The Scientific World Journal
January 1, 2003
Søren Ventegodt, Joav Merrick
65 citations
Over half the Danish population had used illegal psychotropic drugs, with cannabis being the most common and not significantly linked to quality of life. Cocaine, amphetamine, and psilocybin were used by 1.2% to 3.3% of the population, with a small but clear variation in quality of life. LSD users, 1.2% of the population, had a quality of life score 10% lower than non-users. The lowest quality of life was among users of heroin, morphine, methadone, and a mixture of alcohol and tranquilizers, scoring 10–20% below the highest quality of life group.
The Scientific World Journal
March 27, 2012
Søren Ventegodt, Niels Jørgen Andersen, Joav Merrick
This philosophical paper argues that understanding living matter requires a shift from the molecular level to the macro level where cellular and organism-wide activities are coordinated. The authors propose that the concept of "biological information" may bridge the domains of matter, life, and consciousness. They describe cells as liquid crystals whose molecules dynamically connect and dissolve, guided by information that organizes processes like cell motion, though how cells regulate these processes remains mysterious. The paper contends that the source of qualities such as joy, love, and consciousness is still scientifically unexplained, and that a radically new biology and medicine are needed to explain life's structure, dynamics, and consciousness.
TheScientificWorldJournal
July 13, 2008
Søren Ventegodt, Tyge Dahl Hermansen, Isack Kandel et al.
The brain's enormous complexity, with roughly 1,000,000 km of nerve fibers, makes its function difficult to understand. A new model proposes that brain functions arise from information-guided self-organization of neural patterns, where information comes from the abstract wholeness of the organism's biophysical system (termed the true self or soul). This model offers self-conscious control over thought and cognition, supported by evidence from histology, anatomy, EEG, cerebral blood flow, neuropsychology, evolutionary studies, and mathematics. It criticizes network theories as products of philosophical materialism. The model explains conscious mentation through a dual hierarchical cortical representation for sensation-perception and will-action, accounting for thinking, memory, association, discrimination, and abstraction, and also applies to simpler brains like those of insects and hydra.
TheScientificWorldJournal
November 14, 2006
Søren Ventegodt, Tyge Dahl Hermansen, Trine Flensborg-Madsen et al.
The paper argues that human reality is interpreted through both rational and emotional processes, and proposes a model of the human being as a wholeness composed of the brain-mind (ego), body-mind (Id), and an outer world, with the 'I' or soul as the unifying element. It discusses coherence among perception, attention, and consciousness, and examines thought, fantasies, visions, and dreams. Concepts such as intent, will, morals, and ethics are explained, and the Jungian collective conscious and unconscious are analyzed. Intuition and religious experience are hypothesized to arise from deep quantum chemistry and infinite dancing fractal spirals that form the energetic backbone of the world. The paper considers man as a real wholeness and debates subjectivity, consciousness, and intent from this perspective.