J Adam G:
If someone said "Enlightened people will have this pattern of activity in their brain that ordinary people don't," it would certainly be a flawed model of enlightenment together with many of the other flawed ones listed in MCTB.
I am happy to have convinced you that brain scans belong on the list, and in a category distinct from the Physical Models, but I would like to distance myself from your reading of the list as an index of
flawed models.
MCTB:
Here is a list of the basic categories of models that I use, though most traditions contain a mix of most or all of these. There are probably other aspects of the dreams of enlightenment that I have failed to address, but this list should cover most of the basic ones. I look at each of these as representing some axis of development, and basically all of them are good axes to work on regardless of what they have to do with enlightenment.
The key point that I like to keep in mind is that enlightenment (and, indeed, more generally human consciousness) is not
reducible to any one factor.
You mentioned overlaps, and I realized that Brain Scans also overlap the Social Model: who gets invited to get scanned obviously has a social dimension. Historically, sociological factors have been unpopular among scientists, who bristle at being described as embedded within and/or devoted to the cult of objectivity, a central dogma of the "religion of science". The more I think about this, the more astounded I am that I missed it at first, seeing as I have a graduate degree in this field!
D'oh...And finally, more interesting work along these lines is emerging all the time. The latest
Buddhist Geeks podcast (
video here) describes observable differences in brain functioning after only 8 weeks of MBSR training, and clearly distinguishes how the experience of pain, for example, is processed very, very differently by beginners vs. experienced meditators. Most (but not all) people who get enlightened are, of course, experienced meditators; but this should be no more surprising than, say, the observation that most people who complete marathons are experienced runners in the context of a discussion of purely physical development.