Meditation, Cessation, Consciousness, and Human Flourishing
Ruben is the director of the Flourishing Intelligence Program (FLIP) at Linacre College, University of Oxford. Ruben is also co-director of the Centre for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing, a Senior Researcher within Oxford’s Department of Psychiatry, and fellow at Linacre College. Ruben has made significant theoretical and empirical contributions to the cognitive neuroscience of consciousness, meditation, and insight. His work also reveals a pathway towards better and safer artificial intelligence based on the science of consciousness and contemplative wisdom. Ruben has an eclectic contemplative background, including Zen, Advaita, and Theravada, and his first-person inquiry into the nature of reality continues to deeply inform his scientific research, and vice versa.
- Website: rubenlaukkonen.com
- Substack
Other popular scientific articles include:
- From many to (n)one: Meditation and the plasticity of the predictive mind
- A beautiful loop: An active inference theory of consciousness
- Contemplative Artificial Intelligence
- Positive Alignment: Artificial Intelligence for Human Flourishing
Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group
Interview recorded June 13, 2026






