[bowsamic]

Meditation isn't really a spiritual act though, it's simply a form of mental training. It is like learning, or doing puzzles, etc. Do you doubt those things?

The spiritual part is how to frame the results and shifts that come from long-term meditation in a helpful worldview.

Have you tried it by the way? It sounds like you aren't quite aware what it even is

[taeric]

For those that are neither spiritual nor meditative, they are both far away in thought.

I have tried meditation before. Never did a weekend retreat, but used to do guided classes. They left me a bit high and dry. And they felt exactly the same as old religious acquaintances on how that helps guide and inform. I /do not/ doubt that it works for the folks it works for. I clearly have doubts that it is a general thing that even can work for everyone.

[bowsamic]

Anyone who sits and keeps their mind on a single object for 30 mins a day will eventually experience _some_ kind of effect from it.

[taeric]

Strictly, this is almost certainly false. If only because there is a ridiculously wide range of the ways that people think.

Loosening it to most people, I mean, maybe? But then why does the nature of what you focus your thought onto matter? I suppose the mechanism is that you are effectively forcing a wiring of whatever in your mind is responsible for consciousness? Makes sense that you can effectively train your consciousness by rote in much the same way that you can train your arms/hands to juggle.

But, at this point, we have to establish that consciousness is the same between us. Certainly plausible. I'd go so far as to say likely. But not guaranteed.

[bowsamic]

The nature of what you focus your thought on doesn't matter, the object can be anything.

> Makes sense that you can effectively train your consciousness by rote in much the same way that you can train your arms/hands to juggle.

It does, so why are you arguing against it? You claimed it only has an effect by some kind of vague suggestion.

Of course, strictly, it's also false that working out with weights will increase muscle mass. You are just being needlessly pedantic. Your claim has shifted from "I think all effects of meditation are just a kind of self-propaganda" to arguing some crap about the nature of consciousness.

Why do we even need to speak of consciousness? If it confuses you that focussing on a meditation object for 30 mins a day might do something, I dread to think of how the concept of learning or memorisation sends your head into a spin

[taeric]

I'm inherently a skeptical person. There are far too many arguments and lines of reasoning that make sense, but are wrong. :D To that end, I will often try and argue against things that make sense to me.

And don't take my claim too strong, here. I obviously don't /know/. I have some strong doubts, sure; but doubts are not themselves evidence against. Your very point on weights not absolutely working is essentially my point.

I bring in consciousness, as that is what it sounds like when you say that one needs to think on something. Consciously and deliberately. Otherwise, I can think a lot on a program I'm wanting to write, but make zero progress on it.

[bowsamic]

Your scepticism seems to have gone beyond scepticism and into some blind religiousity