Hi David! This whole meditation thing sounds interesting, though I’m having trouble figuring out exactly why. (That’s probably a question about my brain rather than about meditation. I’m mentioning it as a hint to why I’m asking what I’ll ask below, not as a subject for discussion.)
I generally dismiss all new-agey stuff immediately as unworthy of attention. AFAIK my reasoning is something like 1) this is associated with obviously wrong theories; 2) thus, people involved have wrong thinking; 3) thus, their statements have negligible evidential value; 4) even if some of the stuff happens to be true (i.e., work), given (3), the probability of that is nearly the same as that of just about any random thing I could pick being true; so 5) pretty much any other method of picking something to devote attention to would be at least as good.
Your two posts did a very good job of separating the particular brand of meditation you discuss from the silly theories around them, so I’m paying attention at least to what you’re saying. But that only means that your statements don’t have obviously negligible evidential value, not that they are significant evidence, which means I have to actually think about it.
The factory & lenses metaphor seems like a good argument for why meditation should work in the sense of allowing a flawed process to discover and improve itself despite its own flaws. But: the key part of that metaphor is that using a flawed lens one can discover the flaws of the lens, by confronting contradictory evidence caused by flaw; and people are notoriously prone to not reaching the correct conclusion when presented with contradictory evidence. Cases like Aristotelian physics and Descartes conclusion on God make me wary of conclusions gotten to based just on what happens inside one’s own mind. This doesn’t mean that I immediately discount such conclusions—we did eventually think about the scientific method—but still, I do get uncomfortable with just in-brain processes.
Which is my problem with your posts. You discuss meditation in what appears to be an empirical way, but as far as I can determine (almost) all empirical observations involved happen inside the mind of the one experimenting. They aren’t quite verifiable by others. (You explicitly say that you can’t communicate lots of it; I’m not arguing that you’re hiding the testability of the claims or something.) You say that different people tend to describe similar internal observations and effects after following various similar processes. But that’s different from different people describing similar observations after witnessing the same process.
In your analogy, two different factories (initially constructed by the same method) that discover their own flaws, communicate with each other, and noticing that they discover the same kind of defect in their own lenses is interesting, but is less conclusive than exchanging their lenses and confirming their observations, and even less conclusive than obtaining lenses that are not generated by their kind of factory. Barring the latter methods of testing, factories are still vulnerable to some defect that causes (many or all of) them to systematically reach wrong conclusions. (As a real-life example, consider the N-rays experiment. Note that the definitive conclusion was reached not after Wood reproduced the experiment on his own (unsuccessfuly), but when he interfered with the experiment run by Blondlot—who, incidentally, wasn’t quite convinced even then.)
OK, sorry for the long introduction. I wanted to give a background for what I’m asking below, and I’m really bad at summarizing.
What I’m looking for is if you can think of consequences of meditation that are observable by others than the one meditating.
This definition is quite wider than I’d like it to be, but it’s hard to express my precise meaning (mainly because I’m not quite sure I understand the claims), which is partly the reason for the big text above; I’m hoping you can figure out the kind of observations I’m talking about.
As a trivial example, it’s obvious that someone who meditates is likely to be observed to meditate, which is not what I’m talking about.
You claim that a benefit is happiness, which is also observable by others (with some fuzziness), but isn’t that big a deal; one can probably be happier with a steady diet of drugs, and it’s not quite obvious that the costs are bigger than an hour or so daily for a long period. (I’m a bit fuzzy on the cost here: you seem to claim that after achieving enlightenment the changes become permanent, but it’s not clear if that means “as long as you keep meditating an hour a day” or not; people into meditation seem to do it more-or-less until they stop being interested in meditation, but it’s not obvious if they stop because it didn’t work or because they’re done—and, as I said, I pay attention to statements from people like you but not to most practitioners of such methods.)
The rest of the benefits all seem to be only introspectively observable. I’d like those benefits, but I wouldn’t trust my own introspection to judge if I gained them or not. Being divorced from all the usual mumbo-jumbo, your procedure seems like something I’d like to try, but only if I can ask someone else to judge the results. (I’m thinking of asking a friend to observe some things about me, not knowing exactly what I’m doing, and judging the effectiveness by his observations. I’m aware this still wouldn’t be a double-blind test, but it’s still much better than judging myself.)
Note that I’m not asking you to come up with an experimental protocol or anything even close to that. I’m quite willing to do that myself, but I’m just not sure if you claim among the effects of meditation anything that is (a) quantifiable by someone else than the meditator and (b) that I’m reasonably sure is an effective benefit.
I’m not quite sure of how to express this, but let me give some concrete examples:
Being less attached to things might pass (a); my friend could observe that I get less angry or sad about things. But it doesn’t quite pass (b), as I’m not quite convinced that would help me to achieve goals. (There are persuading pro and con arguments.)
Understanding the limits of my own conceptual apparatus passes (b); I’m quite sure that’s helpful. But it doesn’t pass (a), as my friend can’t quite tell if I correctly found my limits or not.
For contrast, something like “acting for bigger long term gains rather than short term ones” pass both (a) and (b). (As long as the effect is strong enough.) I’m aware that it’s not enough for a scientific confirmation of the benefits of meditation (e.g., something else might cause the change). It’s just a minimum to at least attempt the experiment. (Also, note that this minimum would be very different for an experiment that didn’t involve my own mental processes.)
The factory & lenses metaphor seems like a good argument for why meditation
should work in the sense of allowing a flawed process to discover and improve
itself despite its own flaws. But: the key part of that metaphor is that using a flawed
lens one can discover the flaws of the lens, by confronting contradictory evidence
caused by flaw; and people are notoriously prone to not reaching the correct
conclusion when presented with contradictory evidence.
Well, the metaphor only goes so far. This process does not ask a person to explicitly apply what they learn in meditation. (If it did, the possibility for bias and error would be quite large, as with most things.) Rather, cultivating attention and perception allows the defects to be seen clearly, and one’s brain somehow manages to correct them “under the table,” leaving it somewhat mysterious how that happens.
This is something I planned to write about in Part 3. To be honest, I find it surprising and somewhat bizarre that this can happen, and that it can happen in such a regular way, in discrete steps. If anything strains my own credulity about the whole process, it’s this. (In my experience and the experiences of others it has worked this way, which makes it merely surprising to me. That information probably doesn’t help you, though.)
The problem I see with your request is not that you want something that meditation causes which is observable by a third party (there are lots of potential ideas in the comments), but you want something that meditation causes which is observable by a third party which your goal structure approves of. Which, in principle, is fine, but I can’t say I know what your goal structure is. I have continually emphasized that the value of enlightenment for a person depends on their particular goals. (There are things about it that I think would benefit most people or everyone, but it doesn’t help much to say that when people can’t conceptualize those things and so can’t judge now whether they actually would want them.)
Adelene, who counts as partially enlightened according to my model, describes being able to see multiple senses clearly enough and close enough to simultaneously to be able to transcribe her synaesthetic experiences on paper. Would that be a benefit for you? Perhaps it depends on whether you have visual synaesthesia or a fertile imagination.
I suggest that “wide perceptual width” (a side effect of enlightenment) may lead to strong improvements in the ability to observe and describe parts of one’s visual field that are not actively being focused on. Would this be a benefit for you? In principle many people might be indifferent to it...apart from visual artists, for whom it might be anything from really important to life-changing. Or police offers, for whom it might one day spell the difference between getting killed or not.
I spelled out some other possiblities in Part 1, and I think there are even more in the comments. And there are others which I haven’t mentioned yet, but am working on. And there are even others which I haven’t thought of in the first place.
So, I can’t help with your question unless I know your goals.
I understand where the desire for third-party verification comes from. But you wrote
your procedure seems like something I’d like to try, but only if I can ask someone
else to judge the results.
which makes it sound as if you think this is just a cute way to improve some mental abilities and want to be sure that you can tell whether it worked. I hope my posts so far didn’t give you the impression that I think this is a good idea. I would strongly suggest not meditating unless you’re prepared for potentially large changes in the way you see yourself and the world. If that’s something you’re interested in, the side effects can be really awesome. And if you want the side effects badly enough, perhaps that’s a good reason, too. But your attitude seems very casual, which in my opinion is likely to lead either to you getting more than you bargained for, or to you quitting at stage 3 because you don’t have enough commitment to the end result and thereby causing yourself a lot of pointless, avoidable suffering. (But if I’m misreading you, just say so.)
So, think about it.
And, the clarification that you asked for:
you seem to claim that after achieving enlightenment the changes become
permanent, but it’s not clear if that means “as long as you keep meditating an hour
a day” or not; people into meditation seem to do it more-or-less until they stop
being interested in meditation, but it’s not obvious if they stop because it didn’t
work or because they’re done—and, as I said, I pay attention to statements from
people like you but not to most practitioners of such methods.)
Let me start off by saying that I don’t speak for anyone else, so I can’t comment on why specific people stop. If you look at the population of people who have stopped, probably the whole range of reasons that people stop doing any kind of self-cultivation will be represented (e.g. same as for practicing a musical instrument, writing fiction or poetry, drawing, etc.).
Once you reach any stage of enlightenment, it’s permanent; no more meditation (and no more anything, except maybe food and air) is required to maintain and upkeep that attainment. In principle a person could completely forget about meditation and everything related to it and go on their way, and still retain all the benefits. (Most likely their attention and perception have been cultivated so much that they can’t help but do meditation-like things when going through daily life, so they might continue to make some progress anyway.)
The cognitive side effects of enlightenment, i.e. the benefits that aren’t enlightenment but are related to it such as e.g. perceptual improvements, can wax and wane like anything else related to mental functioning, but seem to be pretty stable in the long run without appearing to require maintenance or upkeep either.
Once you reach full enlightenment, there is no more need to meditate in this style ever again. There is nothing left to get out of it, and the only reason I can think of to do it would be to review what it’s like so as to explain it to others.
Even fully enlightened people may continue to meditate in other styles for unrelated reasons. Full enlightenment produces a surprising amount of mental pliability, and one can pursue meditation aiming at altered states of consciousness, relaxation, bliss, etc. surprisingly easily and effectively at this point. But that isn’t the same process, even though we have the same word (“meditation”) for it.
By the way, the previous paragraph is rather easy to test if meditating for pleasure is approved by your goal structure. Even the first stage of enlightenment makes that sort of thing a lot easier. (The process of doing that will probably push you towards further stages of enlightenment, so testing it happens to also be a commitment to working towards full enlightenment.)
The problem I see with your request is not that you want something that meditation causes which is observable by a third party (there are lots of potential ideas in the comments), but you want something that meditation causes which is observable by a third party which your goal structure approves of. Which, in principle, is fine, but I can’t say I know what your goal structure is.
Hi David, thanks for taking the time to answer at such length. I think I’ll wait for your series to continue (or for me to read it if it did, I don’t and won’t have a lot of attention to spare for a while) before continuing with my questions.
In the mean time I’ll just leave a few comments about the examples you gave here, in case it helps understanding better what I’m interested in. (Your “goal structure” phrasing touches but isn’t quite what I’m trying to express.)
The things I’ve seen Adelene mention don’t quite interest me. (I mean, they’re interesting, and I probably would like experiencing them on occasion, but it’s not something I’d spend effort for.)
Your concern about my casual attitude is probably unwarranted. I’m just not very concerned with thinking about potentially unpleasant side effects before determining that the potential good effects are worth the effort, which is why you probably got that impression. (As an example, before considering learning to fly I would definitely consider the dangers, but only after deciding that flying would be useful to me at all.)
You suggest that “wide perceptual width” is a side effect of enlightenment and may lead to strong improvements in the ability to observe and describe parts of one’s visual field that are not actively being focused on. That is interesting in the sense I’m trying to describe; I’m quite skeptical the kind of meditation you describe would have that efect (rather than seeming to have that effect to a practitioner), but it is testable enough for my purposes. It’s probably not something I’d invest an hour a day for a year even assuming certainty of effect and no side effects, but together with several other things of the kind I might give more thought.
(That said, I’m not sure exactly what that “may” means; are you not sure that’s an effect, or you’re sure that’s an effect but it only happens for some people? In either case, I’d like more details.)
ETA—Forgot to mention: meditating for pleasure is not “dissaproved of” by my “goal structure”, in the sense that that’s nothing wrong with it, but I already have more things I can do for pleasure than time to do them; “pleasure” is not one of the reasons I might take up meditation for (this century).
Have a friend do some neuroscience research and pick a particular multi-part thing that brains do that has been observed via fMRI or other brain scanning methods (example: resolving moral dilemmas like the trolley problem) and that you haven’t read about in that context. When you meditate, specifically try to observe your mind doing that thing; pay particular attention to any specific subsystems you see interacting with each other. Note: This is not ‘meditate on how X might happen’; it’s ‘meditate and try to observe X happening’, which may be too subtle of a distinction for a beginner; try to make sure you can do the latter rather than the former before starting. (If you’re not sure if you can, it’s probably safe to assume you can’t.) When you’re confident you know what’s going on in your mind in that area, check the neuroscience literature and see if it matches.
Hi David! This whole meditation thing sounds interesting, though I’m having trouble figuring out exactly why. (That’s probably a question about my brain rather than about meditation. I’m mentioning it as a hint to why I’m asking what I’ll ask below, not as a subject for discussion.)
I generally dismiss all new-agey stuff immediately as unworthy of attention. AFAIK my reasoning is something like 1) this is associated with obviously wrong theories; 2) thus, people involved have wrong thinking; 3) thus, their statements have negligible evidential value; 4) even if some of the stuff happens to be true (i.e., work), given (3), the probability of that is nearly the same as that of just about any random thing I could pick being true; so 5) pretty much any other method of picking something to devote attention to would be at least as good.
Your two posts did a very good job of separating the particular brand of meditation you discuss from the silly theories around them, so I’m paying attention at least to what you’re saying. But that only means that your statements don’t have obviously negligible evidential value, not that they are significant evidence, which means I have to actually think about it.
The factory & lenses metaphor seems like a good argument for why meditation should work in the sense of allowing a flawed process to discover and improve itself despite its own flaws. But: the key part of that metaphor is that using a flawed lens one can discover the flaws of the lens, by confronting contradictory evidence caused by flaw; and people are notoriously prone to not reaching the correct conclusion when presented with contradictory evidence. Cases like Aristotelian physics and Descartes conclusion on God make me wary of conclusions gotten to based just on what happens inside one’s own mind. This doesn’t mean that I immediately discount such conclusions—we did eventually think about the scientific method—but still, I do get uncomfortable with just in-brain processes.
Which is my problem with your posts. You discuss meditation in what appears to be an empirical way, but as far as I can determine (almost) all empirical observations involved happen inside the mind of the one experimenting. They aren’t quite verifiable by others. (You explicitly say that you can’t communicate lots of it; I’m not arguing that you’re hiding the testability of the claims or something.) You say that different people tend to describe similar internal observations and effects after following various similar processes. But that’s different from different people describing similar observations after witnessing the same process.
In your analogy, two different factories (initially constructed by the same method) that discover their own flaws, communicate with each other, and noticing that they discover the same kind of defect in their own lenses is interesting, but is less conclusive than exchanging their lenses and confirming their observations, and even less conclusive than obtaining lenses that are not generated by their kind of factory. Barring the latter methods of testing, factories are still vulnerable to some defect that causes (many or all of) them to systematically reach wrong conclusions. (As a real-life example, consider the N-rays experiment. Note that the definitive conclusion was reached not after Wood reproduced the experiment on his own (unsuccessfuly), but when he interfered with the experiment run by Blondlot—who, incidentally, wasn’t quite convinced even then.)
OK, sorry for the long introduction. I wanted to give a background for what I’m asking below, and I’m really bad at summarizing.
What I’m looking for is if you can think of consequences of meditation that are observable by others than the one meditating.
This definition is quite wider than I’d like it to be, but it’s hard to express my precise meaning (mainly because I’m not quite sure I understand the claims), which is partly the reason for the big text above; I’m hoping you can figure out the kind of observations I’m talking about.
As a trivial example, it’s obvious that someone who meditates is likely to be observed to meditate, which is not what I’m talking about.
You claim that a benefit is happiness, which is also observable by others (with some fuzziness), but isn’t that big a deal; one can probably be happier with a steady diet of drugs, and it’s not quite obvious that the costs are bigger than an hour or so daily for a long period. (I’m a bit fuzzy on the cost here: you seem to claim that after achieving enlightenment the changes become permanent, but it’s not clear if that means “as long as you keep meditating an hour a day” or not; people into meditation seem to do it more-or-less until they stop being interested in meditation, but it’s not obvious if they stop because it didn’t work or because they’re done—and, as I said, I pay attention to statements from people like you but not to most practitioners of such methods.)
The rest of the benefits all seem to be only introspectively observable. I’d like those benefits, but I wouldn’t trust my own introspection to judge if I gained them or not. Being divorced from all the usual mumbo-jumbo, your procedure seems like something I’d like to try, but only if I can ask someone else to judge the results. (I’m thinking of asking a friend to observe some things about me, not knowing exactly what I’m doing, and judging the effectiveness by his observations. I’m aware this still wouldn’t be a double-blind test, but it’s still much better than judging myself.)
Note that I’m not asking you to come up with an experimental protocol or anything even close to that. I’m quite willing to do that myself, but I’m just not sure if you claim among the effects of meditation anything that is (a) quantifiable by someone else than the meditator and (b) that I’m reasonably sure is an effective benefit.
I’m not quite sure of how to express this, but let me give some concrete examples:
Being less attached to things might pass (a); my friend could observe that I get less angry or sad about things. But it doesn’t quite pass (b), as I’m not quite convinced that would help me to achieve goals. (There are persuading pro and con arguments.)
Understanding the limits of my own conceptual apparatus passes (b); I’m quite sure that’s helpful. But it doesn’t pass (a), as my friend can’t quite tell if I correctly found my limits or not.
For contrast, something like “acting for bigger long term gains rather than short term ones” pass both (a) and (b). (As long as the effect is strong enough.) I’m aware that it’s not enough for a scientific confirmation of the benefits of meditation (e.g., something else might cause the change). It’s just a minimum to at least attempt the experiment. (Also, note that this minimum would be very different for an experiment that didn’t involve my own mental processes.)
Well, the metaphor only goes so far. This process does not ask a person to explicitly apply what they learn in meditation. (If it did, the possibility for bias and error would be quite large, as with most things.) Rather, cultivating attention and perception allows the defects to be seen clearly, and one’s brain somehow manages to correct them “under the table,” leaving it somewhat mysterious how that happens.
This is something I planned to write about in Part 3. To be honest, I find it surprising and somewhat bizarre that this can happen, and that it can happen in such a regular way, in discrete steps. If anything strains my own credulity about the whole process, it’s this. (In my experience and the experiences of others it has worked this way, which makes it merely surprising to me. That information probably doesn’t help you, though.)
The problem I see with your request is not that you want something that meditation causes which is observable by a third party (there are lots of potential ideas in the comments), but you want something that meditation causes which is observable by a third party which your goal structure approves of. Which, in principle, is fine, but I can’t say I know what your goal structure is. I have continually emphasized that the value of enlightenment for a person depends on their particular goals. (There are things about it that I think would benefit most people or everyone, but it doesn’t help much to say that when people can’t conceptualize those things and so can’t judge now whether they actually would want them.)
Adelene, who counts as partially enlightened according to my model, describes being able to see multiple senses clearly enough and close enough to simultaneously to be able to transcribe her synaesthetic experiences on paper. Would that be a benefit for you? Perhaps it depends on whether you have visual synaesthesia or a fertile imagination.
I suggest that “wide perceptual width” (a side effect of enlightenment) may lead to strong improvements in the ability to observe and describe parts of one’s visual field that are not actively being focused on. Would this be a benefit for you? In principle many people might be indifferent to it...apart from visual artists, for whom it might be anything from really important to life-changing. Or police offers, for whom it might one day spell the difference between getting killed or not.
I spelled out some other possiblities in Part 1, and I think there are even more in the comments. And there are others which I haven’t mentioned yet, but am working on. And there are even others which I haven’t thought of in the first place.
So, I can’t help with your question unless I know your goals.
I understand where the desire for third-party verification comes from. But you wrote
which makes it sound as if you think this is just a cute way to improve some mental abilities and want to be sure that you can tell whether it worked. I hope my posts so far didn’t give you the impression that I think this is a good idea. I would strongly suggest not meditating unless you’re prepared for potentially large changes in the way you see yourself and the world. If that’s something you’re interested in, the side effects can be really awesome. And if you want the side effects badly enough, perhaps that’s a good reason, too. But your attitude seems very casual, which in my opinion is likely to lead either to you getting more than you bargained for, or to you quitting at stage 3 because you don’t have enough commitment to the end result and thereby causing yourself a lot of pointless, avoidable suffering. (But if I’m misreading you, just say so.)
So, think about it.
And, the clarification that you asked for:
Let me start off by saying that I don’t speak for anyone else, so I can’t comment on why specific people stop. If you look at the population of people who have stopped, probably the whole range of reasons that people stop doing any kind of self-cultivation will be represented (e.g. same as for practicing a musical instrument, writing fiction or poetry, drawing, etc.).
Once you reach any stage of enlightenment, it’s permanent; no more meditation (and no more anything, except maybe food and air) is required to maintain and upkeep that attainment. In principle a person could completely forget about meditation and everything related to it and go on their way, and still retain all the benefits. (Most likely their attention and perception have been cultivated so much that they can’t help but do meditation-like things when going through daily life, so they might continue to make some progress anyway.)
The cognitive side effects of enlightenment, i.e. the benefits that aren’t enlightenment but are related to it such as e.g. perceptual improvements, can wax and wane like anything else related to mental functioning, but seem to be pretty stable in the long run without appearing to require maintenance or upkeep either.
Once you reach full enlightenment, there is no more need to meditate in this style ever again. There is nothing left to get out of it, and the only reason I can think of to do it would be to review what it’s like so as to explain it to others.
Even fully enlightened people may continue to meditate in other styles for unrelated reasons. Full enlightenment produces a surprising amount of mental pliability, and one can pursue meditation aiming at altered states of consciousness, relaxation, bliss, etc. surprisingly easily and effectively at this point. But that isn’t the same process, even though we have the same word (“meditation”) for it.
By the way, the previous paragraph is rather easy to test if meditating for pleasure is approved by your goal structure. Even the first stage of enlightenment makes that sort of thing a lot easier. (The process of doing that will probably push you towards further stages of enlightenment, so testing it happens to also be a commitment to working towards full enlightenment.)
Hi David, thanks for taking the time to answer at such length. I think I’ll wait for your series to continue (or for me to read it if it did, I don’t and won’t have a lot of attention to spare for a while) before continuing with my questions.
In the mean time I’ll just leave a few comments about the examples you gave here, in case it helps understanding better what I’m interested in. (Your “goal structure” phrasing touches but isn’t quite what I’m trying to express.)
The things I’ve seen Adelene mention don’t quite interest me. (I mean, they’re interesting, and I probably would like experiencing them on occasion, but it’s not something I’d spend effort for.)
Your concern about my casual attitude is probably unwarranted. I’m just not very concerned with thinking about potentially unpleasant side effects before determining that the potential good effects are worth the effort, which is why you probably got that impression. (As an example, before considering learning to fly I would definitely consider the dangers, but only after deciding that flying would be useful to me at all.)
You suggest that “wide perceptual width” is a side effect of enlightenment and may lead to strong improvements in the ability to observe and describe parts of one’s visual field that are not actively being focused on. That is interesting in the sense I’m trying to describe; I’m quite skeptical the kind of meditation you describe would have that efect (rather than seeming to have that effect to a practitioner), but it is testable enough for my purposes. It’s probably not something I’d invest an hour a day for a year even assuming certainty of effect and no side effects, but together with several other things of the kind I might give more thought.
(That said, I’m not sure exactly what that “may” means; are you not sure that’s an effect, or you’re sure that’s an effect but it only happens for some people? In either case, I’d like more details.)
ETA—Forgot to mention: meditating for pleasure is not “dissaproved of” by my “goal structure”, in the sense that that’s nothing wrong with it, but I already have more things I can do for pleasure than time to do them; “pleasure” is not one of the reasons I might take up meditation for (this century).
A possible experimental procedure:
Have a friend do some neuroscience research and pick a particular multi-part thing that brains do that has been observed via fMRI or other brain scanning methods (example: resolving moral dilemmas like the trolley problem) and that you haven’t read about in that context. When you meditate, specifically try to observe your mind doing that thing; pay particular attention to any specific subsystems you see interacting with each other. Note: This is not ‘meditate on how X might happen’; it’s ‘meditate and try to observe X happening’, which may be too subtle of a distinction for a beginner; try to make sure you can do the latter rather than the former before starting. (If you’re not sure if you can, it’s probably safe to assume you can’t.) When you’re confident you know what’s going on in your mind in that area, check the neuroscience literature and see if it matches.