The inquiry into the nature of consciousness, rooted in the Western philosophical tradition, today runs upagainst an unresolved tension between the need for a physical foundation and the persistence of an Explanatory Gap between functional description and phenomenal experience. The present essay briefly retraces thehistorical evolution of the problem in order to show how the demand for an...
Late-life treatment-resistant depression (TRD) poses substantial clinical challenges, with limited effectiveness of conventional antidepressants and heightened vulnerability to adverse effects among older adults. Ketamine and esketamine have emerged as rapid-acting antidepressants, but their efficacy and safety in geriatric populations remain incompletely characterised. A systematic review and...
This article provides a comprehensive neurocognitive overview of dreaming as a complex brain-generated phenomenon. It examines the neural mechanisms underlying dream formation, including the roles of the brainstem, limbic system, and cortex. Special attention is given to sensory components of dreams, such as visual, auditory, and olfactory experiences. The paper analyzes the influence of body...
The subjective experience of general anesthesia remains largely a "black box" within neurobiology and psychoanalysis. Traditional clinical observations rely on external neurotypical frameworks, often failing to capture the nuanced phenomenological transition between consciousness and medically induced unconsciousness. This paper introduces a novel methodological approach: neurodivergent-based...
This theory formulates Action mode as a configuration of organized waking performance defined by reduced reflective meta-accessibility, high coupling between perspective and task content, preserved operative agency, and feedback-based action updating. Its contrast is Reflection mode, in which perspective becomes available for metacognitive description and report-based evaluation of control,...
Abstract This paper proposes a theoretical model of mental metabolism as a sequence of five phases of processing affectively charged arousal: admission, holding, binding, resolution, and descent/return. The model is built on three levels of description: computational (the free-energy principle; Friston, 2010), neurocognitive (global workspace theory; Baars, 1988), and phenomenological–clinical...
The question of whether artificial systems can be considered conscious remains unresolved, in part due to the absence of operational definitions that permit empirical evaluation. Existing approaches emphasize neural correlates, information integration, or subjective reports, but lack observable behavioral criteria that apply across biological and artificial systems. The present paper proposes a...
Vedanta 2.1 proposes a structured and testable framework integrating experiential non-dual insights with contemporary cognitive science. The model distinguishes between experiential phenomena and explanatory constructs, avoiding metaphysical absolutism while preserving phenomenological accuracy. It introduces three functional modes of perception—sensory engagement (eye), cognitive control...
Abstract This paper outlines the biological foundations of the Process-Contact Theory of the Psyche (PCTP). Its task is not to reduce psychic processes to neurobiological mechanisms but to establish in which physiological and molecular mechanisms the theory's ontological premises are realized, and with what degree of rigor such relations can be asserted. The argument is organized around three...
Abstract Building on the framework of the companion paper (Jensen, submitted), we invert the lens. Rather than asking what AI reveals about consciousness, we examine what current frontier architectures make incompatible with specific consciousness-relevant properties — qualia (felt valence), reliable self-reflection, and phenomenological continuity — and what developmental trajectories may...
In: Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Peter J. Forshaw & Marco Pasi (eds.), Hermes Explains: Thirty Questions about Western Esotericism, Amsterdam University Press: Amsterdam 2019, 145-152.
The self is often described in terms of the narrative self, but the organization of first‑person experience extends beyond autobiographical continuity. The theory of self‑anchors introduces an architecture with three interacting axes: a stable self‑anchor, bodily grounding, and rhythm‑generating dynamics of the retrosplenial cortex. The stable self‑anchor is associated with the precuneus and...
This paper develops a cognitive-constructivist account of consciousness focusing not on what consciousness does but on how it presents. Building on an Interpreter–Navigator model of mind, we argue that phenomenal experience (qualia) serves as a user interface (UI): a presentational format optimized for direct usability by an embodied agent. The central claim is that feeling is the utility...
This paper examines a structural limitation on a common assumption in contemporary AI ethics: that intelligent behaviour can serve as evidence of what is happening inside a system. In current debates, properties such as fluency, coherence, self-report, and apparent understanding are often treated as indicators of internal states that may carry ethical significance. This work shows that, under...
This paper reformulates the hard problem of consciousness within the framework of Difference Monism (DM). Rather than asking how physical processes bridge to subjective experience, it asks: what kind of structure develops internality sufficient to host consciousness? The paper identifies four threshold conditions (stable boundary, internal differentiability, folded-back inheritance,...
This paper examines the construction of the planet Venus as a cosmic mediator between opposing spiritual and psychological forces in the work of Rudolf Steiner and in selected technical astrological traditions. Drawing on astronomical data, Anthroposophical discourse, Hellenistic and Babylonian astrological doctrine, the Inanna-Dumuzi mythic corpus, and Western theological sources, the study...
Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) affects approximately 30% of major depressive disorder(MDD) cases and represents a major unmet clinical need. Ketamine produces rapid antidepressanteffects in TRD, but response is variable and no validated biomarker predicts who will respond.Multiple independent studies have now shown that baseline EEG features -- particularly vigilancestage distribution and...
Background: LSD, psilocybin, and DMT all act primarily at 5-HT2A receptors yet producequalitatively distinct phenomenological profiles. A recent large-scale cross-psychedelicneuroimaging study (Bzdok, Girn et al., 2026, Nature Medicine; N = 267, 11 datasets) identifieda common signature of increased network integration across 5-HT2A agonists. Whetherpharmacokinetic variation — not just receptor...
Existing organisational frameworks for the brain — anatomical, network-based, andcomputational — differ in the specificity of predictions they generate about lesion effects,pharmacological perturbation, and disease trajectory. We propose a candidate functionalframework, the Seven-Layer Signal-Processing Architecture (7L-SPA), that assigns engineeringanalogousfunctions to seven anatomically...
This essay examines the relation between meditative experience, metaphysical interpretation, and ontological responsibility. It acknowledges the seriousness of spiritual experience and the legitimate attempt to move beyond inherited belief toward lived realization. Yet it argues that the immediacy, depth, or transformative power of an experience does not by itself establish the truth of its...
We report a longitudinal single-subject case study documenting replicated electroencephalographic (EEG) signatures during high-amplitude sexual arousal states and post-arousal quiescence in a 57-year-old male subject with no formal meditative training. Data were collected using a consumer-grade EEG headset (Muse S Gen 2 / Mind Monitor, 4-channel: TP9, AF7, AF8, TP10). EEG data collection was...
This report synthesizes a wide-ranging philosophical and theological inquiry into the nature of the soul, its relationship to the mind and body, and its implications for questions of consciousness, moral agency, personal identity, and divine justice. Drawing on Islamic theological traditions — particularly Maturidi and Ash'ari kalām, classical Islamic philosophy, and Quranic exegesis —...
The field of contemplative neuroscience has spent three decades building a sophisticated apparatus for operationalizing Buddhist phenomenological categories — producing mechanism-specific taxonomies, neurophenomenological methods, and tradition-specific psychometrics. The Eastern Christian hesychast tradition contains an equally systematic — and in certain respects scientifically more tractable...