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From: hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu (H. M. Hubey)
Subject: Re: sci.physics,sci.skeptic,alt.consciousness,sci.psychology,comp.a ...
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103t_english@west.cscwc.pima.edu writes:


>one or two articles in this thread, I believe, a state of breath suspension has
>been observed in people practicing TM that is seldom, if ever, observed outside
>the practice. Various EEG patterns seem to be associated with this breath
>suspension state, and studies that ask the subject to press a button when they

That the control of breathing might be the "pathway" to control of
autonomic processes [i.e. heart beat rate] has been known and
practiced for centuries.

>but one should do so AFTER reading and evaluating the studies, not simply
>because I have used a buzz-word like "pure consciousness" that you have a
>knee-"jerk" response to...

Knee-jerk ??  HOw do you know what other people have read?


>My original point was simply that as "Pure Consciousness" is held to be just
>that -the pure, fundamental state of awareness in our nervous system, any
>discussion of what consciousness is should either make Pure Consciousness
>central to the discussion, or acknowledge that it exists and explain why it
>isn't any big deal. 

It wasn't for nothing that I mentioned Sufism, Zen, Castaneda etc.
This state you seem to be talking about is what Castaneda calls
"when internal dialogue ceases. It's the state in which the person
is completely tuned to inputs. In quiet places the dominant input
is vision. That makes it easy to understand why alpha rhythms are
observed.

--
						-- Mark---
....we must realize that the infinite in the sense of an infinite totality, 
where we still find it used in deductive methods, is an illusion. Hilbert,1925
