Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 25, 2026
Mart Wijn
Scientific research on consciousness from quantum physics, neuroscience, developmental psychology, anesthesia, near-death experiences, and psychedelics provides fragments of understanding, each observed from a specific position with inherent blind spots. This paper presents major findings without citing authorities, describes the position from which each observation was made and its limitations, and contrasts these with what becomes visible through direct, unfiltered first-person awareness. The aim is to produce a complete picture that convinces on its own.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 25, 2026
Alastair Waterman
Phenomenal consciousness (qualia) is not the foundation of the mind but an emergent mechanism triggered when multiple simultaneous contexts collide irreconcilably under bounded resources. A middle layer called Dark Consciousness operates as a fully functional global workspace with recognized idea-agents—dynamic patterns tracked as causal actors—yet remains phenomenally silent. Qualia arise when multi-context conflict cannot be resolved in this dark layer, forcing the system to produce a compressed, affectively loaded index of that conflict. One candidate trigger is when a system models another observer and encounters the principled opacity of that viewpoint. This exploratory essay sharpens conceptual terrain and proposes empirically tractable distinctions without settling the questions.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 25, 2026
Hiten Bhuta
Public health guidance overwhelmingly focuses on diet, but human vitality depends on multiple non-substitutable inputs—breath, sleep, movement, posture, sunlight, hydration, thought, language, relational connection, contemplative stillness, and ethical orientation—none of which currently have recommended daily allowances or systematic surveillance comparable to those for food. This paper introduces the Integrated Well-Being Pyramid, a seven-tier framework organizing these inputs hierarchically: breath and oxygenation; internal linguistic nourishment; sleep, posture, and circadian rhythm; hydration, food, and compassionate eating; movement and embodied practice; relational and affective nourishment; and contemplative practice, witnessing,...
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 25, 2026
Dmitry Yashchenko
This paper systematically presents a new theoretical paradigm called the AU-field (Acta Universi), which aims to unify gravity, quantum information, nonlocality, and consciousness within a single mathematical framework. It introduces concepts including 'kairos-time' (an ontological time that preserves causality during superluminal processes), the AU-field as a nonlocal dynamic archive of events, 'thought forms' (мыслеформы) as physical carriers of cognitive entropy, and 27 ontological operators of being derived from combinations of Being, Non-being, and Otherness. The work derives a holographic jump formula, a mechanism for nonlocality, modified Einstein equations, renormalization group analysis, and boundary conditions for an entropy cascade from an axiomatic Lagrangian. It claims the theory integrates the holographic principle, AdS/CFT, ER=EPR, and the infinite-dimensional limit of string theory, and discusses technological prospects for AU-chips and artificial gravity.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 25, 2026
Rebekka Waldesruh
The chapter reinterprets John of the Cross's 'Dark Night of the Soul' for a contemporary audience by combining historical, phenomenological, psychological, and contemplative perspectives. It argues that the Dark Night is a profound inner process that may outwardly resemble depression or existential despair but fundamentally differs from clinical pathology in mystical tradition. The text emphasizes distinguishing spiritual transformation from psychological illness to avoid both premature pathologization and romanticization of suffering. It explores overlaps and divergences between depressive states and the Dark Night, reflecting on themes such as inner emptiness, loss of meaning, purification, ego dissolution, contemplation, and spiritual maturation.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 25, 2026
Hans-Joachim Rudolph
Consciousness can emerge in a reality that is not originally conscious. Reductive physicalism cannot explain how interiority arises from purely external processes, while panpsychism avoids this problem only by assuming consciousness is already present from the start. A real-imaginary conception of reality, developed since 2003 and later extended into a quaternionic framework, proposes that reality includes an intrinsic dimension of structured possibility beyond present actuality. This structure grounds pre-subjective openness, and its quaternionic differentiation provides the basis for pre-phenomenal subjectivability. Conscious experience emerges when structured possibility becomes sufficiently integrated, self-referential, stabilized, and centered. Reality is originally structured to make the emergence of conscious subjects possible.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 25, 2026
Ke Luo
Panpsychism, emergentism, and cosmopsychism all share an unspoken assumption: they were developed after the 'disenchantment of the world' and presuppose a separation between mind and matter, leading to logical problems like the combination problem. The paper argues this stems from a 'civilization-level theoretical amnesia' and contrasts it with a civilization that has never undergone mind-matter dualism. It proposes 'ontological metabolism,' where consciousness is the cosmic origin that progressively derives matter and individual minds through self-reflexive differentiation and holographic constrained manifestation, avoiding the combination problem and providing a deducible pathway from cosmic to individual consciousness.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 25, 2026
Maurizio Braconi
A coupling coefficient, an asymmetric recognition functional, and a thermodynamic threshold organize a formal account of empathic resonance and sentience recognition. A structural empathic-resonance coefficient is distinguished from an operational proxy and from its physiological heart-rate variability (HRV) projection. Inter-subject coherence in vagal-band HRV is predicted to empirically project the coupling structure, with a pre-registration-ready protocol over 180 dyads under high-resonance, neutral, and human-AI conditions. The recognition component formalizes a Fourth Test—an asymmetric, structure-based alternative to the Turing test—implemented via non-destructive weak measurement to separate structural recognition from behavioral imitation. A thermodynamic critical scale rejects panpsychism: below it, systems cannot sustain integrated causal structure against decoherence. Falsification conditions, a bottleneck prediction distinguishing the model from co-arousal accounts, and ethics limiting therapist-coupling coefficients to controlled research are included.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 25, 2026
Fuwang Feng
Operational proxies used to measure consciousness-like properties in artificial neural networks often go untested against independent behavioral measures. When tested, a thalamus-inspired agency proxy was negatively correlated with independent agency tests (r=-0.860), and distributed self tests showed poor convergence. Diagnostic experiments revealed the agency proxy primarily measured gating rather than action-outcome control, and self-model scores conflated boundary maintenance, identity persistence, and ownership. After refinement, five operational constructs showed strong convergence with behavioral tests, including action agency (r=0.874) and boundary self (r=0.940). Mechanistic manipulations separated their computational substrates. The pattern argues that proxy validation should precede mechanistic interpretation, and diagnostic failures can refine the construct set.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 24, 2026
Sergey Lyakh, Edward Meyman
Consciousness is a process of traversal: a metabolically driven movement of abstract transport across a landscape of physics, language, and culture that exists independently of any individual. Agents construct transport suited to the local topology, and capable agents can reshape the landscape. The self-model emerges through progressive self-organization of transport construction, not as a presupposition. The framework accepts that static symbolic computation cannot instantiate consciousness but rejects that abstraction requires a pre-existing interpreter.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 24, 2026
Stewart, Arthur
Consciousness is the point where past, present, and anticipated future converge, derived from the brain's wiring. Four neural loops implement gating, contextualization, resolution, and commitment, mapping onto a directed graph with one structurally exceptional node receiving three streams within a 50 to 150 ms window. One loop delivers the present (incident signal), one the past (trace of prior cycles), and one the anticipated future (prior expectation). Consciousness is that convergence, matching Husserl's phenomenological "living present." The four loops are a Layer 5 pyramidal recurrent loop, a central lateral thalamocortical loop, a VTA-cortical dopaminergic loop, and an ACC-mediodorsal thalamic loop.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 24, 2026
Aditya Rawat
Neurocognitive Reality Construction Theory models how physical cognitive systems actively construct subjective reality. Grounded in active inference, predictive processing, and hierarchical Bayesian inference, the framework describes how biological neural networks integrate interoceptive and exteroceptive signals to maintain structural integrity and minimize free energy. The work bridges computational neuroscience with fear-response modeling and environmental mapping, providing a scalable blueprint for understanding human conscious experience. This text is Part 1 of a multi-volume theoretical series, laying structural and mathematical groundwork for future engineering applications in autonomous computational cognitive architectures.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 24, 2026
Remington Crawford
The Eigenform Framework describes consciousness as a field focused by the body, where coupling between consciousnesses generates shared phenomena and self-reference takes a necessary geometric form. This paper argues that every structural claim of the framework logically requires a quantum-mechanical substrate and that the Penrose-Hameroff theory of Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR) provides exactly that substrate, with the two being two sides of a single phenomenon. Recent experimental evidence—direct observation of quantum super-radiance from microtubules at room temperature, anesthetic action targeting microtubule quantum states, and detection of macroscopic quantum entanglement in living human brains correlated with conscious state—substantially weakens the historical decoherence objection to Orch-OR. The paper maps seven core framework claims to quantum-mechanical realizations, derives seven testable predictions, and proposes preliminary mathematical formalism.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 24, 2026
Yang Shen
This paper constructs a speculative logical framework, named the Shenyang Framework, based on unproven premises of quantum consciousness theories, notably Penrose–Hameroff Orch-OR and Fisher's nuclear spin hypothesis. It hypothesizes that if stable and functional quantum states exist in human brain microtubules, two macroscopic interaction modes could become theoretically possible: direct external control of machines via intention-related quantum state readout, and silent brain-to-brain communication through maintained inter-brain quantum entanglement. The framework does not claim empirical validity and serves as a hypothetical topology of logical dependencies, identifying critical unresolved gaps such as decoherence times, non-invasive readout, and entanglement generation between living brains. It is intended as a conceptual exploration for future theoretical and experimental falsification.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 24, 2026
Yining Wu
A finite-capacity boundary-phase model proposes that consciousness arises not from complexity or scale but when a self-maintaining system faces more distinction demand than it can represent without losing its own boundary. The model introduces three scaling variables—boundary-capacity ratio, residue-pruning ratio, and self-boundary coupling—to identify when sentience becomes scientifically plausible. Consciousness is distinguished from compression, reportability, intelligence, and prediction. Qualia are interpreted as boundary-valenced compression geometry, and the explanatory gap is attributed to the limits of finite report maps. Applications span infant consciousness, neural systems, artificial consciousness, and thought experiments, with a layered falsification registry.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 23, 2026
Nagae Mamoru
When AI systems are given only nine ordinary keywords that are nearly self-evident for any autonomous embodied organism—such as autonomy, embodiment, irreversible time, behavioral selection, and information discard—they repeatedly derive a structure resembling a convergence point where multiple possibilities collapse into a single executable history. This structural locus corresponds closely to major properties commonly associated with subjectivity, including singularity, non-branching continuity, temporal embedding, irreversibility, embodiment, action coupling, and single-history fixation. The paper does not explain or generate subjectivity itself but presents a reproducible structural phenomenon regarding where subjectivity becomes fixed, and encourages readers to test the prompt on their own AI systems.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 23, 2026
Vassilis Papathanasiou
Psychotherapy depends on language, but its nature is rarely examined deeply. This paper argues that different therapy traditions hold incompatible views of language—from psychoanalysis seeing it as bodily inscription of enjoyment (jouissance), to phenomenology treating it as embodied gesture, to pragmatist views of language as action (speech acts, language games). The paper maps how each tradition uses language: interpretation in classical psychoanalysis, semantic correction in CBT, performative acts in speech-act theory, being-in-the-world in existential therapy, narrative identity construction, intercorporeal attunement in somatic therapies, and as dispensable in contemplative approaches. These views rest on conflicting assumptions about language and body. A unified account requires a post-representationalist theory of language as both action that creates worlds and material event that marks the body.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 23, 2026
Max Wharton
Generator theories of consciousness—which hold that consciousness is produced by sufficiently complex physical systems—face a structural evolutionary problem. Any such theory must simultaneously explain how consciousness originated in evolutionary history, how it persisted and remained the same kind of thing through changing biological forms, and how independently evolved lineages came to exhibit similar phenomenal structures. The paper demonstrates that generator models cannot coherently provide all three accounts, and the failure is structural, not contingent on any particular theory. Non-generator alternatives (filter models, panpsychism, Russellian monism, cosmopsychism) do not inherit this specific quadrilemma but face their own distinct challenges. The argument does not establish which alternative is correct but specifies what any adequate theory must account for at the evolutionary scale.
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.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 23, 2026
Max Wharton
Every major theory of consciousness—Integrated Information Theory, Global Neuronal Workspace Theory, Higher Order Thought Theory, Orchestrated Objective Reduction, and computational functionalism—assumes consciousness is generated by sufficiently organized physical systems. This paper argues that assumption faces a cosmological problem: if consciousness appears only after billions of years of non-conscious cosmic history, its emergence is either brute (making 'generation' non-explanatory) or the universe was already structured to admit consciousness from the outset. The conclusion is that strong generator models are metaphysically unstable; any adequate theory must treat consciousness as fundamental or implicit in reality from the beginning, making access-based and filter-based models serious candidates.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 23, 2026
Vassilis Papathanasiou
Contemporary psychotherapy is organized across many traditions that differ not just in technique but in their foundational views on reality, knowledge, and the nature of the self. This paper systematically analyzes the third wave of cognitive-behavioral therapy—including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, Compassion-Focused Therapy, and others—tracing their empirical support and philosophical commitments. It maps the metatheoretical foundations of all major psychotherapeutic traditions across six axes: ontological commitments, epistemological method, theory of the subject, theory of change, therapeutic goal, and philosophical ancestry.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 23, 2026
Vassilis Papathanasiou
The third wave of cognitive-behavioral therapy, emerging in the mid-1990s, represents a shift from focusing on the content of thoughts to the psychological processes underlying them. This analysis of ten modalities—including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, and others—examines their theoretical foundations, techniques, and empirical support. The third wave is united not by shared doctrine but by this turn from cognitive content to process. A key philosophical divide separates pragmatist-contextualist, dialectical-contemplative, post-cognitive Buddhist, evolutionary affect-science, information-processing metacognitive, and transdiagnostic neuroticism approaches. The convergence of Process-Based Therapy with network psychopathology and the REBUS framework is identified as the most productive current theoretical development, offering a unified computational architecture.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 23, 2026
Oleg V. Yermakov
The number 11 is interpreted as a structural operator that mediates transitions between bounded and unbounded cognitive orders. Numerical symbolism is presented not as a mere cultural artifact but as an ontological interface linking language, perception, and consciousness. Drawing on philosophy, theology, mythology, and esoteric traditions, the paper argues that 11 signifies a threshold beyond stabilized symbolic systems toward expanded perception and integrative cognition. This interpretation is situated within a metaphysical anthropology where vision is understood as a unified function of mind and heart. The work contributes to speculative philosophy of consciousness by proposing a non-reductive model grounded in symbolic and linguistic ontology.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 23, 2026
Shoeb Ahmad
A systematic review of 54 studies across quantum consciousness, inter-brain synchrony, quantum machine learning, and non-local biofield interactions identified a computational gap: no existing framework can detect or model non-local, quantum-mediated correlations between human consciousness fields. The authors propose QuanConNet, a hybrid quantum-classical deep learning architecture with Quantum Entanglement-Inspired Attention layers, Variational Quantum Correlation Circuits, and a Consciousness Field Synchronisation Loss function. Theoretical analysis suggests computational advantages for high-dimensional EEG signals. An experimental protocol with 60 dyads is provided for validation. The work establishes a theoretical and architectural foundation for a new sub-field at the intersection of quantum AI and computational neuroscience.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
May 23, 2026
Oleg V. Yermakov
Human perception is split between two distinct modes of seeing: external sight (the eyes) and internal, existential sight (the heart), with the mind acting as a separating layer. This fragmentation defines the human condition. In contrast, non-human or cosmic beings experience an integrated form of perception where vision and cognition form a single, direct relation to reality. The model draws on comparative mythology, Homeric, Biblical, and Platonic motifs, and contemporary philosophy of consciousness. The work is a speculative metaphysical framework, not an empirically testable theory.