/sci/ - Science & Math

I want to train like a monk to be able to control pain threshold and all that junk

I do not believe it is practical or effective to use meditation to enhance cognitive abilities. It would be an interesting study though. Monks who are trained in deep meditation and have done so habitually for years have a very abnormal amount of beta and gamma brainwaves. Both correlated with higher intelligence.

Does anyone know if there have been any studies done on the cognition of monks in comparison to their peers? I know there have been EEG's done.

i meditate regularly. i also do different poses and things to help make my energy flow easier. open chakras = better person. shit's cool yo.

>>1550555

"Chakra". You know, this thread IS in fact scientific.

I think it wouldn't help to improve intelligence, but surely would help you master techniques for memory and discipline for learning new skills!

>>1550558

Refer to my earlier posts.

>>1550551
>>1550519

Altering brain wave production is a possible route of cognitive enhancement. It is arguable how effective it could be, but it is practical.

I've been meditating for the past month or so and I've definitely seen improvement in attentiveness and concentration.

>>1550555
This is what makes me doubt this kind of stuff =/

But i have seen monks do some pretty cool shit, and heard stories about even cooler shit.

>>1550582

Agree'd. I have been practising it for a few years now, for at a minimum 30 mins - 1 hour a day.

In the first 6 months I experiences drastic changes in my attention span and my general awareness. After that the changes wer eless noticable, but I generally have a lot more self control and am a lot calmer.

I think meditation is just as important as physical exercise. Not that I do either of those *lazy*

Its just sad that meditation is so closely related to all that pseudoscience bullshit, few people take it seriously cause they think only crazy religious people do it.

meditation = prayer

>>1550609

I think the two are related under certain circumstances in terms of brain chemistry, but in no way are they the same thing.

>>1550609

No, no it doesn't.

Spouting ignorance is no different than a dog barking. It's just noise.

>>1550609

>>1550615

They both seek to "lift" man to God.

Western prayer does it through cataphatic means. Eastern meditation does it through apophatic means.

This is a very important distinction to be sure, but both activities have the same end, namely, union with the divine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf6Q0G1iHBI

Mainly talks about the effect of meditation on social anxiety.

>>1550628

Yes, but not all who meditate seek "union with the divine". You do not have to accept a religious dogma to meditate. Read the thread, there is evidence of brainwave changes brought on my long term meditation. Something you would likely not see at all within prayer.

Increased activity in the prefrontal cortext of practiced meditators compared to a control group as measured by fMRI.

http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/7/1/121

http://www.spring.org.uk/2010/04/cognition-accelerated-by-just-4-x-20-minutes-meditation.php

recent study.

>>1550628

Yes prayer and meditation are often related, and often combined. But they are completely different things, someone who prays to god to heal their sick relative is not meditating, and someone who is focusing their thoughts on whatever the fuck people think about when the meditate, arent necessarily praying.

Its possible to do both at the same time, but dont get them confused, they are separate things, especially sense meditation actually has real benefits.

>>1550634

>but not all who meditate seek "union with the divine"
Sure, you could be meditating/praying for the helpful benefits that accompany these activities, but you'd be "doing it wrong" as it were. Chasing side-effects is silly as far as I'm concerned.

>>1550645

Once again, read the damn thread. There have been numerous studies done that link very positive psychological effects. these effects root in physical changes within the brain.

>>1550645

Chasing side effects? Da fuck are you talking about. Thats the whole point of meditating is for the "side effects".

>>1550645

>> Implying this practice isn't widespread because it actually has positive effects.

>>1550643

>they are separate things
Indeed, but as I said, they both have the same ultimate aim, and that aim is getting closer to God.

how does one meditate ? I tried it but I just don't know what to focus on... I've read several articles I found on google but it was all the same kind of bullshit of some kind of flowing cosmic energy through your body
I heard as well that meditation is cool but I hope it's not all pseudo-religious bullshit.

Any references on how to meditate /sci/ ?

>>1550628

I doesn't mean you cannot meditate just for the sake of proven benefits, or simply for the thrill of it.
I am talking about achieving certain threshold, which is also described in different guides to meditation: It is the moment when you "stop" breathing and your "third eye" opens.
The feeling is something like your eyes opening. Instead of seeing blackness you are looking into vast space. You loose interest in your own body and ignore any stimulus. Your mind drifts away. You stop being aware of bodily processes including heartbeat and breathing.

Hey, I don't believe in anything supernatural and yet I find this to be interesting and fulfilling experience. I may be just fooling my brain into entering unusual state of mixed sleep/awareness, but you should try it too before you speak for or against it.

Oh, and I use brainwave entertainment to help me achieve Theta brainwaves.

>>1550654

It's widespread because it works.

>>1550660

Focus on your breath flowing in through your nose and out through your mouth. If you found that you got distracted or started day dreaming, just return to following the breath.

>>1550659

>Once again, read the damn thread. There have been numerous studies done that link very positive psychological effects. these effects root in physical changes within the brain.
Where have I denied this? I'm just criticizing popular motivations for meditating.

>>1550655

Here in lies the problem. People like this make others think meditating is a religious thing. Sure lots of religions do it, but its not a religious thing. Stop trying to scare people away from meditation you christfag

>>1550660

And look into brainwave entertainment. It makes things easier.

>>1550660

>how does one meditate ? I tried it but I just don't know what to focus on
You can focus on anything.
A good starting point is breathing. Focus on your breath.

>>1550673

You mean entrainment? Lolz.

The effectiveness of "binaural beats" are inconclusive and somewhat unlikely. It's like a poor attempt to replicate EEG Neurofeedback techniques.

>>1550676
>>1550664
cool I'll try it.. and does the time of the day matter ? Because I heard somewhere that if I reach the state where I'm half asleep I'm doing it wrong so I shouldn't do it before bedtime/in the evening. Is this true ?

Fucking buddhists and hippies have this mystical new-age bullshit monopoly on meditation and yoga... and that's because people are too dense to abstract their chakra, chi, cosmic energy bullshit into

meditation="using your mind to calm yourself and reach deep levels of consciousness"
and
yoga="good back exercises and streches"

>>1550670

>Sure lots of religions do it, but its not a religious thing.
Just like Gregorian chanting right?

>>1550683
I would say do it when its convenient for you. Youre not supposed to fall asleep, but if your tired and need sleep, your better off sleeping than meditating.

>>1550683

I don't think thats a concern as long as you can stay in the present and follow your breath. It's all about being in the "now."

>>1550655
lolwrong. Buddhists don't even believe in any gods, let alone the god of Israel. There are also many other religious and/or magical groups that use meditation for different purposes.

>>1550686

If you are not experienced, if you are tired you will simply drift into slepp, especially if like all beginners you decide to meditate in comfortable position. During the day I meditate while lying on back. I am not used to other positions enough to sit through 40 minutes session comfortably.

>Fucking buddhists and hippies have this mystical new-age bullshit

2500 years old is "new age"?

>>1550687
>Just like Gregorian chanting right?

Just cause theres a form of meditation thats tied directly to religion doesnt mean all meditation is. That would be like saying all book are meant to teach you about god, because the bible is about god.

Freaking religious people, constantly trying to take credit for everything.

>>1550691
>>1550689
thanks guys, let's meditate yo !

>2500 years old is "new age"?

yeah, actually it is. Its caused it like died down, and now they bringing the shit back, so its called "new age" its misleading, but yes, "new age" actually means ancient traditions. Of course they add a lot of new stuff to it too.

>>1550695
Some denominations do. STFU.

Sometimes I use meditation to get into daydreaming state and enable extremely vivid fantasies. Shit's fantastic.

>Sometimes I use meditation to get into daydreaming state and enable extremely vivid fantasies. Shit's fantastic.

Weed does that for me

>>1550725

Yeah but meditation doesn't give you cancer or aids.

tetris improves cognitive function.

look it up.

>>1550700
No, it's SO EDGY teenage atheists shying away from legitimate practices because "that's what religious people do"

http://www.science20.com/news/meditation_improves_concentration_says_study

>>1550736

Yeah, exactly, thats the problem, religious people got a monopoly on that shit. Meditation needs to be treated in our society the same way we treat exercise.

lol @ christfags trying to make eastern religious practices christfaggotry-related

Actually, intensive prayer in christian denominations is on deeper level indistinguishable from buddhist meditation.

Come on- it is all in brain-states and there are only-so-many states that brain can enter.
Meditation has been achieved independently all over the world and mostly during religious practices.

Buddhist meditation, even in the minority Buddhist groups that believe in gods, has nothing to do with the little christian god yahweh from Semitic mythology. Just because intensive prayer may vaguely resemble Buddhist meditation does not mean christfags can claim meditation as their own thing.

>>1550770

>>1550913

Could you clarify what emotional genre that image is trying to express?

>>1550924

I was implying that your post was fallacious in that it contained straw-men.

>>1550940

"your". That wasn't my argument, cockmouth.

NOT ALL ANON BE ANON NAWMEEN?

>>1550940
>implying christianity does have a right to claim meditation as its own, despite the fact that other religions have been using it far longer than christianity has had "intensive prayer"

>>1550913
>>1550940
I can't come up with an actual counterargument, so I'll just pretend there are problems with that post.

>>1550913
>>1550940
>I can't come up with an actual counterargument, so I'll just pretend there are problems with that post.

Christians don't claim to have invented meditation so appeals to chronology have little value.

Some Christians do claim to have meditative practices. I am thinking of the 'prayer of the heart' and the psychosomatic uses of the Jesus prayer in the Hesychast tradition.

Are you people claiming that these things aren't meditative?

Where exactly is the problem? I don't know what you guys are trying to say.

>>1551005
>I don't know what you guys are trying to say.

that christianity has no right to say meditation is all about "getting closer to god."

>>1550758

Good evidence to suggest they're all wrong, I might add.

>>1551012

I suppose the wording is a little misleading, but he was just trying to point out sacred dimension of meditation with Christian language. I think it's pretty clear that appropriating eastern concepts wasn't his intent.

>>1551050
>but he was just trying to point out sacred dimension of meditation with Christian language.

i.e. trying to describe one concept with a Hebrew deity that has nothing to do with it.

>>1551085

>that has nothing to do with it
How so?

Should I meditate in silence or is music allowed?

I might try this, it's not like I have anything better to do.

>>1551096
yahweh has as much to do with eastern religions as Thor does.

So how many succsessful zen monk scientists do you know, actually?

>>1551104

Aren't we dealing with parallels in religious practice?

>>1551096
Because there's no mention of him in those religions. Derp.

>>1551111

OOOo i saw one on ted once, he was a french bio-chemist and he like went and became a zen monk. Then he came to TED and was talkin all about the importance of meditation. He didn't bring any bullshit religion type crap into it.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/matthieu_ricard_on_the_habits_of_happiness.html

>>1551111

>zen monks

Their lifestyle would make it highly unlikely for them to engage in scientific study. I hope you weren't implying they have a lack of fluid intelligence.

I wouldn't doubt that various scientists of varied success would practice meditation. Your point is moot.

the effects of meditation are not "pseudo science" , nor is meditation foreign to those who practice rationality and reason.

>>1551116
And this makes it okay to act like an Israeli god has something to do with asian/indian religions how exactly?

>>1551127

Actually the Dhali llama is really heavy into science and shit. He likes it a lot, he does breach about how we are too materialistic, but he admires the things western society has accomplished.

Although you are right, his lifestyle kind of keeps him cooped up in a church where he wouldnt actually be able to do any real science, he just reads it.

>>1551130

Both Eastern and Western religions posit an ultimate reality. Christians call it God, and Buddhists call it "The Void". Let's not pretend that very different religions can't fruitfully be compared.

>>1551153
just because christians decide to call a Hebrew deity an ultimate reality and "God" as a proper noun, doesn't make it "The Void" (which doesn't sound like anything remotely like a deity) that Buddhism speaks of.

Comparing them is one thing, but actually calling "The Void" "God" in a discussion as if that's something those Asian and Indian religions would call it is another.

man this thread is great. just to end the praying vs meditation shit, here is a link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_Exercises_of_Ignatius_of_Loyola
those are official vatican aprroved christian meditations.

>>1551196
still doesn't mean christians can act like meditation is all about "getting closer to God" when their "God" has nothing to do with the religions that meditation originated in and is featured prominently in.

>>1551175
>>1551203

>Firmly entrenched ignorance

>>1551098
whatever you like, this can be done with or without music, with eyes closed or opened, lying or sitting, or even standing on one leg, walkin down the streat; whatever.

>>1551213
>doesn't have an actual counterargument

>>1551213
>out of arguments
>resorts to "you're just ignorant"

>>1551203
you are right, the christian god is all personal and vengeful, talking to people ordering them to sacrafice shit for him. He even fucked the virgin mary.

Meditation, when it comes down to it, is about self improvement. Making yourself a little bit more aware, a bit more compassionate, and geared towards living in the moment. If that's fucked up or wrong, well, hey.

Play games like Sudoko to beef up your pattern searching and pattern matching abilities.

Meditate on Zen koans to increase your ability to 'intuitively' grasp what is going on. There are some problems which logic cannot solve, yet are solvable. This will help you immensely.

Read the Dune books by Frank Herbert (but not his hack son or KJA) and endeavour to be a Mentat.

Take Adderall. Lots of Adderall. And Caffeine.

As to meditation in and of itself, I find it useful in so far as I am able to take that calm, relaxed state and use it as an anchor in other situations. Once you've spent enough time doing it (training your brain to slip into that mode) it's possible (and easier) to slip into a calm, controlled state in crisis situations, which is invaluable.

I used to meditate on the corner of NW 17th Street and University Avenue in Gainesville between midnight and 2 AM -- what's the point of being calm if you can't be the calm in the storm. When you can meditate and achieve that tranquility and oneness of being in the middle of a couple hundred drunk ass college students, car horns honking, people puking, and police sirens, you can be serene in a lot of situations. Anyone can meditate in a quiet room.

Basically, a human being has the following things going for it:

Really, I think what you want is to be a Mentat from the Dune series. To call them human computers would be inaccurate -- they are human beings whose minds have been trained to allow them to make staggering deductive leaps of reasoning.

Also, with pattern matching, no amount of innate or trained talent will matter if you don't have a healthy body of experience on which it can work. You need data, and lots of it. False data can be even more valuable than true data at times, as a thing can by defined by what it is not.

Chivas besluitborming. was my captcha. Captcha, you're trying too hard.

Meditation does not do shiet but make you relax. I know, i practised it for 1 year. Its all a collection of placebo effects and self-hypnosis, all covered up in this pseudo-philosophical bullshit known as eastern philosophy.

Which brings me to what you really should check out. Which is self-hypnosis. Go to hypnosisdownloads (dot) com and check out the mp3s there. Ive tried this, and has helped me in alot of areas in my life. There is a course there for learning to induce self-hypnosis on yourself without mp3s, but i havent tried that yet. But the mp3s are so far so good!

>>1551360
studies showed meditation works.

>>1551360

You didn't do it long enough, dumbass. It takes years (that's years, plural) to retrain your brain to operate on certain pathways. What you said is like saying, "Karate is bullshit, I did it for a year and I didn't get lightning fast badass reflexes."

Also, not everyone can be hypnotized. It's a combination of personality, knowledge of how it works, and straight up brain wiring. Hypnosis requires a trusting person who doesn't understand what is going on.