Topics Mind

Question In my philosophy class I am told that when I am in deep meditation I can understand that I am something other than a composition of body and mind and that this something other is eternal consciousness. In meditation apparently I should experience a state of detachment from both my body and my mind and apparently in this state of detachment I will realsise that I am observing my body and my mind and that this observing is proof that I am something other than my body and my mind, i.e. that I am the observer of my body and my mind and this is proof that I the observer am eternal consciousness. I find this reasoning hard to accept. Surely it is just a sensation of detachment or disassociation I am feeling and cannot be reasonably be accepted as proof of life after death, etc.

Accepted:
February 4, 2008

Comments

Couldn't agree more.

I can imagine what it would be like to feel that I was observing my body from some detached perspective. And I can certainly imagine what it would be like to have the sense that I'm aware of various things "passing through my mind" without identifying with them. But even if it somehow seemed to me that I was actually outside my mind observing it (whatever that's supposed to mean), it is a very long step from there to conclusions about what I am, or what my mind is, and how the mind or the self fits into the rest of reality.

I'd add: the experiences on offer here are interesting. But anyone who simply offers the conclusions you've described as the only reasonable way to interpret them doesn't seem to me to be doing what philosophy does. There is a large boatload of objections to the conclusion being drawn, and what someone doing philosophy would do is examine the conclusion in light of those objections.

It's also worth noting that the meditative traditions don't all come to the same conclusion about meditative experience. Ater all, one of the things that Buddhist Vipassana meditation is supposed to help us see is that there really is no such thing as the self!

So you're right to be skeptical. But it's perhaps worth saying a bit more. I have some familiarity with the practice of meditation. But what strikes me when I listen to meditation teachers talk about it -- even thoughtful, non-dogmatic teachers -- is that they often suggest metaphysical conclusions that the teachnique they're using doesn't seem capable of supporting. The relationships among mind, self and world are complicated. It's not even easy to settle on the right questions. Whatever data meditative practice may have to contribute to the enterprise (and I believe it does have a contribution to make), asking it to lay bare the deep structure of reality is asking an awful lot.

In order to answer your question, I need to explain a distinction between two kinds of mental state: propositional attitude states, and qualitative states. A propositional attitude state is, as the name suggests, a state of having an attitude toward a proposition. Take the proposition expressed by the sentence, “there is milk in the fridge.” I can believe that proposition, that is, I can believe that there is milk in the fridge, but I can take other attitudes as well – I can hope that there’s milk in the fridge, want there to be milk in the fridge, regret that there’s milk in the fridge (because its availability caused you to eat the last brownie, perhaps), suppose for the sake of argument that there’s milk in the fridge, pretend that there’s milk in the fridge, etc. The point is that all these kinds of mental state crucially involve propositions or propositional content. A qualitative state is the state of simply experiencing – it’s a state where it “feels like” something to be in that state. Qualitative states often involve sensory experience. So, as you wash down the last of the brownie with a cold glass of milk, as you feel the refreshing chill and savor the creamy taste and texture of the liquid, you are in a qualitative state. But a state of mind doesn’t have to be directly linked to a perception of something in the outside world in order to have qualitative character: memories, dreams, and imaginings are like this.

Qualitative states do not seem to involve propositions in the same way propositional attitude states do. When you are experiencing the taste and texture of cold milk, there is not necessarily any proposition to which you are related. You might think to yourself, as you’re drinking, “This cold milk tastes great.” But in order to think that, you would need to think of the object of your experience in a particular way – as milk. We say that you would need the concept, MILK, in order to think the proposition “This is mighty fine milk.” But you don’t need that concept in order to experience the taste of milk. If you had never tasted milk before, never seen milk or heard of milk, you might still have the same qualitative experience as a veteran milk drinker. And here’s another difference: If you think to yourself, “This is mighty fine milk” and it turns out that what you’re drinking is not milk, then you have thought something false. But there’s no way that your experience of the taste of milk can be false or incorrect – it is what it is. Emotions are also kinds of qualitative state. (These are the mundane truths that lies behind a lot of pop psychology.)

Now some philosophers disagree with me about the distinction between these two kinds of state. They hold that qualitative states do, in the final analysis, have a kind of propositional content, that they, like beliefs, make a kind of claim about the way the world is. So in my example, the experience of drinking cold milk does involve the belief that I am drinking cold milk. But two points: first, theses philosophers admit that it takes argument to show that qualitative states have propositional content – that there’s at least a recognizable difference between these two kinds of state, and second, that having propositional content and having correctness conditions go together. That is, if qualitative states have propositional content, then they can be applauded or criticized in just the same way and for just the same reason as beliefs are applauded or criticized, because they are either true or false. If qualitative states have propositional content, then they can be true or false, right or wrong. The mere occurrence of a state of this sort doesn’t – can’t – guarantee that its content is correct. (Qualification: unless the content is supposed to be something that concerns the occurrence or character of the state itself.) So – I’m afraid of spiders. Some philosophers think that experiencing fear of an object is (essentially) like believing that that object is dangerous. If I continue to be afraid of a spider after it’s determined that it’s harmless, then I’m being irrational, just as I would be if I believed both that it was and that it wasn’t dangerous.

Now it’s clear that people who engage seriously in meditation put themselves in qualitative states that are quite different from the states they are in when they are just going about their everyday lives (although I’m told that in at least some practices, one aim of meditative practice is to carry something of the qualitative character of the meditative state back to everyday experience). People often report finding these states enormously pleasurable, gratifying in ways that go beyond and perhaps feel substantively different from other pleasant states they’ve experienced outside meditation. Sometimes something about these states is so unusual, so compelling, and so intense that people describe them as “profound.” That much is a matter of simple observation – whatever one’s religious or spiritual beliefs, it ought to be acknowledged that certain practices can produce effects of this kind.

Now in order for me to learn anything directly from being in such a state, two things would have to be true. First, the state would have to have, in addition to having qualitative character of an extraordinary kind, propositional content. Second, the state would have to involve taking an attitude of belief toward that proposition, rather than an attitude of mere supposing or imagining. So now you have two choices: if you want to say yes, these states are states of believing propostions (like “I am in touch with all living beings”), then you should also recognize that that content might be false, and that the mere fact that you are experiencing a state with that content doesn’t justify you in believing that content. On the other hand, if you think that it doesn’t make sense to say that your experience is false or wrong or misleading, then you are denying that it’s a belief state (and maybe even that it has propositional content at all). So bottom line – the mere fact that you’ve had an extraordinarily powerful experience can’t demonstrate that any substantive claim about the world is true or false. If the experience “tells you” something, then you have to evaluate the truth or falsity of that claim the same way you would have to evaluate any other claim.

One further distinction: you might think that qualitative states lack propositional content, but still think that the occurrence of certain kinds of states indicates that certain propositions are true. You might think, for example, that the best explanation of why you can have certain kinds of profound experiences during meditation is that you are in touch with every living being. In that case, you would owe a skeptic an explanation of how it was that you thought that fact was responsible for your experience.