2014.02.23 07:00 - Buddhist Ideas and Scientific Process

The Guardian for this meeting was Bleu Oleander. The comments are by Bleu Oleander.

Eliza Madrigal: 's current display-name is "Eliza".
--BELL--
Bleu Oleander: 's current display-name is "Bleu".
Bleu Oleander: hey Eliza :)
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Bleu :)
Bleu Oleander: how's your morning going?
Eliza Madrigal: How is your SL view? Am I still staked?
Bleu Oleander: no, I found out how to fix it
Eliza Madrigal: >whew<
Eliza Madrigal: that is a relief to me...hah
Bleu Oleander: seems a common problem with new manditory update
Bleu Oleander: for us with macs :)
Bleu Oleander: older macs not using Mavericks
Eliza Madrigal: I see... haven't had that issue
Eliza Madrigal: Morning is pleasant... woke early and have been productive... day humming along
Eliza Madrigal: You?
Bleu Oleander: are you running Mavericks?
Eliza Madrigal: I have no idea what that means... so I might be, might not :)
Bleu Oleander: os 10.9 i think
Eliza Madrigal: I'm not there yet...
Bleu Oleander: if your mac is new you probably are
Eliza Madrigal: am 10.7.5
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Qt :)
Bleu Oleander: hi Qt
Bleu Oleander: so in prefs
Qt Core: Hi Bleu, Eliza
Bleu Oleander: is hardware skinning checked?
Bleu Oleander: that was my problem
Bleu Oleander: now everything runs better since I unchecked that
Bleu Oleander: but if no problems then I would leave well enough alone :)
Eliza Madrigal: thanks for telling me though, so that if it comes up I'll remember

Bleu Oleander: btw for later: http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/25161...TV+%28video%29���
Bleu Oleander: excellent conversation

Eliza Madrigal: great, ty... will be my cooking or kitchen cleaning companion
Bleu Oleander: Leda is brilliant!
Bleu Oleander: have read some of her work and her husband's also
Bleu Oleander: quite an interesting conversation
Eliza Madrigal: what is her specialty? I see the bullet points of conversation....
Bleu Oleander: http://www.cep.ucsb.edu/codirectors/
Eliza Madrigal: the question of whether 'how we are drawn' affects how we perceive really interests me... I think it interests robotics engineers also...for obvious reasons
Bleu Oleander: evolutionary psychology
Eliza Madrigal: Oh, I see .. doesn't want to leave any angle of approach out
Bleu Oleander: cognitive psychology, evolutionary biology, cultural and biological anthropology, genetics, and economics
Bleu Oleander: quite fascinating, their research
Bleu Oleander: would love to meet them on a future trip :)
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Bleu Oleander: also Santa Barbara not a bad place to visit LOL
Eliza Madrigal smiles.... I like that way of living
Bleu Oleander: so many people and places to visit ... sighs
Bleu Oleander: the segment on the self, and unconscious/conscious is very interesting
Bleu Oleander: specifically as Robert Wright is posing questions related to Buddhist thought
Bleu Oleander: well you can listen later ... will be fun to discuss perhaps?
--BELL--
Eliza Madrigal: Buddhist 'contemplation' and Scientific observation are quite compatible
Eliza Madrigal: and I'd very much like to discuss... will listen
Bleu Oleander: yes can co-exist for sure
Eliza Madrigal: Before you arrived, I was sitting here... and the camera angle was such that the fountain droplets were before me... droplets on the screen between typist and avie
Eliza Madrigal: so I began to take a few photos...and to consider suspended drops... and the similarities to petri dishes

Bleu Oleander: interesting, say more?
Eliza Madrigal: In labs or in large hadron colliders ;-), there is a method of trying to 'capture' to observe what is happening...
Eliza Madrigal: and contemplation can be similar... zeroing in, asking further and further 'what else is true'
Eliza Madrigal: I realized in yesterday's theme session, as we looked at our individual drops... it could be seen as placing them captured under a microscope
Bleu Oleander: lots and lots of data is collected in the collider to capture information and interpret
Eliza Madrigal: and as we study them, suspended, they become both more differentiated and less so
Eliza Madrigal nods
Bleu Oleander: there's always human interpretation
Eliza Madrigal: yes...
Bleu Oleander: in contemplation it is the mind observing itself, in the collider its minds observing data
Eliza Madrigal: the Journey to Ithaca session I found yesterday was an uncanny observation for me, after yesterday's discussion.. to hear Pema's intensity about the constraints of the exploration
Eliza Madrigal: and yet isn't it also observing mind, observing data?
Eliza Madrigal: have to factor our biases, etc
Bleu Oleander: yes, but very subjective and not verifiable by someone else
Bleu Oleander: perhaps that's the difference?
Eliza Madrigal: not sure... I think there are some "discoveries" or at least viable theories
Eliza Madrigal: that link the methods
Bleu Oleander: I'm not saying that there aren't discoveries for the one contemplating
Bleu Oleander: there are
Bleu Oleander: just that I can't verify what you are telling me
Agatha Macbeth: Hello ladies & QT
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Aggers :)
Bleu Oleander: which doesn't make it not valuable
Bleu Oleander: hey Aggers
Qt Core: Hi Agatha
Eliza Madrigal: I guess that's why most of the science/buddhism collaborations have to do with neuroscience specifically... tracing meditation's effects on the brain
Eliza Madrigal: just the most tangible hook
Bleu Oleander: they're not really that close to understanding the brain so hard to say yet what effects are really
Bleu Oleander: I think the studies have been on the science of meditation not on Buddhism per se
Eliza Madrigal nods....
Eliza Madrigal: yes just "long time meditators"
Bleu Oleander: meditation is now considered on its own without the religious overtones
Eliza Madrigal: it is just that, to my knowledge buddhism is the only religious philosophy that doesn't demand it be placed ahead of new discoveries... mostly thanks to dalai lama's positive view of Science
Bleu Oleander: also what is a result for long term meditators is not necessarily a result for short term meditators
--BELL--
Bleu Oleander: dalai lama has not fully embraced science though ... still a lot of beliefs that aren't scientific like karma and reincarnation etc.
Eliza Madrigal nods... and not asking what people 'want' the result to be for themselves :)
Eliza Madrigal: I see those things as being left 'open' ... there may well come new observations that unpack similarities... although I do think it is a mistake to be too quick to link parallel universes ideas and reincarnation etc
Eliza Madrigal: but I also think people don't give credit always, for where they might have heard an inkling of idea
Bleu Oleander: why is there such a drive to give credit to ancient ideas?
Eliza Madrigal: to include people
Bleu Oleander: I think its religious based
Bleu Oleander: all ideas build through time
Eliza Madrigal: yes, so religious ideas shouldn't be left out...
Eliza Madrigal: no more than mythologies
Bleu Oleander: they're not
Bleu Oleander: but we have updated many of them
Bleu Oleander: I don't think of them as no more than mythologies
Bleu Oleander: there are seeds of ideas that have grown over human history
Bleu Oleander: but I do think we, meaning humanity, has held on to some old ones that should be updated with the science info
Eliza Madrigal: that session had a lot in it about people's ways of learning... and different languages of understanding
Eliza Madrigal: (Ithaca one)
Bleu Oleander: yes
Bleu Oleander: many ways of both
Bleu Oleander: lots of paths
Eliza Madrigal: I agree with you... re antiquated... yes
Eliza Madrigal: hope not leaving you out, Aggers, Qt?
Bleu Oleander: jump in please not meaning to dominate :)
Bleu Oleander: got wound up after listening to that talk LOL
Bleu Oleander: and second cup of coffee :)
Eliza Madrigal: lol, can't wait
Agatha Macbeth: Nope
Qt Core: np
Bleu Oleander: will sit on hands and let others get a word in edgewise ha ha!
Eliza Madrigal: hehehe
Agatha Macbeth: Missed what you were actually talking about :p
Eliza Madrigal: you would like this session I found, after Bleu shared the Ithaca poem a few weeks ago:
Eliza Madrigal: https://wiki.playasbeing.org/Chat_Logs/2008/07/2008.07.26_07%3a00_-_Journey_to_Ithaca
Eliza Madrigal: It actually has Wol becoming a guardian in it
Eliza Madrigal: but a lot more too :)
Bleu Oleander: great session
Bleu Oleander: thanks for finding it
Eliza Madrigal: seemed timely to the theme session!
Bleu Oleander: that was prior to us meeting Piet
Agatha Macbeth: Is that the one with Pema?
Bleu Oleander: pre-SL
Eliza Madrigal: intense Pema, yes, lol
Agatha Macbeth: Ah, think I already know it
Eliza Madrigal: did he seem intense when you met him Bleu?
Bleu Oleander: yes, same intensity
Bleu Oleander: was a great RL conversation with him
Bleu Oleander: inspired us to get into sl and kira
Bleu Oleander: eventually found my way to PaB
Bleu Oleander: after a year or so
Eliza Madrigal: like a blink... feels to me sometimes
Bleu Oleander: yes!
Agatha Macbeth blinks
Eliza Madrigal: I got a bit hung up, when reading, on his insistence that Adams not use the "figuratively" word
Eliza Madrigal: I think I want to go back into that... because... hm, isn't loosening literalness core to PaB?
Bleu Oleander: a lot in that session!
Eliza Madrigal nods... many false closings
--BELL--
Bleu Oleander: not sure I would say loosening literalness
Eliza Madrigal listens
Bleu Oleander: say more?
Bleu Oleander: what does that mean?
Eliza Madrigal: that's what I was hoping you would do... hah...
Bleu Oleander: ha!
Eliza Madrigal: he wanted Adams to take what could be read as a spiritual encounter, literally, for her...
Bleu Oleander: what does that mean?
Eliza Madrigal: while at the same time, unpacking "Being" as not limited to notions of spirituality, etc
Eliza Madrigal: that's my puzzle
Bleu Oleander: not sure what that means
Eliza Madrigal: that's my point of confusion in the session...
Bleu Oleander: then mine too ha ha
Eliza Madrigal giggles
Eliza Madrigal: but you don't see PaB ideas as lightening up literalism or hm, maybe I'm connecting literalism and fundamentalism
Bleu Oleander: how do you mean literalism?
Bleu Oleander: without metaphor?
Eliza Madrigal: "this IS a chair" as in, for sure
Eliza Madrigal: nothing else but an object for use by a person who IS a person
Bleu Oleander: well productive to think of a chair as really a chair if you're planning on sitting on it
Eliza Madrigal: well no need to think about the chair as a chair at this point... we just sit
Bleu Oleander: not really necessary to see the chair as a bunch of atoms or particles
Eliza Madrigal thinks of Javert in Les Miserables... the character was imprisoned by his ideas of law
Bleu Oleander: we perceive the world as we need to
Bleu Oleander: ideas of law though are not as "concrete" as a chair is to a human wanting to sit on it
Eliza Madrigal: the chair is pre-given in a way
Bleu Oleander: we know a chair by our past experience with chairs
Eliza Madrigal: and that's one approach... which I've always taken PaB to question
Eliza Madrigal: seeing it as an interpretation rather than the whole reality, I guess
Qt Core: RL calls, bye all
Eliza Madrigal: bye Qt :)
Bleu Oleander: by Qt
Agatha Macbeth: Ciao QT
Eliza Madrigal: am in my head today... maybe good to take a long walk :)
Bleu Oleander: well it is an interpretation but a practical one for humans
Eliza Madrigal nods
Bleu Oleander: fun ideas to think about for sure
Eliza Madrigal: yes... very much so
Bleu Oleander: in many ways text only makes it hard to talk about these ideas
Bleu Oleander: very limiting
Bleu Oleander: and huge chance to be misunderstood
Eliza Madrigal: yes.... that's one thing about RL meetings that is missing here... some people speak really well with diagrams and outlines
Eliza Madrigal: like Pema...
Agatha Macbeth nods
Bleu Oleander: well, I meant adding body language and face to face understandings
Agatha Macbeth: Such as shame MICA is gone now
Eliza Madrigal: Adelene made some boards to use that way but not easy for all
Eliza Madrigal: yes that for sure, Bleu!
Bleu Oleander: more nuanced and less "twitter" style comments
Eliza Madrigal: :::sighs for loss of MICA:::
Eliza Madrigal: I still don't really understand that loss, since it was always packed when I attended presentations?
Agatha Macbeth: Yes, true
Eliza Madrigal: maybe just a lot of work behind the scenes to coordinate speakers
Agatha Macbeth: I was shocked when it disappeared
Agatha Macbeth: Could be
Eliza Madrigal: Bleu can probably imagine that more directly :)
Bleu Oleander: imagine what?
Eliza Madrigal: what it takes to coordinate speakers and such
Eliza Madrigal: on a regular basis
Bleu Oleander: ah yes indeed
Bleu Oleander: much more than meets the eye
Eliza Madrigal: have to go... got to get my son into the sunshine
Bleu Oleander: me too
Bleu Oleander: thanks for comming
Agatha Macbeth: Aww
Bleu Oleander: and have a great day!
--BELL--
Eliza Madrigal: thank you for hosting Bleu! nice to see you Aggers :)
Agatha Macbeth: I'll not to fall asleep next week
Eliza Madrigal: not fall asleep til next week? lol...
Agatha Macbeth: You too
Eliza Madrigal: hehe... bfn
Bleu Oleander: byeee