The evidence behind the inquiry
Follow the original work, examine what it supports and notice where the inference stops.
A selected-source reading trail for seven chapters. It includes original studies, replications, philosophical work and institutional research assessments. A source count is not a count of independent confirmations. Multiple publications may analyse related data or share authors.
Access labels distinguish full-text inspection from abstracts, institutional summaries and other partial access. This is not an exhaustive systematic review, raw-data reanalysis, formal risk-of-bias assessment or independent peer review. The research date is not a claim that every topic has been comprehensively searched through that date.
Three separate judgements: what the source reports; how far the evidence supports a claim; what might change if a larger scenario were established. The impact matrix concerns only the third.
Scientific agency overview · Undated; checked 23 October 2026
NASA Science
NASA describes the search for biosignatures and technosignatures; life beyond Earth has not been confirmed.
Limit: A programme overview is not a systematic review or a probability estimate for extraterrestrial life.
Access: Public page inspected
Read with: Life Beyond Earth
Framework proposal in Nature · 2021
Green et al.
The proposed Confidence of Life Detection scale structures progress from candidate signals towards independent confirmation.
Limit: A proposal for communicating evidence, not a universally adopted rule or calibrated likelihood of life.
Access: NASA summary and citation inspected
Read with: Life Beyond Earth
Original atmospheric retrieval analysis · 2025
Madhusudhan et al.
Reports tentative support for DMS and/or DMDS under its modelling choices and calls for further observations.
Limit: Molecular identification, instrument systematics and non-biological production must be resolved before any biological inference.
Access: Author manuscript and abstract inspected
Read with: Life Beyond Earth
Independent analysis; Astronomy & Astrophysics · 2025
Luque et al.
Joint analysis using multiple reductions and retrieval codes finds insufficient evidence for the proposed biosignature molecules.
Limit: Reanalysis of overlapping telescope observations is not a new independent observation of the planet.
Access: Author abstract and journal reference inspected via arXiv:2505.13407
Read with: Life Beyond Earth
Original signal analysis; Nature Astronomy · 2021
Sheikh et al.
An initially interesting signal was traced to human-generated interference; the paper sets out verification checks.
Limit: The result concerns this candidate, not the absence of extraterrestrial civilisations throughout the Universe.
Access: Publisher text inspected
Read with: Life Beyond Earth
Methodological analysis; Astrobiology · 2023
Vickers et al.
Explains why unknown non-biological alternatives complicate confidence judgements.
Limit: A conceptual challenge to inference does not mean life detection is impossible.
Access: Indexed abstract and author institutional record inspected
Read with: Life Beyond Earth
Original philosophical argument · 2015
Itay Shani
Develops a holistic alternative to atomistic panpsychism, beginning from a cosmic consciousness assumption and arguing how individual subjects could emerge.
Limit: The universal consciousness is a philosophical starting assumption, not an experimental finding. The proposal must confront individuation and testability.
Access: Publisher abstract indexed; full text blocked
Read with: One Consciousness?
Preregistered adversarial empirical study · 2025-04-30 online; June 2025 issue
Cogitate Consortium et al.
Tested specified predictions of IIT and GNWT with 256 participants using fMRI, MEG and intracranial EEG. Findings challenged key predictions of both theories.
Limit: Tests particular operational predictions and visual-perception tasks. It does not show that consciousness is nonphysical, universal, or independent of brains.
Access: Publisher indexed abstract and author-laboratory summary
Read with: One Consciousness? · Other Minds
Controlled human experiment · 2006-07-07 online
Griffiths, Richards, McCann and Jesse
Under supportive conditions, psilocybin produced mystical-type experiences and enduring reported personal significance, including experiences described as unity.
Limit: Selected spiritually interested volunteers, structured setting and possible functional unblinding limit generalisation. Reports of unity establish experiences, not the literal unity of all minds. The paper also records acute anxiety.
Access: Original paper full text
Read with: One Consciousness?
Retrospective observational case-database analysis · Institutional announcement 2026-08-21; later press release 2026-10-19; exact paper publication date not retrieved
Saeedeh Sadeghi, Marieta Pehlivanova and Philip J. Cozzolino
Among 1,678 selected matched cases, more unexpected prior deaths were associated with shorter reported death-to-birth intervals. UVA reports persistence under several measured bias checks.
Limit: Selected observational reports and matched-case procedures cannot establish reincarnation or eliminate all selection, reporting and information-contamination explanations. UVA explicitly says researchers have not concluded reincarnation is real.
Access: Institutional summaries read; DOI verified; primary full text unavailable
Read with: Beyond One Lifetime?
Prospective 25-site resuscitation study with complementary survivor interviews · 2023-10
Sam Parnia et al.
Of 567 in-hospital arrests, 53 survived and 28 were interviewed; 11 reported memories or perceptions suggestive of consciousness. Nobody identified the visual target; one identified the auditory stimulus. Some EEG activity compatible with cognitive processing appeared during prolonged CPR.
Limit: Small interviewed survivor sample and uncertain timing of recollection. CPR can support circulation. These observations do not establish consciousness after irreversible death or independently of brain activity.
Access: Full abstract at author institution
Read with: Beyond One Lifetime?
Blinded reading comparison · 2022-12-12 online; June 2025 issue
Patrizio Tressoldi, Laura Liberale and Fernando Sinesio
Across 28 self-described mediums and 100 readings, sitters identified intended readings 65% of the time; intended readings also received higher overall ratings than controls.
Limit: Correct-minus-incorrect information averages were negative even for intended readings. Blinding improves inference but neither an above-chance match nor this design identifies the source of information as deceased consciousness. Independent replication and assessment of leakage, rating and selection effects remain important.
Access: Publisher abstract and metadata
Read with: Beyond One Lifetime?
Preregistered multi-laboratory replication with proponent-sceptic consensus design · 2023-02-01
Zoltan Kekecs et al.
With 2,115 participants and 37,836 critical erotic trials, successful guesses were 49.89% against 50% chance, failing to reproduce Bem's above-chance effect.
Limit: This tests one specified precognition paradigm, not every possible psi claim. A later correction documents protocol deviations and must accompany methodological descriptions.
Access: Indexed primary text; linked correction fully read
Read with: Mind, Information & Time
Published correction following external audit · 2023-08
Zoltan Kekecs et al.
Documents deviations involving real-time software version tracking, server access logs, auditor independence, restarted sessions and test-account exclusions.
Limit: Authors and cited audit consider the deviations unlikely to change the null conclusion. Do not describe the original project as perfectly protocol-compliant or dismiss the correction as merely typographical.
Access: Full correction read
Read with: Mind, Information & Time
Three replication studies with confirmatory and diagnostic controls · 2025-11-05
Jan Walleczek et al.
Across 26,483 participants and 420,472 critical trials, no study reproduced the original above-chance precognition effect. A below-chance exploratory result repeated in Study 2 but not Study 3.
Limit: Findings constrain this protocol. The transient opposite-direction result is not demonstrated precognition and must not be selectively promoted while ignoring the final failure.
Access: Primary full text
Read with: Mind, Information & Time
Preregistered two-caller replication · 2025-06-30
Tom Stedall and Patrizio Tressoldi
117 participants made 294 correct identifications in 604 trials: 48.6%, versus 50% chance. The preregistered overall hypothesis was not supported.
Limit: A post-hoc comparison favoured self-reported intuitive strategies, but strategies were not randomly assigned and this does not demonstrate that intuition causes telepathy. Distinguish this study from the separate Wahbeh study undergoing correction.
Access: Original four-page paper
Read with: Mind, Information & Time
Large online random-number experiment · 2018
Markus A. Maier, Moritz C. Dechamps and Markus Pflitsch
In 12,571 participants, the main Bayesian analysis favoured the null over the tested micro-PK alternative, with BF01 = 10.07.
Limit: This does not logically exclude every conceivable mind–matter interaction. Exploratory temporal patterns are not a substitute for a successful prespecified primary outcome.
Access: Primary full text
Read with: Mind, Information & Time
Original historical and religious scholarship · 2020-10-02 online; 2019 volume
Alex Nash
Traces the development of Akashic Records from the Indian term akasha through Theosophical reinterpretation and influences from Western philosophy, physics and predestination.
Limit: Historical scholarship explains the concept's genealogy; it is not evidence that a universal information archive exists or can be accessed.
Access: Publisher abstract
Read with: Mind, Information & Time
Primary religious text in translation · Ancient text; contemporary translation, page date unspecified
Early Buddhist discourse; translation by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
The discourse rejects the claim that all present feelings are entirely caused by past action and discusses multiple immediate causes. The translator emphasises non-determinism.
Limit: Religious teaching is not experimental verification of cross-life moral causation; traditions and interpretations differ. Its historical medical categories should not be treated as modern medical advice.
Access: Text and translator commentary read
Read with: Beyond One Lifetime?
Original conceptual proposal and scholarly review · 2019
John D. Dunne, Evan Thompson and Jonathan Schooler
Distinguishes noticing mental activity from ordinary experience and proposes sustained, non-propositional meta-awareness informed by contemplative practice. It need not always be an inner verbal judgement.
Limit: A proposed account of monitoring experience is not evidence for a separate metaphysical layer above consciousness or a universal mind. Authors acknowledge that contemplative instructions alone do not establish the construct and that measurement needs development.
Access: Full five-page paper read
Read with: One Consciousness?
Official trial evaluation summary · 2020
Kela
Finland's 2017–2018 experiment paid 2,000 unemployed adults aged 25–58 €560 monthly without means testing or work conditions. Employment effects were small; surveyed recipients reported better wellbeing and economic security.
Limit: Selected unemployed population, temporary programme, wellbeing survey response limitations; 2018 activation-policy change complicates employment interpretation. Not a whole-economy UBI experiment.
Access: Official page read
Read with: Security Without Scarcity?
Randomised controlled trial; working paper · 2024
Eva Vivalt, Elizabeth Rhodes, Alexander Bartik, David Broockman and Sarah Miller
In a US trial, 1,000 low-income adults received $1,000 monthly for three years and 2,000 controls received $50 monthly. The study team's summary reports a 2.0 percentage-point fall in labour-force participation and 1.3–1.4 fewer working hours weekly.
Limit: A targeted, time-limited transfer rather than permanent universal income. Reduced paid hours do not by themselves establish reduced welfare. Nationwide taxation, prices and labour-market equilibrium were not tested.
Access: NBER metadata and study-team primary summary search excerpts; NBER full-page fetch blocked
Read with: Security Without Scarcity?
Randomised controlled trial; companion working paper · 2024
Sarah Miller and colleagues
The same US cash-transfer trial found temporary improvements in stress and food security but no detectable improvement across measured physical-health outcomes; mental-health improvements did not persist beyond year one.
Limit: Population and three-year follow-up constrain generalisation. These are the same participants as MAT02, not an independent replication. Do not infer that income never affects health.
Access: Study-team primary summary read
Read with: Security Without Scarcity?
Policy framework and evidence review · 2019
Institute for Global Prosperity / New Economics Foundation
The framework proposes collective provision of essential services available regardless of ability to pay. It makes access to necessities a distinct policy route alongside income transfers.
Limit: A policy proposal and synthesis, not a randomised demonstration of a complete universal-services package. Feasibility depends on service capacity, funding and local institutions.
Access: Original institutional report PDF read
Read with: Security Without Scarcity?
Peer-reviewed workplace deployment study · 2025
Erik Brynjolfsson, Danielle Li and Lindsey Raymond
The published study reports an average 15% increase in issues resolved per hour with AI assistance, with substantial variation across workers and larger gains among novice or lower-skilled workers.
Limit: Specific tool, workplace and tasks; not evidence of general intelligence, universal job replacement or machine consciousness. Use the published 15% figure rather than the older working-paper figure of roughly 14%.
Access: Journal primary abstract/search excerpts
Read with: Other Minds
Theoretical interdisciplinary report / preprint · 2023
Patrick Butlin and colleagues
The report derives computational indicators from several theories of consciousness and uses them to assess AI architectures. It argues that indicator-based assessment is more informative than fluent conversation alone.
Limit: Depends on contested theories and computational assumptions. The authors' assessment of systems available in 2023 is not a definitive judgement about every system in 2026. Intelligence and consciousness are distinct questions.
Access: Original report abstract and metadata read
Read with: Other Minds
Peer-reviewed observational/quasi-experimental labour-economics study · 2020
Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo
Historical US exposure to industrial robots was associated with employment and wage losses in more exposed labour markets; estimated impacts depended on geography and industry structure.
Limit: Historical industrial robots, not a universal forecast for AI or all automation. Identification assumptions and spillovers matter. Productivity growth does not automatically distribute gains equally.
Access: Publisher and author-institution primary search excerpts
Read with: Security Without Scarcity?
Peer-reviewed technical report; clinical-trial participant demonstration · 2025
Kaylo T. Littlejohn and colleagues
Recordings from speech sensorimotor cortex supported streaming synthetic speech in a participant with severe paralysis and anarthria, decoding neural activity in 80-ms increments.
Limit: One participant, implanted recording system and extensive training. An 80-ms decoding increment is not the same as end-to-end latency. This restores attempted speech, not unrestricted mind reading or shared conscious experience.
Access: Publisher abstract, figures and data-availability statements read; main text paywalled
Read with: Other Minds
Peer-reviewed observational acoustic analysis · 2024
Pratyusha Sharma and colleagues
Sperm whale codas have contextual and combinatorial structure. The authors explicitly distinguish analysis of structural elements from decoding semantics.
Limit: Structure is not a translation dictionary. No demonstration of open-ended human–whale conversation or direct access to subjective experience.
Access: Primary publisher and PubMed search excerpts; publisher full-page fetch failed
Read with: Other Minds
Peer-reviewed post hoc biomarker analysis of a randomised trial · 2023
R. Waziry and colleagues
Caloric restriction reduced the DunedinPACE estimate of ageing pace, while PhenoAge and GrimAge did not show the same intervention effect.
Limit: Biomarkers are proxies. The study does not demonstrate age reversal, increased human lifespan or reduced mortality. The dietary intervention is not a general recommendation for readers.
Access: Primary publisher indexed results and PubMed metadata; main-page fetch failed
Read with: Longer Lives, A Living Planet
Peer-reviewed phase 3 single-group gene-editing therapy study · 2024
Haydar Frangoul and colleagues
Of 30 participants with sufficient follow-up for the primary analysis, 29 were free of severe vaso-occlusive crises for at least 12 consecutive months after treatment.
Limit: Single-group study, selected severe-disease population, demanding conditioning and transplant pathway, adverse events and long-term follow-up requirements. Not a universal disease cure or proof of lifelong cure in every participant.
Access: Primary NEJM and PubMed indexed abstract/results excerpts
Read with: Longer Lives, A Living Planet
Official project-cost dataset analysis · 2025
International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)
IRENA reports that 91% of newly commissioned utility-scale renewable capacity in 2024 had a lower levelised electricity cost than the cheapest new fossil-fuel alternative.
Limit: Capacity share, not 91% of all electricity or household bills. Generation LCOE does not by itself include every grid, balancing, storage or financing constraint. Cheap electricity is not unlimited energy or automatic universal access.
Access: Original report indexed results and official release
Read with: Security Without Scarcity?
Official global stocktake and scenario analysis · 2023
International Energy Agency (IEA)
The IEA estimates that meeting national energy and climate goals requires adding or refurbishing over 80 million kilometres of electricity grids by 2040.
Limit: A conditional scenario requirement, not a prediction that all the infrastructure will be built. Permitting, capital, flexibility and workforce constraints matter.
Access: Original executive summary read
Read with: Security Without Scarcity?
Intergovernmental assessment of scientific evidence · 2022
IPCC Working Group II
Conservation, protection and restoration, together with management for unavoidable climate impacts, reduce biodiversity vulnerability. The assessment links global ecosystem resilience to effective and equitable conservation at large scale.
Limit: Restoration does not eliminate climate limits, reverse every loss or replace emissions reductions. Outcomes depend on warming, ecosystem, governance and local rights.
Access: Official assessment indexed passages; separate synthesis-page fetch blocked
Read with: Longer Lives, A Living Planet
Peer-reviewed global meta-analysis · 2024
Penny F. Langhammer and colleagues
Across 186 studies comprising 665 trials, conservation improved biodiversity or slowed its decline in about two-thirds of cases relative to no-action counterfactuals.
Limit: Not all interventions succeeded; heterogeneous contexts, study quality and coverage limit universal generalisation. Slowing a decline is different from full ecological restoration.
Access: Primary paper abstract via PubMed read
Read with: Longer Lives, A Living Planet
Official treaty and scientific assessment summary · 2026 (accessed; assessment projections)
UNEP Ozone Secretariat
Assuming continued Montreal Protocol compliance, ozone is projected to return to 1980 levels around 2040 across 60°N–60°S, around 2045 in the Arctic and around 2066 in the Antarctic.
Limit: Recovery dates are projections contingent on compliance and atmospheric influences. This is a precedent for focused international coordination, not proof that identical institutions solve every global conflict.
Access: Original official page read
Read with: Longer Lives, A Living Planet
Chapter reading trails