A new book suggests that the Eastern approach to meditation may help in the research explanation for consciousness:
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> http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/12/30/373952810/in-search-of-a-science-of-consciousn... 
> "One of the beautiful ideas, or maybe it would be better to say challenges, in Thompson's book is that Western science has not yet framed for itself an adequate phenomenology of experience (maybe, by the way, not even an adequate phenomenology of color). What is needed, then, according to Thompson, is not so much an opportunity to put monks in the scanner to see what makes them special but, rather, an opportunity to collaborate with them — and with the philosophical tradition that informs their practices — to understand better the character of experience and, so, take the necessary preliminary steps toward a better science of consciousness.
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> "Alva Noë is a philosopher at the University of California at Berkeley where he writes and teaches about perception, consciousness and art."
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> What do you think? Do the Eastern religions have a better understanding of consciousness than Western thought?-Well, yes, both from a theistic and secular perspective. From a theistic perspective, the concept of being in the 'now', neither worrying about the past or the future is very much in line with the Biblical teachings, as is the idea of approaching each and every task as is if it were worth devoting your entire attention to. From a secular perspective, I think it frees them from a lot of the traps and snares of the western rat race.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.