Mindfulness Learning and the Brain
Author: Guy Claxton, University of Bristol, UK
This is an attempt to sketch an approach to the complex phenomenon called mindfulness—one that does justice to its complexity and depth while also offering a way to think about it in evolutionary and neural terms. It asks where mindfulness came from, what kind of consciousness it is, what it was for before being adopted by spiritual and therapeutic traditions, and how brains produce it.
The central suggestion is that human brains developed, for good evolutionary reasons, a facility for imaginative empathy and “as-if” identification. Mindfulness draws on this facility to create what may be a uniquely human form of learning—or, rather, unlearning.
Keywords: mindfulness, learning, consciousness, brain.
The highest activities of consciousness have their origins in physical occurrences in the brain, just as melodies are expressed through individual notes.
The analogy suggests that consciousness may be composed of complex patterns of neural activity, just as a melody is composed of notes that may not be especially moving on their own.
The paper approaches mindfulness through cognitive neuroscience. It begins with a set of propositions that form the framework for the discussion. Although these ideas are common in scientific circles, not everyone accepts them as self-evident. Some people, for example, dispute that consciousness is associated exclusively with brains of a certain kind and instead regard it as a primary substance of the universe.
Rather than trying to settle those philosophical disagreements, the paper states its assumptions clearly and explores what can be seen from the vantage point they create. The value of the framework ultimately rests on whether it leads in interesting directions.