He is known for his work on mind-body studies, building on David Bohm's interpretation of quantum mechanics, in particular Bohm's view of the cosmos as an enfolding and unfolding whole including mind and matter.
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.
Pylkkänen has worked and published together with theoretical physicist Basil 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 (2007) builds upon David Bohm's ontological interpretation of quantum theory, in which quantum processes are understood as a holomovement in terms of implicate and explicate orders.