Image schemas and nonduality - Integral Post-Metaphysical Spirituality2024-03-29T06:30:05Zhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/image-schemas-and-nonduality?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A62934&feed=yes&xn_auth=noI haven't read Lane's article…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-11-23:5301756:Comment:631132015-11-23T23:38:34.854ZLayman Pascalhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/LaymanPascal
<p>I haven't read Lane's article but that concept is an old one. The electronically-mediated neurosensory convergence of the digital, subtle and psychedelic is easy to get carried away with... and just as easy to unjustly dismiss. It is a plausible function of human History to accomplish the bridging between the gross realm and subtle realm through technological innovation. And virtual reality is one important piece of that puzzle. It is just art carried into a more immersive realm and we…</p>
<p>I haven't read Lane's article but that concept is an old one. The electronically-mediated neurosensory convergence of the digital, subtle and psychedelic is easy to get carried away with... and just as easy to unjustly dismiss. It is a plausible function of human History to accomplish the bridging between the gross realm and subtle realm through technological innovation. And virtual reality is one important piece of that puzzle. It is just art carried into a more immersive realm and we have routinely expected subtle nourishment, subtle encounter and subtle integration to be produced by appropriate human relationships with art. However I would also suggest that we are not in an electronic age but a bio-electronic age in which our digital interfaces perpetually amplify our concern for the ecological and somatic. And that may mean that we will favor a variety of other kinds of techno-subtle interfacing. We already have many. Better virtual reality will be one. So will improvements in our comprehension of the physics of the massless, the economic quantification of ecological and human well-being, the elaboration of means of production based in fractal, biomimetic and complex systems rather than linear replication. A certain kind of academic mind looks first to socially popular forms of mental experience as the locus of subtle energy but machines operating at nanoscales within our flesh and a more delicate technologically enabled understanding of how to live more symbiotically with bacteria and viruses may be as important or more important as inter-domain machinery. </p>
<p></p> Agreed, sir! Hey, any thought…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-11-23:5301756:Comment:628732015-11-23T21:30:29.002Zandrewhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/andrew
<p>Agreed, sir! Hey, any thoughts on Lane's article at I.W.? That the subtle is going to be engineered on masse via virtual reality ?</p>
<p>Oh, by the way, on the web page I linked . One commenter said there was an opposing theory to Jayne's that hypothesized the opposite of what Jayne's asserted . That sounded very much like the ideas put forward by theurj.</p>
<p>Agreed, sir! Hey, any thoughts on Lane's article at I.W.? That the subtle is going to be engineered on masse via virtual reality ?</p>
<p>Oh, by the way, on the web page I linked . One commenter said there was an opposing theory to Jayne's that hypothesized the opposite of what Jayne's asserted . That sounded very much like the ideas put forward by theurj.</p> Hey Andrew,
What we should ta…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-11-23:5301756:Comment:630142015-11-23T20:08:26.370ZLayman Pascalhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/LaymanPascal
<p>Hey Andrew,</p>
<p>What we should take away from Jaynes is not the particulars of his model but the general sense that alternative neurological modes, associated with both advanced and primitive states, may have been common in our ancestors -- and they their artwork, stories, etc. may reflect different neural architecture or neural chemistry. What, for example, if people a 100 000 years ago has 0.1% more natural DMT molecules in their brains? That could be a huge variation. Just different…</p>
<p>Hey Andrew,</p>
<p>What we should take away from Jaynes is not the particulars of his model but the general sense that alternative neurological modes, associated with both advanced and primitive states, may have been common in our ancestors -- and they their artwork, stories, etc. may reflect different neural architecture or neural chemistry. What, for example, if people a 100 000 years ago has 0.1% more natural DMT molecules in their brains? That could be a huge variation. Just different degrees of integration between neural structures and different environmentally induced degrees of brain healthy may be huge. All those things may alter individuals in terms of where and how they perceive information arising to their consciousness.</p>
<p>What I am saying is very general. That difference in the brain, epitomized by differences in degrees of integration of brain systems, played a role in determining how our subjective and subtle experience is perceived -- relative to current general norms. And that integrative neural practices, sustained by particular environments (symbolized by but certainly not limited to what we currently call meditation) may contribute to a general trend in which subjectivity is expanded to experience more phenomena as occurring within its definition of itself.</p>
<p>And, in keeping with all this, it is perhaps even probably that certain people did this very well. In particular I tend to feel that esoteric proto-lineages among prehistoric humans taught embodied disciplines that generated increased coherence between different brain systems (e.g. head, heart, body). These greal-souled individuals may not only have given rise to the early historical esoteric wisdom schools but also have had many hybrid experiences of "communication" or "communion" with profound subtle realm entities. Experiences which might have been common in the past but made sense or where workable for these shamanic individuals who, by various methods, increased their subjective integration to a point where these phenomena were less like a confounding dream and more like a useful bit of information about the universe.</p>
<p>So add all that to your exemplary mirroring...</p> Here is one link to Jayne's :…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-11-23:5301756:Comment:630132015-11-23T19:50:42.286Zandrewhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/andrew
<p>Here is one link to Jayne's :</p>
<p><a href="http://genealogyreligion.net/all-mixed-up-julian-jaynes" target="_blank">http://genealogyreligion.net/all-mixed-up-julian-jaynes</a></p>
<p>When I first read Jayne's I did find the hypothesis interesting and still consider it possible , but minimally so. Most academics no longer consider the idea as being tenable . I should probably note that if the theory were true it would not have been meditation solely responsible for integrating the…</p>
<p>Here is one link to Jayne's :</p>
<p><a href="http://genealogyreligion.net/all-mixed-up-julian-jaynes" target="_blank">http://genealogyreligion.net/all-mixed-up-julian-jaynes</a></p>
<p>When I first read Jayne's I did find the hypothesis interesting and still consider it possible , but minimally so. Most academics no longer consider the idea as being tenable . I should probably note that if the theory were true it would not have been meditation solely responsible for integrating the hemispheres; some other developmental process would most likely accounted for the unification . Myself, I believe the notion is incorrect and that humans today are not much different then they were 30,000 years ago, ergo; this theory is not a sufficient argument against humanities religious experiences . That such experiences are phenomenological goes without saying . Definitive conclusions about reality based upon interior experiences ? Not enough data there to say anything for certain...</p> Hey, LP, a part of what i do…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-11-23:5301756:Comment:631072015-11-23T00:53:10.276Zandrewhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/andrew
<p>Hey, LP, a part of what i do is to try and get a sense or overview of what any particular group or person believes and espouses . If you don't mind, maybe I can mirror what it is I think you've come to experience and believe . Ok? No! Ok, I'm gonna give it a shot anyway(haha) and please make more accurate what I get incorrect . </p>
<p>Like Jayne's , you seem to think that all humans throughout our history suffered bio/psychic experiences that are in fact hallucinogenic because of the way…</p>
<p>Hey, LP, a part of what i do is to try and get a sense or overview of what any particular group or person believes and espouses . If you don't mind, maybe I can mirror what it is I think you've come to experience and believe . Ok? No! Ok, I'm gonna give it a shot anyway(haha) and please make more accurate what I get incorrect . </p>
<p>Like Jayne's , you seem to think that all humans throughout our history suffered bio/psychic experiences that are in fact hallucinogenic because of the way the brain is structured and how it developed? That at different times and at different places some humans learned a way to integrate that schism . Meditation is the method I presume that alleviates this fractured psyche? That once one masters meditative disciplines the process heals the schism within the brain and said human becomes whole and enlightened to reality and realizes reality is wholly natural? </p>
<p>There is a religious system espoused by certain people that alludes that this is exactly what has happened throughout our history and that there are rare humans that somehow developed into extraordinary levels of development . This group would say the angels are really advanced humans known in these circles as ascended masters? Or in some Buddhist schools as masters of the rainbow body? This group of people assert god doesn't exist in any of the ways humanity has asserted in its past .</p>
<p>Nay? yay? andrew's an idiot?</p> A little snippet from your la…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-11-22:5301756:Comment:631062015-11-22T21:27:50.244Zandrewhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/andrew
<p>A little snippet from your last post , '<span><strong>and in most cases</strong>'.</span></p>
<p><span>What have we here? A little wiggle room perchance? Na, couldn't be:)</span></p>
<p>A little snippet from your last post , '<span><strong>and in most cases</strong>'.</span></p>
<p><span>What have we here? A little wiggle room perchance? Na, couldn't be:)</span></p> Yo, yo & still further yo…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-11-22:5301756:Comment:629602015-11-22T20:00:34.080ZLayman Pascalhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/LaymanPascal
<p>Yo, yo & still further yo.</p>
<p>The PCS may play a special role correlated with triangulation of realms or sources of information -- just as the Reticular Activating System has a special role correlated with detection and bare distinction making (and therefore also with many kinds of meditation).</p>
<p>A schizoid mind (one which suffers distress, dysfunction and disturbed relationships as a result of inability to experience ideas and impressions as either moderate or internal…</p>
<p>Yo, yo & still further yo.</p>
<p>The PCS may play a special role correlated with triangulation of realms or sources of information -- just as the Reticular Activating System has a special role correlated with detection and bare distinction making (and therefore also with many kinds of meditation).</p>
<p>A schizoid mind (one which suffers distress, dysfunction and disturbed relationships as a result of inability to experience ideas and impressions as either moderate or internal phenomena) bears an eerie resemblance to what we all have -- in our various states of self-integration. </p>
<p>One the odd things about treating schizophrenia by adjusting the brain's dopamine levels is that, basically, it leaves the structures of the mind alone and adjusts one of the "volume knobs". The possibility then arises that the apparently schizoid structures may be quite normal in many respects.</p>
<p>Of course schizosis also resembles what we typically call supraconscious or psychic phenomena. And it may be that experiences of factually informative hallucinations and higher visions may stand out as schizoid relative to the production of a future degree of self-integration. Does a Buddha, so to speak, experience angels as being "within" or "a normal part" of his harmonized self-experience? Is it schizophrenia, in this sense, to experience anything as if it were informing us from "outside"?</p>
<p>Again we confront an interweaving of subtle & subjective.</p>
<p>Again the possibility that a "soul" may be the result of work done to invent a consistency out of our fragmentary and diverse sources of internal data. A harmonic entanglement of subtle energetic patterns. What that would mean is that we say (a) many of the subtle features arises in the schizoid mind are real elements of sou, but (b) lacking this integration they are nonetheless pathological and in most cases functionally invalid.</p> Hey Ambo, Layman! Good to hea…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-11-22:5301756:Comment:631052015-11-22T19:21:49.608Zandrewhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/andrew
<p>Hey Ambo, Layman! Good to hear that your still kickin'! </p>
<p>Maybe we could start with what schizophrenia isn't? If we take the link I posted, does this mans experience make him a schizophrenic ? i would argue, no. This guy may have experienced something completely real and it is being interpreted by cultural narratives and conditioning . I once saw a doc. on this little old westernized lady who could paint the most intricate buddhist mandala's wherein she had no prior knowledge of this…</p>
<p>Hey Ambo, Layman! Good to hear that your still kickin'! </p>
<p>Maybe we could start with what schizophrenia isn't? If we take the link I posted, does this mans experience make him a schizophrenic ? i would argue, no. This guy may have experienced something completely real and it is being interpreted by cultural narratives and conditioning . I once saw a doc. on this little old westernized lady who could paint the most intricate buddhist mandala's wherein she had no prior knowledge of this culture . I hardly see how that is schizophrenic when it amazed even the Dali Lama. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, i come at this topic from an alternative perspective that i doubt anyone in Integral will concede . I believe we are primitive ! I believe the conditions on this planet today prove my hypothesis . Why is it then that a primitive people think they could know the finer frequencies or dimensions of existence should they be real . if I were a master of the game i certainly would not reveal such knowledge to a people who would abuse it . </p>
<p>But sure , I believe, theurj, is correct when he asserts that there is this non-dual natural ground that exists and arises from our historical inheritance . Whether that is a part of a larger oceanic phenomenon is certainly an interesting speculation ; and whether there is something more than an oceanic ass-holon is also an interesting speculation; one that is not impossible or can be entirely refuted . Such possibilities fall under the parameters of faith , IMO . </p>
<p></p>
<p></p> Layman! Bro-dude, so good to…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-11-22:5301756:Comment:630072015-11-22T17:35:36.292ZAmbo Sunohttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/AmboSuno
<p>Layman! Bro-dude, so good to see you and that you still exist - more or less, so it seems, from this bag of skin's POV, this PCS, this right-left toggle-boggle. Really, good to hear your probing and evocative voice, here, as well.</p>
<p>I'm glad that you engage further Andrew's deriving and raising of the analogy to spirit and soul. I felt that maybe I had shut down the conversational issue with my glib and deflective, 'above my pay grade.' Though as you elaborate in musing on spirit and…</p>
<p>Layman! Bro-dude, so good to see you and that you still exist - more or less, so it seems, from this bag of skin's POV, this PCS, this right-left toggle-boggle. Really, good to hear your probing and evocative voice, here, as well.</p>
<p>I'm glad that you engage further Andrew's deriving and raising of the analogy to spirit and soul. I felt that maybe I had shut down the conversational issue with my glib and deflective, 'above my pay grade.' Though as you elaborate in musing on spirit and soul seems to stretch a bit far from the specifics of what this research has been willing to speculate about PCS length, I now get that these points of interest of Andrew and yourself are of course plenty in the neighborhood. Across the history of human development and various impractical expressions, we have seemed to navigate, moment by moment, the what is real/what is not real question. Bio-survival is related to this question. Higher level enrichenings about spirit and soul as well.</p>
<p>"I think the value of this is that it probably helps us think slightly more broadly about hallucinations in schizophrenia, in terms of it not just being about language areas of the brain - but involving a more distributed network of regions, and implicating, in particular, cognitive control or higher-order cognitive functioning." <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34832284" target="_blank">http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34832284</a></p>
<p>You and Andrew and I obviously are finding more value than the scientifically conservative mention in the above quote.</p>
<p>Each time that you mention the benefit of clarifying whether in an instance we are meaning more "subtle" or "subjective" my ears perk up. Thinking about it now, as a simple geometric modeling, they overlap. Yet of course they aren't opposing, symetrical, or mutually exclusive categories. Subjective awareness can be be engaging what is subtle or gross or perhaps causal. Intrinsically subtle events and conditions can be pointing to subjective processes or a more palpable and measurable objective nature, when we notice them, again recursively, subjectively.</p>
<p>Though in my life and minor contemplations I haven't penetrated very far into what might be "spirit" and "soul", I like that you are bringing forward one possible meaning of soul that can get lost in conflations. That soul can be largely a cognitive construct/experiential conglomeration and abstraction more than a more 'essential' character that is sometimes passed along in conversation. Something like that, if I understand you close enough.</p>
<p>Science/scientists, as in this study, have often been very conservative in their appraisal and maybe understanding of complexity. I like how this article acknowledges the multi-factorial nature of schizophrenia, hallucinations, and discernment/conclusions about what is real. They are studying this paracingulate sulcus in the frontal region of the brain, yet they mention other contributing areas for different clinical contexts like the auditory cortex region, and you suggest a likely reality schism due to limited integration of the right and left hand hemispheres, which probably varies plenty among people. There are even more, of course, like oscillations of input among the main 'triune brain' elements.</p>
<p>My sense based on this article so far is that this suggested PCS function may be distinct in actually 'triangulating' inner/outer reality then the other types of confusions and conflations resulting from a complex brain that has evolved in seeming fragments and specializations and integrations - a convoluted history. That's what comes to mind at this second.<br/> <br/> <cite>Layman Pascal said:</cite></p>
<blockquote cite="http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/image-schemas-and-nonduality?commentId=5301756%3AComment%3A62861&xg_source=activity#5301756Comment62861"><div><div class="xg_user_generated"><p>Hmmm... this forum still exists! Hi.</p>
<p>These are funny sorts of conversations. Although we want to inquire from our inner quibbles and learn more about the general mechanisms of life we also are shadowed by a cryptic blindspot. We start out our inquiry as if "real" was a pretty obvious and well-understood concept. How real is phenomenon X? Ur... um.... I suspect that what I mean by "real" might change between the beginning and end of a sentence.</p>
<p>But what a lot of work it would be to pre-clarify several different meanings of "real" before beginning. Maybe I would then never begin. But now clearly (sic) I am muddying the very water I wish to see through.</p>
<p>----------------------------------</p>
<p>How do we distinguish "subtle" from "subjective"? There seems no reason why a more canny science could not measure the massless and qualitative and form-al elements of reality. But there may remain an unmeasurable purely subjective aspect. Or perhaps not. Like Descartes, I am inclined to feel that science it always the establishment of maximally coherent correspondences between epistemological quadrants. An subjectivity is one of those quadrants. Then perhaps it can be enfolded within measurement...</p>
<p>-----------------------------------</p>
<p>The old (Wilhelm) Reichian definition of a schizophrenic is somebody who is admirable sensitive to the information and energy streaming through their organism BUT unable to encounter it as their own. </p>
<p>It besieges them from without. </p>
<p>They cannot triangulate it the same as others. </p>
<p>Julian Jaynes, of course, presumed that prior to the Axial Age all human beings experienced this most of the time. A reduced integration of brain hemispheres creates an echo effect whereby neural cross-talk is perceived as incoming forms from an unknown "other source".</p>
<p>-----------------------------------</p>
<p>Spirit, although frequently used as term for Nonduality, has this character of inspirational animation. Spirited. That makes it a very basic quality. We like to act like soul is very basic, inherited simplistically by babies, but it may not be. It could be "significant" rather than "fundamental" in Wilber's terms. Soul may be a product. Something that is (or is not) put together or grown from certain elements of ourselves during life. </p>
<p>"This precious human birth!" say the Buddhists.</p>
<p>I was a Buddhist for a while. In our sangha we spoke of Buddha's reticence on these issues but it was circumstantial rather dogmatic. Most of Siddhartha's teachings were very dependent on who he was talking with. Practicality varies. </p>
<p>We understood, in that sangha, that a "soul" was an important part of Buddhism but that (a) it was ultimately a non-eternal conglomerate of emptiness like every other form (b) it does not pass simply and like one unified entity from lifetime to lifetime in response to socially obvious moral deeds.</p>
<p>So, in a way, the soul is a schizophrenic...</p>
<p></p>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote> Hmmm... this forum still exis…tag:integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com,2015-11-21:5301756:Comment:628612015-11-21T20:25:48.101ZLayman Pascalhttp://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/profile/LaymanPascal
<p>Hmmm... this forum still exists! Hi.</p>
<p>These are funny sorts of conversations. Although we want to inquire from our inner quibbles and learn more about the general mechanisms of life we also are shadowed by a cryptic blindspot. We start out our inquiry as if "real" was a pretty obvious and well-understood concept. How real is phenomenon X? Ur... um.... I suspect that what I mean by "real" might change between the beginning and end of a sentence.</p>
<p>But what a lot of work it…</p>
<p>Hmmm... this forum still exists! Hi.</p>
<p>These are funny sorts of conversations. Although we want to inquire from our inner quibbles and learn more about the general mechanisms of life we also are shadowed by a cryptic blindspot. We start out our inquiry as if "real" was a pretty obvious and well-understood concept. How real is phenomenon X? Ur... um.... I suspect that what I mean by "real" might change between the beginning and end of a sentence.</p>
<p>But what a lot of work it would be to pre-clarify several different meanings of "real" before beginning. Maybe I would then never begin. But now clearly (sic) I am muddying the very water I wish to see through.</p>
<p>----------------------------------</p>
<p>How do we distinguish "subtle" from "subjective"? There seems no reason why a more canny science could not measure the massless and qualitative and form-al elements of reality. But there may remain an unmeasurable purely subjective aspect. Or perhaps not. Like Descartes, I am inclined to feel that science it always the establishment of maximally coherent correspondences between epistemological quadrants. An subjectivity is one of those quadrants. Then perhaps it can be enfolded within measurement...</p>
<p>-----------------------------------</p>
<p>The old (Wilhelm) Reichian definition of a schizophrenic is somebody who is admirable sensitive to the information and energy streaming through their organism BUT unable to encounter it as their own. </p>
<p>It besieges them from without. </p>
<p>They cannot triangulate it the same as others. </p>
<p>Julian Jaynes, of course, presumed that prior to the Axial Age all human beings experienced this most of the time. A reduced integration of brain hemispheres creates an echo effect whereby neural cross-talk is perceived as incoming forms from an unknown "other source".</p>
<p>-----------------------------------</p>
<p>Spirit, although frequently used as term for Nonduality, has this character of inspirational animation. Spirited. That makes it a very basic quality. We like to act like soul is very basic, inherited simplistically by babies, but it may not be. It could be "significant" rather than "fundamental" in Wilber's terms. Soul may be a product. Something that is (or is not) put together or grown from certain elements of ourselves during life. </p>
<p>"This precious human birth!" say the Buddhists.</p>
<p>I was a Buddhist for a while. In our sangha we spoke of Buddha's reticence on these issues but it was circumstantial rather dogmatic. Most of Siddhartha's teachings were very dependent on who he was talking with. Practicality varies. </p>
<p>We understood, in that sangha, that a "soul" was an important part of Buddhism but that (a) it was ultimately a non-eternal conglomerate of emptiness like every other form (b) it does not pass simply and like one unified entity from lifetime to lifetime in response to socially obvious moral deeds.</p>
<p>So, in a way, the soul is a schizophrenic...</p>
<p></p>