>>13712441Meditation is akin to practicing complex tasks. The evident result of physical task mastery is clearly apparent and because of that a practice we take as self evident. Gymnastics, mastering an instrument and even trick shooting. Same thing with -quantifiable- mental task mastery such as calculation, logical-spatial solving and practiced memory techniques.
Stuff like intuitive mental procceses and abstract-result tasks cannot be quantified. Without quantification you can have no rigerous study, without rigerous study you cannot have defined parameters to use as foundation for experiments, without experiments you cannot make methodical iterative improvement systems other people can replicate. Consequently refining and advancing abstract disciplines is such as meditation is is limited to personal trial and error as well as knowledge sharing by strictly linguistic means.
It would be like trying to build a space shuttle without being able to communicate with numbers.
("How long did you say this strut should be?" - "Uh, very long... Uh, as long as a leg" -"...My leg or Bob's leg?" -"Uuuh, a bit longer or an itty bit longer?"
This is the reason meditation is perceived as hippie-tier pseudomemery. Neural pathway conditioning, practicing mental task method and practicing direct mental control over subconscious mental mechanisms result in very real and very concretely useful competencies.
Via meditation as it exists today in its frankly primitive practice, it is possible to ignore(not eliminate) pain, meditate yourself into benign schizophrenia(Read; construct a Tulpa) and exert a degree of control over normally autonomous bodily functions(slowing the heartbeat, vasodilation/contraction, resting metabolism).
And this is just the low-hanging fruit.
Meditation is tragically underinvestigated and underestimated. The study of mental conditioning is undervalued and underesearched but rigorous study and development has huge potential for application.
