Author: David M. Perlman, Ph.D.

The end of a big day. We had been expecting a dinner hosted by the local mentseekhang people tonight, for our team and to honor Richie. Somewhere along the way it morphed to inviting all the mid and life people, to a dinner at the guest house, then somehow the abbots of the monastery system here took over without anyone really telling us. So there was a big fancy ceremonial dinner and then all the bigwigs were taken away from the mentseekhang group kind of, well, unceremoniously, for another ceremony. So then we had to drag Richie back in to be honored by the doctors, by which time he looked pretty tired so we tried to prevent the grafting on of a Q and A session. Anyway it was a long full day and now I’m hoping for a better sleep, thanks to St. Barry’s telling me that the little things in the outlets, which I had got rid of to make room for charging this, are not air fresheners but mosquito repellents. And also to turn the fan on to keep them away from me. So there is the low cost mosquito advice; take that, Nathan Mhyrvold!

Christof wants a theory that tells what it is like to be a glass of water, or the fly that is bothering him. The sparks are flying between Christof and Michel. Everyone is waiting for them to do the monastic style debate hand slap… Oh there it goes! — at Drepung Lachi.

Discussion with Joe Wielgosz led me to share this link that discusses the word dharmadhatu: http://rywiki.tsadra.org/index.php/Dharmadhatu

The consciousness discussion keeps invoking “zombies”, the hypothetical idea of beings that behave exactly the same as everyone else but have no subjective experience. In keeping with the ongoing series of jokes that Joe and I have about all this stuff, maybe a thriller about Tibetan Buddhist theories of consciousness where the primordial luminosity was extinguished could have everyone turn into “dzombies”. (we copyright this idea so don’t mess with us!)

Michel quotes Husserl 1913: consciousness is certain; any object of consciousness may be a delusion. Varela 1996: lived experience is where we start from and where all must link back to, like a guiding thread.

Now Michel Bitbol on western objections to materialist theories of consciousness. Asymmetrical view of relation between matter and consciousness is wrong, and not supported by the best evidence we have.

Rajesh: mathematical thinking is as useful for the study of mind as it is for physics, and also useful for nagarjuna type theories of valid cognition and knowing.

Rajesh on New ideas of conceptual and emotional cognition as embodied: there are fixed metaphorical mappings from physical senses to concepts. So, seeing is used to mean knowledge, hearing means obedience, touched means emotion. The old computational model made sense from a God’s eye view, but the “moth’s eye view” only needs to know what to do next. So rather than a computational clockwork universe model, we have an embodied way of understanding individual experience.

Rajesh Kasturirangan is a great guy with a very broad perspective. He has a Ph.D. In Cognitive science from MIT and another Ph.D. In mathematics from UW-Madison. He is also a very serious scholar of the Indian philosophical tradition. He started his session by reminding us that this dialogue didn’t start with the Tibetans but has been a concern of Indian philosophers. A quote from Gandhi ji on the same topic.

Note written earlier this morning: I’m running late today. I think I pulled my rotator cuff carrying the equipment cases because my shoulder hurts like hell. A mosquito kept buzzing in my ear last night, waking me up over and over and over. So I’m exhausted and in pain and hoping for the best for our private audience with HHDL today. But in the meantime I’m in the dining hall giving myself permission to enjoy an unhurried breakfast. The warm breeze through the curtains and the young monks playing super chill Bhangra beats; I feel almost like I might as well still be on the beach in Goa. Why rush to sit in a hot room watching distinguished scientists puff their feathers for the Dalai Lama? I’ve been thinking a lot about my own career path. There was a young Geshe at the exhibition the other night who fluently explained the Buddhist account of the senses, then fluently explained the scientific account, too. A Geshe degree is like 3 Ph.D.s in terms of time and effort, but he said he had also been studying science for seven years… Not because he wants to be a scientist, but because he wants to be able to communicate across the divide. I felt a kinship with him; my big realization on this trip is that my personal motivation is the dialogue, rather than merely success within the American academic system. And yet as far as I can tell, academic success is the primary gateway to the dialogue. (Being rich is the other big one; being a longtime monk is another, with Matthieu being a real shining star in all the best senses.) I’ve been advised to sit and savor this insight about my own priorities and situation rather diving into strategizing, so I’ll leave it at that for now.