Everything You Think You Know Is Wrong
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@Gnosomai Emauton said
"Before diving into the chemical processes (which I'll admit to some experimentation with though little theoretical knowledge) can we take a look at the active/passive dichotomy for a moment. The question it raises for me is that, based on the way you've presented them, they both seem to be active to me. Inhibiting is, after all, a willed blockage, no?
Based on that understanding, I've generally moved my own use of the dichotomy to active/receptive to create a more clear and less sexist understanding of the traditional male/female pair. Does this map to neuro-chemical reactions? Are there some that are willed change vs. some that are allowed change? Am I over-complicating this? Is my cold medicine mutating my own brain chemistry?
Also, on an intuitive and completely un-supported level, the three chemicals seem to map thus for me:
Dopamine - Rajas/Sulphur
Norepinephrine - Sattva/Mercury
Serotonin - Tamas/Salt"I used to question the same about active/passive.
For me. What helped my understanding was working with and making models of platonic solids, and Espicially the effects of those solids when the angels were extended, ( ie creating the star tetrahedron).
The intermingling of polarities in creating geometric structures ( which these chemicals are too ) demonstrates the beauty and simplicity of the Tao, the dance between the two.
At the core everything has the potential to be either or. As you build out from the core, preferences are asserted and layers built upon based from that. As an example, sometimes I want to be the dominate one, and other times I want to be dominated. Do you have a preference for me (rhetorical)?
The chemicals in our body are predisposed to behavior, yet based upon each individual capabilities (biological, nature and nurture). What maybe active in one organism maybe passive in another.
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@Gnosomai Emauton said
"Before diving into the chemical processes (which I'll admit to some experimentation with though little theoretical knowledge) can we take a look at the active/passive dichotomy for a moment. The question it raises for me is that, based on the way you've presented them, they both seem to be active to me. Inhibiting is, after all, a willed blockage, no?"
I definitely think that certain practices are "willed blockages," as you put it. Which will open up another can of worms, and we'll have to get into the techniques involved of the more inhibitive practices (such as asana, which, when truly followed out, leads eventually to the Instruction in Liber XVI). I believe these move from the strata of the conscious mind into more subconscious symbolism - more dominant in two states of the body, which are waking consciousness and dreaming consciousness.
I'd like to introduce another model before we get into that, which I'll post at the end of this thread. This has to do with chemical gating and is directly linked to these two active/passive processes.
I only included the aminergic system in the first post - the "waking/active" state chemicals. There is another system (cholinergic system) that is dominant in sleep, and that runs off of a different neurotransmitter called acetylcholine.
@Gnosomai Emauton said
"Based on that understanding, I've generally moved my own use of the dichotomy to active/receptive to create a more clear and less sexist understanding of the traditional male/female pair. Does this map to neuro-chemical reactions? Are there some that are willed change vs. some that are allowed change? Am I over-complicating this? Is my cold medicine mutating my own brain chemistry?"
Well, I look at this male/female pair as the SNS (sympathetic nervous system - aminergic dominant) and the PSNS (parasympathetic nervous system - cholinergic dominant) - they are the dominant systems involved in wakefulness (SNS) and in sleep (PSNS) - one is dominant in either case, but the other one is always present. The actually explain lucid dreaming, etc. which we can get into talking about astral projection and how the brain is wiring these two systems together later on, if you'd like...
I just put them into active and passive for ease and convenience. We could use + and - as they do when examining the necessary components of nuclear physics...either way, we need Hadit and Nuit in most things we look at.
A nice enough primer to show the binary: www.buzzle.com/articles/sympathetic-and-parasympathetic.html
So yes, it does map to neuro-chemical reactions for me. I think that it is simultaneously willed and allowed in practices, depending on what we're practicing at the time.
NO, not over-complicating it - it's fucking complicated.
Yes, your cold medicine is mutating you as we speak.
@Gnosomai Emauton said
"Also, on an intuitive and completely un-supported level, the three chemicals seem to map thus for me:Dopamine - Rajas/SulphurNorepinephrine - Sattva/MercurySerotonin - Tamas/Salt"
I love this mapping approach! Let's keep going with this!
Ok - first off, this is the AIM model - developed by Harvard neuroscientist/psychiatrist J. Allan Hobson (a helluva nice guy too) - he's retired now. Anyway, you'll love it. I mapped this to the Qabalistic Cube of Space a LONG time ago (I'll share if you're interested, but I'd have to dig through my old MRs). So, if you're going to map this model to your alchemical correspondences -- now's the time.
@Wikipedia said
"Dr. Hobson's research specialty is quantifying mental events and correlating them with quantified brain events, with special reference to waking, sleeping and dreaming. Hobson's latest work[3][4] puts forward the idea that during dreaming, different aspects of the conscious mind; Primary consciousness and Secondary consciousness, diverge from a unified qualia enter a self-referential interplay where by one constantly creates the environment of another. In this way, the secondary consciousness performs the role of the dream environment itself, with the primary consciousness, not usually involved in self-awareness in waking life, becomes the object of conscious identity.
This process transpires for multiple reasons, but the primary one suggested is as a means of instigating synaptic pruning, to reductively simplify and stabilise the ideas learned in waking consciousness to less computationally complex ones, to improve overall system stability and reduce computational entropy, or free energy. Free energy is proposed by Hobson[4] to correlate with capacity for an organism to experience shock or surprise. Thus, for humans the process of daily learning becomes unsustainable without a corresponding process to revert from these neuroplastic increases in complexity. Dr. Hobson had originally dismisses the idea that there are deep, nonphysiological, or hidden meanings in dreams, calling such notions "the mystique of fortune cookie dream interpretation." He has since backed away from these beliefs,[5] and has produced much academic work indirectly supporting the notion that dreams may contain analytically useful information.[6]
"AIM Model!
A - activation level - how much chemical is in the system (fast/slow)
I - Interior or exterior of the phenomena taking place (subjective/objective)
M - Modulation of aminergic system to cholenergic system (active/passive)http://psychedelic-information-theory.com/upload/img/AIM.jpg
So, to wrap this all up, some meditation is slow/subjective/passive (think about "atmospherics" in asana/dharana practice) - more receptive for sure. Other meditation is fast/objective/active (fervent prayer in bhakti yoga).
Shall we map this to the Cube of Space or the TOL or something similar? That would be a fun exercise together!
I love the intuitive approach - I'd love to keep mapping this to the practices using the Qabalah or some other categorization device, if we could. And then, we can discuss the results with the science of it all. Or, should we go back and map the active chemicals against practices? (I tend to look at the three "active" neurotransmitters together as Aleph (energy) spelled in full 111 (each "one" being the positive (1) in the binary) which is Love in the purest sense)...
Unless, I'm having a Spergasm (Asperger's episode+orgasm) and you're getting bored, I'd like to keep going.
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@AoD said
"The intermingling of polarities in creating geometric structures ( which these chemicals are too ) demonstrates the beauty and simplicity of the Tao, the dance between the two."
Yes. It's in the fabric of the universe for sure, even scientifically.
"At the core everything has the potential to be either or. As you build out from the core, preferences are asserted and layers built upon based from that. As an example, sometimes I want to be the dominate one, and other times I want to be dominated. Do you have a preference for me (rhetorical)?"
I totally agree. And the True Will is this growth and evolution.
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@kasper81 said
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@Frater 639 said
"I totally agree. And the True Will is this growth and evolution."you mean evolution as in man becoming superman and will to power? Please guys, don't start discussing the pineal gland and the coming race
"If you understood (comprehended, got, grokked) the content that statement was made in, you'd recognize that it was personal evolution that was being discussed.
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I am happy to be a pine nut. Pine nuts are good to eat. Eat me.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"I am happy to be a pine nut. Pine nuts are good to eat. Eat me."
I love pine nuts. Hey Jim, check the three active neurotransmitters pic and how the colors correspond to the Queen Scale. Isn't THAT interesting?Btw - wish I could make it to Oakland. Good luck!
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Slight side track from the brain chemistry discussion, but stemming from the sacred geometry thread and definitely furthering "everything you think you know is wrong":
www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20130917-a-jewel-at-the-heart-of-quantum-physic
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Quotes that resonate with me re: the current discussion:
"The amplituhedron, or a similar geometric object, could help by removing two deeply rooted principles of physics: locality [the notion that particles can interact only from adjoining positions in space and time] and unitarity [the probabilities of all possible outcomes of a quantum mechanical interaction must add up to one].
“Both are hard-wired in the usual way we think about things... Both are suspect.”"
"In keeping with this idea, the new geometric approach to particle interactions removes locality and unitarity from its starting assumptions. The amplituhedron is not built out of space-time and probabilities; these properties merely arise as consequences of the jewel’s geometry. The usual picture of space and time, and particles moving around in them, is a construct."
"Using a few mathematical tricks, they managed to simplify the 2-gluon to 4-gluon amplitude calculation from several billion terms to a 9-page-long formula, which a 1980s supercomputer could handle. Then, based on a pattern they observed in the scattering amplitudes of other gluon interactions, Parke and Taylor guessed a simple one-term expression for the amplitude. It was, the computer verified, equivalent to the 9-page formula. In other words, the traditional machinery of quantum field theory, involving hundreds of Feynman diagrams worth thousands of mathematical terms, was obfuscating something much simpler. As Bourjaily put it: “Why are you summing up millions of things when the answer is just one function?”"
"But their simplicity was mysterious.
“The terms in these BCFW relations were coming from a different world, and we wanted to understand what that world was,”"
"“They are very powerful calculational techniques, but they are also incredibly suggestive,” Skinner said. “They suggest that thinking in terms of space-time was not the right way of going about this.”"
"Beyond making calculations easier or possibly leading the way to quantum gravity, the discovery of the amplituhedron could cause an even more profound shift, Arkani-Hamed said. That is, giving up space and time as fundamental constituents of nature and figuring out how the Big Bang and cosmological evolution of the universe arose out of pure geometry.
“In a sense, we would see that change arises from the structure of the object,” he said. “But it’s not from the object changing. The object is basically timeless.”"
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@Gnosomai Emauton said
"Slight side track from the brain chemistry discussion, but stemming from the sacred geometry thread and definitely furthering "everything you think you know is wrong":
www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20130917-a-jewel-at-the-heart-of-quantum-physic"
Very interesting! I'd love to hear more about this and how it relates to magick for you. Also, those quotes are fascinating...
Thanks for sharing this stuff.
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Well, the simple broad-stroke answer is that I came into this whole thing a polar opposite of the path Los recently claimed on our sister thread: I began my journey as an unflinching naturalist (somewhere around age 8, this was) and it took a lot of work for me to acknowledge that the rules of common sense and the known laws of nature were not necessarily the best tools to use for measuring reality. Heisenberg (Werner, not Walter), Leary, Wilson, and Bell (among others) were the gurus on that path who most effectively knocked me out of my surety.
To take just the example that most closely relates to this article, Bell's Theorem and its implication that information can travel faster than the speed of light, effectively meaning that two non-adjacent particles/points-of-energy can exchange information over vast distances instantaneously just by virtue of having once been in contact blew out certain circuits in my brain that still haven't been fixed. When a mind as inquisitive as mine comes across mathematical proof of clairvoyance (at least between particles/points-of-energy) the potential ramifications for consciousness tend to run away with my imagination and go frolicking in the sunshine somewhere.
Not to say I believe any of them... but I no longer disbelieve them out of hand. And the possibilities abound.
So, when theories like this pop up, with mathematical proofs and elegant multi-dimensional geometries to boot... my amygdala gets all tickled and I start constructing new and interesting possibilities of how consciousness exists as a somehow real but non-physical factor in a universe that is eternally existent which may or may not be a hologram on the membrane between two other multi-dimensions...
How can one not have magickal thoughts?
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@Gnosomai Emauton said
"Not to say I believe any of [the potential ramifications for consciousness]..."
Well, depending on what "ramifications" you have in mind, I'm pretty sure that we share in common the fact that we don't believe them (that is, don't yet accept them as true).
"but I no longer disbelieve [these ramifications] out of hand."
Neither do I. I'm willing to be convinced -- there's just not compelling evidence yet, so I don't believe.
"How can one not have magical thoughts?"
Thoughts aren't the issue. Sound thinking, based on evidence, and beliefs...those are the issues. To give you one example of a place where I think you're making a mistake, you say that your thoughts about the "ramifications for consciousness" arise from "mathematical proof of clairvoyance (at least between particles/points-of-energy)."
But that's an extremely disingenuous way to describe the phenomenon of quantum entanglement. There's absolutely no reason to think that "information" is being transferred (in the sense that "information" consists of data encoded and deciphered). What appears to be happening is some kind of causal connection that works in a different way on the quantum level than it works on the level in which our day-to-day interactions happen. That's curious, but that's not "information," it's certainly not communication, and it's definitely not anything even remotely like what some people describe as "clairvoyance."
It certainly doesn't suggest that anyone is any more likely to be able to communicate information through extrasensory means. And while it's fine for you to speculate all you like about the "ramifications" for consciousness -- and while you definitely can experiment all you like with testing out these supposed superpowers -- there's nothing about this quantum mechanics stuff that make these super powers any more likely to be real.
You say you don't believe in these "ramifications" (which I would assume includes clairvoyant abilities), and you're correct not to believe in them on the basis of that evidence. But it's incorrect to conclude that the evidence makes them any more likely to be real.
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@Gnosomai Emauton said
"Well, the simple broad-stroke answer is that I came into this whole thing a polar opposite of the path Los recently claimed on our sister thread: I began my journey as an unflinching naturalist (somewhere around age 8, this was) and it took a lot of work for me to acknowledge that the rules of common sense and the known laws of nature were not necessarily the best tools to use for measuring reality. Heisenberg (Werner, not Walter), Leary, Wilson, and Bell (among others) were the gurus on that path who most effectively knocked me out of my surety."
Me too. Explaining QP is about as magical as it gets right now.
We're on the brink of new models...that's all there is to it. But we have the old guard trying desperately to squelch the information by burying it with sensationalism and keeping everyone away from proper education.
"To take just the example that most closely relates to this article, Bell's Theorem and it's implication that information can travel faster than the speed of light, effectively meaning that two non-adjacent particles/points-of-energy can exchange information over vast distances instantaneously just by virtue of having once been in contact blew out certain circuits in my brain that still haven't been fixed. When a mind as inquisitive as mine comes across mathematical proof of clairvoyance (at least between particles/points-of-energy) the potential ramifications for consciousness tend to run away with my imagination and go frolicking in the sunshine somewhere."
Yes. I have a few models that I'd like to discuss, if you're game. But, let's just throw some stuff out there for fun -- how would you propose one brain could communicate with another without contact or a physical communication device?
"So, when theories like this pop up, with mathematical proofs and elegant multi-dimensional geometries to boot... my amygdala gets all tickled and I start constructing new and interesting possibilities of how consciousness exists as a somehow real but non-physical factor in a universe that is eternally existent which may or may not be a hologram on the membrane between two other multi-dimensions...
How can one not have magical thoughts?"
There are all sorts of possibilities. All we can do is experiment. Mundane science isn't even close to catching up to what is commonly known in initiatic circles via experiment and data collection.
Here's some good ones.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/9051169/?i=2&from=/1353653/related
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/1353653/?i=1&from=/1353653/related
Two-way communication is now done through electromagnetic fields via cell phones. Does the human body have electromagnetic fields?
Oh, and let's leave the Bill O'Reilly of Thelema out of this discussion, shall we?
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"-- how would you propose one brain could communicate with another without contact or a physical communication device?"
The same way my iPad finds some magic remote signal being broadcast around me that I can't receive, but it can.
signal broadcast.
Receptors have to be activated, created, turn on ect.Also getting rid of the thought "without contact". Because we know everything is connected so those words just trip one up.
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@Angel of Death said
"Also getting rid of the thought "without contact". Because we know everything is connected so those words just trip one up."
Yep. Exactly. I meant without [physical] contact...
You bring up an awesome point. Anybody that has these "projection/reception devices" activated knows how great it can be when there IS physical contact.
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@Los said
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Thoughts aren't the issue. Sound thinking, based on evidence, and beliefs...those are the issues. To give you one example of a place where I think you're making a mistake, you say that your thoughts about the "ramifications for consciousness" arise from "mathematical proof of clairvoyance (at least between particles/points-of-energy)."But that's an extremely disingenuous way to describe the phenomenon of quantum entanglement. There's absolutely no reason to think that "information" is being transferred (in the sense that "information" consists of data encoded and deciphered). What appears to be happening is some kind of causal connection that works in a different way on the quantum level than it works on the level in which our day-to-day interactions happen. That's curious, but that's not "information," it's certainly not communication, and it's definitely not anything even remotely like what some people describe as "clairvoyance."
It certainly doesn't suggest that anyone is any more likely to be able to communicate information through extrasensory means. And while it's fine for you to speculate all you like about the "ramifications" for consciousness -- and while you definitely can experiment all you like with testing out these supposed superpowers -- there's nothing about this quantum mechanics stuff that make these super powers any more likely to be real.
You say you don't believe in these "ramifications" (which I would assume includes clairvoyant abilities), and you're correct not to believe in them on the basis of that evidence. But it's incorrect to conclude that the evidence makes them any more likely to be real."
Los, everything you say above is true. Fully and completely...
FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE.
I'm sorry that you're having such a hard time coming to terms with one of the bedrock concepts of Thelema (and modern physics) but that is the truth. From your perspective. Until you get that through your skull, you are going to be trapped in your rut of "because".
"there's nothing about this quantum mechanics stuff that make these super powers any more likely to be real."
Case in point: these "super powers" either are real or they aren't. You have decided that they aren't. I allow that they may be and, from that perspective, "this quantum mechanics stuff" allows for suggestive possibilities for how they might work.
And, from my perspective, that is useful. I am a writer, a creator. I use these suggestive potentials in order to create visions of how the world could be. How it might be. That's what artists do. And then critics like you come along and tell us that we're wrong. That our visions don't align with reality.
Now, I want you to take a serious look at the history of mankind and tell me which of those two perspectives has a better track record on predicting the future discoveries of science. Is it the dreamers/visionaries/creators/writers/innovators? Or is it the critics/limiters/realists/average user? Are you in camp Galileo or camp Vatican? Apples have always fallen off of trees, but it wasn't until Newton stepped out of the consensus reality magical-thinking of "that's just the way god made it" that an invisible/undetectable force could be theorized and experiments could be designed to start detecting it.
The title of this thread was specifically chosen. Everything you think you know is wrong. The only question is how long it will take for any one reality map to be replaced by a better model.
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@Gnosomai Emauton said
"Los, everything you say above is true. Fully and completely...
FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE.
I'm sorry that you're having such a hard time coming to terms with one of the bedrock concepts of Thelema"
And is that objectively a bedrock concept of Thelema? Or is it just a bedrock concept of Thelema from your perspective?
"these "super powers" either are real or they aren't. You have decided that they aren't. I allow that they may be and, from that perspective, "this quantum mechanics stuff" allows for suggestive possibilities for how they might work."
No, they don't allow for "suggestive possibilities." I've already granted that these powers could theoretically be possible, but I've correctly explained how the phenomenon of quantum entanglement does not "suggest" -- even a little bit -- that these super powers are any more likely to be real.
You can have a go at responding to my explanation and making a case for how this phenomenon actually does make it more likely that these super powers exist, but just baldly suggesting that this phenomenon does make it more likely that these powers are real isn't going to get you anywhere.
"And, from my perspective, that is useful. I am a writer, a creator. I use these suggestive potentials in order to create visions of how the world could be. How it might be. That's what artists do. And then critics like you come along and tell us that we're wrong. That our visions don't align with reality."
Being a good writer isn't contingent on believing in magic. You can write just as well without being gullible enough to buy into this stuff.
"Now, I want you to take a serious look at the history of mankind and tell me which of those two perspectives has a better track record on predicting the future discoveries of science."
I'm not denying that thinking creatively is useful for science. I'm objecting to actually accepting that these things are real or more likely to be real without sufficient evidence.
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@Los said
"And is that objectively a bedrock concept of Thelema? Or is it just a bedrock concept of Thelema from your perspective?"
We've already litigated this on another thread.
@Los said
"No, they don't allow for "suggestive possibilities." I've already granted that these powers could theoretically be possible, but I've correctly explained how the phenomenon of quantum entanglement does not "suggest" -- even a little bit -- that these super powers are any more likely to be real."
Why don't you give Brian Clegg's "The God Effect: Quantum Entanglement, Science's Strangest Phenomenon" a read and then get back to me on that one.
@Los said
" just baldly suggesting that this phenomenon does make it more likely that these powers are real isn't going to get you anywhere. "
Just baldly suggesting that anything doesn't make it more likely that these powers are real isn't going to get you anywhere either.
@Los said
"Being a good writer isn't contingent on believing in magic. You can write just as well without being gullible enough to buy into this stuff."
You seem to be the only one in this thread hooked on "belief". We've been discussing the current bleeding edge of science and the possibilities that it suggests. Being a good writer is contingent on manipulating the possible, not on regurgitating accepted "belief".
@Los said
"I'm not denying that thinking creatively is useful for science. I'm objecting to actually accepting that these things are real or more likely to be real without sufficient evidence."
Again, you seem to be having that argument with yourself. This is a thread that is attempting to share and discuss the data of current scientific inquiry with specific focus on the bits that don't fit in with current consensus reality. I'm sorry that modern physics doesn't mesh with your Newtonian perspective but that has nothing to do with "belief" or "gullibility"... at least not on the part of modern physics.
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@Gnosomai Emauton said
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@Los said
" just baldly suggesting that this phenomenon [of quantum entanglement] does make it more likely that these powers are real isn't going to get you anywhere. "Just baldly suggesting that anything doesn't make it more likely that these powers are real isn't going to get you anywhere either."
I didn't baldly suggest it: I gave a solid explanation above that indicates exactly why quantum entanglement doesn't make clairvoyance any more likely to be real. Namely, quantum entanglement isn't the transfer of information or communication (in the sense that it isn't data being encoded and deciphered). It's causality working in a weird way on the quantum level, something we don't entirely understand. It's nothing like clairvoyance in any way, and it's a mistake to use it as "evidence" that clairvoyance is any more likely to be real.
That's not a "bald assertion." That's a well-supported explanation. You can have a go at trying to explain why you think quantum entanglement does make clairvoyance more likely to be real, but just saying no, no, no, no, no isn't going to be very convincing.
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@Los said
"Being a good writer isn't contingent on believing in magic. You can write just as well without being gullible enough to buy into this stuff."You seem to be the only one in this thread hooked on "belief". We've been discussing the current bleeding edge of science and the possibilities that it suggests. Being a good writer is contingent on manipulating the possible, not on regurgitating accepted "belief"."
Ai yai yai. I use "belief" to mean "accept as likely true." You were implying that being a good writer is somehow connected to thinking that these superpowers are likely real. It's not. Being a good writer has to do with having talent, having an imagination, and having a grasp of the mechanics of writing. It has nothing to do with accepting claims about clairvoyance.
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@Los said
"I didn't baldly suggest it: I gave a solid explanation above that indicates exactly why quantum entanglement doesn't make clairvoyance any more likely to be real. Namely, quantum entanglement isn't the transfer of information or communication (in the sense that it isn't data being encoded and deciphered). It's causality working in a weird way on the quantum level, something we don't entirely understand. It's nothing like clairvoyance in any way, and it's a mistake to use it as "evidence" that clairvoyance is any more likely to be real."
Um... If that's how you define "solid explanation", then I see where our discussion is going off the rails. That is your assertion of your (incorrect) understanding of quantum entanglement. There is no "explanation" in this or your prior post, just assertion. And, for someone who doesn't believe in clairvoyance, you seem to hold your own understanding of how it works in pretty high esteem. Did you ever consider that, perhaps, the traditional/folk/pick-your-derogative explanation of these phenomena on which you're basing your dis-belief might be the problem and that a finer understanding of the underlying science might illuminate a different, legitimate means to the end?
@Los said
"That's not a "bald assertion." That's a well-supported explanation. You can have a go at trying to explain why you think quantum entanglement does make clairvoyance more likely to be real, but just saying no, no, no, no, no isn't going to be very convincing."
Once again: Brian Clegg's "The God Effect: Quantum Entanglement, Science's Strangest Phenomenon". An actual experimental physicist writing about actual research into the actual effects of quantum entanglement. In other words: an actual well-supported explanation.
@Los said
"Ai yai yai. I use "belief" to mean "accept as likely true." You were implying that being a good writer is somehow connected to thinking that these superpowers are likely real. It's not. Being a good writer has to do with having talent, having an imagination, and having a grasp of the mechanics of writing. It has nothing to do with accepting claims about clairvoyance."
Where did I "imply" this? It seems as if you are once again inferring meaning in order to find goblins posessing everyone around you.
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Alright... back on topic.
Did a bit of (armchair) research into norepinephrine which led to some thoughts:
- Norepinephrine is most responsible for vigilant concentration thus, to map it to Great Work type paradigms, would be the chemical we are trying to naturally increase through practices of Raja Yoga.
- If we look at the experimental/theoretical exploration of norepinephrine, signal detection theory gives us a theoretical framework on which to gauge bias in practices of vigilance.
- There seems (to me, at least) to be a pretty simple parallel to draw between the pre-scientific practice of dharana on an object and the experimental controls put in place to reduce bias. As long as the yogi is methodical in hir practice, not attaching "meaning" to anything but simply engaging in the work.
- Selective and controlled use of amphetamines or other NRIs could assist in this process if and only if they are taken at a dose that improves attention/concentration without also increasing physical energy, if this is at all possible.