I propose that qualia are physical because they are directly observable, and revisit the contentious link between consciousness and quantum measurements from a new perspective -- one that does not rely on observers or wave function collapse but instead treats physical measurements as fundamental in a sense resonant with Wheeler's it-from-bit. Building on a mathematical definition of measurement...
A space of qualia is defined to be a sober topological space whose points are the qualia and whose open sets are the pure concepts in the sense of Lewis, carrying additional algebraic structure that conveys the conscious experience of subjective time and logical abstraction. This structure is analogous to that of a space of physical measurements. It is conjectured that qualia and measurements...
The Sufi tradition that arose within Islam describes a compelling and varied map of the self and its transformations. Over the span of a millennium of practice and discourse, Sufis have explored and detailed the stages of the journey of self-transformation towards their ultimate aim of union with the One. Their models of the spiritual journey and of the emergent transpersonal self, extensively...
The debate about the necessary involvement of any form of self-consciousness in conscious experience has recently shifted its focus to the question of whether there are totally selfless states of consciousness (TSSC). The primary source of evidence for the existence of TSSC is the subjective reports from subjects who either are currently undergoing or have undergone altered experiences such as...
Several measures have been designed to assess subjective experiences induced by psychedelic substances or other mind-altering drugs as well as non-pharmacological methods. Recently, two self-report questionnaires have been introduced to measure acute adverse effects following psilocybin ingestion and the phenomenon of ego-dissolution associated with the use of psychedelics, respectively. The...
What is the sound of one mind meditating? Is it philosophically valid? The Taoist path is one of harmonizing with the Tao, the Way – to inner peace, practical wisdom, and philosophical enlightenment. Similar views have defined a number of schools of Asian philosophy for millennia. Sages across many Asian traditions have held that philosophical insights alone are insufficient for enlightenment,...
In this chapter, two distinct Indian philosophical traditions are compared – one Hindu, the other Buddhist – to support the conclusion that meditation is essential to both philosophies, as two separate but similar traditions that evidence the overall premise of this Handbook – that meditation is a valid element of philosophy. The chapter begins with a discussion of the four stages of...
Nirvana is sometimes described as stopping the world – transcending what phenomenologists describe as the (conventional) life-world. This chapter examines the implications of cognitive attenuation in such meditative absorptions, raising philosophical and phenomenological questions about the ways examination of such states, and their neuroscientific underpinnings, may play a role in resolving...
This chapter builds on earlier work of reformulating the mindfulness construct by transforming the standard feature list for mindfulness into a feature schema. It does this by replacing a language for training mindfulness with a language for explaining mindfulness. This reformulation affords an important distinction between meditation and contemplation as well as generating an explanation of...
This chapter argues that phenomenological reduction, on the one hand, and the sort of contemplative reduction that constitutes meditation practice, on the other hand, have tremendous potential for comparative analysis, but that there are limits to conceiving them too closely along similar lines. In identifying many of the commonalities and differences between phenomenological and contemplative...