From: Shinzen Young
The Science You Can Only See When You Transform Internally.
"What Charlie [Tart] did, and no one listened, but now maybe they will—Charlie said that science itself is state specific."
"Your ability to do causal, deductive reasoning is impacted by resource availability. If you're sleep deprived, if you're in pain, if it's too hot for too long or too cold for too long or you don't have food or water—your ability to strategize your way out of that situation starts to be compromised by your state."
"You're not going to be able to reason well if you're unfulfilled and suffering due to your present sensory state."
Charles Tart (a consciousness researcher Shinzen knew) made a radical claim: science isn't "objective" in the sense of being independent of the scientist's state of consciousness.
If you're exhausted, hungry, or in pain, you can't think well. Your science will be worse.
Different states of consciousness might give access to different kinds of knowledge. What you can discover depends on the state you're in.
He's building the argument for why contemplative training matters for everyone, including scientists.
Scientists who dismiss meditation as "woo" might be cutting themselves off from valid knowledge that's only accessible from states they've never trained. And conversely, meditators who can't reason carefully are only getting half the picture. Both need both.