arXiv Preprint Archive
May 10, 2016
Enrico Amico, Daniele Marinazzo, Carol DiPerri et al.
A new data-driven method, connICA, extracts independent functional connectivity patterns (FC-traits) from brain scans of patients with disorders of consciousness after severe brain damage. Three main FC-traits emerged. The first relates to sedation, overall pathology, and level of arousal. The second reflects disconnection of visual and sensory-motor networks, time since injury, and ability to communicate. The third involves fronto-parietal and default-mode networks and interhemispheric interaction, associated with self-awareness and awareness of surroundings. Each trait represents a distinct functional process linked to degradation of conscious states, clarifying which neural subcircuits are disrupted in severe brain injury.
arXiv Preprint Archive
April 28, 2016
Jerome Feldman
Science, despite its achievements, faces fundamental limitations, including the intractable mind-body problem and other deep puzzles like quantum phenomena. These unsolved problems are either remote from everyday experience or difficult to define sharply.
arXiv Preprint Archive
March 21, 2016
Kieran C. R. Fox, Matthew L. Dixon, Savannah Nijeboer et al.
Meditation comprises diverse mental practices with distinct strategies. A meta-analysis of 78 neuroimaging studies (527 participants) found reliably different brain activation patterns for four common meditation styles—focused attention, mantra recitation, open monitoring, and compassion/loving-kindness—and suggestive differences for three others. Some brain regions (insula, pre/supplementary motor cortices, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, frontopolar cortex) were recruited across multiple techniques, but convergence was the exception. Effect sizes were medium for both activations (d = .59) and deactivations (d = -.74), indicating potential practical significance. The findings support the neurophysiological dissociability of meditation practices while highlighting methodological concerns and future research directions.
arXiv Preprint Archive
December 23, 2014
H. Valian, H. Bassereh, A. Barkhordari et al.
The paper explores whether quantum effects in the brain could support the Copenhagen Interpretation, where wave function collapse occurs in the observer's mind. It simulates delayed luminescence of photons in neurons using a Brassard-like teleportation circuit, modeling the transfer of quantum states from retina to visual cortex. The simulation incorporates both classical and quantum processing in neurons. Results suggest it is possible for the brain to receive exact quantum states of photons in the visual cortex, which could then be collapsed by consciousness, supporting the Copenhagen Interpretation of the measurement problem.
arXiv Preprint Archive
July 3, 2014
Adam B. Barrett
Consciousness may arise from information intrinsic to fundamental electromagnetic fields, according to a hypothesis that unites fundamental physics with empirical neuroscience. The proposal extends Integrated Information Theory, which says consciousness comes from intrinsic information generated by dynamical systems, but which existing formulations cannot apply to standard physical models. By treating electromagnetic fields as fundamental, the hypothesis bypasses the need for quantum effects while aligning with known neural correlates of consciousness. This approach aims to eliminate dualistic 'ghosts' by describing consciousness as an aspect of the physical world.
arXiv Preprint Archive
May 27, 2014
Giulio Tononi, Christof Koch
Integrated Information Theory (IIT) starts from five axioms about conscious experience—existence, composition, information, integration, and exclusion—to derive physical postulates that specify which systems can be conscious and what their experience is like. IIT provides a calculus to measure both the quantity and quality of experience, explains clinical and laboratory findings, and makes testable predictions. It holds that consciousness is graded, common among biological organisms, and present even in some simple systems, but not in everything: groups of individuals or feedforward networks lack it. Crucially, IIT implies that digital computers, even those that perfectly simulate human behavior or brain function, would experience next to nothing, contradicting functionalist views.
arXiv Preprint Archive
May 26, 2014
Enzo Tagliazucchi, Robin Carhart-Harris, Robert Leech et al.
Psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms, dramatically expands the brain's repertoire of connectivity states, revealing how consciousness can be altered. Using advanced brain imaging, researchers tracked neural activity before and after psilocybin administration. Results showed increased signal variability in memory and emotion-processing regions, while higher brain networks displayed enhanced flexibility in their communication patterns.
arXiv Preprint Archive
May 2, 2014
Max Tegmark
Consciousness may be understood as a special state of matter called "perceptronium," which has unique information processing abilities. Five basic principles—information, integration, independence, dynamics, and utility—distinguish conscious matter from ordinary physical systems like solids, liquids, and gases. This idea extends Giulio Tononi's integrated information framework for neural-network-based consciousness to any quantum system, and it links consciousness to error-correcting codes, condensed matter criticality, and the emergence of time.
arXiv Preprint Archive
April 2, 2014
J. Acacio de Barros
A philosophical paper examines Stapp's proposal that the Quantum Zeno Effect can explain mind-matter interaction. The author argues that Stapp's current model is circular with respect to the mind-body problem, though notes a solution proposed by Kathryn Laskey. An alternative approach to using quantum mechanics for thinking about consciousness is also presented.
arXiv Preprint Archive
January 27, 2014
J. H. van Hateren
Consciousness evolved in two steps. First, living systems internalized Darwinian fitness as a self-estimated fitness, creating a feedback loop that generates intrinsic meaning. Second, animals with advanced nervous systems evolved a form of communication that alters how each partner estimates fitness, producing subjective experience as a primary consciousness. This primary form then generates more complex consciousness—of the natural and social worlds, self, and language—partly through internalized dialogue.
arXiv Preprint Archive
October 8, 2013
J. H. van Hateren
Purpose and meaning appear absent from the physical world and natural sciences, yet are essential for understanding mind and culture. Darwinian evolution produces only apparent goals. Using evolutionary models, the author shows that a slight, evolvable extension—targeted modulation of mutation rate, known to exist in biological cells—can produce genuine goals. This gives rise to intrinsic meaning and the ability to initiate goal-directed chains of causation (active causation). The mechanism uses randomness modulated by a feedback loop regulated by evolutionary pressure. Extending the scheme to behavioral variability shows how freedom of behavior is possible, and further extension to communication suggests active exchange of intrinsic meaning between organisms may be the origin of consciousness, providing a physical basis for free will.
arXiv Preprint Archive
May 31, 2013
D. M. Appleby
The problem of interpreting quantum mechanics and the philosophical problem of consciousness both stem from the same misguided Cartesian assumptions. The analysis details the confusions underlying those assumptions. Rather than suggesting that quantum mechanics might explain consciousness, the argument proposes that an adequate non-Cartesian philosophy would transform our understanding of both quantum mechanics and consciousness, thereby changing what we think needs to be explained.
arXiv Preprint Archive
July 3, 2012
Massimiliano Sassoli de Bianchi
The paper questions whether recent double-slit experiments by Radin and colleagues actually test the influence of the experimenter's mind on quantum wave function collapse. It argues that quantum mechanics already explains measurement processes without invoking psychophysical factors, so parapsychologists should not rely on such interpretations to support psychokinesis claims. Instead, they should seek more plausible explanations for their findings.
arXiv Preprint Archive
June 1, 2012
Jeremy R. Coyle, David E. Presti, Matthew J. Baggott
Machine learning applied to 1000 written reports of 10 different drugs from the Erowid website identified distinct patterns in how people describe their experiences with each drug. A random-forest classifier using just 110 key words achieved 51.1% accuracy in identifying which drug a report described, far above the 10% expected by chance. Reports of MDMA were most distinctive (86.9% accuracy), while those for DPT were hardest to classify (20.1%). Hierarchical clustering revealed similarities between certain drugs, such as DMT and Salvia divinorum. The findings suggest that automated text analysis can uncover consistent, drug-specific features in subjective experience reports, potentially aiding hypothesis generation about new or poorly understood compounds.
arXiv Preprint Archive
March 14, 2012
Jonathan W. Mason
A proposed partial theory defines consciousness as relations among brain states that arise from typical brain activity patterns. A single brain state is nearly meaningless, but when placed within the context of the brain's inherent structure and typical states, it becomes highly structured by these relations. The theory can be tested theoretically and experimentally, and discrete mathematics fully specifies how typical data determines these relations.
arXiv Preprint Archive
January 13, 2012
Fionn Murtagh
An ultrametric topology mathematically models Ignacio Matte Blanco's principles of symmetric and asymmetric being, as described in his 1975 book. This model corresponds to hierarchical clustering in empirical data, such as text. The ultrametric structure captures the logic of symmetric being, which underlies reasoning that lacks self-awareness or consciousness, as well as conscious reasoning. A companion paper examines how symmetric reasoning can be identified within narrative text that contains both symmetric and asymmetric reasoning.
arXiv Preprint Archive
August 22, 2011
Jean-Louis Dessalles, Tiziana Zalla
Phenomenal consciousness—the capacity to experience sensations like pain, pleasure, colors, and sounds—is likely shared with many animals. Because it is a biological trait, natural selection should explain its existence. The authors argue that phenomenal consciousness is not an epiphenomenon but has an adaptive function: it labels mental representations, allowing organisms to discriminate and evaluate them. They discuss whether consciousness itself was selected for this labeling role.
arXiv Preprint Archive
April 13, 2011
George Svetlichny
The author proposes that subjective experience (qualia) and the collapse of quantum wave functions are identical processes. If this identity holds, it would simultaneously solve two long-standing puzzles: the measurement problem in quantum mechanics (why observations yield definite outcomes) and the hard problem of consciousness (why there is subjective experience). The argument is presented as a philosophical contemplation rather than an empirical claim, drawing on concepts from quantum mechanics and philosophy of mind.
arXiv Preprint Archive
March 7, 2011
Gerhard Werner
The paper argues that consciousness should be understood as a collective phenomenon emerging from the brain's complex neural dynamics, amenable to study through phase space dynamics and criticality. It critiques flawed notions in theoretical neuroscience that impede viewing consciousness as a physical phenomenon and highlights neglected facts in current discourse. Drawing on concepts from physics—phase transitions and the renormalization group—the author proposes that these tools account for emergent collective behaviors with distinct ontologies across scales. The central claim is that the subjectivity of consciousness arises as an epistemic interpretation of a new level of reality originating from phase transitions in the brain-body-environment system.
arXiv Preprint Archive
February 25, 2011
Don N. Page
Sensible Quantum Mechanics (also called Mindless Sensationalism) is a framework that connects conscious experience to a quantum universe by assigning each perception a measure equal to the expectation value of a corresponding quantum "awareness operator" in a fixed universal quantum state. These measures act like probabilities for a vast set of perceptions that all exist with varying degrees of reality, making detailed theories testable. The framework is deterministic—there are no propensities or indeterministic actualizations—and thus no incompatibilistic free will. Conscious perceptions are epiphenomena, determined by the awareness operators and the quantum state. Unlike "many-minds" interpretations, each perception is an entire conscious experience with no direct contact with others, making this a "many-perceptions" variant of Everett's many-worlds framework.
arXiv Preprint Archive
February 15, 2011
A. N. Mitra, Gargi Mitra-Delmotte
The paper explores a possible correspondence between field-induced patterns and consciousness, inspired by the Penrose-Hameroff thesis. It asks whether sequences of induction patterns in biomatter susceptible to fields might have had simpler origins, suggesting a link between metabolism-sustained consciousness and electromagnetic field effects in living systems.
arXiv Preprint Archive
December 17, 2010
Leonid Perlovsky
A review of mathematical approaches to modeling the mind since the 1950s highlights difficulties linked to the fundamental incompleteness of logic discovered by Gödel. A recent advancement, dynamic logic (DL), overcomes these past difficulties and is described conceptually in relation to neuroscience, psychology, cognitive science, and philosophy. DL models higher cognitive functions such as concepts, emotions, instincts, understanding, imagination, intuition, and consciousness, and is related to the knowledge instinct that drives understanding and serves as a foundation for higher cognition. Aesthetic emotions and beauty perception are tied to everyday mental functioning.
arXiv Preprint Archive
December 16, 2010
Benoy Chakraverty
The mind can be modeled as an abstract Hilbert space where information behaves like particles, created by a non-Hermitian operator called Self. These particles form a coherent information field, and the average of the Self operator constitutes the basic sense of 'I'. Awareness and consciousness are response functions of these operators to the external world. Using a simple neural model, the article shows how a baby under two years old develops self-awareness once neural connectivity reaches a critical value. The 'I' is a cognitive order parameter arising from a thermodynamic phase transition from chaos to a symmetry-broken coherent state, similar to superfluidity.
arXiv Preprint Archive
February 1, 2010
C. N. Padhy, R. R. Panda
Machine Consciousness is examined from biological, philosophical, mathematical, and physical perspectives to design a programmable system architecture that behaves consciously like a biological model. A definition of consciousness is developed, characterized by four parameters: parasitic, symbiotic, self-referral, and reproduction. A biologically inspired consciousness architecture is proposed with four layers—quantum, cellular, organ, and behavioral—and the characteristics of consciousness are traced at each layer. Physical and algorithmic architectures are estimated to devise a system that can behave consciously.
arXiv Preprint Archive
October 22, 2009
Michael B. Mensky
Consciousness may be linked to quantum features of the world. The Extended Everett's Concept (EEC) explains consciousness and super-consciousness (intuitive knowledge) as phenomena where the brain serves as an interface between these higher cognitive components and the body. The analysis within EEC suggests that technical devices could potentially enhance the use of super-consciousness or intuition.