The following is a summary of the argument for my dissertation which asks the question, “To what extent did the Buddha define a natural system theory?” The full text can be found in the following four posts:

• Complexity in Science
• Compartmentalization in Science and Society
• Challenges to Psychology as a Science
• Challenges to the Study of Vipassanā Meditation

This is a philosophical study which proposes that what Systems Philosophy has in common with the full traditional context of Vipassanā meditation may point to significant barriers in the challenges of psychology as a science. The limitations of our understanding of vipassanā has much to do with current literature & research falling into one of two polarized realms of psychology: reductionistic mainstream science; and quasi-scientific clinical theory. First, we look at the limitations of reductionism and the compartmentalization that it creates. Second, we will look at the goals of Freud’s positivist science to account for the complexity of human experience. Then we will look at how this polarization affects an understanding of vipassanā meditation which itself explicitly aims to transcend polarization in generalized principle. To conclude we propose that a comparison of an existing natural systems clinical theory and vipassanā theory may point the way out of this polarization.

The following is a draft section from the introduction chapter of my dissertation proposal, which addresses the problems of 1) erosion of benefits of vipassanā from the conflation of widely different Buddhist traditions in popular, and 2) scientific literature and confusion of technical terms in vipassanā from their original traditional context. It is mean to be read after the posts:

1. Complexity in Science 
2. Compartmentalization in Science and Society

The field of psychology has claimed allegiance to the philosophy of science since its inception. Freud was unsatisfied with the limitations of the natural sciences of his day and sought to specialize his new science with methods for evaluating truth more appropriate to the concepts of his theory (Freud, 1915). He was a theoretical genius who promoted his positivist theory of psychopathology as a “science of the unconscious” (ref) which was to be supported through empirical research. His most basic proposition that medical conditions could be impacted or caused by mental processes which exist beyond awareness was a profound contribution to the field. These unconscious processes, or instincts¹, had physiological correlates and were grouped into ego, or self-preservative instincts, and the sexual instincts. Contrary to the group of ego-, or self-preservative instincts, Freud believed that the group of sexual instincts could be studied directly in the mental content of the subject through a process called psycho-analysis (Freud, 1915). This basal distinction between objective physiological phenomena and subjective mental phenomena birthed the study of subjective experience as a natural phenomenon, and continues to add depth and controversy to the worlds of science and society which had before been more firmly rooted in accumulating knowledge of objective phenomena.

The following is a draft section from the introduction chapter of my dissertation proposal, which addresses the the problem of isolation in science and society which results from linear thinking. This is to be read after the post:

1. Complexity in Science

The strength in reductionism is in isolating important information from unimportant information. A correlation which accounts for partial variance implies that an unspoken variable or variables account for the remaining variance. This haystack of unaccounted-for variance is reduced through controlled experiment to discover the one variable which accounts for a one-to-one correlation. The needle is isolated from the haystack, and so on. Isolation, then, is an effect of reductionism, of linear thinking. As illustrated in the above section, one weakness of pervasive isolation is poor coordination between isolated entities, whether it is in the sciences, government agencies, or the body and mind system.

The following is a draft section from the introduction chapter of my dissertation proposal, which addresses the problem of reductionism and complexity in science.

It is agreed that all scientific endeavors begin with assumptions. Perhaps the contents of the previous statement are evidence of this as is its primacy in this section. Kuhn (2012) used the term paradigm to describe a collection of assumptions, or rather a “club” (p. kpp 19) or network of researchers who agree on those assumptions and use them to guide and communicate their research. From Descartes to Popper, the philosophical debate over paradigmatic assumptions that guide the study of nature has been boiling for centuries. Guba and Lincoln (Handbook of Qualitative Research, 1994) suggest that “Paradigm issues are crucial; no inquirer, we maintain, ought to go about the business of inquiry without being clear about just what paradigm informs and guides his or her approach” (p. 116). Yet as of the minute paradigmatic slice of time in which this writing occurs, all that is commonly agreed is that science is simply said to be defined by the assumptions that define whatever paradigm the scientist builds their research upon (Kuhn, 2012).