Remembering Roland Griffiths

The first time that I met Roland Griffiths, he was setting up someone else’s tent at Burning Man. This small act of generosity - setting up someone else’s tent - might not sound like a big deal, but it turned out to be a really big deal for me. (I happen to now be married to that someone.)

Roland was a truly inspiring friend and mentor to me. He had incredible discipline in all areas of his life - his work ethic, his self-care routines, his meditation practice. From the moment I met him, I could tell immediately that he had a very clear sense of purpose, a real mission, perhaps best conveyed by his favorite question: “Are you aware that you are aware?”

You can likely sense Roland’s child-like curiosity in this question. His curiosity wasn’t just about ideas, Roland was simply one of the most loving and compassionate people that I have ever met. I am incredibly grateful for the time I had with him over the last decade or so.

Roland Griffiths teaching me how to meditate, as a wedding gift.

Professionally, Roland was a rockstar. He was one of the world’s foremost experts in seemingly disparate subjects: caffeine, mystical experiences, and psilocybin. In “How to Change Your Mind”, Roland is described as “the investigator beyond reproach”. Roland was among the last of a generation of researchers to use self-experimentation as a mode of scientific investigation. Once regarded as the gold standard, this is now considered to be too conflicted and biased to be used in modern research (which currently favors double-blind controlled studies). For example, one of Roland’s academic contributions that involved self-experimentation was towards quantifying the minimum detectable dose of caffeine. (This was at a time when caffeine was not considered to be addictive, and not treated as “a drug”.)

Roland was truly at the cutting edge of research in consciousness. He was incredibly curious about probing the line between science and spirituality. With the utmost respect for my dear friend, many of the questions he was seeking to explore in his research were beyond science. Roland was not afraid to look over that edge.

What do I mean by beyond science? To me, science stops when we can’t propose a means for others to reproduce the experiment. So many of the questions about consciousness (not just Roland’s) are fundamentally irreproducible. It’s not that they aren’t interesting questions - it’s that these are philosophical questions, these are spiritual questions, these are mystical questions. In my view they cannot be answered with the tools of physical science. (But hey, I’m just a lowly chemist.)

I am forever grateful to Roland for these debates. I don’t know exactly where to draw the line between science and spirituality, but my conversations with him helped me to start sketching a rough topology. Without getting too heady, let me explain what I mean with a short example:

Roland Griffiths taught Michael Phelps how to swim.

We can test this statement with scientific investigation. We might never be able to prove without a doubt that Roland did or did not teach Michael how to swim (it takes a village), but if we asked enough people at the pool we could probably get a good scientific sense of the degree to which Roland influenced Michael’s swimming abilities.

Roland Griffiths and Michael Phelps have the same conscious experience while swimming.

This one gets tricky. Some people would argue that we just don’t have sharp enough scientific tools to probe that question. To me, this question is beyond science. From a scientific perspective - it is unknowable, even while from a psychological perspective Roland and Michael both intimately know the experience of swimming. My view is that no matter how many words, sounds, EEGs, fMRIs, or nerve clamps that we use - science alone can’t compare their direct conscious experience. (And the beauty of it is that Michael turned out to be a decent swimmer, even though we’ll never be sure if Roland’s experience of swimming even remotely resembled Michael’s.)

That’s enough philosophy of mind for today (see the footnotes for some of my favorite books on this topic). Let’s get back to remembering my buddy Roland.

Roland was unbelievably upbeat and cheerful after receiving the news of his terminal cancer diagnosis. “What a gift”, he would say. “What a tremendous opportunity to really think about my priorities." While I can’t imagine myself responding to a similar situation with even a fraction of his equanimity - I don’t doubt that he meant it. I certainly don’t have the words for it now, but I feel that I have learned a tremendous amount from Roland recently, observing how he has courageously and compassionately navigated his final months on earth.

Towards the end of his life, Roland was very curious about the possibility of communicating after death. Since I heard the news of his passing yesterday, I’ve been quietly investigating this possibility.

I can’t prove it scientifically, Roland, but I feel your presence. I feel your love. Thank you.

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