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The Elephant and the Blind: The Experience of Pure Consciousness: Philosophy, Science, and 500+ Experiential Reports
An engaging and insightful journey into human consciousness.
What if our goal had not been to land on Mars, but in pure consciousness? The experience of pure consciousness—what does it look like? What is the essence of human consciousness? In The Elephant and the Blind , influential philosopher Thomas Metzinger, one of the world's leading researchers on consciousness, brings together more than 500 experiential reports to offer the world's first comprehensive account of states of pure consciousness. Drawing on a large psychometric study of meditators in 57 countries, Metzinger focuses on “pure awareness” in meditation—the simplest form of experience there is—to illuminate the most fundamental aspects of how consciousness, the brain, and illusions of self all interact.
Starting with an exploration of existential ease and ending on Bewusstseinskultur , a culture of consciousness, Metzinger explores the increasingly non-egoic experiences of silence, wakefulness, and clarity, of bodiless body-experience, ego-dissolution, and nondual awareness. From there, he assembles a big picture—the elephant in the parable, from which the book’s title comes—of what it would take to arrive at a minimal model explanation for conscious experience and create a genuine culture of consciousness. Freeing pure awareness from new-age gurus and old religions, The Elephant and the Blind combines personal reports of pure consciousness with incisive analysis to address the whole consciousness community, from neuroscientists to artists, and its accessibility echoes the author’s career-long commitment to widening access to philosophy itself.
What if our goal had not been to land on Mars, but in pure consciousness? The experience of pure consciousness—what does it look like? What is the essence of human consciousness? In The Elephant and the Blind , influential philosopher Thomas Metzinger, one of the world's leading researchers on consciousness, brings together more than 500 experiential reports to offer the world's first comprehensive account of states of pure consciousness. Drawing on a large psychometric study of meditators in 57 countries, Metzinger focuses on “pure awareness” in meditation—the simplest form of experience there is—to illuminate the most fundamental aspects of how consciousness, the brain, and illusions of self all interact.
Starting with an exploration of existential ease and ending on Bewusstseinskultur , a culture of consciousness, Metzinger explores the increasingly non-egoic experiences of silence, wakefulness, and clarity, of bodiless body-experience, ego-dissolution, and nondual awareness. From there, he assembles a big picture—the elephant in the parable, from which the book’s title comes—of what it would take to arrive at a minimal model explanation for conscious experience and create a genuine culture of consciousness. Freeing pure awareness from new-age gurus and old religions, The Elephant and the Blind combines personal reports of pure consciousness with incisive analysis to address the whole consciousness community, from neuroscientists to artists, and its accessibility echoes the author’s career-long commitment to widening access to philosophy itself.
648 pages, Paperback
Published February 6, 2024
42 people are currently reading
573 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Metzinger
33 books258 followersThomas Metzinger is a German philosopher. He currently holds the position of director of the theoretical philosophy group at the department of philosophy at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz and is an Adjunct Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies.
He has been active since the early 1990s in the promotion of consciousness studies as an academic endeavor.
In 2003 he published the monograph Being No One. In this book he argues that no such things as selves exist in the world: nobody ever had or was a self. All that exists are phenomenal selves, as they appear in conscious experience. He argues that the phenomenal self, however, is not a thing but an ongoing process; it is the content of a "transparent self-model."
Metzinger is praised for his grasp of the fundamental issues of neurobiology, consciousness and the relationship of mind and body. However, his views about the self are the subject of considerable controversy and ongoing debates.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
He has been active since the early 1990s in the promotion of consciousness studies as an academic endeavor.
In 2003 he published the monograph Being No One. In this book he argues that no such things as selves exist in the world: nobody ever had or was a self. All that exists are phenomenal selves, as they appear in conscious experience. He argues that the phenomenal self, however, is not a thing but an ongoing process; it is the content of a "transparent self-model."
Metzinger is praised for his grasp of the fundamental issues of neurobiology, consciousness and the relationship of mind and body. However, his views about the self are the subject of considerable controversy and ongoing debates.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
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August 4, 2025
NOTE: I am 100% going to reread the is beast, and as I do. I will be reworking this review. But in the meantime. Blessed bear with me while it’s in progress.
Metzinger is a BEAST.
This is (to date) his most complete book (IMO).
And.
It’s a pretty hard book to review.
And I’m working on it.
Thomas Metzinger’s newest installment on his (destined to be canonical) work in the interdisciplinary field of consciousness studies. More specifically in the areas of phenomenonoly of consciousness and self identity.
These are incredibly difficult subjects.
Metzinger makes it look (relatively) easy.
And (kinda/sorta) accessible (if you’re willing to work for it (just a little).
FROM HERE DOWN IT A COMBINATION OF MY READING NOTE AND A BUNCH OF A.I. TRASH. I WILL BE CLEANING IT UP (OR RATHER MAKING IT REAL) OVER TIME.
WORK IN PROGRESS:
This text explores the phenomenon of pure consciousness—a state often described as contentless, non-conceptual, and selfless. Metzinger collected on over 500 first-person reports for qualitative thematic analysis. Metzinger interweaves and supports the qualitative data with his INCREDIBLY ASTUTE and IMO INCREASINGLY SATISFYING brand of interdisciplinary (PHILOSOPHY/NEUROSCIENCE/PSYCHOLOGY) analysis. Additionally. Metzinger is a highly accomplished meditator. And his personal meditation experiences are implicitly evident all over the text.
The following are some of the big concepts Metzinger works with throughout the text. If you’re familiar with Metzinger’s other works. You may recognize some/most of these.
MINIMAL PHENOMENOLOGICAL EXPERIENCES (MPE):
Metzinger defines MPE as an essential/fundamentally bare state of consciousness, typified by non-conceptual, non-dual, contentless awareness. Basically awareness of awareness its self, without any (or at least with only a minimum) of “content” e.g. thoughts, feelings, ego, etc.
MPE’s are basically what Buddhists might call bare awareness, or wakefulness, largely (if not entirely) devoid of thought, emotion, or narrative self sense.
MPE’s are sometimes reached through deep meditation, psychedelics, or spontaneously while out fucking around.
MPE’s are the fundamental subject of the book. With the (500+) survey participants answering various questions intended to probe, define and describe MPE from a subjective first person perspective (which is at present the only option).
Phenomenological Unit of Identification:
This term refers to what the “I” identifies with in any given moment: It can be the ego, the narrative self, or even pure awareness itself. Metzinger encourages a move toward de-identifying with egoic content and recognizing the empty, aware space as the more fundamental locus of identity.
Naïve Realism:
Naïve (conventional) realism is the default assumption that we perceive reality as it is. Metzinger asserts that consciousness presents a virtual reality model, shaped by evolutionary pressures and cognitive constraints. Our sense of “being in direct contact” with the world is a phenomenological illusion.
Transparent Self Model (TSM):
The TSM refers to the brain’s simulation of self, which becomes transparent—we don’t see it as a model but take it as reality. This is a key part of Metzinger’s earlier “Ego Tunnel” theory: the illusion of selfhood arises from the brain’s inability to recognize its own modeling processes.
Consciousness as Epistemic Space (ES):
Metzinger reconceptualizes consciousness as an Epistemic Space (ES)—a dynamic, flexible, and bounded “space” in which knowledge, perception, and meaning arise. The ego is not a fixed entity, but rather a contraction of this space into what he calls the:
Epistemic Agent Model (EAM): The sense of being a knower or controller—a constructed “self” localized in the ES.
Model of Epistemic Openness (MEO):
The MEO represents a non-dual, silent, timeless field of awareness—a state where the epistemic subject collapses, and what remains is open, receptive, and unbounded. This is aligned with classical descriptions of non-dual realization: phenomena arise and fall within it, but it itself remains untouched.
The Zero-Person Perspective:
Unlike the first-person (self-centered) perspective, the Zero-Person Perspective refers to pure awareness without subject-object structure. Metzinger suggests that what we call “meditation” might not be about building complex states but rather about noticing the already-present MPE and gently releasing the habitual contraction into egoic selfhood.
Experience vs. Realization:
Metzinger draws on contemplative traditions to distinguish between:
Experience: Dualistic, subject-object based perception, even if highly refined (e.g., bliss, clarity, emptiness).
Realization: Non-dual understanding, where experiencer and experience dissolve—no meditator, no object of meditation, only the seamless field of awareness.
He quotes sources that illustrate this:
“If experiences are experienced in a dualistic way… it is experience. If the mind itself appears as their essence, it is realization.”
The E-Fallacy (Epistemic Fallacy): Mistaking phenomenological insight (e.g., “pure awareness” or “unity”) as a direct revelation of metaphysical reality. People wrongly assume that certain experiences reveal ultimate truths, when they may just reflect altered neural dynamics.
The C-Fallacy (Conceptual Fallacy): Projecting familiar conceptual structures (like “self,” “time,” or “God”) onto non-conceptual experiences. This fallacy traps us into mislabeling or mythologizing ineffable states.
Culture of Consciousness (CoC):
Metzinger proposes the development of a Culture of Consciousness (CoC)—an ethical and epistemic framework aimed at fostering collective and individual responsibility for how we relate to consciousness:
1: Ethical Stance Toward Mental States: Individuals should adopt an ethical relationship with their own states of consciousness, recognizing that some states can be harmful (e.g., delusion, hatred), while others may be beneficial (e.g., clarity, compassion).
2: Systematic Cultivation of Valuable States: Through practices like meditation and mindfulness, we can systematically cultivate states that are epistemically and ethically positive.
3: Rational, Evidence-Based Enculturation: Rather than relying on superstition or dogma, a mature culture of consciousness requires rational and scientific inquiry to embed beneficial states into society and culture responsibly.
This raises a provocative possibility: the first-person perspective may function as a veil, obscuring the zero-person perspective like a “virtual blindfold”—the Ego Tunnel through which reality is filtered.
In sum:
Metzinger challenges us to move beyond mystical essentialism, develop a post-metaphysical spirituality, and build a culture of consciousness grounded in compassion, clarity, and epistemic humility.
GREAT STUFF DUDE!!!!
5/5 ⭐️🙏🕉️💕⭐️
Metzinger is a BEAST.
This is (to date) his most complete book (IMO).
And.
It’s a pretty hard book to review.
And I’m working on it.
Thomas Metzinger’s newest installment on his (destined to be canonical) work in the interdisciplinary field of consciousness studies. More specifically in the areas of phenomenonoly of consciousness and self identity.
These are incredibly difficult subjects.
Metzinger makes it look (relatively) easy.
And (kinda/sorta) accessible (if you’re willing to work for it (just a little).
FROM HERE DOWN IT A COMBINATION OF MY READING NOTE AND A BUNCH OF A.I. TRASH. I WILL BE CLEANING IT UP (OR RATHER MAKING IT REAL) OVER TIME.
WORK IN PROGRESS:
This text explores the phenomenon of pure consciousness—a state often described as contentless, non-conceptual, and selfless. Metzinger collected on over 500 first-person reports for qualitative thematic analysis. Metzinger interweaves and supports the qualitative data with his INCREDIBLY ASTUTE and IMO INCREASINGLY SATISFYING brand of interdisciplinary (PHILOSOPHY/NEUROSCIENCE/PSYCHOLOGY) analysis. Additionally. Metzinger is a highly accomplished meditator. And his personal meditation experiences are implicitly evident all over the text.
The following are some of the big concepts Metzinger works with throughout the text. If you’re familiar with Metzinger’s other works. You may recognize some/most of these.
MINIMAL PHENOMENOLOGICAL EXPERIENCES (MPE):
Metzinger defines MPE as an essential/fundamentally bare state of consciousness, typified by non-conceptual, non-dual, contentless awareness. Basically awareness of awareness its self, without any (or at least with only a minimum) of “content” e.g. thoughts, feelings, ego, etc.
MPE’s are basically what Buddhists might call bare awareness, or wakefulness, largely (if not entirely) devoid of thought, emotion, or narrative self sense.
MPE’s are sometimes reached through deep meditation, psychedelics, or spontaneously while out fucking around.
MPE’s are the fundamental subject of the book. With the (500+) survey participants answering various questions intended to probe, define and describe MPE from a subjective first person perspective (which is at present the only option).
Phenomenological Unit of Identification:
This term refers to what the “I” identifies with in any given moment: It can be the ego, the narrative self, or even pure awareness itself. Metzinger encourages a move toward de-identifying with egoic content and recognizing the empty, aware space as the more fundamental locus of identity.
Naïve Realism:
Naïve (conventional) realism is the default assumption that we perceive reality as it is. Metzinger asserts that consciousness presents a virtual reality model, shaped by evolutionary pressures and cognitive constraints. Our sense of “being in direct contact” with the world is a phenomenological illusion.
Transparent Self Model (TSM):
The TSM refers to the brain’s simulation of self, which becomes transparent—we don’t see it as a model but take it as reality. This is a key part of Metzinger’s earlier “Ego Tunnel” theory: the illusion of selfhood arises from the brain’s inability to recognize its own modeling processes.
Consciousness as Epistemic Space (ES):
Metzinger reconceptualizes consciousness as an Epistemic Space (ES)—a dynamic, flexible, and bounded “space” in which knowledge, perception, and meaning arise. The ego is not a fixed entity, but rather a contraction of this space into what he calls the:
Epistemic Agent Model (EAM): The sense of being a knower or controller—a constructed “self” localized in the ES.
Model of Epistemic Openness (MEO):
The MEO represents a non-dual, silent, timeless field of awareness—a state where the epistemic subject collapses, and what remains is open, receptive, and unbounded. This is aligned with classical descriptions of non-dual realization: phenomena arise and fall within it, but it itself remains untouched.
The Zero-Person Perspective:
Unlike the first-person (self-centered) perspective, the Zero-Person Perspective refers to pure awareness without subject-object structure. Metzinger suggests that what we call “meditation” might not be about building complex states but rather about noticing the already-present MPE and gently releasing the habitual contraction into egoic selfhood.
Experience vs. Realization:
Metzinger draws on contemplative traditions to distinguish between:
Experience: Dualistic, subject-object based perception, even if highly refined (e.g., bliss, clarity, emptiness).
Realization: Non-dual understanding, where experiencer and experience dissolve—no meditator, no object of meditation, only the seamless field of awareness.
He quotes sources that illustrate this:
“If experiences are experienced in a dualistic way… it is experience. If the mind itself appears as their essence, it is realization.”
The E-Fallacy (Epistemic Fallacy): Mistaking phenomenological insight (e.g., “pure awareness” or “unity”) as a direct revelation of metaphysical reality. People wrongly assume that certain experiences reveal ultimate truths, when they may just reflect altered neural dynamics.
The C-Fallacy (Conceptual Fallacy): Projecting familiar conceptual structures (like “self,” “time,” or “God”) onto non-conceptual experiences. This fallacy traps us into mislabeling or mythologizing ineffable states.
Culture of Consciousness (CoC):
Metzinger proposes the development of a Culture of Consciousness (CoC)—an ethical and epistemic framework aimed at fostering collective and individual responsibility for how we relate to consciousness:
1: Ethical Stance Toward Mental States: Individuals should adopt an ethical relationship with their own states of consciousness, recognizing that some states can be harmful (e.g., delusion, hatred), while others may be beneficial (e.g., clarity, compassion).
2: Systematic Cultivation of Valuable States: Through practices like meditation and mindfulness, we can systematically cultivate states that are epistemically and ethically positive.
3: Rational, Evidence-Based Enculturation: Rather than relying on superstition or dogma, a mature culture of consciousness requires rational and scientific inquiry to embed beneficial states into society and culture responsibly.
This raises a provocative possibility: the first-person perspective may function as a veil, obscuring the zero-person perspective like a “virtual blindfold”—the Ego Tunnel through which reality is filtered.
In sum:
Metzinger challenges us to move beyond mystical essentialism, develop a post-metaphysical spirituality, and build a culture of consciousness grounded in compassion, clarity, and epistemic humility.
GREAT STUFF DUDE!!!!
5/5 ⭐️🙏🕉️💕⭐️
February 20, 2025
Durch alle Wesen reicht der eine Raum:
Weltinnenraum. Die Vögel fliegen still
durch uns hindurch. O, der ich wachsen will,
ich seh hinaus, und in mir wächst der Baum.
[Rainer Maria Rilke, 1914]
Seit mehreren tausend Jahren versucht der Mensch das Geheimnis zu ergründen, wie die Welt in unseren Geist kommt. Schon Siddhartha Gautama, Pyrrhon von Elis oder Meister Eckehart - um nur drei zu nennen - suchten systematisch danach und fanden Erleuchtung, ἀταραξία oder den Seelengrund. Oder wie Rilke eben den Weltinnenraum. Die Naturwissenschaft überließ dieses Thema lange den Philosophen, es schien in seiner Subjektivität fast anrüchig und entzog sich jeder wissenschaftlichen Erfassbarkeit, was sich ab den 1990er Jahren aber radikal änderte.
Trotzdem ist es bis heute nicht ansatzweise gelungen, das in unserem Innenraum so selbstverständlich scheinende Phänomen ansatzweise zu erklären, trotz intensiver, interdisziplinärer Bemühungen und zahlreicher interessanter Theorien. Ein Standardmodell wie in der Teilchenphysik, bei dem die Übereinstimmung zwischen Theorie und Experiment immer besser wird, fehlt in der Bewusstseinsforschung völlig.
Mit seinem MPE-Projekt will der deutsche Philosoph und Kognitionswissenschaftler Thomas Metzinger das Problem neu angehen. Warum sollte man nicht die Erfahrungen auswerten, die Buddhisten oder mittelalterliche Mystiker genauso wie moderne Menschen in Form verschiedener Meditationspraktiken erlebt und geübt haben. Er leistet damit nicht nur einen wesentlichen Forschungsbeitrag, er holt damit auch die Meditation aus dem Dunst esoterischer Heilsversprechen und Selbsttäuschung oder der neuerdings angesagten neoliberalen Selbstoptimierung à la McMindfullness.
MPE steht für Minimal Phenomenal Experience. Was ist die minimalste phänomenale Erfahrung - das reine Bewusstsein? Könnte sich das Bewusstsein zB. nur seiner selbst bewusst sein und sonst nichts, keine Sinneseindrücke, keine Gedanken, keine Empfindungen, ja nicht einmal ein epistemisches Selbstmodell, wie Metzinger das nennt? Die Erste-Person-Perspektive oder das Selbstbewusstsein, aber auch Zeit- und Raumempfinden scheinen bereits "Zusatzfeatures" des Bewusstseins zu sein und wären für ein Minimalmodell schon unnötig.
Dazu hat das Team um Metzinger eine psychometrische Studie durchgeführt und einigen Hundert Praktizierenden auf der ganzen Welt einen umfangreichen Fragebogen vorgelegt, mit der Zusatzoption, eigene "minimale phänomenale Erfahrungen" in einem freien Text zu beschreiben. Die umfangreiche Diskussion der äußerst spannenden Ergebnisse liegt in diesem Buch vor, wobei Metzinger betont, dass es sich um eine erste Diskussionsanregung handelt, die das Feld absteckt, Fragen formuliert, aber noch keine Antworten gibt. In 34 Kapiteln zitiert er Hunderte Erfahrungsberichte und analysiert die verschiedensten Aspekte der MPE, um sich dieser Schritt für Schritt anzunähern.
Als notorischer Skeptiker hat mir die Gewissenhaftigkeit gefallen, mit der Metzinger mögliche Fallstricke und voreilige Schlüsse vermeidet. Immer wieder weist er auf die sogenannte Theoriekontamination hin: Bei der Schwierigkeit, solche Erfahrungen wie Leerheit, Non-Dualität oder Nullte-Person-Perspektive in Worte zu fassen, wird natürlich auf angelernte oder kulturell/religiös bedingte verbale Muster zurückgegriffen, die auf ihren rein phänomenologischen Kern reduziert werden müssen. Es ist ihm auch wichtig, Begrifflichkeit, Phänomenologie und Metaphysik immer strengstens auseinanderzuhalten.
Das Buch ist umfangreich und äußerst interessant, was die Erfahrungsberichte betrifft, in seinen philosophischen Analysen anspruchsvoll und nicht immer ganz einfach. Entsprechend lange hat es gedauert und einige Schlüsselkapitel sollte ich wohl noch einmal durchschauen. Es hat mich jedenfalls sehr fasziniert und bereichert (so wie es wahrscheinlich alle bereichern wird, die ebenfalls eine Form der Meditation praktizieren). Aber auch wer sich nur für die Erforschung des Bewusstseins oder einfach für die Philosophie des Geistes interessiert, wird hier viele erstaunliche und überraschende Gedanken und Anregungen finden.
Das MPE-Projekt ist erst der Anfang und soll weitergeführt werden. Vielleicht ist es eines Tages möglich, ein mathematisches Modell des Minimalbewusstseins zu formulieren. Weitere Details und die Möglichkeit, an einer weiteren Befragung teilzunehmen (auch für nicht Meditierende!) findet man auf der Projektwebsite https://mpe-project.info/de/.
Weltinnenraum. Die Vögel fliegen still
durch uns hindurch. O, der ich wachsen will,
ich seh hinaus, und in mir wächst der Baum.
[Rainer Maria Rilke, 1914]
Seit mehreren tausend Jahren versucht der Mensch das Geheimnis zu ergründen, wie die Welt in unseren Geist kommt. Schon Siddhartha Gautama, Pyrrhon von Elis oder Meister Eckehart - um nur drei zu nennen - suchten systematisch danach und fanden Erleuchtung, ἀταραξία oder den Seelengrund. Oder wie Rilke eben den Weltinnenraum. Die Naturwissenschaft überließ dieses Thema lange den Philosophen, es schien in seiner Subjektivität fast anrüchig und entzog sich jeder wissenschaftlichen Erfassbarkeit, was sich ab den 1990er Jahren aber radikal änderte.
Trotzdem ist es bis heute nicht ansatzweise gelungen, das in unserem Innenraum so selbstverständlich scheinende Phänomen ansatzweise zu erklären, trotz intensiver, interdisziplinärer Bemühungen und zahlreicher interessanter Theorien. Ein Standardmodell wie in der Teilchenphysik, bei dem die Übereinstimmung zwischen Theorie und Experiment immer besser wird, fehlt in der Bewusstseinsforschung völlig.
Mit seinem MPE-Projekt will der deutsche Philosoph und Kognitionswissenschaftler Thomas Metzinger das Problem neu angehen. Warum sollte man nicht die Erfahrungen auswerten, die Buddhisten oder mittelalterliche Mystiker genauso wie moderne Menschen in Form verschiedener Meditationspraktiken erlebt und geübt haben. Er leistet damit nicht nur einen wesentlichen Forschungsbeitrag, er holt damit auch die Meditation aus dem Dunst esoterischer Heilsversprechen und Selbsttäuschung oder der neuerdings angesagten neoliberalen Selbstoptimierung à la McMindfullness.
MPE steht für Minimal Phenomenal Experience. Was ist die minimalste phänomenale Erfahrung - das reine Bewusstsein? Könnte sich das Bewusstsein zB. nur seiner selbst bewusst sein und sonst nichts, keine Sinneseindrücke, keine Gedanken, keine Empfindungen, ja nicht einmal ein epistemisches Selbstmodell, wie Metzinger das nennt? Die Erste-Person-Perspektive oder das Selbstbewusstsein, aber auch Zeit- und Raumempfinden scheinen bereits "Zusatzfeatures" des Bewusstseins zu sein und wären für ein Minimalmodell schon unnötig.
Dazu hat das Team um Metzinger eine psychometrische Studie durchgeführt und einigen Hundert Praktizierenden auf der ganzen Welt einen umfangreichen Fragebogen vorgelegt, mit der Zusatzoption, eigene "minimale phänomenale Erfahrungen" in einem freien Text zu beschreiben. Die umfangreiche Diskussion der äußerst spannenden Ergebnisse liegt in diesem Buch vor, wobei Metzinger betont, dass es sich um eine erste Diskussionsanregung handelt, die das Feld absteckt, Fragen formuliert, aber noch keine Antworten gibt. In 34 Kapiteln zitiert er Hunderte Erfahrungsberichte und analysiert die verschiedensten Aspekte der MPE, um sich dieser Schritt für Schritt anzunähern.
Als notorischer Skeptiker hat mir die Gewissenhaftigkeit gefallen, mit der Metzinger mögliche Fallstricke und voreilige Schlüsse vermeidet. Immer wieder weist er auf die sogenannte Theoriekontamination hin: Bei der Schwierigkeit, solche Erfahrungen wie Leerheit, Non-Dualität oder Nullte-Person-Perspektive in Worte zu fassen, wird natürlich auf angelernte oder kulturell/religiös bedingte verbale Muster zurückgegriffen, die auf ihren rein phänomenologischen Kern reduziert werden müssen. Es ist ihm auch wichtig, Begrifflichkeit, Phänomenologie und Metaphysik immer strengstens auseinanderzuhalten.
Das Buch ist umfangreich und äußerst interessant, was die Erfahrungsberichte betrifft, in seinen philosophischen Analysen anspruchsvoll und nicht immer ganz einfach. Entsprechend lange hat es gedauert und einige Schlüsselkapitel sollte ich wohl noch einmal durchschauen. Es hat mich jedenfalls sehr fasziniert und bereichert (so wie es wahrscheinlich alle bereichern wird, die ebenfalls eine Form der Meditation praktizieren). Aber auch wer sich nur für die Erforschung des Bewusstseins oder einfach für die Philosophie des Geistes interessiert, wird hier viele erstaunliche und überraschende Gedanken und Anregungen finden.
Das MPE-Projekt ist erst der Anfang und soll weitergeführt werden. Vielleicht ist es eines Tages möglich, ein mathematisches Modell des Minimalbewusstseins zu formulieren. Weitere Details und die Möglichkeit, an einer weiteren Befragung teilzunehmen (auch für nicht Meditierende!) findet man auf der Projektwebsite https://mpe-project.info/de/.
February 12, 2025
If you're interested, I write more about awareness and mystical experience here!
About a year ago, the concept of being aware of awareness started appearing more frequently in my reading about meditation. At first, it felt so abstract. I couldn't identify anything particularly special about awareness that seemed worth being aware of. But as I delved deeper into Zen, Tibetan Buddhism, and even contemporary neuroscience, I kept encountering the idea that awareness—what Metzinger here uses interchangeably with consciousness—is not just another phenomenon but something unique.
This book is a study—or rather, a synthesis—of reports from people who have experienced pure awareness, pure consciousness, or what Metzinger calls minimal phenomenological experience. It's not just an exploration of mysticism, though mysticism is at its heart. Understanding consciousness in its purest form helps us better study and theorize about it in its more complex or conditioned states. One of the challenges of studying mystical experiences is that practitioners are often reluctant to talk about them—for many reasons, the most understandable being that these experiences, being nonconceptual, are inherently ineffable. They resist language. But Metzinger is undeterred. He gathers reports from some 1,500 people who have experienced pure consciousness, and the commonalities among them are striking.
Even just reading the table of contents is a low-grade religious experience. It's structured as a kind of ranked list of qualities people report in these states. The first five: relaxation, peace, silence, wakefulness, and clarity. It gets trippier from there, but those five alone help me hone in on where I'm trying to go in my own practice.
As I read, I kept seeing images—especially water and glass. I think both convey the clarity and pristine quality of a pure consciousness experience. The aquatic metaphors, in particular, capture its embodied, boundless, and honestly quite inviting nature. Here's one quote from the very first page of the relaxation section:
The non-conceptual awareness of awareness itself is something one can relax into or onto the surface of by gradually letting go, gently dissolving all residual tensions in body and mind.
That single instruction—relaxing into a pool—has been invaluable to my own practice. I think of awareness as a substance-less substance (yes, you'll hear paradoxes like that all the time in this book) that permeates my perception, something I can drop selfhood into and sink into at any moment.
If you don't meditate, you'll probably think I'm crazy. That's fair. If you do, you'll probably just nod and smile.
All in all, this is a truly transcendent book, one I know I'll return to year after year. Metzinger has said it's his last, and it really does feel like his parting gift—not just to philosophy, neuroscience, or cognitive science, but to the world at large. He explicitly addresses the introduction to artists, creatives, and poets—not the usual mystics or philosophers, but those who can take his words, find the experience they point to, and express it in their own way. I'm so incredibly grateful for that.
This is my offering.
August 31, 2024
A long, dense read, which was at times fascinating, and at others incredibly hard work.
Metzinger takes on one of the most intriguing and least understood concepts in current philosophy of mind and neuroscience - the nebulous debate around consciousness - from a novel angle: researching the most basic, simple forms of consciousness we know. These are termed 'Minimal Phenomenal Experiences' (MPEs), and his large-scale phenomenological study examines these experiences through long-term meditation practitioners.
The goal is bold, the approach is unique, and the questions raised are profound. Rather than trying to model consciousness in a top-down, computational method, or proceeding with speculative philosophy, he chooses to examine MPEs and their qualitative properties in order to create a groundwork for understanding what basic forms of consciousness feel like. The book is split up into 34 chapters, each examining a specific quality of 'pure awareness', by looking at experiential reports from meditators, and then examining some of the theoretical ideas behind each quality. These chapters range across disciplines - from ancient traditional texts across various spiritual/meditation lineages to cutting-edge lab findings, from Descartes to Nagel, from phenomenology to computational modelling.
The qualities being explored start off relatively easy to conceptualize: e.g. Silence, Clarity, Joy, Peace, Wakefulness, Presence. However, they become more complex and, at times, mystifying, later in the book: Nonduality, Virtuality, the seemingly paradoxical 'Timeless Change', as well as some more arcane descriptions ('Pure Awareness Knows Itself', for example).
This episodic structure perhaps means the book is best read in chunks, to be digested individually, before moving on. In fact, one of Metzinger's metaphors is that he is serving up starters and desserts, while leaving the reader to supply their own main course. Some of these chunks - he freely admits - are harder to swallow than others, and there were whole sections which I found impenetrable, or examples of protracted and painful circular reasoning about something ineffable. This is why the whole felt a lot less satisfying than the parts - long, intellectually honest attempts to put concepts into words which, by their nature, resist adequate description.
However, the food for thought on offer here is vast, even if the average reader will come away feeling a mixture of baffled but inspired (I hope). Thoughts about how we create consciousness, whether these MPEs are special cases or represent the background hum of the mind, and the ways in which these reports might help structure a new, bottom-up theory of mind/consciousness - all these are thrilling ventures into the giddy heights of the frontiers of what we know about how it is to be conscious.
It's definitely not a book to be taken on lightly, expecting answers. Instead, it's a series of deeply thought-through sketches of the phenomenology of consciousness in as basic/pure a state as we are perhaps capable of experiencing. These sketches exhilarate and frustrate in equal measure, however.
Metzinger takes on one of the most intriguing and least understood concepts in current philosophy of mind and neuroscience - the nebulous debate around consciousness - from a novel angle: researching the most basic, simple forms of consciousness we know. These are termed 'Minimal Phenomenal Experiences' (MPEs), and his large-scale phenomenological study examines these experiences through long-term meditation practitioners.
The goal is bold, the approach is unique, and the questions raised are profound. Rather than trying to model consciousness in a top-down, computational method, or proceeding with speculative philosophy, he chooses to examine MPEs and their qualitative properties in order to create a groundwork for understanding what basic forms of consciousness feel like. The book is split up into 34 chapters, each examining a specific quality of 'pure awareness', by looking at experiential reports from meditators, and then examining some of the theoretical ideas behind each quality. These chapters range across disciplines - from ancient traditional texts across various spiritual/meditation lineages to cutting-edge lab findings, from Descartes to Nagel, from phenomenology to computational modelling.
The qualities being explored start off relatively easy to conceptualize: e.g. Silence, Clarity, Joy, Peace, Wakefulness, Presence. However, they become more complex and, at times, mystifying, later in the book: Nonduality, Virtuality, the seemingly paradoxical 'Timeless Change', as well as some more arcane descriptions ('Pure Awareness Knows Itself', for example).
This episodic structure perhaps means the book is best read in chunks, to be digested individually, before moving on. In fact, one of Metzinger's metaphors is that he is serving up starters and desserts, while leaving the reader to supply their own main course. Some of these chunks - he freely admits - are harder to swallow than others, and there were whole sections which I found impenetrable, or examples of protracted and painful circular reasoning about something ineffable. This is why the whole felt a lot less satisfying than the parts - long, intellectually honest attempts to put concepts into words which, by their nature, resist adequate description.
However, the food for thought on offer here is vast, even if the average reader will come away feeling a mixture of baffled but inspired (I hope). Thoughts about how we create consciousness, whether these MPEs are special cases or represent the background hum of the mind, and the ways in which these reports might help structure a new, bottom-up theory of mind/consciousness - all these are thrilling ventures into the giddy heights of the frontiers of what we know about how it is to be conscious.
It's definitely not a book to be taken on lightly, expecting answers. Instead, it's a series of deeply thought-through sketches of the phenomenology of consciousness in as basic/pure a state as we are perhaps capable of experiencing. These sketches exhilarate and frustrate in equal measure, however.
November 15, 2025
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