David Chalmers
Can Machines Be Conscious? The Substrate Problem
The question of whether machines can be conscious is not a parlor trick for philosophers. It is the most consequential engineering question of the 21st century.
Integrated Information Theory: Consciousness as Phi
If consciousness is the operating system running on biological wetware, then Integrated Information Theory (IIT) is the first serious attempt to write its technical specification. Developed by neuroscientist Giulio Tononi at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, IIT proposes something radical:...
Biological Computationalism: The Third Path to Consciousness
The philosophy of consciousness has been stuck in a binary trap for decades. On one side: functionalism (classical computationalism), which holds that consciousness is substrate-independent computation — that any system implementing the right algorithm, whether silicon or carbon, would be conscious.
Consciousness Science at the Crossroads: From the Hard Problem to the Engineering Era
In 1994, David Chalmers stood before an audience at the first Tucson conference on consciousness and articulated what he called the "hard problem" — why does subjective experience exist at all? Why is there something it is like to see red, feel pain, taste coffee?
The Consciousness Thread: How Graham Hancock Connects Archaeology to the Spirit World
There is a moment in Graham Hancock's intellectual journey where the trail splits. Follow one fork and you find the lost civilization researcher -- the man chasing underwater ruins, precession codes, and comet impacts.
The Grand Synthesis: Seven Hermetic Principles as a Unified Field Theory
Imagine that somewhere between the second and third centuries of the Common Era, in the intellectual crucible of Hellenistic Alexandria, a group of philosopher-mystics encoded into a handful of texts a complete description of how reality operates. They did not have telescopes, particle...
Consciousness and Physics: Nassim Haramein's Framework for Understanding Awareness as Fundamental
The greatest unsolved problem in science is not the unification of forces, the nature of dark matter, or the origin of the universe. It is consciousness.
The Extended Mind: Consciousness Beyond the Brain
You are sitting in a cafe, reading a book. The back of your neck prickles.
The Science Delusion: Ten Dogmas That Keep Us Asleep
In January 2013, Rupert Sheldrake stepped onto the stage at TEDx Whitechapel in London and gave an 18-minute talk that would become one of the most watched -- and most censored -- presentations in the history of TED. The talk was called "The Science Delusion," after his 2012 book of the same...
Susan Pockett's Electromagnetic Consciousness: The Field Theory That Arrived from the Other Side of the World
In the history of science, independent convergence — when two researchers, working separately, arrive at the same conclusion — is considered the strongest evidence that the conclusion is correct. When Darwin and Wallace independently discovered natural selection.
Rupert Sheldrake: The Experiments That Suggest the Mind Extends Beyond the Brain
Rupert Sheldrake holds a doctorate in biochemistry from Cambridge University. He was a fellow of Clare College, Cambridge.
Ubuntu Philosophy and Relational Consciousness: I Am Because We Are
In the Nguni languages of southern Africa — Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele, Swazi — there is a word that has no equivalent in any European language: ubuntu. Its most common translation, "I am because we are," gestures toward its meaning but cannot contain it.
Conception and the Entry of Consciousness: Where Biology Meets Spirit
When does consciousness enter the body? The question stands at the intersection of biology, philosophy, theology, and indigenous wisdom — and it has no answer that all traditions agree upon.
Prenatal Consciousness: The Awareness That Exists Before Birth
When does consciousness begin? The question is among the most fundamental in philosophy, neuroscience, and spirituality — and the answer has shifted dramatically as research has revealed that the fetus is not the blank slate that twentieth-century medicine assumed.
Samkhya Philosophy: Consciousness, Matter, and the Architecture of Experience
Samkhya is the oldest of the six classical Indian philosophical systems (darshanas) and the theoretical foundation upon which Yoga, Ayurveda, and much of Indian metaphysics rests. Attributed to the sage Kapila and systematized in Ishvara Krishna's Samkhya Karika (circa 350 CE), Samkhya provides...