Core Questions of CSCSC

Emerging from collective dialogue at CSCSC25 conference

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Foundational Framing

The Why

What about the current moment calls us to explore the intersection of complexity and contemplative science?

We stand at a unique historical juncture where:

• Complexity science has matured enough to model relational, emergent phenomena beyond reductionism
• Contemplative traditions face challenges of relevance and transmission in secular contexts
• Global crises (climate, meaning, mental health) demand integration of wisdom and rigorous analysis
• Neuroscience and AI increasingly encounter the limits of purely mechanistic explanations

Why these two fields? Both deal with systems that cannot be understood by examining parts in isolation—whether neurons in a brain or practitioners in a sangha. Both recognize that the observer changes what is observed.

The What

What kind of research community are we forming?

• A space where contemplative depth and scientific rigor mutually enhance rather than diminish each other
• A community that practices what it studies—embodying contemplative principles in our collaborative research
• A bridge between first-person experiential knowledge and third-person reproducible findings

The How

What shared practices produce the wisdom we seek?

• Regular contemplative openings in our gatherings
• Commitment to multiple ways of knowing (propositional, procedural, perspectival, participatory)
• Maintaining curiosity through dialogue rather than premature closure
• "Seed-grow-harvest" epistemology—valuing insight, analysis, and integration equally </aside>

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Core Tensions & Polarities

How do we differentiate and hold the tensions between wisdom (contemplative) and knowledge (complexity science)?

This is not a problem to solve but a creative tension to maintain:

Wisdom involves:

• Transformative insight
• Ethical discernment
• Embodied understanding
• Practical application to reduce suffering
• Often emerges through practice over time

Knowledge involves:

• Propositional claims
• Testable predictions
• Reproducible findings
• Generalizable patterns
• Can be transmitted conceptually

The integration: Wisdom without knowledge risks dogmatism; knowledge without wisdom risks irrelevance. Complexity science offers formal frameworks (network dynamics, emergence, attractor landscapes) that may help translate contemplative insights into testable models while respecting what cannot be reduced.

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Methodological Frontiers

Science & Depth of Being

How can science discuss 'depth of being'?

Traditional science brackets subjective experience. Yet complexity approaches offer new possibilities:

• Dynamical systems theory can model states of consciousness as attractors in high-dimensional spaces
• Information theory can quantify integration and differentiation in experience (Integrated Information Theory)
• Network science can map the relational structure of meaning-making
• Active inference formalizes how agents model and minimize surprise—potentially including contemplative states

The question is not whether to quantify experience, but what formal languages might honor its depth without reducing it to mechanism.

Generating Knowledge from Practice

What, if anything, in contemplative practices can we generate knowledge about?

Domains where contemplative practices yield systematic knowledge:

• Attention regulation - how focus is stabilized, directed, expanded
• Affect modulation - mechanisms of emotional transformation
• Self-models - how identity is constructed, deconstructed, reconstructed
• Intersubjectivity - dynamics of empathy, resonance, collective states
• Phenomenological structures - consistent features across meditative states

How we can talk about wisdom:

• Not as fixed content but as capacity—to perceive clearly, respond appropriately, hold complexity
• As meta-cognitive skill—knowing what kind of knowledge is relevant in what context
• Through case studies and exemplars rather than only abstract principles </aside>

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Scaling & Application

How Does Contemplative Science Scale?

From individual practice to collective transformation

Critical questions:

• Can insights from individual meditation inform organizational design?
• Do contemplative principles apply to social network dynamics, collective decision-making?
• How does wisdom transmission work in communities vs. individuals?
• What are the complexity signatures of "collective consciousness" or group flow states?

Potential frameworks:

• Multi-scale modeling - connecting neural, psychological, social, cultural levels
• Collective active inference - groups as agents minimizing collective prediction error
• Network rituals - how practices synchronize and align community values
• Phase transitions - contemplative breakthroughs as critical phenomena in personal and social systems </aside>

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Building Common Ground

Shared Language & Transjunctions

What concepts bridge contemplative and complexity logics?

Promising bridge concepts:

• Emergence ↔️ Emptiness - properties not in parts but in relationships
• Attractors ↔️ Habits/Karma - stable patterns that self-reinforce
• Self-organization ↔️ Spontaneous wisdom - order without external control
• Complementarity ↔️ Non-duality - observer-dependence, context-sensitivity
• Networks ↔️ Interdependence - relational ontology

"Transjunctions" - places where contemplative and complexity thinking:

• Use different language for similar insights
• Approach the same phenomena from opposite directions
• Find complementary rather than contradictory truths
• Mutually illuminate blind spots </aside>

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Compiled from CSCSC25 core questions dialogue | October 2025