Steve Paulson

Scientific advances in the 21st century have led to major breakthroughs in the understanding of death. One in five survivors of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) who are revived back to life recall experiencing a heightened and transcendent state…

Many of us go through daily life on autopilot, without being fully aware of our conscious experience.Neuroscientists Richard Davidson and Amishi Jha join clinical mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn to explore the role of consciousness in mental and…

Numerous polls have consistently shown that most people around the world believe in the existence of God or some higher power. Indeed, many of these people not only believe in a deeper reality, but also claim to experience God directly. Can social…

Why is it that fundamental laws discovered through pure mathematics have been able to describe the behavior of our physical world with such precision? Given that the physical universe is comprised of mathematical properties, some have posited that…

What is the origin of our transcendent experiences? How should we interpret feelings of being connected to nature and the cosmos, of being part of something larger than ourselves, of being overcome with awe and wonder? Can such feelings arise from…

Natural selection may be blind, but can human evolution be reduced to the logic of the “selfish gene”? How, for example, does our capacity to make choices and act altruistically fit into this picture? What exactly does our consciousness contribute,…

The Promethean tale of the birth of technology has popularized the notion that what sets us apart from other primates is our virtually limitless capacity to develop new skills. Self-reflection enhances our sense of being decentered animals with no…

If the key to fully realizing our humanity lies in the cultivation of our minds, what ethical principles and practices in modern life can help our minds to flourish? How can reason be blended with emotion to nurture a more ethical life? In this…

How different is the human mind from the minds of non-human animals? The key may lie in the capacity of the mind to relate to itself as a “self” that bears desires and intentions, along with agency and purpose. But how is this compatible with the…

How does the mind relate to and differ from its seemingly inseparable companion, the brain? Where does the mind begin or emerge from? Is it merely a by-product of neural activities within the brain, or does it connect with deeper and more fundamental…

Einstein famously claimed that “the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.” This statement suggests that no amount of scientific explanation will suffice to make sense of the bizarre situation of the human mind…

At its core, awe and wonder appear to be powerful emotions that can inform and shape our attitudes toward ourselves and others, especially in relation to the larger meaning and purpose of our lives. What are the psychological underpinnings of these…

From the macrocosm of the universe to the microcosm of the human body, our discoveries about ourselves and the natural world continue to spark our experience of awe and wonder. But how exactly does science define and explain the experience of awe and…

What can science reveal about lust, romance, and compassion?

The discoveries of modern science tell an epic story of the universe through its fourteen-billion-year history. Though modern humans are relative newcomers to this story, having only appeared some 200,000 years ago, what meaning can we glean from the…

The prevalent view in cognitive science today is that we construct our perception of reality in real time. But could we be misinterpreting the content of our perceptual experiences? According to some cognitive scientists, what we perceive with our…

Proponents of various teleological arguments point to the sheer immensity and precision of the universe, reinforced by the diversity and complexity of its abundant life forms, to support the idea of purpose behind its majestic architecture. But is…

“The will to meaning” — a term coined by the influential Viennese psychiatrist Viktor Frankl — has long been recognized as a basic motivating drive of human behavior. Indeed, some 4,000 years ago the first great work of human literature, The Epic of…

We’ve all had them—the big, significant, transformations that take your life in a new direction. And even though those gateway moments present new and exciting opportunities, they are almost always by definition uncomfortable.

As science continues to explore the mysteries of the unconscious, two critical questions remain: first, can unconscious impulses, desires, and feelings be willfully raised to the level of the conscious self? And, if so, would the unveiling of…