Researcher • Consultant • Facilitator
ABRE FOURNIER, PhD
INTEGRATIVE SCIENCES OF TRANSFORMATION
Synthesizing Contemporary Cognitive Sciences with Asian Philosophical Traditions for an Enhanced Understanding of Consciousness
CONSULTING SERVICES & FACILITATION
Personal – Collective
I work with clients, meditation practitioners, organizations, providing consultations and guidance toward personal and collective transformation
the interplay between scientific knowledge and the profound dimensions of human insight
PRIVATE CONSULTATION - INDIVIDUALIZED TEACHING & GUIDANCE
Breaking through the predicament of
every living being. Enhancing the view and experience of one's reality.
PRIVATE CONSULTATION - INDIVIDUALIZED TEACHING & GUIDANCE
Breaking through the predicament of
every living being. Enhancing the view and experience of one's reality.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS - CONSULTATIONS - TEACHING - SEMINARS & RETREATS
Engaging in action that brings
beneficial results personally
and collectively.
Please contact me to discuss any participation, collaborations and services.
RECENT EVENTS
Evolving the Self: Cognitive Sciences, the Extended Mind,
and the Noosphere
–Abre Fournier & Brian Swimme
The emerging trend of research in externalist views of the mind accentuates the mind's existence across multiple dimensions. Humans are embodied living organisms, situated across a matrix of environments. Our discussion of human beings as self-organizing dynamical systems brings forth the process of being that refers to the relational brain-body-world dynamics of the mind. Dynamical embodiment extends the realm of the mind beyond mere neurological boundaries, capturing the entirety of an individual's existence—from the intricacies of synaptic networks to broader societal and planetary interconnections.
Philosophically, these views point to a diverse, evolving self or dynamical selfing, argued on the basis of all aspects of self-consciousness being constructed, evolving within the ecosystems of personal relationships that include the intersubjective interactions with the world, a planet of living beings, and things. With this understanding, we suggest we are in the process of constructing a "noospheric self," where noosphere refers to human thought which now envelops the Earth. We assert that this transformation of self-consciousness—from the selves of the modern era developing into dynamical noospheric selves—represents the emergence of a new form of humanity.
Cognitive Sciences of Non-Self –The Self that Strives to go Beyond Itself
– Abre Fournier
Can we as human beings trully understand what it would mean to have a conscious experience without a sense of self? Some researchers insist that such an understanding is beyond us, that experience only happens with an experiencer-self, that it is impossible to imagine what it would be like for a healthy subject to be in a state of consciousness devoid of this kind of self-consciousness. In contrast to those views, I argue that despite the lack of a precise cognitive science account of transformative experiences along the Buddhist path toward non-self insight, it is possible indeed to articulate a model of human self-consciousness that allows us to understand the liberative experience of non-self.
Departing from prevalent, orthodox, cognitivist, brain-based views of the mind, I discuss how we can reframe these theories using an integrated, relational mind-body-world conception. With accounts of 4E+ cognition (e.g., the mind embodied, embedded, ecological, enactive, and extended), I address how we can understand changes in the sense of self and self-consciousness based on mind (re)training. Crucially, with non-self involving the deconditioning of deeply ingrained self-making processes, I argue that the non-self insight can be taken as a further complexification of human consciousness.
https://www.ciis.edu/public-programs
Online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXXEP73Br5Y
Humanity's Transformation from Industrial to Noospheric Selves
– Abre Fournier & Brian Swimme
During the last two centuries, humans had a common understanding concerning self and world. In almost every industrial society they have regarded themselves as separate from the world, a world composed of inert matter. These views are no longer viable. Recent work in the physical and cognitive sciences overturns this common understanding of self and world. The natural sciences narrate a story of self-organizing universe that has complexified into rocky planets such as Earth, which began as a geosphere, evolved over billions of years into a biosphere, and now into a noosphere, a self-organizing Earth composed of networks of sentient beings. Even more recently, the cognitive sciences, especially the theories of dynamical embodiment, have come to the view of the relational brain-body-world as constitutive of human consciousness. As this integral narrative combining physical and cognitive sciences is reaffirmed and adjusted to all around the world, a new self is reified, one we can name a "noospheric self." We assert this transformation of self-consciousness in which the industrial selves are replaced by dynamical noospheric selves is the emergence of a new form of humanity.
On the Nature of Consciousness
– Riccardo Manzotti & Abre Fournier
Both science and philosophy have traditionally conceived of the self as though it were separate from the world. Italian philosopher, psychologist, and AI engineer Riccardo Manzotti asks us to consider consciousness in a radical new way: Our conscious experience is actually one and the same with the external world.
In his Spread Mind Theory, Riccardo asserts that we are the starry sky, the clouds, a rainbow, trees, people, even simple objects such as an apple or a stone. We are not inside our bodies, we are out there, in the world. Perceiving is being.
In this unique conversation, I join Riccardo as he offers an exploration of the nature of consciousness and our everyday life through Spread Mind Theory.
ABOUT ME
I am a scientifically oriented philosopher of consciousness with a focus on mind transformation, bridging the advancements of contemporary cognitive sciences with teachings and practices from Asian philosophy centered on states of awakening. My work synthesizes insights from dynamical systems theory, the extended mind paradigm, and the neuroscience of predictive processing. My research contributes to teaching and learning models for those interested in the human capacity to transform one’s consciousness. I conduct international facilitation and workshops, guiding individuals and groups in the self-evolution of human consciousness. My research has significance for professionals and practitioners engaged in transformative practices, and philosophers and scientists investigating the complexities of human consciousness. I have also been active in the arts with a career in higher education with academic and executive roles at the State University of New York (SUNY). My work as a practicing artist in films and new-media collaborations with musicians and composers has been shown in art museums and galleries, film festivals, and in live concerts in the US and abroad. Originally from France, I currently live in New York.