Transcript Section 9: First Person Approaches

Section 9: First Person Approaches
By: Benny Palma
Dat Thai
Chapter 25: The View from Within
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Battle between First Person and Third
Person Data
A. Chalmers, Searle, Nagel, Levine, and Pinker
are of the First-Person Data School of Thought.
 B. Chalmers claims “consciousness has a first
person or subjective ontology and so cannot be
reduced to anything that has third-person or
objective ontology. If you try to reduce or
eliminate one in favor of the other you leave
something out.”
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Chapter 25: The View from Within
C. The Churchlands, Andy Clark, Quine,
Hofstadter, and Dennet comprise the Third-Party
School of Thought.
 D. They claim that studying consciousness does
not mean studying special inner, private ineffable
qualia, but studying what people say or do, for
there is no other way of getting at the
phenomena.
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Chapter 25: The View from Within
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Phenomenology
i. Refers to any methods for the systematic
investigation of phenomenal experience.
 ii. Practical applications of phenomenology
include exploring emotional states, or describing
what it is like to undergo certain experiences,
with the intention of discovering the essence of
these experiences.
 iii. The typical method involves several stages of
analyzing interviews or written accounts.
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Chapter 25: The View from Within
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NeuroPhenomenology
A. Concept refers to the “quest to marry modern
cognitive science and a disciplined approach to
human experience.”
 B. “Phenomenological accounts of the structure
of experience and their counterparts in cognitive
science relate to each other through reciprocal
constraints.” Meaning that experience should be
validated by various neurobiological proposals.
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Chapter 25: The View from Within
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HeteroPhenomenology
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A. Essentially, defined as “the study of other people’s
phenomena”
B. Studies everything and anything that people do and
say, and accepts that they are genuinely trying to
describe how things seem to them.
C. Three main steps use in this practice:
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1. Data is collected.
2. Data is interpreted.
3. Adopt the intentional stance (we treat the subject as a rational
agent who has beliefs, desires, and intentionality). According to
Dennet, this is the basic method that has always been used in
the science of psychology.
Chapter 25: The View from Within
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According to the philosophies of the two
rivaling schools of thought, there has not
been any meaningful reconciliation. Their
claims still rival one another.
Chapter 26: Mediation and
Mindfulness
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A. Most methods of mediation have religious
origins. Surprisingly, many of the transcendental
experiences and mystical states of conscious that
mediators experience have, despite the fact that
their radically differing worldviews, similar elements
and insights.
B. Common to all forms of mediation are two basic
tasks:
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1. Paying attention
2. Not thinking
Chapter 26: Mediation and
Mindfulness
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C. Mindfulness meditation in Buddhism is a form of
open mediation, in particular the method of
Shikantaza, which means “just sitting.”
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i. This method employs the idea to be continuously
mindful and attentive, and fully present in the moment,
paying attention to anything and everything without
discrimination.
ii. Once the desired state has been achieved nonduality
occurs, which is the state where differences between self
and other, and the mind and its contents disappear.
Chapter 26: Mediation and
Mindfulness
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D. Concentrative Mediation
i. Paying focused attention to one thing without
distraction, rather than remaining open to the
world.
 ii. Different breathing patterns have powerful
effects on awareness, and there is evidence that
experienced meditators use these effects.
 iii. Meditators may be told that they can learn to
control special energy or even learn to acquire
paranormal and healing abilities.
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Chapter 26: Mediation and
Mindfulness
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E. Siddhis and Psychic Powers
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i. Siddhis are supernatural or paranormal powers
that develop as a result of some types of
mediation that includes:
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Prophecy
 2. Levitation
 3. Astral Projection
 4. Control over others and forces of nature
Chapter 26: Mediation and
Mindfulness
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E. Siddhis and Psychic Powers
ii. Transcendental meditators have made huge
claims regarding their ability to manifest specific
paranormal abilities but not have subjected
themselves to rigorous scientific observation.
Their claims are suspected and have not been
verified by any reliable sources.
 iii. Research into religious mystical sects from
various cultures have also witnesses similar
types of phenomena.
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Chapter 26: Mediation and
Mindfulness
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F. Insight and Awakening
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i. Meditators achieve an altered state of consciousness in
their state.
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1. Research has discovered that fluctuating brain wave states
between Alpha and Theta recorded by EEG accounts for the
altered state of consciousness. Although, some of the evidence is
inconsistent.
2. Peter Fenwick counters by stating that meditators fall asleep
and do not achieve an altered state of consciousness.
3. Kasamatsu’s and Hirai’s study found more theta wave activity
in experienced meditators and the Zen masters correlated this
shift to spiritual development. Novitiates did not have this
increase in theta activity.
Chapter 27: Buddhism and
Consciousness
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Buddhism
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A. Siddhartha Guatama was a spoiled child from
a wealthy family in India. When he was 29, he
left behind his wealth, wife, and a young son,
and set off to become a wandering ascetic,
depriving himself of every comfort and outdoing
all the other ascetics of his time by the harsh
rigors of his self-imposed discipline. He sat
under a tree for seven days until he was
enlightened on the seventh.
Chapter 27: Buddhism and
Consciousness
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Buddhism
B. Buddha urged people not to be satisfied with
hearsay or tradition but to look within to see the
truth, and it is said that his last words were “Work
out your own salvation with diligence.”
 C. So what is Enlightenment?
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Those who speak of it at all say that it cannot be
explained or described.
 ii. The closest that we can get to saying anything
positive about enlightenment is that it is losing
something—dropping the illusions.
Chapter 27: Buddhism and
Consciousness
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Buddhism
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D. Buddhism is about finding out the truth in
order to transform oneself, to become free from
suffering, and even to save all sentient beings
from sufferings.
Chapter 27: Buddhism and
Consciousness
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Buddhism and Therapy
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A. While psychotherapy aims to create a
coherent self of self, Buddhist psychology aims
to transcend the sense of self.
Chapter 27: Buddhism and
Consciousness
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Buddhism and Therapy
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B. Jack Engler studied the effects of Buddhism on
students and determined:
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i. Those that are attracted to Buddhism because of failures in
their development of self, or as a way of avoiding dealing with
themselves, ran the risk of further fragmenting their already
sense of self.
ii. “You have to be somebody before you can be nobody.”
iii. People who are frail, unhappy, neurotic, and deeply afraid may
have catastrophic reactions to facing themselves. They want to
feel better, and embarking on serious spiritual inquiry is likely to
make them feel a great deal worse.
iv. Those who persevere with spiritual practice say that it naturally
gives rise to many positive and therapeutic effects… they
become more loving and compassionate, and find greater
equanimity.
Chapter 27: Buddhism and
Consciousness
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Waking Up
A. Described as though it was the endpoint of a
long journey along the spiritual path…
 B. Douglas Harding insists that there are not two
parallel worlds, an inner and an outer, because if
you really look, you just see one world, which is
always before you.
 C. Awakening is not the culmination of a journey
but the realization that you never left home and
never could.
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Chapter 27: Buddhism and
Consciousness
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Waking Up
E. One point that Buddhism and psychology both
make is that our experience is in some sense,
illusory.
 F. Meditators and spiritual masters drop the
illusion and see all arising experiences as
interdependent, impermanent and not inherently
divided into separate things.
 G. Fenwick claims, “the characteristic of
enlightenment is a permanent freeing of the
individual from the illusion that he is ‘doing’”.
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