Andrés Gómez Emilsson | A Language for Psychedelic Experiences: Algorithmic Reductions, Field Operators, and Dimensionality @/Andr%C3%A9sG%C3%B3mezEmilsson | Uploaded February 2021 | Updated October 2024, 17 hours ago.
Psychedelic experiences are notoriously difficult to describe. But are they truly ineffable, or do we simply lack the words, syntax, and grammar to articulate them? Optimistically, groups who take seriously the exploration of exotic states of consciousness could create a common ground of semantic primitives to be independently verified and used as the building blocks of a language for the "psychedelic medium of thought".
In this video I present some ideas for a possible "psychedelic language" based on QRI paradigms and recent experience reports. I go over the article "Algorithmic Reduction of Psychedelic States" and the value of breaking the psychedelic experience in terms of a minimal set of "basic effects" whose stacking and composition gives rise to the wild *zoo of effects* one observes. I point out that algorithmic reductions can have explanatory power even if they do not provide a clear answer about the nature of the substrate of experience. Importantly, since I wrote that article we have developed a far higher-resolution understanding of exotic states of consciousness:
We suggest that a remarkably fruitful strategy for pointing at a whole family of psychedelic effects comes in the form of "field operators" that change the qualitative properties of our experiential fields. I provide a detailed description of what we call the "world-sheet" of experience and how it encodes emotional and semantic content in its very structure. The world-sheet can have tension, relaxation, different types of resonance and buzzing entrainment, twisting, curling, divergence (with vortices and anti-vortices in the attention field-lines), dissonance, consonance, noise, release, curvature, holographic properties, and dimensionality. I explain that in a psychedelic state, you explore higher up regions in the "Hamiltonian of the field", meaning that you instantiate field configurations with higher levels of energy. There, we observer interesting trade-offs between the hyperbolicity of the field and its dimensionality. It can instantiate fractals of many sorts (in polar, cartesian, and other coordinate systems) by multi-scale entrainment. Time loops and moments of eternity result from this process iterated over all sensory modalities. The field contains meta-data implicitly encoded in its periphery which you can use for tacit information processing. Semantic content and preferences are encoded in terms of the patterns of attraction and repulsion of the attention-field lines. And so much more (watch the whole video for the entire story).
I conclude by saying that a steady meditation practice can be highly synergistic with psychedelics. Metta/loving-kindness can manifest in the form of smooth, coherent, high-dimensional, and consonant regions of the world-sheet and make the experience way more manageable, wholesome, and enriching. Equanimity, concentration, and sensory clarity are all synergistic with the state, and I posit that using "high-dimensionality" as the annealing target may accelerate the development of these traits in everyday life.
Please consider donating to QRI if you want to see this line of research make waves in academia and expand the Overtone Window in the science of consciousness. Funds will allow us to carry out key scientific experiments to validate models and develop technologies to reduce suffering at scale: qualiaresearchinstitute.org/donate
Qualia of the Day: The Phenomenal Silence of Each Field Modality
Further readings/materials:
Algorithmic Reduction of Psychedelic States - qualiacomputing.com/2016/06/20/algorithmic-reduction-of-psychedelic-states
The Hyperbolic Geometry of DMT Experiences: Symmetries, Sheets, and Saddled Scenes - qualiacomputing.com/2016/12/12/the-hyperbolic-geometry-of-dmt-experiences
5-MeO-DMT vs. N,N-DMT - qualiacomputing.com/2020/07/01/5-meo-dmt-vs-nn-dmt-the-9-lenses
Mike Johnson's Interview of Shinzen Young - opentheory.net/2021/02/shinzen-young-interview-stress-equanimity-sensory-clarity
Shinzen Young's Channel "expandcontract" (highly recommended!) - youtube.com/user/expandcontract/videos
Jhanas and "Focus on Rest" ~ Shinzen Young - youtu.be/A-72haqjl4o
Steven Lehar - slehar.com/wwwRel
The Grand Illusion (drugs are wasted on the young - cognitive science PhDs should be the ones taking psychedelics) - slehar.com/wwwRel/GrandIllusion.pdf
Ways of Thinking - qualiacomputing.com/2021/01/24/ways-of-thinking
On the Medium of Thought - qualiacomputing.com/2020/12/12/on-the-medium-of-thought
Subjective Effect Index - psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Subjective_effect_index
The Four Noble Truths | Thich Nhat Hanh - youtu.be/dy-RI3FrdGA
Metta/Loving Kindness Meditation - youtu.be/Ee4wLOuMNkM
I hack my biology. I'm like Rogan (comedy) - youtu.be/p7_NgawDHq4
Psychedelic experiences are notoriously difficult to describe. But are they truly ineffable, or do we simply lack the words, syntax, and grammar to articulate them? Optimistically, groups who take seriously the exploration of exotic states of consciousness could create a common ground of semantic primitives to be independently verified and used as the building blocks of a language for the "psychedelic medium of thought".
In this video I present some ideas for a possible "psychedelic language" based on QRI paradigms and recent experience reports. I go over the article "Algorithmic Reduction of Psychedelic States" and the value of breaking the psychedelic experience in terms of a minimal set of "basic effects" whose stacking and composition gives rise to the wild *zoo of effects* one observes. I point out that algorithmic reductions can have explanatory power even if they do not provide a clear answer about the nature of the substrate of experience. Importantly, since I wrote that article we have developed a far higher-resolution understanding of exotic states of consciousness:
We suggest that a remarkably fruitful strategy for pointing at a whole family of psychedelic effects comes in the form of "field operators" that change the qualitative properties of our experiential fields. I provide a detailed description of what we call the "world-sheet" of experience and how it encodes emotional and semantic content in its very structure. The world-sheet can have tension, relaxation, different types of resonance and buzzing entrainment, twisting, curling, divergence (with vortices and anti-vortices in the attention field-lines), dissonance, consonance, noise, release, curvature, holographic properties, and dimensionality. I explain that in a psychedelic state, you explore higher up regions in the "Hamiltonian of the field", meaning that you instantiate field configurations with higher levels of energy. There, we observer interesting trade-offs between the hyperbolicity of the field and its dimensionality. It can instantiate fractals of many sorts (in polar, cartesian, and other coordinate systems) by multi-scale entrainment. Time loops and moments of eternity result from this process iterated over all sensory modalities. The field contains meta-data implicitly encoded in its periphery which you can use for tacit information processing. Semantic content and preferences are encoded in terms of the patterns of attraction and repulsion of the attention-field lines. And so much more (watch the whole video for the entire story).
I conclude by saying that a steady meditation practice can be highly synergistic with psychedelics. Metta/loving-kindness can manifest in the form of smooth, coherent, high-dimensional, and consonant regions of the world-sheet and make the experience way more manageable, wholesome, and enriching. Equanimity, concentration, and sensory clarity are all synergistic with the state, and I posit that using "high-dimensionality" as the annealing target may accelerate the development of these traits in everyday life.
Please consider donating to QRI if you want to see this line of research make waves in academia and expand the Overtone Window in the science of consciousness. Funds will allow us to carry out key scientific experiments to validate models and develop technologies to reduce suffering at scale: qualiaresearchinstitute.org/donate
Qualia of the Day: The Phenomenal Silence of Each Field Modality
Further readings/materials:
Algorithmic Reduction of Psychedelic States - qualiacomputing.com/2016/06/20/algorithmic-reduction-of-psychedelic-states
The Hyperbolic Geometry of DMT Experiences: Symmetries, Sheets, and Saddled Scenes - qualiacomputing.com/2016/12/12/the-hyperbolic-geometry-of-dmt-experiences
5-MeO-DMT vs. N,N-DMT - qualiacomputing.com/2020/07/01/5-meo-dmt-vs-nn-dmt-the-9-lenses
Mike Johnson's Interview of Shinzen Young - opentheory.net/2021/02/shinzen-young-interview-stress-equanimity-sensory-clarity
Shinzen Young's Channel "expandcontract" (highly recommended!) - youtube.com/user/expandcontract/videos
Jhanas and "Focus on Rest" ~ Shinzen Young - youtu.be/A-72haqjl4o
Steven Lehar - slehar.com/wwwRel
The Grand Illusion (drugs are wasted on the young - cognitive science PhDs should be the ones taking psychedelics) - slehar.com/wwwRel/GrandIllusion.pdf
Ways of Thinking - qualiacomputing.com/2021/01/24/ways-of-thinking
On the Medium of Thought - qualiacomputing.com/2020/12/12/on-the-medium-of-thought
Subjective Effect Index - psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Subjective_effect_index
The Four Noble Truths | Thich Nhat Hanh - youtu.be/dy-RI3FrdGA
Metta/Loving Kindness Meditation - youtu.be/Ee4wLOuMNkM
I hack my biology. I'm like Rogan (comedy) - youtu.be/p7_NgawDHq4
