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Monks See Through Optical Illusion Games
FhnuZoag writes "Nature is reporting that Buddhist monks, highly trained in meditation, were better able to maintain focus in a set of computer generated illusions designed to confuse the brain. The particular illusions involved showing different images to each eye, and maintaining a state of motion-induced blindness. This may be scientific proof of the efficacy of meditative study. The full, original article may be downloaded here. (500 KB PDF)"
Perl Monk...only i can see through my j33t regexp.
From TFA:
What the hell? Who wrote this article, Jeff K.?
d00d, this iz teh ghey.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
I can't make the dots dissapear. Am I just doing this wrong?
I stare at a frame of reference in the image. I've tried each dot, the center of the image, and the corners of the image.
Since I'm definately not a monk, I'm sure that others must be experiencing this symptom as well.
Buddhist meditation is a practice designed to help people stay grounded in the real world, instead of wrapped up in their thoughts, opinions, and other conditioned reactions to outside stimulus. For most people I know, their opinions are more real to them than the air they're breathing.
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I tried the illusion they referenced at http://www.uq.edu.au/nuq/jack/bonneh.html and my "self reported" results were on par with the monks. If I blink, I lose the focus and see the other 2 dots, but I can stave off the other two as long as I can hold off blinking. Anyone else?
"The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his." - Patton
I thought "efficacy" was related to the root "effective", but apparently it's a sibling to Papacy.
Ah yes.
This study reminds me of change blindness experiments.
Weird, wacky stuff.
Student: Why are the bars horizontal on the left and vertical on the right?
Master: One eye sees truth, one eye sees falsehood.
Student: Which eye is correct?
Master: Neither.
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That's what I read, anyway. I was rather looking forward to it.
My motorbike travels in Chile.
I think the monks were just lying, dirty lying monks.
zen master shows me
what is real and what is fake
i see through dupes, trolls
... science can't prove anything. You might say I'm splitting hairs, but if you change the OP's sentence to 'may be scientific evidence of the efficacy of meditative study', it's then stating the obvious, so I'm not sure that's what (s)he meant. Actually, I just like pointing out small errors people make on /. I'm confident in the empathy of many here in this regard.
The way it was explained to me, the mind is afraid it will cease to exist if it is not involved in constant thought or self-conversation.
Meditation if very powerful. A short 5-10 minute session is worth about a two hour nap, in removing tiredness (but only works once, maybe twice, per day). Several guys in the meditation group I was in commented that there is nowhere the mind can "go" with hallucinogens that cannot be attained with meditation - interesting observation.
One of the most surprising things about meditating is that even in the deepest states, one is still completely aware of everything around them, actually moreso than usual. You can stop to answer the door or whatever with no "hangover" as happens when coming out of sleep.
Meditation is definitly worth exploring, if you have any interest. It does not require attachment to any religious beliefs to practice successfully. I have found that most people who are into it are not offended if you want to learn only mediation, even if they practice it in the context their religion.
This is interesting.
I've been doing Buddhist practices for damn near 40 years now, and I've noticed it anecdotally: a lot of visual illusions don't seem to work any longer. Now, it's hard to separate that out from being, well, old (remember how as a kid it looked for all the world like the moon was racing along with your car when Mom and Dad drove you somewhere at night?) and perceptual psych is way down the list of things I want to do in my spare time, but it seems completely plausible to me that monks who spend lots more time in these practices than I do would show these effects very strongly.
Exceeding focus of thought is required to write a sentence like that one, I hope you know.
I am unsure as to why meditation, per se, would help at all with optical illusions. TM alters the brain chemistry, to a degree, but in ways I would have thought might actually make a person more likely to be susceptible.
On the other hand, what little I do know about the religion would suggest that they mistrust their senses, which means that although they may perceive an illusion, they might not readily accept that the illusion had any basis. But, since that would seem to be how they regard the rest of the Universe, the ability to distinguish on observation alone would seem to be just as limited.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It's unclear that defeating optical illusions is a good thing. Many optical illusions are just part of the normal functioning of the visual system. In some cases, optical illusions directly aid in the perception of the real world, in other cases, they may not have a function, but are an indication that other processes are working as they should. A completely "literal" (metric, whatever) interpretation is generally not useful, even if you could achieve it.
gesundheit
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Did anybody else notice that the page title is "404 Not Found" ? /.ed already. Moving to the page to close it, I saw it was there. I checked their tags
After opening the page in a background tab (Firefox), I glanced to see it reporting 404. Dang, I thought,
(title)404 Not Found(/title)
b3 4phr41d 0f my 4bov3-4v3r4g3 c0mpu73r kn0wI3dg3!
MadDwarf
I can maintain the illusion - or the lack of illusion - as long as I want.
So am I a zen master yet? (-;
Now seriously, try this kind of test as part of a videogame and see how good gaming geeks do. Especially if they don't know which part of the game is testing them!
Microsoft is pure dog-ma. FreeBSD is pure cat-ma.
It's a zen thing.
It's all about dealing with mind, reality and perception of those things.
I think Hinayana is more correct to the original source than Mahayana.
Rebirth is a symbolic meaning of how you're stuck in your ways, how you walk your life from happiness to sadness and back, unable to break free from such chain of events. It does not mean being actually born again, physically. State where rebirth ends is when you're just you, you don't have those silly mood swings tripping you out.
Rebirth means mental state, not physically appearing again.
Read! Think!
PS. Likewise, if you wish to repeat the exercise for Jesus, pick up the bible and read about the sermon on the mountain. Then think, what was the message. See how when you cut through the oddball parts requiring faith (and other such parts which are obviously wrong) you are left with very intelligent texts!
Best regards, Ignorant Westerner.