This is an unusual question. I am not sure how you are imagining the discussion to proceed but the thought that springs to my mind is that of the blank sheet of paper when one begins to put thoughts to paper. Often when one starts to think about an idea it is not with pen or paper in hand, but the whole generation of thought seems an important process.

When I have been working on ideas for some project I often feel that I have to psyche myself up, usually with a few cups of coffee. I think about it as being about the whole creative process, and it feels like going into another dimension for a time, and bringing back the treasured gems of the other reality. But that is my experience of generating ideas and I am aware that others may experience it very differently.

I am not sure how you are imagining the discussion to proceed... — Jack Cummins

Considering the issues involved, thinking is an incredibly over-rated (albeit necessary) activity. But since this is where our 'self' hangs, it's pretty much non-stop fun and games.

I was curious as to whether there were people (other than those who meditate) out there who had given this any thought.

Jack, what other reality do you refer to?

I can imagine that you are a bit disappointed by having only one response so far. Perhaps the question is one that is a rather unusual slant, but it could just be that your thread is a slow starter.

I have to be careful when I speak of an 'other reality' because it is frequently taken for mysticism on this forum and I am not sure that it even is. I am talking about entering into the world of thought. This can involve meditation, but can just be about thought itself. I think many people who write on the forum dislike the whole idea of meditation but in some ways I am not sure that there is a real difference between what it is in practice from focused concentration.

Mediators concentrate on this moment and often find it to be a portal to another place altogether. — synthesis

I think it's a portal to Naive Realism.

It is what it is. Many people have little interest or experience "non-thinking."

I've been a dedicated Zen student for the past 30+ years, so meditation is a subject with which I am quite familiar. There are several types of meditation practiced, but generally speaking, when most people think meditation, they are attempting to clear their minds (via the various teaching methods).

The interesting thing about meditation is that it is purely experiential (as is everything real).

Mediators concentrate on this moment and often find it to be a portal to another place altogether.
— synthesis

I think it's a portal to Naive Realism. — Joshs

I am not sure what you mean by that.

I think that it may be a subject of debate in itself whether the meditators really go to another place or not, or whether this is a mythical belief. I know that I am someone who dabbles in meditation and sometimes 'feel' that I am going to other dimensions, and I have even discussed the idea of fourth and fifth dimensional in a couple of threads on art but I am not sure how these stand up for scrutiny of rigorous philosophy analysis.

I began reading your message while I was replying to Josh. It is interesting that you have all that experience of meditation. I have mainly attended meditation workshops and have done my own meditation techniques at home in improvised form.

One form I have tried is a lesser known form known as transmission meditation. It was developed by a rather unusual thinker, Benjamin Creme. I found the meditation really helpful although I am not saying that I think that all the ideas of Creme are particularly creditable. One main difference is that in this meditation practice the person is focusing on the ajna point, located in the centre of at the level of the eyebrows.

One reason I would say that I question the idea of entering another reality is that the whole idea of transmission meditation is about energies levelled down from the divine hierarchy. I realise that this whole idea could be seen as complete nonsense by many, but when I practiced this meditation I found it really helpful. However, I realise that you are a practitioner of Zen meditation, so what you are talking about is probably different entirely.

Naive realism is the belief that when we perceive the world we take in data that comes to us in a pure form from the outside world. But this is not what current research in perception tells us. The world, even down to the simplest sensation, comes already per-interpreted by us. There is no immediate access to an independent outside, because perception is a system of interaction between subject and world, in which each reciprocally affects the other. Also keep in mind that the more insignificant and simple the level of sensation we are are talking about, the more meaningless it is to us. So the 'portal' to profound an exotic experience is going to be a doorway to richly interpreted and subjectively mediated experience.

I am not saying your idea of meditation as an 'exotic experience' and of being 'a doorway to richly interpreted and subjectively mediated experience' is wrong. It is a good argument, but how can you know, for sure? What you are saying is just as much an interpretation as the person who sees the matter from the more exotic point of view.

So the 'portal' to profound an exotic experience is going to be a doorway to richly interpreted and subjectively mediated experience. — Joshs

Very interesting. I try not to get too caught up in intellectual particulars because they come and go like everything else.

I was using portal in a generic sense as different types of meditation have differing goals (or none at all).

And what actually happens during (real) meditation is unknowable (just like everything else :).

The great thing about Zen (meditation) is that it refuses to be anything but experiential. Since I am not a teacher, I do not really feel qualified to chat about it other than saying that it is truly life-altering for those to whom it takes.

Although Zen requires a major commitment, there are many types of meditation that are practiced by hundreds of millions worldwide. The power gained when realizing that body and mind are one and the same is alone worth the price of admission!

I disagree with all that. The senses are crafted by evolution in relation to reality, and must convey an accurate picture of reality - else the organism would die out. A monkey swinging through the trees that saw the next branch further or nearer than it actually was - would plummet to its death, and take its species with it.

Human beings crate art - and discuss art in terms that make it inconceivable they 'see' different things. Human being create traffic lights, and wire plugs, and play video games - all of which would be impossible if reality were subjectively constructed.

The subjective nature of perception and apperception is wildly exaggerated in order to support subjectivist philosophy; favoured over objectivism since Galileo, because an objective reality had troubling implications for the Church. The Church arrested Galileo, and tried him for heresy - while his contemporary, Descartes became pet philosopher in the court of Queen Christina of Sweden.

A Cartesian, subjectivist bias can be identified through hundreds of years of Western philosophy, to the modern day. Now, it's the left that are heavily into promoting subjectivism; in support of postmodern moral and epistemic relativism. But it's wrong.

The organism is evolved in relation to reality and has to be right to survive. We cross the road together, look in a shop window together, see some TV's, and laugh at the same time when someone gets hit with a custard pie. Our perceptions are the same, and our psychological understandings are fundamentally similar because they are true to an objective reality. If they weren't, we could not survive!

I would say I view meditation as experiential. Perhaps it is not too important to question whether the zone we can enter into is objectively real or not. Philosophical analysis is important but perhaps it has it limits and that appreciation of experience is important too. But that is not to say that your question is not important because philosophy can be about understanding process and not just metaphysical.

Isaac is probably best placed to answer this. He knows a lot about how the brain processes sensory data, and how awareness of that processed data, such that it might be employed in reason, comes into it.

I suspect though that your question is rather loaded. I don't see what any knowledgeable person would have to say about

Reality is perception-altered — synthesis

or

our intellect transforms it into some convoluted dystopia — synthesis

or

a portal to another place altogether — synthesis

The subject of the OP doesn't seem to have anything to do with any of that.

I disagree with all that. The senses are crafted by evolution in relation to reality, and must convey an accurate picture of reality - else the organism would die out. — counterpunch

Evolution doesn't explain a lot of things and the senses are very poorly understood (if at all).

The subjective nature of perception and apperception is wildly exaggerated in order to support subjectivist philosophy; favoured over objectivism since Galileo, because an objective reality had troubling implications for the Church. The Church arrested Galileo, and tried him for heresy - while his contemporary, Descartes became pet philosopher in the court of Queen Christina of Sweden.

A Cartesian, subjectivist bias can be identified through hundreds of years of Western philosophy, to the modern day. Now, it's the left that are heavily into promoting subjectivism; in support of postmodern moral and epistemic relativism.But it's wrong. — counterpunch

Everything is wrong, so I can definitely agree with you there. Even if you possessed the skills necessary to be right (which nobody has), you would only be right one moment (and then everything changes).

The organism is evolved in relation to reality and has to be right to survive. We cross the road together, look in a shop window together, see some TV's, and laugh at the same time when someone gets hit with a custard pie. Our perceptions are the same, and our psychological understandings are fundamentally similar because they are true to an objective reality. If they weren't, we could not survive! — counterpunch

Objective reality explaining this is analogous to guaranteeing the completion of a 70 yard hail Mary pass on the last play of a football game.

Think about what life would be like if man really understood what was going on!

What I found most comforting about meditation practice (and I came to it from a very serious foray into philosophy that left me completely burned-out) is that there is nothing to figure-out. Once you understand that doing it is all it is, you can take that 500# weight off your shoulders and relax a bit.

Everything you can know happens in that moment just before your critical thinking kicks-in. This is why it is so important to remain completely present and not get lost in rehashing the past or fantasizing about the future.

I also think that mindfulness is useful, especially in conjunction with some meditation. The particular aspect of mindfulness that is useful in my experience is the whole process of observing the flow of thoughts which enter into our psyches.

The subject of the OP doesn't seem to have anything to do with any of that. — Kenosha Kid

Sure it does. That moment between what you sense as reality (Reality altered by you senses) and when your critical thinking engages (your mind begins to alter what you have sensed) is the crux of the matter. This is where what you can know happens. It's why your first impression is so often the correct one (depending on how focused you happen to be).

It's before thinking. It's seeing things as they truly are (albeit sense-altered) which is what you want for all kinds of reasons, perhaps the most important being so you can respond appropriately. This is an aspect of meditation that is a total bonus as it is a "portal" to this level of being.

Absolutely. Watching your thoughts come and go is a critical learning process.

In the meditation process itself, the historical Buddha chose sitting meditation for his disciples because sitting creates pain and the studying (observing) the nature of pain is paramount to the understanding of the 'self.'

. It's why your first impression is so often the correct one (depending on how focused you happen to be). — synthesis

First impressions are no less biased than later impressions , in fact they are more so. With regard to understanding and getting along with others, relying on first impressions is often disastrous. Getting to the truth about other people takes work and is a never-ending process

First impressions are no less biased than later impressions , in fact they are more so. With regard to understanding and getting along with others, relying on first impressions is often disastrous. — Joshs

Perhaps this is just your experience.

It makes a great deal of sense to me that what you can know happens before your critical thinking engages because what is spit out after "processing" suffers from layer after layer of faulty analysis, no fault of the person doing the computations, just a comment on our inability to access reality.

"Getting to the truth about other people takes work and is a never-ending process. — "Joshs

You could spend the next sixteen billion eons attempting to understand the simplest of things and could never come close because it is what it is because of an infinite numbers of events leading up to it.

Imagine trying to understand another person! This is perhaps the great of all human folly.

Evolution doesn't explain a lot of things and the senses are very poorly understood (if at all). — synthesis

Ah. It's all coming back to me. Haven't we done this before? Me, killing myself to explain - and you steadfastly refusing to understand, and yet responding - nonetheless. You could just not respond y'know!

Everything is wrong, so I can definitely agree with you there. Even if you possessed the skills necessary to be right (which nobody has), you would only be right one moment (and then everything changes). — synthesis

Well, you are for sure! And subjectivists generally. You must understand that recognising science as an increasingly valid and coherent understanding of reality; recognising that facts have a causal and functional truth value is important to the continued survival of the human species.

Objective reality explaining this is analogous to guaranteeing the completion of a 70 yard hail Mary pass on the last play of a football game. — synthesis

I thought you were just stupid. But turns out you're kind of a dick! Some sort of lefty, subjectivist, dumb act - that in fact is a piss take. You're mocking me. But I'm serious; humankind's relationship to science is mistaken, and that's why we're in trouble. We use science, but don't observe a scientific understanding of reality. We apply the wrong technologies for the wrong reasons - because what we believe is wrong. Well, what you believe is wrong!

Think about what life would be like if man really understood what was going on! — synthesis

I don't claim to know what's really going on. I mean, is Australia still on fire? Or has it burst into flames again? You don't want to help develop a rationale that would allow for the application of technology on the basis of scientific merit - rather than primarily for profit, okay! Who am I to puncture your happy, clappy bubble of epistemic relativism? But you could at least have the decency not to waste my time!

Evolution doesn't explain a lot of things and the senses are very poorly understood (if at all).
— synthesis

Ah. It's all coming back to me. Haven't we done this before? Me, killing myself to explain - and you steadfastly refusing to understand, and yet responding - nonetheless. You could just not respond y'know! — counterpunch

Yeah, I think we have, but I do understand. And I am responding but it's not what you wish to hear.

cp, you're a smart guy, so I could argue with you 'til the cows come home and for what? If you understand how thinking works, then you can win any argument. That's no fun.

"Everything is wrong, so I can definitely agree with you there. Even if you possessed the skills necessary to be right (which nobody has), you would only be right one moment (and then everything changes).
— synthesis

Well, you are for sure! And subjectivists generally. You must understand that recognising science as an increasingly valid and coherent understanding of reality; recognising that facts have a causal and functional truth value is important to the continued survival of the human species. — "counterpunch

Look at all of the assuming you are doing. You are talking in relative terms, if A, then B, therefore, A+1 does not equal B, so on and so forth. We have spoken about science before and I told you that I use science every day in my profession but that doesn't mean I see it as anything but a rudimentary tool.

Your facts and your causality and all the rest are here today and gone tomorrow. Consider transcending such a mundane way of looking at things and see them as being fluid.

"Objective reality explaining this is analogous to guaranteeing the completion of a 70 yard hail Mary pass on the last play of a football game.
— synthesis

I thought you were just stupid. But turns out you're kind of a dick! Some sort of lefty, subjectivist, dumb act - that in fact is a piss take. You're mocking me. But I'm serious; humankind's relationship to science is mistaken, and that's why we're in trouble. We use science, but don't observe a scientific understanding of reality. We apply the wrong technologies for the wrong reasons - because what we believe is wrong. Well, what you believe is wrong! — "counterpunch

cp, relax. Why all the hostility? You have no clue what I am about because you refuse to listen to what I am telling you. Instead, you have already figured it out ahead of time. And what is it that you think I believe?

"Think about what life would be like if man really understood what was going on!
— synthesis

I don't claim to know what's really going on. I mean, is Australia still on fire? Or has it burst into flames again? You don't want to help develop a rationale that would allow for the application of technology on the basis of scientific merit - rather than primarily for profit, okay! Who am I to puncture your happy, clappy bubble of epistemic relativism? But you could at least have the decency not to waste my time! — "counterpunch

cp, you're one of the more interesting folks here, but you need to calm down.

Think about it this way. There are two different ways to consider things, one knowledge-based that is constantly changing due to the idea that all things knowable are changing, the other being Absolute in nature, unchanging but unknowable (intellectually).

We use science, but don't observe a scientific understanding of reality. We apply the wrong technologies for the wrong reasons - because what we believe is wrong. — "counterpunch

Tell me more about this.

Tell me more about this. — synthesis

Okay, but let us go back to your OP. You say:

The moment after Reality is perception-altered but before our critical thinking begins would seem to be the closest we can get to actual Reality. Although it has already become our personal reality (due to processing by our senses), it's must be considerably purer than what happens once the full monte of our intellect transforms it into some convoluted dystopia. — synthesis

The natural implication from this is the impossibility of anything we can reasonably call truth. That's something various people want for political purposes - religious people, the politically correct/subjectivist left, the capitalist right. Truth is beset on all sides. But to my mind, science now constitutes a highly valid and coherent understanding of the middle ground reality we occupy - and that matters!

It doesn't matter how the universe began, or if matter is composed of tiny strings. That's racing off to the absolutes to deny the truth value of things we can reasonably know enough about to know - and that matters to our continued existence.

Your facts and your causality and all the rest are here today and gone tomorrow. Consider transcending such a mundane way of looking at things and see them as being fluid. — synthesis

Oh, go drown yourself! What kind of fucking nonsense is that. Try that shit in traffic court - when you run a red light. Well your honour, subjectively - it was perceived as green!

cp, relax. Why all the hostility? — synthesis

Because you're the one who gets to come over as reasonable - and I'm ranting and raving, but I'm right, and you are very, very wrong on something that really matters.

You have no clue what I am about because you refuse to listen to what I am telling you. Instead, you have already figured it out ahead of time. And what is it that you think I believe? — synthesis

I read the OP. I said - I disagree, and explained why. I don't know why you want to crap all over the idea of truth. I suspect it's a lefty, post modernist, subjectivist, moral and epistemic relativism underlying political correctness thing, but you could as easily be a Bible basher!

cp, you're one of the more interesting folks here, but you need to calm down. — synthesis

I sometimes dream about humankind's future.

Think about it this way. There are two different ways to consider things, one knowledge-based that is constantly changing due to the idea that all things knowable are changing, the other being Absolute in nature, unchanging but unknowable (intellectually). — synthesis

No. That's a false dichotomy. In fact; ceteris paribus, knowledge proceeds from "less and worse" toward "more and better" over time. We now know more things with more certainty than we ever have done before. We are threatened with extinction because of people like you, who would undermine truth for political advantage. It needs to stop. We need to act on the basis of what's true or our species is going to die, horribly!

We now know more things with more certainty t — counterpunch

What do we know with certainty?

recognising that facts have a causal and functional truth value is important to the continued survival of the human species. — "

How bout , recognizing that facts are pragmatic hypotheses that are subject to continual revision and that can lead to better ways of making sense of the world , not because they copy reality, but because allownusntoningeract with a changing world more effectively. That allows for scientific progress within a subjective model of truth.

What do we know with certainty? — Joshs

The bacterial theory of disease, plate tectonics, evolution, the nitrogen cycle, heliocentrism, the electromagnetic spectrum, photosynthesis, thermodynamics... need I go on?

Now add them all together and you get a scientific understanding of reality. Yes?

Is that the same as the religious, political and economic ideological understanding of reality from which you draw your identity and purposes? No! It's very different.

And which understanding of reality do we use when making decisions about which technologies to deploy, and which to withhold? I'll give you a clue:

70,000 nuclear weapons!

[

The bacterial theory of disease, plate tectonics, evolution, the nitrogen cycle, heliocentrism, the electromagnetic spectrum, photosynthesis, thermodynamics... need I go on? — counterpunch

No, it’s my turn. If you read carefully in the history of science, you’ll find that it is not a cumulative enterprise , as if there are fixed truths floating out there in the world and all science does is scoop them up and add little by little to our store of knowledge. That’s a 19th century view of science. Science creates a theoretical framework within which to make sense of observations, but this framework shifts over time in qualitative ways , so that, for instance , relativistic physics is not simply an addition to Newtonian physics , and Darwinian evolution is not simply an expansion of Lamarckism biology. Every scientific fact that you think is certain now who’ll likely be understood in a qualitatively different way 100 years from now.

I’ll quote my favorite psychologist , George Kellly:

“ If the scientist is one who imagines himself accumulating nuggets of ultimate truth he will place his primary research emphasis on the unassailability of his
fragmentary findings. If he supports something at the .05 level of confidence he is encouraged; if he pushes it to the .01 level he is gratified; if it turns out at the .001 level he is ecstatic; and if it reaches the .0001 level he wonders how one writes an application for the Nobel prize.

The research objective of such a man is to nail something down, once and for all. His eternity is in his data. If he is a psychologist he will regard mankind as an accomplished fact, not as a current enterprise.But if the experimenter sees himself exploring only one of many alternative
constructions of man, with the best ones yet to be devised, he will be on a continual lookout for
fresh perspectives emerging out of his research experience. What values he places upon his
hypotheses will lie in the fertility of the experience in which they engage him, rather than in the certainty and parsimony of the explanations they offer. He will design his experiments to make his experience an optimal one. Thus he can not lose sight of the fact that he is himself the principal subject of his own experimental intervention.

His psychology will not then be so much
a study of what inescapable state impales man at this immature moment in history as it will be an
exploration of what man may next become. He will approach his task with the horizon-scanning
vision of a constructive alternativist rather than with the squint of an accumulative fragmentalist.”

And yet, astonishingly, your computer works - to send that pseudo academic, subjectivist horseshit - from your keyboard strokes, along trillions of tiny Boolean logic circuits, through the air to your router, along wires and fibre optic cables, up to a satellite, down to an antenna, along more fibre optic cables, to a server somewhere, all in the blink of an eye, that I access from where I am - so you can tell me we don't know anything. Maybe you don't - but why drag others down to your level?

If the scientist is one who imagines himself accumulating nuggets of ultimate truth he will place his primary research emphasis on the unassailability of his fragmentary findings. If he supports something at the .05 level of confidence he is encouraged; if he pushes it to the .01 level he is gratified; if it turns out at the .001 level he is ecstatic; and if it reaches the .0001 level he wonders how one writes an application for the Nobel prize. — Joshs

That's just plain wrong, and quite unpleasant. Firstly, all scientists understand perfectly well that scientific conclusions are held to be provisional - in lieu of further data. Even principles they can know with sufficient certainty to build an internet from. Who knows? Maybe one day, someone will open up their computer and catch the magic pixies at work. Until then, Boolean logic circuits will have to suffice as a understanding.

Secondly, things do work. We can apply scientific principles to create technologies that work, and they work better the closer they approximate the underlying scientific principles. So those principles must be true of reality.

I have a suggestion. Why don't you come clean - and explain your real reasons for not wanting science to be true. Is it the lefty thing? Or the Bible thing? Maybe you're a climate change denier, or an anti vaxxer or something. Anyway, you're not being honest - because suggesting:

Every scientific fact that you think is certain now who’ll likely be understood in a qualitatively different way 100 years from now. — Joshs

...is myopic. It relies on the actual ignorance of ages past, and the progress toward more and better knowledge over time, to suggest that progression must continue forever. The idea of plate tectonics, or the bacterial theory of disease will not be understood a different way 100 years from now. Those are facts - held to be provisional as a matter of scientific method - that always allows there could be other factors at play - but utterly unlikely to continue to change over time, because now we know.

Tell me more about this.
— synthesis

Okay, but let us go back to your OP. You say:

The moment after Reality is perception-altered but before our critical thinking begins would seem to be the closest we can get to actual Reality. Although it has already become our personal reality (due to processing by our senses), it's must be considerably purer than what happens once the full monte of our intellect transforms it into some convoluted dystopia.
— synthesis

The natural implication from this is the impossibility of anything we can reasonably call truth. That's something various people want for political purposes - religious people, the politically correct/subjectivist left, the capitalist right. Truth is beset on all sides. But to my mind, science now constitutes a highly valid and coherent understanding of the middle ground reality we occupy - and that matters! — counterpunch

There is moral relativism (to which you refer) and just plain ole relative (to which I refer). You cannot deny that things are relative. And although all things knowable are relative (how can they be otherwise), this doesn't mean that within the context of social relationships, there is not moral correctness. The Left is what it is...so consumed with change that they must destroy everything they touch.

I agree that it is the middle where the truth of the political resides.

It doesn't matter how the universe began, or if matter is composed of tiny strings. That's racing off to the absolutes to deny the truth value of things we can reasonably know enough about to know - and that matters to our continued existence. — counterpunch

You seem to be quite worried about our existence. Why? Are you long humanity?

Your facts and your causality and all the rest are here today and gone tomorrow. Consider transcending such a mundane way of looking at things and see them as being fluid.
— synthesis

Oh, go drown yourself! What kind of fucking nonsense is that. Try that shit in traffic court - when you run a red light. Well your honour, subjectively - it was perceived as green! — counterpunch

You don't understand. In order to transcend the mundane, you must learn to go back and forth between the relative and The Absolute. You and your ideals live in The Absolute while you transact business in the relative. The red light is still red when it needs to be. Otherwise, all possibilities exist.

cp, relax. Why all the hostility?
— synthesis

Because you're the one who gets to come over as reasonable - and I'm ranting and raving, but I'm right, and you are very, very wrong on something that really matters. — counterpunch

My friend, you want to be right, you will be alone. You live "right" in the world (of knowledge), you live neither right nor wrong in your own space.

Think about it this way. There are two different ways to consider things, one knowledge-based that is constantly changing due to the idea that all things knowable are changing, the other being Absolute in nature, unchanging but unknowable (intellectually).
— synthesis

No. That's a false dichotomy. In fact; ceteris paribus, knowledge proceeds from "less and worse" toward "more and better" over time. We now know more things with more certainty than we ever have done before. We are threatened with extinction because of people like you, who would undermine truth for political advantage. It needs to stop. We need to act on the basis of what's true or our species is going to die, horribly! — counterpunch

Everything comes and goes. Again, why are you so concerned with the longevity of our species? I've always seen our species as a pesky surface nuisance that the planet will deal with in its own time.

It's a short ride, so try to enjoy your life and not be so concerned about everybody else.