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Wallace's response is even more curious than his interview. He responds most directly to the most tangential of comments, rather than those from persons most familiar with psychology or Buddhism. He also take the rather odd position of characterizing cognitive science in antiquated terms, while invoking a methodology that has its roots in the same era as those which he criticizes. One of the many ironies is that conciousness is a standard part of ever intro psychology text and is often the issue that draws people into the filed. The methods used to explore conciousness, over time, include experimental hypnosis, psychophysiological measurement, mood induction, use of psychactive substances, various forms of newuroimaging, and many variations on self-report. Introspection, in the Jamesian sense, is limited by situational, and individual differences in self-observation and recall. Only some of these differences can be addressed through some form of training or discipline. Even so, many forms of self-report continue to be used in cognitive science, and in psychology, in particular. Only the most presumptuous and arrogant would assume that any one method of exploring conciousness is the sine qua non of the field.
The exploration of Buddhist mediatation, in particular, has been a part of North American psychology for decades and is an important aspect of psychology in Buddhist countries such as Thailand. This continues to be neglected in Wallace's assertions.
Wallace tries to establish himslef as not speaking for all forms of Buddhism, yet he does not really identify the Buddhist bases for his assertions. The narrowness and lack of scientific sophistication of his resposes is very much at odds with the sense of empricism that is part of Buddhist belief and practice. It also negates the effort to reconcile cosmology and science by persons of other faiths.
The normal response to all of this in a Buddhist tradition would be to return to meditation, in hopes that mindfulness and other aspects of "right conciousness" would enable an underatnding of the bigger picture and the renunciation of worldy desire (and arrogance).
