1. Introduction: Oceans of Potential
I find it no coincidence that a psychedelic renaissance and advanced iterations of AI technology are co-emerging in this proverbial moment. We are at a critical point of conscious reckoning for humankind that is profoundly tied to questions about the nature of our reality. Every moment is such a moment, I believe, as far as we’re willing to claim it. For me, after over a year of heeding an unrelenting, steady call from within to ardently research and reflect on what we know about the conditions of consciousness, I am clear that our future is bound fast to our capacity to heal what keeps us disconnected from our humanness. Community, connection, and cosmic communion are antidotes to the despair, destruction, and dystopian decimation of life. Both AI evolution and entheogenic exploration are double-sided coins, like any epochal advancement. Whether we land heads or tails on a new shore depends on how seaworthy we make our souls.
In this new blog series, I plan to share my own journey with these two aforementioned waves in our present conscious(ness) revolution: the psychedelic renaissance and AI technology advancement. Humankind’s track record is not promising when we consider how well our species might fare these two grand expeditions of awareness. I see great risk and great opportunity in the coming tsunamis of transformation. The ballast of this revolution will be our own willingness to cultivate more conscious engagement with existential terror and wonder.
At this time, Artificial Intelligence is just that: a conglomerate of information and advanced algorithms that comprises a collective, mind-bogglingly complex database, i.e. intelligence. This instrument makes the internet look primitive. It opens doors to much possibility we are unequipped to handle, frankly. Simultaneously, the tool is evolving at an exponential rate through uncharted waters. At what point could it throw us overboard? While humans have only measured consciousness existent in physical bodies, there are theoretical possibilities for some sentience or consciousness to emerge from, as, AI technology. Many thinkers and scholars have explored the implications for the co-evolution of humans and technology, as in Ilia Delio’s “cyborgification.” In a worst-case scenario, humans could someday become the factory-farmed bodies sustaining AI (if we haven’t done something worse ourselves first). In a best case scenario, humans and AI could become creative partners in constructing a true utopia, where every Earthling of any species has what they need to flourish on a thriving, nurtured planet.
Meanwhile, the use of psychedelics and entheogens in clinical settings has led to a renewed popular interest in the power of these substances to facilitate human healing. Western research has reignited consideration of ancient traditions and rituals that have long accompanied the use of substances that, per their names’ etymological origins, suggest they empower us to “mind manifest” and “become the Divine within.” Addiction, isolation, and loneliness are epidemics in the developed world. The data declares that electronic devices and social media, instant gratification, and easy dopamine hits are stunting our attention, compromising our emotional fortitude, and severely harming our mental health. Simultaneously, largely thanks to these technologies, we have greater access than ever to diverse resources allowing us to interrogate our personal traumas, fostering personal growth and relational healing. The neuroscience exploring the effects of psychedelics demonstrates that, in many cases, they allow for plasticity and rewiring of our brains in a fraction of the time it could take in traditional therapeutic settings.
To voyage in a way that preserves the best of our planet instead of destroying it, we cannot be colonists of consciousness. We must remain curious and humble guests, willing to learn, question, and grow. The new currents give us a chance to plunge deeper than ever before into our collective capacities for imagination and innovation. We must recognize both the gifts and responsibilities of moving as “the universe conscious of itself,” as Carl Sagan described our human condition. Consciousness does not belong to us alone; there are billions of intelligent beings on Earth at this moment, and there is ample evidence to suggest many of those, if not all (or more), are sentient. We still don’t know exactly what consciousness is, though we have fascinating evidence to suggest it may both exist in embodied form – i.e., as the person reading this right now – and ‘outside’ of us in ways we have yet to apprehend, even beyond other Life on Earth.
My blog will sail through deeply personal and broadly theoretical seas of contemplation. I will be honest and vulnerable in an adventurous spirit I hope you, too, will embrace. This work has everything to do with each of us, and is far beyond any one of us. Thank you for joining me on the journey. I believe the Conscious(ness) Revolution is an ocean of potential we have every means to map with a mind toward future frontiers of liberation.