During these kinds of experiences, people can feel a sense of connection with other individuals, humankind, and even the entirety of existence.

The Overview Effect (2016)

David Yaden

Professor of Language

David B. Yaden Jr. (Ph.D., University of Oklahoma) is Professor of Language, Reading and Culture at the University of Arizona College of Education. Prior to his present position at UA, he held appointments at Emory University, the University of Houston, and the University of Southern California. He has been a principal investigator in the federally-funded Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement (CIERA) where he supervised the implementation of an early literacy curriculum for Spanish-speaking preschoolers in inner-city Los Angeles. His research interests and specializations include developmental issues in early childhood education, the acquisition of literacy and biliteracy in young children, family literacy, theories of reading disability and the application of complex adaptive systems theory to growth in reading and writing.

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Date

March 2016

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Research Article

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4,976

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≈ 28 minutes

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520

The Overview Effect

Awe and Self-Transcendent Experience in Space Flight

Viewing the Earth from space has often prompted astronauts to report overwhelming
emotion and feelings of identification with humankind and the planet as a whole. In this
article, we explore this experience, known as the “overview effect.” We examine
astronaut accounts of the overview effect and suggest existing psychological constructs,
such as awe and self-transcendent experience, that might contribute to a psychological
understanding of this experience. We argue that the overview effect suggests directions
for future research on altered states of consciousness in new contexts, with potential
implications for better understanding well-being in isolated, confined, extreme (ICE)
environments such as space flight.

Mentioned in 2 documents

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Ruben Laukkonen and Shamil Chandaria

A Beautiful Loop

Laukkonen and Chandaria propose that consciousness arises from a recursive brain process involving three key elements: a reality model, competitive inferences reducing uncertainty, and a self-aware feedback loop. This framework explains various states of awareness, including meditation, psychedelic experiences, and minimal consciousness. It also offers insights into artificial intelligence by connecting awareness to self-reinforcing predictions. The authors’ theory suggests that consciousness emerges when the brain’s reality model becomes self-referential, creating a “knowing itself” phenomenon. This recursive process underlies different levels of conscious experience and potentially informs AI development.

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Robert Lawrence Kuhn

A Landscape of Consciousness

Diverse explanations or theories of consciousness are arrayed on a roughly physicalist-to-nonphysicalist landscape of essences and mechanisms. Categories: Materialism Theories (philosophical, neurobiological, electromagnetic field, computational and informational, homeostatic and affective, embodied and enactive, relational, representational, language, phylogenetic evolution); Non-Reductive Physicalism; Quantum Theories; Integrated Information Theory; Panpsychisms; Monisms; Dualisms; Idealisms; Anomalous and Altered States Theories; Challenge Theories. There are many subcategories, especially for Materialism Theories. Each explanation is self-described by its adherents, critique is minimal and only for clarification, and there is no attempt to adjudicate among theories. The implications of consciousness explanations or theories are assessed with respect to four questions: meaning/purpose/value (if any); AI consciousness; virtual immortality; and survival beyond death. A Landscape of Consciousness, I suggest, offers perspective.

The Library of Consciousness