I know there is a post somewhere where the author describes starting to primarily experience things like confusion as bodily sensations, but that doesn’t mean that is the fundamental nature of confusion:
It’s surely not for minds in general, since confusion is fundamentally cognitive, not fundamentally bodily. In this sense the statement is wrong, though an adapted one which says “confusion happens at the same time as a specific bodily sensation” is possible to be true for particular beings. The next point is about that claim, but about all humans.
It’s not true for all humans; for me, confusion is not a bodily sensation. It could be that if I did a certain series of meditations trying to make myself feel confusion as a bodily sensation, that would start happening for me, but that’s not how I am now, and I’m content experiencing confusion in the way I do so I won’t try to change it. (For me confusion is a mental dynamic, and also noticeable. It also comes with some change in mental qualia but I wouldn’t describe it as bodily.)
You’re actually right that this is due to meditation for me. AFAIK, it’s not a synesthesia-esque though (ie I’m not causing there to be two qualia now), more like the distinction between mental-qualia and bodily-qualia doesn’t seem meaningful upon inspection.
So I believe it’s a semantic issue, and I really mean “confusion is qualia you can notice and act on” (though I agree I’m using “bodily” in non-standard ways and should stop when communicating w/ non-meditators).
(I think it’s good for posts with confusion exercises to exist)
I disagree with the post’s opening claim (which is orthogonal to the rest of it, I think):
I think this comes from an (understandable) typical mind fallacy (longer-form link).
I know there is a post somewhere where the author describes starting to primarily experience things like confusion as bodily sensations, but that doesn’t mean that is the fundamental nature of confusion:
It’s surely not for minds in general, since confusion is fundamentally cognitive, not fundamentally bodily. In this sense the statement is wrong, though an adapted one which says “confusion happens at the same time as a specific bodily sensation” is possible to be true for particular beings. The next point is about that claim, but about all humans.
It’s not true for all humans; for me, confusion is not a bodily sensation. It could be that if I did a certain series of meditations trying to make myself feel confusion as a bodily sensation, that would start happening for me, but that’s not how I am now, and I’m content experiencing confusion in the way I do so I won’t try to change it. (For me confusion is a mental dynamic, and also noticeable. It also comes with some change in mental qualia but I wouldn’t describe it as bodily.)
You’re actually right that this is due to meditation for me. AFAIK, it’s not a synesthesia-esque though (ie I’m not causing there to be two qualia now), more like the distinction between mental-qualia and bodily-qualia doesn’t seem meaningful upon inspection.
So I believe it’s a semantic issue, and I really mean “confusion is qualia you can notice and act on” (though I agree I’m using “bodily” in non-standard ways and should stop when communicating w/ non-meditators).