If you believe in furthering our scientific understanding of consciousness and phenomenology, there are several ways you can contribute:
Donate
The Qualia Research Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in California and is funded by the donations of its supporters.
We are preparing for more retreats, specifically DMTx and 5-MeO-DMT – but we are also interested in investigating other things like ketamine as well as jhāna and fire kasina meditation. We believe that these retreats will continue to produce extremely interesting output.
Any donation would go a long way to help us continue our research and synthesize the insights gained into a theory of consciousness. Our donation page can be found on qri.org.
Participate
If you would like to contribute as a participant, be aware that we have a strong set of criteria with regards to what we are looking for. In particular, we are looking for people who have:
- Very strong technical skills in physics, math, and to a lesser extent computer science
- Advanced meditators, particularly whose who have access to jhāna or have attended many retreats
- Substantial experience with psychedelics, e.g. 100+ experiences with LSD, psilocybin, DMT, and so on
- Excellent mental and physical health (this is a gradient, of course, and a requirement above a certain level for everyone)
- Advanced artistic skills, especially technical accomplishments in writing and audio/video
In addition to this, you should be extremely curious, motivated, and confused about consciousness. We want people who really, really, really want to figure out what is going on with qualia and binding and valence, who are deeply dissatisfied with the current models of consciousness, and who have already spent a good amount thinking about it. Having read much of qri.org and qualiacomputing.com is also a big plus.
If you believe that you fit these criteria, please reach out to us at hello@qri.org.
Get involved with QRI
More broadly, our research includes investigating electromagnetic field theories of consciousness, as well as work on consciousness interpretability and suffering reduction. If you are interested in these topics and have technical expertise which believe would be useful, please reach out to us at hello@qri.org.