News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:The Practical Neuroscience of Buddhism by all_elements on Monday May 24, 2010 @09:40PM (#1376193)
I've been searching for a physical/scientific basis of mindfulness. This sounds like a great read. Thanks for sharing.
Re:The Practical Neuroscience of Buddhism by telewriting on Monday May 24, 2010 @10:08PM (#1376239)
You might look at the work of Philosopher Humberto Maturana and Biologist/Philosopher Francisco Varela. In particular, Varela's work The Embodied Mind may be of interest. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Varela
Re:The Practical Neuroscience of Buddhism by all_elements on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @12:22AM (#1376489)
That took me on a discovery path of the philosophical approach to mindfulness. There seems to be a whole body of literature analyzing this from various angles. In particular, Varela seems to very influential. He is also cited in Daniel Siegel's book called "The Mindful Brain" (I was just referred to this book by a student of Psychology). Good stuff.

I wish mindfulness was based on some simple guiding principles/laws like with classical mechanics. But as with a lot of Biological processes, it seems to be a large complex system. Varela's "Theoretical Biology" book sounds interesting but I suspect it is a complex model of the body+mind rather than a simple one.

Re:The Practical Neuroscience of Buddhism by zackattack on Monday May 24, 2010 @10:14PM (#1376254)
Mind/body connection is something I am also interested in exploring. For example, I can often tell when I am going to miss a basketball shot by feeling a creak in my kness. Sounds crazy but I'm sure there's a reason for it. This is a different phenomenon from people anticipating when it's going to rain by feeling pressure.. I think it's something like my predictive intuition has been working in the background outside of conscious awareness, and only becomes conscious through tells that I've learned.
Re:The Practical Neuroscience of Buddhism by all_elements on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @12:34AM (#1376516)
You seem to be in the right track about the mind/body connection. Daniel Siegel has this to say about Intuition (see the "The Mindful Brain"):

Intuition seems to involve the registration of the input from the information processing neural networks surrounding our vicera; for example, the heart, lungs, and intestines. Our body's wisdom is then more than a poet's metaphor, it is a neural mechanism by which we process deep ways of knowing via our body's parallel distributed processing surrounding these hollow organs. This input registers itself in the middle prefrontal cortex and then influences our reasoning and our reactions.

This was the only index on Intuition in that book. Going by this definition of intuition, you should feel it in your chest or abdomen not your knees. But I'm really new to this, so I'm not going to claim to know anything:-)

Re:The Practical Neuroscience of Buddhism by joubert on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @12:27AM (#1376500)
Have you read The Inner Game of Tennis?
Re:The Practical Neuroscience of Buddhism by zackattack on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @12:38AM (#1376524)
Not yet. I will eventually. Thanks for the reminder.
Re:The Practical Neuroscience of Buddhism by koudelka on Monday May 24, 2010 @11:30PM (#1376390)
Maybe you miss your shot because you get distracted by your knees creaking? :)
Re:The Practical Neuroscience of Buddhism by zackattack on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @12:44AM (#1376533)
It's possible, attention and performance are intricately linked (c.f. http://hpl.uchicago.edu/Projects/Projects_1.html). However I find that the knee-creak is also a predictor of things I no longer have control over (and for which I am only awaiting an outcome). Of course, I'm biased, but I think the heuristic is useful for me.