Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
July 1, 2026
Paul W. Barnes
Preprint. Submitted to the Journal of Consciousness Studies on April 20, 2026 as a response to the Superpsychism special issue; under review. In "Superpsychism" (Journal of Consciousness Studies 33(1-2), 13-39, https://doi.org/10.53765/20512201.33.1.013), Susan Schneider and Mark Bailey propose that consciousness is fundamental, non-spatio-temporal, and continuous with the prototemporal...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
June 30, 2026
Paul W. Barnes
Quantum Differentiation Resonance (QDR) relocates the conscious process from the objective reduction of Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR) to the sustained standing-wave resonance the reduction would otherwise end, and it earns the word "quantum" the established way, through the experimentally supported quantum coherence of microtubules. That move deliberately defers a deeper question:...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
June 28, 2026
Paul W. Barnes
Orchestrated objective reduction (Orch-OR) locates the conscious moment at the reduction of a quantumsuperposition in neuronal microtubules. This paper accepts the central substrate commitment of thatprogram, that microtubules and their quantum behaviour are the physical seat of the conscious process,while placing consciousness elsewhere than at the reduction. On the account developed here,...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 29, 2026
Paul W. Barnes
This paper extends the structural diagnostic developed in a companion paper (Barnes 2026d) from the concept of consciousness to the broader vocabulary of mind. Intelligence, understanding, reasoning, knowing, learning, attention, memory, creativity, agency, intention, and meaning are all undergoing parallel captures through six structurally distinct fallacies: Hard Conflation, Concept...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 18, 2026
Paul W. Barnes
Contemporary research on artificial intelligence and consciousness exhibits three structurally distinct fallacies whose combined operation produces a discipline that uses the vocabulary of consciousness while no longer engaging consciousness as an explanandum. Hard Conflation bundles the functional and phenomenal aspects of consciousness under a single term, generating apparent intractability...