Proving What We Already "Know"

[bennyboy]

Science can study anything better than buddhist meditation...even buddhist meditation...but that's only because meditation isn't studying - and it's a complete non starter if the goal is objective measurement.  Buddhists are, of course, also free to try and explain anything any way they want to, and they have...and we can compare the work of buddhism and the work of scientific inquiry and see what washes.  What I see here, in point of fact, is you pushing back against some scientific studies of consciousness, no less.

When I say "Buddhist meditation," let me say that's a placeholder for any organized system of introspection. Buddhists refer to perceptions (including thoughts) as objects, and discuss their properties, processes for working with them and so on. In a sense, you could call it "the science of what things are like," i.e. of qualia. But I'm not a convert to Buddhist beliefs in general nor have much interest in the religious or cultural aspects of it.

I think that buddhist meditation is a particularly strange example given your comments about an inability to pierce some veil.  Don't you?

If you want an organized study of what things are like, then you have to consider what things are like, and draw inferences. What are ideas like? How do we categorize them? How do we control them to our advantage? What is it like to experience XYZ? What should be done in order to experience XYZ? If a "tree" is a compositie idea, of what is it composed?

Unless XYZ is a state that can be achieved through electrical stimulation or drug administration, I don't think the modern science of mind is really as useful as you claim it is. In fact, I don't think science can study "what things are like" at all-- at best, it can influence what things are like by disrupting brain function, or enumerate what things are like by measuring poll results.


(I'll read the entirety of your posts, but I'll have to cherry pick what I respond to to prevent post-quote explosion. If you want a particular idea addressed that you consider critical, please re-quote your own post and I'll answer that)