12 papers in the library · 114 citations · publishing 2012-2026
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...
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...
Preprints.org September 24, 2025 Tam Hunt preprint
Pain represents a paradigmatic example of consciousness requiring rapid integration across distributed neural systems, making it an ideal model for understanding field-primary approaches to cognition and consciousness. I propose that pain perception emerges from electromagnetic field dynamics as the primary computational substrate, with neurotransmitter systems serving largely as...
Preprints.org September 15, 2025 Tam Hunt preprint
Neural avalanches—cascading patterns of activity that follow power-law distributions—are considered a hallmark of critical brain dynamics. However, current models relying solely on synaptic transmission cannot explain the rapid propagation speeds observed empirically. Here we propose that neural avalanches propagate through resonance cascades in the brain's electromagnetic (EM) fields, and more...
Preprints.org September 12, 2025 Tam Hunt preprint
Pleasure and reward processing arise through rapid integration of sensory, emotional, and cognitive information into a unified hedonic experience in each moment. We propose that pleasure emerges from specific electromagnetic (EM) field configurations operating as the primary computational substrate, with dopaminergic and other monoamine systems serving as power distribution networks to ramp up...
Front Hum Neurosci March 1, 2024 Tam Hunt, Mostyn Jones, Johnjoe Mcfadden et al. 11 citations
Editorial: Electromagnetic field theories of consciousness: opportunities and obstacles.
Front Psychol 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 : a journal of the Association for 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...