[-empyre-] Technology and Boredom and what about literature?

[B. Bogart]

Hello Emilie,

I'd love to hear if you have any thoughts on control in meditation in
relation to fantasy, as discussed in the other thread.

You write:
> From here I wonder if anyone has thoughts on how the body plays a role
> in boredom, attention and awareness? Do the senses offer an embodied
> awareness that can shift one out of boredom or mind wandering? 

This seems to imply dualism? Is the brain the body?

I think of cognition as largely a process of learning to ignore
stability in the world, and thus the senses. We habituate in order to be
numb to the continuous stimulus the senses provide. At the same time
there is such a thing as sensory adaption (e.g. the warm and cold bowls
trick) where even at the lowest level of sensation, our cells learn not
to produce signals when they are continuously stimulated. It's the
reason we don't see the blood vessels in front of our retinas. It seems
that even without cognition, our bodies attempt to erase stability.

It seems plausible that habituation and sensory adaptation be the
biological roots of boredom, and thus fully dependent on sensation at
the outset.

As far as I know we do adapt to pain, but it never disappears from our
experience the way the retinal vessels do. Are there other exceptions to
habituation and sensory adaptation?

I also wonder about PTSD, where emotionally negative internal
simulations cause significant distraction and discomfort. Sufferers
don't seem to habituate to reliving traumatic events. Why not? It seems
there is something different in internal experience compared to our
sensory experience.

Ben