What does it mean to keep an “open mind”? In casual conversation it’s a popular phrase with enough common sense to negate much need for debate about what the speaker means. Someone with an open mind might be considered considerate, equanimous, empathetic, a good listener, curious, or flexible in opinion. In Western culture an open-minded person might be receptive to new ideas, possibilities,...
The opera of Stanislaw Lem Lem, Stanislaw present us with a kaleidoscope of ideas and concepts all linked, in one way or another, to one key issue: the place of evolving minds in the evolving universe. In particular, the idea of fragmented, non-conscious intelligences belonging to neither strictly natural, nor strictly artificial, realms has been presented throughout his writing career; we...
Panpsychism shares many intuitions with integrated information theory (IIT), in particular that consciousness is an intrinsic fundamental property of reality, is graded, and can be found in small amounts in simple physical systems. Unlike panpsychism, however, IIT clearly articulates which systems are conscious and which ones are not (resolving panpsychism's combination problem) and why...
Building on the groundbreaking research of Irreducible Mind and Beyond Physicalism, Edward Kelly and Paul Marshall gather a cohort of leading scholars to address the most recent advances in the psychology of consciousness. Currently emerging as a middle ground between warring fundamentalisms of religion andscience, an expanded science-based understanding of nature finally accommodates empirical...
In the field theories in physics, any particular region of the presumed space-time continuum and all interactions between elementary objects therein can be objectively measured and/or accounted for mathematically. Since this does not apply to any of the field theories, or any other neural theory, of consciousness, their explanatory power is limited. As discussed in detail herein, the matter is...
Although phenomenologist Edmund Husserl’s project was not directed at transpersonal experiences, his methods are nevertheless applicable in a profound and effective way. We explore Husserl’s project and its methods for their relevance to transpersonal studies. Husserl laid out the proposition that science, including psychology, must be grounded in the study of perception, which after all is the...
Taking two long-distance walking pilgrimages (Dajia 大甲 and Baishatun 白沙 屯) held annually in Taiwan as an example, this article discusses how bodily techniques and material technologies engender a sense of sacredness through bodily experience during a walking pilgrimage. “Bodily techniques” include methods of physical action, walking meditation, mental concentration, reduction in logical...
To develop a fine-grained phenomenological analysis of "pure awareness" experiences in meditators. An online survey in five language versions (German, English, French, Spanish, Italian) collected data from January to March 2020. A total of 92 questionnaire items on a visual analogue scale were submitted to exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Out of 3627 submitted responses, 1403 were...
Focused attention to spontaneous sensations is a dynamic process that demands interoceptive abilities. Failure to control it has been linked to neuropsychiatric disorders like illness-anxiety disorder. Regulatory strategies, such as focused attention meditation (FAM), may enhance the ability to control focused attention particularly to body sensations, which can be reflected on functional...
I consider the Doerig, Schruger, Herzog (this issue) paper to be a very important paper on the multiple empirical theories of consciousness (ToCs). The paper compared 13 different approaches. It would be wonderful to create a forum for all interested parties to discuss the many issues this paper brought up. Equally important is what the paper didn't bring up. Namely, how do the different...