Category: General

From Enactive to Enlightened AI

© Elena Antonova, Ph.D. (Association Member, Mind & Life Europe) The Embodied Mind, a book co-authored by Francisco Varela, Evan Thompson and Eleonor Rosch, directly engaged with the field of Artifical Intelligence (AI) and robotics by critiquing a cognitive representationalist model of the mind and presenting an embodied and enactive approach as an alternative. It led to the emergence of the new kind of AI robotics, with the embodied enactive robots learning from the experiences of their interaction with the environment and/or humans, rather than being fully programmed at ‘birth’ by their creator. So I asked myself: how can contemplative ...
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Understanding the World

In early May, Mind & Life Europe Board and Association members Elena Antonova, Amy Cohen Varela and Charles-Antoine Janssen attended as observers the second in a series of dialogues entitled ‘Fundamental knowledge: Dialogue between Russian and Buddhist Scholars’ in Dharamsala, India, at the behest of the Dalai Lama. This meeting gathered Russian philosophers and scientists from the fields of neuroscience, genetics and physics with Buddhist scholars under the title “Understanding the World”. The first meeting in this budding series was held last August in New Delhi, on the theme of mind, brain and consciousness, and, like the second, was organized ...
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Initiative for Contemplative Phenomenology (ICP)

We interviewed Michel Bitbol, Mind & Life Europe Association Member and French researcher in philosophy of science, on the MLE community he is leading with Natalie Depraz and Claire Petitmengin, the Initiative for Contemplative Phenomenology (ICP). You have said that "philosophy is a bridge" in the dialogue between science and Buddhism; can you tell us something about this idea?  The dialogue between science and Buddhism represents an extraordinary opportunity of renewal for human cultures and wellbeing. But it also poses some risks: there is a risk of confusion, if the differences between the two disciplines are not borne in mind ...
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Reimagining Human Flourishing – Mind and Life Dialogue

Earlier this month Amy Cohen Varela, Mind & Life Europe's Chairperson, attended the latest Mind & Life Dialogues with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in India. She shares her experience in the following report. On Monday morning, March 12, the sun was brilliant and the air crisp as members of the Mind and Life community made their way up the path to the Tsuglagkhang, the Tibetan Temple by the Dalai Lama's residence in Dharamsala, India. This was the first of five days of 'Reimagining Human Flourishing', the 33rd Mind and Life Dialogue. The program, co-chaired by Richard Davidson and Thupten Jinpa, ...
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Join us! Apply for #ESRI2018

The application period for the European Summer Research Institute 2018 (ESRI) is now open. We invite you to join us at this unique gathering on the Fraueninsel in Germany from 20-26 August. This year's theme - Kinship, Conflict and Compassion - will cover the evolutionary story about the development of a capacity that is probably unique to humans: the ability to connect. That ability, however, also comes with a tendency to create an “other”, and often create biases and conflict - as we can now witness at national and global levels. We will explore how to overcome this tendency and to enhance ...
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Many “effects” of Mindfulness research could in fact be a placebo effect

We have asked Mind & Life Europe asscociate and assistent Professor cognitive modelling at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, Marieke van Vugt about the the mindfulness hype, what it is, where it comes from and where it is going. At the end of 2017, you wrote an article about the mindfulness hype. Can you explain what the mindfulness hype is and where it comes from? The mindfulness hype refers to the deluge of articles and other media contributions that claim that mindfulness is the solution to everything—from improving your concentration to becoming a more successful CEO. However, if ...
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‘Social change needs to come from changing educational contexts.’

In the run up to the 2017 European Varela Awards we highlight some of the work of our 2016 awardees. Carlos Garcia Rubio and Catherine Andreu received a European Varela award for their research into the effect mindfulness in schools has on the self-regulation abilities of children living in highly vulnerable areas in Latin-America. ‘Schools can be an ideal place to carry out mindfulness-based socio-emotional programmes to promote healthier development.’ Carlos and Catherine first met each other in 2014 at the European Summer Research Institute (ESRI). A couple of years later they met again in Spain, in a school where ...
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Blog by Sander Tideman: First summit on mindfulness in politics

This month I had the privilege of attending a meeting on Mindfulness in Politics, organised by the Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Group (MAPPG), at the House of Parliament in London. With keynote speaker Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the Mindfulness-based Stress Relief (MBSR) in 1979, the meeting assembled some 50 Europeans working on mindfulness at policy levels in their respective countries. These included France, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Slovenia and – of course – the United Kingdom.  The Mindful Nation MAPPG was founded four years ago by Welsh MP Chris Ruane, who started by gathering a few of his colleagues from ...
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Publications from the ReSource Project

The ReSource Project is a large-scale study on Eastern and Western methods of mental training. It is a secular programme developed by a team of experienced meditation teachers, scientists, and psychotherapists. The Principal Investigator of the project is our Mind & Life Europe Board Member Prof. Dr. Tania Singer, Director of the Social Neuroscience Department at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig. 'This is the outcome of 12 years of work, so we are rather happy about it.' The project has published several project papers over the last months. Two studies on ReSource Change Data were published in ...
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Education that cultivates the wellbeing of the whole child

Katherine Weare, author of newly released book ‘Happy teachers change the World’ and Mind & Life associate member, reflects on a recent Mind and Life education gathering in Frankfurt. Across the world there is a developing consensus that many young people are struggling to cope with our fast paced, interconnected word and that we urgently need new forms of education to help young people meet the emotional, social, intellectual, ethical and spiritual challenges they, and indeed all of us, face. Encouraged by a new curriculum that is in its early stages of development at Emory University in the United states, ...
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