Subscribe, Rate, & Review Future Fossils on YouTube • Spotify • Apple PodcastsThis week on Future Fossils I welcome back Sara Phinn Huntley (help her fight cancer!), a multimedia artist, writer, and researcher who has spent the last two decades exploring the intersection of psychedelics, technology, and philosophy.An intrepid psychonaut and cartographer of hyperspace, her current focus involves using VR to represent visual/spatial imagination in real-time. Using a multidisciplinary approach, she documents and maps the states revealed by dimethyltriptamime and other psychedelics, cargo culting higher dimensional artifacts through the intersection of chaos mathematics, Islamic geometry, and 3D diagrammatic performance capture. Her work has been published by the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies and featured in Diana Reed Slattery's Xenolinguistics. She is the art director for The Illustrated Field to the DMT Entities with David Jay Brown (forthcoming at Inner Traditions, 2025).✨ Offer Support + Join The Scene• Become a patron on Substack or Patreon• Make a tax-deductible donation to Humans On The Loop• Invite me to work with you as an hourly consultant or advisor on retainer• Join the Holistic Technology & Wise Innovation and Future Fossils Discord servers• Join the Future Fossils Facebook group• Buy the books we discuss from my Bookshop.org reading list• Buy original paintings and prints or commission new work• Tip me with @futurefossils on Venmo, $manfredmacx on CashApp, or @michaelgarfield on PayPal• Buy the show’s music on Bandcamp — intro “Olympus Mons” from the Martian Arts EP & outro “Sonnet A” from the Double-Edged Sword EP✨ Main Points + Big Ideas* The Entanglement of Language and Being: DMT entities reveal a profound connection between language and the construction of reality, echoing themes found in esoteric traditions and the emergence of AI.* The Cartography of Hyperspace: The book serves as a guide to the vast and uncharted territory of DMT experiences, highlighting the challenge of classifying subjective encounters and the potential for mapping a multidimensional reality.* The Reproducibility Problem and the Power of Big Data: While acknowledging the inherent challenges of studying subjective experiences, we point to the potential of emerging technologies like AI, blockchain, and large-scale data analysis to offer new insights.* Embodied Bias and the Nature of Evolution: The nonlinear and multidimensional nature of DMT experiences challenges our understanding of time, evolution, and even anatomy, prompting a re-evaluation of our assumptions about reality.* Attention as a Currency: We emphasize the importance of attention in navigating both the DMT space and the rapidly evolving technological landscape, posing critical questions about who or what deserves our focus.* The Question of Human Survival: The episode ends by urging humanity to confront its self-destructive tendencies and leverage its collective wisdom to navigate the challenges and opportunities of the future.✨ ChaptersChapter 1: Sara's Psychedelic Journey and the Genesis of the DMT Entities Field Guide (00:00:00 - 00:10:00)* Sara's fascination with DMT from a young age.* Her exploration of DMT through various artistic media, including performance art and xenolinguistics.* The inception of The Illustrated Field Guide to DMT Entities book, inspired by classic field guides to nature.* The decision to leverage AI in the book's creation due to the vastness of the subject matter.Chapter 2: Language, Being, and the AI Oracle (00:10:00 - 00:20:00)* The role of language in shaping and interpreting DMT entities, drawing parallels to esoteric traditions like the concept of the Logos.* Sara's process of interacting with AI, describing it as "talking to it" to curate the visual representations of DMT entities.* The blurring of categories and the subjective nature of interpreting the raw data of DMT experiences.* The challenge of reconciling diverse and often conflicting perceptions of the same entities.* Language as a compression tool for expressing ineffable experiences.* The increasing relevance of AI in understanding consciousness, particularly with future advancements in brain modeling.Chapter 3: Navigating Ontological Shock and the Nature of DMT Entities (00:20:00 - 00:30:00)* The challenge of reconciling DMT experiences with our "meat space" understanding of reality.* Sara's personal experience of gaining knowledge through DMT, challenging James Kent's view on the limitations of such knowledge.* The neurological basis for some common DMT hallucinations and its implications for understanding the experience.* The interplay of cultural and personal projections in shaping DMT entity encounters.* Exploring the possibility of psychedelics as a way to interact with a simulated reality.* The existence of phenomena that defy current scientific ...
