A new era for mind studies: Training investigators in both scientific and contemplative methods of inquiry (original) (raw)
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Rivista Internazionale di Filosofia e Psicologia, 2018
Abstract: The first section of this paper outlines the major theme, that “mind” is not the label of something unitary but of a collection of things that can only be revealed by research at three different levels. The first level of enquiry is the account of mind that can be gleaned from what is often referred to as our folk psychology . Even with its limitations, it is an indispensable part of our social interactions. The second section outlines how, with the rise of experimental psychology , our account of human minds has been extended because experimental psychology often reveals a level of factors in our mental life which is not open to ordinary observation. The third section explores how our account of human minds is extended even further by the modern instrument-aided researches at the level of neuropsychology . The fourth section argues that no one level of enquiry should be described as ultimate or dominant but that each level reveals different facts about our mental life. Th...
Solving Mind-Body Issues Requires Combining Philosophical Reflection and Empirical Research
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2023
This paper argues that to progress with philosophical issues concerning brain-mind relations one needs to combine philosophical reflection and empirical research with theoretical model building. Philosophy and abstract theorizing alone do not carry us far, as will be illustrated by analyzing the views about panpsychism by the quantum physicist David Bohm, who builds his reasoning on quantum mechanical analogies. His reflection around the notion of active information, adopted in his causal interpretation of quantum mechanics to replace the Newtonian notion of force, turns out to be a fallacy of equivocation. His other line of reasoning to specify matter-mind unity in terms of soma-significance and signa-somatic processes yields problems of its own. To illustrate empirical investigations on brain-mind relations, I shall present the tripartite model of the experiential selfhood and the related Self-Me-I index as proposed by the neuroscientists Fingelkurts and Fingelkurts, along with their background theory called operational architectonics (OA) of brain-mind functioning. The model states that the three components of selfhood, Self, Me, and I, correlate to three distinct operationally synchronized cortical areas, the frontal cortex, the right posterior cortex, and the left posterior cortex. The philosophical and practical benefits of their framework will be exemplified by presenting the results of a series of studies with the philosopher Tarja Kallio-Tamminen about the effects of meditation reflected in the Self-Me-I index.
Between scientific and lived realities of the mind (2017 Master's thesis)
2017
The thesis puts forward an exploration of the relationship between two perspectives on the mind: the scientific perspective, through which the mind is described and explained by the disciplines of cognitive science, and the lived perspective, through which the mind is experienced and understood in the context of everyday life. In articulating this apparent duality of views I draw upon two influential philosophical accounts: Edmund Husserl’s (1970) investigation of the life-world and the world of science and Wilfrid Sellars’ (1963) analysis of the manifest and the scientific image of the human being in relation to the world. The presentation and juxtaposition of the two analyses opens a way to an exploration of the interdependence of science and the life-world. It also sets the stage for a critique of naturalism in mind sciences. Following Husserl, I show that the naturalistic attitude stems from forgetting that the idea of the objective scientific reality is but an abstraction from the concrete life-world of experience, value, and meaning. Surveying the conceptual space of philosophy of mind, I further challenge the naturalistic attitude by demonstrating the untenability of its metaphysical and epistemological assumptions. As I argue, naturalism amounts to a particularly inconsistent stance in studying human epistemic processes, where it must paradoxically presuppose the very aspects of the world that it set out to disclose. Concluding that cognitive science lacks absolute metaphysical or epistemological foundations, I suggest that studying the mind needs to recognize the importance of the lived perspective of being a mind. I explore the multifaceted ways in which the scientific perspective on the mind is both rooted in the life-world and shapes it in turn. I conceptualize two dimensions of this interrelatedness through the presentation of Varela et al.’s (1991) enactive approach to cognitive science and Ian Hacking’s (1995) theory of the looping of human kinds. I conclude by proposing that consistent study of mind which acknowledges the impossibility of separating the cognizing subject from her cognized world is bound to remain open to revision of its own foundations. Cognitive science is thus imbued with a demand for reflexivity towards its own theory and practice which would recognize the historical, experiential and socio-political embeddedness of its concepts as well as the role which cognitive science itself plays in shaping societal conceptions of the mind and the way in which the mind is concretely understood, experienced, lived, and acted upon in the context of everyday life.
Mindful Practices: On the Neurosciences in the Twentieth Century
Science in Context, 2001
The neurosciences have been full of promises throughout the last century -from cybernetics to artificial minds, from holistic and integrative medicine to psychoneuro-immunology, from psychosurgery to psychoactive drugs -and they enjoy an astoundingly benevolent public interest. Just after the ending of "The Decade of the Brain" some managers of research in the neurosciences had already arranged to mark the beginning of the next millennium with a conference proclaiming the next hundred years the "Century of the Brain." Whether a justifiable prediction or wishful thinking, the neurosciences have gained momentum. How does this optimistic omnipresence of the neurosciences relate to the actual research in this area? What will be the consequences of this concentration of research efforts? Will the flood of new data, concepts, and theories revolutionize psychology or clinical medicine? Will the experimentally supported assumption that there is no such thing as free will ultimately change our worldview and our epistemology? How will or could the results affect our daily lives?
Why Consciousness? Teaching and Learning at the Leading Edge of Mind Science
Interest in the study of consciousness is growing rapidly among the general population but it has yet to make inroads into mainstream higher education because of the long-standing taboo that has denied the subject legitimacy as a serious area of academic inquiry. In 2014, however, the University of Washington Bothell campus formally launched a transdisciplinary and integral Minor in Consciousness, the first of its kind at a public research institution in North America. A four-year study explored the intellectual and personal effects of studying consciousness from this perspective for undergraduate students who enrolled in the first course in the Minor's sequence during Autumn Quarter 2012, 2013, 2014, or 2015. Results indicated that students' beliefs about consciousness and reality changed significantly over a ten-week period, becoming markedly less materialistic and more open to information that they had previously eschewed. By the end of each year's course students reported feeling increased optimism, hope, and a desire to learn more, and a corresponding decrease in feelings of depression, anxiety, and nihilism. Introducing the study of consciousness within the context of scientific revolutions and paradigm shifts proved particularly efficacious and may be a useful strategy for those who are interested in teaching or learning about consciousness in less than supportive academic environments.
Today we are generally convinced that mind and body are two substances that are specifically different, autonomous, and that the mind is separate from the body, according to the Cartesian dualist view expressed by the Oxford English Dictionary in defining the term “mind.”1 But this point of view has been challenged over the last twenty years by the dizzying advances of new discoveries in neuroscience, which have led to the emergence of the position according to which “our minds are in solid flesh.” 2 This growing rejection of Cartesian dualism has led many to fall into the temptation to adopt the materialist monism of contemporary mechanist reductionism, which holds that thoughts are somatic by-products of the material body. According to this point of view, there is only matter, bodies, and no immaterial or intellectual realities, or spirit. It is, therefore, necessary today to seek a third way that explains the substantial unity of the mind-body compound and harmonizes the immaterial and intellectual character of the mind and the somatic character of the brain, because only in this way are the basic concepts from which neuroscience starts sufficiently explained, and neuroscience freed from initial inconsistencies. This third way is traveled by the Neo-Aristotelianism of the third millennium, which, as in the Greek myth, navigates between “the Scylla of materialism [mechanist reductionism] and the Charybdis of dualism,” as Gyula Klima puts it. This research, therefore, explores this third way with the aim of finding a consistent and correct explanation of the substantial unity of the mind-body compound, which, as my research will aim to prove, is the only thesis currently being debated that has the power to rid neuroscience of the danger of falling into inconsistency at its initial starting points.
Exploring Frontiers of the Mind-Brain Relationship
Springer, 2012
The conscious mind defines human existence. Many consider the brain as a computer, and they attempt to explain consciousness as emerging at a critical, but unspecified, threshold level of complex computation among neurons. The brain-as-computer model, however, fails to account for phenomenal experience and portrays consciousness as an impotent, after-the-fact epiphenomenon lacking causal power. And the brain-as-computer concept precludes even the remotest possibility of spirituality. As described throughout the history of humankind, seemingly spiritual mental phenomena, including transcendent states, near-death and out-of-body experiences, and past-life memories have recently been well documented and treated scientifically. In addition, the brain-as-computer approach has been challenged by advocates of quantum brain biology, who are possibly able to explain, scientifically, nonlocal, seemingly spiritual mental states. Exploring Frontiers of the Mind-Brain Relationship argues against the purely physical analysis of consciousness and for a balanced psychobiological approach. This thought-provoking volume bridges philosophy of mind with science of mind to empirically examine transcendent phenomena, such as mystic states, near-death experiences and past-life memories, that have confounded scientists for decades. Representing disciplines ranging from philosophy and history to neuroimaging and physics, and boasting a panel of expert scientists and physicians, including Andrew Newberg, Peter Fenwick, Stuart Hameroff, Mario Beauregard, Deepak Chopra, and Chris Clarke the book rigorously follows several lines of inquiry into mind-brain controversies, challenging readers to form their own conclusions—or reconsider previous ones. It is essential reading for researchers and clinicians across many disciplines, including cognitive psychology, personality and social psychology, the neurosciences, neuropsychiatry, palliative care, philosophy, and quantum physics. “This book … brings together some precious observations about the fundamental mystery of the nature of consciousness … It raises many questions that serve to invite each of us to be more aware of the uncertainty of our preconceptions about consciousness … This book on the frontiers of mind-body relationships is a scholarly embodiment of creative and open-minded science.” C. Robert Cloninger, MD Wallace Renard Professor of Psychiatry, Genetics, and Psychology Washington University School of Medicine St. Louis MO “Although dogmatic materialism is the monarch of contemporary Western philosophy and science, contributors to this splendid book remind me of the brash lad in the classic fable who shouted, "But the emperor has no clothes!" Some readers will agree with this observation while others will find it an outrageous heresy. But as they wend their way through each articulately stated and meticulously argued chapter, they will never succumb to boredom. It is the type of book that will haunt its readers long after the last chapter is read.” Stanley Krippner, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Saybrook University Co-editor, Debating Psychic Experience: Human Potential or Human Delusion? ---- “This is really a thorough and up-to-date study of so-called anomalous spiritual phenomena. Instead of reducing these phenomena into exceptions to the general rule, the authors do not hesitate to widen the frame of interpretation. As is argued against a naïve epistemological stance, their open-minded inquiry is really a challenge and the authors managed to give us a fruitful perspective on their scholarly and multidisciplinary well documented efforts. I recommend this book to all psychiatrists, as well as professionals in theology and psychology of religion.” Peter J. Verhagen, M.D. Psychiatrist Chair of the World Psychiatric Association Section on Religion, Spirituality and Psychiatry ---- “It has become almost of a mantra in recent years to repeat that consciousness and mind are caused by brain processes and that it is only a matter of time before the neurosciences reveal all there is to know about them. As this important book shows, the fact that we now know a lot more about brain correlates of mental processes has not changed a number of awkward problems for a purely materialistic account of the mind, including how to solve the hard problem of consciousness and explain ordinary processes such as memory or less ordinary processes such as apparent psi phenomena. The contributors to this volume cover the essential areas in this discussion (philosophy, history, contemporary neuroscience, physics, and various anomalous experiences) and provide a cogent and scientifically based discussion that evidences that mind-brain relationships are far from definitely “explained” or obvious as a number of materialist authors have opined recently.” Etzel Cardeña, Ph.D. Thorsen Professor, Lund University, Sweden Co-editor of Altering Consciousness: A Multidisciplinary Perspective and Varieties of Anomalous Experience.