--- In [email protected], new.morning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "sparaig" <sparaig@> wrote: > > > > --- In [email protected], new.morning <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > > > i posted this original post as a joke. But with a serious point. > > > Something Barry touched on earlier. We take target or desired > > > physiological parameters as a given -- with scant > > > justification -- though admittedly often with basic common > > > sense. > > > > > > Just because brain waves become coherent, or "low-S values" > > > seem like a good thing, how do we know without really digging > > > into the research literature. Epileptics have coherent brain > > > wave patterns, and neurotically disturbed patients have low S- > > > values. So why should coherent brain waves and low S-values, or > > > any physiological value necessarily be "good", always, on an a > > > priori basis. ? And "good for everyone"? > > > > The kind of EEG coherence found during TM is most obviously found > > in people who report periods of transcendence during TM. > > > > IS this a good thing, or a bad thing, or just a thing? > > It may be a good thing. > > But PDA (playing davils' advocate), why are self-reports of > "transcendence" necessarily a good thing? maybe its a real > experience, maybe a repsonse the subject knows the researchers > want. Maybe its ull transscendence, maybe its not. Its somsething > the subject interprets as transcendence. Maybe they have a clear > interpretation, maybe not. Maybe this type of transcendence is > good, maybe its not. > > It CAN all becomes a self-fulfilling tautology: This coherence is > GOOD because it correlates with "self-reported transendence". But > "self-reported transendence" is GOOD because it correlates with this > type of coherence.
There's a third "leg" to this, however, which is the descriptions of the experience of transcendence throughout history and across cultures, which have been virtually universally characterized as positive, and which are very frequently associated with a meditation practice. It's *possible* that the experience TMers call "transcendence," which has been found to be highly correlated to a specific neurophysiological signature (including EEG)--so it's not just a response the subject knows the researchers want--is a completely different experience, even though the TMers describe it using terms that are strikingly similar to those used in these historical reports, and even though the meditators virtually universally characterize it as positive, as do the historical reports (and the TMers' impression that it is positive is backed up by other studies of the results of the practice). But at a certain point, Occam's razor comes into play; the "different experience" premise may "multiply entities beyond necessity." The explanation that the TMers are experiencing the same thing as what is reported in the historical literature is simpler than one that posits two completely different types of experience that are described the same way. > Remeber I said "We take target or desired > physiological parameters as a given -- with scant justification -- > though admittedly often with basic common sense." In this case, I'd suggest that "basic common sense" is equivalent to Occam's razor. > I am not arguing against common sense. I am advocating celebrating > when some REAL GOOD is found via a practice, not some intermediary, > tautological "marker". EEG coherence isn't tautological given the third "leg" of the historical reports. If you think about it, the same applies to studies of dreaming. Objectively, there's no way to prove that sleeping people who exhibit a particular neurophysiological signature and, when awakened, report that they were dreaming, have actually been dreaming. But it wouldn't occur to anybody to suggest that the subject is just telling the researchers what they want to hear, or that perhaps the subject is having some other experience that they're mistaking for dreaming. The only real difference is that the vast majority of human beings report that they dream, whereas that is not the case with transcendence. But the Occam's razor principle applies in both cases. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Check out the new improvements in Yahoo! Groups email. http://us.click.yahoo.com/6pRQfA/fOaOAA/yQLSAA/UlWolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
