Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
July 10, 2026
John Cantellow
A provisional phenomenological and constraint-based framework is developed to investigate the organizational conditions that make coherent experience possible across diverse modes of consciousness, such as dreaming, contemplative states, and near-death experiences. The framework proposes candidate primitive capacities—Experiential Presence, Differentiation, Persistence and Reference Identity, Relation, and Capacity for Significance—whose stable relational organization may constrain experience to remain coherent and intelligible. Ordinary waking consciousness is distinguished by Experiential Localization, an Observer–Actor coupling that orients experience around this organism, this place, and this moment, integrating survival-oriented adaptive organization. The framework remains epistemologically neutral and does not claim ontological fundamentality.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
June 25, 2026
John Cantellow
Ordinary waking consciousness may be a highly organized, biologically localized state rather than the most basic form of consciousness. A constraint-based framework proposes that two fundamental organizational domains—observer organization, which provides experiential presence and continuity, and actor organization, which handles embodiment, prediction, memory, agency, and environmental interaction—become coupled through salience organization, which localizes experience around biological survival. This reframes the explanatory gap by separating the origin of experiential presence from the more tractable question of how biological organization stabilizes conscious accessibility. Existing biomarkers may indicate organizational capacities rather than experiential presence itself. Dreams, contemplative states, near-death experiences, and childhood anomalous reports are considered informative boundary conditions.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
June 19, 2026
John Cantellow
This paper proposes that phenomenological consciousness—the first-person experience of being—may serve as a middle ground connecting physical descriptions of consciousness (based on neural correlates) with spiritual descriptions emphasizing continuity, witness, and enduring presence (historically associated with the soul). The author suggests that experiential persistence offers a minimal point of contact between these two domains. Combining this with earlier work on constraint organization, the paper outlines a bidirectional phenomenological bridge: physical processes relate to consciousness through neural correlates, while phenomenological relationships become reflected in embodied behavior through patterns of constraint organization,...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
June 13, 2026
John Cantellow
A conceptual framework for extraordinary conscious experiences is developed, shifting focus from variable contents to conserved phenomenological characteristics. Six candidate invariants are proposed, including positive and negative invariants. Observer-oriented and actor-oriented organizational regimes are introduced, with Transitional Regime as a metastable intermediate condition. Extraordinary experiences are treated as perturbations revealing ordinarily obscured organizational features. The framework does not claim survival after death, dualism, supernatural causation, or violations of physical causal closure. It offers a speculative but disciplined architecture to organize diverse reports, generate falsifiable questions, and complement neural correlates with organizational correlates. Absences, constraints, and epistemological limitations are argued to be informative features of consciousness research.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 31, 2026
John Cantellow
Conscious experience may have a more fundamental and persistent feature than the forms of selfhood usually associated with it. Drawing on reports from dreaming, contemplative practice, psychedelic states, and nondual awareness, the paper introduces the concept of experiential presence: the minimal fact that experience appears present at all. This is a heuristic construct, not a metaphysical entity. Autobiographical identity, agency, embodiment, and self-boundary can transform while conscious experience remains. The paper considers competing interpretations and raises methodological and epistemological issues about whether experiential presence may be part of the condition under which consciousness becomes available for investigation. It does not claim experiential presence is universal, but aims to clarify questions for future research.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 28, 2026
John Cantellow
A constraint-based framework for consciousness is extended by examining intracellular neuroscience, particularly microtubules and anesthetic mechanisms, to propose that conscious accessibility emerges from interacting layers of sensory contribution, neural organization, intracellular regulation, and phenomenological constraint rather than from generative models alone. The framework introduces Omnon as a descriptive state-space construct for representing organized variation in phenomenological accessibility without additional ontological commitments. Extraordinary conscious reports are treated as boundary conditions that can refine explanatory assumptions. Provisional predictions are offered to increase empirical vulnerability and distinguish this contributory approach from stronger generative interpretations. The work does not argue for survival, non-local consciousness, quantum consciousness, or disembodied awareness.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 23, 2026
John Cantellow
A constraint-based organizational framework for consciousness proposes that waking, extraordinary, and fundamental consciousness are different regimes of phenomenological constraint organization and corresponding neural stabilization, not separate ontological domains. The framework introduces Omnon as a provisional organizational construct and develops episodic structural persistence to explore phenomenological continuity, intuition, creativity, altered temporality, and extraordinary conscious states. Topics include physical causal closure, neural and phenomenological constraints, agency, intentionality, near-death experiences, and contemplative boundary states. The paper does not argue for survival after death, supernatural causation, or disembodied consciousness, aiming to expand descriptive scope while preserving empirical restraint.