Pylkkänen's areas of specialization are the mind-body problem, the basis of cognitive science, philosophy of physics, the philosophy of David Bohm and the foundations of quantum theory. Since 1996 he has been employed at the University of Skövde in Skövde, Sweden, where he initiated a consciousness studies program combining philosophy and cognitive neuroscience. He is currently a temporary university lecturer in theoretical philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art Studies, at University of Helsinki, where he has regularly worked since 2008. Pylkkänen has worked and published together with theoretical physicistBasil Hiley, a close co-worker of David Bohm over three decades. Hiley and Pylkkänen together addressed the question of the relation between mind and matter by the hypothesis of an active information within the conceptual framework of the de Broglie–Bohm theory. Pylkkänen's work Mind, Matter and the Implicate Order builds upon David Bohm's ontologicalinterpretation of quantum theory, in which quantum processes are understood as a holomovement in terms of implicate and explicate orders.
Pylkkänen, P.: David Bohm och den vetenskapliga andan, 2010, Beyond belief and knowledge: Thoughts from a dialogue. Liljenström, H. & Linderman, A.. Stockholm : Carlsson p. 127–142.
Pylkkänen, P. : Quantum philosophy is philosophy enough, 2010, How we became doctors of philosophy. Roinila, M.. Helsinki: Suomen Filosofinen Yhdistys ry. p. 151–157.
Pylkkänen, P.: Implications of Bohmian quantum ontology for psychopathology, March 2010. In : NeuroQuantology. vol. 8, no. 1, p. 37–48.
Pylkkänen, P.: Does dynamical modelling explain time consciousness?, 2007, Computation, Information, Cognition: The Nexus and the Liminal. Stuart, S. & Crnkovic, G. D.. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press p. 218–229.
Pylkkänen, P.: Escaping the prison of language, 2007, Communication - Action - Meaning: A Festschrift to Jens Allwood. E. A.. Department of Linguistics, Göteborg University
Pylkkänen, P. & Hiley, B. J.: , In: Mind and Matter, vol.3, no.2, Imprint Academic, 2005, p. 7–26.
;Books and edited works
Dewdney, C., Pylkkänen, P., Atmanspacher, H. Foundations of Physics Vol. 43 April 2013, Special issue: Hiley Festschrift. Springer.
Pylkkänen, P.: Mind, Matter and the Implicate Order, 2007 Berlin Heidelberg New York: Springer-Verlag. 270 p.,.
Paavo Pylkkänen and Tere Vadén : Dimensions of conscious experience, Advances in Consciousness Research, Volume 37, John Benjamins B.V., 2001,.
David Bohm & Charles Biederman : Bohm-Biederman Correspondence: Creativity and science, Routledge, 1999,.
P. Pylkkänen, P. Pylkkö, A. Hautamäki : Brain, Mind and Physics, IOS Press, 1997,.
P. Pylkkänen: Mind, matter and active information: the relevance of David Bohm's interpretation of quantum theory to cognitive science, Yliopistopaino, 1992,
