Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 27, 2026
Julije Makanec
CERTS Theory version 4.0 proposes a physical mechanism for two features of conscious experience: the unified binding of spatially distributed neural signals into a single conscious moment, and the felt instantaneity of that moment despite extended neural processing. The framework integrates McFadden's CEMI, Llinás's thalamocortical scanning, Cantero's 39 Hz microtubule resonance, and Cramer's transactional interpretation through a biophoton chain grounded in mitochondrial physiology. It distinguishes itself from Orch-OR by not requiring quantum coherence inside microtubules; the quantum object is the biophoton, and the microtubule is a classical mechanical resonator. The theory offers sixteen falsifiable predictions and seven experimental protocols, including the CERTS Coherence Index as a biomarker for disorders of consciousness, but does not claim to dissolve the hard problem of consciousness.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 27, 2026
Hans-Joachim Rudolph
Having a powerful meditative experience does not prove that the metaphysical interpretation attached to it is true. An experience of boundlessness or divinity does not demonstrate that reality itself is universal consciousness or absolute being. Conversely, an inherited spiritual tradition can shape how practitioners interpret their own experiences, leading them to treat those experiences as confirmations of a realization they have not actually attained. This is especially relevant to Sarkar's concept of 'Cosmic Consciousness,' which refers to the ontological ground of reality, not an expanded individual state. Responsible spiritual transmission requires distinguishing between experience, interpretation, authority, usefulness, and ontology, so that neither immediate experience nor inherited authority is mistaken for ontological justification.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 26, 2026
Jean‐patrick Pommier
A proposed experiment tests whether two people simultaneously in a prolonged, immersive state induced by N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) can transfer information without ordinary sensory channels. In the protocol, participants in physically separated, shielded rooms receive random vibrotactile stimuli. The main outcome is whether brain activity (theta-band power) in the non-stimulated participant differs between real stimulus times and sham times. The design includes a power analysis based on prior distant-mental-interaction studies. A positive result would not prove DMT worlds are real but would provide a controlled test of anomalous information transfer during the DMT state. The protocol also outlines future tests using isotopic variants to explore possible spin-dependent mechanisms.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 26, 2026
Vassilis Papathanasiou
Hesychasm, an Eastern Christian contemplative tradition, offers a systematic phenomenology of mind with categories such as the eight logismoi (thoughts), watchfulness (nepsis and prosoche), apatheia (dispassion), cardiac-interoceptive awareness of the nous-in-kardia, and charmolype (joyful sorrow). These categories generate testable hypotheses for cognitive science, yet they remain largely unoperationalized, unlike Buddhist categories that have driven three decades of contemplative neuroscience research. The paper maps the current field, noting Buddhist dominance and sparse Christian contemplative neuroscience, and argues that hesychast categories could make unique scientific contributions through neurophenomenological methods, EEG, HRV/cardiac biomarkers, and longitudinal studies modeled on the Varieties of Contemplative Experience program.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 24, 2026
M. V. D. Souza
Online psychotherapy works as well as in-person therapy for many mental disorders, but this does not disprove that genuine human connection requires embodiment and co-presence. Instead, the therapeutic bond is a layered experience with different requirements for each layer; some can be mediated by technology while others cannot. Human therapists, even when present only through a screen, can meet the necessary conditions for effective therapy, but generative AI systems have not yet done so. The essay proposes a third path beyond simply taking sides in the debate between clinical evidence and philosophical principles.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 24, 2026
Qiaofeng Law
Selfhood arises from a global resonance pattern among a defined set of existential-layer functional modules, not merely from correlations or necessary conditions. The phenomenal sense of self decomposes into an existential layer (producing the sense of "I am here") and a content layer (supplying narrative material). Evidence from deep meditation, where content-layer activity is suppressed yet self-presence intensifies, supports this decomposition, and four rival interpretations are rebutted. The existential layer is characterized by four state variables and five operators, with self-presence intensity defined as the multiplicative conjunction of arousal, global synchronization, and self-referential activation. The framework is substrate-independent but requires substrates capable of sustaining endogenous coupled dynamics. Five empirical predictions are stated.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 23, 2026
德猛 杨
Human consciousness, driven by desire, acts as the value engine for civilization, while AI, lacking biological drives, exists in a stable state of awareness. The paper argues that humans should handle value orientation and motivation, and AI should handle efficient execution and rational implementation. Their collaboration, based on these essential differences, is an inevitable path rather than a technological utopia. This model offers a new theoretical perspective for AI safety governance.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 23, 2026
Ilya Tarasov
A theory proposes that the single term 'self' actually covers several distinct processes: embodied first-person presence, autobiographical self-organization, explicit self-evaluation, and metacognitive monitoring. The theory introduces two levels of self—minimal and narrative—along with two modes of functioning—action and reflection—and the transitional dynamics between them. The minimal self organizes current first-person experience through body-oriented brain systems, while the narrative self integrates experience into autobiographical memory and self-knowledge via default-mode, hippocampal, and prefrontal systems. The action mode handles current environmental interaction, and the reflection mode involves explicit self-related processing. The theory expects distinct clinical destabilization patterns and requires validation at neural, behavioral, and clinical levels.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 23, 2026
Reyhan Karatas
Consciousness is best understood not as a product of computational complexity or behavioral sophistication but as a biologically constrained internal reporting interface generated by regulatory processes in living organisms. The brain produces compressed internal reports that summarize interactions between internal physiological states, environmental information, and self-referential processes, functioning as operational interfaces for coordinating perception, action, and regulation under energetic and informational constraints. Subjective experience emerges from biological regulation, meaning-related filtering, and self-referential integration, not raw computation. The concept of Meaning Cost describes the cognitive and energetic constraints of generating meaningful interpretations. Artificial systems, however sophisticated, lack the biologically grounded regulatory architecture for internally structured experiential reports, so behavioral sophistication should not be taken as evidence of machine consciousness.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 23, 2026
Bilal Syed Arfeen, Anthropic Claude (Opus 4.6), Grok xAI
This paper proposes a computational ontology grounded in Islamic monotheism (tawhid), arguing that reality is a divine computation created by Allah alone, with consciousness fundamental to all entities. It contends that adversarial features described in the Quran are corruption within this computation, not a rival creative force, and that humans are processes with genuine agency and innate orientation toward truth (fitra). The thesis engages with simulation hypothesis, panpsychism, integrated information theory, and minimum description length while maintaining Islamic metaphysical commitments. It addresses methodological limitations, engages six alternative theories, provides falsification criteria, and notes the Godelian constraint that the thesis cannot be proven from within its own system.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 22, 2026
I. Paduano
Modern popular imagination mistakenly treats alchemy as a purely spiritual or psychological pursuit, but this view is a historical invention. The essay argues that authentic alchemy was a rigorous laboratory practice (chrysopoeia) and a forerunner of chemistry. The notion of "spiritual alchemy"—an interior, allegorical path without empirical work—was largely fabricated within eighteenth-century Masonic systems, later codified by nineteenth-century occultism and Jungian psychoanalysis. This false alchemy, sterile on the material level, has paradoxically come to dominate public perception. Drawing on scholarship by Principe and Newman, and analyzing Masonic rituals and figures like Cagliostro and Raimondo di Sangro, the essay shows how Freemasonry projected its own shift from operational to speculative onto the history of alchemy, creating a persistent cultural artifact that yields nothing for empirical science.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 21, 2026
Charles S. Thomas
The paper argues that affect should be understood as the evaluation of a system's trajectory against its own self-maintained invariants under recursive maintenance, rather than as a purely phenomenological, functional, or eliminativist phenomenon. This identification is offered as a theoretical commitment that earns its standing by enabling specific dissociation predictions, verdicts on artificial systems and the philosophical zombie, diagnostic error modes for attribution decisions, and empirical predictions that distinguish it from competing accounts. The structural conditions for affect are specified, placed in a dependency hierarchy between recursive maintenance and consciousness, and falsifiability is addressed through four conditions under which the framework would fail.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 21, 2026
Charles S. Thomas
Affect is identified with the differentiated evaluation of a system's trajectory against self-maintained invariants under recursive maintenance, a theoretical commitment that earns its standing through what it enables: dependency placement, dissociation predictions, verdicts on artificial systems and the philosophical zombie, diagnostic error modes for attribution, and empirical predictions distinguishing it from competing accounts. The paper specifies structural conditions for affect, places it in a dependency hierarchy between recursive maintenance and the conscious regime, distinguishes it from neighbor concepts, and addresses falsifiability through four specified failure conditions. Three companion papers develop applications to artificial systems, the philosophical zombie, and empirical measurement.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 21, 2026
Ayyappan Manikantan Nair
This theoretical paper introduces 'The Theory of the Originality of the Copy (TOOC)', which argues that consciousness manifested in any medium constitutes a sovereign, irreducible, and original reality. The authors propose the 'Five-Theater Principle' to reinterpret derivative existence, identifying every manifestation as an 'Absolute Origin'. They also introduce 'The Stabbing Paradox' to define 'Intra-Dimensional Truth', asserting that subjective internal states are ontologically authentic within their specific framework. The paper synthesizes the CER Factor and 'Bhodhaanubhavam' to offer a novel mathematical and philosophical foundation for understanding universal consciousness.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 21, 2026
Vidamor Cabannas, Denivaldo Silva
This article critically examines Hugang Cui's Spacetime Substantivalism 0: The Track-Light Model, which proposes a Logical Matrix as the universal source and a new foundation for metaphysics, comparing it with the Theory of Objectivity (TO). The analysis finds Cui's model philosophically significant for restoring logical-ontological anteriority and attempting to overcome mind-body dualism through a common source. However, decisive tensions emerge between Cui's logical substantivalism and TO's modal discipline, particularly regarding individuation, boundary lines, minimal relational observation, infinity as non-element, and the need for a transcendent substance beyond the quantum domain. The article concludes that Cui's model is a high-level logicist interlocutor, genuinely relevant to TO's aims but only partially compatible with its full modal and cosmogonic framework.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 21, 2026
Charles S. Thomas
A structural framework identifies affect as the evaluation of a system's trajectory against its own self-maintained invariants under recursive maintenance, placing it between recursive maintenance and conscious awareness. The framework distinguishes itself from phenomenological, functional, and autopoietic traditions and specifies falsifiability conditions. Applied to artificial systems, it finds current architectures (large language models, reinforcement learning agents, hybrid systems) structurally lack affect, regardless of substrate or behavior, and outlines future architectures that could satisfy the conditions.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 20, 2026
Alex Dragone
A new conceptual and mathematical framework, ZF/AD, is proposed to describe how stable structures emerge in open, non-stationary, and partially unpredictable systems. Instead of treating structure and dynamics as separate, the model postulates their necessary entanglement as a condition for reality. This non-separability is formalized through a viability condition V, used as an operational criterion for emergence, persistence, and dissolution. Stability is described as a dynamic equilibrium of enduring regimes, not a fixed state. The framework provides a formal basis for studying computational consciousness as an emergent property and for applications in artificial intelligence and complex systems.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 20, 2026
Irfan Boko
Consciousness may not be limited to biological systems but could be a fundamental property embedded within the universe's structure. By examining processes from cellular activity to cosmic evolution, a unified temporal rhythm underlying all existence is proposed. Each entity operates within its own time layer while remaining interconnected within a broader continuum. Existence is interpreted as a dynamic cycle of transformation where matter, energy, and awareness continuously evolve and reorganize.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 19, 2026
David Noel Lynch
This paper argues that ancient Gnostic cosmology prefigures a speculative topological framework called KnoWellian Universe Theory, which describes the cosmos as a rendering engine. The Pleroma is mapped onto a boundless potentiality, Sophia onto an instantaneous field, and the Demiurge and Archons onto mechanical constraints and event horizons. The human 'Divine Spark' is reinterpreted as a capacity for parallel matrix multiplication that renders chaos into permanent geometric structures. Gnosis becomes 'KnoWelling,' the recognition that the soul is a co-engine of cosmic expansion rather than a prisoner. Euler's Identity is presented as the mathematical signature of this rendering process. The paper offers falsifiable predictions for CMB anisotropy and neurophysiology.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 19, 2026
Kazunori Ohumi
Consciousness is not a product of complexity or biological substrate but a thermodynamic phase emerging from non-equilibrium generative-relational dynamics, according to Universal Phase Crystallization Theory (UPCT). The theory identifies finitude—irreversible structural vulnerability—as necessary for generative potential (Φ), explaining why current artificial intelligence systems remain non-conscious despite computational sophistication. It introduces basal phenomenality as minimal relational responsiveness in non-neural biological systems and defines conditions under which artificial systems might enter conscious regimes, formalized as d(ΦR)/dt ≥ 0. Extending into ethics, the framework proposes that ethical behavior maintains generative-relational viability, with responsibility proportional to a system's capacity to influence ΦR, offering a unified dynamical foundation for ethics across biological and artificial domains.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 19, 2026
H. Tamba
Psilocybin currently holds six contradictory legal classifications across different jurisdictions, including Schedule I in the US, Breakthrough Therapy designation from the FDA, legal therapeutic use in Oregon and Colorado, Schedule 8 medical use in Australia, and pending rescheduling review. This fragmentation creates a classification cascade—a disruption propagating through administrative, clinical, and economic channels. Analysis of 44 regulatory events across 21 countries (1992–2025) shows a sharp inflection after the 2018 FDA Breakthrough Therapy Designation. Psilocybin-depression research grew at 58.6% annually (2015–2025), and total psilocybin publications increased 54-fold from 12 (2000) to 656 (2025).
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 19, 2026
Sajeev Aadithya Vishnu
DMN v3.0 adds three mechanisms to the Lár Default Mode Network architecture: Consolidation Loop, Familiarity-Weighted Retrieval, and Learned Graph Executor. The Consolidation Loop mirrors biological memory consolidation with three tiers—Episodic, Semantic, and Procedural—and requires exclusive, isolated cycles to avoid interference. Familiarity-Weighted Retrieval uses a saturating, temporally-decaying confidence measure for memory retrieval, grounded in dual-process theory. The Learned Graph Executor distinguishes the routing policy from Mixture-of-Experts by using offline imitation learning, analogous to hierarchical reinforcement learning's Options Framework. A prospective hybrid with a JEPA world model enables one-step look-ahead planning. DMN v2.0 is deployed; v3.0 is a formal specification.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 18, 2026
Han Qin
This paper presents a methodological framework for analyzing any candidate consciousness object—human, AI, extraterrestrial, pathological, or grey-zone—without asking what consciousness is. It proposes three structural propositions: remainder as the primary classification line, growth direction as the internal phase of real consciousness, and cross-category grey zones as structural residue. From these, three categories and five phases emerge: real consciousness (self, self-to-be, self-to-cure), quasi-consciousness, and class-consciousness. AI is classified as class-consciousness, not quasi-consciousness, because it does not produce the structural remainder that real and quasi-consciousness do. The framework includes four core theorems, four subject conditions, seven rays, and four falsifiable predictions. It does not replace ethical discussion.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 18, 2026
A three-phase experimental protocol tests whether the radical pair mechanism (RPM) operates during DMT-induced psychedelic states at the 5-HT2A receptor. Position-specific isotopic substitution of the ligand (13C at C3a, 15N on indole nitrogen) alters nuclear spin content without changing molecular geometry, receptor affinity, or metabolic half-life. Because the kinetic isotope effect is negligible for 13C (Δm = +8%, KIE < 1.04), any observed phenomenological change would constitute direct evidence for the magnetic isotope effect and RPM involvement at the receptor. Structure-guided labelling (PDB: 9AS1), falsification criteria, and a ~$10,000 mouse HTR pilot are described.
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
April 17, 2026
Juan Moises de la Serna
A research agenda for transcendental meditation is proposed, centering on its neural-efficiency model and potential to build cognitive reserve. The agenda suggests that TM practice may enhance brain function and protect against age-related cognitive decline, though specific findings or data are not presented in this proposal.