Mohammad Amir Khusru Akhtar
preprint
What Makes Experience Possible? A Comparative Architecture of Consciousness Across Philosophical Traditions: From Plato to Predictive Processing, from Advaita to AI develops a comparative philosophical framework for understanding the conditions that make experience possible. Rather than defending a single metaphysical theory of consciousness, the book compares major philosophical, religious,...
Kande Lekamalaya Senarath Dayathilake
The mechanisms underlying consciousness and its potential continuity beyond biological death remain unresolved in neuroscience and philosophy. This study proposes a novel theoretical framework integrating quantum biology, Buddhist psychology, and thought experiments to address these questions. Using three hypothetical scenarios—brain revival, molecular disassembly/reassembly, and synthetic...
Rémi Thériault, Romane Masson, Stéphane Dandeneau
preprint
Context. Many spiritual traditions, like Buddhism, emphasize the importance of developing feelings of love and altruism toward others regardless of circumstances, but doing so can be challenging, especially in situations where individuals have little self-control resources, for example due to cognitive fatigue. These traditions offer techniques to train the mind, such as loving-kindness...
Prasad Kaipa
preprint
Artificial intelligence should be examined not only as a technology humans build, but as an environment humans increasingly inhabit. This reframing is the organizing claim of this paper. Contemporary AI systems demonstrate extraordinary capability in language, reasoning, and problem-solving, yet these advances leave open questions about consciousness, discernment, and human flourishing that...
Pratyush Ranjan, Sunaina Sabat
preprint
Artificial intelligence, neural interfaces, prosthetic technologies, and related developments have given renewed urgency to an old philosophical problem: what is the relationship between consciousness and embodiment, and must consciousness remain tied to the particular biological form through which human beings presently experience the world? The problem is not simply technological. It concerns...
Uzi Ben Zvi
preprint
The biblical story of eating from the Tree of Knowledge and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden is traditionally interpreted in terms of sin and punishment. This article proposes an alternative reading grounded in two complementary frameworks: the Interface Theory of Consciousness (Ben-Zvi, 2025), which offers an evolutionary and neurological account of the emergence of human consciousness,...
Shawn Prest
preprint
Meditative experience has long been associated with conceptual attenuation, reduced reactivity to phenomena, increased present moment perception and more pleasant experience. However, the computational mechanisms underlying such meditative “deconstruction” are not well understood, with no formal computational models available to explicate how deconstruction alters perception and action during...
Nana Kofi Amoako Glover
This paper proposes that trees and mycelial networks represent an alternative model of advanced life and intelligence. Unlike mobile, animal-based intelligence—evolved primarily to solve problems of movement—arboreal intelligence privileges longevity, integration, and inner experiential states. By comparing arboreal systems with artificial intelligence, Buddhist and indigenous philosophies...
Zhenguo Lai
preprint
Contemporary emotion science lacks a Yogācāra‐grounded model capable of engaging constructionism’s central tension: operational reliance on category-like units despite rejecting natural-kind categories. Drawing on Asaṅga’s Yogācārabhūmi and the five omnipresent mental factors (sarvatraga-caittas), this article develops a six-layer model of emotion generation—from phenomenal awareness through...
Giuseppe Pagnoni
preprint
This paper is based on a presentation delivered at a 2024 conference on consciousness studies in Padova, Italy. The event, titled "The Elephant in the Room: Investigating Consciousness Beyond Reductionism," was a collaborative effort between the Italian Buddhist Union (UBI) and the University of Padova. A revised version of this work is slated for publication in the conference proceedings volume.