The necessity of thought.

[EmeraldHead]

Actions/Choices can be shown in real time brain scans up to 15 seconds before they're done/made.

 

5 skhandas friends It's why people with postnatal energy (second skhanda) cannot properly make up for sleep with jhana like focus. They don't know how to replenish yuan sanbao.

Edited August 25, 2020 by EmeraldHead

[Bindi]

“Neuroscientists can read brain activity to predict decisions 11 seconds before people act” - https://qz.com/1569158/neuroscientists-read-unconscious-brain-activity-to-predict-decisions/

 

Spoiler

“We believe that when we are faced with the choice between two or more options of what to think about, non-conscious traces of the thoughts are there already, a bit like unconscious hallucinations,” he said in a statement. “As the decision of what to think about is made, executive areas of the brain choose the thought-trace which is stronger. In, other words, if any pre-existing brain activity matches one of your choices, then your brain will be more likely to pick that option as it gets boosted by the pre-existing brain activity.”

 

If decisions are being made subconsciously, based on thoughts from past emotional and mental input as well as present circumstances, then this is the level which we need to be operating smoothly at, and the level that I am primarily interested in, as opposed to trying to manipulate the conscious mind.
 

Perhaps the conscious mind is the mind that need merely witness the result of the interaction between unconscious thought and it’s resulting activity. If the conscious mind is unhappy with any result it witnesses, it can be merely an indication that the subconscious process needs attention, especially relating to previous dysfunctional emotional and mental complexes that are priming decisions and resultant actions. 
 

This is a similar position to the Neiye’s imperative to ‘Cleanse the heart-mind’ as a fundamental aspect of early Daoism - 

There is a numinous [mind] naturally residing within;
One moment it goes, the next it comes,
And no one is able to conceive of it.
If you lose it you are inevitably disordered;
If you attain it you are inevitably well ordered.
Diligently clean out its lodging place
And its vital essence will naturally arrive.
 

This sentiment is also echoed in the early neidan text of the yellow court with -
“Straighten the room in the middle so spirit would live within, 

Cleanse the heart-mind so it would be inclined to self-healing rather than self-intoxicating.” 
 

 

 

 

Edited August 25, 2020 by Bindi

[Limahong]

3 hours ago, EmeraldHead said:

Actions/Choices can be shown in real time brain scans up to 15 seconds before they're done/made

 

Hi EmeraldHead,

 

I am not on any of the chosen/trained/... paths like some on this thread.

 

But I'm trained in general philosophy and I share as a man in the street.

 

Your above statement caught my attention as a researcher re mental models.

 

A mental model is an explanation of someone's thought process about how something works in the real world. It is a representation of the surrounding world, the relationships between its various parts and a person's intuitive perception about his or her own acts and their consequences. Mental models can help shape behavior and set an approach to solving problems (similar to a personal algorithm) and doing tasks.

 

Jay Wright Forrester defined general mental models as: 

The image of the world around us, which we carry in our head, is just a model. Nobody in his head imagines all the world, government or country. He has only selected concepts, and relationships between them, and uses those to represent the real system." (Wikipedia)

 

I am inclined to think that the 15 seconds temporal lapse can perhaps be linked to one's mental model being activated ~ when confronted with data/information/...

 

I especially like a mental model ~ likened to a personal algorithm when faced with big data. 

 

- Anand

 

 

[Cleansox]

While this is really efficient in a lot of situation, it becomes a problem if you are in a stressful, multitasking environment. Or, for that matters, if you have traumatic experiences. 

 

Your mind decides for action before you have enough information to make an informed decision. That activates your nervous system, but the slower decision process still have the option to surpress the action. 

 

The result is a bodymind prepared for action, without getting any signals that the action has been carried out. 

 

(Experiments like the ones quoted has also been done with shorter time spans, ie, faster decisions.) 

Edited August 25, 2020 by Cleansox
Added stuff

[Apech]

Materialism developed as a philosophy in the second half of the nineteenth century, as the influence of religion waned. And right from the start, materialists realised the denial of free will was inherent in their philosophy. As one of the most fervent early materialists, T.H. Huxley, stated in 1874, “Volitions do not enter into the chain of causation…The feeling that we call volition is not the cause of a voluntary act, but the symbol of that state of the brain which is the immediate cause."

 

Huxley anticipated the ideas of some modern materialists, such as psychologist Daniel Wegner, who claim that free will is literally a “trick of the mind.” According to Wegner, “The experience of willing an act arises from interpreting one’s thought as the cause of the act.” In other words, our sense of making choices or decisions is just an awareness of what the brain has already decided for us. When we become aware of the brain’s actions, we think about them and falsely conclude that our intentions have caused them. You could compare it to an imbecilic king who believes he is making all his own decisions but is constantly being manipulated by his advisors and officials, who whisper in his ear and plant ideas in his head. 

 

Many materialists believe that evidence for a lack of free will was found when, in the 1980s, the scientist Benjamin Libet conducted experiments that seemed to show that the brain “registers” the decision to make movements before a person consciously decides to move. In Libet’s experiments, a participant would be asked to perform a simple task such as pressing a button or flexing their wrist. Sitting in front of a timer, they were asked to note the moment at which they were consciously aware of the decision to move, while EEG electrodes attached to their head monitored their brain activity.

 

Libet showed consistently that there was unconscious brain activity associated with the action – a change in EEG signals that Libet called “readiness potential” — for an average of half a second before the participants were aware of the decision to move. This experiment appears to offer evidence of Daniel Wegner’s view that decisions are first made by the brain, and there is a delay before we become conscious of them — at which point we attribute our own conscious intention to the act.         

However, if we look more closely, Libet’s experiment is full of problematic issues. For example, it relies on the participants’ own recording of when they feel the intention to move. One issue here is that there may be a delay between the impulse to act and their recording of it — after all, this means shifting their attention from their own intention to the clock. In addition, it is debatable whether people are able to accurately record the moment of their decision to move. Our subjective awareness of decisions is very unreliable. If you try the experiment yourself, you’ll become aware that it’s difficult to pinpoint the moment at which you make the decision. You can do it right now, by holding out your own arm and deciding at some point to flex your wrist.

 

A further, more subtle (and more arguable) issue is that Libet's experiment seems to assume that the act of willing consists of clearcut decisions, made by a conscious, rational mind. But decisions are often made in a more fuzzy, ambiguous way. They can be made on a partly intuitive, impulsive level, without clearcut conscious awareness. But this doesn't necessarily mean that you haven't made the decision.

 

As the psychiatrist and philosopher Iain McGilchrist, author of the Master and His Emissary, points out while making this argument that Libet's apparent findings are only problematic "if one imagines that, for me to decide something, I have to have willed it with the conscious part of my mind. Perhaps my unconscious is every bit as much 'me.'" Why shouldn't your will be associated with deeper, less conscious areas of your mind (which are still you)? You might sense this if, while trying Libet’s experiment, you find your wrist seeming to move of its own accord. You feel that you have somehow made the decision, even if not wholly consciously. 

An even more serious issue with Libet’s experiment is that it is by no means clear that the electrical activity of the “readiness potential” is related to the decision to move, and the actual movement. Some researchers have suggested that the readiness potential could just relate to the act of paying attention to the wrist or a button, rather than the decision to move. Others have suggested that it only reflects the expectation of some kind of movement, rather than being related to a specific moment. In a modified version of Libet’s experiment (in which participants were asked to press one of two buttons in response to images on a computer screen), participants showed readiness potential even before the images came up on the screen, suggesting that it was not related to deciding which button to press. 

 

Others have suggested that the area of the brain where the readiness potential occurs — the supplementary motor area — is usually associated with imagining movements rather than actually performing them. The experience of willing is usually associated with other areas of the brain (the parietal areas). And finally, in another modified version of Libet’s experiment, participants showed readiness potential even when they made a decision not to move, which again casts doubt on the assumption that the readiness potential is actually registering the brain’s “decision” to move. 

 

Because of issues such as these — and others that I don’t have space to mention — it’s mystifying that such a flawed experiment has become so influential, and has been used frequently as evidence against the idea of free will. The reason why the experiment has been so enthusiastically embraced is surely because the apparent findings fit so well with the principles of materialism. It seems to prove what materialism implies: that human beings are automatons.

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201709/benjamin-libet-and-the-denial-free-will

[idiot_stimpy]

A 'thought' can be an Angel or a Demon. It can be your greatest oppressor or your greatest liberator. 

[Limahong]

16 minutes ago, Apech said:

"Materialism developed as a philosophy in the second half of the nineteenth century, as the influence of religion waned. And right from the start..."

 

Hi Apech,

 

I am not deep into complex philosophy as "shared".

 

I live an everyday simple experiential life and my mental models pertain to pictorial depictions of key variables re context and content.

 

Linked to experiences in life/living ~ my mental models may have their variables tweaked when deem fit.

 

Nothing is permanent.

 

1 hour ago, Cleansox said:

While this is really efficient in a lot of situation, it becomes a problem if you are in a stressful, multitasking environment. Or, for that matters, if you have traumatic experiences. 

 

Your mind decides for action before you have enough information to make an informed decision. That activates your nervous system, but the slower decision process still have the option to suppress the action. 

 

The result is a bodymind prepared for action, without getting any signals that the action has been carried out. 

 

(Experiments like the ones quoted has also been done with shorter time spans, ie, faster decisions.) 

 

Hi Cleansox,

 

Nothing is permanent/perfect/... ~ thus experiential lifelong learning.

 

When faced with trying situations/parameters/... ~ I may reach out for a wu-wei mental model re my understanding of the Taoist philosophy which can be different from others.

 

My wu-wei models are more intuitive than cognitive.

 

For me ~ right decisions overwrite faster decisions... despite uncertainties.

 

- Anand

 

[moment]

1 hour ago, Apech said:

Materialism developed as a philosophy in the second half of the nineteenth century, as the influence of religion waned. And right from the start, materialists realised the denial of free will was inherent in their philosophy. As one of the most fervent early materialists, T.H. Huxley, stated in 1874, “Volitions do not enter into the chain of causation…The feeling that we call volition is not the cause of a voluntary act, but the symbol of that state of the brain which is the immediate cause."

 

Huxley anticipated the ideas of some modern materialists, such as psychologist Daniel Wegner, who claim that free will is literally a “trick of the mind.” According to Wegner, “The experience of willing an act arises from interpreting one’s thought as the cause of the act.” In other words, our sense of making choices or decisions is just an awareness of what the brain has already decided for us. When we become aware of the brain’s actions, we think about them and falsely conclude that our intentions have caused them. You could compare it to an imbecilic king who believes he is making all his own decisions but is constantly being manipulated by his advisors and officials, who whisper in his ear and plant ideas in his head. 

 

Many materialists believe that evidence for a lack of free will was found when, in the 1980s, the scientist Benjamin Libet conducted experiments that seemed to show that the brain “registers” the decision to make movements before a person consciously decides to move. In Libet’s experiments, a participant would be asked to perform a simple task such as pressing a button or flexing their wrist. Sitting in front of a timer, they were asked to note the moment at which they were consciously aware of the decision to move, while EEG electrodes attached to their head monitored their brain activity.

 

Libet showed consistently that there was unconscious brain activity associated with the action – a change in EEG signals that Libet called “readiness potential” — for an average of half a second before the participants were aware of the decision to move. This experiment appears to offer evidence of Daniel Wegner’s view that decisions are first made by the brain, and there is a delay before we become conscious of them — at which point we attribute our own conscious intention to the act.         

However, if we look more closely, Libet’s experiment is full of problematic issues. For example, it relies on the participants’ own recording of when they feel the intention to move. One issue here is that there may be a delay between the impulse to act and their recording of it — after all, this means shifting their attention from their own intention to the clock. In addition, it is debatable whether people are able to accurately record the moment of their decision to move. Our subjective awareness of decisions is very unreliable. If you try the experiment yourself, you’ll become aware that it’s difficult to pinpoint the moment at which you make the decision. You can do it right now, by holding out your own arm and deciding at some point to flex your wrist.

 

A further, more subtle (and more arguable) issue is that Libet's experiment seems to assume that the act of willing consists of clearcut decisions, made by a conscious, rational mind. But decisions are often made in a more fuzzy, ambiguous way. They can be made on a partly intuitive, impulsive level, without clearcut conscious awareness. But this doesn't necessarily mean that you haven't made the decision.

 

As the psychiatrist and philosopher Iain McGilchrist, author of the Master and His Emissary, points out while making this argument that Libet's apparent findings are only problematic "if one imagines that, for me to decide something, I have to have willed it with the conscious part of my mind. Perhaps my unconscious is every bit as much 'me.'" Why shouldn't your will be associated with deeper, less conscious areas of your mind (which are still you)? You might sense this if, while trying Libet’s experiment, you find your wrist seeming to move of its own accord. You feel that you have somehow made the decision, even if not wholly consciously. 

An even more serious issue with Libet’s experiment is that it is by no means clear that the electrical activity of the “readiness potential” is related to the decision to move, and the actual movement. Some researchers have suggested that the readiness potential could just relate to the act of paying attention to the wrist or a button, rather than the decision to move. Others have suggested that it only reflects the expectation of some kind of movement, rather than being related to a specific moment. In a modified version of Libet’s experiment (in which participants were asked to press one of two buttons in response to images on a computer screen), participants showed readiness potential even before the images came up on the screen, suggesting that it was not related to deciding which button to press. 

 

Others have suggested that the area of the brain where the readiness potential occurs — the supplementary motor area — is usually associated with imagining movements rather than actually performing them. The experience of willing is usually associated with other areas of the brain (the parietal areas). And finally, in another modified version of Libet’s experiment, participants showed readiness potential even when they made a decision not to move, which again casts doubt on the assumption that the readiness potential is actually registering the brain’s “decision” to move. 

 

Because of issues such as these — and others that I don’t have space to mention — it’s mystifying that such a flawed experiment has become so influential, and has been used frequently as evidence against the idea of free will. The reason why the experiment has been so enthusiastically embraced is surely because the apparent findings fit so well with the principles of materialism. It seems to prove what materialism implies: that human beings are automatons.

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201709/benjamin-libet-and-the-denial-free-will

 

I wonder what T.H. Huxley's conclusions would have been if he had trained extensively in advanced hand sensing techniques ( Chi Sao, push hands, etc) where reaction speed, mental imaging, decision making, is very different than his experiences and conclusions in his experiments.

Edited August 25, 2020 by moment

[Cleansox]

1 hour ago, Limahong said:

 

For me ~ right decisions overwrite faster decisions... despite uncertainties.

 

That might be true on an overt behavioural level, but unless a person is really accomplished in internal arts, it is not likely to be true on a physiological level. 

[Limahong]

30 minutes ago, Cleansox said:

That might be true on an overt behavioural level, but unless a person is really accomplished in internal arts, it is not likely to be true on a physiological level. 

 

I am just an Average Joe trying his best.

 

 

[neti neti]

12 hours ago, Limahong said:

 

Good morning neti2,

 

No thank you.

 

I have to attend a meeting and it is necessary  for me to think on my feet.

 

I cannot afford to be dull.

 

- Anand

 

 

 

Excellent, you've met yourself, and attended to the tapdance of spontaneity.

 

I only pray you become dull enough to afford yourself some modesty, since all your multitasking is on autopilot. 

 

Do you need to think to move your feet ?

 

 

 

Edited August 25, 2020 by neti neti

[Limahong]

7 minutes ago, neti neti said:

Do you need to think to move your feet ?

 

I have two left feet.

 

 

[neti neti]

1 minute ago, Limahong said:

 

I have two left feet.

 

 

 

Lol, well at least you're blessed with rhythm!

[Apech]

My request for no gifs and vids seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

[Apech]

5 hours ago, idiot_stimpy said:

A 'thought' can be an Angel or a Demon. It can be your greatest oppressor or your greatest liberator. 

 

This is very important in my opinion.  So thank you for this comment.

 

It is part of the general denigration of the mind - and its creations, ideas, concepts and so on which leads to our misunderstanding of the necessity of thought.

[Apech]

11 hours ago, Bindi said:

“Neuroscientists can read brain activity to predict decisions 11 seconds before people act” - https://qz.com/1569158/neuroscientists-read-unconscious-brain-activity-to-predict-decisions/

 

  Reveal hidden contents

“We believe that when we are faced with the choice between two or more options of what to think about, non-conscious traces of the thoughts are there already, a bit like unconscious hallucinations,” he said in a statement. “As the decision of what to think about is made, executive areas of the brain choose the thought-trace which is stronger. In, other words, if any pre-existing brain activity matches one of your choices, then your brain will be more likely to pick that option as it gets boosted by the pre-existing brain activity.”

 

If decisions are being made subconsciously, based on thoughts from past emotional and mental input as well as present circumstances, then this is the level which we need to be operating smoothly at, and the level that I am primarily interested in, as opposed to trying to manipulate the conscious mind.
 

Perhaps the conscious mind is the mind that need merely witness the result of the interaction between unconscious thought and it’s resulting activity. If the conscious mind is unhappy with any result it witnesses, it can be merely an indication that the subconscious process needs attention, especially relating to previous dysfunctional emotional and mental complexes that are priming decisions and resultant actions. 
 

This is a similar position to the Neiye’s imperative to ‘Cleanse the heart-mind’ as a fundamental aspect of early Daoism - 

There is a numinous [mind] naturally residing within;
One moment it goes, the next it comes,
And no one is able to conceive of it.
If you lose it you are inevitably disordered;
If you attain it you are inevitably well ordered.
Diligently clean out its lodging place
And its vital essence will naturally arrive.
 

This sentiment is also echoed in the early neidan text of the yellow court with -
“Straighten the room in the middle so spirit would live within, 

Cleanse the heart-mind so it would be inclined to self-healing rather than self-intoxicating.” 
 

 

 

 

 

Maybe we could say that we encompass the conscious and the unconscious, it just being that certain activities are in the circle of our direct attention and others are not.  Perhaps 'unconscious' is a poor term for it - maybe superconscious - as in that part of us which is beyond the circle of our direct attention?  Ideas may inhabit this bigger space but communicate through dreams and so on.

 

 

[Daemon]

16 minutes ago, Apech said:

My request for no gifs and vids seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

 

The software ignore function is useful for decluttering threads.

 

☮️

 

[Apech]

4 minutes ago, Daemon said:

 

The software ignore function is useful for decluttering threads.

 

☮️

 

 

I'm looking for something for decluttering heads.

[Cleansox]

No hammers allowed. 

[Limahong]

26 minutes ago, Cleansox said:

No hammers allowed.

 

Hi Cleansox,

 

No hammer needed.

 

A kind soul had hidden the "Yoga dancing has no music" gif for me.

 

Thank you kind soul.

 

- Anand

 

[manitou]

If time is truly not linear, then the thought and the action are actually taking place at the same time.

[silent thunder]

34 minutes ago, manitou said:

If time is truly not linear, then the thought and the action are actually taking place at the same time.

yup.

 

It seems the apparatus through which I experience time (memory and awareness of change), seems linear in how it processes through awareness but that is the illusory aspect of my perceptual process.

 

The apparatus of my perception of time, (as i interpret it lately) is not like a lense through which I see the actual, but a resistor, that dampens out enough of the reality that my tiny local awareness can deal with the remainder in a functional manner, which comes through as time leading from the past toward the future...

 

when there is always only the current unfolding.

 

such a delicious paradox.

[Bindi]

We have two styles of processing information, one is linear and ‘left’ brain (yang), one is global and ‘right’ brain (yin).  Both are processing styles, so both are illusory aspects of our perceptual processes. 
 

I think we shift between the two regularly and seamlessly, at least ideally we do, and to favour one style over the other is to favour yin over yang or yang over yin, instead of respecting the whole that they create. 
 

There is something beyond these two poles. 
 

 

 

Edited August 26, 2020 by Bindi

[Daemon]

22 hours ago, Apech said:

 

I'm looking for something for decluttering heads.

 

I can only suggest that turning away from abstract thinking and towards practical thinking is the only practice that works in that regard. The mind works by cutting things ínto digestible chunks, which is why it is sometimes symbolised by swords, so attempting to use it the other way around often causes it to get bogged down in circularities.

 

☮️

 

[Limahong]

1 hour ago, Daemon said:

I can only suggest that turning away from abstract thinking and towards practical thinking is the only practice that works in that regard. The mind works by cutting things ínto digestible chunks, which is why it is sometimes symbolised by swords, so attempting to use it the other way around often causes it to get bogged down in circularities.

 

... and ends up splitting hairs?