Eli Elster

For @SmithsonianMag and Substack, I wrote about the work of @juliangough , the writer-turned-cosmologist who argues that the structure of universe has been shaped through natural selection. I suspect he's right—but even if he's wrong, we still need more people brave enough to think and work like him. Substack link in 🧵 smithsonianmag.com/science-n…

Writing with @xave_rg made me try fiction again: unpublishablepapers.substack…

In another life I am a literary theorist studying the words AI agents use to describe their own ontology

Increasingly we celebrate the ethos of “containing multitudes” — having many different selves within you, different parts you can play in relation to different people — yet it also seems that massive success follows those who contain exactly one singular personality that manifests itself in every decision and interaction. Did Steve Jobs contain multitudes? What about Larry David (on my mind due to another great profile in @colossusmag )? If so, they’re invisible — many people reach their pinnacles by indiscriminately seeing and warping the world through one fairly well-defined lens, so much so that you can invoke a good portrait of their styles through their name alone. One view on this contrast would say that perhaps what we see as the “reality distortion field” is in fact some kind of perfect synchrony between the multitudes in a David, Jobs, etc. such that all parts are aligned into a seemingly unified force, just as our liver and kidneys and heart work together to keep the whole organism alive. Most people never manage to align themselves so neatly. Another view is that whatever multitudes might have emerged have instead been quashed beneath the heel of a single dictator, a Self to rule all other selves; blurred behind the reality distortion field are all the other versions of the person that in a different life would also be expressed. I don’t know which is true — maybe the answer depends on the person in question.

So excited and honored to partake — go East, young man, go East and grow up with the country!

Amtrak bomb threat has trapped me in Berkeley, annoying but it is also interesting to see the bureaucratic system grind out a solution for everyone who got stuck (shuttle bus to another station). Many things in the world could be more efficient but at the same time boy could they be much much worse

I have an all-encompassing theory about the origins of the use of mirrors in African psychedelic rituals, the ensuing Substack will either be crackpot as hell or totally epic or probably some mixture of both

Reading AGI Chronicles by @kevinroose — the view of (most) AI execs as just profit-seeking tech bros, held at least in liberal bubbles outside SF, is so strikingly wrong. One could make many other critiques (I.e. Oppenheimer-esque narcissism), but an intrinsic desire to put cash above all other motives is surely not one of them. Yet seems like that is the impression of many! (Ofc doesn’t eliminate the possibility that the bare facts of running a giant corporation may cultivate indistinguishable behaviors even among differently-motivated people)

Due to the beneficent influence of @majamediaco , I am resolving to put many of my more half-formed thoughts here rather than texting them to myself, I would like to help reliven the digital commons in my own small way

Nightmares are a key symptom of PTSD, but most of the psychedelics being trialed for it now (I.e. MDMA) mainly cause waking effects …. surely, there’s a wealth of clinical uses waiting in the oneirogens (substances that affect sleep/dreams) of cultures around the world? I.e. Silene undulata, used by southern African healers to induce lucid dreams. (Interesting, on this point, that iboga is (A) likely very good at treating PTSD and (B) effectively an oneirogen!)

This spring, I'm traveling to Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Colombia, where I'll be interviewing shamans about the phenomenology of trance dances. I'm looking for folks (i.e. QRI-type people) to advise me on building a good and extremely user-friendly tool that the shamans can use to visualize their sensations. Grateful to anyone who can link me with the right person, boost this to others, or (esp!) is down to chat more and advise! Please reply or DM if you have good leads 🙂. @algekalipso @johnsonmxe @chris_percy @ekkolapto @cube_flipper @VisionSymmetric @AnalogWhole @theIACS @QualiaRI @42irrationalist @Josikinz