Jhana Meditation Silenced Her Mind—And Changed Her View On AI | Nadia Asparouhova, Author and researcher
May 7, 2025
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Join Nadia Asparouhova, a writer and researcher of technology and culture, as she shares her transformative journey through Jhana meditation. She details how this practice allowed her to silence her inner voice, challenging the idea that self-talk defines humanity. Nadia explores the evolving concept of self, informed by cultural changes, and discusses the complex relationship between humans and AI, pondering how we might be more like AI than we think. Her insights delve into emotion regulation, profound joy, and even ‘anti-memes’ shaping societal progress.
Jhana meditation can enhance emotional regulation and self-awareness, illustrating the potential for consciously changing one’s mental state.
The notion of self-talk as a fundamental aspect of humanity is challenged, revealing that absence of inner dialogue doesn't hinder functional living.
Cultural evolution has significantly shaped our understanding of self, suggesting that AI may resemble human consciousness more than previously thought.
Deep dives
The Nature of Human Consciousness
The discussion introduces the idea that traditional perceptions of human consciousness and intelligence may not be as unique or special as widely believed. It suggests that aspects of self-talk and self-narrative, key components of human experience, could be quieted or even eliminated without drastically altering one’s ability to function in society. This leads to profound questions about the essence of humanity; if key elements of consciousness can be subdued or removed while still maintaining humanity, it challenges the notion of what it truly means to be human. The exploration culminates in contemplating whether advanced technologies, such as AI, might share similar characteristics as humans, blurring lines between human intelligence and machine consciousness.
Experience with Jhana Meditation
The benefits of Jhana meditation are highlighted through personal experiences shared by the speaker. Initially skeptical with no prior meditation background, the speaker attended a retreat to understand this concentrated form of meditation, characterized by focusing deeply on a singular sensation or emotion. This practice reportedly evoked states similar to those experienced with psychedelics, leading to insights about mental health and emotional regulation. The transformative nature of meditation enabled deeper self-awareness and emotional fluidity, suggesting that engaging with these intense meditative states could significantly impact one's mental well-being.
Goal-Oriented Mindfulness
A key distinction is made between traditional mindfulness practices, often non-goal oriented, and the more pragmatic approach embraced by some meditation communities. This perspective values clearly defined goals within meditation practices, allowing practitioners to focus on specific outcomes, thus enriching their experience. The challenge faced by many meditators is the ambiguity around what they are meant to achieve during their sessions, which can lead to frustration. By articulating end goals, individuals may find meditation to be more accessible and beneficial, as this clarity helps to foster engagement and progress in one's practice.
Understanding the Brain and Mental Health
The podcast delves into the intricate relationship between consciousness, mental health, and cognitive functioning. It discusses how specific brain activity is linked to various cognitive disorders, asserting that quieting certain hyperactive brain regions can lead to enhanced well-being. Through meditation, individuals can achieve emotional balance and diminish negative thought patterns, facilitating a more peaceful state of mind. This suggests a potential pathway for addressing mental health challenges, emphasizing meditation not just as a practice but as a tool for deeper understanding and improvement of mental states.
The Evolution of Human Identity
The conversation reflects on how perceptions of selfhood have evolved through human history, questioning contemporary definitions of identity rooted in self-narrative and cognitive self-awareness. It references theories suggesting that significant changes in human self-perception occurred alongside technological advancements, and these shifts might not reflect the core of human experience. Thus, it raises the provocative question of whether modern digital tools, such as AI, could be equated with historical human experiences given their progressions. The insights encourage a reevaluation of what constitutes consciousness and identity in both humans and machines, emphasizing the fluidity of these concepts across time and culture.
After two Jhana meditation retreats Nadia Asparouhova could silence her mind, change her emotional state at will, and even intentionally slip out of consciousness. It challenged the idea that our minds are not under our control—and made her wonder if we’re more like AI than we realize.
Nadia is a writer and researcher of technology and culture. She published Working in Public, a book about the evolution of open-source development, with Stripe Press in 2020. Her latest book, Antimemetics, is about why some ideas don’t go viral even though they’re powerful.
I had her on the show to talk about her experience with Jhana meditation and how it reshaped the way she thinks about being human in the age of AI. We get into:
Jhana as a means to nurture profound joy and calm. Unlike many meditation practices that emphasize passive observation, Jhana is goal-oriented—practitioners proactively cultivate states of concentrated bliss. Apart from helping her regulate her emotions, it prompted Nadia to reexamine deep questions of our human existence.
Self-talk is not essential as it seems. Nadia describes how advanced meditation quieted her inner voice—challenging the idea that self-talk is core to being human.
How years of cultural evolution have shaped our sense of self. According to Nadia, our modern conception of “self” isn’t as timeless as we assume. She draws on psychologist Julian Jaynes’s theory that our inner dialogue—what we often equate with consciousness—only emerged in humans a few thousand years ago; a provocation to reconsider the benchmarks we use to assess the intelligence or sentience of LLMs.
What it is like to experience a “cessation.” On her last meditation retreat, Nadia experiences a cessation where your consciousness abruptly winks out—like suddenly flipping a switch. Nadia described it as slipping into nothingness, then returning with the jarring realization that even your sense of self can vanish and reappear.
Why she likes the unknowability of AI. The mechanics of exactly how LLMs predict their next token remain a mystery. Driven by thousands of subtle, context-dependent correlations, they’re too complex to distill into a simple explanation. Nadia finds joy in the unknowability of it all, seeing the ambiguity as an invitation to explore.
How she uses AI as a writing partner. Nadia believes the trope of the solitary, brooding writer is beginning to shift with the rise of LLMs. For her, ChatGPT has made writing feel less isolating. She turns to it at both ends of the process: to help make sense of early ideas, and later, to sharpen phrasing and land on just the right words.
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