some of my thoughts and notes

Qualia Research Institute

I just revisited the website of the Qualia Research Institute https://qri.org, scrolled down a bit, and stumbled on:

Experience Our Scents
Discover our selection of scents inspired by our research. Each scent is a unique > exploration of the state-space of consciousness.

View Scents

Of course, this caught my attention.

Now, before I dive deeper into the scent topic, I have to say that the mission of the QRI seems incredibly simple yet important and powerful and very.. relateable to me:

  1. Develop a precise mathematical language for describing subjective experience
  2. Understand the nature of emotional valence (happiness and suffering)
  3. Map out the full space of possible conscious experiences
  4. Build technologies to improve the lives of sentient beings

Now, let me give you a bit of what their scents are about:

The Magical Creatures line of scents from QRI is a collection designed to highlight the complex and irregular nature of the state-space of olfaction. We believe that the space of olfaction is not well-described by a simple Euclidean space, but is instead a complex ecosystem with hidden interstitial gems and exotic creatures. The scents in the line are designed to showcase “special effects” found in this space.

If you are interested in what those scents are, you can continue reading here: (https://qri.org/scents)[https://qri.org/scents]

It took me a couple of minutes to connect it, but after I stumbled on the page about the QRI team ((https://qri.org/team)[https://qri.org/team]) I realized that the guy who did the work on scents is coincidentally also the president of the QRI and has quite some record:

Andrés has a Master’s Degree in Psychology with an emphasis in computational models from Stanford and a professional background in graph theory, statistics, and affective science. Andrés was also the co-founder of the Stanford Transhumanist Association and first place winner of the Norway Math Olympiad. His work at QRI ranges from algorithm design, to psychedelic theory, to neurotechnology development, to mapping and studying the computational properties of consciousness. Andrés blogs at qualiacomputing.com.