The Metaphysical Consciousness

doronshadmi said:
Medical care utilization and the transcendental meditation program(http://journals.lww.com/psychosomat...are_utilization_and_the_transcendental.6.aspx)
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Here is the PDF: http://www.ganzheitsmed.at/lit_ayurveda.Dateien/007-psychosomatic_medicine_1987_OrmeJohnson.pdf

EDIT: So funny... all the research data is from SCI in Fairfield Iowa... SCI is owned by... the holding that also 'owns' Maharishi University and various other TM institutes.

While you are at it, buy my snake oil, it's really good, so my wife says! Honest!
 
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Thanks for the pdf paladin.

I had a quick scan and, while this is a little over my head, I enjoy the last paragraph which calls TM a "technology" in an echo of what $cientology calls its own practices, and how the paper is from 1987 and how future business, industry, military, government and education would all benefit from "large scale research" into this "technology" (It sounds so objective and sciency if you call it technology.)

I wonder where all those sectors are in their embrace of TM today?

Nevertheless, I look forward to further insight about this paper here. (If the forum is still around that is!)
 
doronshadmi said:
Please read what I already wrote about that in http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10175087&postcount=575.
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I already read it. I don't think there is as much profundity there as you would like.

If any two things share any generalizable property (e.g. extension, mass, velocity, color, race, sex, beauty) they can be compared in relation to that property. If that property is subjective or variable, one can make a disputable judgment. If it's one which can be measured, an equation can be used to formulate the comparison.

Sure, it's a grand metaphysical fact of existence that things exist and that things that exist have properties. It's a grand metaphysical fact of existence that some of those properties are relatively durable (which is not to say stable at the deepest level), sufficient to be usefully compared as if they were stable. You can weigh bricks and blocks and get a useful ratio, even though, of course, at the atomic level every piece varies enormously, and every time you drop a brick or scrape a block on the ground, it changes the ratio slightly.


I just don't see much said here, except for a verbose version of "oh wow."
 
What bruto said,
It's not hard to find opposites when you need them. This web-page? The pixels in the video-ram are constant, their rgb values are variable. My chair? Gravity is constant, the height of my chair is variable. My person? Death is constant, my temporary life is variable.

There's nothing special about picking these things. Hot, cold. Up, down. Dark, light. Sameness, difference.
 
Donn said:
There's nothing special about picking these things.
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These things can't be picked in the first place, unless the observer, the observed and the tool of observation share a common principle, which is exactly invariant AND variant linkage.

Again, no science of any kind can be done without this principle.

If you think that this principle has no value, then please show how Science can be done without it.
 
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doronshadmi said:
These things can't be picked in the first place, unless the observer, the observed and the tool of observation share a common principle, which is exactly invariant AND variant linkage.

Again, no science of any kind can be done without this principle.

If you think that this principle has no value, then please show how Science can be done without it.
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First off, I want to thank you exactly enough for oh-so-helpfully linking to a "research" behind a paywall. If it were not for realpaladin, it might even look as if you were linking to a "research" you found by title only, without reading it.

(Thanks for the .pdf, realpaladin!)

I will read the Article and comment later.

Second, there are two errors in your highlighted sentence.

A)no one has said that you "principle" has no value but that it is incorrect.

B) it is not up to me, or anyone else, to show science "being done" without your "principle"; instead, it is, as it has been all along (here and in other venues, apparently), up to you to demonstrate that science cannot be "done" without your principle.

(Frankly, as to that last, I would settle, as a start, for any indication of any science being "done" dependent upon your "principle".)
 
Just a few general observations...

http://www.ganzheitsmed.at/lit_ayurv...rmeJohnson.pdf

It is interesting to note that the TMTM©® subject group was self-selected, non-random, and non-blinded. Further concerns regarding selection bias are raised by the relatively tiny size of the TMTM©® subject group (roughly 0.33% of those reported).

One wonders what sorts of care-use anommalies might be found in any number of non-random self-selected (cherry-picked) micropopulations that might be identified.

In the 30 years since Dr. Orme-Johnson's study, other studies and meta-studies have been conducted.

This one is interesting:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK38360/

After addressing the lack of rigour, and the problems with adequately overcoming selection bias, the meta-study concludes: "As a whole, firm conclusions on the effects of meditation practices in healthcare cannot be drawn based on the available evidence."

Further, it does not appear that either Orme-Johnson or the designers of the recent (2007) meta-study felt any need to align themselves with, or limit themselves to, any consideration of "the principle, which is exactly invariant AND variant linkage," as you would have it.
 
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Slowvehicle said:
In the 30 years since Dr. Orme-Johnson's study, other studies and meta-studies have been conducted.

This one is interesting:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK38360/

After addressing the lack of rigour, and the problems with adequately overcoming selection bias, the meta-study concludes: "As a whole, firm conclusions on the effects of meditation practices in healthcare cannot be drawn based on the available evidence."
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The conclusion of a given meta-study is based on the effects of many and even contradictory methods of meditation practices. By doing so one does not have to be surprised about the conclusion that "the effects of meditation practices in healthcare cannot be drawn based on the available evidence".

Here is the relevant part (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK38360/):
Given the variety of the practices and the fact that some are single entities (TM®, RR, and CSM, Vipassana) while others are broad categories that encompass a variety of different techniques or combination of practices (Yoga, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, MBSR, and MBCT), it is impossible to select components that might be considered universal or supplemental across practices.
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It is quit predictable that "meditation practices in healthcare cannot be drawn based on the available evidence" if the given meta-study is based on an approach that mixes contradictory methods of meditation practices, just because the they are all titled by the word meditation.

Here is some fundamental assertion of this meta-study:

"The complexity of meditation practices makes dissecting components difficult and questionable; components may be synergistic and imperfectly understood if artificially separated from the whole discipline within which they take place."

By this fundamental assertion TM is unconditionally marked as a method that is artificially separated from the whole discipline within which it takes place.

But this is exactly the strength of TM, it actually works only if no involvement with "the whole discipline within which it takes place" is done during the practice, exactly because the meanings of thoughts (whatever they may be, during the practice) are not factors for successful TM practice, on the contrary, they prevent successful TM practice.

Slowvehicle said:
Further, it does not appear that either Orme-Johnson or the designers of the recent (2007) meta-study felt any need to align themselves with, or limit themselves to, any consideration of "the principle, which is exactly invariant AND variant linkage," as you would have it.
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Orme-Johnson research can't be considered as scientific in the first place, without invariant AND variant linkage.
 
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doronshadmi said:
Orme-Johnson research can't be considered as scientific in the first place, without invariant AND variant linkage.
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You mean the subsequent studies used no formulas?

Did the authors not have to write their papers? And is not a page the invariant, while the pen moving across it the variant? Which variant and invariant linkages do you count?
 
doronshadmi said:
Here are some available researches which show improvement because of TM training:

<snip>
...
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doronshadmi said:
Donn said:
Pick your favourite one.
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Medical care utilization and the transcendental meditation program(http://journals.lww.com/psychosomat...are_utilization_and_the_transcendental.6.aspx)
Click to expand...

doronshadmi said:
<snip>
Orme-Johnson research can't be considered as scientific in the first place, <snip>[/I].
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Awesome Doron, just awesome.
 
doronshadmi said:
These things can't be picked in the first place, unless the observer, the observed and the tool of observation share a common principle, which is exactly invariant AND variant linkage.

Again, no science of any kind can be done without this principle.

If you think that this principle has no value, then please show how Science can be done without it.
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Again, you claim, so you prove that science *must* be done *with* it.

Nobody needs to show that it can be done without.

That is like me asking you to prove that science can be done without a white labcoat.

Stop trying reductio ad absurdum. It is scientifically invalid.
 
Donn said:
You mean the subsequent studies used no formulas?

Did the authors not have to write their papers? And is not a page the invariant, while the pen moving across it the variant?
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Using tools like paper and pen (b.t.w the pen can be invariant and the paper can be variant) is also an example of how invariant AND variant linkage is used in order to express some scientific research.
Donn said:
Which variant and invariant linkages do you count?
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The linkage between the invariant aspect of the (pen or paper) w.r.t variant aspect of the (pen or paper), in case of the considered tools.
 
Donn said:
Thanks for the pdf paladin.

I had a quick scan and, while this is a little over my head, I enjoy the last paragraph which calls TM a "technology" in an echo of what $cientology calls its own practices, and how the paper is from 1987 and how future business, industry, military, government and education would all benefit from "large scale research" into this "technology" (It sounds so objective and sciency if you call it technology.)

I wonder where all those sectors are in their embrace of TM today?

Nevertheless, I look forward to further insight about this paper here. (If the forum is still around that is!)
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Also do not ignore the fact that this paper was published by a peer-reviewed journal(http://journals.lww.com/psychosomaticmedicine/pages/aboutthejournal.aspx):
Psychosomatic Medicine, founded in 1939, is the official peer-reviewed journal of the American Psychosomatic Society. It publishes experimental and clinical studies dealing with various aspects of the relationships among social, psychological, and behavioral factors and bodily processes in humans and animals.
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As for the word technology, TM is indeed mental technology exactly because it is done by the mechanism of thoughts process, where only the activity levels of the process is impotent (the meaning of the thoughts is insignificant for the correct practice).
 
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doronshadmi said:
Orme-Johnson research can't be considered as scientific in the first place, without invariant AND variant linkage.
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...and yet,it was, in fact, you who presented Dr. Orme-Johnsosn's paper as your "favourite one".

If the best of the papers you cite is not scientific, of what value at all are any of the others?

Suppose you provide a link to a study of which you approve, a study that demonstrates celarly that no science can be "done" outside the constraints of your "invariant AND variant linkage"?
 
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Slowvehicle said:
...and yet, according to you, Dr,Orme-Johnon's work can't be considered as scientific in the first place..
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I think he was saying it is scientific because of this invariantandvariant linkage business.

I don't get it either, and clarity seems irrelevant to doron.
 
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