altered states of consciousness

The Signal

Why Consciousness Must Be at the Forefront of Scientific Research

Modern science has mapped the atom, split the genome, and placed instruments beyond the edge of the solar system—yet it still struggles to explain the one thing through which all discovery is experienced: consciousness itself. For centuries, consciousness has been treated as a side effect, an afterthought, or worse—an inconvenient anomaly. Neuroscience reduces it to neural firings. Psychology frames it as behavior. Physics largely ignores it altogether. But this avoidance may be the greatest blind spot in human knowledge. At […]

todayFebruary 2, 2026 25 2