Psychedelic Information Theory

Inspired by the conference theme, Leaps and Stumbles, our panel takes a quantum leap beyond conventional notions of information. We provide a systematic consideration of information phenomena during altered states of consciousness generated by ingestion of “magic mushrooms.” Our exploration is anchored in the book, Psychedelic Information Theory: Shamanism in the Age of Reason (Kent, 2010) and is situated within the information behaviour literature. The session will be systematic for its explicit and balanced treatment of “psychedelic information” on four levels, namely: personal, microsocial, macrosocial, and the “meta” perspective of Information Science (Bates, 1999).