“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Thursday, November 15, 2012

A Very Interesting Panel

...on altered states of consciousness. There is a science writer in the room, who is under some difficulties. He has a very interesting neurological explanation for light visions in meditation. However, his eliminative stance results in a real difficulty, a different in the room, really.

It's interesting for Tibetan Buddhists, because we believe that the neurological level is real and can construed as part of the sacred outlook.

2 comments:

Bill Benzon said...

Well I suppose you can always think of the brain & nervous system as a "receiver" for "cosmic waves", like a radio receiver detects electromagnetic waves. In both cases the physical mechanism is a real device without which the waves could not be detected. In one case we understand a good deal about the waves being detected. In the other we don't.

And in that other case ASCs are when the receiver is configured in non-standard ways and so picks up these weird non-standard signals.

But really, the mystery is consciousness itself, no? It's not as though we have a deep understanding of the consciousness of ordinary experience. We don't. When we understand consciousness, the ASCs won't seem to altered.

Henry Warwick said...

It's not interesting for Zen Buddhists.