Building a Science of Consciousness – Details, episodes & analysis

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Building a Science of Consciousness

Qualia Research Institute

Science

Frequency: 1 episode/9d. Total Eps: 64

The Qualia Research Institute (QRI.org) is a California 501(c)(3) non-profit research group studying consciousness in a consistent, meaningful, and rigorous way. Our goal is to spread the ideas of our institute in a more accessible way and to support the research being done by our members.

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🇩🇪 Germany - lifeSciences
19/08/2026
#28
🇺🇸 USA - lifeSciences
19/08/2026
#71
🇺🇸 USA - lifeSciences
18/08/2026
#74
🇨🇦 Canada - lifeSciences
07/08/2026
#98
🇨🇦 Canada - lifeSciences
06/08/2026
#86
🇨🇦 Canada - lifeSciences
05/08/2026
#66
🇨🇦 Canada - lifeSciences
04/08/2026
#56
🇨🇦 Canada - lifeSciences
03/08/2026
#44
🇺🇸 USA - lifeSciences
09/06/2026
#87
🇺🇸 USA - lifeSciences
08/06/2026
#59

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https://youtu.be/YYSkKgwH4Bg?si=okgPbqKSGt8MvIHq
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Grounding QRI in First Principles (Part I): Bridging Computation and Philosophy

Friday, June 21, 2024 • Duration 01:50:09

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 Emilsson provides an overview of our research and methodologies.

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Guided Meditation: Don't Pay Attention

Wednesday, October 18, 2023 • Duration 35:54

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. Then after paying attention to these components, we deliberately try to not pay attention to them. What we find is the move to let go of paying attention to anything is a universal move - no matter the object of attention - how convenient!

The ability to take attention off of more and more aspects of experience is an essential skill which eventually culminates in the ability to not pay attention to time,space and consciousness, resulting in cessation.

For more guided meditations by Roger, check out his Patreon page where he releases a new guided meditation, on a variety of techniques, every week: https://www.patreon.com/rogerthis

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Electromagnetic Field Topology as a Solution to the Boundary Problem of Consciousness

Wednesday, August 9, 2023 • Duration 01:17:22

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 little scholarly attention since first framed in detail by Rosengard in 1998, despite discussion by Chalmers in his widely cited 2016 work on the combination problem. However, any ToC that addresses the binding problem must also address the boundary problem. The binding problem asks how a unified first person perspective (1PP) can bind experiences across multiple physically distinct activities, whether billions of individual neurons firing or some other underlying phenomenon. To a first approximation, the boundary problem asks why we experience hard boundaries around those unified 1PPs and why the boundaries operate at their apparent spatiotemporal scale. We review recent discussion of the boundary problem, identifying several promising avenues but none that yet address all aspects of the problem. We set out five specific boundary problems to aid precision in future efforts. We also examine electromagnetic (EM) field theories in detail, given their previous success with the binding problem, and introduce a feature with the necessary characteristics to address the boundary problem at a conceptual level. Topological segmentation can, in principle, create exactly the hard boundaries desired, enclosing holistic, frame-invariant units capable of effecting downward causality. The conclusion outlines a programme for testing this concept, describing how it might also differentiate between competing EM ToCs.

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Guided Meditation: The Thermodynamics of Consciousness and the Ecosystem of Agents

Sunday, July 30, 2023 • Duration 40:27

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 bound field of consciousness, which is then shaped via the energy sink landscape of symmetry and recognition. Finally, the processed consciousness exits through motor action or what is referred to as "outer field radiation."
The Ecosystem of Agents: Drawing a parallel to next-token prediction engines like GPT-4, this part of the meditation will explain how our minds work similarly, where existing constraints help resolve ambiguity in our experiences. To make accurate predictions of the world, our minds simulate agentive behavior because the world is full of agents. To achieve this, "subagents" are created to play the role of agentive forces, which can be predicted to ensure safety.

Throughout the meditation, you will explore a series of strategies to deal with these subagents and harmonize them within a healthy and wholesome ecosystem of friendly subagents that help each other in beautiful ways. Some of these strategies include:

Improving the training data for subagents.
Guiding lost subagents to a pool of love to re-absorb them.
Cultivating good vibes as a base to provide evolutionary selection pressures for friendly agents to arise.
Emphasizing equanimity and metta to reward clean intentions rather than flattery.
Exploring different network structures for agents that are more easily manageable.

By engaging in these practices, you can create a harmonious and beneficial ecosystem of subagents within your mind.

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Guided Meditation: Divine Qualia - Open Sourcing God

Sunday, July 30, 2023 • Duration 32:37

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 meditation, Andrés will lead you through an exploration of various conceptions of the divine without favoring any particular one. The central question guiding this exploration is: what is the experiential essence of inhabiting a world in which God is perceived in different ways? Rather than pursuing a specific dogma, we engage in an open-ended exploration of the divine to foster Qualia Mastery*. This approach is termed "Open Sourcing God," where individuals are not reliant on external interpretations or rules to access their own understanding of the divine.The diverse conceptions of the divine that will be explored include Chaos, Ingroup, Hierarchy, Creator, The Law, Archetype, Replication, Dynamics, Life, Energy, Coincidence and Synchronicity, Love, Compassion, Witness, Consciousness, Awareness, Oneness, Axis of Annealing, and Valence.

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Guided Meditation: Harmonic Meditation - Calibration Exercises

Sunday, July 30, 2023 • Duration 29:13

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 inner and outer "feel" channels of the (see, hear, feel) X (inner, outer) formulation of the "factorization experience," as introduced by Shinzen Young in his Unified Mindfulness framework. When necessary, feel free to use the inner and outer "see" channel for support, but keep the "feel" channel as the primary point of focus. During this meditation, we will explore the following types of oscillations:

On/off
Left/right
Top/bottom
Front/back
Expand/contract
Toroidal flow (up, down, both at once)
Checkerboard pattern
Zebra pattern
Homogenous attention in space
Space qualities: solid, liquid, magnetic, viscosity, gaseous, plasma
Pleasure, joy, peace
Laminal flow and energy management techniques

Prior to attempting this meditation, it is advisable to listen to the guided meditations on Energy, Attention, and Valence from the Qualia Mastery series.

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Guided Meditation: High-Valence Calisthenics - Exploring the Heaven Worlds

Sunday, July 30, 2023 • Duration 45:18

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 meditation, "meditation calisthenics" means engaging in various meditative approaches to keep all your "meditation muscles" in shape. Specifically, "high-valence calisthenics" pertains to the practice of exploring every form of positive valence state of consciousness that can be attained without external aids, such as chemical substances, sensory stimuli, or situational factors.During this guided meditation, we will explore high-valence configurations of "see, hear, feel" (both inner and outer experiences), artistic states of consciousness, social mindsets, metta (loving-kindness), the state of "cosmic party mode," the realms of insight, intellectual understanding, realization, and refined and purified high-valence states (Jhanas).We will conclude the meditation by dedicating these beautiful qualities of the mind for the benefit of all beings, wishing infinite bliss for everyone.

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Guided Meditation: Local Binding and the PageRank of Attention

Sunday, July 30, 2023 • Duration 32:17

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 becomes stronger, gets locally bound, and connects to what you were paying attention to right before.
Noticing local binding in the experiences of See, Hear, and Feel (both inner and outer).
Cross-modal coupling: employing the divide and conquer technique to prevent negative valence and the coherence technique to enhance positive valence.
Understanding the oscillatory complementarity between awareness and attention.
Recognizing how objects of perception can act as witnesses and witnessed elements of a scene.
Exploring hybrid attentional modes.
Investigating chains of witnessing and Nth-order intentionality.
Examining the concept of PageRank applied to attention.
Delving into space witnessing space.

These techniques and insights are valuable additions to your Qualia Mastery* toolkit.

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Guided Meditation: Playing with the Energy Parameter

Sunday, July 30, 2023 • Duration 36:27

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 constraint satisfaction problems, and has the potential to lead to sustainable high-valence states of consciousness by reducing internal stress.During the meditation, we will explore different sources of energy, including:(a) Sensory input (b) Pleasure and pain (c) Attention (d) SurpriseAdditionally, a wide range of techniques for building, managing, and skillfully deploying energy will be discussed and practiced.Enjoy this transformative experience!

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Guided Meditation: Textures of Valence - Consonance, Dissonance, and Noise

Sunday, July 30, 2023 • Duration 45:13

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 internal representations, exploring the duality between form and vibration in the phenomenal world.
Understanding symmetry and smooth geometry as the fundamental basis for valence.
Recognizing consonance, dissonance, and noise as tools to assess the valence of our world-simulation.
Learning a variety of practical strategies to address phenomenal dissonance effectively.

Enjoy this profound exploration!Relevant links/references:

High-Valence Meditation - https://qualiacomputing.com/2021/12/03/high-valence-meditation/
Michael Johnson's Principia Qualia - Introduction to the Symmetry Theory of Valence, valence structuralism, and qualia formalism - https://opentheory.net/principia-qualia/
The Consonance Disonance Noise Signature framework first introduced by Andrés Gómez Emilsson in Quantifying Bliss - https://qri.org/blog/quantifying-bliss
The Symmetry Theory of Valence (@The Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London) - https://youtu.be/tSPZ4xt5f2k
Neural Annealing by Michael Johnson - https://

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Building a Science of Consciousness – Details, episodes & analysis

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Building a Science of Consciousness – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

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