Giovanna Colombetti, DPhil, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Exeter.
In my talk I will advance some preliminary ideas on how to make progress in the field of contemplative neuroscience from a neurophenomenological perspective. Although much progress has already been made in this field, in various respects, little attention has been paid so far to what I call “the problem of the not said”. In a nutshell, this is the problem of how to investigate, both scientifically and phenomenologically, experiences that arguably are not, cannot be, or should not be, put into words. In order to address this problem, we need to adopt what I call a thick neurophenomenological approach that involves an in-depth exploration of meditators’ experiences via qualitative and quantitative methods. Importantly, this exploration would need not only to provide precise and detailed descriptions of the meditators’ lived experience, but also to take into account their attitudes toward the task of talking about their experience, how easy or difficult they find this task, the influence of the experimental setting and demands, and other. I will conclude by offering some tentative but concrete suggestions on how to integrate these considerations into experimental work in contemplative neuroscience.
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