This work presents a innovative ontological framework centered on the primacy of differentiation, offering a profound rethinking of being, consciousness, and relationality. Drawing from philosophy, science, religion, and technology, the author articulates a layered model of reflexive differentiation (R0–R7), which charts the emergence of complexity—from biological individuation to ethical...
Scholars have wrestled with "consciousness", one writer calling it the "hard problem". Some thirty-plus years after the Towards a Science of Consciousness, we do not seem to be any closer to an answer to "What is consciousness?". Seemingly irresolvable metaphysical problems are addressed by bootstrapping, provisional assumptions, not unlike those used by logicians and mathematicians. I...
Abstract: Field observations of underground, illicit, and private ceremonial substance use has been central to ongoing research in psychedelics-assisted therapy. This paper explores a novel use of MDA in a ceremonial virtual environment. Participant interviews and field notes are used to explore the reported therapeutic effects of this understudied entactogen. Users report therapeutic effects...