Thoughts On Evolutions

Author: Beata Grobenski (Twitter / X)
Project: Annealing Salons as Globally Distributed and Standardized Centers Optimized for Wellbeing

Date: July 18, 2023
Last edit: December 28, 2023
Contact: grobenskibeata@gmail.com

Thanks to Hunter and Andrés from QRI for the discussion and advices!

What is an Annealing Salon?

Annealing Salon is a public space optimized for wellbeing and oriented towards developing, teaching and applying annealing techniques introduced in The Good Annealing Manual. The Manual is based on Neural Annealing framework developed by (Johnson 2019) and (Gómez-Emilsson 2021).

The Good Annealing Manual is a book project organized by Qualia Research Institute on which I’m currently working. The project is supervised by the QRI Director of Research, Andrés Gómez Emilsson (blogging on Qualia Computing since 2014).

Starting from annealing on an individual level, the collective (social) annealing level is predicted to gradually improve, advance and spread its adaptive properties to other members of the community. This process is underpinned by evolution and technological progress.

Harmonic Society: 8 Models of Art for a Scientific Paradigm of Aesthetic Qualia is a 26-page long essay by Andrés in which he argues there are real and substantial stakes in art. The vision of Harmonic Society is a particular type of post-suffering utopia that resolves to optimize for good art.

Understanding the physical mechanism in the interplay between art as an affective protolanguage and the energy parameter of experience are some of the key insights helping us design their effective applications in society. (See more: QRI Research Publications)

For art, meditation, psychedelics, and philosophy all share the fact that they are messing with the energy parameter of experience in powerful ways that can be used to achieve much better and globally-consistent brain states. Understanding that the effects of art can be very strong and life-changing is one thing, but knowing the mechanism of action behind those changes comes with entirely new possibilities and responsibilities.

Gómez Emilsson, A. (2018). Harmonic Society. Qualia Research Institute. San Francisco, CA

Annealing Salon is not an elitist space. By being available to everyone, the Annealing Salon offers inner beauty treatment elaborated in the blueprint below.

The final goal of this project is to have annealing salons spread globally, adjusted to local culture and conditions.

Mission and philosophy

The mission of an annealing salon is optimizing for a better longterm future and building society that won’t 1) segregate and gradually decline, 2) self-terminate by blindly obeying ever-growing economic demands. By utilizing knowledge and wisdom gained by applying principles of musical harmony onto the energy flow within conscious systems, we are accelerating towards Harmonic Society.

Manifesting the sociocultural “Third Space Theory” is one of the Salon’s aims. Third Space theory emerges from the sociocultural tradition in psychology. Sociocultural approaches are concerned with the “constitutive role of culture in mind, i.e., on how mind develops by incorporating the community’s shared artifacts accumulated over generations“.

If the first space is one’s home, and the second is one’s work, the third space should be a space where people come in order to “fill their batteries” and anneal either individually or together.

What is the link between annealing, wellbeing and happiness?

Disclaimer: Happiness is not a direct measure of mental health. There are individuals who enjoy or at least don’t mind hurting other creatures and still experience happiness. What we aim for is happiness that correlates with the wellbeing of others. “We” is more fundamental than “I” – I will die, we will continue.

The key characteristic of annealing salons is increasing connectivity through creative and philosophical practices – a sort of mind gymnastics. As one the world’s leading authors on trauma Gabor Maté points out, one of the most common factors for unhappiness and addiction is loneliness. Annealing Salon is about community and growth.

By considering the logic of Bayesian brain, predictive processing and Free Energy Principle, I claim that the large part of mental health and wellbeing depends on understanding our shared reality, its physical properties, and thereby reducing the uncertainty about the world.

What differentiates the Annealing Salon from other types of third spaces, such as cafés, libraries or clubs is precisely the collective endeavour to focus on healthy, creative, educational and ultimately annealing practices which increase general wellbeing by leveraging the deep understanding of underlying computational and physical mechanisms behind our brains and minds.

As one of QRI’s co-founders Mike Johnson pointed out, one of the most important projects today is making the case that humans are good, noble, strong and rare: worthy stewards of the universe that are worth preserving. The Annealing Salon offers their visitors the opportunity to investigate and become fully aware of their potential.

Values and goals are constantly re-evaluated and are optimized for an omniwin situation.

What is omniwin and why is it crucial?

Social philosopher and civilization designer Daniel Schmachtenberger points out that omniwin is the only way to get out of the multipolar trap. The multipolar trap is a term used to describe a situation where self-interest compels multiple parties to act against their collective interest, leading to detrimental outcomes or even destruction.

Exponential growth required by our current economy cannot last forever in a space which is finite, as ours is. Theoretically, we might upload ourselves into the future quantum computers, which would mark a creation of a simulation of ourselves that could “survive” the civilizational collapse beyond biological constraints, although there is serious skepticism about the mind ever being able to be uploaded anywhere digitally. That means that uploading computational properties of our nervous system into a cloud won’t do the actual trick.

There is no antonym for omni-winning.
Omni-winners don’t need to keep score.

Urban Dictionary: Omni-Winning

Omniwin is a situation where systems are not competing for self-profit becuase selflessness is their default in which chasing individual gain no longer makes sense. Concept of “win” needs to be redefined into that what benefits the wellbeing of the community. All communities support each other.

Replacing selfishness with selflessness

The linguistic construct and the illusion of the Self (ego identity based on episodic memory) is carefully deconstructed through insightful practices described in The Good Annealing Manual. Individuals gradually move towards Oneness.

Selfless mindset is the only way we can establish an omniwin situation and in that regard we will rely on the Eastern enlightenment.

Who runs the salons?

Annealing salons are run by qualiapilled individuals operating locally and coordinated globaly through EA, Qualia Resarch Institute, and other Team Consciousness communities oriented exclusively towards Paradise Engineering navigated by the principles of The Hedonistic Imperative written by transhumanist British philosopher David Pearce.

This manifesto combines far-fetched utopian advocacy with cold-headed scientific prediction. The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how nanotechnology and genetic engineering will eliminate aversive experience from the living world. Over the next thousand years or so, the biological substrates of suffering will be eradicated completely. “Physical” and “mental” pain alike are destined to disappear into evolutionary history. The biochemistry of everyday discontents will be genetically phased out too. Malaise will be replaced by the biochemistry of bliss. Matter and energy will be sculpted into life-loving super-beings animated by gradients of well-being. The states of mind of our descendants are likely to be incomprehensibly diverse by comparison with today. Yet all will share at least one common feature: a sublime and all-pervasive happiness.

David Pearce, The Naturalisation of Heaven (The Hedonistic Imperative)

Qualiapilled people have developed an adapted neuroendocrine system whose dopaminergic reward system no longer optimizes for accumulating private wealth, but rather functions under the principles of Open Individualism which is the key to reducing several ongoing existential risks.

In a certain sense, sim blockers (as David Chalmers calls them in his recent technophilosophical book Reality+) could be thought of as qualiapilled individuals that function as “viruses” waking people up from the organically simulated shackles of biological Darwinian automaticity.

One of the ways to counteract the threat of an economic collapse is though global cooperation. Based on the laws of energy conservation, the competing clusters of consonant consciousness coherence will spread from smaller to larger areas because (1) they are adaptive, (2) they represent local energy minima, (3) they are pleasant, (4) in the meaning crisis, they provide people with meaning through a sense of collective and purposeful effort.

Services of the Annealing Salon

Services are following techniques and practices from The Good Annealing Manual. We emphasise education, art, creativity and body oriented nurturing.

Annealing salons offer a range of services separated through different rooms. Some of the basics of the salon include a café offering healthy beverages and food, an atelier and a gallery exhibiting and selling artwork made by the members and visitors, meditation center with an isolated sensory room – The Chamber of Reflections, wellness retreat content such as workshops and classes on mental health, nutrition, stress management and personal growth opportunities, cognitive training such as problem-solving tasks or interactive props like smart toys (listed below), musical instruments or any other hand-on tools that increase aesthetical, philosophical, logical or scientific thinking.

Culture: Digital library, physical books, access to journals, staff selected artwork (global and local catalogue coordination), encouraging members to engage in creative activities in the Salon…

Food and drinks: Supporting local agriculture, light vegetarian and vegan diet, non-alcoholic beverages, coffee and tea, healthy alternatives to alcohol (a topic of QRI interest)…

Annealing activities (several examples from The Good Annealing Manual): meditation, stretching, exercise, massage, breathwork, sauna, group creativity and groupthink – finding solutions to different kinds of problems that individuals and communities are facing.

Music: Besides playing music instruments in the music room that is connected to the atelier and gallery space, visitors can access specialized playlists curated by the founders and edited by the staff. Annealing Salon takes music seriously since we aim to utilize its power and properties foremost in the context of annealing and effective mood balance.

Counseling: offering a safe space for sharing and seeking advice on any issue spanning from German bureaucracy (or any other local peculiarity) to mental health.

Interactive props and hand-on toys

– magnets and magnetic sand: exploring the properties of magnets and using magnetic sand to visualize magnetic fields can help understand magnetism and magnetic forces
– Chladni plates kits: demonstration on motions of vibrating plates
– gyroscope: demonstrating principles of angular momentum and precession, providing insights into physics and engineering concepts
– Newton’s cradle: classic desktop toy that illustrates principles of conservation of momentum and energy through the swinging metal spheres
– DNA model kits: building models of DNA molecules using kits can aid in understanding the structure and basic genetics principles
– Solar system models: creating or using models of the solar system can help in comprehending planetary orbits and celestial mechanics
– circuit kits: electronics kits with snap-together components help to understand the basics of circuits and electricity flow
– kaleidoscopes: these colorful devices demonstrate principles of symmetry, optics, and patterns
– prisms and optics kits: playing with prisms and optics kits can help visualize how light behaves, including refraction, reflection, and dispersion of colors
– interactive periodic table: digital or physical interactive periodic tables can help understand the properties and relationships between elements
– Van de Graaff Generator: this static electricity generator allows for fun experiments and demonstrations on electrical charges

There can be many different special props suitable for the location of the Salon or a time of the year, such as for example Tornado Tubes, simple devices that allow the user to create mini tornadoes in water bottles, helping to understand vortex formation and fluid dynamics, which can be collectively built in gardens.

Each and every prop listed can be bought online for a reasonable price.

*

Listed services can pave the path for annealing salons to catalyze the creation of a human superorganism working towards objectives and fundamental aspirations that many people across the world strive for:

– happiness and wellbeing
– knowledge and understanding
– love and connection
– progress and advancement
– environmental sustainability and longtermism
– peace and harmony
– survival and thriving

Aesthetics

Aesthetics and interior design of the salon are relative to its location, the financial and communal capital. What is important is that the shape of the salon matches with its services. Here are some ideas that could be realized with a sufficient financial support or in the future after the prototype proves to be successful. Rooms can be used for a variety of purposes depending on the current menu of the Salon.

Who comes to the Annealing Salon?

Greetings is the collective mindset behind the Annealing Salon. The picture on the left is an example of a poster for the Greetings Festival organized by the Greetings Collective Leipzig which I’ve co-founded in 2022.
The picture on the right is a tattoo made during our event in June 2023 where many visitors reported on extradionarily friendly, welcoming and positive vibes. There are more images on Instagram.
Poster & Greetings design: Triantafyllia Douroupi (@u_dioica)

Everyone is welcome to the Annealing Salon, but not all services are available for everyone. For example, people suffering from specific health conditions that might interfere with an annealing activity such as i.e. cardiovascular exercise, purposeful consumption of a legalized psychedelic, climbing a mountain, partaking in community gardening, etc. This aspect is highly relative to the location of the Salon and local regulatios.

In case there are encounters with individuals exhibiting problematic behaviour, they are not expelled, but rather taken care of by caregivers possessing skills and knowledge such as social work, psychotherapy or psychiatry, needed to handle such cases, or are directed further to a healthcare provider.

Guidelines

1. Annealing Salon follows the traditional behavioural guidline of sophisticated cultural and spiritual centres: loud talking is advised against. Exceptions are events. The staff is familiar with neurodivergence and accommodates its guidelines to visitors with different needs.
   
2. Allowed annealing methods, practices and substances (such as psychedelics) are coordinated and regulated carefully. The staff is always informed about the most recent insights in psychedelics, consciousness and mental health studies, and it makes collective decisions in accordance with the local law. This aspect is highly relative to the location.
   
3. Internet usage in the Salon is allowed, but regulated in a way that exhibits healthy technology usage. This can be done by following principles of public libraries or by implementing content filtering and firewall solutions to block access to inappropriate or unauthorized websites and services.
   
4. Based on principles such as Valence Realism (check out Principia Qualia), Salon endorses unconditional compassion and friendliness as means toward harmonic society. The community supports the pursuit of authenticity and ethical sensibility, allowing anyone to pursue and refine their own vision of the good. This is not a quest for power.

Kinship between Annealing Salon and Bienavi Institute

Both Annealing Salon and Bienavi Institute are hypothetical future institutions inhabited by Team Consciousness social agents whose main motivation is to work on improving solutions and building a social structure that will empower individuals for self-actualization and help them maintain healthy habits through mutual community support.

While Bienavi focuses on, inter alia, coming up with new psychophysical tools to investigate the computational properties of novel states of consciousness, the Annealing Salon can be considered its derivative that shares recent insights and tools with the public and allows for a wider engagement in investigating the state-space of consciousness.

Finances

• private investors
• crowdfunding
• local, regional or state funds
• corporate sponsorship
• nonprofit organizations
• companies paying membership for their employees
• general public membership cards and entrance donations (give what you can)
• cooperation with local entities
• other visitors and tourists
• selling art created in the Salon (possibility of sharing profit with the creators, especially those with low socioeconomic status)
• bar and food
• donations

Further sources of income include renting the space for all sorts of educational, cultural or private events that are in accord with the presented philosophy of annealing salons.

*

First approximation for the funding of an Annealing Salon prototype:
100,000 EUR

Current location: Leipzig, Germany

Donations to support my work: PayPal.Me

*

Suggested read: The Hedonistic Imperative