Consciousness is a truly puzzling phenomenon. For one, my own consciousness is the only element of existence I am personally aware of. Through the flow of subjective experiences I perceive an external reality and myself demarcated from it.

Information — Consciousness — Reality (2019)

Portrait of James Glattfelder

James Glattfelder

Physicist, Complexity Researcher, and Philosopher

James B. Glattfelder is a Swiss physicist, complexity researcher, and philosopher, known for his work on the history of science, the limits of knowledge, the foundations of reality, and the emergence of self-organization, as well as critiques of the global financial system. After completing his secondary education in economics at the Lyceum Alpinum Zuoz in 1992, he studied physics at the ETH Zurich, earning a Master of Science in Theoretical High-Energy Physics in 1999.

Following a brief career in finance starting in 2002, Glattfelder completed his doctorate in 2010 at ETH Zurich, focusing on ownership networks and corporate control. His influential paper, co-authored with Stefania Vitali and Stefano Battiston, titled The Network of Global Corporate Control, garnered significant attention in both academic and mainstream media, highlighting the financial power of global actors. In 2019, he published Information – Consciousness – Reality, where he explores a new scientific paradigm centered around the concept of information, addressing profound existential questions. Glattfelder’s work continues to stimulate discourse across various fields, bridging complex systems and philosophical inquiry.

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Cover image for Information — Consciousness — Reality: How a New Understanding of the Universe Can Help Answer Age-Old Questions of Existence

Information — Consciousness — Reality

How a New Understanding of the Universe Can Help Answer Age-Old Questions of Existence

This open access book chronicles the rise of a new scientific paradigm offering novel insights into the age-old enigmas of existence. Over 300 years ago, the human mind discovered the machine code of reality: mathematics. By utilizing abstract thought systems, humans began to decode the workings of the cosmos. From this understanding, the current scientific paradigm emerged, ultimately discovering the gift of technology. Today, however, our island of knowledge is surrounded by ever longer shores of ignorance. Science appears to have hit a dead end when confronted with the nature of reality and consciousness. In this fascinating and accessible volume, James Glattfelder explores a radical paradigm shift uncovering the ontology of reality. It is found to be information-theoretic and participatory, yielding a computational and programmable universe.

Cover image for The Sapient Cosmos: What a Modern-Day Synthesis of Science and Philosophy Teaches Us About the Emergence of Information, Consciousness, and Meaning

The Sapient Cosmos

What a Modern-Day Synthesis of Science and Philosophy Teaches Us About the Emergence of Information, Consciousness, and Meaning

Ever since the human mind awoke to its own existence, it has wondered about its cosmic significance. By dispelling myths and religious convictions, science entered the arena of explanatory templates. A tectonic shift in understanding began when the mind started decoding the universe’s mathematical language. To this day, the technological prowess unleashed by scientific knowledge remains awe-inspiring. However, science excluded two crucial domains from its field of inquiry. Firstly, the formation of complex systems—especially metabolic structures—appears to defy the physics of cosmic disorder and decay. Then, the nature of consciousness itself was deemed unworthy of academic discourse until not too long ago. Furthermore, the adoption of physicalism as a metaphysical foundation for science was an enormously consequential choice, erroneously seen today as integral to science. This book chronicles an ongoing paradigm shift affecting physics and philosophy. Consciousness is rediscovered at the core of existence, expressing an intrinsic yearning for cosmic complexity, while the fabric of reality is woven from threads of information.