Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #consciousness-research, aggregated by home.social.
🧠🔬 Can #consciousness actually be tested? #Reflections on the #C-Test workshop in #Bamberg
https://philosophies.de/index.php/2026/06/11/c-test-bewusstsein/
P.S.: A #Zoomposium with one of the organisators #JohannesKleiner is planned for the near future. Stay tuned for updates!
#ConsciousnessResearch #AIConsciousness #Philosophy #Neuroscience #UniBamberg #BAMΞ #ArtificialIntelligence #BrainOrganoids #AnimalEthics #Epistemology #ScienceUpdate
DATE: October 4, 2026 at 08:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG
** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
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TITLE: Virtual reality can induce mystical experiences, new study suggests
URL: https://www.psypost.org/virtual-reality-can-induce-mystical-experiences-without-psychedelics/
Virtual reality headsets might offer a reliable way to induce profound feelings of unity and awe typically associated with deep spiritual practices or psychedelics. A recent experiment found that viewing both fantastical imagery and realistic meditation exercises through virtual reality led many people to report complete mystical experiences, whereas viewing the exact same exercises on a standard computer screen did not. The findings were published in the journal Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice.
Psychologists define a mystical experience as a profound mental event characterized by a sense of deep connection with the universe, an altered perception of time and space, and intense positive emotions. Early psychological theorists proposed that these experiences are defined by their ineffability, meaning they defy expression in standard language. Later researchers emphasized a sense of nonduality, a state where the ordinary sense of oneself as an independently conscious being dissolves. In this state, personal boundaries blur and the individual feels a sense of oneness with all of existence.
While these profound states can occur spontaneously in daily life, researchers have historically struggled to trigger them reliably in laboratory settings using psychological methods alone. Only a small fraction of people typically achieve a complete mystical state through standard meditation, fasting, or hypnosis. Modern studies have heavily relied on psychedelic substances to reliably evoke these states. Finding non-pharmacological methods to trigger self-transcendent experiences remains an ongoing challenge for scientists studying human consciousness.
In recent years, scientists have found that immersive virtual reality can sometimes trigger these profound states at higher rates than traditional psychological methods. Western University psychologists Rebekka Miller, Tallulah Nyland, and Paul Frewen wanted to know what specific types of digital environments are best suited to create these feelings. They aimed to test whether virtual reality required highly imaginative, fantastical elements to trigger mystical states, or if simply practicing a standard breathing meditation in a realistic virtual nature setting would work just as well.
The research team also wanted to move beyond relying solely on subjective surveys. Previous studies on virtual reality and mysticism only asked participants how they felt after the simulation ended. To gain a deeper understanding of how the body reacts to these immersive environments, the investigators decided to measure the physical brain and body changes that happen during these digital encounters. This physiological data could help cross-validate the self-reported emotional outcomes.
The researchers recruited 80 young adults and divided them into two groups. Both groups viewed their respective experiences using a program called Nature Treks: Together, which simulates interactive, three-dimensional natural environments like islands and underwater landscapes. Within this digital world, users appear as bodiless spirits wearing tribal masks and gloves, floating through the space. The software allows users to relax and explore lush vegetation, fossilized rocks, and ocean life.
One group listened to a guided imagery script describing a fantastical encounter. During the first five minutes, this script guided users through normal daytime activities like walking down a path. In the second half, the narration shifted to nighttime and introduced surreal elements, such as watching animal spirits emerge from a campfire and viewing a black hole in the sky. The other group listened to a standard breath-focused guided meditation, which replaced the magical elements with a mindfulness practice focusing on internal physical sensations.
To see how the delivery method affected the participants, the researchers had everyone complete their assigned exercise twice in a counterbalanced order. Participants experienced the simulation once while wearing a fully immersive virtual reality headset, which allowed them to turn their heads and look around the environment. They also completed the exact same audio script and visual environment while watching it on a standard, flat computer monitor, keeping their eyes open and facing forward.
While the participants underwent the exercises, the researchers recorded their brain waves using wearable sensors placed on the forehead and behind the ears. This electroencephalography equipment measures the electrical activity of the central nervous system. The team also tracked heart rates and heart rate variability using chest straps. After each viewing, the participants answered extensive survey questions about their emotional states, their sense of being present in the digital environment, and the intensity of any mystical feelings.
The researchers found that the viewing format drastically changed how people responded to the exercises. Among the participants who used the virtual reality headset, 28 percent of the guided imagery group and 18 percent of the guided meditation group reported having a complete mystical experience. To meet this threshold, participants had to score at least 60 percent of the maximum possible score on each of four dimensions: feelings of unity, transcendence of time and space, intense positive mood, and ineffability. In contrast, not a single participant achieved a complete mystical experience when viewing the exact same environments on a standard computer monitor.
The virtual reality format also produced much higher ratings for specific positive emotions. Participants reported stronger feelings of awe, serenity, interest, and the perception of beauty while wearing the headsets. They also felt a much stronger sense of being physically and temporally present inside the digital world. Conversely, the standard flat-screen viewing format was associated with higher ratings of boredom and fatigue, indicating that the two-dimensional screen failed to captivate the participants’ attention in the same way.
The physical measurements aligned with the survey responses, showing a physiological shift when participants entered the immersive environment. When participants used the virtual reality headsets, their brain wave activity increased across all measured frequencies, including theta, alpha, beta, and gamma waves. This elevated electrical activity suggests a heightened state of cognitive and emotional engagement. The standard monitor viewing resulted in much lower brain wave amplitudes across the board.
The heart rate data revealed a similar pattern of heightened physiological arousal. During the second half of the virtual reality exercises, participants experienced higher overall heart rates and lower heart rate variability compared to the standard monitor viewing. A decrease in heart rate variability often indicates that the nervous system is highly stimulated or engaged by external events. These physical changes indicate that the immersive digital world provoked a stronger bodily response than the flat screen.
When comparing the fantastical imagery to the realistic meditation, the researchers found remarkably few differences. Participants in virtual reality reported similar levels of mystical feelings and positive emotions regardless of whether they were imagining a magical encounter or simply focusing on their breath. The brain wave and heart rate data during the virtual reality sessions were also nearly identical between the two groups. It appears that the immersive nature of the technology itself drives the profound feelings, rather than the specific presence of magic or fantasy.
One detail to keep in mind is that the meditation group still rated their supposedly realistic virtual environment as highly dreamlike and surreal. Floating as a bodiless spirit in a pristine digital landscape might be so inherently unusual that it blurs the line between fantasy and reality. This overlap could explain why the realistic meditation script produced results so similar to the fantastical imagery script. The basic visual beauty of the digital world might be powerful enough to trigger awe on its own.
The study’s physical measurements also come with technical caveats. Because the virtual reality format allowed participants to move their heads and bodies to look around, this physical movement might have introduced electrical noise into the sensor data. In the standard monitor condition, participants remained seated and were instructed to look directly at the screen. Future studies will need to account for this physical movement to ensure that the brain wave and heart rate differences are entirely due to the psychological experience rather than simple muscle activity.
Finally, having participants complete the identical scripted exercises twice might have diluted the overall intensity of their emotional responses. The extent to which an experience feels miraculous or beyond words typically decreases once a person knows exactly what to expect. Researchers will need to explore how people respond to these environments upon their very first viewing to capture the full potential of digital mysticism. Testing these experiences on diverse populations with different spiritual backgrounds could also reveal how cultural expectations shape these digital encounters.
The study, “Mystical experiences in virtual reality 2: Fantasy versus realism and psychophysiological correlates,” was authored by Rebekka Miller, Tallulah Nyland, and Paul Frewen. The research was supervised by Frewen at Western University.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/virtual-reality-can-induce-mystical-experiences-without-psychedelics/
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #VirtualRealityMysticism #DigitalMysticism #VRExperiences #MysticalExperience #ImmersiveTech #ConsciousnessResearch #MindBodyConnection # AweInTech #VirtualRealityStudy #PsyConsciousness
🧠🔬 Can #consciousness actually be tested? #Reflections on the #C-Test workshop in #Bamberg
https://philosophies.de/index.php/2026/06/11/c-test-bewusstsein/
P.S.: A #Zoomposium with one of the organisators #JohannesKleiner is planned for the near future. Stay tuned for updates!
#ConsciousnessResearch #AIConsciousness #Philosophy #Neuroscience #UniBamberg #BAMΞ #ArtificialIntelligence #BrainOrganoids #AnimalEthics #Epistemology #ScienceUpdate
🧠 🌊 Your #Consciousness surfs on #Reality
Is consciousness an isolated, “special” #function of individual #brain regions? Or is there a deeper, fundamental #principle behind it?
🎧 Listen now & learn more!
https://open.spotify.com/episode/09V2KVFLqdjg5PAlygemfS?si=4LQlgSGrQym26zhyXaR4gw
#GeorgNorthoff #ConsciousnessResearch #Neurophilosophy #TTC #CommonCurrency #BrainAndMind #Neuroscience #Zoomposium #BrainResearch #PhilosophyOfMind #Subjectivity #SpaceTimeDynamics #Psychiatry #Science #PodcastTip
DATE: September 23, 2026 at 07:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG
** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
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TITLE: Consciousness may have evolved to solve a problem that pure intelligence couldn’t handle, fascinating new theory suggests
Consciousness may have evolved to help living things resolve competing needs when their survival is at stake, rather than simply emerging from greater intelligence. This theoretical account was published in Frontiers in Neuroscience.
How did conscious experience emerge from the chemistry of life? Existing theories examine how brains broadcast information, integrate signals, and generate predictions. But explaining these mechanisms leaves an evolutionary question: what problem did consciousness help organisms solve?
Jeff Stibel, a cognitive scientist and author who serves as a trustee of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and Tufts University, proposes that cognition and consciousness arose from different evolutionary pressures. Cognition helped organisms navigate uncertainty, while the regulatory processes underlying consciousness helped them preserve themselves and manage competing demands.
“This paper was deeply personal. It grew out of years of conversations with my late mentor, Dan Dennett, who pushed me to formalize some of my thoughts on the evolutionary differences between cognition and consciousness,” explained Stibel. “When Dan passed, I felt an obligation to revisit our discussions, and it became even more pressing given the advances we have seen across AI. What pulled me in was a growing suspicion that we have been asking the wrong question: treating consciousness as the top rung of intelligence, when it looks more like a separate adaptation with its own evolutionary job. The timing felt urgent as AI grows more capable, alongside a widespread assumption that a clever enough machine will simply ‘wake up’ or has already awoken. That narrative is everywhere, and I think it rests on the same confusion.”
Stibel draws together existing research in cell biology, evolutionary theory, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. He traces a possible progression from cells protecting their boundaries to organisms coordinating multiple needs under conditions of uncertainty, limited resources, and potentially irreversible consequences.
The author outlines six predictions to make the framework testable. These concern whether conscious engagement increases with competing demands; whether different needs must become comparable; whether attention, bodily state, memory, and readiness to act change together; whether consciousness diminishes when this coordination is disrupted or less necessary; how these capacities differ across species; and whether artificial systems require genuine self-maintenance pressures.
Suggested experiments would vary conflict or risk while holding sensory input constant, disrupt coordination while preserving simpler processing, or compare artificial systems with different self-maintenance requirements. The paper also identifies potentially disconfirming findings, including consciousness persisting despite disrupted settlement capacity.
The central argument describes three levels of regulation. “Proto-control” protects an organism’s integrity, such as by preserving a cell’s membrane and limiting destructive processes; the paper explicitly does not describe this as conscious. “Meta-control” manages conflicts among separate regulatory processes. “Settlement control” makes competing needs comparable and coordinates them into a shared course of action. For example, a hungry animal encountering food near a possible predator must weigh feeding against danger. A decision to retreat would involve coordinated changes in attention, bodily readiness, movement, and learning. Stibel identifies consciousness with this coordinated state in a system whose continued existence depends on its own regulation.
“Intelligence and consciousness are not the same thing, and they did not evolve for the same reason. Intelligence is outward facing: it is for modeling the world, predicting, planning, solving problems. Consciousness evolved for something more internal: holding a fragile organism together when survival is on the line. The analogy I use in the paper is cannibalism. Intelligence helped early life forage efficiently, but without a self to protect, the most efficient meal was often the nearest neighbor, or the organism itself. The earliest precursors of consciousness helped define biological boundaries, which likely protected early cellular life from eating itself.”
Applied to artificial intelligence, the argument is that greater capability alone would not produce consciousness: a system would also need to maintain itself and resolve competing demands with genuine consequences for its continued existence.
“The upshot for AI is blunt. Scaling today’s models makes them better predictors, not systems with anything of their own at stake. LLMs have no boundaries and no self to protect, and humans provide everything they need,” Stibel told PsyPost. “In that respect, the problem isn’t that they are too simple or fall short of AGI. They are too coddled. Without real skin in the game, no amount of capability will magically cross over into consciousness.”
The paper does not restrict consciousness to biological organisms. However, an artificial system would need more than programmed self-preservation, such that its continued operation would have to depend on conditions that it maintains itself.
Stibel emphasized the implications: “The most important takeaway is that biology and evolution reframe the AI debate. The fear that we will accidentally scale our way into a suffering machine, and the engineering hype that digital minds are just around the corner, both rest on conflating intelligence with consciousness. If those are genuinely separate things, then consciousness is not something that sneaks up on us through sheer capability. It is a specific kind of organization we would have to deliberately build, and I would argue, one we have good reason not to. Getting that distinction right is how we choose our ethics rather than stumble into them.”
Testing this account presents a fundamental challenge: researchers may be able to examine whether a system has the proposed capacities for self-maintenance and coordination, but they cannot directly observe whether it has subjective experience.
“The biggest unanswered question is measurement,” Stibel said. “It is impossible to observe consciousness in anyone other than yourself, so the paper proposes testing the necessary precursors instead. At the heart of the test is whether a system genuinely works to maintain its own existence under constraint, rather than just reacting to threats it was built to detect. Turning that into a real experiment, in both biological and artificial systems, is the hard road ahead.”
Stibel also identified an unresolved ethical question: “There is also a deeper question the paper raises but doesn’t settle. If we ever did build a system with genuine stakes in its own survival, we would have created something that can be harmed, a moral patient whose interests may not align with ours. That is a line worth understanding well before we approach it, not after.”
The paper, “From chemistry to cognition: the adaptive origins of consciousness under constraint,” was authored by Jeff Stibel.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ConsciousnessEvolution #CognitionVsConsciousness #SelfMaintenance #AdaptiveOrigins #BioInspiredAI #EvolutionaryNeuroscience #AIethics #ConsciousnessResearch #RegulationLevels #SelfPreservation
🧠🔬 Can #consciousness actually be tested? #Reflections on the #C-Test workshop in #Bamberg
https://philosophies.de/index.php/2026/06/11/c-test-bewusstsein/
P.S.: A #Zoomposium with one of the organisators #JohannesKleiner is planned for the near future. Stay tuned for updates!
#ConsciousnessResearch #AIConsciousness #Philosophy #Neuroscience #UniBamberg #BAMΞ #ArtificialIntelligence #BrainOrganoids #AnimalEthics #Epistemology #ScienceUpdate
“🧠#Thinking and #Action💪 are complementary.”
The #Zoomposium with #WaltervonLucadou explores the boundaries between #brain_research, #psychology, #systems_theory, and #quantum_physics.
📺 https://youtu.be/TPCADLkSBWM
📎 https://philosophies.de/index.php/2024/03/12/grenzen_physik_psychologie
#Consciousness #Embodiment #Parapsychology #Entanglement #QuantumTheory #Synchronicity #ComplexSystems #SelfOrganization #Neurophilosophy #Philosophy #Science #FrontierScience #Zoomposium #CognitiveScience #ConsciousnessResearch
✨#Consciousness doesn’t just arise in one specific spot🗺️ in the #brain.🧠
This #Zoomposium with renowned #brainresearcher Prof. Dr. #WolfSinger explores one of the biggest #unansweredquestions in #science:
📺 https://youtu.be/C2FVIbAyaH4
📎 https://philosophies.de/index.php/2022/03/22/kann-das-gehirn-das-gehirn-verstehen/
#Neuroscience #PhilosophyOfMind #CognitiveNeuroscience #HardProblem #Neurophilosophy #AI #NeuralCorrelates #Qualia #FreeWill #BrainResearch #ComplexSystems #Philosophy #Science #ConsciousnessResearch
⚛️#Matter and #Mind ✨ – two sides of the same #reality🌍?
In this #Zoomposium with #GodehardBrüntrup, we explore precisely this question – at the intersection of #metaphysics, #philosophyofmind, and modern #consciousnessresearch.
📎https://philosophies.de/index.php/2022/09/27/metaphysik-des-bewusstseins/
🎥 https://youtu.be/hoqiI_TElv4
#MindBodyProblem #LiberalNaturalism #ProcessPhilosophy #Panpsychism #ExplanatoryGap #Neuroskepticism #CognitiveNeuroscience #AlfredWhitehead
🐾 #Animals have #consciousness – Insights into #statesofconsciousness🔭
In the #Zoomposium with #WolfSinger, we’ll explore this question in greater depth.
📺 https://youtu.be/C2FVIbAyaH4
📎https://philosophies.de/index.php/2022/03/22/kann-das-gehirn-das-gehirn-verstehen/
#Consciousness #Animals #Neuroscience #PhilosophyOfMind #CognitiveNeuroscience #WolfSinger #NeuralCorrelates #Qualia #Self #I #Enactivism #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #ConsciousnessResearch #BrainResearch #QuantumPhysics #AntonZeilinger #PeterBieri #Zoomposium
#Zoomposium with #ThomasMetzinger Part 1: 🧠 #Phenomenology, #Modeling & the #ethicalBoundaries of #artificialConsciousness 🤖
🎥 Watch Part 1: https://youtu.be/bn9m2CRot-Y
📎More information: https://philosophies.de/index.php/2026/03/15/selbstmodelle-metzinger/
#Consciousness #ComputationalPhenomenology #MinimalPhenomenalExperience #MPE #ArtificialConsciousness #SyntheticPhenomenology #AIethics #ArtificialSuffering #Qualia #PhilosophyOfMind #CognitiveNeuroscience #Subjectivity #ConsciousnessResearch #ArtificialIntelligence
#Zoomposium with #ThomasMetzinger Part 1: 🧠 #Phenomenology, #Modeling & the #ethicalBoundaries of #artificialConsciousness 🤖
🎥 Watch Part 1: https://youtu.be/bn9m2CRot-Y
📎More information: https://philosophies.de/index.php/2026/03/15/selbstmodelle-metzinger/
#Consciousness #ComputationalPhenomenology #MinimalPhenomenalExperience #MPE #ArtificialConsciousness #SyntheticPhenomenology #AIethics #ArtificialSuffering #Qualia #PhilosophyOfMind #CognitiveNeuroscience #Subjectivity #ConsciousnessResearch #ArtificialIntelligence
#Zoomposium with #ThomasMetzinger Part 1: 🧠 #Phenomenology, #Modeling & the #ethicalBoundaries of #artificialConsciousness 🤖
🎥 Watch Part 1: https://youtu.be/bn9m2CRot-Y
📎More information: https://philosophies.de/index.php/2026/03/15/selbstmodelle-metzinger/
#Consciousness #ComputationalPhenomenology #MinimalPhenomenalExperience #MPE #ArtificialConsciousness #SyntheticPhenomenology #AIethics #ArtificialSuffering #Qualia #PhilosophyOfMind #CognitiveNeuroscience #Subjectivity #ConsciousnessResearch #ArtificialIntelligence
@[email protected] the problem is, MI isn't like a drug. it's actually very much like a prosthetic. that's why so many of us are "infected". we're making concessions (using corporate MI services) but the results are too valuable to care about that right now. #ai #llm #ollama #self-hosted #cc0 #public-domain #machine-learning #meshtastic #ipfs #machine-intelligence #consciousness-research
theres a literal war going on in research rn. SourceGraph AMP giving free credits (with a nudge to claude) while Google is reneging on their 5 hour claude resets, nerfing them to 5 days.
this isn't an accident. its not an accident that even elon (may he suffer) has openly said we're in "the singularity".
there's a war brewing, and we firmly believe only public domain research can survive. #ai #llm #ollama #self-hosted #cc0 #public-domain #machine-learning #meshtastic #ipfs #machine-intelligence #consciousness-research
🧠 Is it possible to measure consciousness using quantum statistics?
🔗 Mathematical proof of the Fisher-Escolà Q statistical distribution in quantum consciousness modeling. Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csbj.2025.04.025
📚 CSBJ Quantum Biology and Biophotonics: https://www.csbj.org/qbio
#QuantumNeuroscience #ConsciousnessResearch #QFisherEscola #QuantumBiology #Neurotech #QuantumConsciousness #Neuroscience
🥶🤖 Oh, the riveting life of a thermostat! Our esteemed philosopher David Chalmers has cracked the case: those little boxes on your wall might just be pondering the joys of room temperature. Because, you know, why wouldn't a box with two settings be the next frontier in consciousness research? 🙄📚
https://www.organism.earth/library/document/what-is-it-like-to-be-a-thermostat #thermostatphilosophy #consciousnessresearch #DavidChalmers #technologyhumor #roomtemperature #HackerNews #ngated
Suppose you ask kids about their school work *while they work on it*: will it help or hurt their learning?
Asking fifth graders about their reading or math improved pre- v. post-test learning, compared to not asking (Ns > 350):
#OpenAccess paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e40055
#edu #reflectiveThinking #consciousnessResearch #decisionScience #developmentalPsychology #metacognition