Is your form of scientific materialism in opposition to a study of meditation?

Question

One form of scientific materialism is that matter is the essence of existence. In that view, we study matter because we study what is real, not imaginary things. This view is not in opposition to the study of meditation because our thoughts, our mind, etc. are just an expression of the essence of existence, whether we call it matter is irrelevant.

However, a stronger form of scientific materialism insist that our thoughts and our mind cannot *through meditation* participate in new fundamental laws like the ones we have in chemistry, biology, etc. In this view, the study of the mind and thoughts is only valid as long we separate it from the teaching of meditation.

Not all meditations are equivalent. Some forms of meditation has been shown to have *systematic* effects on our body and on our environment. The challenge is that we can't separate a meditation from its teaching : one is the result of the other. Usually, the teaching is provided by an independent organization.

nondescript: I gave you a thumb up even though you did not really answer the question.

I Work For Jesus Online Everyday: I think you answered another question.

skeptic: But "transcendence" is just a name that we give to a well documented experience with specific brain patterns and other physiological correlates.

Answer 1

well, meditation generally is a technique, an exercise for the mind. pretty similar to say solving sums or reading a book. new experience has effect on the practitioner and changes the practitioner sometimes like changes the world around. as sums have target to learn about calculations, the meditation is a method for knowing oneself, one's mind.

now, what is mind. there is no a generally accepted answer for this. so, we need to judge from an experiment. we can tell, that the mind is what enables us to speak of materialism, to comprehend it. in other words, to perceive the concept and provide output on it. hence, in this particular application we can judge our mind to be a tool for measuring and providing output for particular object - the concept. being a tool, mind might err due to inaccuracy of measurements or interpretation of the results. therefore, to provide accurate output, we need 2 things:
1. learn nature and qualities of the tool we use.
2. based on the above, design ways of improving measurements accuracy and better result interpretation.

now, where this all is going. meditation, being an exercise to study the instrument, therefore is a method of scientific materialism research, namely a calibration of a tool used in every application of materialism. for this matter, you might call buddists devoted materialists you see :)

buddhist doctrine is logic alone you see, which drives to materialism, atheism and meditation, as one of many practices for calibrating the main tool used for studying - the mind.

an interesting question by the way, though likely most will find it tricky. why do you ask?

good luck yo you.
Mickael

Answer 2

I would have to take the position somewhere between the two sides you've presented. Surely, science can study meditation. It has been done with brain imaging.

However, the ideas of "transcendence" are still a bit out of reach of the scientific method.

Cognitive science is developing at an incredible rate these last two decades. I hope that within my lifetime I will be able to look in to these issues through the scientific lens.



EDIT: I agree. I think we have shown it to be largely a result of the "shutting down" of the anterior-posterior parietal lobe of the brain (that orients us in space and time). I just mean to say that we can't deduce much more from it than that. I hope we will be able to someday, but for now it is just the result of that area of the brain shutting down.

I have to go to work now. I will check back for your comments later today.

Answer 3

I can't wait until the real proof of evolution comes out so we can rEAlly have a laugh poking at all you monkeys...
Happy Evolution Day, for it is the day that man evolved from a pile of rat dung.... I sure am glad that monkey decided to eat those nuts else the chemical reaction would have never taken place. WOW! What a world! Praise banannas!

Answer 4

Meditation is a nice way to relax.