Consciousness Studies: Cross-cultural PerspectivesConsciousness is perplexing: too familiar and intimate to ignore, too complex and elusive to understand. Although consciousness is embedded in all our experience and is considered basic to all our knowing, no one seems to know what exactly it is, and the concept is both widely used and much abused. For the better part of the twentieth century, the study of consciousness was viewed as unworthy of scholarly and scientific pursuit. Research has consequently suffered. This cross-cultural examination first explores the varieties of conscious experience and reflects on the attempts to understand and explain consciousness in the Western scholarly and scientific tradition. The next section deals with Eastern spiritual traditions and how they differ with and complement the Western viewpoints. In the final chapters the author reconciles the two traditions for a comprehensive understanding of what consciousness is, and considers how such an understanding may be helpful for a cross-cultural assessment of behavior, as well as for enhancing human abilities and wellness. |
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Contents
Preface | 1 |
What It Is Like to Be Conscious | 13 |
Primary Awareness | 32 |
Copyright | |
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activity Advaita appears argued aspects Atman attempts attention behavior blindsight brain Buddhaghosa buddhi Buddhist causal cesses cognitive concept conscious experience consciousness-as-such Descartes dissociation distinction dream dualism Eastern effect empirical ence epiphenomenalism essentially evidence existence first-person function ganzfeld human ical identity implicit awareness Indian influence involved James ject jective jiva karma knowledge manifest meditation memory mental phenomena mind mystic ness neural normal notion object observed one's paranormal parapsychological Patanjali perience person perspective philosophical physical possible practice prakriti primary awareness processes psi-missing psychic psychology pure consciousness purusha qualia quantum quantum mechanics reality reflection reported rience samadhi Samkara Samkhya sattva sciousness sense sensory significant stimulus studies subjective awareness subjective experience subliminal perception suggest theory things third-person thought tion tional tive tradition transcendental unconscious understanding Vedanta Velmans volition vrittis Western whereas yoga