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Studstill: Cybernetic Approach to Dzogchen 361“Mysticism in Its Contexts,” in Mysticism and Religious Traditions, ed.Steven T. Katz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 61–88; and“Mysticism and Meditation,” in Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, ed.Steven T. Katz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 170–99. Foran entire anthology of essays critical of the constructivist or contextualistapproach, see Robert K.C. Forman’s, ed., The Problem of Pure Consciousness:Mysticism and Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press,1990). See also Randall Studstill, “Systems Theory and the Unity of MysticalTraditions: A Comparative Analysis of rDzogs-chen and RhinelandMysticism” (Ph.D. diss., Graduate Theological Union, 2002), pp. 48–109.12. Peter Fenner uses a cybernetic approach to interpret Madhyamaka inhis Reasoning into Reality: A System-Cybernetic Model and TherapeuticInterpretation of Buddhist Middle Path Analysis (Sommerville, MA: WisdomPublications, 1995). For in-depth discussions of all these points, aswell as extensive references to the relevant literature, see Studstill, pp. 34–42 and 132–48.13. These definitions are stipulative because at present there is littleconsensus about their meaning. “Consciousness” alone has been construedin many different ways, even within specific disciplines like cognitivescience. See Harry T. Hunt, On the Nature of Consciousness: Cognitive,Phenomenological, and Transpersonal Perspectives (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1995), p. 13ff; Ned Block, Owen Flanagan, andGüven Güzeldere, eds., The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997), pp. 8–9.Among cognitive scientists consciousness is variously described as (1)non-existent, (2) “an incidental by-product of computational capacity”(Hunt, p. 26; see also p. 59), or (3) “a formal system or capacity involvingthe direction, choice, and synthesis of nonconscious processes” (Hunt, p.26). Hunt defines consciousness as (among other things) “a capacity forsensitive attunement to a surround” (Hunt, p. xiii), while for Steven Pinkerthe real problem of consciousness is the fact of immediate sentience orsubjective awareness. Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works (New York:Norton, 1997), p. 135. Echoing Pinker, Allan Combs describes consciousness as“perfect transparent subjectivity” that is (almost) always intentional. AllanCombs, The Radiance of Being: Complexity, Chaos and the Evolution ofConsciousness (Edinburgh, UK: Floris Books, 1995), pp. 19–20. On the claimthat consciousness does not exist, see John R. Searle, The Rediscovery of theMind (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992), pp. 4–5 and 7.Hunt claims that “consciousness is not a ‘mechanism’ to be ‘explained’cognitively or neurophysiologically, but a categorical ‘primitive’ thatdefines the level of analysis that is psychology” (Hunt, p. xiii). I wouldagree, though I consider this statement to apply more properly to awareness.It is sentience-as-such that is the true mystery—as Pinker puts it, “a