{"product_id":"the-elephant-and-the-blind-isbn-9780262547109","title":"The Elephant and the Blind","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn engaging and insightful journey into human consciousness.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat if our goal had not been to land on Mars, but in pure consciousness? The experience of pure consciousness—what does it look like? What is the \u003ci\u003eessence\u003c\/i\u003e of human consciousness? In\u003ci\u003e The Elephant and the Blind\u003c\/i\u003e, influential philosopher Thomas Metzinger, one of the world's leading researchers on consciousness, brings together more than 500 experiential reports to offer the world's first comprehensive account of states of pure consciousness. Drawing on a large psychometric study of meditators in 57 countries, Metzinger focuses on “pure awareness” in meditation—the simplest form of experience there is—to illuminate the most fundamental aspects of how consciousness, the brain, and illusions of self all interact.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStarting\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003ewith an exploration of existential ease and ending on \u003ci\u003eBewusstseinskultur\u003c\/i\u003e, a culture of consciousness, Metzinger explores the increasingly non-egoic experiences of silence, wakefulness, and clarity, of bodiless body-experience, ego-dissolution, and nondual awareness. From there, he assembles a big picture—the elephant in the parable, from which the book’s title comes—of what it would take to arrive at a minimal model explanation for conscious experience and create a genuine culture of consciousness. Freeing pure awareness from new-age gurus and old religions, \u003ci\u003eThe Elephant and the Blind\u003c\/i\u003e combines personal reports of pure consciousness with incisive analysis to address the whole consciousness community, from neuroscientists to artists, and its accessibility echoes the author’s career-long commitment to widening access to philosophy itself.Contents:\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments xi\u003cbr\u003e Introduction: The Elephant and the Blind xiii\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1 Relaxation 1\u003cbr\u003e 2 Peace 9\u003cbr\u003e 3 Silence 21\u003cbr\u003e 4 Wakefulness 33\u003cbr\u003e 5 Clarity 45\u003cbr\u003e 6 Density 55\u003cbr\u003e 7 Soundness 63\u003cbr\u003e 8 Nonidentification 71\u003cbr\u003e 9 Suchness 85\u003cbr\u003e 10 Presence 103\u003cbr\u003e 11 Connectedness 113\u003cbr\u003e 12 The Most Natural State 123\u003cbr\u003e 13 Coming Home 129\u003cbr\u003e 14 There Is Nothing Left to Do 137\u003cbr\u003e 15 Joy, Awe, Bliss, and Gratitude 145\u003cbr\u003e 16 Simplicity, Nothingness, and Absence 155\u003cbr\u003e 17 Emptiness and Fullness 167\u003cbr\u003e 18 Luminosity 191\u003cbr\u003e 19 Witnessing 203\u003cbr\u003e 20 Pure Awareness during Dreamless Deep Sleep 213\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e 21 Pure Awareness and Lucid Dreaming 233\u003cbr\u003e 22 From Timelessness to Timeless Change 247\u003cbr\u003e 23 Space without Structure, Center, or Periphery 257\u003cbr\u003e 24 Bodiless  Body- Experience 271\u003cbr\u003e 25 Ego Dissolution: Melting into the Phenomenal Field 297\u003cbr\u003e 26 Nondual Being: Unity 307\u003cbr\u003e 27 Nondual Awareness: Insight 329\u003cbr\u003e 28 Transparency, Translucency, and Virtuality 353\u003cbr\u003e 29 The True Self 379\u003cbr\u003e 30 Pure Awareness Knows Itself 393\u003cbr\u003e 31 It Is Not an Experience 407\u003cbr\u003e 32 Meditation and Nonmeditation 421\u003cbr\u003e 33 Timeless  Continuity 445\u003cbr\u003e 34 The Elephant: What Is Pure Awareness? 455\u003cbr\u003e Epilogue: Bewusstseinskultur 479\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGlossary of Terms 497\u003cbr\u003e Notes 515\u003cbr\u003e References 547\u003cbr\u003e Index 583“Books about consciousness don’t come any more radical...than \u003ci\u003eThe Elephant and the Blind....\u003c\/i\u003ea monumental study of the state of ‘pure,’ or minimal,’ consciousness, experienced during meditation.... a big book (over 600 pages) with big ambitions, but Metzinger, a theoretical philosopher at the University of Mainz in Germany, has never been a conventional thinker....Metzinger has achieved something wonderful....brings new insights into consciousness and has created a poetics of meditative experience.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eNew Scientist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“This book achieves the impossible. It offers a narrative of the truly ineffable; namely, (sic), something that is \"too close to see\". This is the elephant that thousands of people around the world have touched—or have been touched by—but never seen, at least as a knowing and seeing self. Such selfless experience may be consciousness laid bare, cast as a minimal phenomenal experience.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eKarl J. Friston, Scientific Director, Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, London, UK\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Thomas Metzinger has done it again. Twenty years after his seminal \u003ci\u003eBeing No One\u003c\/i\u003e, his new book opens entirely new directions for consciousness research by zeroing in on the phenomenon of “pure awareness”. \u003ci\u003eThe Elephant and the Blind\u003c\/i\u003e is work of major importance and an essential resource for anyone with a serious interest in understanding consciousness. It will provoke, illuminate, and enlighten anyone who spends time with it.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eAnil K. Seth, Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience, University of Sussex, UK\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Not since William James has such meticulous attention been given to pure awareness experiences and their significance for science and philosophy. Metzinger has performed a Herculean labor, and no future science of consciousness will be possible without assimilating his findings and arguments.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Evan Thompson, Professor of Philosophy, University of British Columbia; author of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eWaking, Dreaming, Being\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e; coauthor of \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Embodied Mind\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e and \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Blind Spot\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e (both with MIT Press)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What a magnificent piece of work. When so many consciousness experts said that ‘pure consciousness’ was impossible, Metzinger has not only proved them wrong but with hundreds of accounts and a sympathetic analysis has laid the groundwork for a new understanding of unusual realms of consciousness.” \u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e—Susan Blackmore, author of\u003ci\u003e Consciousness\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e“Metzinger's exceptional research was conducted with a high level of scientific rigor and philosophical caution, on the one hand, but is reported here in nonacademic prose in order to reach the widest audience possible, on the other hand. This work is a gift, a labor of love, and a must-read for anyone who wishes to gain a greater understanding of what it means to be conscious.” \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Rick Repetti, PhD (CUNY), editor of \u003ci\u003eRoutledge Handbook on the Philosophy of Meditation\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eThomas Metzinger was Full Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003eJohannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Ego Tunnel\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eBeing No One \u003c\/i\u003e(MIT Press), the coeditor of \u003ci\u003eOpen MIND,\u003c\/i\u003e and the editor of \u003ci\u003eNeural Correlates of Consciousness \u003c\/i\u003e(both MIT Press)\u003ci\u003e.\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"The MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304317735141,"sku":"NP9780262547109","price":80.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780262547109.jpg?v=1767739148","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-elephant-and-the-blind-isbn-9780262547109","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}