Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
July 18, 2026
Diego Rincón
The hard problem of consciousness is often framed as a missing isomorphism that would map physical brain states (neurons, third-person descriptions) onto experiential states (qualia, first-person feelings). This paper argues that the search fails because the physical grammar is typically treated as atemporal—a fixed snapshot or eigenvalue—while experience is inherently temporal, unfolding over time. No static operator can bridge a temporal phenomenon. By reformalizing coherence as a property of a trajectory rather than a point, using existing spectral and return dynamics, the apparent wall dissolves. This resolves one specific formulation of the hard problem and yields testable predictions for measuring coherence.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 27, 2026
Diego Rincón
Depressive rumination is a repetitive, passive focus on distress symptoms and their causes that fails to produce resolution or emotional regulation. The Displacement Framework formalizes rumination as a cognitive 'wrong attractor' where thinking becomes recursive rather than progressive, deepening depression by preventing behavioral engagement. Nine propositions cover adaptive reflection as purposive processing, rumination's self-amplifying loop, overgeneral autobiographical memory as a mechanism that blocks specific problem resolution, the inactivity trap where rumination suppresses behavioral activation, default mode network hyperactivity as a neural substrate, brooding versus reflective pondering as distinct variants, cumulative effects across depressive, relational, and functional domains, and return paths including behavioral activation, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, metacognitive therapy, and problem-solving therapy. Gender differences in rumination and the brooding-depression relationship are also analyzed.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 27, 2026
Diego Rincón
Awe is a positive displacement that expands the ground state of the self rather than depleting it, as formalized in the Displacement Framework. After awe, the ground state grows to include the vast thing encountered, restructuring schemas via accommodation. The Awe Paradox explains that while displacement is positive during the experience, accumulated displacement decreases afterward as the self expands. Self-diminishment in awe is boundary dissolution, not degradation. Eight awe elicitors are analyzed as different vastness encounters. Physiological markers include goosebumps, vagal tone increase, cortisol reduction, and inflammatory cytokine reduction. Psychedelic ego dissolution is extreme awe; manufactured awe mimics without genuine expansion.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 27, 2026
Diego Rincón
The authors apply a mathematical framework to dissociative disorders, proposing that a healthy sense of self-continuity rests on four axes: narrative, bodily, emotional, and identity. Dissociation is modeled as displacement along these axes, with adaptive peritraumatic dissociation as a protective response and maladaptive dissociation as capture by a wrong attractor. Depersonalization is described as partial exit from the bodily axis, derealization as relational-embodied partial exit, and dissociative identity disorder as a fragmented multi-attractor landscape. The framework formalizes trauma as deformation rendering the self-continuity ground state inaccessible, and explains why dissociation can be both adaptive and self-perpetuating, providing grounds for differential treatment.