Paper Review #3: From many to (n)one: Meditation and the plasticity of the predictive mind - ScienceDirect

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014976342100261X?

Paper posits meditation to lead to a reduction of counterfactual temporally deep cognition. 

Neurophenomenology. 

No report-paradigms. 

Re-constructing and de-constructing the predictive models which frame our perception. 

Interoceptive and exteroceptive input.

“They allow us to disembody from the present moment flow of sensory data in order to covertly entertain possible, but non-existent states, i.e., counterfactual hypotheses.” Science is Samsara. 

“It may be humanities greatest asset in the service of survival (Bulley et al., 2016), but it may also underlie much of human suffering as it allows us to think about what is not happening.”

Precision of prediction errors 

Attention determines the synaptic gain of the cells encoding a specific prediction error. 

“Preempting later sections, it is interesting to note that in certain meditations, attention must eventually be released in favor of a form of bare or non-preferential attention, and in yet other meditation practices of the non-dual category, attention is released altogether.”

“Thus, although we argue that meditation practice in essence reduces counterfactual abstract processing, it is simultaneously an opportune moment for model revision and selection as the brain—despite the reduced activity of body and mind—may continue its prerogative of hierarchical prediction-error minimization via internal hypothesis testing.”

Commentary

The paper posits that the inhabiting of the present moment may reduce prediction precision and quantity, leading to a more spacious sense of experience. However, the paper does not appear to properly account for the definitions that it leans on, and appears to fail to notice the holes in its arguments which proceed from epistemological uncertainty. For example, it postulates prediction-errors as existing on a kind of spectrum, admits the impossibility of their removal, but also speaks of a meditation ‘end-point’ that reveals a state of pure awareness that one would theoretically imagine as being utterly free from predictive processing.

For example, the paper at one point hypothesizes an ‘unconditioned’ existence. It does all of this while at the same time motioning that the non-dual state is something which may not only be real, but may exist as something for which to strive for. The paper points to certain negative side-affects of meditation, and then tries to explain such side-affects as merely being the result of partial changes to the sense of the self, and that perhaps such occurrences would not take place were the sense of self to completely drop away. The paper is therefore limited in that it fails to properly investigate the definitions it relies upon. Even though the conclusion of the paper appears to be empirically sound—that certain meditation styles can beneficially modulate predictive processing—it partially signifies a dead-end, or at least, a temple of infinite regression which will in the last analysis, inhibit philosophical, social, and scientific progress on the front. The overarching premise that meditation is a tool by which to ‘prune’ the counterfactual tree and lessen excessive rumination is effective. However, the admission of the paradox wherein there can be no line drawn between what may constitute ‘excessive’ and ‘necessary’ rumination is itself a wrench in the overall system-postulation envisioning a state of pure ‘presence.’ 

At this point it may be asked what constitutes ‘presence’ of mind. This writer proposes that the mind is generally present at any time that it is conscious. What constitutes ‘presence’ can only be defined in relation to the current state of the individual’s consciousness. Therefore, to ruminate excessively is to be present within that exact space. With the exception of the cessation of consciousness, it seems that wherever there is consciousness, there is presence, no matter how dim, concentrated, dispersed, or arranged. Presence therefore exists as a certain arrangement of consciousness.