Michael Edward Johnson

Philosopher, neuroscientist, entrepreneur

Wrote a book on consciousness, Principia Qualia; co-founded QRI (left May 2022), currently founding the Symmetry Institute.

I think a lot about the far future and how to make it good

My Projects:

• Building a new science of consciousness. Long; short
  • Notable result —> Symmetry Theory of Valence. Long; short
  • Opentheory “best of” — misc writings on consciousness
• Novel neuroscience
  • Principles of Vasocomputation — grounding of Buddhist phenomenology & active inference in physical mechanism
  • Neural Annealing — unified theory of meditation, music, psychedelics, and trauma
  • Autism as a Disorder of Dimensionality — single-factor, mechanistic hypothesis about autism and its tradeoffs
  • Neuroscience of Meditation
• AI alignment & consciousness; AI constitutions

You can email me at johnsonmx@gmail.com. If I’m not responsive please don’t take it personally; I’m usually writing/thinking. Currently interested in giving talks/interviews about my work.

Principia Qualia offered a blueprint for building a new science of consciousness; my efforts at QRI were aimed at realizing this. I’m now interested in fostering a diversity of such organizations.

My research is almost entirely funded by retroactive donations (current net comp from my writing is ~$.70/hr); if you like the work I’ve done, consider supporting it via a direct donation.

BTC: bc1qmdsesj70mgrwusvpznzg6vnp389gm3qeqdy6jt

ETH: 0x732DAAaF38F9bd70cdB03C21376Fd00a927862f8