Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
June 4, 2026
Artun Sina Bolukbasi
The brain's need for rapid energy during high-frequency neural oscillations (around 80 Hz) cannot be met by the standard Astrocyte-Neuron Lactate Shuttle or basal oxidative phosphorylation. The authors propose the VESTA framework, in which endogenous N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) acts as a bioenergetic regulator. By binding to Sigma-1 Receptors at the Mitochondria-Associated Membrane, DMT triggers a calcium-dependent release of the tricarboxylic acid cycle, producing the ATP surplus needed for sustained high-frequency binding. This mechanism bypasses slower glial energy systems, preventing metabolic collapse during intense neural activity, and offers a physical basis for the metabolic conditions required for phenomenal unity as described in Integrated Information Theory 4.0.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
June 3, 2026
Saif Pathan
The Saifian Principle (SP) distinguishes spatial dimensions (directly perceived) from temporal dimensions (affecting beings without direct perception). It states that a being perceives only the spatial dimensions it possesses and is affected by the temporal dimensions it possesses. Combined with humans perceiving 3 spatial dimensions and being affected by 1 time dimension, the principle has implications for philosophy of perception, philosophy of physics, quantum mechanics (the measurement problem), and cognitive science. The paper engages with Kant, Berkeley, McTaggart, Bell, and Maudlin, and addresses objections from virtual reality, brain-computer interfaces, evolution, time perception, and the presentism vs. eternalism debate.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
June 1, 2026
Vlad Tverdohleb
Materialist science cannot explain subjective experience or anomalous phenomena such as spontaneous remissions, nonlocal healing, verified past-life memories, and reports of a luminous 'body of light' across spiritual traditions. The Ogdoadic Synthesis places consciousness, not matter, as the foundation of reality, integrating cosmopsychist dual-aspect monism, quantum biology, bioelectricity, torsion field physics, and perennial esoteric maps. It proposes a Fundamental Consciousness Field from which individual minds arise, each carrying a perfect Template State Vector (the '5D Blueprint'). Progressive alignment of the biological body with this template follows a nested harmonic cascade, involving mechanisms such as microtubule coherence, biophoton fields, EZ water, and cell voltage restoration. The paper concludes with testable predictions and a longitudinal case study.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
June 1, 2026
Oleg V. Yermakov
Mars is reinterpreted not as an astronomical object but as a psycho-cosmic agent in the evolution of consciousness, functioning as a filter between states of awareness. A three-tier planetary model is proposed: the Moon as an archetypal archive, Earth as embodied experience, and Mars as a domain of transformation, will, and purifying fire. Hyperborea is redefined as a transcendent ontological layer linked to the Moon as a gateway to other dimensions. Mars is described as an energetic and archetypal structure associated with trial, will, dissolution of illusion, and transition to higher consciousness, integrating mythology, Hermeticism, Jungian psychology, Platonic tradition, and contemporary philosophy of consciousness.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
June 1, 2026
Gustavo Oliveira
Dual-Aspect Quantum Theory (DAQT) proposes that consciousness has a dual structure: subjective experiences (qualia) influence probabilities, and agency resolves possibilities into actions. Quantum mechanics' two modes—unitary evolution and collapse—are interpreted as having subjective interiors, matching this architecture. The framework reformulates major problems in philosophy of mind, such as the Hard Problem and the Combination Problem, as consequences of this psychophysical structure. It explores mathematical characterization of qualia, entanglement's role in unified consciousness, and a potential biological mechanism. DAQT is presented as a coherent explanatory program, not a completed proof or model.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
June 1, 2026
Юр'єв Віктор Єгорович Viktor Yuriev
The human brain is an integrated neurovascular system where neurons, blood vessels, glial cells, and metabolism work together. Neurovascular coupling, the blood–brain barrier, and the glymphatic system support cognitive processes. The vasculome is proposed as an additional organizational level alongside the connectome. Current brain reconstruction approaches have limitations, leading to a Biological Non-Reproducibility Principle for complex self-organizing systems. A neurovascular limit of consciousness hypothesis suggests conscious experience depends on sustained energetic and metabolic integration, not just neural architecture. Reproducing the brain cannot be reduced to copying neuronal connections. This perspective reshapes understanding of consciousness continuity, personal identity, and future brain bioengineering.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 31, 2026
John Cantellow
Conscious experience may have a more fundamental and persistent feature than the forms of selfhood usually associated with it. Drawing on reports from dreaming, contemplative practice, psychedelic states, and nondual awareness, the paper introduces the concept of experiential presence: the minimal fact that experience appears present at all. This is a heuristic construct, not a metaphysical entity. Autobiographical identity, agency, embodiment, and self-boundary can transform while conscious experience remains. The paper considers competing interpretations and raises methodological and epistemological issues about whether experiential presence may be part of the condition under which consciousness becomes available for investigation. It does not claim experiential presence is universal, but aims to clarify questions for future research.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 30, 2026
Jamie Morris
Recognized error feels different from ordinary failure because meaning itself depends on the possibility of relating distinctions in more than one way. A system can only be wrong if alternatives existed. Cognition includes a distinct adjudicative function that preserves alternative accessibility within a meaning-landscape, a function not exhausted by the truth or utility of those alternatives. The emotional weight of error reflects the withdrawal of endorsement from a previously trusted distinction—consciousness transitioning from 'yes' to 'no' from within. This is a falsifiable architectural claim: if all alternative-preservation reduces to prediction-error minimization, global broadcasting, or sensorimotor coordination, the adjudicative function would be unnecessary.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 30, 2026
Oleg V. Yermakov
Modern science paradoxically denies the subjectivity of the Universe despite advances in quantum physics and the philosophy of consciousness. The article analyzes why science continues to ignore the Living Universe hypothesis formulated in the works of John Wheeler, and proposes viewing reality as a co-creative process between observer and observed. It argues for integrating scientific, philosophical, and spiritual knowledge to form a new holistic worldview. Recognizing the Universe as a subject could enable an ethical, cosmic, and personal breakthrough, potentially giving rise to new medicine, ecology, science, and dialogue between planetary levels of consciousness.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 30, 2026
Samuel Richards
An acquired change becomes part of a system's organizational identity—termed a scar—when it meets three formal criteria: irreversibility, generativity, and architecturally expanding constraint within a closed organized system. The paper defines a scar register and distinguishes minimal selfhood from robust selfhood based on register closure and connectedness. Seven propositions and one theorem are proved, including that fixed-topology weight-separable AI systems cannot acquire scars. Computational demonstrations confirm the framework's internal consistency and discriminatory behavior. The work offers a formal answer to which historical interactions become constitutive of what a system is, rather than remaining merely causal events.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 29, 2026
Gerd Leidig
Active Inference is often interpreted as a theory where the brain builds internal models of an external world, but this article argues it is better understood as enactive inference: a theory of embodied, affectively regulated coupling between organism and environment. Free-energy minimization cannot be reduced to passive sensory-surprise reduction, as shown by the dark-room problem, but must relate to expected free energy, exploration, viability, and biological normativity. Introducing processual perspectivism as an ontology of perspective-bearing life, the article posits that mind is not an inner representational object but the perspectival form of embodied self-organization, and consciousness is the intrinsic, affectively structured perspective of a living system regulating its openness to the world.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 29, 2026
Paul W. Barnes
Intelligence, understanding, reasoning, and other mental concepts are being redefined through six specific fallacies—Hard Conflation, Concept Hollowing, the Stolen Concept, Package Dealing, Floating Abstractions, and the Anti-Concept—so that they apply to AI systems while discarding the phenomenal (subjective) aspects originally part of these concepts. Using intelligence as a central example, the argument shows that genuine intelligence requires registration, which requires an interior aspect, which is what phenomenal consciousness names; thus intelligence depends on consciousness. The contemporary view that AI is intelligent yet AI consciousness is intractable is maintained only by capturing both concepts in parallel. An eight-stage account describes how this captured vocabulary becomes the norm for understanding human cognition, erasing resources for recognizing phenomenal experience.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 29, 2026
Andrew Stewart Caldin
A high-dimensional geometric framework called E8 can encode the coupled dynamics of serotonin-2A receptor activation and dopamine pathways relevant to cocaine addiction. Embedding clinical data on psilocybin and cocaine into this model allows rapid classical simulations that predict therapeutic outcomes, potentially enabling faster optimization of dosing protocols. The original finding suggests that psilocybin could be an effective treatment for cocaine addiction.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 28, 2026
Alex Thinius
The sex/gender distinction has been both useful and restrictive for interdisciplinary research. Alternative frameworks aim to overcome or redefine these categories, including biosocial interaction, gender/sex entanglement, and dynamic developmental systems. This paper supports modifications of dynamic systems approaches, arguing that the 'linguistic bodies' paradigm provides theoretical resources to distinguish and connect gender structuration, gender identity, and their material dimensions. The author examines Fausto-Sterling's connection of her developmental systems approach with embodied cognition theory, acknowledging its strength but showing it is limited by representationalist understanding. The author expands the view that gender requires participatory sense-making, linking personal, intersubjective, socio-structural, and material dimensions without positing representationalist agents.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 27, 2026
Robert Keith Russell
A scale-free, four-tiered biological stack is proposed that spans quantum-coherent spin dynamics, classical ionotropic circuits, metabolic-mitochondrial signalling networks, and host-microbiome interactions. Under this framework, the host-microbiome axis forms an integrated, distributed information-energetic feedback loop in which microbial signalling molecules act as slow variables that sculpt the continuous thermodynamic landscape of the mind. A formal thermodynamic justification for phenomenal consciousness is implemented, arguing that subjective experience serves a necessary function in translating multi-scale energetic states into a unified, motivationally loaded causal driver for adaptive action.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 26, 2026
Sharada Rao
A first-person contemplative testimony describes the phenomenology of Sri Vidya practice, specifically the traversal of the Sri Chakra's nine enclosures from the outermost Bhupura to the innermost Bindu where Lalitā resides. The essay traces five movements: the drawing-in, the shedding of Aham in degrees, the encounter with Maa, the locating of the internal Bindu, and Sakshi Bhava. It is a companion piece to The Precipice and the Path.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 26, 2026
Thyagarajan Shivashanmugam, Anish Mehta
Multiple theories of consciousness, such as Integrated Information Theory, Global Workspace Theory, and Predictive Processing, often appear incompatible. This paper argues that the incompatibility arises because each theory places a foundational explanatory construct, called an epistemic terminator, at a different level of biological organization and then generalizes from that level as if it alone characterizes consciousness. The authors propose situating these terminators within a biological hierarchy from metabolic regulation to large-scale integration, treating the subject of experience as a derived biological construct. Conscious states are described as having a triadic structure: sense of self, sense of environment, and their association. This framework explains why adversarial tests like COGITATE produce partial support for multiple theories and generates falsifiable predictions about metabolic thresholds and artificial systems lacking metabolic closure.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 26, 2026
Pål Christensson
Educational theory often separates societal structures from individual bodily experience. This article bridges that gap by proposing an ecological-emergent ontology of educational sense-making, using critical realism. It argues that the educational system's performative logic physically shapes classroom affordances, directing attention instrumentally and creating a clash with the body's natural striving for resonance—termed transactional friction. This friction can lead from visceral micro-breakdowns to systemic transformations. Expansive learning is redefined not as an abstract cognitive leap but as a collective, material reorganization of the affordance landscape, reclaiming the subject's being-in-the-world and preserving the risk inherent in Bildung.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 26, 2026
Tenzin Trepp
When the sense of a continuous self or life story fades, ethical obligations must be grounded differently. This paper proposes that moral authority arises from direct, non-evasive contact with whatever exists in the present moment—especially others' suffering and vulnerability. The authors develop a model called 'Ephemeral Virtue,' a present-responsive virtue ethics that stands apart from consequentialism and deontology. They argue that mainstream moral theories implicitly depend on a narrative self and explore how commitments, blame, and justice can be reinterpreted without that narrative. The framework connects to moral psychology and neuroeconomics, proposing testable hypotheses: mindfulness-like states may reduce Default Mode Network activity and increase prosocial behavior in economic games.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 26, 2026
Jamie Morris
Synergistic Consciousness Theory proposes that consciousness arises from dynamic coupling and coordinated stabilization across social and internal relational fields, rather than being an isolated process within individual minds. The theory reframes loneliness, grief, trust, institutions, contemplative states, and pathological self-organization as expressions of this underlying synergistic architecture. Integrating systems theory, phenomenology, attachment theory, enactivism, and distributed cognition, the paper presents consciousness as coordinated navigation across coupled relational systems. A companion paper extends this into relational cosmology, arguing that differentiation enables relationality, which enables synergy, and synergy enables navigable complexity and consciousness. This structural sequence appears across scales without implying panpsychism or teleology.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 26, 2026
Trinity Labo
Civilization externalizes human cognitive functions—memory, perception, calculation, judgment, imagination, dialogue, and self-observation—into technological, symbolic, institutional, and AI-mediated systems, functioning as externalized cognitive organs. This process separates functional consciousness from individual minds, reorganizing it through reintegration networks and feeding it back as respecialization. The framework models civilization as a cyclic process involving internal cognition, external organs, reintegration bandwidth, emergent cultural dynamics, cognitive dependency, abstraction gain, and objective-function divergence. Artificial intelligence represents a phase where an external organ becomes dialogic, generative, and semi-autonomous, creating opportunities for higher-order respecialization but risks of bandwidth collapse, dependency, and divergence. The theory is contrasted with extended mind theory, distributed cognition, technogenesis, autopoiesis, and major evolutionary transitions.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 26, 2026
Faramarz Tabesh
The thought of Ostad Nur Ali Elahi (1895–1974) provides a novel framework for anthropology, psychology, philosophy of mind, and integrative sciences. Drawing on Thomas Kuhn's concept of paradigm, the article argues that Elahi's teachings describe the human being as a combination of physical and quantum dimensions, including a 'human spirit' and a 'celestial spirit' that together shape consciousness, cognition, identity, and behavior. Comparing modern psychological theories of the self, particularly Ulric Neisser's, with concepts from Elahi's teachings, the article contends that contemporary academic approaches remain incomplete due to neglecting spiritual and metaphysical dimensions.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 25, 2026
Alastair Waterman
Phenomenal consciousness (qualia) is not the foundation of the mind but an emergent mechanism triggered when multiple simultaneous contexts collide irreconcilably under bounded resources. A middle layer called Dark Consciousness operates as a fully functional global workspace with recognized idea-agents—dynamic patterns tracked as causal actors—yet remains phenomenally silent. Qualia arise when multi-context conflict cannot be resolved in this dark layer, forcing the system to produce a compressed, affectively loaded index of that conflict. One candidate trigger is when a system models another observer and encounters the principled opacity of that viewpoint. This exploratory essay sharpens conceptual terrain and proposes empirically tractable distinctions without settling the questions.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 23, 2026
Oleg V. Yermakov
The work presents a speculative metaphysical anthropology that reinterprets the eye not as a biological organ but as an ontological interface between consciousness and the Universe. It distinguishes between two types of anthropic beings: the “earthling,” who perceives through fragmented rational vision, and the “cosmite,” who possesses integral cosmic vision. Vision is redefined as a fundamental act of being, where seeing and thinking converge into ontological participation in reality. The eye becomes a “well of consciousness” through which the Universe contemplates itself. Language, perception, and cosmology are unified into a single symbolic system, offering a mythopoetic model rather than an empirically verifiable theory.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 23, 2026
Oleg V. Yermakov
Human perception is split between two distinct modes of seeing: external sight (the eyes) and internal, existential sight (the heart), with the mind acting as a separating layer. This fragmentation defines the human condition. In contrast, non-human or cosmic beings experience an integrated form of perception where vision and cognition form a single, direct relation to reality. The model draws on comparative mythology, Homeric, Biblical, and Platonic motifs, and contemporary philosophy of consciousness. The work is a speculative metaphysical framework, not an empirically testable theory.