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Lama Ole Nydahl – Karma

Lama Ole talks about karma. How it works. How to work with it.
Video Rating: 4 / 5

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 6th, 2011 at 4:12 am and is filed under Karma. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

25 Responses to “Lama Ole Nydahl – Karma”

  1. @Luc88Cole Really mate there’s no need to talk to people like that unless they’re being nasty. I thought the question he asked you was quite lucid. If you look at his/her page you’ll see he’s from Germany, and I bet his English is a lot better than your German.

    I think it’s quite valid to ask what is it that constitutes ‘me’. Am I my thoughts, am I the sense of self that is aware of my thoughts, or is it both or neither or… who knows for sure?

  2. @Luc88Cole I googled Husserl but he died 150 years before neuroscience even started. You say you’ve provided an explanation of experience but I didn’t get that – as I said, how is it even possible to empirically demonstrate that a person or animal actually IS conscious? The comprehensive understanding of consciousness that you said we already have would need to explain how these huge networks of individual cells give rise to an experience – otherwise it can’t be called comprehensive.

  3. @ballaststoffel2

    Please, continue to reply with incoherent ramblings.
    In your benefit, I am going to assume that English is not your first language.
    With that said, good job for what you have said thus far! If you wish to continue this conversation, then let’s find a proper translator.

  4. ballaststoffel2 on December 6th, 2011 at 5:27 am

    @tecciztucatl But if the consciousness is not aware, then it identifies with everything it THINKS to be. So you can think: I am a very kind person. I have studied physics. I own a house and I have a lot of money. I am a hero, I am a looser, I am a thinker, dreamer, sportsman, good lover, bad lover. I am a collection of atoms, I am strong, I am the husband of my wife, etc… etc..
    But that is not what you are, that is what you (and others) think you are, and that can change when brain is damaged.

  5. ballaststoffel2 on December 6th, 2011 at 6:05 am

    @tecciztucatl I agree, but the question for consciousness cannot be answered by personality. Personality is changeable, and I assume mostly founded on habits, remembering and knowledge, beside what the environment gives us to deal with. You can call any kind of reaction personal. But, what is conscious no matter HOW you react, no matter what you think, no matter what you’ve learned. There IS consciousness, which you can be aware of. No need to be able to do anything.

  6. ballaststoffel2 on December 6th, 2011 at 6:13 am

    @tecciztucatl Yes, I thought a while about it, and I think you are right. But the question is:
    Can you, even if you do not know anymore how to speak, even if you do not remember who is who, or what is what, if you forgot all you learned, can you still be conscious?
    And I say: YES, absolutely.

  7. ballaststoffel2 on December 6th, 2011 at 6:33 am

    @Luc88Cole So, you say because you are aware of your thinking, you have to be, because else, there could be no thought. OK, so far correct. Then here comes the next step:
    Who is thinking? Are you your thought, the content of your thought, or the energy of your thought, or none of that all?

  8. @tecciztucatl
    What we need to get down to here is, what do we mean when we ask, “What is consciousness?” Are we looking for a definition? Simple: awareness/perception. Are we looking for an explanation all the way down to the most precise neuro-chemical level? I concede, this remains shrouded in mystery. Our emotions? Neuro-chem 101. The aspects of experience? This is left to a combination of neuro-psych and phenomenology, and this is the kind of explanation I have provided. I recommend Husserl!

  9. @Luc88Cole … actually have terribly poor resolution when we consider the complexity of what they’re looking at. We can see that there’s more activity in certain parts of the brain under various conditions but the reason I don’t think our understanding is solid is that our predictive power for what a given consciousness will do is very poor. Sam Harris reckons it’s not even possible to empirically verify that a being IS conscious from looking at brains; we have to assume it, if with good reason

  10. @Luc88Cole I mean we’re talking about an organ with around 100 billion neurons, each with thousands or tens of thousands of connections, and everyone I’ve read says we’re just beginning to scratch its surface; ‘neuroscience is in its infancy’. Science is all about empirical data and predictive power, so as strange as quantum theory is, we can trust it because its predictions are incredibly accurate. The tools we currently use to investigate the brain, as sophisticated as they are …

  11. @Luc88Cole Could you post a link to an article that explains it? I think I understand the mechanisms you mentioned to some degree but it’s a huge leap from there to a comprehensive understanding of how our subjective experiences work from the bottom up. I mean there are almost as many different theories as there are scientists. Google Sam Harris’ blog and read his most recent 2 entries for one view: other equally emminent researchers will have completely different ideas.

  12. @tecciztucatl

    capable of tapping into past experiences in order to better interpret incoming data. More advanced central nervous systems (i.e. those of human beings) are even capable of turning completely inward (e.g. rationalizing, philosophizing or meditating).
    When we act on impulse, we aren’t acting consciously. It’s subconscious activity. What’s interesting is muscle memory, because it is an impulse that is learned through conscious practice. Pretty crazy, huh? Hope this makes sense :)

  13. @tecciztucatl

    Yes we do have an understanding. It would take pages and perhaps an hour to thoroughly explain, but I’ll do my best here:
    There is a difference between receiving data and perceiving it. For example: if we merely received data, we wouldn’t perceive motion – we would only see one still shot after another. We perceive motion because we have short-term memory, which recalls what happened no more than a split second earlier. Coupled with long term memory, we are capable of (cont’d)

  14. @ballaststoffel2

    Cogito ergo sum.

  15. @ballaststoffel2 I think it can be as you say, that a patient has the same vocabulary and can write fluently but cannot speak – or all language can be wiped out – it all depends where the brain is damaged and how much is lost. Damage to the prefrontal cortex for example can result in a loss of inhibition, causing people to do terribly inappropriate things that they don’t even know are wrong anymore – these can be permanent changes in personality.

  16. @ballaststoffel2 Language is more than just a tool; the words and sentences we have at our disposal define a great deal about our minds. Certainly my stream of consciousness involves a lot of language.

    Some brain damage strikes right to the core: there’s a case of a man who was in a car accident and lost all his empathy. He no longer felt any love for his wife or child – a heartbreaking case, but what could be more central to our identity than our love for friends and family?

  17. ballaststoffel2 on December 6th, 2011 at 10:27 am

    @tecciztucatl Thanks for your intervention :-)
    In your brain-damage-example, is there prooven more than that a tool is broken?
    If someone has a brain damage and can not speak anymore, but can still write the words down (instead of saying them) what exactly is then broken? The consciousness or a tool through which consciousness can express itself.
    Following this line, the question is: Is there consciousness without carrier, or is it not. Or, can you find yourself not being a thing?

  18. @Luc88Cole I agree with a lot of what you said in this convo, but I don’t think we do have a ‘very solid understanding of what consciousness is’. Of course we have good reasons for thinking it’s nothing more than a material process, and lots of theories and data probing it’s depths but isn’t consciousness still widely regarded among scientists as one of the greatest mysteries of the world? Not that this gives anyone the right to fill the mysterious gaps with whatever nonsense they please!

  19. @ballaststoffel2 If an immortal soul exists, and is natural as you suggest, then in some way it must manifest in the natural world and therefore in principle we should be able to detect it. Perhaps if we had sensitive enough instruments we could find it? If not then we have no good reason to believe it does exist. Feeling strongly that we have a soul isn’t good enough – emotions and intuition are too often wrong.

  20. @ballaststoffel2 I’ve been following your conversation with Luc88Cole and I might be able to clear up a misunderstanding. What we can tell about consciousness is that any time a brain is damaged, the mind is affected in a corresponding way. If the speech centre is totally destroyed that person no longer has any idea on how to speak, even though it was a big part of their personality before the damage. There are many similar examples that show that the mind is dependent on the brain.

  21. ballaststoffel2 on December 6th, 2011 at 12:13 pm

    @Luc88Cole
    Are you conscious? And how do you know that?

  22. @ballaststoffel2

    Actually, we have a very solid understanding of what consciousness it is through a combination of neurochemistry, evolutionary biology and phenomenology. And to ask for scientific proof is technically impossible; what science DOES provide, however, is 99.99999% certainty.
    And no, I didn’t assume that the nervous system creates consciousness in that statement. I used YOUR definitions and showed why a fetus doesn’t have consciousness. Please read it more thoroughly.

  23. ballaststoffel2 on December 6th, 2011 at 1:14 pm

    @Luc88Cole
    1) ?
    2) Your statement still is based on (more or less) reasonable assumptions on what consciousness IS. Together with the assumption (science has not prooven that, afaik), that the nervous system creates consciuosness. Be honest, that is a BELIEVE of scientists, not a prooven fact. I think, that you only observe how consciousness works, but not what it IS.
    3) So, anything science does not talk about, is not natural? So, we can be happy that scientists talk about so much today :-)

  24. @ballaststoffel2

    1) Again, empirical observation.
    2.) Fallacy of a false analogy. Your statement before was that consciousness uses a nervous system to be in the world together with a body. If this is true (it’s not), then if there is no nervous system present, then the consciousness is floating elsewhere, and is not in the body. Therefore, the underdeveloped fetus is merely a body without consciousness.
    3.) Well, you aren’t talking about anything scientific, so I wouldn’t call it natural : /

  25. ballaststoffel2 on December 6th, 2011 at 1:56 pm

    @Luc88Cole
    to 1) That is true as long as you are only collecting information to deal with. On the other hand, the experience of for example:’wet’ cannot be achieved by reading its definition in a book.
    to 2) I did not acknowledge that. There can be a worker in a room without hammer. Why should the abscence of a hammer implicitely mean the abscence of a worker?
    And: ‘Supernatural’ is YOUR definition for what I mean. For me, it is completely natural, the essence of who you are. :-)