Listen now | If you are interested in predictive processing, you should definitely listen to this podcast. It’s an interview with Mark Miller, a philosopher and cognitive scientists who studied under John Vervaeke and did his PhD with Andy Clark. I've read a bunch of Mark’s
Superb, thank you for this. Friston's Free Energy Principle makes so much intuitive sense to me in terms of why and how movement practices like yoga or Feldenkrais are so effective and the conscious updating of beliefs that is happening in mindfulness/insight meditation. I will read the papers now but I would love to hear more about how Mark Miller thinks about open monitoring and non-dual awareness meditation within this predictive processing paradigm (where there is a shift in identity from the small self to an aware self) and also whether he would agree that the dopamine = motivation, serotonin = satiety is too simplistic within this framework. And related to that I would also love to hear more about the level of intensity (either of concentration or movement) required in order to update priors in an adaptive way which seems to differ from person to person. This is such a hopeful line of research for so many conditions - wonderful.
This is like finding a treasure trove. Super interesting paper. I would question whether the sense of self that people discover through non dual awareness is truly a diminished self but note that they looked at focused attention meditation here. In non dual traditions, there seems to be a loss of one particular sense of self (which appears to be experienced as a more contracted, localised and bounded sense of self - ordinary mind self let's say) but the sense of self reported by those who practice non dual awareness appears to be the opposite of that - an expansive sense of self, a globalised sense of self, connected and limitless and undiminished and it appears to be entirely without the compulsion for reward/minimisation of free energy that drives behaviour otherwise (if the person can learn to abide in that self and live from there). It appears to be a state of being in which free energy is minimised so successfully that the person experiences a kind of bliss (free from the causes of suffering if you adopt the Buddhist terminology). I can see that de-personalisation without a safe framework for this more expansive sense of self could result in a pathological state because it might well feel like a kind of free-falling or un-tethering. Thank you so much for pointing me in the direction of Mark Miller and his research!
Hi again Todd. I hope you see this! Am just sharing a link to a short but interesting conversation on The Contemplative Science Podcast in the hope that I could persuade you to have a longer follow up conversation with Mark Miller, maybe jointly with Shamil Chandaria?? 🙏🤞 There is so much interesting and ongoing research on the science of wellbeing and meditation within the active inference framework and I would really love to hear their and your thoughts on improving the predictive environment of the body through movement (perhaps especially attentional movement practices like Feldenkrais or yoga) and what relationship that has to re-constructing a helpful mental model of your world. Another issue I would really like to hear more about, perhaps in conjunction with a trauma specialist, is how we can frame and work with the 'dissolving' aspects of meditative practice (realisation of impermanence, no-self and suffering as predictive error) more therapeutically so as not to minimise the valid felt experience of survivors, assuming we all agree that it isn't helpful to someone who has survived trauma to be told that their suffering is a construction. In other words, as both Mark and Shamil emphasise, it is liberating to understand the absolute nature of reality but we still have to live in the relative world as boundaried beings with a healthy, agentive self and our experiences are real notwithstanding our ability to hold them within a differential contextual container. Thank you and Merry Christmas! Sarra https://open.spotify.com/episode/3SSqB1hi9ZBCuEIsdrWVOh?si=0e5f02d10d7d4d55
I was wondering, at some point Prof Miller cites an article about subjects reporting high level of MDD being prompted to self-report their feelings at the moment with a beeping sound, and it comes out that they are not really always depressed. I've been looking for this article for days, but can't find it, is it possible to retrieve it somehow?
I absolutely loved this. I will however have to go back and listen to it at least twice!
This was awesome!
Superb, thank you for this. Friston's Free Energy Principle makes so much intuitive sense to me in terms of why and how movement practices like yoga or Feldenkrais are so effective and the conscious updating of beliefs that is happening in mindfulness/insight meditation. I will read the papers now but I would love to hear more about how Mark Miller thinks about open monitoring and non-dual awareness meditation within this predictive processing paradigm (where there is a shift in identity from the small self to an aware self) and also whether he would agree that the dopamine = motivation, serotonin = satiety is too simplistic within this framework. And related to that I would also love to hear more about the level of intensity (either of concentration or movement) required in order to update priors in an adaptive way which seems to differ from person to person. This is such a hopeful line of research for so many conditions - wonderful.
Those are great questions Sarra, maybe I can ask Mark next time. Until then, this paper might be of interest: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.539726/full
This is like finding a treasure trove. Super interesting paper. I would question whether the sense of self that people discover through non dual awareness is truly a diminished self but note that they looked at focused attention meditation here. In non dual traditions, there seems to be a loss of one particular sense of self (which appears to be experienced as a more contracted, localised and bounded sense of self - ordinary mind self let's say) but the sense of self reported by those who practice non dual awareness appears to be the opposite of that - an expansive sense of self, a globalised sense of self, connected and limitless and undiminished and it appears to be entirely without the compulsion for reward/minimisation of free energy that drives behaviour otherwise (if the person can learn to abide in that self and live from there). It appears to be a state of being in which free energy is minimised so successfully that the person experiences a kind of bliss (free from the causes of suffering if you adopt the Buddhist terminology). I can see that de-personalisation without a safe framework for this more expansive sense of self could result in a pathological state because it might well feel like a kind of free-falling or un-tethering. Thank you so much for pointing me in the direction of Mark Miller and his research!
Hi again Todd. I hope you see this! Am just sharing a link to a short but interesting conversation on The Contemplative Science Podcast in the hope that I could persuade you to have a longer follow up conversation with Mark Miller, maybe jointly with Shamil Chandaria?? 🙏🤞 There is so much interesting and ongoing research on the science of wellbeing and meditation within the active inference framework and I would really love to hear their and your thoughts on improving the predictive environment of the body through movement (perhaps especially attentional movement practices like Feldenkrais or yoga) and what relationship that has to re-constructing a helpful mental model of your world. Another issue I would really like to hear more about, perhaps in conjunction with a trauma specialist, is how we can frame and work with the 'dissolving' aspects of meditative practice (realisation of impermanence, no-self and suffering as predictive error) more therapeutically so as not to minimise the valid felt experience of survivors, assuming we all agree that it isn't helpful to someone who has survived trauma to be told that their suffering is a construction. In other words, as both Mark and Shamil emphasise, it is liberating to understand the absolute nature of reality but we still have to live in the relative world as boundaried beings with a healthy, agentive self and our experiences are real notwithstanding our ability to hold them within a differential contextual container. Thank you and Merry Christmas! Sarra https://open.spotify.com/episode/3SSqB1hi9ZBCuEIsdrWVOh?si=0e5f02d10d7d4d55
Amazing podcast!
I was wondering, at some point Prof Miller cites an article about subjects reporting high level of MDD being prompted to self-report their feelings at the moment with a beeping sound, and it comes out that they are not really always depressed. I've been looking for this article for days, but can't find it, is it possible to retrieve it somehow?
Thank you!!