On Thu, 26 May 2005, Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: > Having experienced dissociated/detached states involuntarily on a > handful of occasions some years back, I find it hard to conceive of > anyone intentionally attempting to get into such a state --
As I understand, it's the goal of meditation. > it wasn't something I wanted to repeat. Whoever was "at the wheel" at > that time never said or did anything unexpected but I always had the > feeling that he might. That's a big issue. We've all been taught to distrust the "huge silent thing" we all have inside. Various strains of eastern religion have an answer to the question "what is consciousness?" Answer: consciousness is a meme, a symbiote, a sort of "rider" which increasingly dominates our minds as children, until eventually it takes over entirely and we mistake it for our true selves, as if we give up on the real world and instead live in an illusory one, as if we mistake the parasite for the host. Remember the words commonly used by meditation practitioners: their methods involve striving for mental states where "the mind is silent." Or where "the illusory world falls away." In martial arts training you're apparently supposed to act directly without having first to think... where it wasn't "you" who blocked a kick or analyzed an opponent and designed an entire complicated response, it was "the driver." But all this is another way of saying that Zen practitioners, etc., want to "murder their conscious selves" and be permanently transformed into a pure and raw unconsiousness which can deal with the world directly without having to think first. Yet anyone who succeeds will seem like some sort of Moonie, like an empty-eyed cult member. > The tricky part, of course, is getting back out of such a state! Eh, I dunno. Our normal conscious selves fight fiercely for existence. Turning off your "self" is sort of like going on a fast, or like holding your breath: with practice you can do it for much longer than everyone else, but the practice also teaches you to switch back and forth. Yet there is a sort of danger, because you'd tend to increasingly see your "self" as an interloper; as a mask to be worn only in public for the benefit of others. On the other hand, if "self-death" happened spontaneously without warning, it would be terrifying. I bet that all the highly sought mental skills in martial arts, and Zen, and Yogis in India, can happen to us effortlessly and unexpectedly, but in that case we call them "insanity." (((((((((((((((((( ( ( ( ( (O) ) ) ) ) ))))))))))))))))))) William J. Beaty SCIENCE HOBBYIST website billb at amasci com http://amasci.com EE/programmer/sci-exhibits amateur science, hobby projects, sci fair Seattle, WA 206-789-0775 unusual phenomena, tesla coils, weird sci
