A problem with the way you’re talking about mindspace: if affect is a coordinate of mindstates, you can’t “change” or “update” the affect of a point in mindspace; that’s just moving to another point in mindspace.
So what you probably actually mean is to move yourself to a different point in mindspace where affect=0 while “holding everything else constant”.
This makes some more sense, but “holding everything else constant” depends on what you choose for your other coordinates… having recognized this for purely mathematical reasons, it’s not a purely mathematical issue. Here’s what it translates to in the meditation:
Suppose the thought of people painfully dying comes to your mind, and you feel a strong negative affect, what is to be held constant while you alter the affect to 0?
A few possibilities are:
The salience of the idea that death is their ultimate end.
The salience of your awareness that you do not want to die.
The salience of your empathy with their suffering.
It’s certainly not possible to hold the third one constant while reducing affect to 0, because empathy is an affect.
Now, I already have an intuitive idea of what you meant before reading the post, and I bet others do too. But for those who didn’t, I’m betting from the indeterminacy of your description that they didn’t gain much except for inspiration (which isn’t to be scoffed at, of course!), and would benefit a lot from some specific examples. Examples are also lacking from the Wikipedia article.
Generally though, I’m glad to see a post on a meditation technique here!
A problem with the way you’re talking about mindspace: if affect is a coordinate of mindstates, you can’t “change” or “update” the affect of a point in mindspace; that’s just moving to another point in mindspace.
You’re right. That was sloppy.
So what you probably actually mean is to move yourself to a different point in mindspace where affect=0 while “holding everything else constant”.
It could be any smaller value of affect but yes, that’s what I had in mind.
Consider a painful sensation. I claim that this pain is actually a composite phenomenon; it consists of a strong negative affective judgment (or series of such judgments) and a physical sensation. Not making an affective judgment in this case
would mean that all that remains is the physical sensation. You would keep experiencing this physical sensation but not
have a dying urge to do something about it (like shift your sitting position, for example).[1] As long as you make sure that you are not causing bodily damage, I think that observing pain in meditation can be a really great learning experience.
I’ve been able to clearly experience this distinction during meditation. Bizarrely, I’ve even had the experience of rapidly alternating between these modes, with the pain turning on and off like a light switch.
[1] This sounds like a bad habit to get into, but I haven’t found that to be the case. I still know what pain feels like
and know to do something about it, but it serves more like an indicator than as a burning hot iron searing your eyes.
A problem with the way you’re talking about mindspace: if affect is a coordinate of mindstates, you can’t “change” or “update” the affect of a point in mindspace; that’s just moving to another point in mindspace.
So what you probably actually mean is to move yourself to a different point in mindspace where affect=0 while “holding everything else constant”.
This makes some more sense, but “holding everything else constant” depends on what you choose for your other coordinates… having recognized this for purely mathematical reasons, it’s not a purely mathematical issue. Here’s what it translates to in the meditation:
Suppose the thought of people painfully dying comes to your mind, and you feel a strong negative affect, what is to be held constant while you alter the affect to 0?
A few possibilities are:
The salience of the idea that death is their ultimate end.
The salience of your awareness that you do not want to die.
The salience of your empathy with their suffering.
It’s certainly not possible to hold the third one constant while reducing affect to 0, because empathy is an affect.
Now, I already have an intuitive idea of what you meant before reading the post, and I bet others do too. But for those who didn’t, I’m betting from the indeterminacy of your description that they didn’t gain much except for inspiration (which isn’t to be scoffed at, of course!), and would benefit a lot from some specific examples. Examples are also lacking from the Wikipedia article.
Generally though, I’m glad to see a post on a meditation technique here!
You’re right. That was sloppy.
It could be any smaller value of affect but yes, that’s what I had in mind.
Consider a painful sensation. I claim that this pain is actually a composite phenomenon; it consists of a strong negative affective judgment (or series of such judgments) and a physical sensation. Not making an affective judgment in this case would mean that all that remains is the physical sensation. You would keep experiencing this physical sensation but not have a dying urge to do something about it (like shift your sitting position, for example).[1] As long as you make sure that you are not causing bodily damage, I think that observing pain in meditation can be a really great learning experience.
I’ve been able to clearly experience this distinction during meditation. Bizarrely, I’ve even had the experience of rapidly alternating between these modes, with the pain turning on and off like a light switch.
[1] This sounds like a bad habit to get into, but I haven’t found that to be the case. I still know what pain feels like and know to do something about it, but it serves more like an indicator than as a burning hot iron searing your eyes.
[1] is a great example, and I’ve had the same experience as you. I think it’s worth adding to the post proper for future readers.
Thanks for the advice. I’ve added most of my comment as a footnote since I couldn’t figure out how to weave it into the text nicely.
Neat! What kind of meditation were you practicing? Was it in a retreat or in the course of daily life?