Mind-life continuity: A qualitative study of conscious experience.

Inês Hipólito; Jorge Martins

doi:10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2017.09.004

Mind-life continuity: A qualitative study of conscious experience.

Inês Hipólito, Jorge Martins

Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology December 1, 2017 DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2017.09.004 (opens in new tab)

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AI-extracted from the abstract

Characteristics	Qualitative study Peer reviewed
Intervention	Jhana meditation
Topics	Meditation
Keywords	Autopoiesis Conscious experience Mind-life continuity thesis Qualitative study
Key findings	Combining Eastern and Western traditions can support a non-reductive study of mind and life, with Jhana meditation providing experiential profiles that move toward an integrated perspective on mind.

Abstract

There are two fundamental models to understanding the phenomenon of natural life. One is the computational model, which is based on the symbolic thinking paradigm. The other is the biological organism model. The common difficulty attributed to these paradigms is that their reductive tools allow the phenomenological aspects of experience to remain hidden behind yes/no responses (behavioral tests), or brain 'pictures' (neuroimaging). Hence, one of the problems regards how to overcome methodological difficulties towards a non-reductive investigation of conscious experience. It is our aim in this paper to show how cooperation between Eastern and Western traditions may shed light for a non-reductive study of mind and life. This study focuses on the first-person experience associated with cognitive and mental events. We studied phenomenal data as a crucial fact for the domain of living beings, which, we expect, can provide the ground for a subsequent third-person study. The intervention with Jhana meditation, and its qualitative assessment, provided us with experiential profiles based upon subjects' evaluations of their own conscious experiences. The overall results should move towards an integrated or global perspective on mind where neither experience nor external mechanisms have the final word.

Comparable studies

Other qualitative studies on meditation, most cited first.

Study	Year	Design	Participants
The varieties of contemplative experience: A mixed-methods study of meditation-related challenges in Western Buddhists Western Buddhist meditation practitioners and experts in Theravāda, Zen, and Tibetan...	2017	Qualitative study with mixed-methods
The Effects of Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction on Nurse Stress and Burnout Nurses in a hospital system	2004	Implementation study with mixed methods
An exploratory mixed methods study of the acceptability and effectiveness of mindfulness -based cognitive therapy for patients with active depression and anxiety in primary care Primary care patients with recurrent depression or recurrent depression and anxiety	2006	Exploratory mixed methods study	n = 13
A qualitative study of mindfulness‐based cognitive therapy for depression Participants in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in a mental-health context	2001	Qualitative study	n = 7
Effortless awareness: using real time neurofeedback to investigate correlates of posterior cingulate cortex activity in meditators' self-report Meditators	2013	Qualitative study using grounded theory methodology

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