Preprints.org
March 18, 2026
Tam Hunt
preprint
What is causation, and how do mind and matter fit within the causal structure of reality? This paper argues that conventional reductionist causation — the view that causal influence flows only upward from microphysical constituents to larger and larger structures — is both metaphysically incomplete and inadequate to the facts. After surveying standard accounts of causation in Western philosophy...
Journal of Consciousness Studies
February 1, 2026
Tam Hunt
Time is the erotic unfolding and re-folding of the universe. This paper presents a metaphysical framework grounded in evolutionary panpsychism and process-relational philosophy that addresses fundamental questions in consciousness studies through a novel synthesis of Whiteheadian metaphysics, Hunt and Schooler’s general resonance theory, and electromagnetic field approaches to consciousness....
Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience
2026
Tam Hunt
The binding problem and the criticality problem represent two of neuroscience's most persistent challenges: how do distributed neural processes create unified conscious experience, and how does the brain maintain optimal information processing at the critical boundary between order and chaos? This paper argues that both problems emerge from neuroscience's "prickly" bias toward discrete,...
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
2026
Tam Hunt, M Bruce MacIver
Ephaptic field research has undergone a remarkable evolution spanning over nine decades, from pioneering observations in the 1930s through a period of severe scientific skepticism in the mid-20th century to a contemporary renaissance driven by advanced computational modeling, measurement techniques, and new consciousness theories. This review traces the complete chronological development of...
Frontiers in Psychology
July 20, 2023
Tam Hunt, Mostyn Jones
28 citations
Where is consciousness? Neurobiological theories of consciousness look primarily to synaptic firing and "spike codes" as the physical substrate of consciousness, although the specific mechanisms of consciousness remain unknown. Synaptic firing results from electrochemical processes in neuron axons and dendrites. All neurons also produce electromagnetic (EM) fields due to various mechanisms,...
Frontiers in Psychology
June 1, 2023
Mostyn Jones, Tam Hunt
17 citations
How do brains create all our different colors, pains, and other conscious qualities? These various qualia are the most essential aspects of consciousness. Yet standard neuroscience (primarily based on synaptic information processing) has not found the synaptic-firing codes, sometimes described as the “spike code,” to account for how these qualia arise and how they unite to form complex...
Perspectives on Psychological Science
July 1, 2022
Tam Hunt, Marissa Ericson, Jonathan W. Schooler
52 citations
Tools and tests for measuring the presence and complexity of consciousness are becoming available, but there is no established theoretical approach for what these tools are measuring. This article examines several categories of tests for making reasonable inferences about the presence and complexity of consciousness (defined as the capacity for phenomenal/subjective experience) and also...
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
February 16, 2022
Asa Young, Tam Hunt, Marissa Ericson
34 citations
Electromagnetic field oscillations produced by the brain are increasingly being viewed as causal drivers of consciousness. Recent research has highlighted the importance of the body’s various endogenous rhythms in organizing these brain-generated fields through various types of entrainment. We expand this approach by examining evidence of extracerebral shared oscillations between the brain and...
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
2019
Tam Hunt, Jonathan W. Schooler
Synchronization, harmonization, vibrations, or simply resonance in its most general sense seems to have an integral relationship with consciousness itself. One of the possible "neural correlates of consciousness" in mammalian brains is a specific combination of gamma, beta and theta electrical synchrony. More broadly, we see similar kinds of resonance patterns in living and non-living...
Communicative & Integrative Biology
September 1, 2012
Tam Hunt
THIS ESSAY PROVIDES A CRITICAL REVIEW OF TWO RECENT BOOKS ON EVOLUTION: Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth, and Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True, as well as a critique of mainstream evolutionary theory and of natural selection. I also suggest a generalization of sexual selection theory that acknowledges mind as pervasive in nature. Natural selection, as the primary theory of how...