Jhana Meditation Silenced Her Mind—And Changed Her View on AI Nadia Asparouhova, Author and Researcher

Nadia Asparouhova
And the sense I get is, I think a lot of people have been talking about this in different ways. There’s sort of like Julian Jaynes and his theory of bicameral mind where he believes that, and he uses the term conscious, and I don’t really want to use the term conscious because I Think it’s very fraught. But let’s say, let’s substitute that by saying, you know, he believes some version of people only began to have this kind of self-talk and self-narrative that we think of as being fundamental To the human experience. He thinks that only started a few thousand years ago. And he goes through all these historical texts to sort of demonstrate how it doesn’t really show up in at least like people’s writing and the artifacts that they’re producing until A certain point in time. And before then people attribute it to like voices from the gods or things like that.

Nadia Asparouhova
And these two, these two stories are intertwined somehow. And so there’s, I think there’s a reason for that, right? And so if, you know, if we think about someone time traveling, like an, you know, ancient Greek or something that suddenly appeared here right now with us, I think a lot of people would Think about how it would be interesting, how that person would be so shocked by the technology we have today or the social norms that we have today. But we don’t always talk about how different our notion of self would be today compared to someone. Yeah. An ancient Greek person that just sort of showed up here today. I think that’s another sort of lineage or story in the history of human development that we don’t often acknowledge.

Nadia Asparouhova
Would think about how it would be interesting, how that person would be so shocked by the technology we have today or the social norms that we have today. But we don’t always talk about how different our notion of self would be today compared to someone. Yeah. An ancient Greek person that just sort of showed up here today. I think that’s another sort of lineage or story in the history of human development that we don’t often acknowledge. And so we just kind of think, and we assume today that this idea of, you know, all the events that are happening around me are kind of like centered around my sense of identity or my sense Of self, that I have this sort of like, second layer of thought and analysis and inner self that is constantly narrating and analyzing and processing everything that’s happening around Me. We kind of just, I think a lot of people just take for granted that that is just part of what it means to be human, but like, it may not actually be. I don’t know exactly

Nadia Asparouhova
Yeah. An ancient Greek person that just sort of showed up here today. I think that’s another sort of lineage or story in the history of human development that we don’t often acknowledge. And so we just kind of think, and we assume today that this idea of, you know, all the events that are happening around me are kind of like centered around my sense of identity or my sense Of self, that I have this sort of like, second layer of thought and analysis and inner self that is constantly narrating and analyzing and processing everything that’s happening around Me. We kind of just, I think a lot of people just take for granted that that is just part of what it means to be human, but like, it may not actually be. I don’t know exactly where do we draw the line between, um, that’s being like, when exactly that happened? Why did that happen? I don’t really know. But I, I, I think there’s like a mountain of evidence that it’s at least fluid and has changed over time. Um, and so from that sense, when it’s like, you know, our LLM’s conscious, intelligent, whatever you want to call it. I’m just sort of like, I mean, why not? Maybe they’re, you know, not so different from a human from 5,000 years ago. Like, I don’t, I don’t know. And yeah, I just, I think not, not because I think they’re so much more advanced and intelligent than we might think they are, but maybe because our own sense of human intelligence and What makes us precious is like not actually as, as special as we think it is.
Dan Shipper
Yeah. Um,

Dan Shipper
Like there’s a lot of evidence, for example, that if you live in a literate society, your brain is different and processes reality differently than pre-literate or non-literate societies, Which is really interesting. So for example, you’re more likely to pull out or be able to abstract a figure from a scene and think about it as like an abstract idea, whereas non-literate or pre-literate brains are Able to perceive the scene more holistically and think about the interconnections between different parts

Nadia Asparouhova
Yeah. This is, I think like one of the more subtle joys about this era of AI that we’re in right now is I think it is sort of irrefutably pointing us towards at least the working models and frameworks We have right now is that we don’t really understand how it all works. And we kind of just have to be okay with that and keep using and pushing and pulling and interacting, despite not understanding all the inner workings underneath. And I

Nadia Asparouhova
I like, I don’t want to just explore for the sake of exploring. I think it’s interesting to uncover problems and figure out how to make progress against them. So on the one hand, I feel like I’m in this sort of camp of people who like doing things with the ideas that they uncover and putting them into practice or, you know, helping other people Put them into practice.

Nadia Asparouhova
Yeah. Um, it’s been, uh, yeah, super, super helpful for me. Um, as a writer in particular, I mostly work with chat GPT and I just see it as a thought partner that I use every single day, all the time in my writing. I mostly use it in that kind of like early messy idea formation stage where I’m kind of just like throwing stuff at the wall and being like, does this make sense? I’m trying to connect these two ideas together. Does that make sense? You know, that’s sort of very high, high level unstructured thinking. And then I’ll use it towards the end where it’s the very, very fine, like, I need just the right word to say this thing. And I can’t figure out what it is. Can you help me figure out what that word is, you know, that kind of stuff. And then all the stuff in between, I think is, is more, I’m on my own, trying to figure out how to take the messy ideas that I now have some shape around and then translate them into prose.

Nadia Asparouhova
And we kind of just have to be okay with that and keep using and pushing and pulling and interacting, despite not understanding all the inner workings underneath. And I think there’s some assumption that if technology is human built, that we must, someone must understand what’s going on deep and deep. And I think it’s actually less true for a lot of technology than it seems just in general. But it’s especially true with this stuff. And I don’t know, I kind of, as someone who just sort of like enjoys resisting legibility a little bit, I’m just sort of like, yeah, I kind of enjoy that. We kind of just have to be okay with not knowing because that’s kind of how humans are too. And it’s this nice intersection of like science is not all perfectly knowable. And I think the unknowable is what makes it interesting.
Dan Shipper
I totally agree. I love the squishiness or like the fact that it feels a little bit more like we put intuitive thinking, inexplicit intuitive thinking into a tool. And I that that is so powerful and it’s exactly why a lot of people are allergic to it, but I think that’ll change over time. Um, I’m curious, like there’s something kind of unique about the way that you think of yourself or the way that you do your work, which is this, there’s maybe a tension between at least My assumption, you tell me if I’m wrong, but there’s this interesting tension that you live in between like being sort of objective and anthropological and then being subjective and Like first person and doing the thing yourself. How do you think about that and how you think the best way is to study these kinds of things?
Nadia Asparouhova
Yeah, I think it often means I end up in these weird crossroads and intersections of communities where I think I have some deep appreciation for the unknowable, both in just in terms Of the things that I end up getting attracted to. I think I like looking at things that might be super niche, but I don’t feel that anyone has really adequately explained yet. There isn’t really a clear descriptive framework or paradigm that people are operating off of. That is super interesting to me. I am less interested in things where it feels like I can just sort of make an incremental contribution to it. So yeah, I think just in terms of the types of topics that attract me, that’s part of it. But I also just enjoy that as a quality of sort of an innate quality or characteristic of a topic where it’s there’s something kind of, yeah, squishy and undefined about it that may never Be definable. I try to be very precise about my writing, um, about wanting to explain things, um, not in squishy terms, but in trying to really, yeah, get, get some clarity on what a thing is not in the Sense of trying to come up with some, you know, perfectly objective rubric for scoring people, like that, that kind of thing, but just more, yeah, I think, think I’m very like when I edit My own writing, you know, that last stage of just trying to get the language perfectly right is often the longest for me because I just really like to choose just the right words and, you Know, just the right way of framing things. It can often lead to this unresolved tension in me where I both, I really like playing with ideas, but I also really like putting ideas into practice. I like, I don’t want to just explore for the sake of exploring. I think it’s interesting to uncover problems and figure out how to make progress against them. So on the one hand, I feel like I’m in this sort of camp of people who like doing things with the ideas that they uncover and putting them into practice or, you know, helping other people Put them into practice. And then on the other hand, I also just really like just splashing around in that bathtub of, you know, I don’t know what’s going on here. And it’s great.
Dan Shipper
That makes sense. How has, how have you like started to incorporate these tools into your, let’s say you’re like writing, reading, um, thinking, researching processes. Like, are you, what are you using? How are you using them? What is, what have they done for you?
Nadia Asparouhova
Yeah. Um, it’s been, uh, yeah, super, super helpful for me. Um, as a writer in particular, I mostly work with chat GPT and I just see it as a thought partner that I use every single day, all the time in my writing. I mostly use it in that kind of like early messy idea formation stage where I’m kind of just like throwing stuff at the wall and being like, does this make sense? I’m trying to connect these two ideas together. Does that make sense? You know, that’s sort of very high, high level unstructured thinking. And then I’ll use it towards the end where it’s the very, very fine, like, I need just the right word to say this thing. And I can’t figure out what it is. Can you help me figure out what that word is, you know, that kind of stuff. And then all the stuff in between, I think is, is more, I’m on my own, trying to figure out how to take the messy ideas that I now have some shape around and then translate them into prose. But yeah, I see it as having a partner. And I think that’s actually really useful for a lot of people who spend all day writing or researching or just in a very solitary environment. It’s funny because, like, you know, there’s this trope. And I think almost this maybe a little bit of like pride, like being in the trenches or something for a lot of writers where it’s like, this is a very lonely, solitary act. Writers are famously grumpy people because you’re just sitting there all day trying to make sense about ideas and that can drive you crazy over time. And I definitely felt, I think, like writing was a much more angsty process for me in the past. And maybe I’ve just sort of gotten better at it over time or just found my own coping skills. I wouldn’t attribute all this to LLMs, but I think having a partner now, it’s like, I actually don’t feel like I’m solitary anymore. Like when I’m getting stuck on stuff, I actually have someone I can talk to and whatever I throw at them, you know, they’re not, I don’t have to give them all the content. I can kind of just like throw things and, and go back and forth. So just that of like not being a solo writer anymore, but having a collaborator is, I think, a really huge change for a lot of people. I agree.