Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

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Malcolm
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Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

Post by Malcolm »

heart wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 5:32 pm
Malcolm wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 3:13 pm
heart wrote: Sat Jul 31, 2021 10:43 pm

I don't think that breath is physical.

/magnus
Of course it is physical, since it involves the element of air.
Well, dead people don't breath so it indicate some other kind of movement.

/magnus
People in thugdam still have inner respiration. They are not dead until the father and mother's element meet at the heart center, etc., no matter what standard of death is held by Western Medicine.
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heart
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Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

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Malcolm wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 5:38 pm
heart wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 5:32 pm
Malcolm wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 3:13 pm

Of course it is physical, since it involves the element of air.
Well, dead people don't breath so it indicate some other kind of movement.

/magnus
People in thugdam still have inner respiration. They are not dead until the father and mother's element meet at the heart center, etc., no matter what standard of death is held by Western Medicine.
Yes, I agree actually.

/magnus
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Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

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fckw wrote: Sat Jul 31, 2021 7:53 pm I just felt inspired by another thread where someone was interested in "destroying" scientific materialist thought. This is an interesting study: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 99190/full

In brief, 13 deceased study subjects supposedly in a tukdam state did not show the slightest sign of brain activity. Hence, if there exists such a thing as tukdam other than in Buddhist lore and myth it does not show in post-mortem brain activity - or it only shows in activity that could not be detected with available means. Obviously, it could also show in different ways that science has not yet detected, but well, not in brain activity detectable with standard equipment, which is commonly taken by modern medicine to be a good indicator of whether someone is actually alive or dead. Stated differently, from a scientific position these test subjects were simply dead. And by the way, this research was backed by HHDL.
Science trucks in empirically observable, repeatable, falsifiable phenomena. All this study means is that in these cases they could not find empirical physical indicators of "life" - i.e. heart and brain activity. It's also just 13 people.
which is commonly taken by modern medicine to be a good indicator of whether someone is actually alive or dead.
The scientific definition of death is somewhat flexible, and has changed over the years.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/ob ... h-exactly/

Speculatively, I wonder how this would change if the entire nervous system was tested somehow, hormonal levels were monitored, etc. The idea that the entirety of consciousness is physically somehow just the brain is quickly becoming an outdated one - even in neuropyschology. I do not know if cessation of brain activity equates to cessation of activity in the whole nervous system. In some cases it seems does not, since there are sometimes motor nerve response after supposed brain death.

Anway, I suspect that people versed or interested in scientific study of this sort of phenomena would hardly consider this study "proof" in one direction or another. More like an initial finding with very limited testing parameters and a very small sample size. The test was literally electrodes on the scalp...

from the article itself:
Some researchers have suggested that equating “brain death” with death itself is symptomatic of a wider cultural discourse that takes a reductive, brain-centric approach to human life, personhood, and somatic integrity
It is important to note that even if tukdam is mediated by residual electrical activity in the brainstem, this activity may generate signals that are too weak to be detected on the scalp surface or not possible to resolve owing to the limitations of our field equipment. If signal were detected, we would still need other types of data to shed light on the possible mechanisms that link brain activity and external signs of tukdam. Alternatively, if activity (or in this case, lack of activity) in the brain postmortem is not a mediator of the reported lack of decomposition, other biological mechanisms could be responsible.
Anyway, it's important to be critical when looking at studies like this, and not try to import sweeping conclusions about what they "mean" without closely studying the method, limitations of the study, and what the researchers were setting out to do. From an evidence-based perspective, this study doesn't mean much either way, other than that the 13 people studied had no brain activity detectable by the machine used. That appears to be the precise result.
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Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

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When looked for, where is the mind located?
Is it in the body? Is it outside the body?
If you can’t find it now, brain scanning apparatus isn’t going to find it in a dead body either.
Yet, here we are.
EMPTIFUL.
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Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

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"The sad news of his passing into parinirvana on 18 December 2020 spread swiftly throughout the world. As a sign of his spiritual accomplishment, he remained in a meditative state of thukdam for seven days. One old friend of mine, a former nurse practitioner, wrote about visiting while Rinpoche was still in thukdam. She said that even after five days there were no signs of rigor mortis; Rinpoche’s face was soft and supple, and there was no odor or shrinkage—she termed it a medical impossibility."

https://www.buddhistdoor.net/features/k ... elous-life?

A very recent example.

/magnus
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Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

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Johnny Dangerous wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 6:35 pm Anyway, it's important to be critical when looking at studies like this, and not try to import sweeping conclusions about what they "mean" without closely studying the method, limitations of the study, and what the researchers were setting out to do. From an evidence-based perspective, this study doesn't mean much either way, other than that the 13 people studied had no brain activity detectable by the machine used. That appears to be the precise result.
That's not the full story, the full story is that 13 people studied who at least some people in the Tibetan Buddhist community believed were in tukdam were studied and had no activity detectable by the machine used.

It might just as well have happened that the Tibetans did not assess tukdam properly and were wrong in 13 of 13 cases. Which could mean at least two more things:
1. Tukdam is not only exceedingly rare, but it's also extremely hard to assess even for Tibetans trained in a traditional setting. In fact, it's so hard, that they failed 13 out of 13 times. (This would then tell us nothing about the suitability of using EEGs to assess tukdam, because none of the test subjects would have been a suitable test subject.)
2. Tukdam is just fairy tales, hence everyone is doomed to fail.

And, yes, while the sample is small, also the sample of people who achieve tukdam is - if you believe what tradition tells you - small. Hence, we are talking about a small sample in a small population. This does not make things any easier. But then again humanity is able to gather particles smaller than atoms that have travelled across the universe. We should be able to overcome the difficulty in scientifically assessing tukdam eventually.
Last edited by fckw on Wed Aug 04, 2021 7:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

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Malcolm wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 5:38 pm
heart wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 5:32 pm
Malcolm wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 3:13 pm

Of course it is physical, since it involves the element of air.
Well, dead people don't breath so it indicate some other kind of movement.

/magnus
People in thugdam still have inner respiration. They are not dead until the father and mother's element meet at the heart center, etc., no matter what standard of death is held by Western Medicine.
While this is inspirational and makes a lot of sense from the perspective of Vajrayana and Tibetan medicine, either tukdam is accessible to scientific materialist investigation or it's not. That is, either there are physical correlates or there are none. I don't see any third meaningful alternative. If there are none, then tukdam still might qualify as an interesting cultural or religious or potentially social phenomenon to be studied, but investigation into it from a scientific materialist or "Western medical" position is futile, as we're talking about more or less cultural or religious belief systems.
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Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

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fckw wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 6:54 pm
That's not the full story, the full story is that 13 people studied who at least some people in the Tibetan Buddhist community believed were in tukdam were studied and had no activity detectable by the machine used.
Which means nothing at all.
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Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

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fckw wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 6:59 pm
...either tukdam is accessible to scientific materialist investigation or it's not.
Thugdam is not a falsifiable phenomena.
That is, either there are physical correlates or there are none.
There are various signs. If western technology is not up to snuff in measuring these signs, well, that is not the fault of people in post-mortem samadhi.
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Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

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They literally mention the limitations of the study and their equipment throughout the text you are referencing.

Straight up, I cannot imagine anyone seriously taking a limited study of 13 people like this as evidence of anything, unless they don’t really know what ‘evidence’ means.

Why is there even an assumption that tukdam state would produce brain activity detectable by their machine in the first place? With a normal study you would have some idea of the mechanism expected to produce the brain activity.

Why is detectable brain activity the test of whether or not tukdam is ‘real’ in some way?
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Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

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Malcolm wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 7:03 pm
fckw wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 6:59 pm
...either tukdam is accessible to scientific materialist investigation or it's not.
Thugdam is not a falsifiable phenomena.
That is, either there are physical correlates or there are none.
There are various signs. If western technology is not up to snuff in measuring these signs, well, that is not the fault of people in post-mortem samadhi.
If it's not "falsifiable" it's not accessible to any scientific method - no matter whether it's scientific materialist one nor Vajrayana. Falsification must be accessible to other adepts of Vajrayana at the very least. If it's not, then it's completely meaningless because not even Buddhist practice constitutes a reliable path to falsify claims about it. (Although, admittedly and according to the logic of the Buddhist practice system, you might have to die yourself to falsify/verify.)

Also, stating somewhat mysteriously that "there are signs" without specifying whether those signs can or cannot become the subject of scientific materialist investigation is, well, avoiding taking a position here. As I said: Either tukdam has or it does not have a physical correlate. Stating "there are signs" does not clarify this point.
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Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

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Johnny Dangerous wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 7:18 pm They literally mention the limitations of the study and their equipment throughout the text you are referencing.

Straight up, I cannot imagine anyone seriously taking a limited study of 13 people like this as evidence of anything, unless they don’t really know what ‘evidence’ means.

Why is there even an assumption that tukdam state would produce brain activity detectable by their machine in the first place? With a normal study you would have some idea of the mechanism expected to produce the brain activity.

Why is detectable brain activity the test of whether or not tukdam is ‘real’ in some way?
Are you stating that we should take tukdam for real without having ANY sort of scientifically reliable test about it? If so, it's simply religious belief.

Whether or not measuring brain activity is the right tool here is obviously questionable. But then again, I have not seen anyone come up with a better suggestion that is ethically implementable.

And criticizing the sample size I think is entirely out of place. There is not a single scientifically reliable report of rainbow body other than in stories people tell each other. And yet, people are more than willing to belief it. I think having a scientifically well done study of 13 subjects is - in comparison - an excellent sample, it's the very best anyone could hope for under the difficult circumstances this science is doomed to be in. Criticizing it is essentially the same as simply stating: "We give up. We can only rely on religious belief. There's no way anyone can ever verify tukdam. But it certainly exists, because all my masters have told me so!" :bow:
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Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

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fckw wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 8:26 pm
Are you stating that we should take tukdam for real without having ANY sort of scientifically reliable test about it? If so, it's simply religious belief.
How on earth would you get that from anything I've written?

I'm just saying this study means almost nothing to me.
Whether or not measuring brain activity is the right tool here is obviously questionable. But then again, I have not seen anyone come up with a better suggestion that is ethically implementable.
Why would someone think that Tukdam means detectable brain activity? What areas of the brain would we expect to see activity in? The whole test seems too limited to mean much.
And criticizing the sample size I think is entirely out of place. There is not a single scientifically reliable report of rainbow body other than in stories people tell each other. And yet, people are more than willing to belief it. I think having a scientifically well done study of 13 subjects is - in comparison - an excellent sample, it's the very best anyone could hope for under the difficult circumstances this science is doomed to be in. Criticizing it is essentially the same as simply stating: "We give up. We can only rely on religious belief. There's no way anyone can ever verify tukdam. But it certainly exists, because all my masters have told me so!" :bow:
I didn't say there was, maybe it's all just motivational stories or analogy, I don't claim to know for sure.. and I don't suggest everyone just believe whatever. We aren't talking about any of that though, I am just talking about this study, and how it means very little, which it does. Just read the study criticizing itself ffs, even they know how limited it is.

AFAIK no one has ever defined what resting in the clear light mind, etc. looks like on an EEG, an FMRI or anything like that, without that, we don't even know what to look for in terms of imaging or testing related to the state of tukdam. AFAIK most of the meditation studies that involve brain activity are pretty crude - this or that area lights up when meditating on compassion, frontal lobe shows less or more activity, etc. So, we do not even know that the highest levels of meditation involve any kind of brain activity, much less some specifically observable type.
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Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

The problem is that it’s like someone coming from a square place where there are only straight lines and angles, and they can measure those. And then, they meet somebody from a round place, who tells them about circles. But since the square person can only measure things in terms of straight lines and angles, they have no way of measuring a circle. Being unable to measure it, they conclude on that basis that circles don’t really exist.
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Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

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fckw wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 8:18 pm
If it's not "falsifiable" it's not accessible to any scientific method - no matter whether it's scientific materialist one nor Vajrayana.
I was referring only to Western science. It certainly falsifiable in Vajrayāna. Do the practice, get the result. Many people have done so, and reported they have attained the results. When people do not get results, they are practicing incorrectly.
As I said: Either tukdam has or it does not have a physical correlate. Stating "there are signs" does not clarify this point.
There are signs. I suggest you read a book on the subject.
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Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

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PadmaVonSamba wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 8:51 pm The problem is that it’s like someone coming from a square place where there are only straight lines and angles, and they can measure those. And then, they meet somebody from a round place, who tells them about circles. But since the square person can only measure things in terms of straight lines and angles, they have no way of measuring a circle. Being unable to measure it, they conclude on that basis that circles don’t really exist.
That is a bad habit of western science in general. Barzun nails it beautifully in a passage quoted here - https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.p ... 05#p341905

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Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

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PeterC wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 1:27 am We have to be careful about which of the six noodle realms we take rebirth in.
:rolling:
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Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

Post by Dharmaswede »

Johnny Dangerous wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 7:18 pm Straight up, I cannot imagine anyone seriously taking a limited study of 13 people like this as evidence of anything, unless they don’t really know what ‘evidence’ means.
You don't need statistical power or sample size for this, you only need to prove that there exists one black swan. And one black swan is all you need for a paradigm shift. (Then, of course, you need to be able to replicate that finding.)
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Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

Post by Dharmaswede »

Johnny Dangerous wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 8:40 pm Why would someone think that Tukdam means detectable brain activity? What areas of the brain would we expect to see activity in? The whole test seems too limited to mean much.
If you are a materialist scientist who believes consciousness stems from the processes in the brain, then it makes perfect sense. Given the current mainstream view on the ontology of consciousness, it is the logical place to start. Being able to rule out any activity in the brain is an important piece in the puzzle, especially if you can somehow 'validate' Thukdam (I don't know how that can be done).

While I don't think consciousness is the product of – sometimes even described as a by-product of – the brain, there is obviously interaction between the two. For that reason, it also makes sense to me as a departure point for an extensive study.

Of course, from a Buddhist perspective, starting with the brain does not really hold much promise at all. And Tibetan buddhists have more to say on the matter currently than anyone else. For a mainstream scientist who is open-minded it may make more sense to ask an informant 'Where do you think I should start to look?' Anthropology 101 approach.
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Re: Scientific study on brain activity of practitioners in tukdam

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PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sat Jul 31, 2021 8:17 pm When my time to die comes, I plan to go into deep meditation and remain in a state of thukpa
(that’s Nepali for noodles).
I don’t know that I can attain rainbow body.
Noodle body might be something I can handle.

4CC08A83-9227-4916-A6E4-E59650C11138.png
Afaik it's tibetan for noodles.
maybe the nepali called it so like we say in original language "pizza", "sushi", etc.
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