Current empirical approaches to consciousness rely on measures of integration, responsiveness, and reportability, all of which track relatively late-stage phenomena. This paper introduces a minimal operational criterion for detecting an earlier event: the first sustained instance of recursive closure in neural dynamics. We argue that recursion functions as a constraint-satisfying mechanism...
What physical process underlies the transition between unconscious and conscious brain states? Indicators such as the Perturbational Complexity Index (PCI) can track consciousness level with clinical reliability, yet the mechanism that generates conscious experience remains unspecified. We develop a framework—the Boundary Process Hypothesis (BPH)—built on a single empirically risky conjecture:...
This narrative review synthesizes research demonstrating the multi-domain import of nasal breathing across developmental, physiological, immunological, and neuropsychological domains, with the aim of communicating its potential clinical relevance and motivating future empirical investigation. We broadly address developmental and evolutionary foundations and the pathways through which nasal...
This thesis embraces the disciplines of philosophy, art history and practical theology. It is concerned with the ways in which artists have endeavoured to express the numinous or point towards the Transcendent through landscape painting. The Transcendent is described as that recognition in mankind of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining a scientific knowledge of an order...
This paper argues for a new way of approaching metaphysical problems of time by reexamining the concept of time through the lens of the representational theory of mind and Kantian epistemology. As an example of such problems, it examines the historical debate over whether time is discrete or continuous by drawing parallels between Zeno’s paradoxes and Kant’s antinomies. I argue that there are...
Contemporary psychiatry primarily utilizes biomedical models that categorize mental disorders through observable symptoms, which risks overlooking how these experiences are actually lived by individuals. This article examines melancholic depression through the lens of phenomenological psychopathology, arguing that it represents a radical, structural transformation of the subject’s...
The nature of consciousness remains one of the most enduring and challenging questions in philosophy and cognitive science. While philosophy of mind has developed rich conceptual frameworks to understand subjective experience, empirical disciplines such as psychology and neuroscience attempt to investigate consciousness through experimental and observational methods. Despite substantial...
ReligionsMarch 20, 2026Torbjørn Eftestøl, Jeremy Qvick
This article explores Rudolf Steiner’s Christology within the framework of cosmic evolution, focusing on the Second Coming of Christ as a pivotal metaphysical event. Identifying a scholarly lacuna regarding Steiner’s developmental cosmology and the work of Yeshayahu Ben-Aharon, the study adopts an immanent–synthetic methodology to demonstrate a sacramental, participatory epistemology. The first...
This study examines the relationship between déjà vu in modern psychology and ru’yā ṣādiqah in the Qur’an as forms of anticipatory inner experience that appear to precede real events. The research aims to identify points of convergence at the level of human experience while critically distinguishing their epistemological foundations. A qualitative interdisciplinary design was employed,...
Scientific studies of consciousness derive their legitimacy from individuals’ intuitions about the degree to which measured functions can be associated with consciousness. However, intuitions about consciousness are often regarded as inherently inaccurate and unreliable, as evidenced by cases that appear to reveal counterintuitive dissociations between consciousness and functions. Recent...