consciousness

What do the strange pain-relieving and healing that can take place under hypnosis tell us about consciousness? Perhaps consciousness is more than just brain activity.

A persistent claim in popular psychedelic discourse holds that congenitally blind and congenitally deaf individuals can see and hear under N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT). The empirical record contradicts it. The only systematic study of psychedelics in totally blind subjects, the only published case report of a congenitally blind user, and the most comprehensive review of blindness and altered stat…

Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) are altered states sometimes accompanied by reports of veridical perception—accurate information seemingly obtained from a vantage point outside the body and ostensibly without conventional sensory input. While case collections and early laboratory studies suggest this possibility, replication under conventional laboratory protocols has been challenging. This articl…

This short version presents the core argument of a dual-aspect account of experience and consciousness centered on systemic relevance. The central claim is that experience is the inner appearance of systemic relevance, and that consciousness is not merely integrated information but integrated relevance. Information marks difference; salience marks attentional prominence; function describes the ro…

Turns out we’re not all watching the same version of the world unfold, just continuously updating our own personal “simulation.”

The Hemispheric Disparity Theory conceptualizes one facet of consciousness, defined as the “conscious-mind” experience. Rather than a unified agent, conscious experience arises from the dynamic interplay between a left hemisphere specialized in order and abstraction through dynamic temporal modeling, and a right hemisphere specialized in contextual integration, coherence, and model updating throu…

The phenomenon of “pure awareness”, central to many contemplative traditions, has recently attracted scientific interest for its relevance to the study of consciousness. In this paper, we investigate pure awareness through the algorithmic agent model, a computational framework with roots in algorithmic information theory. This framework proposes that agents build compressive models of the world, …

_Journal of Consciousness Studies_. forthcomingWe explore and argue for the view that intelligence beyond a certain threshold is negatively correlated with consciousness, so that the more intelligent a system is, the less likely it is to be conscious. “Intelligence is the enemy of consciousness,” as we put it. This view entails that superintelligent AI models are likely to be zombies. After prese…

This paper proposes a new approach to consciousness by grounding it in the phenomenology of the human experience of time. Rather than treating experience as an additional property layered onto information-processing, the phenomenology of the human experience of time (PHET) reconceptualizes consciousness as the dynamic integration of past experience, present circumstances, and anticipated futures …

Problems of consciousness are broadly classified into two: easy and hard. The subjective nature of experience is considered the hard problem of consciousness. Although several theories of consciousness have been proposed, none seem to satisfactorily answer the hard problem. To address this, here I explore the molecular process underlying experience and the biological purpose it serves the entity.…

Recently, the Berggruen Institutes’ Noema Magazine published a duo of articles on the ‘Hard Problem’ of Consciousness that are misleading, or misinformed, on a number of fronts. I point out these problems, and show how a more veridical account of this understanding has developed over the last 158 years, and might better inform the reader. The issues with these articles, that I raise, are not limi…

This paper rejects the mainstream reductionist neuroscientific paradigm that explains human consciousness solely through the quantitative complexity of neural networks. Instead, it proposes a holistic framework termed "Mental Relativity." We argue that billions of independent electrochemical signals from disparate brain lobes superimpose upon the screen of awareness, creating a global information…

Discussions of free will often center on the question of whether actions are determined, with a special focus on causes, effects, and when subjects experience the desire to act relative to neural events. However, because the only evidence for the existence of free will is the subjective experience itself, explanation must center on the phenomenal: why do we feel free? Here, we propose a neuropsyc…

Research shows that consciousness is rooted in living intelligence. The future of our mental health depends on the convergence of two types of intelligence: natural and artificial.

No movement, no speech—but there’s still hope for those with this frightening form of awareness.

Chalmers' "hard problem of consciousness"—why physical processes are accompanied by subjective experience—remains the ultimate challenge in contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science. All traditional theories have failed to solve this problem because they presuppose the false ontological premise that "the physical is qualitative-less and consciousness is qualitative". Based on the Onto…

Altered states of consciousness, including hallucinations, psychedelic experiences, and ego dissolution, differ qualitatively, yet no unified computational framework describes what varies and along which dimensions. Computational phenomenology (CP) has emerged as a promising bridge between first-person experience and computational models, yet current formalisations rely predominantly on the free …

A new study reveals that the brain may continue interpreting language and predicting information even while unconscious under anesthesia. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine have discovered that the human brain can continue carrying out complex language processing even while a person is unconscious under general anesthesia. The study, published in Nature, challenges long-standing ideas [...]

The filmmaker behind the newly released movie Silent Friend shares the scientific and historical inspiration for its story of botanical consciousness

Addiction and obsessive behaviors are commonly interpreted as disorders of the brain’s reward system. However, many dominant models in neuroscience overlook the role of the search for meaning, identity, and existential peace in intensifying these cycles. This article presents an interdisciplinary conceptual framework at the intersection of neuroscience, philosophy of consciousness, and spirituali…