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Supernatural claims made by meditators that are obviously not true are what keep me from experimenting with meditation. I don't want to mess up my brain. I valu

Supernatural claims made by meditators that are obviously not true are what keep me from experimenting with meditation. I don't want to mess up my brain. I value it. All the senior meditators I know have some element of irrationality. The openness that meditation seems to promote seems to also promote a certain level of gullibility that I did not expect from them. Obviously, an out of body experience is not really true and is just a hallucination. People have looked at these.

sambapa 3y ago
Real life is a hallucination
- jules22 3y ago
  Life being a hallucination is in fact one of the hallucinations that can be caused by meditation. These are called derealization hallucinations and are reported in meditators.
  - kallistisoft 3y ago
    Your're being to literal without being literal enough! The "reality" that we experience is a predictive model of what we believe is about to happen. This is required because it takes a quite some time[1] for stimulus to be received and processed by our bodies! If we didn't have this predictive mechanism the universe would seem very strange indeed. But but because we hallucinate our reality we get the illusion that what we experience is instantaneous in respect to the cause! [1] depending on the circuit it can take >100 msec for a nerve signal to reach the brain, and that's not accounting for the subsequent processing
    - jules22 3y ago
      I am literally talking about the literature. Kuijpers, Harold JH, et al. "Meditation-induced psychosis." Psychopathology 40.6 (2007): 461-464.
      - sambapa 3y ago
        And I'm talking about Śūnyatā. Philosophical concept that emerged during times when western people were still stacking shit like rocks on top of each other.
        jules22 3y ago
        You seem rather influenced by Indian right wing pseudohistory. It's similar to arguing Ayurveda isn't very harmful because it is ancient. An appeal to tradition. > stacking shit like rocks on top of each other They still do in India. Cow dung cakes are a rural fuel. I am not doubting that India is likely the first to write about derealization. But it was mistaken to be the ultimate reality.
        sambapa 3y ago
        I am european influenced by the suttas
        jules22 3y ago
        > Philosophical concept that emerged during times when western people were still stacking shit like rocks on top of each other And which European historian furnished you this tidbit?
darthrupert 3y ago
One probably needs a bit of religiousity to be able to meditate as much as senior meditators do.
- johndhi 3y ago
  Yeah, that makes sense to me (as a somewhat religious meditator). I disagree that a focus on something other than logic is problematic, though. I'd actually argue that all-logic-all-the-time is a sickness.
  - darthrupert 3y ago
    Yeah, I agree. In fact, even as an atheist, I believe humans in general have an innate drive towards religious thinking. If we suppress classic ways to those things, people will find new ones. And those new ones won't have gone through the test of time. I believe we are seeing the effects of this in many western countries.
- haswell 3y ago
  I think this is a misconception. I do think there’s a greater likelihood that someone with religious tendencies will pursue a path like this, but the religiosity is not the key. Sam Harris is the polar opposite of religious, but is arguably one of the leading meditators/teachers in western culture right now. I’m as allergic to religion as someone can probably be, but I’ve gotten serious about meditation and have made it a central habit in my life, because I’ve found that it works. The ultimate goal is to bring the “here-ness” of the present moment first experienced in meditation into ordinary waking moments as much as possible. Sitting is just a focused form of training that helps condition the mind and improve focus. When I discovered how impactful sitting was for me, it formed the motivation for deepening the practice. No religiosity here. The non-religious/non-sectarian meditators are a rapidly growing group, and this is encouraging because the religious part was never necessary, and the perception that it is kept people like me from exploring this sooner.
  - johndhi 3y ago
    I suspect you just have a different definition of 'religious' than I do. Why are you so anti-religion?
haswell 3y ago
> Supernatural claims made by meditators that are obviously not true are what keep me from experimenting with meditation. I don't want to mess up my brain. I value it. A religious friend went on a road trip and hiked deep into the Rocky Mountains. They experienced the awe and wonder of the landscape, and to them, this was God revealing himself to them. Supernatural claims by meditators are interpretations of the experience, much like God-in-the-mountains is an interpretation of experience. I held the view you’re describing for many years until I spontaneously experienced what some meditators describe while I was practicing photography out in nature. Learning to be a better photographer by immersing myself in the environment I was in had inadvertently led me to states of presence that meditators train to achieve. This is what ultimately made me explore meditation further. I’d be cautious about linking that openness with what you’re framing as gullability. In my own exploration, I’ve applied rigorous rational examination as I go, and while I understand why people who are predisposed to religiosity reach supernatural conclusions, that is more about each individual’s existing beliefs and the resulting framing of the experience.
- jules22 3y ago
  Your account of an awe experience is quite common. Francis Collins had a similar experience. I am not unaware of these accounts. I agree with much of what you said. But I also think it makes people a tad more open to irrationality after such experiences, even the knowledgeable ones. > that is more about each individual’s existing beliefs and the resulting framing of the experience Not disagreeing.
  - uoaei 3y ago
    This revulsion only makes sense if you firmly believe that rationalism is the highest good, and that the only right way to engage with the world is through rationality, ie, dividing the world into "false" and "true" ideas. There are good reasons that so many people realize for themselves that non-dual perspectives hold more value than dualistic ones.
    - mattgreenrocks 3y ago
nprateem 3y ago
I see, so you can confidently discount someone else's experience as obviously not true, especially without any real attainment yourself? That just doesn't work on so many levels.
- maleldil 3y ago
  If you're a materialist, which sounds likely to be true given the available evidence, any claims to the supernatural are disqualified by, for example, the Sagan standard.
  - nprateem 3y ago
    You're supposed to find the evidence for yourself. But if you never start, you never will. A closed mind is certain to lead to failure in meditation if it means you never try without expectation.
    - jules22 3y ago
      > You're supposed to find the evidence for yourself This is the argument of quacks and charlatans (including the meditation charlatans aka "gurus"). A quack will always argue to ignore criticisms of his snake oil and just try it for yourself and find out. Evidence is not personal, it's universal. Denying universal facts and saying this is true for me is a position of a closed mind. You are being invited to prove facts, not just assert personal truths. It can't be more open minded than that.
      - nprateem 3y ago
        An impossible position if consciousness is not materialistic, especially since you discount the 3000+ years of cross-cultural claims and documented methods for reaching such states for yourself. It's hard to imagine what else might class as a universal signal there's something to explore here. Your attitude makes it inherently impossible to prove a non-materialistic position as you refuse to investigate for yourself. Far from strengthening your ability to find the truth you are simply closing your mind to other possibilities.
munificent 3y ago
Irrationality and gullibility are underrated.
- uoaei 3y ago
  I've heard such explorations referred to as 'reality safari' which I love. Immersing yourself in an entirely different philosophy to really feel it from the inside, to understand it completely and intuitively. The fear many have about attempting such things mirrors the fear of e.g. psychedelic experiences -- the fear of "never coming back". Ironically, only living through this fear is what causes the bad trip in the first place. Egos, man, egos suck.
  - jules22 3y ago
    > Ironically, only living through this fear is what causes the bad trip in the first place Where is the evidence for this? None. > the fear of "never coming back" Psychedelics sound like fun, but I have seen quite a few broken people on the streets, all because of them. It's not just fear, it is a serious concern.
    - munificent 3y ago
      I see a lot of broken people on the streets here in Seattle, but as far as I know, most of them are because of meth or opioids, not psychedelics.
    - mistermann 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - jules22 3y ago
        I just read science, not the unsubstantiated metaphysical claims of meditation traditions. Playing the fantasy of an "omniscient oracle" often seems to be the ego trip of popular meditation gurus today. They are all quite scientifically illiterate.
kagakuninja 3y ago
The human brain is far less rational than we tend to believe. Recent research indicates that we hallucinate our world: we guess what we are likely to see, based on prior experience. If wrong, our brain adjusts and reevaluates the sensory data. In some cases, we even ignore unusual experiences that do not fit into our internal model. Senior meditators spend vast amounts of time examining their personal reality, and learn that it isn't as neat and clean as we thought. That said, some do believe in outlandish things. Jhana and nirodha sammapati are not irrational, they have been studied by scientists during the last several years. What is irrational are the belief systems built on top of those experiences by some buddhist traditions. Out of body experiences can be had by any person who spends enough time meditating. The teachers I work with understand that it is not a supernatural experience.
- jules22 3y ago
  > The human brain is far less rational than we tend to believe. Recent research indicates that we hallucinate our world All the more reason, to not take reason for granted. > Senior meditators spend vast amounts of time examining their personal reality They do, and my concern is they contribute no new insights, especially given the vast investments of time. > Out of body experiences can be had by any person who spends enough time meditating These are serious hallucinations and I am alarmed by how they are brushed aside. Most meditators think they are astral projecting. This is not examination or insight. This is delusional.
  - kagakuninja 3y ago
    >These are serious hallucinations and I am alarmed by how they are brushed aside. Most meditators think they are astral projecting. This is not examination or insight. This is delusional. Do you dream at night? That is a hallucination. People can learn to be aware during dream states, this is called lucid dreaming. There is nothing delusional or dangerous about that, although the experience can be terrifying for people unfamiliar with the experience. Out of body experiences are simply a special form of lucid dream, in which your imaginal / energy body seems to be located away from your physical body. There can be a sense of the imaginary body moving. This is just dreaming involving the proprioception sense. The term "energy" can spook skeptics like yourself. The best explanations I have read is that it is just a mentally constructed sense of the body. Your brain right now has constructed an imaginary model of your body; this can also happen in dream states. Your body is real, your mental map of the body is not. It is yet another form of hallucination which we all experience on a daily basis. Meditators will experience various forms of "energy" as their practice deepens, and this is also totally normal and not usually harmful. Many of the explanations and mystical claims about energy and out of body experiences are questionable of course. The mind is way more freaky and amazing than you realize, and labeling unusual states of consciousness as "delusional" is very limiting. It's your life...
adolph 3y ago
A “didactic little story” about perception and the supernatural: [0] There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer. And the atheist says: "Look, it's not like I don't have actual reasons for not believing in God. It's not like I haven't ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn't see a thing, and it was fifty below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out 'Oh, God, if there is a God, I'm lost in this blizzard, and I'm gonna die if you don't help me.'" And now, in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. "Well then you must believe now," he says, "After all, here you are, alive." The atheist just rolls his eyes. "No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp." 0. https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/DFWKenyonAddress2005.pdf https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/DFWKenyonAddress2005.pdf
- gwern 3y ago
  Bacon did it better centuries before with his idols: "And where are the testimonies from the sailors who prayed to the gods but did not return safely?"
  - adolph 3y ago
    Is your reference to New Atlantis? In reading the below article [0] I'm not certain if Wallace was going for a similar point as Bacon. But maybe you have a different interpretation. Wallace develops his point after the story ". . . we also never end up talking about just where these individual templates and beliefs come from. Meaning, where they come from INSIDE the two guys. As if a person's most basic orientation toward the world, and the meaning of his experience were somehow just hard-wired, like height or shoe-size; or automatically absorbed from the culture, like language. As if how we construct meaning were not actually a matter of personal, intentional choice." 0. https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/francis-bacons-god https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/francis-bacons-g...
coyotespike 3y ago
I can recommend Shinzen Young as a senior meditation teacher with a high degree of rigor. He self-consciously will use mystical language, but is also upfront about the fact that he remains agnostic. The Science of Enlightenment is the best place to start with his work.
mistermann 3y ago
Maybe they're running the same core epistemic engine as you: what seems to be true is true!

sambapa 3y ago

Real life is a hallucination

jules22 3y ago
Life being a hallucination is in fact one of the hallucinations that can be caused by meditation. These are called derealization hallucinations and are reported in meditators.
- kallistisoft 3y ago
  Your're being to literal without being literal enough! The "reality" that we experience is a predictive model of what we believe is about to happen. This is required because it takes a quite some time[1] for stimulus to be received and processed by our bodies! If we didn't have this predictive mechanism the universe would seem very strange indeed. But but because we hallucinate our reality we get the illusion that what we experience is instantaneous in respect to the cause! [1] depending on the circuit it can take >100 msec for a nerve signal to reach the brain, and that's not accounting for the subsequent processing
  - jules22 3y ago
    I am literally talking about the literature. Kuijpers, Harold JH, et al. "Meditation-induced psychosis." Psychopathology 40.6 (2007): 461-464.
    - sambapa 3y ago
      And I'm talking about Śūnyatā. Philosophical concept that emerged during times when western people were still stacking shit like rocks on top of each other.
      - jules22 3y ago
        You seem rather influenced by Indian right wing pseudohistory. It's similar to arguing Ayurveda isn't very harmful because it is ancient. An appeal to tradition. > stacking shit like rocks on top of each other They still do in India. Cow dung cakes are a rural fuel. I am not doubting that India is likely the first to write about derealization. But it was mistaken to be the ultimate reality.
        sambapa 3y ago
        I am european influenced by the suttas
        jules22 3y ago
        > Philosophical concept that emerged during times when western people were still stacking shit like rocks on top of each other And which European historian furnished you this tidbit?

darthrupert 3y ago

One probably needs a bit of religiousity to be able to meditate as much as senior meditators do.

johndhi 3y ago
Yeah, that makes sense to me (as a somewhat religious meditator). I disagree that a focus on something other than logic is problematic, though. I'd actually argue that all-logic-all-the-time is a sickness.
- darthrupert 3y ago
  Yeah, I agree. In fact, even as an atheist, I believe humans in general have an innate drive towards religious thinking. If we suppress classic ways to those things, people will find new ones. And those new ones won't have gone through the test of time. I believe we are seeing the effects of this in many western countries.
haswell 3y ago
I think this is a misconception. I do think there’s a greater likelihood that someone with religious tendencies will pursue a path like this, but the religiosity is not the key. Sam Harris is the polar opposite of religious, but is arguably one of the leading meditators/teachers in western culture right now. I’m as allergic to religion as someone can probably be, but I’ve gotten serious about meditation and have made it a central habit in my life, because I’ve found that it works. The ultimate goal is to bring the “here-ness” of the present moment first experienced in meditation into ordinary waking moments as much as possible. Sitting is just a focused form of training that helps condition the mind and improve focus. When I discovered how impactful sitting was for me, it formed the motivation for deepening the practice. No religiosity here. The non-religious/non-sectarian meditators are a rapidly growing group, and this is encouraging because the religious part was never necessary, and the perception that it is kept people like me from exploring this sooner.
- johndhi 3y ago
  I suspect you just have a different definition of 'religious' than I do. Why are you so anti-religion?

haswell 3y ago

> Supernatural claims made by meditators that are obviously not true are what keep me from experimenting with meditation. I don't want to mess up my brain. I value it. A religious friend went on a road trip and hiked deep into the Rocky Mountains. They experienced the awe and wonder of the landscape, and to them, this was God revealing himself to them. Supernatural claims by meditators are interpretations of the experience, much like God-in-the-mountains is an interpretation of experience. I held the view you’re describing for many years until I spontaneously experienced what some meditators describe while I was practicing photography out in nature. Learning to be a better photographer by immersing myself in the environment I was in had inadvertently led me to states of presence that meditators train to achieve. This is what ultimately made me explore meditation further. I’d be cautious about linking that openness with what you’re framing as gullability. In my own exploration, I’ve applied rigorous rational examination as I go, and while I understand why people who are predisposed to religiosity reach supernatural conclusions, that is more about each individual’s existing beliefs and the resulting framing of the experience.

jules22 3y ago
Your account of an awe experience is quite common. Francis Collins had a similar experience. I am not unaware of these accounts. I agree with much of what you said. But I also think it makes people a tad more open to irrationality after such experiences, even the knowledgeable ones. > that is more about each individual’s existing beliefs and the resulting framing of the experience Not disagreeing.
- uoaei 3y ago
  This revulsion only makes sense if you firmly believe that rationalism is the highest good, and that the only right way to engage with the world is through rationality, ie, dividing the world into "false" and "true" ideas. There are good reasons that so many people realize for themselves that non-dual perspectives hold more value than dualistic ones.
  - mattgreenrocks 3y ago

nprateem 3y ago

I see, so you can confidently discount someone else's experience as obviously not true, especially without any real attainment yourself? That just doesn't work on so many levels.

maleldil 3y ago
If you're a materialist, which sounds likely to be true given the available evidence, any claims to the supernatural are disqualified by, for example, the Sagan standard.
- nprateem 3y ago
  You're supposed to find the evidence for yourself. But if you never start, you never will. A closed mind is certain to lead to failure in meditation if it means you never try without expectation.
  - jules22 3y ago
    > You're supposed to find the evidence for yourself This is the argument of quacks and charlatans (including the meditation charlatans aka "gurus"). A quack will always argue to ignore criticisms of his snake oil and just try it for yourself and find out. Evidence is not personal, it's universal. Denying universal facts and saying this is true for me is a position of a closed mind. You are being invited to prove facts, not just assert personal truths. It can't be more open minded than that.
    - nprateem 3y ago
      An impossible position if consciousness is not materialistic, especially since you discount the 3000+ years of cross-cultural claims and documented methods for reaching such states for yourself. It's hard to imagine what else might class as a universal signal there's something to explore here. Your attitude makes it inherently impossible to prove a non-materialistic position as you refuse to investigate for yourself. Far from strengthening your ability to find the truth you are simply closing your mind to other possibilities.

munificent 3y ago

Irrationality and gullibility are underrated.

uoaei 3y ago
I've heard such explorations referred to as 'reality safari' which I love. Immersing yourself in an entirely different philosophy to really feel it from the inside, to understand it completely and intuitively. The fear many have about attempting such things mirrors the fear of e.g. psychedelic experiences -- the fear of "never coming back". Ironically, only living through this fear is what causes the bad trip in the first place. Egos, man, egos suck.
- jules22 3y ago
  > Ironically, only living through this fear is what causes the bad trip in the first place Where is the evidence for this? None. > the fear of "never coming back" Psychedelics sound like fun, but I have seen quite a few broken people on the streets, all because of them. It's not just fear, it is a serious concern.
  - munificent 3y ago
    I see a lot of broken people on the streets here in Seattle, but as far as I know, most of them are because of meth or opioids, not psychedelics.
  - mistermann 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - jules22 3y ago
      I just read science, not the unsubstantiated metaphysical claims of meditation traditions. Playing the fantasy of an "omniscient oracle" often seems to be the ego trip of popular meditation gurus today. They are all quite scientifically illiterate.

kagakuninja 3y ago

The human brain is far less rational than we tend to believe. Recent research indicates that we hallucinate our world: we guess what we are likely to see, based on prior experience. If wrong, our brain adjusts and reevaluates the sensory data. In some cases, we even ignore unusual experiences that do not fit into our internal model. Senior meditators spend vast amounts of time examining their personal reality, and learn that it isn't as neat and clean as we thought. That said, some do believe in outlandish things. Jhana and nirodha sammapati are not irrational, they have been studied by scientists during the last several years. What is irrational are the belief systems built on top of those experiences by some buddhist traditions. Out of body experiences can be had by any person who spends enough time meditating. The teachers I work with understand that it is not a supernatural experience.

jules22 3y ago
> The human brain is far less rational than we tend to believe. Recent research indicates that we hallucinate our world All the more reason, to not take reason for granted. > Senior meditators spend vast amounts of time examining their personal reality They do, and my concern is they contribute no new insights, especially given the vast investments of time. > Out of body experiences can be had by any person who spends enough time meditating These are serious hallucinations and I am alarmed by how they are brushed aside. Most meditators think they are astral projecting. This is not examination or insight. This is delusional.
- kagakuninja 3y ago
  >These are serious hallucinations and I am alarmed by how they are brushed aside. Most meditators think they are astral projecting. This is not examination or insight. This is delusional. Do you dream at night? That is a hallucination. People can learn to be aware during dream states, this is called lucid dreaming. There is nothing delusional or dangerous about that, although the experience can be terrifying for people unfamiliar with the experience. Out of body experiences are simply a special form of lucid dream, in which your imaginal / energy body seems to be located away from your physical body. There can be a sense of the imaginary body moving. This is just dreaming involving the proprioception sense. The term "energy" can spook skeptics like yourself. The best explanations I have read is that it is just a mentally constructed sense of the body. Your brain right now has constructed an imaginary model of your body; this can also happen in dream states. Your body is real, your mental map of the body is not. It is yet another form of hallucination which we all experience on a daily basis. Meditators will experience various forms of "energy" as their practice deepens, and this is also totally normal and not usually harmful. Many of the explanations and mystical claims about energy and out of body experiences are questionable of course. The mind is way more freaky and amazing than you realize, and labeling unusual states of consciousness as "delusional" is very limiting. It's your life...

adolph 3y ago

A “didactic little story” about perception and the supernatural: [0] There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer. And the atheist says: "Look, it's not like I don't have actual reasons for not believing in God. It's not like I haven't ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn't see a thing, and it was fifty below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out 'Oh, God, if there is a God, I'm lost in this blizzard, and I'm gonna die if you don't help me.'" And now, in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. "Well then you must believe now," he says, "After all, here you are, alive." The atheist just rolls his eyes. "No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp." 0. https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/DFWKenyonAddress2005.pdf https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/DFWKenyonAddress2005.pdf

gwern 3y ago
Bacon did it better centuries before with his idols: "And where are the testimonies from the sailors who prayed to the gods but did not return safely?"
- adolph 3y ago
  Is your reference to New Atlantis? In reading the below article [0] I'm not certain if Wallace was going for a similar point as Bacon. But maybe you have a different interpretation. Wallace develops his point after the story ". . . we also never end up talking about just where these individual templates and beliefs come from. Meaning, where they come from INSIDE the two guys. As if a person's most basic orientation toward the world, and the meaning of his experience were somehow just hard-wired, like height or shoe-size; or automatically absorbed from the culture, like language. As if how we construct meaning were not actually a matter of personal, intentional choice." 0. https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/francis-bacons-god https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/francis-bacons-g...

coyotespike 3y ago

I can recommend Shinzen Young as a senior meditation teacher with a high degree of rigor. He self-consciously will use mystical language, but is also upfront about the fact that he remains agnostic. The Science of Enlightenment is the best place to start with his work.

mistermann 3y ago

Maybe they're running the same core epistemic engine as you: what seems to be true is true!