arXiv Preprint Archive
April 16, 2018
Zosia Krusberg, Meredith Ward
Many physics students struggle to connect abstract theories with daily life. Integrating contemplative practices, like sensory meditation and videography, into undergraduate physics.ed-ph courses dramatically improves this. Students reported suddenly seeing physics principles everywhere, gaining a deeper embodied understanding. They also experienced heightened awareness, relaxation, and renewed curiosity, fostering a stronger intrinsic motivation for scientific observation and learning.
arXiv Preprint Archive
April 10, 2018
Ranjan Mukhopadhyay
Understanding how brain processes produce subjective experience requires probing the nature of physical reality, which leads to quantum physics and a second gap between quantum and classical reality. A philosophical framework is proposed that addresses both gaps simultaneously. Analysis of quantum mechanics leads to the notion of a hidden reality and the postulate that consciousness is an integral component of this reality. The framework provides philosophical underpinnings for a theory of consciousness while resolving the interpretation problem in quantum mechanics without altering its mathematical structure. Implications for a scientific theory of consciousness are discussed.
arXiv Preprint Archive
March 24, 2018
Moti Salti, Asaf Harel, Sebastien Marti
Conscious perception may not be a discrete event but a dynamic process in which a stimulus is continuously recoded to fit an ongoing stream of other perceived stimuli. This hypothesis can reconcile inconsistent findings on the timing of neural correlates of consciousness and makes testable predictions. The updating process is governed by context, stimulus saliency, and the observer's goal. The framework challenges the typical distinction between conscious and unconscious information processing.
arXiv Preprint Archive
January 11, 2018
Xerxes D. Arsiwalla, Paul Verschure
A new framework using information-theoretic complexity measures, such as integrated information, has been proposed to quantitatively classify states of consciousness, addressing both phenomenological contents and clinical disorders. However, applying these measures to realistic brain networks is difficult due to high computational costs. This article serves as a lookup table of principle-based and empirically tested measures of consciousness, with emphasis on clinical applicability for assisting diagnosis and therapy. It addresses challenges facing these measures with regard to realistic brain networks and suggests possible resolutions.
arXiv Preprint Archive
November 19, 2017
Kyongsik Yun, Saeran Doh, Elisa Carrus et al.
Flow, the hyper-engaged state often called 'being in the zone' in athletics, can be objectively measured using a non-disruptive EEG probe. By suppressing auditory evoked potentials while participants played a first-person shooter game, researchers tracked immersion depth continuously. Comparing this record with overall EEG data revealed neural correlates in the anterior cingulate cortex and temporal pole, which showed increased beta band activity, mutual connectivity, and feedback connectivity with primary motor cortex. These findings indicate that flow is a quantifiable state of consciousness identifiable across subjective, behavioral, and neural measures.
arXiv Preprint Archive
November 5, 2017
Vitor Manuel Dinis Pereira
No Summary
arXiv Preprint Archive
July 28, 2017
M. Maniatis
All mental processes are necessarily unfree and passive. This model of behavior and perceptions reveals that human intuition about mental agency is misleading, and it explains how consciousness arises from these unfree processes.
arXiv Preprint Archive
July 27, 2017
Matt Visser
The essay argues that the theme of the 2017 FQXi essay contest, which invokes teleology, goals, aims, intentions, and consciousness in physics, is premature. Teleology is rarely useful in physics; the only mainstream example, black hole event horizons, has a mixed track record. The concepts of aims and intentions imply consciousness and open the mind-body problem, while the phrase "mindless mathematical laws" conflicts with the mathematical universe hypothesis. Because no good mathematical or physical theory of consciousness exists, the contest theme is unlikely to yield a resolution widely accepted in mathematics or physics communities.
arXiv Preprint Archive
June 13, 2017
Catherine Reason
A necessary property of healthy human consciousness—self-certainty, the capacity to know with certainty that one is conscious—is inconsistent with any meaningful definition of a physical system. This is demonstrated through a no-go theorem applying to any physical system capable of sound and consistent human logical reasoning. The proof is general and recursive, showing that any physical process subserving such a function implies another such function. The authors conclude that for at least one aspect of human consciousness, the mind-body problem is now conclusively resolved.
arXiv Preprint Archive
June 7, 2017
Omid Rezania
Hallucinations in schizophrenia may arise from a desynchronization between the time evolution of perceptual basis states in a Hilbert-space model of consciousness and real-world time. This quantum mechanical approach suggests that consciousness and the brain can be correlated and coupled, leading to a hypothetical clinical possibility of inducing consciousness into a non-conscious brain. The paper does not provide empirical data or test these predictions.
arXiv Preprint Archive
May 12, 2017
Erik J Wiersma
The Global Workspace theory distinguishes conscious processing, which broadcasts information across brain regions, from subconscious processing, which remains localized. This theoretical paper extends that framework by proposing how the properties of incoming information determine whether it is processed consciously or subconsciously, and why processing can be sustained or short-lived. Familiar input that does not elicit intense emotions is processed subconsciously and can be sustained continuously. Input that triggers relatively intense emotions undergoes highly sustainable conscious processing. Input may also undergo meta-conscious processing, which is not very sustainable but can exert control over other cognitive processes. The paper discusses possible benefits of this regulatory arrangement.
arXiv Preprint Archive
May 1, 2017
Rukhsan Ul Haq, Shalini Harkar
Time perception is a fundamental aspect of human consciousness, yet time remains paradoxical in physics. This theoretical paper develops an algebraic framework for understanding time perception, finding that quantum theory offers a formalism that captures essential features of how the human mind perceives time. The authors extend this formalism to explore the nature of time itself, connecting their approach to prior work. Inspired by Hamilton's view of algebra as the science of pure time, the work incorporates Kauffman's iterant algebra, which links time to underlying recursions and oscillations. The paper aims to stimulate further investigation into the algebra of time and time perception.
arXiv Preprint Archive
April 28, 2017
Cathy M Reason
A logical proof shows that computing machines and physical systems cannot be certain whether they possess conscious awareness, implying that human consciousness violates energy conservation. The authors examine how a specific interpretation of quantum mechanics, single mind Q (Barrett 1999), could help detect such a violation. They then apply single mind Q to the problem of free will raised by neurophysiologist Benjamin Libet's experiments.
arXiv Preprint Archive
April 7, 2017
Elizaveta Solomonova
Sleep paralysis is a temporary inability to move or talk during transitions between sleep and wakefulness, often accompanied by vivid sensory experiences such as visual, auditory, and tactile mentation, along with a distinct feeling of presence. This chapter examines sleep paralysis through the lenses of enactive cognition and cultural neurophenomenology, presenting current neurophysiological knowledge and associated conditions. It also proposes coping techniques. As a hybrid state of dreaming and waking, sleep paralysis provides insight into the phenomenology of spontaneous thought during sleep.
arXiv Preprint Archive
January 9, 2017
D. M. Mateos, R. Guevara Erra, R. Wennberg et al.
Wakefulness is characterized by greater complexity of brain signals compared to sleep or epileptic seizures. Scalp and intracerebral EEG and MEG recordings were analyzed using Permutation Entropy and Permutation Lempel Ziv Complexity. A complexity vs entropy graph showed that entropy and complexity values are highest during fully alert states and fall during states with loss of awareness or consciousness. These results were robust across all three recording types. The authors suggest that investigating cognition through complexity frameworks may reveal mechanistic aspects of brain dynamics in altered states of consciousness as well as normal and pathological conditions.
arXiv Preprint Archive
November 15, 2016
Eduardo C. Padovani
Anesthetic agents like Ketamine-Medetomidine significantly alter the functional brain networks in the frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes. Using a dense ECoG-electrode array on the cortical surface of a macaque monkey, researchers recorded neural activity and estimated network properties every five seconds. Within about one and a half minutes after anesthetic administration, distinct changes in network architecture occurred across all four lobes. These findings provide experimental evidence linking the structure and properties of functional brain networks to the neural correlates of consciousness, showing how anesthesia disrupts large-scale connectivity.
arXiv Preprint Archive
November 1, 2016
A. Viol, Fernanda Palhano-Fontes, Heloisa Onias et al.
Psychedelic Ayahuasca increases brain network complexity, supporting ancient wisdom about "mind expansion" with modern neuroscience. Brain scans revealed that this Amazonian brew creates more diverse neural connections while strengthening local brain networks. The changes in brain organization showed higher Shannon entropy, indicating more dynamic and flexible thought patterns during the psychedelic experience.
arXiv Preprint Archive
October 12, 2016
Stephan Krohn, Dirk Ostwald
Integrated information theory (IIT) identifies consciousness with maximally integrated conceptual information, quantified by Φ^max, and holds that phenomenal experience corresponds to the maximally irreducible cause-effect repertoires of a physical system in a given state. This work provides a general formulation of Φ^max using probabilistic models, treating the system as a first-order time-invariant Markov process and specifying all operations via the system's joint probability distribution over two adjacent time points.
arXiv Preprint Archive
September 15, 2016
Heinrich Päs
A universally valid quantum formalism, assuming only unitary time evolution, leads to a Many-Worlds or Many-Minds scenario via decoherence. However, decoherence requires incomplete information about the environment with which the system becomes entangled. This paper argues that, drawing on neuroscience models of consciousness, the information available to the observer's consciousness defines the environment. This modernizes the von-Neumann-Wigner interpretation, suggesting the quantum-to-classical transition, though hard to test in physics, may become testable in psychology.
arXiv Preprint Archive
September 11, 2016
Peter Grindrod
Mathematical analysis of small-scale strongly connected neural networks shows they naturally perform non-binary information processing, enabling multiple hypothesis decision-making at the brain's lowest architectural level. Building on this, a proposed "dual hierarchy model"—comprising external physical elements of increasing complexity and internal mental experiences—supports a learning, evolving consciousness. Because the brain can re-conjure subjective feelings at will, these feelings cannot depend on internal noise or instability-driven activity. A consequence is that finite human brains must always be learning or forgetting, and any subjective feeling with a countable infinity of facets can never be learned by zombies or automata, though an evolving brain can experience it increasingly fully, never in totality.
arXiv Preprint Archive
September 2, 2016
J. Acacio de Barros, Gary Oas
The paper argues that proposals claiming to disprove the hypothesis that mind-matter interaction collapses the wave function are fundamentally flawed. It describes a general experimental setup that retains key features of those proposals and shows that even this broader setup cannot disprove the mind-matter collapse hypothesis. Under reasonable assumptions about consciousness, the hypothesis is unfalsifiable.
arXiv Preprint Archive
August 23, 2016
Mohit Virmani, Nithin Nagaraj
A new measure called Φ^C bridges Integrated Information Theory (IIT) and the Perturbational Complexity Index (PCI) by using lossless data compression to quantify integrated information in brain networks. Unlike IIT's Φ, which is computationally expensive and dependent on current state, Φ^C is mathematically well bounded, has negligible state dependence, and scales linearly with network nodes, avoiding combinatorial explosion. Computer simulations show Φ^C produces similar hierarchies to Φ across multiple-node networks and reveals interactions between differentiation, integration, and entropy. It offers a faster heuristic for measuring integrated information—and thus a potential proxy for consciousness—in larger networks like the human brain, enabling tests of brain complexity predictions on real neural data.
arXiv Preprint Archive
June 23, 2016
Sara Imari Walker, Paul C. W. Davies
The essay draws a parallel between the 'hard problem of consciousness' and a proposed 'hard problem of life': how information can act as a causal agent in the physical world. The authors argue that explaining life requires understanding how information influences events, and they suspect this problem, like consciousness, may not be fully reducible to known physical principles, potentially requiring new laws or concepts.
arXiv Preprint Archive
May 23, 2016
Kieran C. R. Fox, Manesh Girn, Cameron C. Parro et al.
Psychedelic substances produce radical psychological effects and have been surrounded by political and legal controversy since their widespread adoption about 50 years ago. This review examines functional neuroimaging studies that investigate the neural correlates of the psychedelic experience, highlighting connections with the psychological and neural bases of creativity, daydreaming, and dreaming. The authors synthesize findings from these imaging investigations to show how brain activity during psychedelic states overlaps with patterns seen during imaginative and creative thought processes.
arXiv Preprint Archive
May 11, 2016
Kieran C. R. Fox, Yoona Kang, Michael Lifshitz et al.
Meditation and hypnosis can change how thoughts flow automatically, potentially making thinking more flexible and less rigid. Three mechanisms are proposed: reducing the tendency for thoughts to chain together automatically; making thought chains more varied and less habitual; and creating new, intentionally chosen mental habits. Evidence from behavioral and cognitive neuroscience shows these practices influence internal cognition, with possible benefits for mental adaptability.