Part of the Brain that Spirituality Enlightens

treederwright · September 2010

hello all, i have a facinating question. What part of the brain is karma from i think its the medulla but i want to know what everyone else thinks. The other part of the question is if enlightenment is actually a processing of the medulla and the remnants of reptillian brain or "old brain". If so this would make sense from evolution and enlightenment to the whole brain rehabilitation.

Also what are the effects of breath meditation and the medulla. it might make sense that the reason that the cognitive aspects are diminished in breathing meditation is because of the relation of breath and the medulla

ShiftPlusOne · September 2010

Meditation trains the prefrontal cortex to do some of the work of amygdala.

In my opinion karma comes from whatever the subconscious part of your brain is. That's if there is such a part, I don't know... that's up to the neuroscience and/or psychologists. We know that negative thoughts can manifest negative actions. You can think how undeserving you are and eventually your subconscious will latch on. Your actions will then reflect your opinion of self. The subconscious mind is also where desire, fear and other things of that nature come from. That's what I see as karma that manifests inside our own minds.

When you say medulla, do you mean medulla oblongata?

treederwright · September 2010

yes i do mean the medulla oblongata. I know that aggression comes from this area of the brain. My idea was is it possible to regulate the oblongata and therefore produce change in the prefrontal cortex for the amygdala? and what is the purpose of the amygdala

ShiftPlusOne · September 2010

Mendulla oblongata is in charge of all the background stuff like balancing, breathing and some reflexes... I don't know anything about it controlling aggression. Where did you read that?

Amygdala controls emotional reactions (and heaps of other things). That's what causes people to get angry or upset if their ego is threatened. The prefrontal cortex is in charge of all the logic and analytical thinking. Through meditation, instead of instantly getting angry/upset over things, the prefrontal cortex can kick in and make you question whether or not something is worth getting upset about.

Any chance you confused the mendulla oblongata with the amygdala?

If so, yes, it's entirely possible and is exactly what happens when you meditate.

treederwright · October 2010

Thank you. I heard that aggression comes from the Medulla Oblongata. But your post clarifies what i was thinking about I realized that the brain must have some type of self control and engrained correction mechanisim. I think your right in the sense that i did confuse the two because im not that knowledgeable on the subject. Im facinated with the brain and just think that there must be a way to educate or rehabilitate the aggressive brain to somehow eliminate its propensity toward unhealthy actions and experience. Thanks again for the wonderful response.

ShiftPlusOne · October 2010

If you're interested in that sort of thing, have a read of this:

February 4, 2003
Finding Happiness: Cajole Your Brain to Lean to the
Left
By DANIEL GOLEMAN

ll too many years ago, while I was still a psychology graduate student, I ran an
experiment to assess how well meditation might work as an antidote to stress. My
professors were skeptical, my measures were weak, and my subjects were mainly college
sophomores. Not surprisingly, my results were inconclusive.
But today I feel vindicated.
To be sure, over the years there have been scores of studies that have looked at
meditation, some suggesting its powers to alleviate the adverse effects of stress. But only
last month did what I see as a definitive study confirm my once-shaky hypothesis, by
revealing the brain mechanism that may account for meditation's singular ability to
soothe.
The data has emerged as one of many experimental fruits of an unlikely research
collaboration: the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan religious and political leader in exile, and
some of top psychologists and neuroscientists from the United States. The scientists met
with the Dalai Lama for five days in Dharamsala, India, in March 2000, to discuss how
people might better control their destructive emotions.
One of my personal heroes in this rapprochement between modern science and ancient
wisdom is Dr. Richard Davidson, director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience
at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Davidson, in recent research using functional M.R.I.
and advanced EEG analysis, has identified an index for the brain's set point for moods.
The functional M.R.I. images reveal that when people are emotionally distressed —
anxious, angry, depressed — the most active sites in the brain are circuitry converging on
the amygdala, part of the brain's emotional centers, and the right prefrontal cortex, a brain
region important for the hypervigilance typical of people under stress.
By contrast, when people are in positive moods — upbeat, enthusiastic and energized —
those sites are quiet, with the heightened activity in the left prefrontal cortex. Indeed, Dr. Davidson has discovered what he believes is a quick way to index a person's
typical mood range, by reading the baseline levels of activity in these right and left
prefrontal areas. That ratio predicts daily moods with surprising accuracy. The more the
ratio tilts to the right, the more unhappy or distressed a person tends to be, while the more
activity to the left, the more happy and enthusiastic.
By taking readings on hundreds of people, Dr. Davidson has established a bell curve
distribution, with most people in the middle, having a mix of good and bad moods. Those
relatively few people who are farthest to the right are most likely to have a clinical
depression or anxiety disorder over the course of their lives. For those lucky few farthest
to the left, troubling moods are rare and recovery from them is rapid.
This may explain other kinds of data suggesting a biologically determined set point for
our emotional range. One finding, for instance, shows that both for people lucky enough
to win a lottery and those unlucky souls who become paraplegic from an accident, by a
year or so after the events their daily moods are about the same as before the momentous
occurrences, indicating that the emotional set point changes little, if at all.
By chance, Dr. Davidson had the opportunity to test the left-right ratio on a senior
Tibetan lama, who turned out to have the most extreme value to the left of the 175 people
measured to that point.
Dr. Davidson reported that remarkable finding during the meeting between the Dalai
Lama and the scientists in India. But the finding, while intriguing, raised more questions
than it answered.
Was it just a quirk, or a trait common among those who become monks? Or was there
something about the training of lamas — the Tibetan Buddhist equivalent of a priest or
spiritual teacher — that might nudge a set point into the range for perpetual happiness?
And if so, the Dalai Lama wondered, can it be taken out of the religious context to be
shared for the benefit of all?
A tentative answer to that last question has come from a study that Dr. Davidson did in
collaboration with Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the Mindfulness-Based Stress
Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester.
That clinic teaches mindfulness to patients with chronic diseases of all kinds, to help
them better handle their symptoms. In an article accepted for publication in the peer-
reviewed journal Psychosomatic Medicine, Drs. Davidson and Kabat-Zinn report the
effects of training in mindfulness meditation, a method extracted from its Buddhist
origins and now widely taught to patients in hospitals and clinics throughout the United
States and many other countries.
Dr. Kabat-Zinn taught mindfulness to workers in a high-pressure biotech business for
roughly three hours a week over two months. A comparison group of volunteers from the
company received the training later, though they, like the participants, were tested before and after training by Dr. Davidson and his colleagues.
The results bode well for beginners, who will never put in the training time routine for
lamas. Before the mindfulness training, the workers were on average tipped toward the
right in the ratio for the emotional set point. At the same time, they complained of feeling
highly stressed. After the training, however, on average their emotions ratio shifted
leftward, toward the positive zone. Simultaneously, their moods improved; they reported
feeling engaged again in their work, more energized and less anxious.
In short, the results suggest that the emotion set point can shift, given the proper training.
In mindfulness, people learn to monitor their moods and thoughts and drop those that
might spin them toward distress. Dr. Davidson hypothesizes that it may strengthen an
array of neurons in the left prefrontal cortex that inhibits the messages from the amygdala
that drive disturbing emotions.
Another benefit for the workers, Dr. Davidson reported, was that mindfulness seemed to
improve the robustness of their immune systems, as gauged by the amount of flu
antibodies in their blood after receiving a flu shot.
According to Dr. Davidson, other studies suggest that if people in two experimental
groups are exposed to the flu virus, those who have learned the mindfulness technique
will experience less severe symptoms. The greater the leftward shift in the emotional set
point, the larger the increase in the immune measure.
The mindfulness training focuses on learning to monitor the continuing sensations and
thoughts more closely, both in sitting meditation and in activities like yoga exercises.
Now, with the Dalai Lama's blessing, a trickle of highly trained lamas have come to be
studied. All of them have spent at least three years in solitary meditative retreat. That
amount of practice puts them in a range found among masters of other domains, like
Olympic divers and concert violinists.
What difference such intense mind training may make for human abilities has been
suggested by preliminary findings from other laboratories. Some of the more tantalizing
data come from the work of another scientist, Dr. Paul Ekman, director of the Human
Interaction Laboratory at the University of California at San Francisco, which studies the
facial expression of emotions. Dr. Ekman also participated in the five days of dialogue
with the Dalai Lama.
Dr. Ekman has developed a measure of how well a person can read another's moods as
telegraphed in rapid, slight changes in facial muscles.
As Dr. Ekman describes in "Emotions Revealed," to be published by Times Books in
April, these microexpressions — ultrarapid facial actions, some lasting as little as one-
twentieth of a second — lay bare our most naked feelings. We are not aware we are
making them; they cross our faces spontaneously and involuntarily, and so reveal for those who can read them our emotion of the moment, utterly uncensored.
Perhaps luckily, there is a catch: almost no one can read these moments. Though Dr.
Ekman's book explains how people can learn to detect these expressions in just hours
with proper training, his testing shows that most people — including judges, the police
and psychotherapists — are ordinarily no better at reading microexpressions than
someone making random guesses.
Yet when Dr. Ekman brought into the laboratory two Tibetan practitioners, one scored
perfectly on reading three of six emotions tested for, and the other scored perfectly on
four. And an American teacher of Buddhist meditation got a perfect score on all six,
considered quite rare. Normally, a random guess will produce one correct answer in six.
Such findings, along with urgings from the Dalai Lama, inspired Dr. Ekman to design a
program called "Cultivating Emotional Balance," which combines methods extracted
from Buddhism, like mindfulness, with synergistic training from modern psychology,
like reading microexpressions, and seeks to help people better manage their emotions and
relationships.
A pilot of the project began last month with elementary school teachers in the San
Francisco Bay area, under the direction of Dr. Margaret Kemeny, a professor of
behavioral medicine at the University of California at San Francisco. She hopes to
replicate Dr. Davidson's immune system findings on mindfulness, as well as adding other
measures of emotional and social skill, in a controlled trial with 120 nurses and teachers.
Finally, the scientific momentum of these initial forays has intrigued other investigators.
Under the auspices of the Mind and Life Institute, which organizes the series of
continuing meetings between the Dalai Lama and scientists, there will be a round at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Sept. 13 and 14. This time the Dalai Lama will
meet with an expanded group of researchers to discuss further research possibilities.
Though open to the public, half the seats will be reserved for graduate students and
academic researchers. (More information is at www.InvestigatingTheMind.org.)
As for me, I am taking all this to heart. An on-again, off-again meditator since my college
days, I have become decidedly on again. Next month, my wife and I are heading to a
warm spot for two or three weeks of meditation retreat. I may never catch up with that
sublime lama, but I will enjoy trying.

ShiftPlusOne · October 2010

Another,more detailed, article can be found here:

http://www.eubios.info/EJ141/ej141j.htm

I am glad I could help.

GuyC · October 2010

What makes you think that karma is a function of the brain?

ShiftPlusOne · October 2010

GuyC, we didn't say all karma comes from the mind. It's commons sense however, that some karma comes from the mind.

I declare, O Bhikkhus, that volition is Karma. Having willed one acts by body, speech, and thought.

(Anguttara Nikaya)

As karma is not the only causal agent, the Theravādin commentarial tradition classifed causal mechanisms taught in the early texts in five categories, known as Niyama Dhammas:<sup id="cite_ref-33" class="reference"></sup><sup id="cite_ref-34" class="reference"></sup>
Kamma Niyama — Consequences of one's actions

Utu Niyama — Seasonal changes and climate

Biija Niyama — Laws of heredity

Citta Niyama — Will of mind

Dhamma Niyama — Nature's tendency to produce a perfect type

Wikipedia

Citta Niyama - order or mind or psychic law, e.g., processes of consciousness, arising and perishing of consciousness, constituents of consciousness, power of mind, etc., including telepathy, telaesthesia, retro-cognition, premonition, clairvoyance, clairaudience, thought-reading and such other psychic phenomena which are inexplicable to modern science.

Buddhanet

GuyC · October 2010

I didn't say "mind" I said "brain".

ShiftPlusOne · October 2010

Unless you're having an 'out of body experience' that seems like a distinction without a difference.

What do you mean? Where is YOUR mind located? As far as I know, the mind is a property of the brain.

GuyC · October 2010

In Buddhism, the aggregates that make a sentient being are divided into five categories: form (which is the body, including the brain), feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness. The mind (which is a total of the last 4 of these aggregates) is not a material object. It is not spatially located anywhere.

ShiftPlusOne · October 2010

Those categories are artificial. Are your thoughts a part of your mind or brain/body then? In fact perceptions and the other categories you have mentioned are a part of the brain. Either buddhism needs to be updated or that separation needs to be seen as a model for understanding.

GuyC · October 2010

Those categories are artificial. Are your thoughts a part of your mind or brain/body then? In fact perceptions and the other categories you have mentioned are a part of the brain.

It might be the case that the effects of thoughts and feelings are detectable in brain scans. I accept that. There is a correlation between brain activity and thoughts/feelings/perceptions. But to imply from this that the brain is the source of these is only an assumption, right? How can this be proven?

Either buddhism needs to be updated or that separation needs to be seen as a model for understanding.

As I understand it, they are a model for understanding. However, I personally don't believe that the mind is the brain. The Suttas also seem to suggest this is not the case. You even mentioned OBE's which also seem to point to the mind as being non-material.

thickpaper · October 2010

treederwright wrote: »

hello all, i have a facinating question. What part of the brain is karma from

Methinks Karms isn't from any part of the brain, rather it conditions all parts of the body, as much as it has the potential to condition all things connected with human experience, which, in a very real Dharmic sense sense, is everything...

i think its the medulla but i want to know what everyone else thinks.

I see where you are going with this I think:) As I understand it there are regions of the brain, eg, hypothalamus, temporal lobe and of course the doyen of the neuro-mystical hypothesis, ye olde pineal glan.

I remember when I was a teenager I was reading a book (Colin Wilson) that was going on about the pineal gland and it said how the highest source of whatever it was that effects the PG (serotonin??), the highest concentration of that in nature is found in the Boa Fig (bodhi) tree that the Buddha is said to have meditated under. Interesting!

namaste

ShiftPlusOne · October 2010

GuyC, what you have just given me is called the burden of proof. I wouldn't be able to tell you how we know these things without learning lots of neuroscience and biology. I would encourage you however to find the answer for yourself.

I will present an argument to support your case though. A computer is a very good simulation of the brain. It has all the basic components... the memory controller (hipocampus), RAM (short term memory), hard drive (long term memory), CPU (prefrontal cortex) and so on. In fact, the only distinction I can think of is that it doesn't have a mind. In that sense, I can understand how the brain and the mind are different things. I actually feel a little tripped out thinking of my brain as a computer and my computer as a mindless brain. I can't quite pinpoint the component of free will.

That, however, is just an interesting thought, nothing more.

OBEs have been pretty well explained by Dr. Susan Blackmore who has many many papers on the topic (you can look her up, many of them are on her site). There was one I read where she described the process as such:

The mind constantly runs background checks to separate what is real from what is not.
It looks at the various alternatives and picks what is real. Some individuals are more detached from reality and thus are able to have OBEs easily, while others are more grounded and can't do it at all without training.

When you fantasize, you still know it's not real, it's just thought. What your senses perceive takes precedence over what you make up and so on... There are many things the minds does to keep a check on things.

When reality is somehow unrealistic... (car crash, child birth, etc)... the mind can get confused between what's real and what is not and chooses the false reality of thought to be 'real'.

I can't explain it as well as she did, but that's the basic process of how OBEs happen.

Also, you will find certain drugs like some antidepressants can trigger a disconnect between real and not real. That's why some antidepressants increase the risk of suicide (in some cases), people seize to differentiate between the real world and lala-land.

Anyway, that's why OBEs are pretty much lucid dreams and the mind remains firmly a part of the brain.

Obviously the mind isn't material. I'd say the mind is very much immaterial... it' a process of the brain. A process isn't material... it's just a concept.

Back to the computer analogy... then the mind of the computer is a combination of what's on the hard drives, RAM, CPU registers and the processes carried out with these. How do these processes arise? We manipulate the 0s and 1s to get the results we desire.

In the same way, our 1s and 0s are controlled by the environment and processed by our brains.

...following that same line of thought. If we make computers with mobility functions (essentially robots) which replicate themselves and inherit the firmware and functions of the original computer + random variations and let them loose... The computers with favorable variations should be able to survive and replicate, while the faulty computers crash and don't replicate... after many many generations of these computers we would have simulated evolution. Of course there would be limitations because the hardware wouldn't advance, just the running functions and the variations would be very limited. Our DNA has billions of base pairs, so that's an insane amount of data. We go through mutations all the time and generations vary greatly in DNA. I think if we could decode the entire human DNA, we can create a computer with a self aware mind.

How's that for off-topic? =D

Sorry, I know I have a different perspective than a lot of people on the forum. I understand people have different ways of thinking, so I am not trying to shove anything I say down anyone's throat. Just sharing my thoughts.

ShiftPlusOne · October 2010

Hmm... just to add to what I said.

If the DNA is the firmware of humans. Then I don't think there's any software so large in existence. If there was a program like that it would take up many GBs just in compiled code alone (without the artwork like models, images, sounds and so on). No computer would be able to process that program real time. The computer's equivalent of neurons are transistors. The human brain has about 100 billion and the whole body can have over 1000 billion. To put that in perspective, a modern CPU has under 1 billion and a supercomputer CPU would have about 3 billion. Then take into about all the transistors of the rest of the computer you can add a couple dozen more billion for all the storage of memory.

So yeah... it is outside of the scope of humans to arrange so many transistors in just the right way to allow such complicated processes as the ones done by our mind. Perhaps another random process could be used.

I think I just explained to myself why true artificial intelligence and computer free will is currently impossible. We can 'play god' to try to set up the right conditions for an evolving computer, but the limitations are too grand.

Whoknows · October 2010

treederwright wrote: »

hello all, i have a facinating question. What part of the brain is karma from i think its the medulla but i want to know what everyone else thinks. The other part of the question is if enlightenment is actually a processing of the medulla and the remnants of reptillian brain or "old brain". If so this would make sense from evolution and enlightenment to the whole brain rehabilitation.

Also what are the effects of breath meditation and the medulla. it might make sense that the reason that the cognitive aspects are diminished in breathing meditation is because of the relation of breath and the medulla

I don't believe that the mind resides within the brain. I believe that there is a interdependence between the two. The mind cannot be measured from an objective point of view, therefore science, neuroscience and psychology all fail to take the mind into any proper consideration.

Treederwright try reading Choosing Reality and study shunyata when the time is right. You will see that there is no absolute foundation for the brain being the sole basis for our mental existence.

Cheers, WK

Whoknows · October 2010

"The mind is an emergent property of the brain" is an initial assumption in neuroscience and reductionism in general. I think neuroscientists should be required to study ontology and epistemology and some philosophy before making claims of absolute certainty. They would then realise that "The mind is an emergent property of the brain" is a metaphysical belief and not an absolute truth. If you take this as a 'certain' starting point then the evidence you will obtain from experiments based on these theories will be bound to support the initial axiom.

The problem with neuroscience, in this respect, is that they cannot examine the mind, it is inaccessible to scientific instruments. The organ that has the best association with the mind is the brain, and that can be examined as much as you like. But we are only ever looking at half of the system. The other half has to left as a black box. That will forever limit the amount of knowledge that can obtained. You cannot ever prove that the brain causes the mind with scientific examination and theories unless you can access the mind as well. Don't get me wrong, I am not arguing, not even in the slightest, that neuroscience isn't a absolutely essential science, but I am arguing against the assumption that mind is brain full stop.

And don't worry, ShiftPlusOne, if your views are different. We all have to find our own way and I am sure yours are right for you. Good to see another Melbournian, though I'm not happy that the Pies won the Grand Final

.

Cheers, WK

ShiftPlusOne · October 2010

Whoknows, why do you say that neuroscientists make that assumption? I don't think neuroscience is at all concerned with the mind. Neuroscience deals with the brain, psychology deals with the mind.

I think it's "obvious" that the mind is one of the processes of the brain. I also think at one point it was "obvious" that the Earth was flat. So I am not too rigid in my views and I think I've carried on about why for a while.

I am curious then, why do you guys say that mind isn't a function of the brain? Note: "<some guy/text> said so" isn't a very satisfying answer.

Tanda · October 2010

SHIFTPLUSONE,

I agree with your Brain- computer anology. You expressed what I thought for a long time was true.But I expected that you would go on to say that mind is akin to the operating system and programmes loaded to perform various jobs, in general software. I view that a christian is one whose brain is programmed by the influence of , say, bible or church; a Doctor is one whose brain is programmed with the medical knowledge he has acquired.

The initial perceptions of the brain, with its built in biological reflexes, are incrementally modified and added to form a collection of logical proceedures. This process happens through various experiences and bought-out inputs like education, peer pressure, social dynamics etc,.
Of course brain has some predilections, of its own because of its hardware design and that has a bearing on what input is accepted and what is overlooked.

I find beauty in buddhism in that it helps me to look at the very programming itself directly and lead a way to 'deprogramme', or re-programme or be free from any programming at all

That is my take. I do not have any pretensions of deep Buddhist knowledge but I also feel that Buddhism may need to be updated with the current development of technology and neuro science. That will help us to understand it better.

I don't think this discussion is off- topic. I am desperately trying to make sense of some aspects of Buddhism that I am unable to grasp. This question of mind and karma are really eating my brain, No pun intended.

ShiftPlusOne · October 2010

Tanda wrote: »

SHIFTPLUSONE,

I agree with your Brain- computer anology. You expressed what I thought for a long time was true.But I expected that you would go on to say that mind is akin to the operating system and programmes loaded to perform various jobs, in general software. I view that a christian is one whose brain is programmed by the influence of , say, bible or church; a Doctor is one whose brain is programmed with the medical knowledge he has acquired.

The initial perceptions of the brain, with its built in biological reflexes, are incrementally modified and added to form a collection of logical proceedures. This process happens through various experiences and bought-out inputs like education, peer pressure, social dynamics etc,.
Of course brain has some predilections, of its own because of its hardware design and that has a bearing on what input is accepted and what is overlooked.

I find beauty in buddhism in that it helps me to look at the very programming itself directly and lead a way to 'deprogramme', or re-programme or be free from any programming at all

That is my take. I do not have any pretensions of deep Buddhist knowledge but I also feel that Buddhism may need to be updated with the current development of technology and neuro science. That will help us to understand it better.

I don't think this discussion is off- topic. I am desperately trying to make sense of some aspects of Buddhism that I am unable to grasp. This question of mind and karma are really eating my brain, No pun intended.

Of course the analogy isn't perfect. I'll go along with it though

I'd put christianity, doctorate and other knowledge sets as software libraries (dlls), rather than programs. The functions are available for use, but they aren't programs in themselves.

If you like the scientific approach to Buddhism, the best way to understand karma is in the context of the general systems theory.

Good input leads to good output, bad input leads to bad output. There are many points of equilibrium in nature and the system adjusts to keep that equilibrium.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_system_%28systems_theory%29

Tanda · October 2010

Thank you SHIFTPLUSONE. Again I agree -with the DLL funda; only I did not bother to use precise words.

Your diagram is self explaining. But my Q was how the kamma continues to haunt one after his death; what is the common denominator between two successive lives. How exactly kamma is packed and couriered to the correct address and all that.

I know some one will immediately give me a link to some Bhuddist resource in the web. The volume of material is overwhelming and it throws more questions.
While the intro to Buddhism has 'silly-fied' most of the drives and urges that goad us into action or activism, the alternative goal that Bhuddhism offers is nebulous, negative and non attainable and 'not-needable'. I don't know if any one can understand the agony of this conflict,

ShiftPlusOne · October 2010

Ah ok, I don't get into literal reincarnation and all that. I just suspect that part is inherited from the general beliefs of the time and region.

Whoknows · October 2010

ShiftPlusOne wrote: »

Whoknows, why do you say that neuroscientists make that assumption? I don't think neuroscience is at all concerned with the mind. Neuroscience deals with the brain, psychology deals with the mind.

I think it's "obvious" that the mind is one of the processes of the brain. I also think at one point it was "obvious" that the Earth was flat. So I am not too rigid in my views and I think I've carried on about why for a while.

I am curious then, why do you guys say that mind isn't a function of the brain? Note: "<some guy/text> said so" isn't a very satisfying answer.

Ah! But I'm not, I'm only saying that you cannot prove that "mind is a function of the brain",

To prove that mind is an emergent function of the brain, first you need to define what mind is, in such a way that doesn't introduce a circular reference. Philosophy has tried this for centuries without success (so have Buddhists! ). What psychology and science has done to compensate is to pretend that mind doesn't exist and attribute it to brain function. But that is just an unproven assumption. What you find when you examine reality is reality as expressed through the mode of inquiry, not reality itself. This is most obvious in the quantum world, the act of observation disturbs the system creating an altered outcome.

I sometimes wonder whether the same happens when measuring the brain, does the act of measuring the brain then interfere with the processes involved in the brain? Are we actually measuring the brain activity "as it is" or brain activity under the influence of our measuring devices? How can neuroscience answer these questions? The more chaotic or complex a system is, the more difficult to predict what result a small fluctuation will produce. I don't think that there are many more complex and chaotic systems than the brain (except for maybe the stock market

).

What I would like to see is that scientists get taught a little bit of philosophy in their college years so that they can see that "Western" Philosophy refutes realism and reductionism as ultimate explanations. But being an engineer myself, if someone tried to shove philosophy down my throat before I was ready then I'd would have told them where to go!

Is this knowledge important or useful? If scientists were aware of the limitation of their initial axioms then they would be able to be more flexible and I think knowledge would be judged less on whether "it is the way it is" and more on whether the knowledge is beneficial.

Anyway, it really doesn't matter that much- do what's right for you. It is fascinating if you want to get into it. The problem is its hard to understand. The first time I read "Choosing Reality" by B.A.Wallace I remember saying "yeah so what" to myself many times. Only meditation helped get past that point.

There are others here who are much more versed in these areas.

Cheers, WK

ShiftPlusOne · October 2010

Sounds a bit like the Celestial Teapot. You're giving "what if" scenarios. Just because something MIGHT be different, doesn't mean it is. Combine psychology, physics and biology and it's pretty obvious the mind is a function of the brain... it's just how it is... there's no need to say "but what if...<insert scenario in which that conclusion is somewhat questionable>".

And you know what, that book is available in my uni's library, so I'll be sure to read it... If only to understand why someone would make the claim that the mind isn't what we know it to be.

Whoknows · October 2010

ShiftPlusOne wrote: »

Sounds a bit like the Celestial Teapot. You're giving "what if" scenarios. Just because something MIGHT be different, doesn't mean it is.

No argument here.

Combine psychology, physics and biology and it's pretty obvious the mind is a function of the brain... it's just how it is...

Agreed, just the same as if you combine the aggregates it is pretty obvious you get the self.

And you know what, that book is available in my uni's library, so I'll be sure to read it... If only to understand why someone would make the claim that the mind isn't what we know it to be.

Cause we're twisted

Cheers, WK

treederwright · October 2010

LOL what a twist of thinking. So what i meant is that based on the continuim theory of buddhism ( i dont' think its a theory) that all current moments of conciousness is based on a preceding moment i believe that there could possibly be the remnants of karma in the chemicals produced by the brain. Then because of behaviors deeply engrained through evolution the karma is perptuated. This is why i also believe that the methods being highly rational from buddhist teachers in fact " enlightens" the prefrontal cortex which effects the amagdalya ( not the medulla, thanks for the correction, the theory was correct at least) . I learned this after my wife showed me the way neurons and receptors.. function. it was pretty cool. Yet im still not sure where the karma is physically stored or what it physically effects. other wise we postulate that mind is inherently seperate from body , whereas there would be no effect on body if mind were inherently different ( i love madhyamaka!) So riddle me that batman!

ShiftPlusOne · October 2010

Why would you say karma is a chemical or is 'stored'? Lets take an unskillful act as an example... if you throw 5 bricks up into the air above you... does there have to be a chemical in your brain for them to fall down and potentially hurt you?

treederwright · October 2010

no, and thats no karma. but if you throw the brick at a bird and that hits you in the head and hurts you, your intent to harm the bird might be karma / aggression which has a known chemical foundation.

ShiftPlusOne · October 2010

Ah, I don't believe in that sort of karma, so I can't really say anything.

treederwright · October 2010

what kind of karma do you believe ( is there more than one)?

ShiftPlusOne · October 2010

I see karma as just an eastern version of cause and effect. The bird example you gave would be a coincidence. If I don't see a link between cause and effect, I wouldn't call it karma. I am open to the possibility that there's a link that I don't see, but again, that doesn't mean that every negative thing that happens is a result of my actions.

How do we define what's good and bad anyway? We normally look at the results. So if you kill a guy, people get upset, you feel guilty and sympathetic and things just go downhill for you... thus you can see murder is bad. If you steal something... same scenario... people can retaliate and you end up worse of. Naturally, if we don't see a link between our actions and results, we don't normally recognize those actions as 'bad'/negative/unskillfull/foolish. Buddhism helps fill in some blanks, especially in the realm of our minds. We can trace a path between our negative emotions like clinging/anger/hatred/greed to the suffering it causes us... then we recognize that we don't need it.

So... the Buddhist and Hindu idea of Karma does help us find some of the link between cause and effect, but I wouldn't take it too literally. I hope I expressed myself clearly. It's a complicated topic that's hard for me to describe in words. I could rant on for 20 pages about it, but probably shouldn't.

GuyC · October 2010

ShiftPlusOne wrote: »

Just sharing my thoughts.

Thanks for sharing.

treederwright · October 2010

good job expressing yourself.

Tanda · October 2010

I am keenly following this thread.

I think that Karma or cause/effect logic ignores the element of probability. Throwing a coin and getting head or tail is not entirely due to my actions. It is dependent upon several factors such as weight of the coin, position of fingers, direction of muscle force, wind etc. It may not be affected by my intentions. Even all my efforts may be neutralized or overridden by other elements playing.

What follows on getting head or tail is as per the rules of the game but every event in the game is again influenced by the same chance element.

So also all my life event and pre-birth and post mortem events are sum total of not merely my own karma but karma of all parties having a role as well as random probability, that unpredictable and un-caused element of chance.

Looks like Buddhist thinking does not account for this factor and seems to say that my actions and my efforts alone decide my destination.

I postulate that it is this chance element that gave rise to the first living cell that later evolved into a full fledged complex and thinking organisms one of which is now writing this post. When I ponder over this chance element thing, I get a possible clue about my very first birth ( Elsewhere in another post I sought answer to the question how I took my first birth when there was zero kamma/zero sankara), but my view of Buddhist rationality takes a beating.

Any views?

ShiftPlusOne · October 2010

Tanda, Buddhism takes into account the other forces as well actually. Karma is considered to be just one of the many forces at play. To be fair, Buddha didn't explore the idea of karma that much and all of these formalized 'systems' on karma are a result of Buddhist philosophy. I don't think it's as important as it's made out to be. It's just important to recognize that our actions have consequences.

Indian philosophy

See also: Karma
Theories of causality in Indian philosophy focus mainly on the relationship between cause and effect. The various philosophical schools (darsanas) provide different theories.
The doctrine of satkaryavada affirms that the effect inheres in the cause in some way. The effect is thus either a real or apparent modification of the cause.
The doctrine of asatkaryavada affirms that the effect does not inhere in the cause, but is a new arising.
The Buddha, and subsequent Buddhist thinkers such as Nagarjuna, rejected both, instead proposing a middle way.
See Nyaya for some details of the theory of causation in the Nyaya school.

Whoknows · October 2010

There is another view in Buddhism that says that everything we experience is a direct result of our karmic dispositions and traces.

ShiftPlusOne · October 2010

Whoknows wrote: »

There is another view in Buddhism that says that everything we experience is a direct result of our karmic dispositions and traces.

What school/tradition/text is that from?

Whoknows · October 2010

ShiftPlusOne wrote: »

What school/tradition/text is that from?

Cittamatra or Yogacara.

Whoknows · October 2010

Whoknows wrote: »

Cittamatra or Yogacara.

Also the Twelve Nidanas which is of all schools of Buddhism.

ShiftPlusOne · October 2010

Ok, after exams I will familiarize myself with those and read Choosing Reality. No point commenting on something I am unfamiliar with.

treederwright · October 2010

Yogacara says everything comes from the mind. Its kinda like if the mind doesn't conceptualize a tree is it still a tree. Since tree is an aggregation of several part components. The mind deletes all the non tree elements and forces them to coagulate on an object called a tree. The arguement is that if the mind can't conceptualize tree does it still exist. Very tricky talking here , because it deals with pure subjectivity the arguement is through valid cognition. This is the difference between autonomous and consequence schools of madhyamaka. That being said ( way off topic!) the divisions of schools and views of karma aren't the issue again the issue is simply

Does the mind and brain have a correlation in relation to karma.

In Geshe Tashi Tserings book titled Four Noble Truths , part of the Foundation of Buddhist Thought series. he says "karma is only in relation to the mind" throwing a brick in the air isn't karma. This is talked about in Tsongkhapa's lamrim chenmo. And they talk about the components that are neccessary for a complete karmic action.

Tanda · October 2010

it's as important as it's made out to be. It's just important to recognize that our actions have consequences.

.

That does not exactly address my anxieties. The random chance events may negate, neutralise or compound my karma. My algorithm for proper living may become entirely faulty if it does not factor this. How do I suppose Buddhist path is surely the right path.

Also the Twelve Nidanas which is of all schools of Buddhism

.

OMG, How many schools? which is valid? which is appropriate to me? WillI find that I was on the wrong road only at the end of the journey?

ShiftPlusOne · October 2010

Tanda, why do you say that random chance events affect your karma? Random chance events are just that... random chance events.

A bit of a disclaimer: I am not a Buddhist, so I am not here to quote Buddhist teachings, just myself.

Tanda · October 2010

why do you say that random chance events.....

Sorry for my inaccurate English. I meant that what happens to me is not only the results of my karma but also random chance events.

I hope that my viewpoint is clear now.

Whoknows · October 2010

Tanda wrote: »

I think that Karma or cause/effect logic ignores the element of probability.
Any views?[/LEFT]

Hi Tanda,

I don't really believe in truly random events. If you look at the history of random events they are very complex natural occurrences that could more easily be modelled by using some for of random probability based distribution. It is purely a convenient conceptual invention to help explain and predict things. As far as I know, the very first so-called real random event was attributed to radioactive decay. Following on from there scientists incorporated probability distributions into quantum mechanics. I suspect that wherever you see random events you are just seeing complexity beyond our knowledge to explain, formulate or measure.

I have heard some hearsay comments that claim that someone actually proved that there are truly random events but the person was unable to pinpoint the actual study or name of the scientist involved. Does anyone know this as I'm interested in investigating this?

Cheers, WK

Whoknows · October 2010

treederwright wrote: »

Yogacara says everything comes from the mind. Its kinda like if the mind doesn't conceptualize a tree is it still a tree. Since tree is an aggregation of several part components. The mind deletes all the non tree elements and forces them to coagulate on an object called a tree. The arguement is that if the mind can't conceptualize tree does it still exist. Very tricky talking here , because it deals with pure subjectivity the arguement is through valid cognition.

Hi TW, Sounds like a textbook description of Yogacara to me. Its not that straight forward

Also Yogacara is often used in combination with emptiness as well. Experience is the subject of mind, yet mind itself is empty. That leads to a easier path to understanding that the external world is empty as well. As understanding that the mind is empty is simpler than understanding that external reality is empty, after all it is intangible and undefinable yet manifests. That is used in combination with the understanding that emptiness does not refute the existence of things to ward off nihilism. So the mind and reality exist yet are both empty and the mind and reality exist because they are empty.

Cheers, WK

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