Thread: Meditation

Oh suck me off. x

With pleasure. If you want to ignore reality and believe that woman's got amazing powers of insight then go ahead and delude yourself.

To play devil's advocate here, and because I feel sorry for Syco, technically you can't say that. To say that this woman definitely doesn't have any powers implies that you believe that no psychics have these powers, and in fact that such powers definitely do not exist.

This is the same trap many atheists fall into, announcing that something definitely does not exist is a belief, and in announcing it as fact, you throw yourself neatly into the same category of believer as Syco.

If you approach it from the standpoint of, 'There's no proof that it works so it probably doesn't, I'm open to the option that it might be a possibility, but I do not currently believe in it,' then you're actually looking at things from a much more objective, scientific standpoint. It's actually the people who blanketly say things like, 'This definitely works, and this definitely doesn't,' who are inadvertently standing in the way of progress.

The atheist who believes in something that cannot be proven (there definitely is no God, psychics definitely cannot contact the spiritual world, there is definitely no such thing as collective consciousness) is one who gives atheism a bad name.

Ah yes but an expanded explanation of why i don't believe in a completely deterministic universe and how that corresponds to psychics etc... might be a little bit too much.

You know that one of the problems I have with Dawkins is that he takes a very concrete stance and derives his arrogance from his belief that his stance is correct and superior to all others. However, there's nobody coming out and saying 'oh yeah, I just invented God' or 'yeah, we just made this religion shit up to answer difficult questions' whereas there are plenty of people exposing the techniques used by psychics, mediums, mentalists, 'spiritual readers' etc...

I am actually open to things like ESP and of course collective unconscious (in fact, I've been trying to read up on animal instincts because I believe they're potential proof of CU), but this psychics business is different simply because there is such a long history of the techniques used.

Ah yes but an expanded explanation of why i don't believe in a completely deterministic universe and how that corresponds to psychics etc... might be a little bit too much.

And it wouldnt be relevant, you've stated that Syco's psychic is a fraud, and therefore that all psychics are frauds. You can't prove it, just like Syco can't, and whilst statistics are on your side, they don't say anything for certain.

You know that one of the problems I have with Dawkins

Again, not relevant here.

And I find it bizarre that you believe in Extra Sensory Perception, when that is in fact something a lot of psychics claim to utilise, and equally can be argued against using exactly the arguments with which you bombarded Syco.

That is an absolute double-standard, and it's incredibly two-faced to belittle Syco, and accuse her of being exploited and manipulated, when you yourself believe in the same shit as her. Are you projecting or what man?

I didn't say I believe, simply that I'm open to the idea. As in the idea that information can be transferred between people without verbal or physical communication. Whether or not such communication would involve some unknown chemical or mental proccess, I don't know. But the possibility that they may be some information communicated isn't the same as being able to pluck 'your father is a controlling airies' out of the air. In my opinion anyway.

Determinism is relevant when discussing the outcome of future events because in order to know what would happen in the future, you need to be able to accurately predict a chain of cause and affect events.. or else tap in to some universal pool of knowledge of past, present and future events.

If you're talking about horoscopes then you don't get people saying 'I think, with around 99% certainty, that they're are fake', they just say 'they're bollocks' and you'd say the same thing too so I don't get what your problem is.

Originally Posted by Brewtality

I didn't say I believe, simply that I'm open to the idea. As in the idea that information can be transferred between people without verbal or physical communication. Whether or not such communication would involve some unknown chemical or mental proccess, I don't know.

So you're open to the idea, but as soon as someone uses the same idea and calls themself a psychic, suddenly they're a fraudster, and a liar? That makes no sense whatsoever.

If you're talking about horoscopes then you don't get people saying 'I think, with around 99% certainty, that they're are fake', they just say 'they're bollocks' and you'd say the same thing too so I don't get what your problem is.

My main problem is that I think you're bullying Syco, and I can't understand what she did to deserve it. Quite why you're so determined to stomp out any hope this woman has given to Syco is beyond me, but it's not a fun thing to witness. My next problem is that you are being miraculously two-faced about this all, you're open to ESP being possible, yet you've said that anyone who claims to utilise ESP is a fake.

That's just out and out retarded. Either you're open to it, in which case you should leave Syco alone, or you're closed to it, in which case you're ignoring the logic of the scientific method.

So what, ESP's fake when a psychic claims to use it, but real when Maynard and Jung preach about it? Please.

Brew, I think these last few pages have simply been a battle for the last word on your part. Syco tried to end it several times and you just wouldn't drop it, insisting on interjecting that last little comment which repeated the same thing you said 10 times before. Like wtf dude?

And even though this has been massively derailed, I'm still going to respond to the original topic on meditation because at first I didn't think I had anything to contribute. Which, I can't really do it on my own (yet) but my experiences are much more "scientific" based I suppose, and I'm definitely not a spiritual person but I think anyone would benefit on learning to relax if they understand what is actually going on with their body. I had my counselor at my old uni who taught me loads on relaxation. First she explained to me that there were two separate autonomic nervous systems that I needed to learn in order to be able to control my stress levels properly: sympathetic and parasympathetic. Parasympathetic is the "rest and digest" mode of your bodily functions meaning that it ensures smooth, regular functions. Basically it's the "brake" and the sympathetic nervous system is the "accelerator" and she referred to it as "fight-or-flight" mode. It's basically panic mode, where you heart beats faster, you start to lose control of your bodily functions and everything is inhibited, it's just...constant...panic. I'm sure I learned this all in general psych class but whatever, if it's not directly applicable I usually don't retain it.

She went on to explain that I basically live in the sympathetic mode. I started to get heart arrhythmia last year when I was experiencing extreme anxiety and it went away after she started teaching me these things and I even saw a doctor who told me that it was more than likely stress-induced. Anyway, through tons of bad coping with stress and anxiety I've become to be used to living in the sympathetic nervous system and now I have to train myself out of it and one of the ways to get back to parasympathetic is through meditation. Obviously she taught me how to "belly breathe" properly but she would also set me up with a temperature tracker/heartbeat monitor on my finger and she'd make a chart of my progress while she guided me through a relaxation process. Basically she was just narrating commands for me to follow in relaxing. One way to "control" my relaxation was to raise my body temperature which she would show me my charts when I was done and I didn't think raising your body temperature a few degrees was very significant but apparently it is.

I'm not entirely sure where I was going with this, but since I'm not a spiritual person, I seek to find solutions to my stress that I can understand and work towards. Like...breathing deeply and imagining warm light filling my body just doesn't do anything. For me, learning how to meditate has become like crucial to my physical functions, but I needed to understand the very root of the problem in order to have something feasible to work toward. You know?

So that was a lot longer than I expected it but this is how I meditate. Not everyone has the convenience of having a person to sit there and track their body temperature but something simply like pinching a thermometer while you do it works too and checking it every 5-10 minutes. I, unfortunately, don't have this counselor anymore and my new one is a fucktard and just wants to put me on anti-anxiety meds no matter how many times I tell him that's totally unnecessary. Anyway, maybe someone else will find this helpful if they've been unsuccessful meditating.

Ghetto, maybe I was being too hard on Syco but I wasn't just laying into her with insults. I just happen to have a problem with psychics!

Tri, I really don't get what yo're on about. If I'm open to the possibility that ESP might be a real phenomena in some form or other, that means that I'm a hypocrite for not believing in psychics? So if I'm open to the idea of aliens, does that make me a hypocrite for not buying into countless stories of alien abductions or UFO crashes? I don't know why you were so desperate to say I'm being hypocritical.

Because you are obviously being hypocritical.

If you are open to there being aliens, then it would stand to reason that you'd at least be open to the idea that someone might have seen one, otherwise, why the fuck would you be open to them, if you're not willing to accept that someone might have proof of their existence? Surely you're just saying you're open to their existence, when in actuality, you're not.

Psychics claim to use ESP. You are open to ESP. You are not open to any psychics, at all, regardless, you stated that they all, unconditionally, are frauds. How is it that you can't see your hypocrisy here?

I think you're stretching things a bit. Saying I am open to the possibility that the human brain may be capable of obtaining information from sources we are unaware of is different to accepting that somebody can know everything about me or predict my future because they can tap into some sort of unknown pool of knowledge or insight. If I had a seed in my hand and said I was open to the idea of planting it, and the next day you came and dumped a 50ft oak tree in my back garden, I wouldn't be being hypocritical by being a little pissed off.

I've said I'm open to the possibility of something and you're saying that the fact that I don't believe in the extreme conclusion of that thing, I'm being hypocritical. Which isn't the case. And besides all that, you know very well that being a psychic involves learning certain techniques and tricks and that the history of psychics is one of fraudsters.

So there is no evidence that psychics can do anything out of the ordinary whatsoever and there's also a history of evidence showing that in fact they're just using certain techniques to convice people of their powers. Then, there is the possibility that humans may be able to obtain information without using the standard 5 senses. I don't think the two things are on the same level at all.

And besides all that, all I said was that I was open to ESP, not that I wholeheartedly believe in people telepathically communicating with each other whenever they feel like it.

No, you're the one stretching things here, and it's pretty embarassing to watch how you refuse to admit that you might need to rethink something, and the lengths you'll go to.

Stop rephrasing shit.

You said you are open to the idea that ESP might work. You said that all psychics are, without exception, frauds. Psychics claim to use ESP.

It's perfectly simple, you're being hypocritical, and now you're trying to wriggle out of it. Man up, accept that in this instance you might have blundered, and get over it. Is it really that painful to admit that you're being inconsistent?

And don't even try to go down the 'evidence' route regarding psychics, because there's exactly the same amount of evidence for ESP working as there is for psychics having supernatural abilities, i.e. none. Yes, lots of people who take acid and various hallucinogens think that there's lots of evidence. But they're tripping.

the other day in the shower i tried to imagine and feel all the mental suffering, pain, displeasure, wronging, tried to feel the upmost max of each lil thing that bothered me or set back my potential happiness. then i imagine rinsing it out with the shampoo and the soap, then finish it with a nice cup of tea after getting out. shit does work wonders. inhale exhale type of deal lately. i've been feeling a lil more refreshed after doing that.