Meditation And Philosophical-Scientific Study Of Consciousness

Consciousness has been the object of pure scientific research since the ninety s. Not only the philosophical problem of consciousness has came back to the stage, but also it has been probed into scientific research, such as cognitive science, computer artificial intelligence, neuroscience, brain, psychology, physics and other academic disciplines that all have big interests in consciousness. At the same time, from the sixty s on, the oriental culture became popular in western again. All kinds of ideas and activities of Meditation (Contemplation, Zen Meditation, etc), first because of its clinical efficacy, caused people great interest and attention in it, and with the development of the brain science instruments, launched a lot of research about it. Because of the particularity of conscious experience of Meditation, the subtlety, accuracy and stability of the first person report data from Meditation, consciousness research ran into Meditation and they created shining sparks since the ninety s.From the view of philosophical hard problem of consciousness, the experience report of Meditation is an ideal first person data source what neurophenomenology highly preferred. Neurophenomenology announced, in order to respond to hard problem of consciousness, we should be returned to a more priori level, and explore the structure of consciousness and its process. Therefore, they advocated a methodology remedy for metaphysical hard problem of consciousness. Namely, taking from phenomenology and return to pay attention to experience, making mutual benefit and achieve common progressthe between first person report data of experience and the third person data of scientific experiment. Meditators, especially who from the Buddhist, can grasp good skills which on some level similar with "phenomenological reductive", well finish special experimental tasks, and give stability, exquisite experience report, so that bring new opportunities for consciousness research.In the contemporary science study of consciousness, based on some assumptions, such as consciousness is mainly produced by brain activities, consciousness activities associated with corresponding nervous activities, and Meditation activities create special conscious experience, after the ninety s, launched a great deal of brain science and neuroscience research on Meditation. At present, the experimental research of Meditation is mainly concentrated on attention, mood, and health effects. With the electroencephalogram research, we can explore the electrical signal characteristics of different types and different stages of Meditation; through the brain imaging studies, exploring the active characteristics of different brain regions, brain structures and functions of the brain network during Meditation practice. Although, there are rich achievements of neuroscience research of Meditation at present, which mainly pauses in explaining the components of consciousness, the achievements of experiments research were scattered, and there is lack of breakthrough answers to the generation of the consciousness.The researches of special consciousness phenomenon which Meditation caused, not only broad scientific method, but also carried out a deep reflection of scientific method and consciousness. The development of neuroscience research of Meditation in the future may bring a new opportunity to consciousness research, or it, may be like the quantum theory, will carry a shock to the reality of our living experience.