QC

Then you can start to think about alternatives. There’s lots of appealing starting points, but so far none of them have led to a generative research program that can regularly crank out concrete substantive results. No “normal science” yet; it’s “pre-paradigm” in Kuhn’s terms.

Somewhat relatedly: I find Culadasa’s appeals to cognitive science and/or neuroscience unconvincing and potentially misleading. Very short on details/footnotes; it seems to be a vague rehash of mainly 1980s-era stuff that has been discredited for decades.

What do you have in mind in particular?

Well… a proper analysis would be a long post and would be interpreted as a nasty attack on a nice person. But, for example, >

Is it particularly the case that critique is taken personally in the Buddhist world? I haven’t encountered that concern so prominently until these discussions.

Seems to me that here more than anywhere critique should be welcomed. After all, people base their whole lives on these practices, as far as I can tell.

I think it’s true (that critique is taken as personally offensive/insulting) by Buddhist practitioners/teachers. Most don’t have an academic background. Academia at its best does teach rigorous argument and clear thinking in a way that is difficult to pick up elsewhere. >