consciousness

[foolinthedeck]

i'd like to hear some opinions on the subject of kung fu, esp. wing chuns effect on consciousness.

Peter Ralston talks about using martial arts to develop consciousness, but he normally means tai chi, hsing i, or bagua.

i feel like my motivation in wing chun at my stage of development is not to hit harder or faster, not to be able to defend myself, not to be able to hit people.

my motivation is simply to develop my consciousness and strange though that may sound, wing chun is the most powerful thing i have to do that. It puts me in my body, aware of everything but also lets me 'be' with thinking or reacting in a normal way.

chi sau is the main key to this experience.

has anyone else had experience of this?

i'd be especially interested if anyone knows of any studies into brain wave patterns while people did very relaxed chi sau. di they enter into meditative patterns?

[dezhen2001]

i remember my tai sigung mentioning something similar (u used to train with my Sigung in Manchester i think - from some of your other posts?)

he said that Chi Sau is very effective not just for developing skill but also for health and relaxation of the mind as its just natural.

dawood

[Former castleva]

Conciousness as a subject of study has been looked strangely at for a while now,I suppose it is starting to get "accepted" and some actually study the "conciousness" itself in scientific terms.
The subject is a freaky one,notes on pondering on it can be traced as far back as ancient Greece with philosophers and thinkers revolutionary ideas and theories.Of course the idea of conciousness has been a debate for philosophers,science and religious views.
However I believe this strongly is the case for science (neural) since without such revolutionary approach we will not be making progress.
Another thing is that it is not too easy to track the "address" of conciousness down even in these terms,actually I believe most neural scientists consider this idea wicked since while various other terms for functions like "memory X" and related functions have been given out by some,it is not possible to think of conciousness as a separate region either (for which there is no exact neuroanatomical lol or related evidence)
Then we have terms like "subconcious" etc. which,possibly brought to popularity by psychoanalysis,are also pseudoscientifical.
Naturally it shall be understood that thinking like this and historical martial arts do take approaches that vary.

"i'd be especially interested if anyone knows of any studies into brain wave patterns while people did very relaxed chi sau. di they enter into meditative patterns?"
lol Sorry sir but if I´ll ever see one I´ll be really impressed.

[buksing_king]

Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed into a slow vibration………………..,
That we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively,
There’s no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we’re an imagination of ourselves
Here’s Tom with the weather

Lyrics from the song “Third eye” by Tool

[MightyB]

Here's your study. (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=2T7PZWVL4T&isbn=034544034X&itm=3)

It's not Tai Chi, but it is a study of the effects of deep meditation on brain wave patterns from Eastern and Western religious cultures.

[Serpent]

I think a lot of Wing Chunners become overly "addicted" to chi sao practice. Perhaps this is why?

(Tool totally rule!)

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Former castleva
Another thing is that it is not too easy to track the "address" of conciousness down even in these terms,actually I believe most neural scientists consider this idea wicked since while various other terms for functions like "memory X" and related functions have been given out by some,it is not possible to think of conciousness as a separate region either (for which there is no exact neuroanatomical lol or related evidence)

http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/online3.html

[Former castleva]

"http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/online3.html"

...Thanks?
It will take time to swap trough this stuff.

lol Live and learn-"neurotheology".

[Christopher M]

Lots of fascinating stuff there. Hope you enjoy it.


Originally posted by Former castleva
it is not possible to think of conciousness as a separate region either (for which there is no exact neuroanatomical lol or related evidence)

Many of those papers address this in a general sense, but for some specific rebuttals see, for example, Is blindsight like normal, near-threshold vision (http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/94/25/14190?maxtoshow=&HITS=30&hits=30&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=awareness&searchid=QID_NOT_SET&FIRSTINDEX=), and Optical images of visible and invisible percepts in the primary visual cortex of primates (http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/96/26/15208).

If you want a quick, accessable read which discusses these ideas, check out The visual brain in action (precis) (http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v4/psyche-4-12-milner.html).


Originally posted by Former castleva
Then we have terms like "subconcious" etc. which,possibly brought to popularity by psychoanalysis,are also pseudoscientifical.

Psychoanalysis classically describes unconscious, preconscious, and consciousness; where un- refers to things which cannot be conscious and pre- refers to things which aren't currently conscious but can be. Subconscious should refer to things of a conscious nature which are not conscious due to not meeting a perceptual threshold (an idea more properly from cognitive psychology than analytic).

Of these, the only one I think you could call pseudoscientific would be the unconscious. The existance of the preconscious necessarily follows from the hypothesis that we are not simultaneously conscious of all of our qualia, which can be tested with memory/reaction time experiments. The existance of the subconscious can be tested, for instance, by looking for priming effects from implicit memory (eg. Replicable unconscious semantic priming (http://www.millisecond.com/seandr/psych/RUSPfin.html)).

Arguably, the unconscious (in the psychoanalytic sense) may be scientific if you consider it to be theory with predictive value, rather than a potential observation you are looking for.

P.S. Neurotheology? :D Check out http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cache:x-BC3G1l-LoC:www.uncwil.edu/people/bergh/par325/L09RPersinger.htm+%22temporal+lobe%22%2Bstimulatio n&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

[Former castleva]

"Many of those papers address this in a general sense, but for some specific rebuttals see, for example, Is blindsight like normal, near-threshold vision, and Optical images of visible and invisible percepts in the primary visual cortex of primates.

If you want a quick, accessable read which discusses these ideas, check out The visual brain in action (precis). "
OK.Looking...
lol I think it will take some time for me to find those links at least/first. :p It seems some links are not working but this site will be worked on.Thank you.

"Psychoanalysis classically describes unconscious, preconscious, and consciousness; where un- refers to things which cannot be conscious and pre- refers to things which aren't currently conscious but can be. Subconscious should refer to things of a conscious nature which are not conscious due to not meeting a perceptual threshold (an idea more properly from cognitive psychology than analytic). "

Yeah.A good point.Should have been more accurately displayed.



"Of these, the only one I think you could call pseudoscientific would be the unconscious. The existance of the preconscious necessarily follows from the hypothesis that we are not simultaneously conscious of all of our qualia, which can be tested with memory/reaction time experiments. The existance of the subconscious can be tested, for instance, by looking for priming effects from implicit memory (eg. Replicable unconscious semantic priming from the link)."

Yeah.Taking into account the age of these terms and how they should or should not be observed,I believe I understand your logic.
From a purely strict view,from which I first observed,they would be considered somewhat questionable.
The hypothesis of "not simultaneously concious of-etc..." that you mention could be considered decent from this view.
Coming to testing subconcious,I do not know.We could argue that this term traces to origins unaware of such testing.
Additionally in light of further observation that I´ve arrived to,I was delighted to discover that these terms easily misunderstood,can be considered functional psychological "metaphors" for things that would be either extremely hard or less desirable to observe from purely biological basis (which could resist in forced attachment of concepts not needed)



"Arguably, unconsciousness may be scientific if you consider it to be theory with predictive value, rather than an observation you are looking for."
Nothing can I add to this. :)

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Former castleva
Coming to testing subconcious,I do not know.

Specifically I mean that stimuli presented implicitly have been widely shown to effect information processing. Implicit stimuli is the same as 'subconscious' or the popularized 'subliminal.' Below threshold (in duration or intensity) stimuli are one example, but there are also other methods. The unconscious perception, implicit memory, implicit learning, and change blindness sections of the website discuss this at length (and I gave a representative citation in my last post).

[Former castleva]

"It's been done though. Priming effects from implicit processing have been quite widely studied. I gave a citation. "

Outside of related,fundamental analysis? ;)
Seriously I have no problem with that,nice.

Neurotheology is mentioned in MightyB:s link.
Either theologists have sense of humour unseen or someone is making out of-.
Maybe not so,pure analysis.

Nice article,revealing nothing clearly new but displaying it in overwhelming detail.
It does not talk of temporal lobe epilepsy though.

"The psychophysiological correlates of near-death conditions should be the strongest precipitators of TLTs. Progressive alteration in blood flow and transient vasospasms in key areas, accentuated by the gradual deterioration of the body or by surgical procedures (anesthesia), allow prolonged and optimal temporal lobe conditions. Unlike some presumptions (Grosso, 1981), a flat EEG reflects cortical activity and would not necessarily measure TLTs within deep structures. That they are electrically responsive to environmental stimuli is evident even in normal spindle and deep sleep. However, attentuation of cortical contributions would highlight the shared characteristics of these portions of the human brain and increase the ****geneity of the reported
experienc across human cultures (Shiels, 1978). Controlling for cultural expectations (Osis, 1961), death bed experiences should be influenced by drugs that affect amygdaloid receptor sites (morphine) or vasospasm (verapamil)."
In addition it could be mentioned that the region of angular gyrus has also noticed to "hold water" to a certain degree.
As in widely reported electrical stimulation of temporal,similar stimulation of angular gyrus seems to work as a "trigger" for aforementioned experiences as far as my "long term memory" goes,huh.

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Former castleva
Outside of related, fundamental analysis?

I edited my last post regarding this point; should be more useful.


Originally posted by Former castleva
It does not talk of temporal lobe epilepsy though.

Yes, temporal lobe epilepsy is the classic example. The author of that article works with noninvasive brain stimulation of the temportal lobe in 'normal' subjects, and also has done work on kindling effects in the area correlated with meditating.

As an aside, I disagree with Persinger's et al.'s 'explaining away' religious experience with this finding.

[Gold Horse Dragon]

Chan Buddhism is about uniting spirit, mind and body to develop a relaxed, focused and higher state of conciousness. Chan and kung fu are closely connected and kung fu training aims to achieve the same. At times one can be so connected that time itself seems to slow down...such as in sparring where you seem to be operating in slow motion.

GHD