My guest today is the brilliant multidimensional thinker Michel Bitbol, a rare mind that is as well versed in medicine and physics as it is in Buddhist philosophy and micro-phenomenology.

His copious bibliography traces the evolution of his interlocking interests and his thinking about the role of phenomenology in theories of consciousness, the parallels between Buddhist dependent arising and certain Western theories of knowledge, and most relevantly for our conversation today, quantum philosophy and the common blind spots in the work of a scientist.

In this third and final segment, my conversation with Michel opens out onto questions about the role of contemplation in the life of the scientist and what we mean by contemplative science. He offers a granular description of the practice of micro-phenomenology within that tradition, and discusses the important work being done by the Initiative for Contemplative Phenomenology at Mind & Life Europe. Ultimately, the conversation brings us to some of the subtle points of similarity between contemplative practice and the practice of phenomenology, bringing to bear the ethical dimension of both. We end on some of Michel’s most recent work, including his two latest books from 2023, Philosophie quantique. Le monde est-il extérieur? and Mettre fin aux controverses.

I’d encourage you to visit our YouTube page to watch the online course that he offered for the MLE Friends community, “Beyond Confines: the Philosophy track.” There you can hear him speak about “Buddhism and Quantum Mechanics” in Part I and about “Consciousness: East and West” in Part II. You can also check out an online course in which he taught, hosted by our partner Science & Wisdom Live, “Buddhism and Quantum Physics.”

Bergson, “An Introduction to Metaphysics,” essay from 1903

Mind & Life Europe’s Initiative for Contemplative Phenomenology (ICP)

Paper on the validity of 1st-person descriptions by Michel Bitbol and Claire Petitmengin (2009)

Carlo Rovelli

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to this podcast, donating to Mind & Life Europe, and becoming an MLE Friend. We would also encourage you to visit our website for upcoming events, as well as our YouTube Channel, where you can find dozens of free talks, dialogues, symposia, and cutting-edge educational materials.

"Slate Tracker" and "Lemon and Melon" by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue).

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is the brilliant multidimensional thinker Michel Bitbol, a rare mind that is as well versed in medicine and physics as it is in Buddhist philosophy and micro-phenomenology. Michel is Emeritus Director of Research at the CNRS, in Paris, France. He is presently based at the Archives Husserl, a center of research in phenomenology. He received successively his M.D., his Ph.D. in physics, and his “Habilitation” in philosophy in Paris.

As you’ll see in the show notes, his copious bibliography traces the evolution of his interlocking interests and his thinking about the role of phenomenology in theories of consciousness, the parallels between Buddhist dependent arising and certain Western theories of knowledge, and most relevantly for our conversation today, quantum philosophy and the common blind spots in the work of a scientist. His two most recent works, which you might want to check out are: Philosophie quantique. Le monde est-il extérieur? (Editions Mimésis) and Mettre fin aux controverses (Editions du cerf), a translation and scholarly commentary of Nagarjuna.

In this second part of my conversation with Michel, we get into the nitty gritty, as it were, of the work he is most well-known for: we discuss the circulation between 1st-person and 3rd-person perspectives, between agent and environment; his encounter with the work of physicist Chrisopher Fuchs and his entry into understanding quantum physics; quantum mechanics as a participatory, (im)mersive epistemology, somewhat akin to participatory sense-making; the slipperiness of language when we talk about 1st- and 3rd-person perspectives; the primordial importance of including the 1st-person standpoint in scientific investigation; Michel’s progressive discovery of nondual epistemologies and ways of living in Buddhism; and, finally, the possible congeniality between Western science and frameworks proposed by Buddhism. We hope you enjoy and will stay with us for the third and final part of the conversation, where we’ll discuss the role of contemplation in the life of a scientist and the nature of experience itself.

Christopher Fuchs and a brief intro to Quantum Bayesianism (Q-bism)

Two contemporary French phenomenologists mentioned: Renaud Barbaras and Bruce Bégout

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to this podcast, donating to Mind & Life Europe, and becoming an MLE Friend. We would also encourage you to visit our website for upcoming events, as well as our YouTube Channel, where you can find dozens of free talks, dialogues, symposia, and cutting-edge educational materials.

"Slate Tracker" and "Lemon and Melon" by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue).

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is the brilliant multidimensional thinker Michel Bitbol, a rare mind that is as well versed in medicine and physics as it is in Buddhist philosophy and micro-phenomenology. Michel is Emeritus Director of Research at the CNRS, in Paris, France. He is presently based at the Archives Husserl, a center of research in phenomenology. He received successively his M.D., his Ph.D. in physics, and his “Habilitation” in philosophy in Paris.

As you’ll see in the show notes, his copious bibliography traces the evolution of his interlocking interests and his thinking about the role of phenomenology in theories of consciousness, the parallels between Buddhist dependent arising and certain Western theories of knowledge, and most relevantly for our conversation today, quantum philosophy and the common blind spots in the work of a scientist. His two most recent works, which you might want to check out are: Philosophie quantique. Le monde est-il extérieur? (Editions Mimésis) and Mettre fin aux controverses (Editions du cerf), a translation and scholarly commentary of Nagarjuna.

Michel’s mind is much like a kaleidoscope, and one which reveals and describes concepts with an astonishing degree of lucidity. In this first segment of my conversation with him, it was a pleasure to follow him into the past to describe the early synergy between his interests in medicine, physics, Buddhism, and philosophy, the existential questions that drove his intellectual curiosity, the revelation of first reading the writings of Husserl, how he first made contact with Francisco Varela and the congeniality he found there despite apparent disagreement, and the idea of generating a ‘mindful science,’ one which is mindful of its own situated origins. This was only the introduction to Michel’s thinking, and so we hope you’ll tune in again for the following two episodes, in which we’ll dive more deeply into Michel’s work in quantum mechanics and the nature of experience itself.

Francisco J. Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleonor Rosch, The Embodied Mind (MIT Press, 1991 and 2016)

Some key titles by Michel Bitbol:

L'aveuglante proximité du réel, Champs-Flammarion, 1998.

Physique et Philosophie de l'Esprit, Flammarion, 2000.

De l'intérieur du monde. Pour une philosophie et une science des relations, Flammarion, 2010.

La conscience a-t-elle une origine ? : des neurosciences à la pleine conscience : une nouvelle approche de l'esprit, Flammarion, 2014.

Maintenant la finitude. Peut-on penser l'absolu?, Flammarion, 2019.

Philosophie quantique. Le monde est-il extérieur?, Éditions Mimésis, 2023.

Mettre fin aux controverses, Éditions du cerf, 2023.

If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to this podcast, donating to Mind & Life Europe, and becoming an MLE Friend. We would also encourage you to visit our website for upcoming events, as well as our YouTube Channel, where you can find dozens of free talks, dialogues, symposia, and cutting-edge educational materials.

"Slate Tracker" and "Lemon and Melon" by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue).

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.