Spirituality is central to health and healing in Ethiopia, yet no comprehensive synthesis of the literature exists. This scoping review maps the evidence on spiritual health, beliefs, practices, and healthcare integration gaps in Ethiopia. To systematically identify, characterize, and thematically analyze empirical studies on spiritual health and spirituality in Ethiopia, and to identify...
Higher-order theories of consciousness (HOT) propose that a mental state M is conscious if and only if a higher-order state H represents M. This paper argues HOT is a labeling scheme rather than a theory of consciousness. HOT specifies a one-way relation between two mental states, applies the label "conscious" to whatever fits the relation, and supplies the actual states, the physical material,...
Dominant psychedelic frameworks have been developed primarily from acute-phase neuroimaging and emphasize transient network reconfiguration during the drug state. Less attention has been given to the post-acute period, during which consequential electrophysiological and clinical changes may unfold. Ibogaine, whose human evidence is restricted to the post-acute window, provides a particularly...
This article examines the yogic and Vedantic frameworks for understanding the human mind — specifically the Pancha Kosha model (five sheaths of consciousness) and the Antahkarana model (the fourfold inner instrument of Manas, Buddhi, Chitta, and Ahamkara) — in dialogue with current neuroscience of consciousness, attention, memory, and self-referential processing. The five Koshas are examined:...
Substratism is a neurophilosophical framework in personal identity and consciousness studies. It addresses a category error common to discussions of consciousness and death: the conflation of the cessation of conscious organization with the termination of material existence. The framework maintains three strictly distinct categories. Being is the historically continuous material substrate that...
This paper proposes a process-ontological framework for understanding "Stable Otherness"—the dynamic relational structure that enables a meaningful encounter between self and other—across biological, cognitive, and artificial systems. Drawing on Whitehead’s process philosophy and enactivism, we introduce geometric analogies—specifically relational manifolds, connections (∇), and geometric...
The scientific study of consciousness encompasses more than 340 distinct theoretical proposals with no agreed framework for evaluating them against common standards. This paper proposes the Consciousness Theory Evaluation Protocol (CTEP) v1.0, a theory-neutral instrument applicable to any theory of consciousness regardless of its ontological commitments. CTEP organises evaluation around seven...
This article examines the human brain as an integrated neurovascular architecture in which neuronal, vascular, glial, and metabolic components form a unified functional system. Drawing on contemporary findings in neuroscience, the study analyzes mechanisms of neurovascular coupling, the role of the blood–brain barrier, the glymphatic system, and the energetic foundations of cognitive processes....
A central unresolved question in computational consciousness research concerns whether meaningful differences between biological and artificial systems can be quantified without recourse to computationally intractable measures such as Integrated Information Theory (IIT). We propose Participation Ratio (PR) — derived from the eigenvalue distribution of neural trajectory covariance matrices — as...
This paper explores the possibility that conscious experience may possess a more fundamental and persistent feature than many forms of selfhood ordinarily associated with consciousness. Drawing upon reports from dreaming, contemplative practice, psychedelic states, nondual awareness, and other altered conditions, the paper examines a recurring observation: autobiographical identity, agency,...
Description: Meaning, Alternatives, and the Adjudicative Function Core question: Why does recognized error feel qualitatively different from ordinary failure? Central claim: A system can only be wrong if alternatives existed. Meaning itself depends on the maintained possibility of relating distinctions in more than one way. Cognition therefore includes a distinct function — the adjudicative...
This paper develops a formal framework for identifying when an acquired change becomes part of a system’s organizational identity rather than merely part of its causal history. Building on research in organizational closure, enactivism, and philosophy of biology, the paper introduces a computationally explicit account of scar structure: irreversible, generative, and architecturally expanding...
This article develops a processual-perspectivist interpretation of Active Inference. Predictive Processing, the Free Energy Principle, and Active Inference are often read as theories of internal world-modeling by an epistemically secluded brain. On such readings, the brain constructs generative models of hidden external causes and thereby risks reinstating a classical inside–outside...
A central unresolved question in computational consciousness research concerns whether meaningful differences between biological and artificial systems can be quantified without recourse to computationally intractable measures such as Integrated Information Theory (IIT). We propose Participation Ratio (PR) — derived from the eigenvalue distribution of neural trajectory covariance matrices — as...
The distinction between sex and gender has been both beneficial and limiting for interdisciplinary research on gender/sex (Shattuck-Heidorn and Richardson 2019; Paulitz 2021; Oudshoorn 2003; Mikkola 2017). In response, alternative conceptual frameworks aim to either overcome or redefine sex and gender: from approaches to bio social interactions (Haslanger 2017) to gender/sex entanglement (Barad...
The question of whether and under what conditions machines could be conscious has shifted from a marginal philosophical concern to an active research program. Existing frameworks enumerate necessary conditions for consciousness as flat lists, treating consciousness as a single explanandum addressed by a single theory. This paper argues that work on conditions for consciousness is better...
Consciousness has not been medically defined. It has been defined legally and socially, and those definitions have varied across jurisdictions and across centuries. The DSM does not define consciousness. The ICD does not define consciousness. There is no diagnostic biomarker for phenomenal experience. The AI consciousness debate has been proceeding as if a constitutive specification of...
The emergence of 4E (embodied, embedded, enactive, extended) cognition has catalyzed a pedagogical shift toward embodied learning, challenging traditional Cartesian dualism in educational practice (Gallagher, 2017). However, while contemporary research highlights the benefits of sensorimotor engagement for conceptual understanding, the field currently lacks a cohesive framework to explain how...
Contemporary debates surrounding artificial intelligence and consciousness are frequently polarized between two extremes: claims that advanced AI systems are becoming conscious, and dismissals that they are “merely statistical machines.” This paper argues that both positions fail to grasp the deeper philosophical significance of generative AI. Drawing upon Jean Baudrillard’s theory of...
Consciousness is a first-person experience, and no one has direct access to another's experience. This generates a problem that precedes the hard problem of David Chalmers. We need to know how to identify the existence of subjective experience in others before we can analyse it. I argue that the attribution of mind is irreducibly inductive. Every method proposed to verify another's...
Educational philosophy frequently grapples with a persistent analytical divide betweensociocultural macro-structures and the embodied, existential microdynamics of the individual.While Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) provides robust tools for analyzingsystemic contradictions, it often leaves the operational level of the lived body undertheorized.Conversely, 4E cognition and...
In a world understood through Existential Realism (ER) – where only the present moment truly “exists” – and under Minimal-Dual Awareness (MDA) – a mode of consciousness with reduced self–other splits and narrative thought – a puzzle arises: What grounds our obligations, commitments, and ethical agency when the “story-self” dissolves? We propose that ethical authority is rooted in the relational...
Meditation research is frequently framed in terms of reduced self-referential processing, yet converging evidence suggests that this description encompasses multiple mechanistically distinct states. The present work proposes a specific subclass, termed tranquil states, defined as resting-state conditions characterized by concurrent attenuation of default mode network activity — a finding...
The scientific study of consciousness is characterized by multiple theoretical frameworks that often appear mutually incompatible. Integrated Information Theory, Global Workspace Theory, Predictive Processing, Recurrent Processing Theory, Higher Order Theory, and biological enactivism each identify different mechanisms or properties as central to consciousness. The present paper proposes that...
This paper proposes the Epistemic Process Hypothesis (EPH): consciousness is not produced by the accumulation of knowledge, but by the experiential process through which knowledge is acquired. We argue that pre-loading artificial systems with information may inherently prevent the emergence of consciousness. A framework for artificial consciousness development is proposed, grounded in zero...