Monday, April 09, 2007
Robot Dreams and Desktop Search
After an Easter weekend occupied with family visits and overconsumption of desserts (lamb cake, candy Easter eggs and the like), I resolved practice a bit more discipline today. Upon waking, I made an effort to recall dreams during the night, hearkening back to past experiments in Lucid Dreaming. Dream fragments included:
As I laid in bed contemplating these thought, I continued my commitment of being more disciplined today. Thus, I began to meditate, something I haven't practiced regularly for a while. Meditation is like riding a bike. Once you learn, you never forget how to do it. But, just like cycling, doing it and doing it well are different matters. The mind has to be strengthened the same way a cyclists legs, lungs, heart, and other muscles need conditioning. There are also different techniques that I shift to depending on my level of success. When I commence, I simply focus on my breathing, counting to four for each inhale and each exhale. As my mind settles down I may focus on the breath entering and existing the nostrils. Then the heartbeats provide the cadence. This part is similar to the zone I get in while cycling, matching my pedal cadence to breathing. The pattern can re-cycle (pardon the term overloading) back to square one due to a major distraction. Typical ones I experience are a barking dog across the street, a poorly muffled truck driving by, a persistent itch, and a buildup of saliva. Another meditation technique that provides a measure of success is observing a thought that consumes my mind drift way as a log floats down a stream and disappears out of sight.
The whole point here is that during meditation, my mind resorts to different techniques and shifts according to circumstances, whether external stimuli or internal cognitive processes. I see a parallel to the workings of a computer, which shifts from one technique to another as it organizes its information into knowledge. Is there a meditation technique for computers that can unleash it from simple algorithms and functions and know itself in a similar way that yoga master can unleash themselves from leash and blood to know their true nature?
- walking outside of my former house in my new bathrobe in the dead of night examining abnormal tree-branches growing very close to the house,
- a clock mounted on the front of the house distorted in shape from hanging on a hook
As I laid in bed contemplating these thought, I continued my commitment of being more disciplined today. Thus, I began to meditate, something I haven't practiced regularly for a while. Meditation is like riding a bike. Once you learn, you never forget how to do it. But, just like cycling, doing it and doing it well are different matters. The mind has to be strengthened the same way a cyclists legs, lungs, heart, and other muscles need conditioning. There are also different techniques that I shift to depending on my level of success. When I commence, I simply focus on my breathing, counting to four for each inhale and each exhale. As my mind settles down I may focus on the breath entering and existing the nostrils. Then the heartbeats provide the cadence. This part is similar to the zone I get in while cycling, matching my pedal cadence to breathing. The pattern can re-cycle (pardon the term overloading) back to square one due to a major distraction. Typical ones I experience are a barking dog across the street, a poorly muffled truck driving by, a persistent itch, and a buildup of saliva. Another meditation technique that provides a measure of success is observing a thought that consumes my mind drift way as a log floats down a stream and disappears out of sight.
The whole point here is that during meditation, my mind resorts to different techniques and shifts according to circumstances, whether external stimuli or internal cognitive processes. I see a parallel to the workings of a computer, which shifts from one technique to another as it organizes its information into knowledge. Is there a meditation technique for computers that can unleash it from simple algorithms and functions and know itself in a similar way that yoga master can unleash themselves from leash and blood to know their true nature?
Labels: computing, dreams, meditation
