[Buddha-l] neuroscience: neural plasticity

[S.A. Feite]

Hi Pedro:

On May 30, 2007, at 1:50 PM, Vera, Pedro L. wrote:

> Steve:
>
> Steve wrote:
>> From what I'm seeing in research, some research does get NIH or
> "other" funding but much Buddhist meditation research is being
> privately funded.
>
> Does this mean pharmaceutical funding? A temple or Buddhist  
> organization doing the funding? or private individuals? Obviously,  
> the aim, purpose and pressure to find the "right" results would  
> vary between these groups.

Privately funded as in a private individual or foundation. For  
example, I believe the Santa Barbara Institute of Consciousness was  
funded largely by Richard Gere.

>
>
> I think that the "scientific-materialistic paradigm" with its  
> "materialistic bias" is the appropriate paradigm and bias for  
> scientific research. The way that money is allocated usually has to  
> do with specific emphases on particular diseases or conditions.  
> These emphases are determined by a number of factors. However,  
> relevance of biomedical research to some sort of human disease/ 
> condition is seen as vital for funding these days.

What I'm referring to obliquely here are the ideas presented in Alan  
Wallace's recent works on the Taboo of Subjectivity and Neurosceince  
research. If you're not familiar with these works, a lot of what I'm  
saying won't make sense.

>
>
>> In this case we're talking about the
> pharmceutical industrial complex.
>
> I'm confused here. I thought you were saying the funding was  
> "private". At any rate, I do not follow the connection between  
> pharmaceutical research being any more "materialistic" than any  
> other scientific research.

You're missing what I'm saying. The monies that fund such research  
are generally drug companies who only want to see a certain style of  
research about physical elements of the physical brain. They don't  
want to hear about people achieving subjective states of  
consciousness and their "signs" as they occur in practice texts.

>
>
>
>> Would research get funded if it was trying to emphasize a new,
> subjective science?
>
> I seriously doubt it. Regardless of where the money comes from. In  
> addition, would such research by published in scientific journals??  
> Again, probably not.
>
>>> Accepting drug compay monies would essentially
> force researchers to take a scientific materialistic POV....
>
> Again, we disagree. Doing scientific research (funded by  
> pharmaceutical companies or your neighborhood muffler shop) does  
> require the use of the "scientific materialistic" paradigm. I am  
> presently unaware of an alternative.

Then perhaps you should read Buddhism and Neuroscience or the Taboo  
of Subjectivity. Or you could listen to the Dr. Wallace interviews on  
Buddhist Geeks.com and other places. His debate with Searle on  
video.google.com is provocative as well. Wallace argues, convincingly  
IMO, for a new science based not merely on materialistic, objective  
criteria but a subjective science as well.


> A scientific "immaterial" paradigm? Just what would that mean?
>
>
>
>> and this may
> be in direct contradiction to the style of thinking necessary for
> advanced meditation research.
>
> That would not be so bad. Particularly in we call it "religious"  
> research rather than "scientific".
>
>
>  What it boils down to is two opposing
> ways of looking at reality: one which says that consciousness is an
> artifact of the physical brain and another which says that
> consciousness itself is primary and the brain secondary. One relies
> on materialism, the other on the "taboo" of subjective inquiry.
>
> Consciousness is not an artifact of the physical brain, it's the  
> product of the physical brain which is the product of many  
> different chemical, biochemical and molecular processes all  
> occurring at the same time (see the anatta in all of this??).

I see materialism.

> Simply stated: no brain, no consciousness. The "taboo of subjective  
> inquiry" which you refer to, I would leave in the realm of religion  
> or perhaps even worse, pseudo-science (the psychoanalytic school  
> comes to mind).

So, according to your belief, consciousness cannot, does not and will  
not exist separately from the body. A practice like phowa-- 
consciousness transference--is just an hallucination? The bardos are  
not transitional states of being but symptoms of a dying brain  
starved of oxygen?

-Steve