An independent research organization built around one question: how rigorously has any theory of consciousness actually been tested?
Back to the homepageThe Foundation for Reality Advancement is an independent research organization founded by Patrick Hogue. It was established to address a specific problem in consciousness studies: the absence of a shared, consistent standard for evaluating how rigorously any given theory has actually been tested. Its research programs — Ontological Archaeology, the sequential analysis of transcendental narratives, the Continuum Standard for Theory Progression, and Continuous Being Theory — extend that same evidentiary standard across consciousness, survival, transcendental experience, and the structure of reality.
Patrick Hogue
Chief Science Officer · Foundation for Reality Advancement
Patrick Hogue serves as the Foundation's Chief Science Officer and leads its scientific research and development. A theoretician, he previously developed lithium extraction facilities in Chile's Atacama Desert, where he established two industry world records. He is the creator of the Continuum Standard, which he presented at The Science of Consciousness 2026.
His work develops empirical methods for evaluating claims about consciousness, transcendental experience, and ontology. He has delivered formal presentations at Stanford University under invitation from Kleiner Perkins Venture Capital, the Paris Air Show for CFM International, the General Motors Technical Center, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the DOE Diesel Engine Efficiency Conference in San Diego. In consciousness studies, he was an invited presenter at the 2024 IANDS National Conference in Washington, D.C., and at the Vail Institute in Vail, Colorado, and co-presented a concurrent session at the 2024 Tucson Consciousness Conference.
Hogue also writes under the name Archedon. That work addresses related questions in a more personal register, distinct from his research writing.
The Science of Consciousness 2026 · San Diego, 11–16 October 2026 · Poster presenter.
The Continuum Standard for Theory Progression (CSTP) rests on four criteria.
1. Falsifiability
Whether a theory generates predictions that could, in principle, be shown false.
2. Test Severity
Whether those predictions have been subjected to genuinely adversarial testing.
3. Independence
Whether results have been obtained or confirmed by parties without a stake in the outcome.
4. Reproducibility
Whether findings have been repeated under comparable conditions.
50
CSTP has been applied to fifty theoretical positions in consciousness studies, drawn from Robert Lawrence Kuhn's widely cited taxonomy of the field. Continuous Being Theory is introduced only after the standard and the fifty standings are fixed, entering as the fifty-first position and evaluated under the same rules as every other position considered.