gotcha moment but Buddhism agrees. The suttas describe a method to directly experience what some science professes to measure. Why don't you give it a shot and see if your experience matches? No more than a couple months on retreat is enough for most to have their first absolute proof of anatta (not-self) with evidential experience within the first three weeks.
- pdonis 3y ago> You appear to be trying for a gotcha moment Not for "Eastern philosphy" (of which Buddhism is just one branch), just for the claims made in the article. > anatta (not-self) I'm not denying that such experiences exist. I'm just pointing out that the "self" which is asserted to not exist (or not be experienced, or however you want to describe it) in such experiences is a very limited concept of "self".
- generalc 3y ago> Why don't you give it a shot and see if your experience matches? No more than a couple months on retreat is enough for most A few months away from work is a luxury that I don’t think I’ll have in my lifetime.