The Best Research Papers I Have Read in My Life
Posted Jul 07, 2007
It is through the New Zealand visionary Chris King that I learned to read academic white papers. I was so compelled to understand what King was trying to say that I spent a good year catching up on physics, biology, geology, astronomy, mathematics, physics, evolution and dozens of other subjects.
These days I chew through a few of these a week. Perversely enough, it's how I relax. I print them out, sit down on the couch and waste hours of my life just learning. So I've read a lot of papers, but this is a collection of the 3 best I have ever found. Altogether, this is about 150 pages that will provide you with more information about the Universe than anything else I could hand you. I would like to thank Miqel for turning me on to Stephen Lehar, and I would like to thank all of the authors I am about to list for making their work publicly available.
1. Quantum Cosmology and the Hard Problem of the Conscious Brain, by Chris King.
This is the monster that broke me in. Chris King paints a huge tapestry, and if you're interested in an even more thorough breakdown of his Big Vision -- which surpasses any Holy Book I have ever seen, including the Quran and the Urantia Book -- you might also want to check out his color-illustrated magnum opus Biocosmology.
2. From Memory Societies to Knowledge Societies: The Cognitive Dimensions of Digitization, by Derrick de Kerckhove and Ana Viseu.
I originally found this via the Grey Lodge Occult Review, and Skilluminati Research is very much in their debt. This is a startling read -- such a complete and rapid-fire overview of the hiden cultural changes being wrought by digital technology that it creates a funky cognitive dissonance. This is easily the most readable and accessable of the three research papers, but it feels like it shouldn't be.
3. The Gesalt Bubble Model, by Stephen Lehar.
The first 12 pages provide the best-written overview of human theories of consciousness I've ever found. There are entire books written on the subject, but Lehar manages to deliver the whole spectrum with way less words. This economy of phrase is my favorite aspect of research papers. More important than Lehar's look back, though, is the new theory he proposes. (To give a hint, I got the image for the Skilluminati logo that opened this post from Lehar's paper.) I happen to think he's on to something, but the reason I recommend this paper is that regardless of wether or not you agree with his conclusions, his reasoning will teach you a thousand new concepts.
Spread the Research:
Filed in:
Next entry: Recommended Books For Reality-Based Thinking
Previous Entry: Timothy Leary's Message to You, Here, Now
