Bernardo's active brain comments

[Lou Gold]

I'm pretty much in agreement. I don't see any evidence of a more porous alter whatever that actually means. I think the experience certainly can open a person up to new viewpoints and approaches, possibly reset things, but I don't see that arising from a mind at large seeping into the alter but rather from the possibilities of restructuring brain patterns.

Why is brain activity beside point? Under 'normal' DMN non-psychedelic conditions I see and feel more of myself and the surrounding environment when my mind is quiet than when it is busy. In the case of dmt, as I mentioned earlier, the 'spirit molecule' is already within. From a nondual religious pov, so is the 'divine'. Obfuscation and narrowing of focus surely seem as more associated with so-called "increased brain activity" in my direct experience. I am clearer and calmer and more connected when quiet. Is this not the general case?

I'm not sure there is always an association of increased brain activity with narrowing of focus. I think some experienced Zen meditators have significantly stronger brain activity when meditating.

Mingyur’s brain circuitry for empathy rose 700-800 times higher than during the rest periods. Mingyur’s results were not isolated. In total, 21 Buddhist monks were formally tested and underwent the same scientific protocol. Each had similar results to Mingyur’s—each able to enter and leave the meditative state at will, marked with a distinct neural signature; each with remarkable mental dexterity and ease at generating compassion and laser-like focus. Once the team had sifted through the raw data, they were astonished. All the yogis had elevated gamma oscillations not just during meditation but even during baseline measurements of their everyday neural activity.

https://braintap.com/study-of-meditatio ... searchers/

I think in general these relationships are just a lot more complicated than we would like.

In the case of psychedelics, what is being found is some parts of the brain are less active and other parts are more active. The conjecture is that the less active parts are related to maintaining the stability of normal consciousness. Other parts then become more active in an attempt to compensate.

I associate the "one pointedness" of zen or diverse forms of mindfulness meditation with a very calm expansion or deepening of awareness and not a scattering or a closure. I believe we have language issue. A calm quiet mind is focused on whatever is in the now/here, be that a narrow or broadview, a sunset or a single sparkle in the sand. I don't buy the notion of compensation of a separate mind part. It's more like opening a door to see either ant ant or a galaxy. OTOH, if you are arguing that it's all already within -- a substance, the divine, an awareness, a process -- then I surely agree. The issue becomes whether one can hold the awareness in an integrated open balanced way. This takes practice and discipline.

[Jim Cross]

I tend to agree that it becomes a moot point whether or not there is some yet to be determined, obfuscated brain activity that correlates with the qualia-rich phantasmagoria of psychedelic experience, and which still leaves materialism with its 'hard problem.' BK's point is only that under materialism, whereby brain activity is supposed to engender that conscious experience, then presumably 'richer' experience would correlate with measurably greater activity, rather than reduced and/or obfuscated activity.

I guess you haven't been following the thread too closely. Carhart-Harris thinks the "yet to be determined" has been determined in increased entropy which correlates with informational richness. Full abstract of earlier link.

The entropic brain hypothesis proposes that within upper and lower limits, after which consciousness may be lost, the entropy of spontaneous brain activity indexes the informational richness of conscious states. Here the hypothesis is revisited four years on from its original publication. It is shown that the principle that the entropy of brain activity is elevated in the psychedelic state is increasingly well supported by separate and independent studies and analyses, and evidence for greater brain criticality under psychedelics is also highlighted. It is argued that heightened brain criticality enables the brain to be more sensitive to intrinsic and extrinsic perturbations which may translate as a heightened susceptibility to “set” and “setting”. This updated version of the original entropic brain hypothesis now offers more concrete information on specific measures of brain entropy and suggests new studies to scrutinise it further, as well as examine its utility for describing and informing the treatment of psychiatric and neurological conditions such as depression and disorders of consciousness.

Entropy is associated with a breakdown of order possibly triggered by reduced activity in the default mode network. The "qualia-rich phantasmagoria" arises directly from the increased entropy. I don't know this has any bearing on the so-called "hard problem".

[Jim Cross]

I associate the "one pointedness" of zen or diverse forms of mindfulness meditation with a very calm expansion or deepening of awareness and not a scattering or a closure.

Exactly. But that correlates with increased brain activity, not reduced activity, which is the opposite of BK's argument.

The larger point is that the relationships between brain activity and experience aren't simple and you can't tie transformative experience necessarily to decreased activity or increased activity in every case. And that includes the cases where the brain has a confusing mixture of increases and decreases as it does with psychedelics.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Some may also want to check out Ruth Kastner as a physicist who is also open to the possibility of trancorporeal/trans-spatiotemporal consciousness, implying that while measurably discernible EEG phenomena, in corresponding to a noumenal realm, does not necessarily mean that in the absence of such measurable phenomena there is no conscious noumenon. In this discussion, Jeffery Mishlove asks her what she thinks of BK's version of idealism, wherein she readily speaks positively about it, and confirms that the primacy of consciousness may be the better premise to start with ...

[Lou Gold]

I associate the "one pointedness" of zen or diverse forms of mindfulness meditation with a very calm expansion or deepening of awareness and not a scattering or a closure.

Exactly. But that correlates with increased brain activity, not reduced activity, which is the opposite of BK's argument.

The larger point is that the relationships between brain activity and experience aren't simple and you can't tie transformative experience necessarily to decreased activity or increased activity in every case. And that includes the cases where the brain has a confusing mixture of increases and decreases as it does with psychedelics.

Again a language issue. If by increased brain activity you mean "busy with thoughts" then I totally disagree. OTOH, if you mean disciplined silence results means more awareness, then I agree. My read of BK is that he is saying the latter.

"And that includes the cases where the brain has a confusing mixture of increases and decreases as it does with psychedelics." No, not always. There are disciplined uses of entheogens, for some across time involving thousands of doses where the practice results in a disciplined balance in the experience.

Here is the Santo Daime hymn "Eu Balanço" (I shake or rock) with added drama of fireworks going off outside. Holding the song, dance and rhythm instruments in balanced harmony is a mind/body practice that adventurous or recreational use at high dose does not aim for and therefore does not attain. Note: nothing wrong with the latter way, just different. Here are two videos, the first about balance and the second about celebration.

[Soul_of_Shu]

The "qualia-rich phantasmagoria" arises directly from the increased entropy. I don't know this has any bearing on the so-called "hard problem".

How can anyone fail to see the irony in this statement? Again, no-one is denying that there is to be expected correlation between brain activity and the experience of qualia, whether involving psychedelics or not, but this does not necessitate a presumption that brain activity of whatever sort causally gives rise to the experience of qualia, aka materialism's 'hard problem.'

[Jim Cross]

Shu,

The link to Kastner is great but this thread had to do with Bernardo's active brain comments.

BTW, Susan Pockett and Johnjoe McFadden also think consciousness could exist outside of EEG correlations because it is a property of information in certain types of electromagnetic fields.

no-one is denying that there is to be expected correlation between brain activity and the experience of qualia

What BK argues is that sometimes brain activity correlates and sometimes it doesn't presumably to cast doubt on the materialist interpretation.

The "hard problem" is a philosophical problem not a scientific one. No amount of correlation or lack of correlation between brain activity and experience demonstrates any proof of an ontological position or provides any resolution of the "hard problem".

[Jim Cross]

Lou,

The context of my comments has related to measurable brain activity by scientific means, such as EEG or fMRI. It is not related to whether your brain feels busy or feels calm, feels balanced or feels confused. The comments are in the context of this thread which is the context of scientific research on psychedelics.

[Astra052]

I associate the "one pointedness" of zen or diverse forms of mindfulness meditation with a very calm expansion or deepening of awareness and not a scattering or a closure.

Exactly. But that correlates with increased brain activity, not reduced activity, which is the opposite of BK's argument.

The larger point is that the relationships between brain activity and experience aren't simple and you can't tie transformative experience necessarily to decreased activity or increased activity in every case. And that includes the cases where the brain has a confusing mixture of increases and decreases as it does with psychedelics.

Again a language issue. If by increased brain activity you mean "busy with thoughts" then I totally disagree. OTOH, if you mean disciplined silence results means more awareness, then I agree. My read of BK is that he is saying the latter.

"And that includes the cases where the brain has a confusing mixture of increases and decreases as it does with psychedelics." No, not always. There are disciplined uses of entheogens, for some across time involving thousands of doses where the practice results in a disciplined balance in the experience.

Here is the Santo Daime hymn "Eu Balanço" (I shake or rock) with added drama of fireworks going off outside. Holding the song, dance and rhythm instruments in balanced harmony is a mind/body practice that adventurous or recreational use at high dose does not aim for and therefore does not attain. Note: nothing wrong with the latter way, just different. Here are two videos, the first about balance and the second about celebration.

I don't see how what you're saying has anything to do with what he's saying though. He was saying the brain has a mixture of increasing and decreasing activity during psychedelics and you somehow took that to mean something about them being used in a resopnsible manner? I don't know how you can only look at people's actions on psychedelics, no matter how disciplined or erratic, and tell what their brain state is like.

[Soul_of_Shu]

No amount of correlation or lack of correlation between brain activity and experience demonstrates any proof of an ontological position or provides any resolution of the "hard problem".

Thanks for reiterating my point, which is that regardless of whether or not BK's argument is a good one in this case, it still leaves materialism, as a philosophical premise, with its hard problem, whatever NCC there may be in the case of psychedelic use. And so, in considering a counter-materialist alternative, as per the discussion with Ruth Kastner, an empirical case for the primacy of consciousness is not really seriously compromised simply because of this one debatable issue, even if BK insists on a different interpretation of the data.