Andrés Gómez Emilsson | Paradigm-Shifting Qualia Research Methods: How to Take Exotic States of Consciousness Seriously @/Andr%C3%A9sG%C3%B3mezEmilsson | Uploaded September 2021 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
"New scientific paradigms essentially begin life as conspiracy theories, noticing the inconsistencies the previous paradigm is suppressing. Early adopters undergo a process that Kuhn likens to religious deconversion."
- Romeo Stevens
The field of consciousness research lacks a credible synthesis of what we already know about the mind. One key thing that is holding back the science of consciousness is that it's currently missing an adequate set of methods to "take seriously" the implications of exotic states of consciousness. Imagine a physicist saying that "there is nothing about water that we can learn from studying ice". Silly as it may be, the truth is that this is the typical attitude about exotic consciousness in modern neuroscience. And even with the ongoing resurgence of scientific interest in psychedelics, outside of QRI and Ingram's EPRC there is no real serious attempt at mapping the state-space of consciousness in detail. This is to a large extent because we lack the vocabulary, tools, concepts, and focus at a paradigmatic level to do so. But a new paradigm is arriving, and the following 8 new research methods and others in the works will help bring it about:
1) Taking Exotic States of Consciousness Seriously (e.g. when a world-class phenomenologist says that 3D-printed Poincaré projections of hyperbolic honeycombs make the visual system "glitch" when on DMT the rational response is to listen and ask questions rather than ignore and ridicule).
2) High-Quality Phenomenology: Precise descriptions of the phenomenal character of experience. Core strategy: useful taxonomies of experience, a language to describe generalized synesthesia (multi-modal coherence), and a rich vocabulary to convey the statistical regularities of textures of qualia (cf. generalizing the concept of "mongrels" in the neuroscience of visual perception to all other modalities).
3) Phenomenology Club: Critical mass of smart and rational psychonauts.
4) Psychedelic Turk for Psychophysics: Real-time psychedelic task completion.
5) Generalized Wada Test: What happens when half of your brain is on LSD and the other half is on ketamine?
6) Resonance-Based Hedonic Mapping: You are a network of coupled oscillators. Act like it!
7) Pair Qualia Cartography: Like pair programming but for exploring the state-space of consciousness with non-invasive neurostimulation.
8) Cognitive Sovereignty: Furthering a culture that has a "Yes &" approach to creativity, keeps track of meta-data, and takes responsibility for the information it puts out.
~Qualia of the Day: Being Taken Seriously~
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Relevant Links:
Psychedelic Turk: A Platform for People on Altered States of Consciousness - qualiacomputing.com/2018/10/28/psychedelic-turk-a-platform-for-people-on-altered-states-of-consciousness
Generalized Wada Test and the Total Order of Consciousness
- qualiacomputing.com/2015/05/01/generalized-wada-test-and-the-total-order-of-consciousness
Cognitive Sovereignty: How Do You Incentivize Genuinely New Thoughts? - youtu.be/XfYKfI2uEnw
A Future for Neuroscience (Michael Johnson) - opentheory.net/2018/08/a-future-for-neuroscience
The Neuroscience of Meditation: Four Models (Michael Johnson) - opentheory.net/2018/12/the-neuroscience-of-meditation
Emergent Phenomenology Research Consortium (Daniel Ingram) - theeprc.org
Welcoming Steven Lehar as a QRI Lineage - qualiaresearchinstitute.org/blog/steven-lehar-lineage
The Control Interrupt Model of Psychedelic Action (James Kent) - psychedelic-information-theory.com/The-Control-Interrupt-Model-of-Psychedelic-Action
Modeling Psychedelic Tracers with QRI’s Psychophysics Toolkit: The Tracer Replication Tool - qualiacomputing.com/2020/10/09/modeling-psychedelic-tracers-with-qris-psychophysics-toolkit-the-tracer-replication-tool
Healing Trauma with Neural Annealing - qualiacomputing.com/2021/05/08/healing-trauma-with-neural-annealing
Peaceful Qualia: The Manhattan Project of Consciousness - qualiacomputing.com/2016/03/29/peaceful-qualia-the-manhattan-project-of-consciousness
Their Scientific Significance is Hard to Overstate (David Pearce) - qualiacomputing.com/2017/03/11/their-scientific-significance-is-hard-to-overstate
Ephemerisle: Health Homeostasis, Worldview Annealing, and the Long-Tails of Serious Fun - qualiacomputing.com/2019/07/30/ephemerisle-health-homeostasis-worldview-annealing-and-the-long-tails-of-serious-fun
Psychedelic Science 2017: Take-aways, impressions, and what’s next - qualiacomputing.com/2017/04/26/psychedelic-science-2017-take-aways-impressions-and-whats-next
Intellectual Hipsters and Meta-Contrarianism (Scott Alexander) - lesswrong.com/posts/9kcTNWopvXFncXgPy/intellectual-hipsters-and-meta-contrarianism
Why Am I Shirtless (Mario Montano, RIP) - youtu.be/ZRzyN0wK32Q
Cringe | ContraPoints - youtu.be/vRBsaJPkt2Q
"New scientific paradigms essentially begin life as conspiracy theories, noticing the inconsistencies the previous paradigm is suppressing. Early adopters undergo a process that Kuhn likens to religious deconversion."
- Romeo Stevens
The field of consciousness research lacks a credible synthesis of what we already know about the mind. One key thing that is holding back the science of consciousness is that it's currently missing an adequate set of methods to "take seriously" the implications of exotic states of consciousness. Imagine a physicist saying that "there is nothing about water that we can learn from studying ice". Silly as it may be, the truth is that this is the typical attitude about exotic consciousness in modern neuroscience. And even with the ongoing resurgence of scientific interest in psychedelics, outside of QRI and Ingram's EPRC there is no real serious attempt at mapping the state-space of consciousness in detail. This is to a large extent because we lack the vocabulary, tools, concepts, and focus at a paradigmatic level to do so. But a new paradigm is arriving, and the following 8 new research methods and others in the works will help bring it about:
1) Taking Exotic States of Consciousness Seriously (e.g. when a world-class phenomenologist says that 3D-printed Poincaré projections of hyperbolic honeycombs make the visual system "glitch" when on DMT the rational response is to listen and ask questions rather than ignore and ridicule).
2) High-Quality Phenomenology: Precise descriptions of the phenomenal character of experience. Core strategy: useful taxonomies of experience, a language to describe generalized synesthesia (multi-modal coherence), and a rich vocabulary to convey the statistical regularities of textures of qualia (cf. generalizing the concept of "mongrels" in the neuroscience of visual perception to all other modalities).
3) Phenomenology Club: Critical mass of smart and rational psychonauts.
4) Psychedelic Turk for Psychophysics: Real-time psychedelic task completion.
5) Generalized Wada Test: What happens when half of your brain is on LSD and the other half is on ketamine?
6) Resonance-Based Hedonic Mapping: You are a network of coupled oscillators. Act like it!
7) Pair Qualia Cartography: Like pair programming but for exploring the state-space of consciousness with non-invasive neurostimulation.
8) Cognitive Sovereignty: Furthering a culture that has a "Yes &" approach to creativity, keeps track of meta-data, and takes responsibility for the information it puts out.
~Qualia of the Day: Being Taken Seriously~
----------
Relevant Links:
Psychedelic Turk: A Platform for People on Altered States of Consciousness - qualiacomputing.com/2018/10/28/psychedelic-turk-a-platform-for-people-on-altered-states-of-consciousness
Generalized Wada Test and the Total Order of Consciousness
- qualiacomputing.com/2015/05/01/generalized-wada-test-and-the-total-order-of-consciousness
Cognitive Sovereignty: How Do You Incentivize Genuinely New Thoughts? - youtu.be/XfYKfI2uEnw
A Future for Neuroscience (Michael Johnson) - opentheory.net/2018/08/a-future-for-neuroscience
The Neuroscience of Meditation: Four Models (Michael Johnson) - opentheory.net/2018/12/the-neuroscience-of-meditation
Emergent Phenomenology Research Consortium (Daniel Ingram) - theeprc.org
Welcoming Steven Lehar as a QRI Lineage - qualiaresearchinstitute.org/blog/steven-lehar-lineage
The Control Interrupt Model of Psychedelic Action (James Kent) - psychedelic-information-theory.com/The-Control-Interrupt-Model-of-Psychedelic-Action
Modeling Psychedelic Tracers with QRI’s Psychophysics Toolkit: The Tracer Replication Tool - qualiacomputing.com/2020/10/09/modeling-psychedelic-tracers-with-qris-psychophysics-toolkit-the-tracer-replication-tool
Healing Trauma with Neural Annealing - qualiacomputing.com/2021/05/08/healing-trauma-with-neural-annealing
Peaceful Qualia: The Manhattan Project of Consciousness - qualiacomputing.com/2016/03/29/peaceful-qualia-the-manhattan-project-of-consciousness
Their Scientific Significance is Hard to Overstate (David Pearce) - qualiacomputing.com/2017/03/11/their-scientific-significance-is-hard-to-overstate
Ephemerisle: Health Homeostasis, Worldview Annealing, and the Long-Tails of Serious Fun - qualiacomputing.com/2019/07/30/ephemerisle-health-homeostasis-worldview-annealing-and-the-long-tails-of-serious-fun
Psychedelic Science 2017: Take-aways, impressions, and what’s next - qualiacomputing.com/2017/04/26/psychedelic-science-2017-take-aways-impressions-and-whats-next
Intellectual Hipsters and Meta-Contrarianism (Scott Alexander) - lesswrong.com/posts/9kcTNWopvXFncXgPy/intellectual-hipsters-and-meta-contrarianism
Why Am I Shirtless (Mario Montano, RIP) - youtu.be/ZRzyN0wK32Q
Cringe | ContraPoints - youtu.be/vRBsaJPkt2Q
