However, psilocybin is but one of scores of compounds belonging to two main chemical classesphenethylamines and tryptamines -along with ergolines and an expanding array of other (mostly heterocyclic) alkaloids -that act as agonists of the serotonin 5-HT2A, 5-HT2C and 5-HT1A receptors responsible for the various phenomenological and putative therapeutic effects of classic psychedelics (8). In...
This paper explores the hard problem of consciousness from a different perspective. Instead of drawing distinctions between the physical and the mental, an exploration of a more foundational relationship is examined: the relationship between structure and quality. Information-theoretic measures are developed to quantify the mutual determinability between structure and quality, including a novel...
arXiv.orgApril 22, 2025Hatem Elshatlawy, D. Rickles, X. Arsiwalla et al.
preprint
We propose a formal framework for understanding and unifying the concept of observers across physics, computer science, philosophy, and related fields. Building on cybernetic feedback models, we introduce an operational definition of minimal observers, explore their role in shaping foundational concepts, and identify what remains unspecified in their absence. Drawing upon insights from quantum...
ABSTRACT This article undertakes an examination of the subjective experiences of the artificial intelligence portrayed in Ian McEwan’s novel Machines Like Me. Addressing the ontological status of Adam, an artificial intelligence, the investigation employs David Herman’s strategies of recategorising characters as persons and nonpersons to highlight the phenomenological richness of the...
In the article, I present the ancestral spiritualities of Abya Yala as a living tissue of reciprocal relationships that restore balance and harmony based on the wisdom of nurturing life. This involves the awakening of the cosmic consciousness that makes possible the reconstitution of the human uprooting of its link and interaction in the fabric of life that is named in the Andean peoples as...
Emerging evidence suggests that psychedelic experiences have the potential to change attitudes towards death and reduce death anxiety. Improved attitudes towards death, specifically reduced death anxiety, are of psychological significance for clinical and non-clinical populations alike. Despite this emerging evidence, little is known about the phenomenology of this potential outcome. To provide...
Background: Consciousness (Chaitanya) has played a significant role in Indian philosophy and modern neuroscience. The Taittiriya Upanishad relies on Pancha Kosha (the Five Sheaths) to explain human existence from the physical plane to the transcendental realm. Western neuroscience uses cognitive and neurological frameworks to study Consciousness, but Vedantic philosophy links these sheaths to...
This essay looks into the complex philosophical connection between Nāda (sound) and Nirvāna (liberation) in different Indian philosophical systems, such as Buddhism, Vedānta, and Sākhya. It looks at how sound works not only as an audible experience but also as a basic ontological principle that connects what is real and what is not real. The study looks at the different ways Indian thinkers...
The present study describes the possibility of “phenomenal unification” laws acting on a variety of phenomena acquired during experiences lived over time, capable of generating a new phenomenal concept through the files maintained in latent flow in the perceptive storage when exposed to the phenomenological unification processes by a sense of reference. Such references would assume a force of...
The treatment for patients with disorders of consciousness challenges researchers and clinicians. The stimulation of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) may enhance behavioral responsiveness of a subset of patients in a minimally conscious state, while having limited effects in unresponsive patients. However, heterogeneity in responses...