Harnessing the Power of Feedback Loops (Wired magazine)

I thought this Wired magazine article on feedback loops was very relevant to KFDland. Kenneth often points out the efficacy of feedback loops. The original Mahasi technique is a kind of internal feedback loop, and Kenneth encouages his students to up the ante with this by noting out loud and, if possible, doing ping-pong noting with a partner, which strengthens the loop even further.

www.wired.com/magazine/2011/06/ff_feedbackloop/

Great article! Thanks, Jgroove.

Thanks for posting! I've been thinking about feedback and also browsing a bit at the Quantified Self blog quantifiedself.com/ . It certainly seems like there must be a lot of exploration yet to be done on how feedback, technology, sensing, and quantified self ideas can be used to amplify success in meditation... Certainly some people on Quantified Self are exploring this. I'm wondering to what degree EEG or other sensors are able to provide the data needed to distinguish the particular quality of attention that balanced samatha/visappasana requires. Start logging that into the PDA, tracking with your daily activities, perhaps combined with quantification of some other activities/attributes ---> feedback on how you best stay on task off the cushion...

Interesting in the comments on the article how the first person points out that part of why the traffic monitoring system might work is because of the fact that one's speed is displayed in public. Perhaps that is part of how this forum works for some people: not only feedback, but a sense of being 'monitored' by a community providing an impetus to work harder.

That's a great point: the forum itself is a kind of feedback loop, for sure.
I love your point about sensors as well. I guess the race is on. Who will be the first to develop a KFD iPad app? Maybe it could work in conjunction with a nifty KFD baseball cap lined with electrodes?

And for all the hardware, it still gets down to learning as represented at the synaptic level. Learning is represented in synaptic changes based on "use dependence" or, simply, repeated, patterned experiences.
This is often paraphrased as "Neurons that fire together wire together." It is
commonly referred to as Hebb's Law.
So QEEGs and other tools may have some vague usefulness but are not used with enough frequency across time to have persistent meaningful impacts.
Wired article mentioned "emotional relevance" as part of the loop. E-motion.
Responses inhibited or energized based on valence- power to attract- and salience-its prominence in an adaptative sense.
Or- the complex motivational systems have to kick in and juice us up enough to sustain the use of the Nordic tracker to fulfill the promise of the sensors.
Seeing a "your speed is" sign and reacting is all a pre-cortical, amygdala-driven response, happens quickly without thinking. Fear in a jolting but subtle form.

I saw the article and thought about posting, but was not sure how to relate it to noting practice exactly. Noting with group you hear others noting, which reminds you to keep attentive to noting. Not much to say about that.

Thanissaro on skillful practice :
www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/than...s/part1.html#part1-a
"The important element in this input is attention. Anyone who has mastered a skill will realize that the process of attaining mastery requires attention to three things: (1) to pre-existing conditions, (2) to what one is doing in relation to those conditions, and (3) to the results that come from one's actions. This threefold focus enables one to monitor one's actions and adjust them accordingly. In this way, one's attention to conditions, actions, and effects allows the results of an action to feed back into future action, thus allowing for refinement in one's skill."

Here is the feedback loop article by Kenneth:
www.buddhistgeeks.com/2010/04/the-feedba...op-staying-on-track/

So we are equipped with the sensing capacity. Unfortunately the meditation teachers with whom I have sat- generally well-known- have not really taught karma as it is stated here. Difficult to align attention, intention, skillful action as a result.