Hi

[Blackleaf]

Neuroscientists study while yoga is all about practice.

Now you tell me one thing BL.
Who will get there first?
The one who study or the one who do practice?   


Let me see if you are smart.

Yoga instructors don't practice psychology. Are you really that stupid? You have to understand WTF you're talking about before you can practice, and yoga instructors clearly don't know fuck about psychology. Psychiatrists practice, counselors practice, yoga instructors stretch and talk about shit they know nothing about.

[Unbeliever]

You claim to be very happy.  I think that means you are not well.  I am fairly unhappy.  I call that realistic.  But I could use some free help in dealing with that reality.  And I do, I have a good confidant at work, who counsels for free.  I hope you have someone similar, to bounce the crazier ideas off of.

I've never claimed to be "happy." I could never be truly happy while knowing of all the suffering and misery that takes place every second f every day on this planet, by both human and non-human animals. I do claim to be content with my lot in life, knowing it could surely be a hell of a lot worse than it is.

I have no "good confidant" to bounce crazier ideas off of, either, but then, I don't need therapy, either professional or otherwise. 

[Cavebear]

I've never claimed to be "happy." I could never be truly happy while knowing of all the suffering and misery that takes place every second f every day on this planet, by both human and non-human animals. I do claim to be content with my lot in life, knowing it could surely be a hell of a lot worse than it is.

I have no "good confidant" to bounce crazier ideas off of, either, but then, I don't need therapy, either professional or otherwise.

Try me...

[Unbeliever]

Well, at least here I can have someone to talk to, while out here in meat space people only want to talk about stuff I'm not much interested in, and I only want to talk about stuff they're not interested in at all. I still listen to them, though, since it would be rude to ignore them. Even when I'm reading, if someone starts talking to me I put down the book and listen to whatever they have to say. I know the book will be there when I get back to it.

[Cavebear]

Well, at least here I can have someone to talk to, while out here in meat space people only want to talk about stuff I'm not much interested in, and I only want to talk about stuff they're not interested in at all. I still listen to them, though, since it would be rude to ignore them. Even when I'm reading, if someone starts talking to me I put down the book and listen to whatever they have to say. I know the book will be there when I get back to it.

OK, so you are reading a book and some idiot comes along saying idiot stuff.

Do you put the book down and engage the idiot, keep reading the book, or try to do both? 

[Unbeliever]

I put the book down and listen. You never know what they'll say, it might turn out to be entertaining, at least. But usually not.

[Cavebear]

I put the book down and listen. You never know what they'll say, it might turn out to be entertaining, at least. But usually not.

Depends on the book.  But I do agree that you sometimes want to hear what others say even if they are nutso.  So what book might you be reading now?

[Unbeliever]

My current book is The Prefect, by Alastair Reynolds. As soon as I finish that one, I plan to read Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, which I recently found in a box on the sidewalk. I've always got a book to read, but I'm beginning to get a hankering for some non-fiction, so I may read something with a bit less fluff to it after that.

[Baruch]

I've never claimed to be "happy." I could never be truly happy while knowing of all the suffering and misery that takes place every second f every day on this planet, by both human and non-human animals. I do claim to be content with my lot in life, knowing it could surely be a hell of a lot worse than it is.

I have no "good confidant" to bounce crazier ideas off of, either, but then, I don't need therapy, either professional or otherwise.

You have at times given a "emotion weather report" that was very positive.  I that "happy" or just semantics?  And you don't need any help, so as a messiah, you don't need a savior then ;-)  Oh the other hand, yes ... struggling, suffering and death ... are rather universal and a downer.

[Unbeliever]

My emotional state is always good, as far as my own personal situation is concerned, but the world is going to hell without even the benefit of a hand-basket.

[trdsf]

Well hey.  A testable theory of consciousness that doesn't require woo.  Doesn't mean it's right, but it does mean we don't have a good reason (or even a bad reason) to resort to "but but but magic!" to explain consciousness.

[Baruch]

Well hey.  A testable theory of consciousness that doesn't require woo.  Doesn't mean it's right, but it does mean we don't have a good reason (or even a bad reason) to resort to "but but but magic!" to explain consciousness.

In so far as it is talking about natural biological systems, then maybe.  They are trying to develop ways to communicate with people with severe brain damage.

As far as AI goes ... no way.  Your iPhone isn't conscious.  A lobster may be.

More on contemporary consciousness research ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRel1JKOEbI

[Arik]

Physical muscle stretching is Hatha Yoga.  Yoga is much more than that, it includes stretching mental muscles.

It is incredible Baruch how so many people come to quick judgements convinced that they know what they are talking about when in reality they know nothing or next to nothing about the subject in question.

As you said yoga is a lot more than physical exercised.
In fact these exercises that in yoga are called ASANAS are only part of yoga as a whole.
To say that these ASANAS are yoga is totally incorrect.
It would be like to say that a single state in the US represent all of the US.

So let us explain to these folks what yoga is all about.
Yoga is meditation, exercises, vegetarian or vegan diet, regular fast, a moral code of discipline, some philosophy, helping people in need and all this with the aim to get closer and closer to the universal consciousness and eventually merge in it and become one with it so yoga means union, union with the supreme entity which of course has nothing to do with stretching.

[Arik]

Yoga instructors don't practice psychology. Are you really that stupid? You have to understand WTF you're talking about before you can practice, and yoga instructors clearly don't know fuck about psychology. Psychiatrists practice, counselors practice, yoga instructors stretch and talk about shit they know nothing about.

Wrong all the way BL.

Real knowledge come from within not from outside.
Outside there is only an ever changing sub-reality which of course does not represent the real reality.

When you want to solve a problem you do not look outside and if you look outside that knowledge came to people who in the past look within so all knowledge come from within whether is yours or somebody else knowledge.
You think and think and eventually the idea will pop up from within.
The knowledge that is outside originally all came from within from people who have now gone or people around us these days.

Yoga is all about getting the knowledge from within by getting closer and closer to the supreme knowledge.
From the biggest mine of knowledge better known as the inner consciousness or super consciousness.
Psychology derive knowledge from within too but through experiments and basically no practice while yoga use the best method which is practice, practice and more practice so obviously yoga come first and all the rest come after.

[Baruch]

Unfortunately, wisdom is precious.  It can only be gained thru life experience.  I celebrate that someone has read a book about reading books.  But as in the movie Fahrenheit 451 ... to know a book requires that you become the book.  People attracted to talk, don't have time for practice.

So what is meditation?  One can read about it.  But one really doesn't know, unless one does it.  And overcoming one's own self is the hardest fight of all.  I was reading the Dao De Jing in the original this morning ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pcRXwoL0z4

In plain English.  Only if one has experienced the Dao, will any of these words make sense.  It is within the nature of both naturalists and humanists, to approach the Dao, because the Dao is in all.