Recorded live at the Cyberdelic Theatre... expansive thinking on time, artificial intelligence, evolution and entities. With Layman Pascal, writer on metamodernism, nonduality and shamanism; Michael Garfield, paleontologist turned writer, artist and futurist; Timothy Jackson, chemical ecologist and evolutionary biologist, in conversation with philosopher and host of ASOC Tim Adalin.
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What is the future assembling, and are we already part of it? Recorded live as a Voicecraft Open Event, four thinkers take the question through artificial intelligence, evolution and entities: Layman Pascal, writer on metamodernism, nonduality and shamanism; Michael Garfield, writer, artist and futurist; and Timothy Jackson, chemical ecologist and evolutionary biologist, in conversation with Tim Adalin.
It starts with time: the sense of the future leaking into the past, more of the past arriving in the future, and a convergence of technologies so strange we can only feel it lapping back at us. From there: latent space and the breakdown of real and virtual, Nietzsche and Darwin, lived time against the block universe, a second dimension of time, and what it would take to become skilled participants in many time scales at once. Then AI itself: as an improv partner, as a portal, as one more aggregate intelligence beside our institutions, and what a toxinologist's view of life, where organisms are always being invaded and changed by each other, says about letting it in and holding a boundary.
WITH
Layman Pascal, author of Nietzsche, All-Too-Nietzsche and Gurdjieff for a Time-Between-Worlds [link]
Michael Garfield, Atlas Research Group, Humans On The Loop podcast [link]
Timothy Jackson, co-head of the Australian Venom Research Unit, the University of Melbourne [link]
Hosted by Tim Adalin
MENTIONED
Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune · Roko's basilisk · Jean Gebser · K Allado-McDowell, neural media · Kevin Kelly · Terence McKenna and Michael Levin · Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park · Andrew P. Smith, The Dimensions of Experience · Nietzsche, The Will to Power, The Birth of Tragedy · Darwin · Charles Sanders Peirce · Bergson · Laplace's demon · Stuart Kauffman · gauge theory · Graeber and Wengrow · Stephen Wolfram · Federico Campagna, Prophetic Culture · Colin Wilson, Faculty X · Stephen Nachmanovitch, Free Play · Wendell Berry, Standing by Words · Stewart Brand, pace layers · James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State · Derek Bailey, Improvisation · Karen Bakker, The Sounds of Life · Cosma Shalizi and Henry Farrell · William Irwin Thompson, Coming Into Being · Gilbert Simondon · Deleuze and Guattari · Jung · H.P. Lovecraft
CHAPTERS
0:00 Introduction: what is the future assembling?
4:26 Converging technologies and an epoch of sorcery
8:25 Latent space and the breakdown of real and virtual
12:56 Is the future predicted, or manifested?
17:24 How do we take part in what is coming?
21:39 Nietzsche, Darwin and a second dimension of time
31:28 Generativity: Darwin and the limits of models
36:59 AI, Gaia and the metaphysics of adjacency
49:37 Prophetic culture and sacred naturalism
54:04 Sacred naturalism and the return to the prosaic
1:02:14 Goodness across time scales
1:10:57 How are AI and entities shaping us?
1:30:46 Institutions as alien intelligences
1:40:02 Chemical ecology: incorporating invasion
1:46:23 What should we let in?
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Layman Pascal was incarnated on a remote island in the Pacific Northwest. He used to be a meditation teacher, yoga instructor & public speaker—but he’s feeling much better now. He is a writer on themes of cultural philosophy, shamanism and organic spiritual development.
Nietzsche, All Too Nietzsche can be purchased from Amazon here.
Layman's website: https://www.laymanpascal.com/
Layman's Substack: https://laymanpascal.substack.com/ -
Michael Garfield is a paleontologist turned writer and artist on the beat of human-technology co-evolution and the future of intelligence. Formerly of The Santa Fe Institute, Mozilla, and The Long Now Foundation, he has spent over twenty years studying complex systems and interviewed hundreds of leading researchers for Humans On The Loop, Future Fossils, and Complexity Podcasts. His essays have featured in dozens of publications, including Aeon and Big Think. In 2025 he co-founded Atlas Research Group, a federated R&D firm applying living systems principles to the development of commons-based technologies for collective intelligence.
https://humansontheloop.com (writing and podcast)
https://michaelgarfield.net (portfolio)
https://atlasresear.ch (team) -
Dr. Timothy N. W. Jackson is a chemical ecologist and pharmacologist, and co-head of the Australian Venom Research Unit. He has taught extensively on evolutionary biology, toxinology, and pharmacology – including modules on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy – at the University of Melbourne, University of the Sunshine Coast, and Queensland University of Technology. His research explores the evolutionary and ecological dimensions of bioactive molecules such as toxins and pheromones, treating pharmacology as a branch of human chemical ecology. This approach focuses on how both humans and non-human organisms utilise chemical signals to alter behaviour in target organisms. Dr. Jackson’s work spans from molecular studies of venom components to global health efforts targeting snakebite envenoming, and extends into translational neuropharmacology and mental health frameworks. His philosophical engagement with the nature of function and evolutionary change has led him to challenge dominant scientific paradigms, advocating for alternative models that better capture the dynamic, processual character of nature.
Connect with Tim on Substack @ https://substack.com/@tnwj?r=cl2xh&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page
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Tim is the founder of Voicecraft and a philosopher with a focus on the relation between participation and transformation. You can connect with Tim individually @ https://www.timadalin.xyz
On X @ https://x.com/tim_adalin
And on LinkedIn @ https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-adalin/
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Voicecraft conversations deepen how the world is known across themes of psyche, culture and nature.
The Voicecraft Project is comprised of a media & events platform, academy, and participatory membership network.
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