Join us for an in-depth discussion that bridges computational and implementation perspectives on the mind, grounding the Qualia Research Institute (QRI) from first principles for those already somewhat familiar with the philosophy of mind. Filmed after a QRI meetup in Berlin, this conversation between QRI collaborator Libor Burian and Andrés Gómez …

Normally in meditation we are focused on what IS in experience, but to be able to notice the absence of phenomena is key as well! Where there once were qualia, now there aren’t - what does that reveal to us about their nature? Roger Thisdell guides a meditation starting with a taste session on the major ingredients which make up our experience. The…

In this guided meditation, our invited facilitator, Wystan, leads participants through meticulous body scanning techniques designed to cultivate an acute consciousness of the immediate present. Transitioning seamlessly from body scanning to methods of introspection, and further incorporating the nuanced technique of finger-following to “spread out …

Metta is a Pali word that can be translated as benevolence, friendliness, or good will. It is a key state of mind for meditative practice; it has the capacity to heal, invigorate, and center the mind. The majority of guided Metta meditations emphasize the ways in which you can trigger this state of mind with semantic content and imagery. For exampl…

In this guided meditation, we delve into the phenomenology of various conceptions of personal identity. Specifically, we observe the experiential nuances of believing that we are individual souls (Closed Individualism), that we are a single universal consciousness (Open Individualism), that we represent ephemeral moments of experience (Empty Indivi…

There are many spiritual and yogic practices that utilize “elemental” objects of meditation. For example, the guided meditation by Michael Taft called “Five Elements Meditation” (link below) centers the mind around mental formations evocative of earth, water, fire, air, and space. Alas, it is natural to be skeptical of the value of these practices …

It is often said that one of the most important meditative skills that one can cultivate is the practice of letting go. This means letting go of attachments, of cravings, of a sense of identity, and the need for things to be anything other than what they are. However, in practice doing this is more difficult than it sounds; we have a habit of holdi…

This meditation explores the phenomenology of absorption into Platonic objects. We delve into what it feels like to imagine, embody, and generate the sense of knowing of classic geometric and mathematical constructs. One of the main takeaways from this meditation is that we can attune to the difference between (1) how we render a particular instanc…

Expansion and contraction are the subtlest distinguishing features of experience. This meditation on expansion and contraction, given by Roger Thisdell, is a guide for finding and synchronizing to the oscillatory nature of experience at different levels, and then realising the co-dependence on one another in order to exist. Where there is expansion…

In this meditation, Roger Thisdell guides us in a meditation of somatic scanning up and down the body using concurrent waves of awareness that pass through one another. We are trying to balance both the sense of grounding, stability with the sense of wakeful, levity. By the end of the meditation, the goal is to isolate and metacognize the sense of …

Paper: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2023.1233119/full The boundary problem is related to the binding problem, part of a family of puzzles and phenomenal experiences that theories of consciousness (ToC) must either explain or eliminate. By comparison with the phenomenal binding problem, the boundary problem has received very li…

In this guided meditation, Andrés will take you through QRI's recent work, focusing on two key aspects: The Thermodynamics of Consciousness: This part of the meditation will explore how energy flows from various sources such as sensory stimulation, valence, attention, surprise, and the background noise signature. This energy is directed towards the…

Without making any ontological, philosophical, or metaphysical assertions or assumptions, we acknowledge that the experience of the divine and the concept of "God" can have a significant impact on the human soul. Therefore, exploring this phenomenon is crucial for obtaining a comprehensive and direct understanding of consciousness.In this guided me…

In this guided meditation, Andrés will lead you through a series of exercises that illustrate harmonic resonance in the energy body. Subsequently, excess energy will be channeled into high-valence tactile sensations (resembling Piti), which can serve as a potential foundational practice for the 1st Jhana.The meditation primarily focuses on the inne…

In this guided meditation, Andrés will lead you through a diverse array of potential high-valence states of consciousness, often referred to as phenomenal "heaven worlds."The concept of "meditation calisthenics" draws inspiration from calisthenics exercises, which involve minimal equipment and target all muscle groups in the body. In the context of…

In this guided meditation, Andrés will assist you in exploring how attention constructs local binding connections between phenomenal features, and how the flow of attention and awareness can be likened to the graph algorithm called PageRank.Topics covered in the meditation include: Reviewing the nature of attention: what you pay attention to become…

In this guided meditation, Andrés will walk you through various methods to modulate the "energy parameter" of experience, which serves as a fundamental component of the Neural Annealing framework in the nervous system. The Neural Annealing approach explores how appropriately defined energy impacts internal representations, aids in solving constrain…

In this guided meditation, Andrés will lead you through a transformative journey that includes the following elements: A factorization of experience into three main channels with their corresponding inner and outer versions: "see," "hear," and "feel." Utilizing your energy body as an antenna capable of perceiving both shapes and frequencies of inte…

In this guided meditation, Andrés will take you on a journey to explore the different ways of believing in various ontologies.Without making any definitive claims about the nature of reality, you will delve into the phenomenology of ontology. This involves exploring what it feels like to inhabit a phenomenal world where the fundamental building blo…

This is a guided meditation provided by Andrés in order to enrich one's conception of the nature of "attention". Attention is typically thought of as a fuzzy "spotlight" that redirects cognitive resources to a region of one's experience. But this is just one of many varieties of attention. In fact, many changes to one's state of consciousness have …

In this episode, QRI's research director, Andres Gomez Emilsson, describes his experience with a 2-week Jhanas meditation retreat. He talks about what it means to experience higher dimensions, his personal background with meditation, the retreat protocol, and commentary on the lectures given by Rob Burbea. He also shares how QRI's paradigms are rel…

In this episode, we explore the similarities between the brain and a musical instrument. We illustrate how the brain tissue is represented by metal and how brain activity can be mimicked by sound. We also demonstrate how substances such as psychedelics and dissociatives can be used to alter brain activity. This model is based on the fact that both …

In this episode, we explore the hard problem of consciousness. What is it, and why is it so hard to solve? We'll also discuss the work of the Qualia Research Institute, and what they're doing to try to quantify and map the qualia landscape. We discuss how consciousness is the only thing we can ever experience, yet it is mostly ignored by science. W…

In this episode, we explore the idea of emergent simplicity - the idea that adding just one extra component to a complex system can cause it to "tip" into a drastically simpler state. We use the example of adding carbon dioxide to the Earth, which would cause the Earth to become a much simpler system where neither life nor liquid water would exist.…

In this episode, we discuss with the ontology of reality with Andrés Gómez Emilsson from the Qualia Research Institute, Daniel Ingram from the Emergent Phenomenology Research Consortium (EPRC), and Frank Yang (body-builder turned meditator). This conversation was very fruitful, given that Daniel and Frank are advanced and accomplished meditators wi…

In this episode, we discuss the haptic research that was conducted at QRI in 2021. This research was conducted in order to explore the potential of haptic stimulation for aiding in psychedelic therapy. We discuss the results of our research and how we believe that incorporating haptic stimulation into psychedelic treatment can be beneficial.…

In this episode, Steven Lehar overviews the core insights of his life's work in perceptual research. He discusses the paradox of visual experience, amodal perception and perceptual reification, the ontology of visual experience, and gestalt theory. He also talks about the properties of harmonic resonance and how they can be used to understand and m…

In this episode, we discuss the limitations of current research paradigms for studying exotic states of consciousness, and how they may prevent us from understanding key aspects of these states. We also talk about some of the weird and bizarre properties of experience that have been reported by those who have undergone these states, and how they ch…

In this episode, we discuss the preliminary findings of our research into visual tracers on altered states of consciousness. We explain how we developed a fine-grained vocabulary and an interactive tool to allow users to replicate the effects in detail. We share our current understanding of the characteristics of tracers for each of the conditions …

In this episode, we hear from Quintin Frerichs of the Qualia Research Institute about Neural Annealing - a theory for how the brain updates emotional beliefs. Frerichs discusses how this theory can help us to understand how the brain processes information, and how it can be applied to improve our understanding of mental illness and other neurologic…

In this episode, we explore the idea that the true range of intensity of both pleasure and pain is orders of magnitude wider than we intuitively believe. This discovery has serious and important revision to ethical priorities for utilitarian and humanitarian movements.

In this episode, Andrés Gómez Emilsson from the Qualia Research Institute presents the Symmetry Theory of Valence (STV) to Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris and his team at The Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London.

In this episode, we discuss the nature of mathematical cognition, and how it differs from sacred geometry meditation. We argue that mathematical cognition involves the use of special kind of conscious state, where you partition your mind with a self-other divide, and then manipulate patterns of attention and awareness in order to find transitive eq…

In this episode, we discuss how philosophy of mind and the science of consciousness has non-trivial and significant implications in the realm of ethics. We cover topics such as mixed valence states, logarithmic scales of pleasure and pain, personal identity, and the symmetry theory of valence. Finally, we brainstorm a bit about what a great reality…

In this episode, we explore how the paradigm of oscillatory complementarity can articulate and clarify a wide range of exotic phenomena. We discuss how concentration meditation can give rise a certain kind of oscillatory annealing, and how insight practice involves de-energizing the non-linearities (gestalts) that make up your world-simulation. We …

In this episode, we explore the idea that our inner world-simulation is constructed with vibes interacting with one another to form gestalts, which in turn form large-scale self-reinforcing attractors aka. "realms". We explain that vibes have precise valence characteristics, and when they are above a certain level of energy they become non-linear a…

In this episode, we explore the concept of a Full-Spectrum Supersentient Superintelligence - a mind that is capable of exploring, recruiting, and instantiating arbitrary state-spaces of consciousness for computational and aesthetic purposes. We discuss how this radically enriched conception of intelligence is needed in order to understand the true …

In this episode, we explore the question of why we are conscious. The short answer is that consciousness allows us to recruit self-organizing principles that can run on a massively parallel fashion in order to find solutions to problems at wave propagation speed. However, this answer raises more questions than it answers. In order to fully understa…

In this episode, we discuss the 'binding problem' of consciousness, and how it can be broken down into manageable subcomponents. We suggest that any solution to the binding problem must avoid strong emergence, side-step the hard problem of consciousness, circumvent epiphenomenalism, and be compatible with the modern scientific word picture. We then…

In this episode, we explore the idea that DMT experiences can be higher dimensional in a meaningful sense. We discuss how degrees of freedom can become interlocked in such a way that they functionally emulate the behavior of a virtual higher dimension, as exemplified by the "harmonograph". We also discuss how the unique valence properties of the DM…

In this episode, we discuss the new methods that are helping to bring about a new paradigm in consciousness research. We discuss how taking exotic states of consciousness seriously, and engaging in high-quality phenomenology can help us to understand the mind better. We also talk about the importance of having a critical mass of smart and rational …

In this episode, we analyze the perfume category called "Aromatic Fougère" in order to illustrate the aesthetic of "Qualiacore" in its myriad manifestations. We define the Qualiacore Aesthetic as the practice and aspiration to describe experiences in new, meaningful, and non-trivial ways that are illuminating for our understanding of the nature of …

In this episode, we explore the importance of cognitive sovereignty - the principle that people should be free to think and feel as they wish, that ideas should be owned by those who come up with them, and that information should be shared responsibly. We discuss how this principle can incentivize smart people to focus their energies on having genu…

In this episode, we explore the challenge of thinking wholesome, genuinely useful, and novel thoughts about how to build paradise. Most of the "visions of paradise" we find in our culture, media, and art are projections of implicit aesthetics used for human coordination, rather than deeply thought-out and high-dimensional perspectives truly meant t…

In this episode, we discuss the Friston's Free Energy Principle (FEP) and how it can be used to explain features of exotic experiences. We talk about how the FEP shows up in the literature today, and how it can be used to explain features of exotic experiences. We also discuss Safron's countermodel of Strengthened BEliefs Under pSychedelics (SEBUS)…

In this episode, we explore the idea that digital computers cannot be conscious. We discuss the philosophical journey that led us to this conclusion, as well as the classic issues in philosophy of mind that support our position. Finally, we solve the boundary problem with topological segmentation, which allows us to also provide an explanation for …

In this episode, we explore the problem of other minds and how to solve it using a combination of mindmelding and phenomenal puzzles. We discuss how this approach can be used to increase our certainty of other's consciousness, and how it can address the problem of other minds in a way that even strong skeptics will be satisfied with.…

In this episode, we discuss the differences between DMT and 5-MeO-DMT. We look at how they differ in terms of global coherence, valence, and the free energy principle. We also explore 9 other lenses that help us analyze the strange and unique effects of these substances.

In this episode, we take the simulation pill and explore what it would mean for our reality. Once you take the pill, there is no going back, so be sure you're ready for the ride!

In this episode, we explore the idea that you don't need to choose between truth and happiness. High hedonic tone is not incompatible with one's representational accuracy of causal structures. The world, and the existence of experiential heaven and hell, can be understood without curling into a ball and crying your way to sleep. More so, effective …