You’re both (rightly) defending the rigor of science, but the OP’s analogy hinges on how we define “study,” not whether science is superior. They’re framing science as a way to approach reality: one that, like Zen, prioritizes direct observation over dogma. When you call Zen “malarkey” (without knowing about the philosophy, which is not very fair) for lacking “systematic study,” it’s a bit like dismissing a telescope because it isn’t a microscope. Both tools reveal truth; they just focus differently. Zen’s “study” isn’t about accumulating data but about refining the observer until no mediation is needed. That’s not anti-science, it’s a different project. Science seeks patterns in reality’s behavior; Zen seeks reality without the pattern-seeker.

If you question Zen’s capacity to reveal reality, that’s fine and I’ll be happy to have that conversation, provided that you’re open to some philosophy.

Don’t wanna start an argument or otherwise intervene with your convo with the OP but I wanna highlight a possible confusion: note that Presoak gave a definition of what they mean by “science” in this context - a way of studying reality.

You said “The individual will need some way to record their observations to do science, some sort of a database.”

In the context of Zen meditation, no. Very much the opposite actually. You are right that to do science, you’d need all that. But for the study of reality, as per Zen thinking, you don’t.

Glad to see people are starting to figure it out.

Oh yeah lol I was actually thinking about it when I wrote that but I forgot where I heard it.

There’s a misconception that to practice non-attachment, you have to literally live in a cave. There’s a very large part of Buddhism that is geared for people who are still fully engaged in life. In fact many think it’s the more spiritually challenging route because you’d have to live in the middle of all the temptations, turmoil and drama, without getting lost in it. The joke is that a family dinner is a good litmus test for how well one is doing. It’s a process of constantly letting issues arise, being with the response that arises in you, and if an action must come, learning how to take the action through compassion. That allows for even political activism - it’s just fueled by wishing people happiness, not by wanting to see the other side lose. The non-attachment is in not believing that the outcome one prefers is the outcome that should come about. But it’s fine to work towards a goal, as one would in a video game.

The non-monk Buddhists who could enter chats are great actually. I mean those who actually actively practice meditation etc. Very friendly and down to earth.

I had a lot of things happen in my head when I started to listen to Harris’ meditation stuff. Getting the free will thing was a huge relief. Been a while but I recall this was a great bit on it.

Nobody is gatekeeping what topics you can have a showerthought on. But people are allowed to choose to not read them. Or create spaces where certain topcis are not welcome. You are free to create a space for whatever content you want to see.