Feeling religiously special can be enjoyable, but it's dangerous

Before I criticize a comment on a recent blog post by Spence Tepper, a frequenter commenter on this blog, I want to start off on a warmer note.

I've never met Tepper in person, but I like him through his words. He's intelligent, a good writer, and often makes a good case for his beliefs -- which are more sympathetic toward the supernatural and mystical experience than my own, but since I used to believe in much the same way he does, I understand where he is coming from.

It's good to have a mixture of religious believers and religious skeptics commenting on this blog. Definitely makes for more entertaining comment discussions than if everyone had the same views. 

So when I criticize Tepper's perspective on how the brain works, I'm not judging him. As I often note on this blog, if people who embrace God and supernatural entities simply said, "This is what I believe," I'd have little or no problem with that, since I used to believe the same thing.

But when statements of facts are made without evidence to make them up, or when someone changes the subject when they're pressed to provide evidence about an assertion about our shared objective reality (as opposed to their personal subjective reality), then I feel a duty to challenge that person.

Here's what Tepper said that kicked off what I view as a defense of objective truth as currently understood by modern neuroscience.

And if we can go to that place of awareness within ourselves free of filters, a place where filtering and conceptual reconstruction do not function, who knows what we may experience? Maybe God? But no label would work there. Maybe reality directly. Maybe pure experience of the moment. Maybe the moment is eternity.

Those four "maybe's" don't bother me much. What caught my eye was the first sentence, an assertion that awareness can be free of filters and concepts. This simply isn't true. Again, using "true" as meaning the best understanding of neuroscience at this moment in 2023.

Andy Clark, a highly experienced and respected professor of cognitive philosophy puts it this way in his book, The Experience Machine, which I've been writing posts about recently. Clark buttresses his 228 page book with many references to neuroscientific research.

What we see, hear, and feel -- even when everything is working exactly as it should -- is never a direct reflection of the state of our own body or the wider world. Instead, the world and body we experience is always part construct: a product of your conscious and nonconscious predictions.

So there's no doubt that Spence Tepper was wrong when he claimed that awareness can be free of filters and concepts. But you might be thinking, what's the big deal with him being wrong? Here's my answer.

Tepper shared some later comments about how meditation changes the brain. Sure, it does. But neither meditation nor any other sort of spiritual practice can completely change the nature of the brain. Every experience changes the brain, not just meditation. Yet Tepper is claiming a sort of special superiority in religious experience that I find very troubling. That attitude leads to dogma and prejudice.

There's a real danger when people believe they have a special relationship with reality or God that other people lack. That's what Tepper was promulgating, and I consider that this goes against the laudable belief in equality that should be the hallmark of human culture.

By "equality," I mean that without exception, each of the eight billion humans has the same basic constituents of life. Yes, our bodies and brains differ. Some people have highly functioning brains and bodies; other people have problems with how their brain or body functions.

But we don't think that Albert Einstein had a completely different brain than anyone else. Nor do we think that a highly skilled runner who can complete a marathon in record-breaking time has a completely different body than anyone else.

And unless we're deeply infected with a religion virus, we don't assume that some people have an extra supernatural addition to their being that allows them to perceive reality from a higher perspective that us ordinary people lack.

Yet that's what Spence Tepper was assuming, apparently about himself, when he said that awareness can function without filters or concepts, and that maybe, just maybe, this special capacity allows someone with that sort of awareness to know God.

Let's consider how unlikely this is.

For in order what Tepper said to be true, the foundations of modern science would need to be overthrown. Given what neuroscience understands about experience always, not sometimes, being filtered through a mesh of our past experiences and present predictions, pure awareness of the sort claimed by Tepper would have to be supernatural, non-physical. 

And there's simply no evidence of this. Sure, there's lots of talk about consciousness being separable from the body and brain, but no proof of this.

Lastly, it is false that meditation or any other practice can prevent nonconscious influences from affecting how we perceive the world, even if it is possible to become more aware of conscious influences. Clark writes:

Expectations, many of them unconscious, are always at work as our brains construct our experiences. Such effects are inevitable and can be extremely helpful. 

This is obvious. What kind of life would we have if all we possessed was the sort of unfiltered non-conceptual awareness that Tepper not only wrongly believes exists, but is desirable? 

You wouldn't recognize a loved one, because you'd have no concept of "this is my spouse" (or child, or friend, or whoever). You wouldn't be able to drive a car or use any sort of device, because you'd have no concept of what it was for or how it worked. You wouldn't have any sense of the past or future, since those require memory or anticipation, both of which involve concepts.

But religious believers don't think much about the implications of their crazy beliefs. Because those beliefs cause them to feel special, and superior to the poor unenlightened humans lacking their divinely inspired understanding, religions prosper by setting themselves up as places where ordinary people are transformed into Very Special People.

This isn't all that different from forms of prejudice that we're all familiar with. Which is why religiosity is so dangerous. Instead of embracing the truth that all humans are part of the same Homo sapiens family, faiths founded on supernatural myths foster division in much the same way that African-Americans have been viewed as inferior.

Whenever certain types of people are viewed as inherently different than other types, prejudice and discrimination have a fertile field to grow in. That's why I feel so strongly that religious beliefs which assume some humans have a special relationship with God or the supernatural, while other humans don't, are so dangerous.

Bluntly put, I don't see myself as anything special, because that's the truth. Spence Tepper does see himself as possessing special mystical knowledge, and almost certainly that isn't true. Again, I don't think Tepper is a bad person for feeling this way. I used to feel that way myself.

I just view Tepper as having bought into a perspective where he, and I gather others like him, have a superior way of knowing that's off limits to the rest of us. But maybe I'm wrong about this.

I'll change my mind if Tepper states that his brain and awareness are just like everybody else's: imperfect ways of understanding reality that nonetheless do a pretty damn good job of letting us live life pleasantly most of the time without anything supernatural about them.

Comments

[um]

There is Einstein, with his vision of relativity.in his head.
There are the composers with the music in their heads.
There are the painters with their images in their heads
There are the mystics with their experiences in their heads
There are the the users of LSD etc with their experiences in their heads.

They do not need anybody to digest what they have in their heads

Unless ....

Unless they want to share what they have in mind, with others/ or others want to know what they have in mind

Einstein had to come up with a formula that could be used as "the finger pointing to the moon, by others capable of seeing the moon.He didn't need the famous formula.. He did not have the vision after developing the formula but before.Being well trained in formal mathematics he worked hard and developed that formula in order to communicate with his colleagues about his vision, his understanding, his experience.

The painter has to paint on the canvas. What he paints on the canvas is NOT what he had in mind, it is the finger pointing at the moon.

The composer, has to write down a composition so that an orchestra might be able to make kind of replica what he had in mind, the performance of the orchestra under an conductor, is NOT the real thing.

The writer has to write a book, to convey what he had in mind, but what he writes down is not the real thing

The poet, writes a poem, but it just vaguely hints at what is going on in him.

The mystic might write poems or otherwise express himself, what he writes or other wise uses as expression, is just an finger pointing at the moon, at an experience, pointing at an possibility, and invitation at best.

So what is this all about??

There is the something in the mind of a person, the expression of that something and how that expression is handled by the community.

In short there are just a few that use the expression as a hint, a finger pointing at something to be experienced in the mind. They are the ones that understand that the finger is NOT the moon.

The rest do take the expression in the 3D as the experience itself and as they understand differently they will argue and fight about the so called truth and demanding proof. ...

When people love one another, as parents and children, as partners in a marriage etc. That love is always there 24/7 and can be felt, there is no need to use flowers or poems etc to express it. If these things are needed, there is either no love or the people concerned are not sensitive enough. But the flowers given can never replace the real thing, nor being a proof of love as those that do love can use flowers as a token of their love, but it should be clear that not all that present flowers to another do love ... hahaha ... it reminds me of a story of Rumi where a lover seated on the bed of his beloved reads her a love letter. ... hahaha

and .. if it is all in and by the brain and we are all equal ... scientists have a nice job in finding out why love, faith, imagination, hope and all these many movements of the mind are diveded among humans in a gauss curve. Why some are the embodiment of love and others knoow only how to write the word.

The worst that a person with great material, mental or spiritual wealth can befall, is that he is praised for it as it creates an barrier between him and his fellow human beings in sharing that wealth. and worst it creates powers of greed, etc.

Nobody can put himself on a pedestal or lift himself on the shield unless he does so with great power as can be seen in totalitarian regimes. Otherwise people are PUT on the pedestal and THAT is done by others for THEIR reasons and he or she that is put on the pedestall has NO say in the matter. Have a look in the world of music and see what the power of fans does with this or that musician.

In short....
There are those that HAVE
and ...
There are "THE HAVE-NOTS"

If what is HAD is not shared or kept hidden, a whole set of psychological mechanisms start to become alive ... some positive, some negative.

The workings of these mechanisms can be found as recorded in human history

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Brian
I apologize, but I didn't catch all the auto spell errors. See the corrected and revised version here :

Hi Brian
I actually really like what you wrote and agree with much of it.

I'm not sure I have anything more to add except maybe ten small points.

1. The human brain has capacities we don't fully understand and which science hasn't yet fully explored. But what science has confirmed is that deep meditation actually improves our ability to think clearly, cognitive functioning, the health of the brain, and its physical structure.

2. My comments referred to developing those capacities, in every brain, through meditation, so that our cognition improves and we see things without the influence of the filters you wrote about. There is a place within where that is possible.

3. This isn't entirely different from retrospection and introspection, where we try to view events from a more objective, calm perspective. However, in that effort to look back and examine from our thinking today, we are labeling again what we recall, attempting to conceptualize the experience. And so filtering and reconstruction still takes place.

4. Meditation uses a different set of processes. The proof of this is that the scientific effects of meditation are entirely different from thinking activity. There is no duplicate for the effects of deep meditation in terms of its effect on the brain.

5. In contrast to deep meditation, all thinking represents the product of all those filters that erase information away from our conscious viewpoint, and add reconstructions to it. That would include religious thinking, political thinking, even scientific thinking, etc. Things which may have no objective reality, or which may, but we only perceive after much filtering and reconstruction. What was removed? What was added that isn't actually real?

6. Religious, scientific and other conceptual beliefs that result in the practice of faith, prayer or meditation serve the purpose of getting us to thus practice. Many of these practices are in the form of internal worship upon an ideal, a Beloved, a version of God. And that worship, upon the ideal, loving the ideal continuously, does amazing things, very healthy things to the human brain.

7. I pointed out earlier that culture bound religious concepts only serve the purpose of practice. When they are used to judge the world, judge those who believe differently than we do, they are taken out of context and form prejudice. The very system of belief encouraging open observation, exploration and discovery by an individual becomes the basis of the opposite: dismissing what we don't understand, or worse, attempting to censure it or others.

8. Unlike thinking, meditation practice immediately turns off the outside noise and is an effort to reduce intrusive thoughts, the inside noise, by sitting in a quiet place attempting to focus on something pleasant. But, as the filters calm down, that only ramps up our sensitivity to the background stream-of-consciousness thoughts, which affected us but which we didn't see before. Now, as we calm down, we also see thoughts we hadn't seen before. They were there, they effected us, but we didn't see them nor understand their effect on us.

9. Continued practice triggers the relaxation response and those thoughts begin to fade away.

10. Our conscious awareness remains, if we are disciplined in continuing our practice, and we become aware of other experiences : these have nothing to do with thinking. They are direct perceptions. Thoughts are on a completely separate track, derivative, and we can view them or not as we wish from an independent locus, separate from those thoughts and thus the filters that generated them.

[um]

Reading the words on meditation I was reminded of a couple of things that for one reason or another seem to be related.

[1] As a kid, I found out that listening to the monotonous sounds of a air-compressor in the cellar of our shop, made me slip into a state different than the other states I knew of. I never had the urge to give it a name even until to day.
It didn't work all the time and i remember that the listening was always preceded by a spontaneous urge to go to the cellar. I would take a blanket with me and found myself a comfortable plave on empty sacks., soon to be drawn into the sound. Th.e next step was hearing very melodious harmonies on what i called the rim of the sound. Soon goosebumps would form and shiver of cold through the body ..reason to bring a blanket along, then I would lose consiousness. After a while, I would regain consciousness and had a feeling of being rejuvenated in body and mind.
Why do I want to bring it up?
It is because of the "feelings" I had afterwards of the period that I was unconscious. It reminded me of a kind of darkness not to be seen with the eyes and of the clearness of water in small country flows.

[2] As an example of what mystics have to say in regard to so called "Inner experiences" I would point at St John of the Cross, he states that the lord if he wishes, does touch a person in darkness and that unfortunately for some this divine touch goes with all sorts of "strange" experience, experience which are said by St. John NOT the real touch, experiences that if attached to open a door for other phenomena.

[3] There are thousands upon thousands of people that meditate in one way or another everyday, and for a long period of time, without witnessing any thing at all. The same is heard from people living in a secluded monastic order that have prayed all their days for years at a stretch without having had and experience of the god or other divine person they pray to have answered their prayers.

[ 4] I had also an experience long a go, which I do not want to describe in great detail, where i found myself all of a sudden without a body in an immense luminous darkness where i was aware, of being something of a point less than that of an needle, having awareness 360 degrees, where there was NOTHING ... NO thing that is normally to be found in the awareness, It was devoid of all these things. One could call it emptiness. In that state, there are no thoughts about that state, they just come later as the experience nakes a shadow on the mind. The description of that shadow is not the real thing.

What is the point?

Well in one way or another, the emptying of the conscious, spontaneous or artificial provoked has an impact on the whole system. To describe the impact might not be that simple if at all.

I do understand that those who have found their way into these states of emptiness , do like to return to it as often as possible.

I also understand, that the narrative used to give these experiences a name an a form can easily become an help as well as an great obstacle

And not to forget that all the techniques that have been developed are not delivering quick results and are not suited for each and everyone in each and every circumstance of life.

Maybe, one day humans will find an "correct" description of that emptiness and how it affects the human brain etc. .. it is rejuvenating ... that for sure.

Finally both scientific and religious efforts to lay their hands on this phenomena is, and that is jus my personal feeling, almost a garantee to have it slip through ones hands.

It draws the attention outward it is the sheer opposite of INVITATION to experience.
Those that experience know and have no desire whatsoever to share what cannot be shared as there is nothing of this world in that emptiness of the world. Words have their roots in this world and for that reason are like the opposite magnets .. they push you away.

Words are only of serve to deliver the invitation ... foor the treasure hunt

Hahahaha

[AA]

Anyone can tell the benefits of meditation. Nowadays every spiritual saint is telling the benefits of meditation on youtube channel. Science has also told about the benefits of meditation.

The question is not what are the benefits of meditation, the real question is whether God can be experienced through meditation?
There is a general belief in India that the sages who were in ancient times had experienced God through meditation. And this is the only way to know God.

Today's modern saints say that God cannot be known objectively. Meditation is necessary to know God. Modern saints say that you cannot prove God in the same way as science proves facts objectively. According to them it is an experience that you have to do on your own.

The question is still the same " can we experience god through meditation"

[um]

@AA

The first question YOU have to answer for yourself is:

"What is your CONCEPT of God"?

The saint after having an experience named it GOD as the cannot show it to them. They are forced to use human concepts, concepts are rooted in this world.

Imagine an member of this or that indigenous tribe that comes to visit your country. At home he is asked to share what he has experienced. To make himself understood to his tribesmen he is forced to use their traditional language, a language that has no concepts relate to the modern world ...how would he explain say something trivial as watching tv??
His tribes men on hearing what he has to say, at best can have an idea that there is something out there they have never witnessed, and some will have the desire to witness it too.

as simple as that.

[Spence Tepper]

The question of whether God exists may be irrelevant even to the true believer. They already know that if God does exist they are beyond comprehension and examination.

But belief in God, faith in God does exist and the Practice of faith in God has been shown to be extremely healthy, with one caveat. Even the practitioner claims they don't know. They have and practice their faith.

Similar practices of mindfulness, where the object is our own breathing, or some imagined vista, or some ideal trigger similar mechanisms.

The journey isn't to find God. No evidence on earth exists for that.

But the journey to find your faith and Practice is a very real journey and both science and testimony demonstrate the positive results.

[AA]

Concept of god is very subjective. Which is the very personal experience of a person. Every person's personal experience of God can be different, experiencing God through meditation is such a subjective experience that cannot be tested. It is like a dream. It is similar to how a person tells about his dream to someone else. He exaggerates about his dream and we have no means to verify it.
Asking someone what is your concept of God? This is a question to which it is impossible to know the correct answer. Because we cannot check that answer by any mean.

[um]

@ AA

You can give an simple answer to a simple question.
What AA is YOUR concept of God?

I am forced to take you on your word.
Why AA?
At the age of 3, grandma, may she have eternal peace, used to tell me again and again:
Liitle fellow, you can see the heads, skulls of people you can never see inside.

If you are married or have an partner and one of them says "I love you" what you have is their words.... you have to trust them.

And that is what you do whole day AA, trusting and believing others on their WORDS.

I never asked a person to prove anything,
I lean on my own understanding, feelings intuition etc
I have never asked anybody in life an proof of their feelings towards me.
And ... I will never do so
I am more than enough able to take personal responsibility.
I never asked a guru to prove anything.
Why.
Because I know that he cannot and if he could he would not.
It is up to me if I want to listen to him or not.
It is his prerogative to speak and mine to heed his words as I deem fit.

[Appreciative Reader]

Hey, Spence.

Not to interject myself in in this discussion between Brian and you, beyond this one single comment, in order to note, in context of what you'd said in your comment:

"1. The human brain has capacities we don't fully understand and which science hasn't yet fully explored. But what science has confirmed is that deep meditation actually improves our ability to think clearly, cognitive functioning, the health of the brain, and its physical structure."

..........Which has nothing at all to do with meditation enabling you to bypass the cognitive functions of the brain, and to experience reality directly, which is what you'd said in your comment. You're simply changing the subject here.

"2. My comments referred to developing those capacities, in every brain, through meditation, so that our cognition improves and we see things without the influence of the filters you wrote about. There is a place within where that is possible."

..........Yep, that is the claim that you're being called on to substantiate, if you can. You're merely repeating it now, not actually substantiating it. I mean, obviously, your claim that in meditation we can "see things without the influence of (mental) filters, the whole cognitive model-building thing".

"3. This isn't entirely different from retrospection and introspection, where we try to view events from a more objective, calm perspective. However, in that effort to look back and examine from our thinking today, we are labeling again what we recall, attempting to conceptualize the experience. And so filtering and reconstruction still takes place."

..........Meditation enabling us to experience reality directly, beyond the filters of the brain, beyond conceptual model-building, is VERY different from retrospection and introspection, and the rest of it. Again, not entirely without some tenuous connection, but not the same thing, not by any stretch.

"4. Meditation uses a different set of processes. The proof of this is that the scientific effects of meditation are entirely different from thinking activity. There is no duplicate for the effects of deep meditation in terms of its effect on the brain."

.........While (arguably) true enough, but again, that has nothing to do with the meditation enabling us to experience reality directly.

"5. In contrast to deep meditation, all thinking represents the product of all those filters that erase information away from our conscious viewpoint, and add reconstructions to it. That would include religious thinking, political thinking, even scientific thinking, etc. Things which may have no objective reality, or which may, but we only perceive after much filtering and reconstruction. What was removed? What was added that isn't actually real?"

.........One more time, you repeat the claim that "in deep meditation", we're without "those filters that erase information away from our conscious viewpoint, and add reconstructions to it". That's a super extravagant claim, with zero objective validation. Brian's right to flag this.

I know, many religious traditions make that claim. Including Zen. Their making this claim does not make it true. (Nor does it make it false, to pre-empt that obvious objection. But we both know how science works, and have discussed this to death, and probably don't need to retread old ground.)

THIS IS THE ISSUE. THIS, AND THIS ALONE. YOUR CLAIM THAT MEDITATION ENABLES US TO EXPERIENCE REALITY DIRECTLY, AND WITHOUT THE FILTERS AND COGNITIVE MODEL-BUILDING AND ALL OF THAT. And that is the claim that you're now called on to substantiate, if you can.

If left unsubstantiated, then all it is is a tall tale. No different than the Christian making weirdo claims about his faith, or even his purported experience; or Advaita types doing that; or Muslims doing that; or Tibetan and Indian Tantric yogis claiming to all kinds of extravagant supernatural superpowers or "siddhis";
and indeed no different than those blindly subscribing to the tenets of any religion making extravagant and unsupported claims peculiar to their tradition.

------------------

I started out copying the rest of your points, but there's no need to, really. I'm only going to be writing this one single comment here, and that only to point out that what I've said just now, in CAPS. That is the main thing that has been flagged here. And that is only thing that is worth discussing, really, as far as Brian's flagging of it. Your claim --- your unsupported claim, unless you're able to support it now --- that meditation lets us experience reality directly, and to bypass the cognitive filters, and somehow bypass the mental model-building thing through which we apprehend reality only indirectly.

If you're able to actually provided objective support for this, then I'm all ears.

...Carry on, then. Sorry for poking my head in. Over and out.

[AA]

Spirituality is a belief system, science is based on facts. Faith and science cannot go together. How believing in God could be healthier.? In many researches, it has been found that people who have great faith in God are found to be psychopaths.

[Appreciative Reader]

Sorry, what I just wrote was an unnecessarily long comment. Let me simply present this TLDR version.

You've made this extravagant claim, Spence, that Brian has flagged. The claim is that meditation allows us to bypass the filters of the brian, and bypass the cognitive model-building thing that the brain does, and to apprehend reality directly. And that is the claim that you are now called on to substantiate, if you can.

Should make for very interesting reading, if you're actually able to produce that evidence.

(Without side-stepping, and without changing the subject, and without introducing non sequiturs. Without throwing in a bunch of unrelated stuff to confound the issue, whether deliberately or inadvertently.)

[um]

@ AA

If you go to a certain place on holiday and some one says to you:
"When there , go to this or that place, you will see a beautiful panorama"
It is up to you what you do with the information.
If you want to verify what he says you at least have to go there ... hahaha
He definitely can show it to you.

Everything AA starts and ends with YOU and what YOU will do with your life.
If you are a seeker, you seek.
If you want to find the reasure in life in money you will hear upon an finacial expert.
If you are interested in art, you develop your talent an/or go to places where are its available.
If you love food, you go to a restaurant of your liking.
eytc etc.

It is all up to you, what matters it to you if a person loves greek food and you do not like food in general and not the greek cuisine etc

If a person gets tears to his eyes listening to a particular classic raga, played by a particular musician, what has he to prove to whom?
He does not care he might feel even compassion for those that do not like that type of music or have no access to it.

I know what I like and that is enough for me

[um]

@ AA ... for the record.

Apart from what I write , I have no problem in sympathizing with the feelings of others towards the crimes that are inflicted by human beings in the name of their God, Their religion etc.

A crime is a crime ... but they are committed by humans, and these humans have all sorts of justifications for their acts,.

Humans kill and are killed for the ideologies the carry around with what they identify themselves .. be a flag, democracy or whatever

[SantMat64]

I've been following religious debates for decades, but this wins the prize for the most off the rails essay I've ever read. What a great example of a strawman argument. Again:

1) He provided no evidence that Tepper said he was better than anyone else.
2) He provided no evidence that religious belief leads to societal "inequality."
3) He provided no evidence that religious belief is "dangerous."

This last point is the most important. The author doesn't seem to understand how wrong it is to label people who aren't atheists are "dangerous."

Irony in big neon lights. The author is trying to make the point that "everyone is equal" (whatever that means), but that religious believers are somehow (of course he never precisely spells out how) guilty of societal bigotry. To such a degree that they're actually"dangerous," a danger to other people.

The author states that having religious beliefs "isn't all that different from forms of prejudice that we're all familiar with." If you didn't get the implication, Brian Hines means racism, a la 1930s Germany.

If you have religious beliefs, even the most innocuous such as are espoused by Tepper, you're a dangerous racist -- this is Brian Hine's argument. Presumably, religious belief would be outlawed in his vision of a perfect society. That's real equality folks. Mao style.

[Brian Hines]

Spence, I heartily agree with Appreciative Reader's two comments above. You've talked a lot about the benefits of meditation, but you haven't made any compelling arguments for how those benefits include the brain being able to do away with the filters and concepts that enable awareness and experience. So once again you've ignored a simple question and deflected attention away from what appears to be an indefensible claim that you've made.

You do understand, I hope, that when your brain is sitting in meditation, believing that it is viewing reality directly, without filters or concepts, that this is the brain using filters and concepts. If that wasn't happening, you'd have no ability to recall "Wow, I'm without filters or concepts." Sam Harris has an interesting tale of this sort in his Waking Up book about a woman who believed she had been able to stop her thinking and was telling her meditation teacher this. I'll share an excerpt.

This excerpt follows a description of how, after the woman had claimed her mind was completely still and just pure consciousness, the teacher said they will wait for her to have her next thought, asking her to tell us when you notice a thought in your mind.
------------------------------------------
"Over the next thirty seconds, we watched this woman's enlightenment completely unravel. It became clear that she had been merely thinking about how expansive her experience of consciousness had become -- how it was perfectly free of thought, immaculate, just like space -- without noticing that she was thinking incessantly.

She had been telling herself the story of her enlightenment -- and she had been getting away with it because she happened to be an extraordinarily happy person for whom everything was going well for the time being."
--------------------------------------------
I suspect this is happening with you also, Spence. It's enjoyable to tell ourselves stories about how enlightened we are, then share those stories on, say, a churchless blog, where some people are going to marvel at the stories. But almost certainly you aren't really able to have no filters or concepts in your brain's experience of reality.

You've just added a story about how you are able to do away with filters and concepts to the previous filters and concepts in your brain.

[Brian Hines]

Ooh, regarding my last comment, I almost forgot to quote myself. I said this in my book about Plotinus:
------------------------
The thought "I'm immersed in the void" is five words away from being true.

[um]

Those that suffer the consequences of the activities of others ... those that polute the people and their environment, never openly address the possibility that they are involved./

Instead the always demand ... scientific prove

It seems to me that as soon as people start to demand "scientific" prove there is something wrong , some interest at stake, the fear that they are going to lose something

[SantMat64]

Progressives talk a lot about defending "equality," yet they seem to have little tolerance for anyone that disagrees with their cherished beliefs.

Progressives say they're for free speech, but too often they don't give reasoned arguments for their views. Too often, progressives brutally delegitimize those whom they differ with. That's what we see here, with a mild mannered meditator being castigated by the owner of this blog as being a "dangerous" bigot for (clutch your pearls!) saying that religion may be good for us.

We see precisely that happening in this chapter of Church of the Churchless. Someone here comments that he believes religious practice can be beneficial, and he's accused of holding ideas that are "dangerous," And called a bigot: "isn't all that different from forms of prejudice that we're all familiar with." Well, saying that is certainly a familiar trope of the last century, in which the leaders of serval nations were legitimately dangerous ideologues who didn't tolerate religion.

Spence Tepper deserves an apology for being smeared by the author of this blog. Nothing he's written can fairly be construed as even marginally prejudicial, biased, classist, let alone racist.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Brian
You wrote
"You do understand, I hope, that when your brain is sitting in meditation, believing that it is viewing reality directly, without filters or concepts, that this is the brain using filters and concepts. If that wasn't happening, you'd have no ability to recall "Wow, I'm without filters or concepts."

Yes. Brilliant insight! This is what happens. You have experience but it is often entirely beyond the thinking brain, and so without impression, zero memory. You think you saw nothing. But thinking is the problem. You saw something, you can't think of it.

You'll have to Grok it. Sartori it.

The fact that you can learn to watch your own thoughts indicates an independent channel from those thoughts. Development of that channel opens the door to awareness and impression of what is going on inside you all the time.

What could that be?

[Adam Schiff]

NOTICE TO MR. SPENCER TEPPER.

Mr. Tepper. It has come to our attention that you have been publicly and brazenly advocating for religious belief and meditation. Be advised that the Biden administration as well as the FBI and the Dept. of Homeland Security see you as a danger to the republic. You are hearby directed to immediately desist from any meditation practice. Furthermore, any references you make to an imaginary being will result in charges of hate speech, and possibly insurrection.

[Appreciative Reader]

I'm disappointed, Spence, that you did not try to substantiate your claim; and, failing that, to retract it. Instead you double down with yet another wild unsubstantiated claim.

I know where you're coming from; and you know the personal regard I have for you, basis past interactions; but at this point, this comes across as ...not straight.

You're either fooling yourself, or trying to fool us.

Your refusal to admit the completely unevidenced nature of your beliefs is very disconcerting. Had you owned up to that, I at any rate would have respected that, and nor would that have taken anything away from the value of your subjective experiences, at least in my estimation --- for what that is worth!

[AA]

We experience many things in life, from which we get knowledge. That knowledge helps us to understand this world in a better way.
Suppose we got some experience by meditating, then what is the use of that experience in our daily life? What changed in our life from that experience? Have we been able to solve the knots of life with that experience?
There is no example in history in which a saint has got some experience through meditation, it has helped to solve the unsolved things of this world and that experience has brought change in the lives of people. Not a single saint made any scientific discovery. If saints had gained divine experience through meditation, then it would have been a simple matter for them to solve the riddles of physics. No saint has invented a single formula till date.
There are many such examples in science on the basis of which our ability to understand the world increased and people's lives improved.

[um]

@ AA

That is correct AA.
Meditation as proposed by saints is ...USELESS.

But ...
so is your love for ..xxxxxx

[um]

@ AA

For making the world better you have to direct yourself to those that have an idea about how a better world should look like and the means to do so.

That said AA, just sit down with a history book and find who has been able to eradicate sickness, poverty, and evil doing, from the surface of the earth.

Next, go to the bathroom look in the mirror and ask your self how you made your own life and that of others better.

Nobody was ever able to make this world a better place, nor will there ever be one.
Better said: "Those that came with ideologies to make life and humans better created unimaginable misery and bloodshed ...The totalitarian rulers of this world ... the Mao's. the lenins, the trotzki's the polpot's etc of the world.

In midst of that all it is a great pleasure to be around with a kindhearted, loving person, whoever he is whatever status in life.

[AA]

"So such gold-diggers are now being called kind-hearted". What A Joke

[Spence Tepper]

Hi AR

My earlier response clarified my view as clearly as I can...

Brian had stated...
"You claimed that it is possible to be free of the filters and concepts that, according to modern neuroscience, every human has. Yet you presented no evidence for this claim. Instead, you have shared some later comments about how meditation changes the brain."

Here was my reply...

I see where you are coming from. How can we be free of the same constraints that drive the brain? We can access parts of the brain that are more objective, higher cognitive functioning centers, and help align the rest of the brain, including the lower brain centers, to those. That's what meditation does. Result? We are happy, see a little more clearly, free of the lower brain / lymbic center influences of emotions and old conditioning. Or, more precisely, those influences become part of our conscious awareness within the context of objective view. And so we have more control over them.

The research I sited indicates these regions of the brain gain physical health and function much better with meditation. And we have more control over brain activity through meditation. We also have better cognitive functioning, through internal meditation, which is a good thing for those of us in the aging population.

Meditation is all about putting aside intrusive thoughts. Where are those generated? Some of them are those filters you refer to.

I tried to suggest to you that this process of seeing our own functioning from a different perspective, a different viewpoint, and how it can free us of old thinking, is a natural one we already engage in whenever we look at ourselves or our situation from a different perspective, including retrospection and introspection. All of that is an effort to free ourselves of the intrusion of the autonomic, unconscious train of thought generation: Part of that reality reconstruction the brain does all the time. We don't have to be a willing, mindless participant in that.

In meditation, the process of finding perspective is much more efficient and effective: we move to an entirely different place of view, internally. Meditation is much more efficient in providing that new perspective than simple introspection or learning, Still, it isn't something that is entirely unique to how we function outside of meditation.
I attempted to explain this earlier when I wrote:

"Every day you learn something new you transcend the old, Brian.

"Every day you can look at your own brain's functioning you transcend it's past limitations to some degree."

This was to help you understand that learning and seeing from a new perspective helps free you of your own filters: Just the way Clark did when he changed his viewpoint slightly, and was able to perceive more directly. He could recognize his brain's reconstruction. Same with your example. Once you thought to look again, because something inside you said there was a disconnect, you saw that checks from Umpqua bank were there.

Meditation makes this a much more intentional, purposeful integration. You were able to overcome the unconscious thinking of "where are the Columbia checks" because your brain pushed you to look again. Something wasn't fitting the pattern: perhaps the name Umpqua on the new bank statement connected unconsciously.

You chose, for whatever reason, to look again more carefully, to make a conscious inquiry and not an unconscious reaction, though it started with that unconscious nagging.

These are not different things. We do clear ourselves of filters occasionally. When a traumatic event or a life passage happens, we use our brain to review things in retrospect, and we may see different things.

Meditation, as the research I provided helps prove, helps the brain function much better cognitively. What was unconscious becomes conscious. The intrusive thoughts are right there for you to inspect in detail, or to put aside, or just to integrate so they melt away into an integrated whole. "Ah, Columbia checks, but Umpqua bank statement, I'll check for mail from Unpqua later."

When I wrote
"If we can work to put aside our expectations, that is one less layer of processing we are burdened with." This is what I was referring to.

Meditation can do that. As the Mayo Clinic reference points out, meditation practice reduces the stream of thoughts, so you can rest, but also, perceive more directly. When you put aside intrusive thoughts, or engage in a process that does so, you are little by little reducing the filters.

It's an interesting process. Meditation takes away the filters and you see more thoughts than ever before, because now it's unfiltered. But rather than random thoughts they become integrated into whole "gestalt" and fade away.

If your brain functions better, you are seeing more clearly. More clearly means less filters. But less filters will reveal all the stuff that's hidden in the unconscious. More meditation can resolve that also, but not by hiding, but by awareness and integration. Then you are seeing past the old filters.

Meditation gives you a different perspective. But it is more than that. You are in a gentle, subjective place where even language and symbolism are released. You are aware before those things and after.

A view that is not bound by the construct your brain created when you were restricted to one viewpoint.

I provided research data demonstrating that meditation improves cognitive functioning. These are two related things, Brian.

You wrote: "That's very different from meditation being able to completely change the nature of the brain."

But every experience changes the brain, not just meditation. With experience, grooves are being made. With deep meditation, they are being released, the brain is functioning better and regaining health.

The research I provided proves the structures of the brain do indeed change and become healthier...

" Meditation can produce a deep state of relaxation and a tranquil mind. During meditation, you focus your attention and eliminate the stream of jumbled thoughts that may be crowding your mind and causing stress. This process may result in enhanced physical and emotional well-being."
https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/meditation/in-depth/meditation/art-20045858#:~:text=Meditation%20can%20produce%20a%20deep,physical%20and%20emotional%20well%2Dbeing.

Meditation, and including prayer, gives the practitioner a proven, higher lever of control over other brain functions.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5442174/
"Abstract
Previous research indicates that long-term meditation practice is associated with altered resting electroencephalogram patterns, suggestive of long lasting changes in brain activity. We hypothesized that meditation practice might also be associated with changes in the brain’s physical structure. Magnetic resonance imaging was used to assess cortical thickness in 20 participants with extensive Insight meditation experience, which involves focused attention to internal experiences. Brain regions associated with attention, interoception and sensory processing were thicker in meditation participants than matched controls, including the prefrontal cortex and right anterior insula. Between-group differences in prefrontal cortical thickness were most pronounced in older participants, suggesting that meditation might offset age-related cortical thinning. Finally, the thickness of two regions correlated with meditation experience. These data provide the first structural evidence for experience-dependent cortical plasticity associated with meditation practice."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361002/

Further evidence that meditation improves cognitive functioning...

" On the basis of a growing body of research that shows that meditation has positive effects on cognition in younger and middle-aged adults, meditation may be able to offset normal age-related cognitive decline or even enhance cognitive function in older adults."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4024457/

Meditation can make you smarter and happier..

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/meditation-modern-life/201309/meditation-can-make-you-smarter-and-happier%3famp

Improvements in brain structure and plasticity from long term meditation aren't just in the higher functioning frontal cortex, affecting cognitive and executive brain activity and thinking, but in the brain stem as well, affecting respiratory, cardio and emotional centers..

"Our findings show that long-term practitioners of meditation have structural differences in brainstem regions concerned with cardiorespiratory control. This could account for some of the cardiorespiratory parasympathetic effects and traits, as well as the cognitive, emotional, and immunoreactive impact reported in several studies of different meditation practices."

https://journals.lww.com/neuroreport/Abstract/2009/01280/Long_term_meditation_is_associated_with_increased.14.aspx

[um]

@ AA

Each of is girted with a live.

It is up to each of us to decide how to spend time and energy within the parameters of the circumstances. ....AND ....bear the consequences of the decisions made.

Some spend their life or most of their time and energy sitting or standing on the grandstand watching the game of life played by others, report what others do etc .. OTHERS are the main focus of their life ... that is al lright

Some prefer to abstain from it and like to invest elsewhere and in another way

You can ponder over the kindness of others or your own.

[AA]

Spirituality has been opposed to science since the beginning. Science has never taken the support of spirituality to prove its facts. Spirituality often has to take support of scientific research to prove itself. If meditation or yoga is mentioned in any research, then throgh that research ,spirituality starts trying to prove itself. While there are no contribution of spirituality in that research. In India, some Baba's ( spiritual Masters) have set up business empires through yoga and meditation. Those Baba's companies finance such research.

Meditation can make you smarter and happier..

That's 100 % True , All the Baba's like GSD and Baba Ramdev much smarter than others and everyone should learn from them how to keep themselves happy while earning money by fooling people.

[um]

@ AA

Well , I am not going to verify them etc but mostif not all of your observations are correct and the thoughts and feelings these observations do generate in you are yours.

It is all your life not mine .. I am not here to suggest how to invest your time and energy.
I suppose you are old, clever and educated enough to make up your own mind.

That said it is not my business

[AA]

That's not my business either , that's field belong to debaters , call them and they will blow up your spirituality in few second's.

[umami]

Armchair Sants Against CoC
ASACoC
LoL

[AA]

Spirituality started from India. Indians know this spirituality very well today in 2023. What is the truth of this spirituality?

Brian hiness hasn't called all the Indian debaters yet in this blog. This is the work of debaters. Brian hiness is a writer. He is not a debater. Scientists are also not debaters and neither are doctors. please calls all debaters for open debate in satsang where spiritual masters are not surrounds of their own devotees. If your spiritualism not blown away with in second's then say?

[um]

@ AA

If you have a partner and you love that partner and that partner you, does an debater have the power to kill that love?

Tell us

[AA]

I'm on myself.

[um]

@ AA

You must have parents ... do they love you and do you love your parents?
If so can an debater destroy that love in you or your parents heart?

[Spence Tepper]

Hi AR

in rereading your comments I think I may be able to clear some of the misunderstanding ...

You wrote

.".....Which has nothing at all to do with meditation enabling you to bypass the cognitive functions of the brain, and to experience reality directly, which is what you'd said in your comment. You're simply changing the subject here."

You have accidentally overstated my case, which was that we can view things without filters. That is not by bypassing all the cognitive functions of the brain. It is engaging largely unused functions of the brain, other channels.

From my earlier comment to Brian

"We can access parts of the brain that are more objective, higher cognitive functioning centers, and help align the rest of the brain, including the lower brain centers, to those. That's what meditation does."

Perhaps this will help connect the research I had cited proving how the unique physical changes from meditation practice improve cognitive functioning. There is currently no known alternatives to meditation practice that produce these healthy effects on the brain.

On a similar front, there seems to be an unspoken assumption in your and Brian's comments that the brain's filtering and reconstruction operate along a single immutable channel that cannot be attenuated, and certainly not by any conscious effort. That has already been disproven by science in several well replicated studies.

A recent effort to integrate these results is the Zero Point Field model, which helps tie together changes filtering, and conscious awareness.

"Moreover, the data support the conclusion that meditative practices and psychedelics detune the filter, thus preventing the instantiation of self-referential conscious states, which leads to the dissolution of the ego. Instead, the brain taps into a wider spectrum of ZPF modes and, hence, gains access to an extended phenomenal color palette, resulting in expanded consciousness."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6085561/

Our consciousness is the result of several channels of input, each adjusting to our attention, adjusting to local conditions and to time itself. What we attend to, attenuates those filters and their processing.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5178882/

These are entirely sensitive and effected by our attention.

Hence any practice of attention can affect those channels, including their filtering and reconstruction.

[Appreciative Reader]

Hey, Spence.

Most of what you say now, in this last comment, is reasonable, and I agree generally with most of that, I guess.

Except! Except, that isn't what this was about, was it. You'd claimed, originally, that meditation enables us to bypass the model-building thing of our brain, and bypass those mental filters to apprehend reality directly. That extravagant claim of yours is what Brian had flagged, and asked you to substantiate. And pre-empting exactly this kind of bobbing and weaving, I'd wondered if you could do that, without changing the subject etc.

(Here's your own words, that Brian had quoted there: "...if we can go to that place of awareness within ourselves free of filters, a place where filtering and conceptual reconstruction do not function, who knows what we may experience? Maybe God? But no label would work there. Maybe reality directly. Maybe pure experience of the moment. Maybe the moment is eternity." And you've said similar, often enough, other times as well.)

If you'd been able to substantiate that claim, then that would have been fantastic. I'd have been first to accept it, and change my mind and my worldview accordingly. If you hadn't been able to do that, even then, had you directly admitted that that isn't evidenced, but merely how it appears to you, personally and subjectively, and what some religious traditions teach, fair enough, no harm done. We'd then have known clearly where we stand. And nor would that have detracted from your experiences --- except we wouldn't be then looking at them as (allegedly) a "direct" apprehension of reality.

As it happens, you did neither. In your reply to Brian, you simply doubled down, with this further extravagant and unevidenced claim thrown in: "You have experience but it is often entirely beyond the thinking brain, and so without impression, zero memory. You think you saw nothing. But thinking is the problem. You saw something, you can't think of it. (...) You'll have to Grok it. Sartori it."

Once again, the claim that in meditation you experience something that is beyond the thinking brain. In as much as these words of yours are linked to what you'd said before, presumably you mean to imply that this is that direct apprehension of reality, that you'd referred to earlier.

In other words, all you did was to "substantiate" your extravagant claim, with yet another extravagant and unevidenced claim.

-----

And now, now you present to me very reasonable comments, very wise views on meditation, and indeed evidenced opinions on meditation. All of which I agree with. Except none of them have anything to do with that original claim.

The one part of your comment now that does directly deal with that original claim is where you say: “Part of that reality reconstruction the brain does all the time. We don't have to be a willing, mindless participant in that.”

That’s worded kind of ambiguously, but it seems to indicate that meditation allows you to go outside of the reconstruction, the model building, that the brain does. In which case it’s simply you repeating your original claim, yet again, in different words, instead of substantiating it. (And yes, like I said that's worded ambiguously. If you didn't mean to convey that by those words, then fair enough, I take this last back. But in that case, again, this has nothing to do with your original claim at all.)

As for the Mayo Clinic link, it’s a cool article, and I enjoyed reading it. But it’s simply a general article written by the clinic staff, a kind of overview of meditation, and it doesn’t come close to providing the kind of evidence we’re talking about here; and nor does it actually claim, either, that meditation helps you apprehend reality directly and minus the filters of mental model-building.

-----------------------------

It's a straightforward issue. You know my views on meditation. I'm a fan, and in fact a practitioner and aspirant myself. I agree that meditation is generally beneficient, in terms of what you've discussed here, and more. In general I'm interested in knowing more about all of that, sure. But the issue we're focused on at this time is this: Can meditation enable us to bypass the model-building via which filter we apprehend reality indirectly, so that we might be able to apprehend reality directly? That had been your claim. Can you substantiate it? If not, then I don't see the issue with clearly admitting it, and retracting that original claim. (And nor do you need jettison that POV altogether. You can always present it, instead, and if you like, as a speculation, maybe, rather than as fact. We can speculate all we want, about whatever we want, why not, as long as we're clear that speculating is all we're doing.)

Not to force the issue beyond this! And apologies if any of my comments in this thread appeared less than fully courteous. Absolutely no offense intended, Spence. Cheers.

[Appreciative Reader]

Whoops, we seem to have cross-posted there. Saw you recent comment just now, after having posted mine.

You have this to say here:
"You have accidentally overstated my case, which was that we can view things without filters. That is not by bypassing all the cognitive functions of the brain. It is engaging largely unused functions of the brain, other channels."

.......But I don't see how that gels with your earlier remarks about apprehending reality directly? You seem to be back-pedaling a bit, now.

But like I said, not to force the issue. Call it a retraction, call it a misunderstanding, but either way, fair enough: if you're saying now that you DON'T mean to suggest that meditation enables us to bypass the brain's model-building thing, and to apprehend reality directly, well then, I'll take you at your word. And that's the end of it, right there. If you're not actually making that claim now, then obviously there's no question of your having to substantiate it.

......And incidentally, thanks for those interesting links you've presented. So far I've checked out only the Mayo Clinic link, since that's the only one that seemed relevant to this discussion. But I have this page bookmarked, and I'll check out the rest as well, later on. Not that they bear on what we'd started out discussing, but they seem interesting, in and of themselves.

[True dat]

Amen, Brian. 👍