[graderjs]

It’s good to see this ‘validated’, but anyone who has actually tried these types of practices knows how effective they can be, there’s absolutely no doubt about any of this stuff. And why should there be? the Indians figure this stuff out like 1000 years ago or more and have been writing it down and telling people about it and what? cause we’re Western science we’re just not gonna fucking believe that? It’s ridiculous. Sort of like seeing a paper in physical review letters: class M stellar entity periodically illuminates US east coast from distance of one AU, and period of 24 hours. tell me something I fucking don’t know

[groby_b]

Welcome to science, where we actually reproduce results and don't just yell "everybody knows". (Since you are fond of the Indian approach, though, may I suggest you inspect your anger?)

And yes, it's fairly basic stuff - but it's also laying the foundation for ongoing studies. And it's not like it's ignoring ancient practices, they're specifically referenced.

While we're on "how does this study help in any way", it's also worth calling out that it has conclusively shown that you can remotely administer intervention and monitor the physiological response. Yes, again, a small thing, but important going forward.

And finally, this study was intended as an exploratory study - what can we find when we look here. And it will likely lead to a clinical trial. Yes, more reconfirmation of "what we've always known", but in a way that makes it more likely it finds entrance into the Western medicine canon. That's a huge step forward, because it'll move it from the easy dismissal of "maybe just woo" to "proven practice", and so gives a chance to reduce the number of pharmacological interventions doctors opt for.

[graderjs]

He didn’t get my point. Maybe he was replying to another comment and mistakenly put it down here?

It’s something about something that’s too obvious. I got a science degree man, I believe in the scientific method, but the way it’s applied sometimes: too stupid. The scientific institution is so fucking flawed. The scientific method can’t cure humanity’s faults: reproducibility crisis, confirmation bias, wrong incentives in publishing, produce papers that mostly seek to advance careers rather than advance human knowledge.

You can’t handle that? That’s on you. I just think you should realize when a paper is published about something that’s too fucking obvious. You don’t need science to validate that meditation and pranayama and breath work exercises work.

Another way you could say it is it’s patronizing colonial validation of “savages superstitions.” You don’t need unnecessary validation, and to the extent you endorse that you undermine the pre-existing legitimacy: suggesting that without science’s spurious stamp of approval these things don’t pass muster. Which is totally toxic bs.

Also, the thing is if science is not gonna make itself capable of exploring the more subtle energies, if it’s going to actively penalize explorations of that nature, then certainly science should not be all that we rely upon. We shouldn’t penalize people who are not coming from the scientific tradition. We should trust her own experience. Our own instincts and intuition. We should listen to our hearts, and we should listen to these Indians telling us about this stuff that works for thousands of years and we should listen to ourselves because we know it works.

If you don’t think you can know something until some scientist in a journal tells you it’s true even if it’s based on your own experience, I got no words for you man. You’re lost and science isn’t gonna help you get found. Fix your head first. You can’t do science coming from the wrong place for it. And that’s the fucking point.

Also

  (Since you are fond of the Indian approach, though, may I suggest you inspect your anger?)

Please don’t try to involve me in your personal delusions about me. Why do I need to inspect anything? I’m fine with however I feel about this. If you got a problem with how I feel, or with how you need to pretend I feel that’s your problem, nothing to do with me. Right? Maybe you should inspect your pomposity? Don’t tell me how I feel. Anger? I don’t have anger about this. You misunderstand. Don’t project your misunderstanding on to me OK bud? Thank you. Have a good one!

[Sakos]

I find it hard to believe that you have any interest in science with this comment.

I like seeing studies like this that try to scientifically prove/show the benefits of techniques like cyclical breathing. It may be obvious to some, but I don't think it's obvious to everybody. The Indians might have discovered it and done it for thousands of years, but we don't do it. I'm not going to do something just because Native Indians did it, I'd like to see some indication that it actually works beyond anecdotes from other people. People can fool themselves into all kinds of things.

And yes, I also looked into studies about the benefits of meditation before I ever started practicing meditation. I don't' feel like any of that was wasted and I'm glad I did.

[graderjs]

Oh I meant Indians from India, not native Americans. I wouldn’t call them Indians. Right?

  I like seeing studies like this that try to scientifically prove/show the benefit…

I’m not attacking you or saying don’t read studies or that’s somehow not good for you. Tho I get how it could seem that way. The world can contain both things: your like of this and my criticism of the scientific establishment and public attitudes towards science. Neither are exclusionary of the other, so I understand if you reacted like they were. But I’m was not criticizing you there. I’m criticizing the science establishment, and the idea that scientific endorsement is a sole arbiter of truth of the world which is absolute bullshit.

  I find it hard to believe that you have any interest in science with this comment.

I don’t know…I think if you don’t think I have any interest in science then you don’t know me at all. But also, I think it’s a bit counterfactual of you: because why would someone who had no interest in science spend time studying it and then thinking about it enough to criticize its flaws … unless they valued what they thought it should actually stand for (and we’re obviously interested in that)?

So I think instead it’s you trying to frame your disdainful contempt for who you mis-imagine I am, I somehow valid by clicking it in the pretense, that you must know more than me. But really, I think you’re comment is a bit of an overcompensating snooty elitist dismissal for you to wanna try to pretend to look down on me as like some uneducated savage because I don’t happen to reflect your (worshiping? unquestioning?) attitude toward science. So if I don’t show your view, your only response is to somehow pretend I’m bad or less than you? That’s pretty pathetic not scientific.

I’m not saying worshiping and and unquestioning is how you see science, but if you did, I would say that is not very scientific of you. Do you have a science degree?

[Nevermark]

I don’t think many people consider science as a sole arbiter.

It is more a high bar arbiter. And that high bar is especially useful for human concerns when we (each of us individually) wade into unfamiliar territories that mix fact based things (health) with cultural beliefs or practices.

That feeling of “this is so obvious”? It is just a feeling. No smarter than any of our other fallible feelings.

Lots of obvious things, even obvious to billions of people, turn out to be false on closer inspection.

It is worth giving anything valuable the scientific treatment

[graderjs]

/ 2 (too long, continuing...)

Ultimately science and emotion work to be framed by the same quest: a quest for truth. The truth of emotion is personal to you, the truth of science is like "the personal truth of the heart of the world". But you can't denigrate one. And be very careful at comparing them, they're often not comparable. They don't contradict each other....but if they do...you got to trust yourself above everything else.

What is more likely? The internal system and consciousness that you have which has been billions of years in the making and evolution thereof, or the centuries old "Western Scientific Establishment" -- which is likely to be more fallible and out of touch with the world?

If you have trouble trusting your emotions: refine your instrument, improve your measurements, increase the resolution of your sensibilities. Abandon emotion at your peril, and of all those around you. It's your human strength. Your not a machine (at least I don't think so!). And any Science in this world must respect the truth of human experience, of emotion, of subjective personal experience. Science must not question those things: the ground emotional personal truth of someone cannot be questioned by science. One reason is because you can't get more true than that for someone, another reason is because science deals in probabilities, in averages, and that's not personal. But's about respect, that's the main reason. You can't have this external thing, questioning something internal. People must be more like Nietzsche's Artist, they have to follow the truth of their own feelings and go into that and discover the truth of themselves. They should teach that stuff in school: how to know and access and process your emotions, your intuition, internal information. But they don't. They teach science. So of course you've lost your way. Sorry to say, but it's the truth. But it's easy to get back to the path, you already have it inside you. Science can question the "overlayed emotions" someone applies to avoid their own emotional truth, but even then it can only suggest, based on studies, and averages, it cannot be sure. As every individual is fundamentally immune to science at an absolute level through their individual nature. Every individual is an anomaly, unamenable to the subjugation to averages. You may argue that endlessly, but the point holds and always will. If you're going to come down with an absolute, start with yourself first. Subjugating the individual to science is a mistake. Anyway...Science's place in the world is assured, but is must be put in and kept to its proper place.

I want to finish with an analogy that may help you see what I'm saying better: You probably think I'm saying that the Synnaxians are right, and the science saying they would all drown is wrong. No. The Synnaxians had adopted a intuitive religion to cover a painful truth: their world was dying. The abused emotional truth just the same as some paper abusing scientific truth to push a favored theory. If the Synnaxians didn't subjugate their emotions, their intuition, to some safe-idea (that their God would protect them and everything would be right) they would have been in touch with their emotional ground truth: fear at the dying of their world. And they would have acted on that. In that case the ground emotional truth and the science was in agreement, it was the Synnaxxians own weakness that deliberately introduced distortions to make it easier for them to avoid the pain of that truth.

Thank you have a good day! :)

[graderjs]

Completely disagree!

  It is worth giving anything valuable the scientific treatment

No, it's worth giving anything valuable the personal, intuitive, feeling-based treatment. How do you feel about it? That's always the first question. Otherwise we end up with science as the soler arbiter of value, the final judge, the Court of High (scientific truth making) appeal? Right? Because anything I say, you can find some study and say "No" and you'll never believe nor acknowledge the validity of what I"m saying, at least not in a way you'll view as comparable to, equal to, or "shock to the horror" superior to, whatever your precious studies say. That's wrong.

Look--I'm not saying you're like that, 100%, it just seems that way.

  Lots of obvious things, even obvious to billions of people, turn out to be false on closer inspection.

Yeah, like science theories. Turn out to be false or not-reproducible, even thousands of papers parroted them, and counter-ideas were suppressed. Didn't matter. Science is biased, it's part of the mechanism, it needs to be reformed.

  That feeling of “this is so obvious”? It is just a feeling. No smarter than any of our other fallible feelings.

It is not just a feeling. It is something paramount; important. So no way. "Just a feeling": science as false truth supremacy, the incorrect attempted minimization of subjective experience, of emotion. It's never "just a feeling". Never was. Science is just another belief system. That if your measurement equipment, your concepts are wrong, it can't even touch what you feel and experience. So we can say: That idea of "science is so high bar". It's just an idea. No smarter than any of our other fallible ideas.

  I don’t think many people consider science as a sole arbiter. It is more a high bar arbiter. And that high bar is especially useful for human concerns when we (each of us individually) wade into unfamiliar territories that mix fact based things (health) with cultural beliefs or practices.

Um, 1) I think they do, and 2) I think you do from what you say here. It sounds like you're saying it's the only thing we really need to care about. What am I saying? Science is useful. It's a tool. But oft abused, but flawed humans. That's when it becomes dangerous: when the TruthMaker Machine is slaved in service of perpetuating and confirming pre-existing incorrect biases. As it often is. Also dangerous, this "temple of scientific truth" cannot be questioned. Because, theoretically, the method is sound. Yeah, the method is sound. But the implementation, the users of that tool, are flawed. Science is flawed. That's all that matters. The danger is, pretending this Scientific TruthMaking Machine cannot be assailed, that it's unquestionable. This lazy abusive dismissal of counterpoints and other views, is so often fallen back to by the fanatical proponents of science, who use it try incorrectly to quash anything against what they want: like it seem, you're trying to here: "Just a feeling", "science is the high bar". I mean you have faith in it, that it's better than everything else. And I bet, sometime in the past, or maybe the future again, you've been in an dispute, where you have absolutely refused to consider another's view, and completely dismissed it as invalid, by falling back to the mantra: "studies show", or the awful and abusive "just a feeling".

Careful what you say about "Just a feeling"--why would you want someone to doubt themselves? People have enough trouble staying in touch with who they are and what they feel and expressing that, and standing up for themselves. Why would you want to add doubt to that struggle? It's a very dangerous territory, and abusive one, to go. Every time I've seen someone trying to do that to someone else, it always proceeds trying to manipulate that person you're trying to cause to doubt, trying to have power over them, trying to abuse them. I mean it's a form of gaslighting, it's awful: "You don't really feel like that, it's a feeling, just a feeling, it's fallible, doubt it".

Look, man, it will probably seem I am attacking you: I'm sorry, I'm not attacking you: this slavish obeisance to science as truth is a common error, not unique to you, as is the abusive minimization of other's feelings--that's not even unique to the science acolytes, lots of people do that, doesn't make it right tho--I'm not even saying you actually do that or intend to, it just seems that way from what you wrote here.

---

My main thesis is: science and emotion, subjective experience -- can co exist. We can't define ourselves or our reality by either of them. But we have to seriously listen to them, if we want to be good. But you also can't think you can use science as this like stick to beat people with, or force them to comply...you probably have felt frustrated that there are people you feel you "cannot even reason with" as they won't listen to reason. But how do they feel? That you won't even listen to or acknowledge their personal experience and feelings? So if you want to engage with them, I'm not saying you can convince them...try stepping into their shoes first: acknowledge, and feel the truth of their views, emotions and experiences. Then they may be much more likely to consider what you are saying. Especially if you can make it so that you can maintain both: science and themselves.

Otherwise, if you just treat science as this unassailable machine to make truth, this unquestionable atrocity, you really make it into an abusive authority, a tool to subjugate people and their own personal experiences and feelings, and that's awful...and I don't think you want to do that. I mean I don't know but I don't think that's your intention. Because if you treat science like that, in slavish obeisance, unquestioning fidelity, it becomes a religion. A cult. And what's worse: it's a persecutory cult that seeks to admonish and chastise, abuse and punish, "outsiders" and "infidels", non-believers. And of course, any "absolute high bar" of truth making will be abused thus by human hands. Humans are weak, crazy, stupid and bad...among many other things, we can also be good if we choose to be...but we can be that bad stuff. But if you make science into such an absolute, you subjugate yourself to it. And inevitably try to subjugate others.

--

I feel so strongly about this, and that's right: emotions are a source of information, science is a tool. YOu need to consider the counsel of both and use science to life people up, to expand their world and experience not limit it. The default position must be: if science cannot speak to something, it is because science is too limited, not because "Science is RIGHT, and the Other is WRONG, BAD, FALSE, NONSENSE". The default must be a non-abusive, expansive, human-centric position that does not subjugate, but lifts people up.

You probably can't see past your resistances here: irrational people that feel they are right above all else, in the face of evidence, "feel good" platitudes that achieve nothing while the world burns...there are many failure modes of emotion, but the issue is not with emotion in itself, but rather how people respond to it, emotionally. Emotional logic, and people's seeking to avoid pain, they convince themselves of things. It's not "wrong" to do so...but it may not always be "true". But the resolution of that is not to banish emotion, it's to go deeper into it, because beneath those emotions people take on to cover other emotions that are more painful, is the emotional truth. So you just have to go deeper.

I think the truth is of science as well: when the science is wrong, or misapplied, you just have to go deeper.

[generated]

This is a thoroughly impressive response, particularly in a thread about contemplation. It's honestly a masterpiece.

It may be a bit cliche, but it reminds of this Alan Watts anecdote.

> That is why a person who might be enlightened (a bodhisattva) does not always present a kind of detached and indifferent attitude but is perfectly free to allow emotions and attachments. Why R.H. Blyth, who was a great Zen man, wrote me once and said 'How are you these days? As for me, I have abandoned satori (enlightenment) altogether and I'm trying to become as deeply attached as I can to as many people and things as possible.'

[graderjs]

Thank you. That’s very kind of you. I really appreciate that truly. You didn’t have to say that but I think sometimes when people go out of their way to say or do something nice maybe they don’t understand how much it can positively affect someone. And I just want to let you know this really made my day and it will leave a lasting positive impression on me that I’ll always remember. Thank you so much that’s really wonderful. Just wanted to make sure you know that you’re kindness is so meaningful to me. Thank you.

[strken]

I've actually tried these types of practices, and they make me feel like I've used a recreational inhalant. Without the paper I'd have assumed giving yourself mild hypoxia just gave you euphoria and dizziness, and other positive effects were confirmation bias.

[graderjs]

Interesting! I guess you need a good teacher, or you could just be "different to the bell curve". I mean theoretically every little thing is going to have potentially different effects for everybody. But I want to ask...so even doing something like box breathing (4 counts inhale - 4 hold full - 4 exhale - 4 hold empty - ... repeat), give you feeling of mild hypoxia / euphoria / dizziness / like an inhalant?

Also, this will probably sound judgy so I'm sorry but I'm really curious: do you normally have trouble walking up stairs, get out of breath easily, or feel faint when changing body positions?