Okay, so in the last lecture we fleshed

out this module review of the mind,

this idea that there's no chief executive
in your brain but rather there are a
lot of modules that take turns exerting
dominant influence on your thought and
your behavior,
and we saw that this view dovetails pretty
nicely with this Buddhist idea of not
self.
The idea that there is no kind of solid
self at
your core that persists coherently through
time and keeps things under control.
So there is a pretty close corresponds
between this
particular model within modern psychology
and this particular Buddhist doctrine.
Okay.
But what about Buddhist practice?
What about meditation?
Can the module review of the mind
illuminate meditation and, and, and, and
help explain what's going on when people
meditate what's going on in their minds?
Well, I do think there are some
illuminating connections
between the module review of the mind and
meditation and
in fact, in the last lecture, there were
buried,
a kind of clue about the nature of that
illumination.
It was in something that Rita Casmedy said
you may remember, she's a
pioneer in evolutionary psychology and
also
in developing module reviews of the mind.
And she was talking about a jealous state
of mind and describing it as a kind
of a modular mechanism that coordinates
various, you
know, thoughts and perceptions to a
specific end.
And she said something, and I want to
flash
back to it here, that, that, that may
give you a clue about this connection
between
meditation and the module review of the
mind.
>> That is, that's taking over from the
point of view of the state that we're
usually in where there's not a specific
kind of coordination that's going on.
But a lot of different mechanisms are
bubbling
up and down in terms of their activation.
>> Okay, so she talked about mechanisms
bubbling
up and down in different levels of
activation.
Now I'm hoping that as I repeat that
phrase, you may be
thinking of a phrase we heard earlier, in,
in an earlier lecture.
I'll pause now and give it a chance to
spring to mind, The phrase is Default Mode
Network.
The Default Mode Network, as you may
recall, is this thing
that gets activated when the mind isn't
engaged in anything in particular.
It's not absorbed in, in any task.
It's kind of just the mind wandering.
And we also saw that the default mode
network gets quieter during meditation.
That's what brain scan studies have shown
us.
And if you've done much meditating at all,
you probably
know that sometimes the default mode
network doesn't quiet down easily.
You may sit down to meditate, try to focus
on your breath and, and suddenly your,
you're thinking, oh
I hope didn't offend that person yesterday
when I
said that thing, or, oh, that was an
attractive person
I met the other day, I, I, wonder if maybe
he or she would go to dinner with me,
I, I wonder where we could go, what kind
of
clever things I could say, what would
happen after dinner.
Now, as Rita's phrasing may suggest,
somebody who, who
has a module review with the mind might be
inclined to view the default mode network
as just
a bunch of modules kind of trying to get
your attention.
I mean, trying metaphorically, presumably
they're not conscious,
but they're kind of vying, competing, for
your attention.
So when you think I wonder if I offended
that person yesterday.
That would presumably be a module in, in,
in the realm
that Douglas Kenrick in the last lecture,
called the affiliative module.
In other words, the, the, the, the larger
module in charge of kind of making
and, and, and keeping friendships and
doing
various other things, and navigating the
social landscape.
And when you're thinking about having
dinner with attractive person in, in
rehearsing
what you might say, then that presumably
is part of the, mate attraction module.
Now I want to take this opportunity to
qualify something
that I, I said in, in the previous
lecture.
There, we talked about modules being
activated
by information out there in the
environment.
You know, we you, you might, you might be
in the presence
of someone attractive and that activates
your mate attraction module, for example.
But as some of these examples suggest, for
example, thinking, oh, did I offend that
person?
It isn't always a case that information
right in
your immediate real-time environment is
what triggers a module.
I mean, the information came into your
system at some point from
the environment, but, but apparently
modules
can kind of ruminate on information.
The information works itself through the
process before it actually
gets presented to your consciousness in a,
a particular form.
Now, this quieting of the default mode
network
can happen with various kinds of, of
meditation.
It can happen with mindfulness meditation
and
with concentration meditation, as we
discussed earlier.
Concentration meditation is particularly
effective at
quieting the default mode network in
the first instance because if you're
focused on something, that's a good way
to kind of short circuit the default mode
network, which after all is
something that, that kind of perks up when
you're not focused on anything.
And for that reason in mindfulness
meditation you often start with
concentration mediation, but at some point
in mindfulness meditation once
you've established kind of the
concentration and the equilibrium then
you head off in a different path from the
concentration meditator.
And we've, we've talked about that and,
and here you see a
particular connection between meditation
and, and modules.
A kind of second connection between
meditation
and modules that applies specifically to
mindfulness meditation.
Because remember mindfulness meditation as
we described it, consists of looking at
things, things inside your mind and also
things in the outside world, in a kind of
a new way with you might say
more objectivity, less attachment and, and
carrying
that view into everyday life ideally,
beyond,
you know, outside of the, the meditation
hall.
And one of the things that you, you, you
may view in
a new way that, that is of special
consequence is your feelings.
As we said you view your, your feelings
with less attachment
and they may not get the same kind of
traction with you.
They may not have the same kind of
power to drag your mind in a particular
direction.
Well the other thing we've learned about
feelings
very recently is that feelings are what
trigger modules.
So if you show people a scary movie, it
seems to
activate a self-protection module by
making them feel fear and if
you show people a romantic movie, it seems
to give them
feelings that activate a, a different
module and make them behave differently.
And this is also true with, with some
things we were calling sub-modules in the
last lecture.
For example, jealousy is a very strong
feeling that triggers a
kind of certain a certain set of, of
modular operations.
Now, I would contend that, that actually
this is,
there are always feelings kind of
associated with modules.
And that if when you start meditating and,
and these modules are bidding for your
attention.
If you pay close attention, I think that
you'll see
that the way they bid for your attention
is with feelings.
So, for example, if, if you're suddenly
thinking did I offend that person the
other day, well that's a kind of a
negative feeling that gets your attention
and the, the way to make it go away, the
natural way to make
it got away, go away is to come up with a
solution to the problem.
So, if you say, I know what I'll do, I'll
send an email to
that person extensively about something
else but in the course of it, I'll refer
to the conversation we had in a way,
that'll make it clear what I
intended and that I didn't intend any
offense and then the bad feeling goes
away.
The module has done its work, and you can,
you know,
you, you, you, you're now vulnerable to
some other module, right?
And similarly, if you're fantasizing about
that dinner you're going to have
with that attractive person, well, that's
it, that's a good feeling,
for the most part, and, and, and it's,
it's a pleasant
thing to think about, and that keeps you
thinking about it.
So I think that, that, that by and large
feelings
are the things that give modules power
over you.
So you could view mind from this, both
mind from as meditation and mind from
as you carry it out into the world as a
way of kind of determining
which modules do and don't get to be in
control by being mindful
of the feelings that usher modules in,
that trigger
modules you can, you can influence which
modules win,
and which modules lose.
Now, is this a useful way of talking about
mindfulness?
I mean, after all, we've already said
something kind of related.
We've said earlier in the, in the course
that mindfulness does give you some
control over feelings.
You, you decide which feelings get
attraction, which don't,
and we've said that feelings can change
your perceptions.
We saw that, that fear can make you think
that
something that's not a snake is in fact a
snake.
Does it do any good to, to, to kind of
describe this in
terms of modules rather than in terms of
feelings that trigger the modules?
I think there is some value, because I
think it drives home that
when your being mindful, your influencing
you know, whether an entire frame of
mind sets in, that influences thoughts and
perceptions, and that can influence
those thoughts and perceptions, in really
sublet ways, and for a really long time.
So a good example of this, I think, is
hatred.
Now, hatred from the point of view of an
evolutionary
psychologist, is among other things a
feeling that defines enemies, okay?
If you hate someone, they are, they're an
enemy.
You can be angry at someone who is a
friend,
but if you hate them, they are not your
friend.
And natural selection seems to have
equipped the human mind to
deal in particular ways with enemies and
in particular ways with friends.
And behavioral scientists have, have
discovered
one very interesting feature of, of
the different ways that we look at enemies
and friends and it's this.
When our friends do something good, we
attribute it to their inner essence.
This is just he kind of thing they do.
They're good people, okay?
If they do something bad, we attribute
it to some external factor, some, some
circumstance.
We say oh well, it was just peer group
pressure, or
they hadn't had sleep in days, so they
weren't really themselves.
And by the way you may recognize this as
a way we think about our own behavior,
right?
When we do something good that's us and
when we
do something bad there is some external
explanation for it.
Well, when we think about our enemies it's
actually the opposite it turns out.
When they do something bad, we attribute
that to their essential nature.
That's the way they are.
They are bad.
When they do something good.
we, we, we explain it away in terms of
something external.
Well, they were just doing it to please
so-and-so who happened
to be there or they were coerced into
doing it or whatever.
Now presumably, this this feature exists
in
our mind was designed by natural selection
presumably, to among other things
encourage us to talk about enemies in this
particular way.
When we talked about enemies to other
people it's in our interest in kind of
strategic terms to talk about them in
very unflattering terms because it's in
our interest
to undermine the stature, of our enemies
who, who are people that can do us
harm and the more stature they have the
more harm they, they can do us.
So this may be very much a propaganda tool
but it does seem to be
the case that in order to spread
the propaganda more effectively we
actually believe this.
We actually believe that the enemy, our
enemies are these people who who,
who do bad things by nature and good
things for other reasons.
And one reason this can be really
important is because when
a nation is deciding whether or not to go
to war it really matters
how the people in the other country and
the leader of the country are framed.
And, and this helps explain why people who
are
trying to encourage you to go to war will
tend
to frame the, the, the leader in the
country
they want to invade as, you know, as evil
as possible.
So, the Iraq war in 2003 was a good
example.
People who supported the war in America,
some of them at least, not all of
them, compared Saddam Hussein to Hitler
and who, of course, is is evil as it gets.
And if you're, if you're going to try mh,
to really
firmly entrench hatred in someone's mind,
that's a good comparison to make.
And once you frame the, the leader of, of
the, of the nation you, you hope to invade
as
an enemy, once you've got that frame
firmly set,
it's very hard for him to get out of it.
Because i, if he does anything good, or
anything accommodating, it'll be
attributed to external circumstances but
whenever he does anything bad, it will be
taken as more evidence of how bad he is.
Now hatred is a very strong emotion.
You, you know it when you feel it and it's
very dramatic but I do think that the
kind of frame that it creates, the enemy
frame,
can be sustained with, with subtler
feelings of antipathy.
It's not like every time you think of, of
your enemy, you fly into a rage.
no, it ca, it can be a lot subtler than
that and that's one, one reason
mindfulness meditation can be valuable.
And, and a mindful attitude can be
valuable because you pick up
on, on feelings that are sufficiently
subtle that you might otherwise miss them.
So, I guess I'd say that in some, the, the
case for viewing mindfulness meditation in
the context of this modular
view of the mind is, first of all drives
home
that is a whole frame kind of being
installed in your mind.
And you can influence which frames it is
through mindfulness, and, and that this
frame can
influence your perceptions very subtly,
it's a lot
subtler than seeing a snake that's not
there.
And the feelings that sustain the frame
can
be pretty, pretty subtle and in fact you
may become aware of them only if you
are carrying a mindful attitude in, into
the world.
Now in a way this brings us back to the
not self doctrine, we saw earlier
that the Buddha's kind of famous discourse
on the
not self is amenable to, to differing
interpretations.
There's the, the full bodied
interpretation that he was
emphatically denying the very existence
of, of the self.
We saw that there's also a kind of
minority interpretation
that, that, that views his aims as, as
somewhat less ambitious.
And there the idea is that, that one way
you could look at that discourse is a
saying
you know, there's no part of your mind
that
you, that has to be part of your soul.
There's no feeling you have to own,
there's no thought you have to
own and you can, you can choose which
things to let go of.
Well, to translate that into modular terms
you
might say that, that, that the idea is you
know, there's no module you have to own,
or there's, there's no module you have to
be.
because remember, modules are these things
that are, that are in
some sense kind of trying to become the
self for a while, right?
And that's one reason that Douglass
Kenrick in the
in the previous lecture, was referring to
them as subtle.
So as for the deeper notion of, of
not-self, the idea that
the self really does not exist there are
people who
have meditative experiences that convince
them of the truth of this doctrine.
They say they have seen the absence of a
self, kind of in themselves, I guess I
should put that least selves in, in quotes
maybe, but, they, they, they,
ha, have experientially come to know the
doctrine of not self.
Now, near the end of this lecture, we're
going
to look at whether the module review of
the
mind helps, make sense of what's going on
in
the minds of these people as they have
these experiences.
We're going to look at some of the kinds
of reports you get from these people.
But first we're going to take a little
detour
and I think it's, it's going to be a
detour
that, that, that helps us answer this
question about
what's going on in the minds of these
people.
Or [INAUDIBLE] at least helps us, helps us
frame it a little more firmly.
And what we're going to do and this is in
the next segment of
this lecture is we're going to look at the
issue of, of self control.
Of controlling our appetites.
And we're going to ask well, how does self
control happen if in fact there is no
self?
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