Physiology and coherence
Measuring HRV, cardiac coherence, respiration, and related physiological signals to understand their relationship with subjective state and experimental performance.
PCP
Precision Consciousness Project
Exploring consciousness through physiology, measurement, and experiment.
Alongside my work in cybersecurity and strategy, I am developing the Precision Consciousness Project, an independent research and engineering effort investigating consciousness and the measurable edges of human experience.
The project starts from a simple premise: experiences can be subjectively profound without telling us what caused them. If there are aspects of consciousness that extend beyond our current models, the interesting question is whether we can design experiments capable of detecting them.
The central question
What becomes testable at the edges of conscious experience?
Can changes in physiological and neurological state affect our ability to perceive or access information, including information that may not be available through conventional sensory channels?
One working hypothesis is that physiological state influences the signal-to-noise ratio of conscious experience. States associated with physiological coherence, meditation, focused attention, or altered brain activity may change what information becomes accessible.
That hypothesis may be wrong. The objective is to make it increasingly testable.
Current areas of research
Research directions
Brain-state observation
Using EEG and related measurements to examine how changes in neurological state correlate with perception, attention, and information access.
Information-access experiments
Developing controlled experiments around anomalous cognition, prediction, remote information access, and other claims that cannot be explained by conventional sensory information alone.
Randomness and correlated systems
Exploring RNG systems and whether unusual correlations appear between human activity, collective events, physiological state, and nominally random processes.
Environmental measurement
Building instrumentation to measure electromagnetic, magnetic, electric, acoustic, and other environmental signals during unusual subjective experiences or at locations associated with such experiences.
Models of consciousness
Exploring models in which individual consciousness, embodiment, information, time, and a potentially broader consciousness interact, while distinguishing conceptual models from empirical findings.
How I approach the work
Open to the unconventional. Accountable to the data.
PCP is deliberately open to unconventional hypotheses, but openness is not the same as belief.
The goal is to:
- turn interesting claims into questions that can be tested;
- measure physiology and the environment wherever possible;
- establish baselines and controls;
- distinguish correlation from causation;
- separate observations from the interpretations placed on them;
- replicate findings rather than rely on isolated experiences;
- be willing to discard models that do not survive contact with the data;
Extraordinary experiences are interesting. Reproducible information is more interesting.
Current work
Systems, experiments, and protocols in development
Current projects include development of physiological sensing technology, experiments around coherence and information access, RNG-based measurement, environmental sensing systems, and experimental protocols for testing state-dependent information access.
Over time, I will publish experiments, results, conceptual models, and the inevitable failures as the work develops.
Connect
The useful territory is the experiment in between.
I am interested in meeting researchers, engineers, neuroscientists, physicists, consciousness researchers, contemplative practitioners, and others seriously investigating these questions.
Especially interesting are people willing to occupy the uncomfortable territory between “that is impossible” and “I already know it is true.”