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Renowned physicist and nanoscientist Anirban Bandyopadhyay presents a radically different picture of the human brain: not as a computer processing bits, but as a nested architecture of clocks, resonances and shifting geometric patterns. At Japan’s National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS), Bandyopadhyay and his team developed the dodecanogram, or DDG: a high-frequency brain-measurement technique designed to detect electrical and electromagnetic activity far beyond the reach of conventional EEG. Their findings include megahertz signals associated with microtubules, structures inside neurons that may host quantum effects. This research leads Bandyopadhyay to view consciousness quite literally as a universal symphony making music that is both everywhere and nowhere. Yet, while unequivocal in rejecting the computational view of consciousness, he remains cautious about the implications of his own findings: “The time has not yet come for a true theory of consciousness.”
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In this short and accessible essay, Karina Firme uses an idealist metaphysics to explain why integrating rejected aspects of our own personalities discharges the emotional load we normally associate with other people, thereby quietening the world. Her ideas offer a compelling example of the explanatory power of metaphysics: of how it can both elucidate and ground facts of clinical observation that, although described, couldn’t be quite explained before.
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David Lloyd returns with another captivating analysis of the isomorphisms—the correspondences of form—between the patterns and regularities of inner experience and those of the physical world. His writing is informed by both deep introspection and hardcore physical science. In this essay, he discusses isomorphisms that allow teleology—a certain sense of purpose and direction—to exist in nature in a spontaneous, science-treatable manner, without need for deliberation from an anthropomorphic divinity.
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Brian Stafford, MD, is a psychiatrist, board member and training director at the Animas Valley Institute, the organization founded by depth psychologist Bill Plotkin PhD and known for its work on nature-based human development. In this conversation with Hans Busstra, Stafford reflects on his remarkable transition from a successful academic career in psychiatry to guiding wilderness-based practices aimed at what he calls an “eco-awakening”: a shift from an ego-centric to an eco-centric mode of consciousness.
Drawing on the work of Plotkin, Carl Jung, and his own clinical and personal experience as a wilderness guide, Stafford argues that many forms of psychological suffering are rooted in a deeper ecological disconnection. Rather than viewing the psyche primarily through the lens of pathology and symptom reduction, he proposes that psychiatry should recover a richer understanding of the psyche as a living reality embedded within both nature and the symbolic life of dreams, imagination, and meaning.
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Through a simple, direct, and very effective thought experiment, Nilsson helps us develop a very concrete and explicit understanding of where events take place: the realm of mind. He further demonstrates the fundamental independence between this realm and spatial location.
Do we really live in a fundamentally physical universe? Are we essentially material beings? Essentia Foundation is a new force in the cultural dialogue about the nature of reality. Find out more about us.
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Through a simple, direct, and very effective thought experiment, Nilsson helps us develop a very concrete and explicit understanding of where events take place: the realm of mind. He further demonstrates the fundamental independence between this realm and spatial location.
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David Lloyd discusses the intriguing correspondences and isomorphisms between physical laws—such as electromagnetism and gravity—and the phenomenal flow of mentation. He sees in them more than mere poetic analogy, but a hint pointing to the mental nature and structure of reality.
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Harry Stolting argues that, while nature automatically excludes all that is unsustainable within its own natural dynamic, the human mind can create and maintain within itself maladaptive ideas that, if expressed in nature, would quickly be driven out. This leads to a mismatch between our inner concepts and the reality whereupon we believe we can apply those concepts. This schism between nature and our mental models, Stolting argues, is not only the origin of evil, but of many other ills.
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Ishita argues that life, which in a sense can be regarded as a local “violation” of the second law of thermodynamics—the universal tendency towards disorder—, betrays the presence of a universal “prime directive” towards conscious self-knowledge. In elaborating on her argument, she brings together the ideas of Thomas Campbell, Donald Hoffman and Federico Faggin, in a way that highlights their surprising complementarity. In Ishita’s view, the second law of thermodynamics is merely the necessary background that delineates the foreground of self awareness.
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Brian Stafford, MD, is a psychiatrist, board member and training director at the Animas Valley Institute, the organization founded by depth psychologist Bill Plotkin PhD and known for its work on nature-based human development. In this conversation with Hans Busstra, Stafford reflects on his remarkable transition from a successful academic career in psychiatry to guiding wilderness-based practices aimed at what he calls an “eco-awakening”: a shift from an ego-centric to an eco-centric mode of consciousness.
Drawing on the work of Plotkin, Carl Jung, and his own clinical and personal experience as a wilderness guide, Stafford argues that many forms of psychological suffering are rooted in a deeper ecological disconnection. Rather than viewing the psyche primarily through the lens of pathology and symptom reduction, he proposes that psychiatry should recover a richer understanding of the psyche as a living reality embedded within both nature and the symbolic life of dreams, imagination, and meaning.
Seeing
Videos
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Professor of physics Ivette Fuentes is doing groundbreaking work at the interface of quantum mechanics and gravity. At the heart of Fuentes’ work are Bose–Einstein condensates (BECs)—ultra-cold states of matter in which millions of atoms behave as a single quantum system. These systems are exquisitely sensitive to gravitational effects, making them ideal candidates for probing whether gravity plays an active role in quantum collapse, as Roger Penrose has long suggested. In this conversation with Hans Busstra, Fuentes reflects on her original, cross-disciplinary approach to physics by drawing on her background as a dancer: first, one must fully master the classical forms—the established fields of physics—but true novelty only emerges when one dares to break the rules.
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In this conversation with Natalia Vorontsova, Francis Lucille explains that Advaita Vedanta is grounded in a single axiom: there is only one reality, which he equates with consciousness. The apparent multiplicity of selves, worlds, bodies, and minds is an appearance arising within this one consciousness. An important value of Advaita Vedanta, in the myriad of idealist spiritual traditions, is that it focuses not so much on achieving altered states of consciousness, but rather offers a method to recognize that consciousness is the single, universal reality.
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Professor of Biology Denis Noble, best known for creating the first mathematical model of a beating cardiac cell, proposes a profound shift in how we understand life. In this conversation with Hans Busstra, he challenges the long-standing central dogma of Neo-Darwinism: the notion of one-way causation from DNA to cell to organism, with genes positioned as the ultimate governors of biology. Instead, Noble proposes a theory of ‘biological relativity’: no single level—genes, cells, organs, or the whole organism—has privileged causal authority.
From the archives
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In less than 2000 words, Brian Fang shows that ‘substance’ does not define existence; structure does. What a thing is cannot be separated from the structure that remains stable as everything else changes, particularly at the quantum level. If we look closely at what things actually are, we cannot help but realize that they are far removed from our classical intuition of mere blocks of “stuff.” Instead, to understand an object is to understand its specific pattern of invariance.
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Prof. Cocks recounts the life and ideas of Mary Baker Eddy, a forgotten but founding figure of the New Thought movement in the 20th century, in particular her gnostic-leaning idealist metaphysics. As he explains, Eddy’s idealism attempts to tackle the problem of evil—which arises under the light of Christian Theology—and claims practical applications in health care and well being.
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The metaphysics of the psychedelic experience: Anil Seth, Christof Koch, and Bernardo Kastrup debate
The OPEN Foundation and the Essentia Foundation together hosted a panel debate on metaphysics at the latest Interdisciplinary Conference on Psychedelic Research (ICPR26), Europe’s leading scientific conference dedicated to psychedelic science, therapy, ethics, and policy. During this discussion, Anil Seth, Bernardo Kastrup and Christof Koch discuss the latest insights from psychedelic research, as well as their different viewpoints on the epistemic value of psychedelic experiences and what metaphysics these experiences point to.
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