Mind & Life XX – Session 2

Filmed during Mind & Life Institute’s “Mind & Life XX: Altruism and Compassion in Economic Systems” on April 9-11, 2010. Altruism: Evolutionary Origins and Modern ExpressionsSPEAKERS:His Holiness the 14th Dalai LamaJoan SilkErnst SehrTania SingerJohn Dunne This session focuses on questions of altruism and egoism as conceived in Buddhist and Western philosophy as well as on …

Mind & Life XX – Session 1

Filmed during Mind & Life Institute’s “Mind & Life XX: Altruism and Compassion in Economic Systems” on April 9-11, 2010.  Compassion, Empathy, Altruism, and Prosocial BehaviorSPEAKERS:His Holiness the 14th Dalai LamaDaniel BatsonTania SingerRichard DavidsonMatthieu Ricard This session includes short presentations summarizing the Buddhist, neuroscientific and psychological views on empathy, compassion and pro-social motivation, and why …

Mind & Life XVIII – Session 5

Filmed during Mind & Life Institute’s “Mind & Life XVIII: Attention, Memory, and Mind” on April 6-10, 2009. Embodiment and Intersubjectivity: Empirical and Phenomenological ApproachesSPEAKER: Shaun Gallagher Two themes that have become prominent in studies of consciousness and cognition: embodiment and intersubjectivity. We will begin by discussing recent work in embodied cognition, informed by both …

Mind & Life XVIII – Session 3

Filmed during Mind & Life Institute’s “Mind & Life XVIII: Attention, Memory, and Mind” on April 6-10, 2009. Mental Processes for Attention and Cognitive Control in Children and AdolescentsSPEAKER: Adele Diamond Attentional control, self-regulation, and inhibitory control are not immutable. They can be improved even in children as young as 4–5 years, in regular classrooms, …

Mind & Life XVIII – Session 2

Filmed during Mind & Life Institute’s “Mind & Life XVIII: Attention, Memory, and Mind” on April 6-10, 2009. Mental Processes Underlying Attention, Visual Perception, and Cognitive ControlSPEAKER: Anne Treisman Attention is a fuzzy concept that we try to capture in a variety of forms to study it in the lab. The main meaning is the …

Mind & Life XVIII – Session 1

Filmed during Mind & Life Institute’s “Mind & Life XVIII: Attention, Memory, and Mind” on April 6-10, 2009. Multi-tasking, Meditation, and Contemplative PracticeSPEAKER: David Meyer The subjective phenomena commonly experienced by novice and intermediate practitioners during Shamatha meditation and other related types of contemplative practice suggest that they may be understood in terms of theoretical …

Mind & Life XIV – Session 4

Filmed during Mind & Life Institute’s “Mind & Life XIV: The Universe in a Single Atom” on April 9-13, 2007. Day Four ConsciousnessSPEAKERS:Wolf SingerRichard DavidsonEvan Thompson Buddhist psychology and philosophy make strong claims about the primary of subjective experience and from this perspective, Buddhist accounts have argued that there are three fundamentally distinct features of …

Mind & Life XIV – Session 3

Filmed during Mind & Life Institute’s “Mind & Life XIV: The Universe in a Single Atom” on April 9-13, 2007. Day Three Evolution, Altruism and the Fundamental Nature of Human EmotionSPEAKERS:Ben ShapiroPaul EkmanRichard DavidsonMatthieu Ricard Is evolution driven by random mutation and natural selection? How can the adaptations of species best be understood? Can basic …

Mind & Life XIV – Session 2

Filmed during Mind & Life Institute’s “Mind & Life XIV: The Universe in a Single Atom” on April 9-13, 2007. Day Two Cosmology and the Relativity of Space and TimeSPEAKERS: George Greenstein, Arthur Zajonc Two related themes emerge from the Dalai Lama’s writings on cosmology:1) The relativity of time and space as developed within both …

Mind & Life XIV – Session 1

Filmed during Mind & Life Institute’s “Mind & Life XIV: The Universe in a Single Atom” on April 9-13, 2007. Day One The Buddhism-Science Collaboration and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge: Exposing the Fracture PointsSPEAKER: Evan Thompson While science has made phenomenal progress in physics, cosmology and neuroscience, the juxtaposition of questions posed by the …