Abstract
I discuss the mental–attentional mechanisms of consciousness, meditation, and the emergence of wisdom. A developmental (neoPiagetian), dynamic flash-light model of mental attention is used. I model the initial stages of consciousness in infancy, showing that the growth of consciousness is influenced by the number of schemes that attention can coordinate. I discuss ordinary consciousness in adults and the stages/levels of adult development in consciousness. Wisdom is defined as an expectable but often missed outcome of adult development. To accelerate access to wisdom, two complementary paths are mentioned: a natural life-experience path and a meditation path. Maturational organismic factors and the role of mental attentional mechanisms in these two paths are discussed, and a constructivist neuropsychological model of what happens in the brain during meditation, and in higher consciousness, is sketched. Processes involved in higher stages of consciousness are then examined from this perspective.
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Pascual-Leone, J. Mental Attention, Consciousness, and the Progressive Emergence of Wisdom. Journal of Adult Development 7, 241–254 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009563428260
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009563428260