Zen and the art of Brain Scanning
Mar. 2nd, 2002 10:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewduckerThe BBC has an article about a group of scientists who produced images of what the brain looks like during meditation.
I'm fascinated by this kind of thing, partially due to my fascination with the brain in general, and the advances that are steadily being made in understanding it, and partially because meditation is a particularly interesting topic.
There's a group of people in David Brin's book Earth who, through judicious use of EEGs have learnt to control bits of their brain to induce feelings of intense pleasure.
This kind of thing is being used to control ADD at the oment, and I've read a fair bit about people being able to consciously manipulate the levels of brainwaves through use of EEGs, but unfortunately I've never had the spare cash to get hold of one.
One of these days...
I'm fascinated by this kind of thing, partially due to my fascination with the brain in general, and the advances that are steadily being made in understanding it, and partially because meditation is a particularly interesting topic.
There's a group of people in David Brin's book Earth who, through judicious use of EEGs have learnt to control bits of their brain to induce feelings of intense pleasure.
This kind of thing is being used to control ADD at the oment, and I've read a fair bit about people being able to consciously manipulate the levels of brainwaves through use of EEGs, but unfortunately I've never had the spare cash to get hold of one.
One of these days...
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no subject
Date: 2002-03-02 03:16 am (UTC)Short Cut
Date: 2002-03-02 05:00 am (UTC)However, the work I've seen indicates that you can cut around 30-40 years off the process with about 3 weeks work with one of these boxes.
Re: Short Cut
Date: 2002-03-02 04:05 pm (UTC)It's not that I feel short-cuts are inherently less virtuous, or that the long route is necessarily better...
But tripping seems to be to be a bit like slumming in the odder mental 'burbs. Visual effects and mad ideas? Lived there, done that, and I don't see any need to have to take something to get there. It seems lazy, I suppose.
Nothing wrong with laziness
Date: 2002-03-03 01:51 am (UTC)I send email because snail mail is a pain.
I get Tesco's to deliver because carrying all that stuff wears me out.
I didn't go away and work out huge areas of maths, physics, philosophy, etc. because someone else could save me the effort and present me with a solution.
I'm in favour of laziness, it leaves me so much more time to have fun.
And I've yet to read anything which equated any other experience to tripping. Like being drunk or stoned, it appears to be a qualitatively different experience from anything you can get to normally.
Re: Nothing wrong with laziness
Date: 2002-03-03 04:01 am (UTC)Uhm, possibly tripping is amazing.. but a couple of people I've talked to said it was terribly boring. They had better experiences w/o it. So it still sounds more like... I dunno... slumming.
Slumming
Date: 2002-03-03 04:34 am (UTC)I wouldn't associate that with tripping at all. I'd associate tripping with inner exploration and seeing the sites. More like visiting the Grand Canyon than going through the Bronx.
Re: Slumming
Date: 2002-03-03 05:31 am (UTC)People who've tripped have never, ever convinced me they've gone through anything more exciting than a monster movie and a box of popcorn. It seems to me to an excuse, mostly, to have a certain kind of psychological experience. What confuses me is that people who trip don't seem to truly grasp the exciting things they can do for free, inside (or indeed, outside), their own heads.
It's like... rather than go for a walk, they'd sooner explore a level of Quake. Sure, great level design, and the textures are pretty, but... bit bland.
Re: Slumming
Date: 2002-03-03 07:47 am (UTC)So if I go for a walk for free, the walk doesn't count?
It seems to me to an excuse, mostly, to have a certain kind of psychological experience.
It's no an excuse. It's a method of having a certain kind of psychological experience. Like listening to music is, or having sex is, or watching a movie is, or pretty much everything else in life is.
It's like... rather than go for a walk, they'd sooner explore a level of Quake. Sure, great level design, and the textures are pretty, but... bit bland.
I like Quake. It's fun and cool and provides a certain kind of experience which sometimes I want. And sometimes I'd rather go for a walk. They're both cool, fun experiences. And so is tripping. I don't see why any of them are better or worse experiences, they're just all different.
Re: Nothing wrong with laziness
Date: 2002-03-03 04:07 am (UTC)Cheap n easy meditation might be qualitatively similar to cheap n easy pop music, ie, Popstars.
Fun is not necessarily the only goal.
As an example, art takes blood, sweat, and the proverbial tears, cf the programmes last night about Richard Pryor (depressed most his life, worked hard), Spike Milligan (ditto) Art that is *fun* appears on CITV at about 4.30 in the afternoon, presented by Neil Buchanan. And doesn't tend to appear in galleries, or warrant a second glance.
Work<>Interesting
Date: 2002-03-03 04:37 am (UTC)Sounds altogether like the Protestant Work Ethic "If there's no pain involved, then it's not worth doing."
Re: Work<>Interesting
Date: 2002-03-03 05:28 am (UTC)And uh, yeah, if there's no pain involved, it rarely is worth doing, IMHO.
Re: Work<>Interesting
some things are worth working for, but if you can get them without work, people will want to. Which is only fair, no point in making unnecessary work.
work is anything you dont want to do but have to anyway