Jonathan Shear

This paper will explore the integration of elements of traditional Eastern meditative procedures with modern objective scientific methodologies. In contrast to the introspective methods usually relied on in modern Western treatments of consciousness, the Eastern procedures in question have the possible advantage of being the products of centuries of effort to develop systematic first-person exploratory methodologies. But since these methodologies developed outside of the context of our traditions of science, their reported results of course cannot simply be taken at face value. Nevertheless, aspects of their internal logic and putative results appear to be cross-culturally congruent, despite great differences of metaphysical frameworks and social milieux. Thus examining them and their effects in the context of modern scientific methodologies and criteria may well prove useful to us in our own task of developing a significant science of consciousness. In the paper we will accordingly describe some common methodological features and claimed results found in several major Eastern meditative traditions, discuss conceptual and methodological problems they raise, review some relevant scientific research on contemporary meditating subjects, and suggest some implications for the scientific study of consciousness. In particular, it will be suggested that the existing meditation-related research already indicates that Eastern varieties of meditative procedures should prove to be a useful component of any future science of consciousness

There is a long history of inquiry about human nature and the nature of the self. It stretches from the ancient tradition of Socratic self-knowledge in the context of ethical life to contemporary discussions of brain function in cognitive science. At the beginning of the modern era, Descartes was led to the conclusion that self-knowledge provided the single Archimedean point for all knowledge. His thesis that self is a single, simple, continuing, and unproblematically accessible mental substance resonated with common sense, and quickly came to dominate European thought. Against this background, the philosophical problem pertaining to self-identity arises and continues to define much of the contemporary discussion. Notably, it arises in the context of the first sustained discussion of consciousness in the philosophical literature, and at a precisely definable point in space, time, and text, in the pages of Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Locke defines it as the problem of personal identity. Briefly stated, the problem involves finding criteria that can account for the unity of the self in conscious experience over time. Locke's solution -- that consciousness maintains its identity over time only so far as memory extends to encompass past experience -- almost immediately produced philosophical controversies that have not abated to this day

It has often been argued that Gödel’s first incompleteness theorem has major implications for our understanding of the human mind. Gödel himself hoped that the results of his theorem, combined with Turning’s work on computers and phenomenological analysis, would establish that the human mind contains an element totally different from a finite combinatorial mechanism. Decades of attempts to establish this by reasoning about Gödel’s theorem and Turing’s work are now widely taken to be unsuccessful. The present article, in accord with Gödel’s suggestion, adds extended phenomenological analysis to the discussion. It also focuses on the “going outside the system” step central to Gödel’s method of proof, rather than on the implications of the theorem itself. Analysis of the “I-it” intentional structure, held by phenomenology to underlie all ordinary experience, yields a simple model that (i) resolves long-standing conceptual problems associated with the “I-it”, the most basic structure of phenomenology, (ii) clarifies the “going outside” step crucial to Gödel’s method of proof, (iii) avoids conceptual problems associated with this step, (iv) identifies the step as an instance of a natural pre-mathematical operation of ordinary thought, and (v) suggests that the step itself is intrinsically non-algorithmic. Logical analysis of role of this step in Gödel’s proof then shows, independently of phenomenological considerations, that anything (human or not) that can prove Gödel’s theorem soundly by his method cannot be entirely algorithmic. Further implications for the nature of the mind are then suggested.

How, from a scientific standpoint, should we understand mystical experiences? On the one hand such experiences are obviously capable of being studied scientifically. Nevertheless there is a sense in which such experiences often seem strongly opposed to our ordinary scientific views of reality, for they often seem to point to a domain quite outside that examined by naturalistic empirical science. Indeed, this is often precisely what seems to be ‘mystical’ about them. The present essay takes a hard look at specific question of the possible significance of these experiences for scientific naturalism.

Response to the Commentary on ‘The View from Within’ The numerous commentators to this Special Issue have greatly enhanced its focus and usefulness. We thank them all very sincerely for their efforts. Within the restricted space of this rejoinder we cannot respond in detail to all the issues raised. Instead, we shall concentrate first on some fundamental criticisms.The remaining additions and complementary ideas will only be touched on briefly, merely to see them in perspective. We shall start with our two main critics of the global enterprise, Baars and Nixon. They both offer arguments that our enterprise is misguided, but their arguments fall on two opposite extremes: empirical and hermeneutical

This paper presents the pure consciousness theory of self, derived from Eastern meditation traditions, and uses it to unravel some of the paradoxes of Western philosophical models of the self. The theory is ontologically neutral and compatible with the widest variety of different ontologies. However the theory does, I think, have significant implications for questions of personal identity, emotional maturity and moral values, but exploring these topics here would take us too far afield. The article attempts to show something of the potential value for our traditional philosophical discussions of self of taking into account the pure consciousness experience, widely discussed in Eastern, but not Western, philosophical traditions. For if the phenomenological analyses are even roughly correct, it would appear that the experience is capable of resolving some major Western issues about self, clarifies our commonsense intuition, and is properly identified by philosophical analysis as being experience of self itself.

The study of conscious experience per se has not kept pace with the dramatic advances in PET, fMRI and other brain-scanning technologies. If anything, the standard approaches to examining the 'view from within' involve little more than cataloguing its readily accessible components. Thus the study of lived subjective experience is still at the level of Aristotelian science, leading to a widespread scepticism over the possibility of a truly scientific study of conscious experience. Drawing on a wide range of approaches -- from phenomenology to meditation -- The View From Within examines the possibility of a disciplined approach to the study of subjective states. The focus is on the practical issues involved.

It stands to reason that full understanding of what is involved in the ‘hard problem’ will emerge only on the basis of systematic scientific investigation of the subjective phenomena of consciousness, as well as the objective phenomena of matter. Yet the idea of such a systematic scientific investigation of the subjective phenomena of consciousness has largely been absent from discussions of the ‘hard problem’. This is due, apparently, both to philosophical objections to the possibility of such a science of consciousness, and to the absence of appropriate subjective investigative methodologies. The present paper argues that cognitive-developmental research on the development of the mental/physical distinction in young children undercuts standard philosophical objections to the possibility of an appropriate scientific study of the phenomena of consciousness, that methodologies for exploring the contents and dynamics of onsciousness akin to those developed in Eastern cultures could play a significant role in the development of such a science of consciousness, and that the experience of ‘pure consciousness’ often reported in association with these methodologies suggests reformulation of our ordinary ideas about the relationships between consciousness, qualia, and the objective world that may prove particularly useful for resolution of the ‘hard problem’

This paper proposes a third meditation-category—automatic self-transcending— to extend the dichotomy of focused attention and open monitoring proposed by Lutz. Automaticself-transcending includes techniques designed to transcend their own activity. This contrasts with focused attention, which keeps attention focused on an object; and open monitoring, which keeps attention involved in the monitoring process. Each category was assigned EEG bands, based on reported brain patterns during mental tasks, and meditations were categorized based on their reported EEG. Focused attention, characterized by beta/gamma activity, included meditations from Tibetan Buddhist, Buddhist, and Chinese traditions. Open monitoring, characterized by theta activity, included meditations from Buddhist, Chinese, and Vedic traditions. Automaticself-transcending, characterized by alpha1 activity, included meditations from Vedic and Chinese traditions. Between categories, the included meditations differed in focus, subject/object relation, and procedures. These findings shed light on the common mistake of averaging meditations together to determine mechanisms or clinical effects

"The Inner Dimension" examines the philosophical significance of a remarkable family of experiences central to Eastern philosophical and meditation traditions, and reported by creative geniuses in the West from Plato through Einstein. Empirical research on ordinary people practicing traditional Eastern meditation techniques now indicates that these otherwise rarely encountered experiences actually reflect widely accessible universal potentials of ordinary human awareness. The "Inner Dimension" responds to this research by exploring the significance of these experiences for a wide range of philosophical issues - self, knowledge, mind-and-matter, creativity, values, and human potential - as articulated by major Western philosophers such as Plato, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Mill, and Wittgenstein. Its analyses and approach throughout are straightforwardly empirical and non-metaphysical. Its implications, however, are revolutionary.

We agree with Josipovic that a fundamental differentiating feature of meditation techniques is whether they remain within the dualistic subject–object cognitive structure, or they transcend this structure to reveal an underlying level of non-dual awareness. Further discussion is needed to delineate the basic non-dual experience in meditation, where all phenomenal content is absent, from the more advanced experience of non-duality in daily life, where phenomenal content is obviously present as well. In this discussion, it is important to recognize that the experiencer–object relation makes the experience dual or non-dual, rather than the nature of the object experienced

This paper presents the pure consciousness theory of self, derived from Eastern meditation traditions, and uses it to unravel some of the paradoxes of Western philosophical models of the self. The theory is ontologically neutral and compatible with the widest variety of different ontologies. However the theory does, I think, have significant implications for questions of personal identity, emotional maturity and moral values, but exploring these topics here would take us too far afield. The article attempts to show something of the potential value for our traditional philosophical discussions of self of taking into account the pure consciousness experience, widely discussed in Eastern, but not Western, philosophical traditions. For if the phenomenological analyses are even roughly correct, it would appear that the experience is capable of resolving some major Western issues about self, clarifies our commonsense intuition, and is properly identified by philosophical analysis as being experience of self itself