I'm a newly registered member of LW (long-time lurker) and was thinking of posting about this very topic. Like many in the community, I have a background in science / math / philosophy, but unlike many, I have also spent many years working to understand what Jasen calls the "Buddhist claim" experientially (i.e. through meditation) and being involved with the contemporary traditions that emphasize attaining that understanding. I see myself as an "insider" straddling both communities, well-situated to talk about what Buddhists are going on about regarding "self" and "not-self" and enlightenment in a way that would be highly comprehensible to people who frame the world in a contemporary scientific way.

Specifically, I was considering a three-part series along these lines:

1) Highly abridged history of Buddhist thought concerning "insight" meditation and the insight into "no-self"; overview of contemporary secular traditions focusing on attaining this insight. Risks and benefits of pursuing it.

2) Case study: Have 1500 years of Buddhist tradition yielded a novel testable model of an aspect of human psychological development?

3) How science has dropped the ball concerning research on meditation and "spirituality"; how some communities of meditators have come to know more about meditation than scientists do; some thoughts on why; some thoughts on how this could be changed.

However, I don't want to pre-empt anyone's post (in particular Jasen's, since he mentioned it), and also, I don't know the extent to which this is an interesting topic to LW-ers, or what the community norms are for newly-registered members initiating new posts. So I'd like to get some sense of whether people here would like to see posts on this topic, and in particular, what Jasen thinks about the prospect of me posting.