Comment on: A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind by Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert; 12 November 2010 Vol 330 Science ...
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Observing Mindfulness
To truly observe a thought as it “unfolds” would disrupt its progression. As soon as we direct attention to the thought, it loses its vitality. It stops moving. The thought-process chokes. Observing a thought is more like hearing the echo of what just passed. An echo is a dead thing: it has no vitality.
Observing thoughts is like registering words without trying to understand what is being said. If we’re talking to someone, we want them to listen to us, not observe us. Listening requires relinquishing control, allowing oneself to enter another world – to be taken into that world. To follow the sprites. Listening involves a lot of non-listening - attention to something other than the just the words: gestures, facial expressions, inflections, interpretations of what we’re hearing, inchoate reactions, incipient responses partly rehearsed.
When does observing or awareness of a thought happen? Is it simultaneous with the comprehension of the thought? Or is more mental machinery, requiring a bit more time, needed to actually “process” the thought?
A common metaphor in mindfulness discourse is that observing thoughts and emotions is like being on a hillside watching the clouds go by: if you observe long enough, you'll notice that they just fade away, like puffy little clouds do.
When we are advised to Recognize, Accept, Investigate emotions with Non-attachment (RAIN) I wonder what is being recognized, accepted and investigated through the observational lens of non-attachment. Emotions and their associated thoughts require attentional resources. Accepting, observing, and investigating require attentional resources.
Our brains engage in two distinct cognitive modes: the attention-demanding “task-positive mode” and the go-with-the-flow task-negative mode, also known as the default mode. Observing thoughts is a cognitive task; the thoughts themselves arise while the brain is in default mode. Here’s the thing: these two modes reciprocally inhibit each other; that is, our brain can’t be in both modes at the same time. They alternate.
As we observe thoughts, they occupy the cognitive space called working memory. They are like echoes of what just happened in our heads, often represented as word fragments that may or may not be decent proxies for their pre-observed form. It’s possible to get really efficient at directing and re-directing attention. Meditation is a useful technique for acquiring this skill. It’s possible also to get really good at tracking our attention, otherwise known as “aware-ing”. Meditation is also useful here.
Type 2 processing involves experiencing beliefs as beliefs, as windows-in-themselves and not windows-on-the-world. So, when we are coupling cognitive-wise, we are considering cognitions as objects of attention – much like when we are “observing thoughts”.
The content of our resting states is mostly something else, like a sensory impressions, visual imagery, waves of emotion, or unsymbolized thinking (wordless and imageless, but there doing something - like wondering or questioning or realizing – but without words). So if our “task-independent” experience doesn’t involve words most of the time, what does it mean to “observe thoughts as they unfold”? What are we observing when the mental activity does not include words? And when they do, how do we mark the boundary between one “thought” and another?
We’re in a resting state when we’re not performing a task, when the brain is “at ease, sir”, doing its thing in the default mode. Hurlburt and colleagues just published a paper comparing “resting state” in two conditions: in an MRI scanner and the natural environment of the subjects. They found that resting states have five characteristics: inner seeing (visual images), inner speaking, sensory awareness, feelings (i.e., emotions), and unsymbolized thinking (wordless, imageless, but there doing something - like wondering or questioning or realizing – but without words).
“The word thinking is arguably the most problematic word in the exploration of pristine experience.” (Hurlburt and Heavey, 2015, p. 151).
University of Nevada Las Vegas psychologist Russell T. Hurlburt and his colleagues have been engaging in a series of studies involving beeping subjects randomly to have them jot down whatever they are experiencing at the moment of being beeped.
Cultivating a kind of watchful, disengaged awareness isn’t just for special occasions, like when we’re feeling sad or angry; it’s for all our waking hours, regardless of mood or thought content.
"When you're mindful, you observe your thoughts and feelings from a distance, without judging them good or bad." https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/mindfulness
Triumphalism is a sense of superiority and expectation of ultimate triumph, often reflected in exultation about the achievements of one’s religion or ideology (as confirmation of progress towards an ultimate triumph). Granted, triumphalism is an “observer’s category” and is generally used pejoratively. Few people would call themselves triumphalist. Still, the idea of triumphalism captures something that is quite real.
...all of us are prone to embrace or ignore evidence according to our pre-existing biases. This tendency is simply stronger if the biases are religious or ideological. As William James noted long ago, the “truth is that in the metaphysical and religious sphere, articulate reasons are cogent for us only when our inarticulate feelings of reality have already been impressed in favor of the same conclusion….”
The spirit of the ideological square is 1) other ways are awful; 2) our way (as correctly understood and practiced) has no real downside; 3) our way will make life incomparably better than other ways; and, finally, 4) other ways have little to offer. “They” may substitute for "other ways". For some ideologies, “they” can also mean our enemies.
...One, “Mindfulness-based therapy: A comprehensive meta-analysis “(2013), concludes that mindfulness-based therapies are “an effective treatment for a variety of psychological problems”, but the authors also note that the moderate effectiveness of MBT “did not differ from traditional CBT [Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy] or behavioral therapies … or pharmacological treatments.” ...
Given a worldview that values loving kindness and calm nonreactivity, it makes sense that mindfulness practitioners would report less stress and show fewer biomarkers for stress. It makes sense that mindfulness would be associated with greater well-being and happiness. Given hundreds or thousands hours of practice directing and redirecting attention, it makes sense that neural efficiency and connectivity patterns would be altered.
The points of the ideological square are recurring narrative themes. Narratives aren’t so much untrue as part-true. Rarely are narratives completely false – but they do tend to distort the truth though exaggeration, minimization and simply leaving important stuff out.