Re: understanding neuroscience

Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Thu, 2 Sep 1999 05:14:55 -0700 (PDT)

On Wed, 1 Sep 1999, Clint O'Dell wrote:

>
> I'm thinking about replacing pity with indefference....hmmmm.
> That would be harder to do ofcourse. What do you think?
>
In general, the more detached you are from something, the more you can look at it from many angles which give you greater power, or perhaps a better word would be seniority, over it. Pity would generally be an emotional reaction created perhaps as a defense mechanism for validating ones position. "That poor fool, he just doesn't see that I'm right." Presumably these emotional responses were used to justify risk-taking behaviors that were disapproved of by the rest of the tribe but which did offer some chance of success.

Indifference is difficult to achieve I would agree. The two best techniques that I know about are "self-observational" meditation and the "Stop" technique developed (or at least used) by the Russian(?) mystic Gurdieff. I'm not sure the stop technique (where a teacher requests that the student "stop" and notice the thoughts passing through the mind) can work on oneself. It would seem to require an isolated part of the mind that can produce random interrupts.

Robert