The music of what happens:mind, meditation, and music as movement
Oxford University Press eBooks July 28, 2011 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199553792.003.0040 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation |
| Citations | 6 |
| Key points | Argues that first-person data, as accessed through artistic and meditative practices like vipassana, are essential for describing the subjective experience of consciousness, which third-person scientific methods cannot capture. |
Abstract
A significant lacuna in academic and scientific studies of consciousness is a description of how it actually feels to be here. The study of consciousness has proved to be extremely elusive when using the traditional third-person methodology of science. Any description of qualia — by definition lived, subjective experience — seems to necessitate the admission of first-person data, which has hitherto been the province of the arts. If the problem of consciousness is nothing more than the attempt to capture the mechanism and experience of being a person, then each of us can appeal to only one authority for an answer. This chapter speaks from the personal perspective of a multidisciplinary artist-researcher, drawing on the experience of a praxis that inhabits a space between art, science, and religion. It offers a richly personal account of music and consciousness that is at every stage informed by the practice and principles of vipassana meditation.