Contemplative Neuroscience as an Approach to Volitional Consciousness

Contemplative neuroscience studies volitional consciousness by examining how meditation training enables people to voluntarily generate and regulate mental states. Attention, awareness, and emotion regulation are treated as trainable skills. Research on the neural dynamics of contemplative states and theories of large-scale brain coordination suggests that global system causation plays a key role in brain activity. An interventionist approach to intentional causation is proposed.

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Abstract

This chapter presents a methodological approach to volitional consciousness for cognitive neuroscience based on studying the voluntary self-generation and self-regulation of mental states in meditation. Called contemplative neuroscience, this approach views attention, awareness, and emotion regulation as flexible and trainable skills, and works with experimental participants who have undergone training in contemplative practices designed to hone these skills. Drawing from research on the dynamical neural correlates of contemplative mental states and theories of large-scale neural coordination dynamics, I argue for the importance of global system causation in brain activity and present an “interventionist” approach to intentional causation.