DavidM comments on Meditation, insight, and rationality. (Part 2 of 3) - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (186)
Today may be the day that you learn that your mind works in a very uncommon way.
What is your probability estimate that a LW reader would have a similar experience to yours, just from reading what I wrote or something like it, in a non-contrived situation?
Before I agree or disagree, why do you think so? Biases have different origins, and something that may improve some may not improve others.
(Parenthetically, the relationship between rationality and Asch's experiment is not as straightforward as you seem to think.)
Erm, it's not that I just read the sentence "feel X" and feel it. It's that I looked away from the computer and spent half a minute putting myself into a quite contrived situation. The best category would probably be self-hypnosis - and most people are hypnotizable. I have an advantage of having this skill in a sort of rudimentary way because my dad did stuff like this for a while (he was a social worker). I'm not sure how effectively I could communicate it to other people, but looking at self-hypnosis literature would probably give a good idea of the upper bound.
Because peer pressure, the urge to conform, seems like a direct product of unnecessary attachment to the world, which seems like something meditation with a Buddhist heritage is focused on reducing.
OK. I think I misunderstood you here and also at some points in the past (including your original response).
However, in relation to my claims about enlightenment and bias, you said:
I described what this style of meditation is focused on achieving rather explicitly. "Attachment to the world" is not anything I wrote, but is something you are imputing to me because it's associated with Buddhism. I don't think you've read what I've written very thoroughly, and for some reason are trying to respond to it anyway. If you want to continue this discussion, I request that you re-read my post first, and then re-state any comments or criticism.
See here. I read not only this post, but the last one too!
Also, I read the following:
So I'll not make any more claims about attachment. Would you apply similar "don't test" restrictions to "craving" and "hatred," which you also mentioned in part 1?
I used the word "attachment" without explaining it. "Attachment to the world" I've never written, though phrases like that appear constantly in Buddhist literature and are often taught as central to it (as you seem well aware of, given your use of the phrase "Buddhist heritage" in relation to this discussion).
About these terms, I seem to be having enough trouble getting across the basics, so I think triage is in order.