Scientific American: Zen Gamma

The cost associated with Olympic level meditation is probably comparable to that of a disciplined scientific education across a life time. Probably both are possible, unless the brain state of ceaseless gamma waves interferes the ability to think as a scientist does. Apparently the opposite is true, gamma synchrony is associated with clear thinking and focus.

Someone invent a gamma wave feedback app for me. I'm willing to spend $5000 on it.

Why?

If I hang around magic monkeys maybe their magic will rub off on me, despite my incompetence.

De omnibus dubitandum est

Fish traveling upstream are going with the flow, just not the flow of water.

It is morally wrong to give gifts that no one wants. It represents extra carbon in the atmosphere no one wants.

We are the same person, Wallows. If you commit suicide you'll be killing me(yourself) without my(your) consent.

Well, suicide stigma seems to be worse in collectivist societies in my opinion. In collectivist societies, people often have a duty to their families, their community, and country. While in more individualistic societies, people have a duty only for their own personal well being and the well being of their children until they are 18. — TheHedoMinimalist

It isn't easy to generalize this along the lines of "collectivist versus individualistic" cultures and I'm a bit wary of your conclusion. Though I concede I may be guilty of this in my post. By some measure we are all subject to the pressures you describe from the collective because as human beings we all depend on one another. Ideological tribes which appeal to individualism do so to maintain a specific kind of collective life that is free from the extra constraints of a central state authority.

I personally think that the preference of the individual should usually outweigh the preference of the collective in regards to suicide or any other issue. — TheHedoMinimalist

Not when it comes to killing folks though? That is one tough kind of individual preference to favor but maybe it's no different than admitting that anyone is free to kill anyone else, so long as they're willing to deal with the collective's consequence.

The strange thing about the general prohibition against suicide is that seeking help from loved ones or even a clinic (ie. exposing the problem) also feels taboo to a lot of people. Maybe this has to do with American individualism or being a man. No one really wants to be bother others, either by the cry for help or by the extra suffering of a realized suicide.

To be suicidal and seek help is to admit to being weak and the stigma of being weak (dependent) is looked down on in our individualist culture.

Being ill generally disgusts other people. Being ill with no loved ones at the level of poverty might as well be a death sentence.

Europe had ballet, which provides examples of dancing for someone rather than with, and is therefore comparable to other non-european solitary dances for a theater setting.

The same old idiotic confusion from poster after poster — Terrapin Station

James K is actually just repeating what Berkeley argued, not that it is true. Folks are just trying to be charitable to Berkeley.

The ad hominem is probably warranted because some have used it against you in this thread but it'll only get worse if we carry on.

A good example is hue perception or colour discrimination. Yellow and red aren’t objectively physical qualitities that we had to evolve to see. Instead they are differences we manufacture to make the basically similar look violently different ... at a glance. — apokrisis

I still don't get why the difference of red and yellow in any particular circumstance wouldn't indicate a true physical difference (though there could be different ratios of receptors for those things between people). It seems "objective qualities" according to your view are just plain impossible so the term becomes confusing, further more if what is objective always requires a individuated view.

Self-generated experience without a sense object at all might make this more compelling, where by some previous experience the brain imposes a difference that overrides what would otherwise be sensed on average, or there is abnormal hallucination or illusion that ignores what is not typically ignored. Objectivity is just a kind of shared and adjudicated difference by repeated and extended sensing, a kind of collective subjectivity a step up from individual subjectivity.

How did Berkeley differentiate ideas that are just sensed (ie. the objects of perception) from those that are abstracted? It seems that the notion of "material" is a further step abstracted out from bare perception.

Isn't Hume's arguing against the self via Berkeley's skepticism of the material very similar. The material fits in the same vague category as the self, a higher up abstraction from a series of sense perceptions.

You know well enough you'd be perfectly healthy being a vegan for the rest of your life, Sir, so long as your diet was varied and you got enough protein. Essential amino acids can be harvested from plants and B 12 can be synthesized (i think).

You're probably right. But I can't decide whether I have free will, either.

You seem to not have read my post. No, I've never seen it. I'm venturing that nether have you — javra

On Thursdays I think I sense awareness but all other days of the week I doubt it so severely and whine to myself that the universe could be so cruel to contaminate my mind with such unwieldy ideas. Ideas are rather like diseases.

What is this awareness you speak of? Have you sensed it? Sounds like an idea to me.

Rocks are just ideas, man~ — MindForged

Speak true, brother.

To be is to be perceived.

We don’t see the physical world as such. — apokrisis

Why we don't see the physical world? Strange way to put it, as if it were possible to experience the physical world in an absolute way.

I can see we are not aware of the totality of what is going on around us by our evolved senses but what we sense is still grounded in the physical world.

Fundamentally any body of knowledge that represents a good account of how the world behaves is validated by the senses, otherwise something else is going on, like supernatural monkey business.

Sounds like you just need to go study your chemistry text, or troll a chemistry forum.

I don't think "substance" has a precise technical meaning in the context of chemistry. You could differentiate this mixture of salt and water from, say, just salt by itself and water by itself and say these are substances whereas mixtures are not -- thereby setting out how you mean to use the word "substance" in the conversation. — Moliere

It does have a precise meaning in the context of chemistry but it probably isn't of much use really.

Salt water is a mixture not a chemical substance (by strict definition). A solution is always a mixture.

Once you evaporate off the water and you have H20 and Na, they are separate chemical substances.

Since nothing is really pure though (unless achieved by chemistry) we dismiss negligible impurities to call something a substance.

Table salt has trace minerals in it and is hydrophilic, so while according to theory it is a chemical substance insofar it ought only contain NaCl, it is practically always a mixture of trace minerals, salt and water and atmospheric gas.

A chemical substance is either a homogenous aggregation of molecules or elements. A substance can only contain one type of molecule or element (discounting isotopes maybe), otherwise it is a mixture.

I hope this hasn't confused you more.

If I just had some extremely loyal and hard working pathologically altruistic volunteers to upkeep my property and take care of all my domestic affairs with no need for recompense, the world would be a better place.

Yes; but, what makes the mind of a depressive more prone to cognitive distortions? — Posty McPostface

Probably because feeling directs and is more crucial to thought than we think. Just a guess. Am relating this to disqualifying the positive or wallowing in the negative.

"I feel therefore it is. "

Moodie De Cartes

Why is that so? — Posty McPostface

There is a more severe tension (or dissonance) between expected, normal or good behavior and the behavior of someone suffering anxiety or depression and this is reflected in thought by rationalization.

How can you appreciate the positive more? Can you stop disqualifying the positive? — Posty McPostface

The first step would be to stop the negative thought or be aware that it is unnecessary, then affirm all the good things in one's life as a counterpoint I guess. There is a lot of relative good in my life but when it doesn't correspond to feeling good its hard to find it worthwhile (or to do it). Feeling bad corresponds with thinking negatively in my book.

So, mindfulness meditation is the key, here? — Posty McPostface

Just a practiced method for relief.

It seems like most folks are prone to these cognitive distortions in subtle ways. Such thoughts are likely exaggerated in those who have neurotic or depressive personalities.

It seems like "disqualifying the positive" would apply to me more often than it should. Being depressed all I tend to see is the negative. Life is like being stuck within the rhythms and flows of an impersonal and brutal bureaucratic slave-driving machine but I fail to have a perspective grounded in true hell (genocide, poverty, failed states and war).

Am reading J. Goldstein's explanation of the Sattipathana Sutta (foundation for mindfulness meditation). Being mindful of the mind's automaticity in regards to sensation is important to freeing ourselves from bad habits of cognitive distortions.

Part of the problem is that the entire production process behind goods and services is usually hidden. As consumers we enjoy the fruits of the market in blissful ignorance. We're all partly to blame for allowing this to happen.

There is a great series of food documentaries on Netflix called Rotten, detailing corruption in agricultural markets. In a section on garlic there is footage of a Chinese prison where inmates are forced to hand peel an absurd quota of garlic by threat of physical force. It was suggested that this garlic actually makes it onto American supermarket shelves via an American garlic cartel which has pushed most out of market by competitive pricing and its global network ties. Similarly there is some privately owned water draining basin in California which enables a monopoly by unfair access to the resource and is connected to the success of The Wonderful Company (they own Fiji water and POMwonderful for example).

A lower price buts pressure on all competitors, which then pushes the bottom line often to the detriment of human labor.

Resentiment ala Nietzsche and others has re-entered the political atmosphere via Jordan Peterson (though perhaps it has always been since Nietzsche).

At minimum we often rationalize away the discomfort of personal failure but at maximum it may also explain senseless acts of killing (public massacres) by resentful and en-raged individuals. In such extreme situations it wouldn't be right to say that it was a mere 'lack of talent' that caused such folks to wreak havoc but the idea of rationalization is there.

Rationalization
1.
the action of attempting to explain or justify behavior or an attitude with logical reasons, even if these are not appropriate.
"most people are prone to self-deceptive rationalization"
2.
the action of reorganizing a process or system so as to make it more logical and consistent.
"the rationalization of accounting standards"
British
the action of making a company, process, or industry more efficient, especially by dispensing with superfluous personnel or equipment.
"the London dockers struggle to preserve their jobs against ruthless rationalization"

It seems the second definition would also have a bearing on nihilism, a sense of voiding something (God and sacred values) by reason.

That was awesome negative psychology. Now, I know how to become more miserable. Thanks! — Posty McPostface

Knowing what you're doing wrong is part of the answer to navigating your way to a better place. Duh!

It has all been said before, over and over and over again.

You need to be kidnapped and dunked in cold water everyday for a month.

Forced Bikram Yoga sessions (Bootcamp).

Streaking through various social places.

Horse therapy.

Mime classes.

Mime horse therapy classes.

That might help.

Have you tried any changes to your diet and exercise habits?

Anything is a lot to ask for someone who may feel like they are trapped in the bottom of a damp well, wrapped in a straitjacket with a bag over there head.

The expansiveness of mind is more significant to waking reality.

Everything you can dream can probably be cooked up in some form, even if it is an illusion ( engineered simulation or story in a book).

Why is existence dependent on being known? — Marchesk

Why wouldn't it be?

It really isn't that important either way.

If nothing is knowable then nothing exists. Only minds know things. Without minds, there are no things.

Worlds without minds don't exist.

Worlds without minds may exist but... I've left the oven on, I have to go.

Voted for all democrats though it doesn't much matter in my state. Think a majority of incumbents are blue most of the time, probably what one would expect in the most ethnically diverse state in America. Democrats are probably the new conservatives though, since everything feels like it is shifting right.

Why did I vote?

Because if someone asks I won't be embarrassed that I shirked my civic duty, or whatever. Also I think compulsory voting is a good idea, so I'm practicing for that.

The first folks who go will die there in service to those who come after and it's going to take way longer than a century to make it a sustainable operation (unlikely in my estimation). Better to wait until robots can do everything for us by remote construction.

I'll eat my hat if people land on mars during my lifetime. They'll just be going to die. Expensive fun-time dreams, I guess, for quirky billionaires.

If you've been hypothetically marooned somewhere in the Solipsistic Archipelago with a fundamental Christian sect, you will benefit greatly from being saved, either by outside agents or accepting Jesus as your representative savior.

Excuse the "in sin"-cerity.

There is research now that shows depression may follow from an immunological primer for anticipated trauma. It's a way for the body to prepare for physical damage (for fighting infection) based on levels of psychological stress. Chronic stress is likely the culprit for a lot of depression cases which is exacerbated by the knock on effects of all kinds of unhealthy lifestyle choices.

They say extended periods of sitting is worse than smoking these days, so blue and weary philosophers beware, get out of your armchairs every now and then.

It goes without saying events have many causes in which case countless narratives could be used to argue for why any particular outcome is true. If any news outlets are saying Trump's rhetoric caused a particular event most folks should recognize that it isn't likely to primary (since we aren't all doing it) but rather a contributing cause. Whether or not we should hold Trump responsible for his effects is another philosophical question. He may not be responsible for what he is at all but just the unwitting moment of innumerable causes.

If a contributing cause is something like the needle that breaks the camel's back can we legitimately then say it's also a primary cause?

Philosophers are obsessed with whether or not statements are true.

I could pay you to hang out with me, assuming you're not totally nuts, but alas I live in a subtropical paradise (overcrowded hot rock) in the middle of the pacific ocean. Off course you'd probably be bored by my limited intellectual acumen and lack of knowledge about deeply abstract subjects. But that is what the $$$ is for. Everything has been nearly debased to serve the $, might as well push the donkey over the cliff.

I think the Japanese rent folks for social occasion (even Grandmas).