Have a friend do some neuroscience research and pick a particular multi-part thing that brains do that has been observed via fMRI or other brain scanning methods (example: resolving moral dilemmas like the trolley problem) and that you haven’t read about in that context. When you meditate, specifically try to observe your mind doing that thing; pay particular attention to any specific subsystems you see interacting with each other. Note: This is not ‘meditate on how X might happen’; it’s ‘meditate and try to observe X happening’, which may be too subtle of a distinction for a beginner; try to make sure you can do the latter rather than the former before starting. (If you’re not sure if you can, it’s probably safe to assume you can’t.) When you’re confident you know what’s going on in your mind in that area, check the neuroscience literature and see if it matches.
A possible experimental procedure:
Have a friend do some neuroscience research and pick a particular multi-part thing that brains do that has been observed via fMRI or other brain scanning methods (example: resolving moral dilemmas like the trolley problem) and that you haven’t read about in that context. When you meditate, specifically try to observe your mind doing that thing; pay particular attention to any specific subsystems you see interacting with each other. Note: This is not ‘meditate on how X might happen’; it’s ‘meditate and try to observe X happening’, which may be too subtle of a distinction for a beginner; try to make sure you can do the latter rather than the former before starting. (If you’re not sure if you can, it’s probably safe to assume you can’t.) When you’re confident you know what’s going on in your mind in that area, check the neuroscience literature and see if it matches.