/sci/ - Science & Math

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditation#Health_research

>>7499951

"Ego loss" is the process of becoming aware that your "self" is an illusion. This is generally achieved thru meditation, tho some brain injuries can give you a "shortcut", as can some combinations of rugs (acid and extasy does it for me, a lot of people have success with ketamin).

People without egos are evolutionary deadends that basically cuck themselves out of the competition. These people don't breed reliably nor are they competitive enough to actually survive.

>>7499951
Although i don't meditate i can give you my "egoloss." Hopefully it's somewhat relevant

All my life I've analyzed my thoughts like most /sci/ browsers probably do. To be specific, always asking why do i think these thoughts and feel certain emotions and breaking every thought and emotion down to its fundamentals. This was so helpful in realizing which thoughts were based in irrational rage and which were rational. Recently i realized that almost every feeling or thought that anyone ever acts on is based somewhat in superiority over someone else. For example at college parties people love to brag about being able to drink a lot or win a game of pong, or brag about some other useless "skill" that they've trained without a purpose except to be better than someone else. Rationally, and obviously, these don't make any person better than any other person. But what does? And then thinking about that I realized that every person with each ambition (or lack thereof) is equal in their own right even if they say I'm full of shit or that president Obama is a terrorist or whatever opinion that they have. I can disagree with them, but no matter what evidence I have and they don't does not make me better than them (as a whole) like most people think, it just makes me more informed, but the equality as people remains.

Everything that we do for this superiority is just to better us in others' eyes but it's unnecessary. If everyone thought and acted as though they realized that they aren't better or worse than anyone else and that they don't need to be, then everyone would enjoy everything they did ever. I think this is what I would call the loss of my ego.

Hope this helps somehow.

>>7500213
>I think this is what I would call the loss of my ego

its not
cute tho
(not really)

>>7500202
interesting. why is that?

A bunch of serotonin firing around your brain when you meditate.

It's good though, I meditate daily and it really improves my overall quality of life.

>>7500282
How so?

>>7500278
I believe he is comparing productivity/survival capacity with selflessness/egoloss.

>>7499951
Does this question make sense? Has there been much research on 'ego-death' in the scientific community? Is there any consensus there? So little is understood about the mind in general it's hard for me to imagine there's much information on this particular and unusual range of experience.

But if you'd like some personal anecdote, I've got that.

I've had a few 'spiritual' experiences in various contexts. First being on a hallucinogenic drug where I felt as if my 'soul' were a vase being pushed into a body of water and as I was filled with water my boundaries became water. Until eventually there was no vase, or any I, just a boundless expanse both outwardly and inwardly, though there also wasn't really a sense of outward or inward, it was just endlessness. This was without ever having experience with meditation, though I was raised Christian and fairly involved in it, so there were years of prayer and contemplation which may have had a residual effect after I left.

Part1

>>7500202
>implying they just didn't realize that all this struggle for survival is useless

>>7500380 Part 2
A few years after chasing that experience while avoiding others using drugs, I got into therapy and eventually found a spiritual school which teaches meditation these types of experiences became much more commonplace.

They tend to me more mild and subtle, but more present. Like walking down the sidewalk and looking at some flowers and feeling like deep down inside of me/ my sense of experience there's a place which is the same as these flowers that's accompanied by an implicit love for them which is the same as these flowers and myself.

Or maybe during meditation my thoughts finally seem to quiet for a few seconds and an overwhelming relief floods over me and I feel like I'm resting for the first time in my life, like truly, really resting, and I want to break down and cry. Sometimes this feeling continues to the point that I'm so restful that I don't really even feel to exist anymore. Like what I think I am isn't part of the equation of reality, at that point it doesn’t feel really restful anymore but just neutral, eternally neutral.

Shit, sometimes it's just feeling like it's ok to be alive.

Anyway, I think it's dangerous to think of these as being different or somehow better than day to day life; or maybe it's the chasing that can come with it which creates the problem. It just happens and I watch and I continue with my life.

>>7500384 End
There's something about the question though of examining 'mystical' states of experience, or really experience of any kind using the scientific method. The mystics tend to describe their object of attention as being prior to categorization and often times as being or being contained in the phenomenal experience itself. Is experience measurable using physical tools? Correlates to states of mind can be measured no problem and continue to develop. But it seems the experience itself is left alone. Changes in experience can be produced using tools which can be measured, and the resulting shift in the brain can be measured. But it’s like a balloon where the brain is the balloon and experience is the air in the balloon. The balloon can be being altered from the outside, and so the air is changed from the outside and we can measure the amount and kind of change to the balloon, but we haven’t been able to measure the air directly.

Maybe there are tools which we can use in the modern age to measure the gases in the balloon or what have you, but I’ll leave that out of the metaphor.

>>7500388
forgive the typos, I'm pretty stoned

>>7500388
I'm not really sure I understood your balloon metaphor entirely.

It was interesting reading your experience. During meditation I experienced myself as empty, simply reflecting phenomenon as they passed my sense organs. The phenomenon would always rise and fall, everything was ending all the time, and nothing had any value intrinsic value to it. Pretty weird. I would like to learn how to incorporate this experience into my every day life and especially my interaction with other people but I'm quite stuck on that note.

What is your favourite way of meditating?


On the idea of measuring/reading minds, we could measure them based off of their behaviour (such as speach, bodily movements, etc), or we could dig deeper and look in their brain, or even both. But in the end, only they have direct experience of phenomena from their frame of reference. It's entirely possible we could map all of the brain and be able to perfectly relay all of its states, thoughts, feelings, experiences, etc. But this isn't the same as being the person experiencing the phenomena directly (or is it? maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way.)

Egoloss is often accompanied by the realization that life in continuous, interconnected and that nothing is separate. If there is no such thing as separate beings in nature, then why isn't it possible to directly experience other people's consciousness?
Well the answer is glaringly obvious.
The very act of measuring and conceptualizing MUST assume this idea that me and you are separate.

Just some ramblings. Intéressant?

>>7500202
being this beta

>>7500384
>Or maybe during meditation my thoughts finally seem to quiet for a few seconds and an overwhelming relief floods over me and I feel like I'm resting for the first time in my life, like truly, really resting, and I want to break down and cry. Sometimes this feeling continues to the point that I'm so restful that I don't really even feel to exist anymore. Like what I think I am isn't part of the equation of reality, at that point it doesn’t feel really restful anymore but just neutral, eternally neutral.

first samatha jhana

ok

>>7500213

>implying anyone should ever think about each other at the fundamental level

Fuck, that would get us nowhere. Things as we know it would stagnate. Everyone would have the fuck-it-all attitude. Well, maybe not everyone, but the majority of people would. A lot of people are competitive at heart and want to outdo others at certain things. Competition is usually a good thing. In terms of achievement, people are objectively better than others. The only thing that bugs me is that some people care too much about others opinions. We shouldn't spend days focusing on what others will think about us, rather, spend them improving ourselves and asking ourselves, "What do I think about myself?"

>>7502902
>Well, maybe not everyone, but the majority of people would
just like today, but today most people are not happy in the long term

>>7502902
In terms of achievement, people are objectively better than others.
yes, and it does not mean to turn this difference into a competition

>>7502902
>Things as we know it would stagnate

>having computers is important you guys, it makes us happy you guys. I cannot be happy without technology you guys, so you must not be happy too you guys

>>7502902
Fuck-it-all attitude goes both ways.

You can do nothing or you can fuck it all.

>>7499951
Monks probably learned how to strangle parts of their default mode network via breathing control during meditation.

>>7502937
Viewed in this light meditation is actually a kind of self harm.

You kids better not be meditating.

>>7502957
on the contrary, it brings health

>>7502937
you do not control the breath in the contemplation