The Qualia Research Institute develops empirical and mathematical approaches to consciousness research with a focus on two claims: that qualia (the specific, subjective qualities of experience) have mathematical structure that can be studied formally, and that valence (the felt quality of pleasantness and unpleasantness) is a real property of conscious experience that can, in principle, be measured. QRI’s research spans psychedelic phenomenology, neurotechnology, and theoretical frameworks for consciousness as computation.
In OM’s writing, the QRI is cited as continuing the empirical project of neurophenomenology — bringing rigorous, STEM-adjacent methods to the study of the experiential territories the protocol underground has long inhabited: psychedelic states, meditative absorption, collective somatic experience. This convergence is directly relevant to the Cognitive Security research program’s goal of operationalizing the experiential insights of the counterculture archive in forms adequate to the current technological environment.
Source: https://qri.org