RT @cube_flipper: @PessoaBrain @johnsonmxe very briefly the evolutionary argument would be something like "consciousness"/the EM field "wan…


@nosilverv Soros calls this “reflexivity” — my dad summarizes it as ‘how perception of the fundamentals changes the fundamentals’


@davidchalmers42 When I spoke with Tononi he shared a similar thesis — that all CPU processes constantly poll the CPU clock and this would interfere with larger-scale binding… here’s what I wrote in PQ: https://t.co/6CZAwY9qkC

@davidchalmers42 When I spoke with Tononi he shared a similar thesis — that all CPU processes constantly poll the CPU clock and this would interfere with larger-scale binding… here’s what I wrote in PQ: https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1813879907652673883/photo/1


@davidchalmers42 From section iv of Principia Qualia

https://t.co/bPds7P0mEE

@davidchalmers42 From section iv of Principia Qualia

https://opentheory.net/PrincipiaQualia.pdf


@vincentweisser @AbudBakri I've been thinking about consciousness as arising from coordination between the neural and the vasomuscular systems; general anesthesia (and meditative cessations) may occur when the vasomuscular system is particularly quiet*

*More confident about cessations than GA


@nickcammarata @eshear “When energy flows through matter, order accumulates”

Iceberg meme:
1/4: eat fruit, meat, coconut oil
2/4: avoid thyrotoxins (PUFA, uncooked vegetables)
3/4: carrot salad to lower serotonin/endotoxin/estrogen
4/4: after healthy thyroid->sugarmaxxing
5/4: dark peating


@APOideas @PionStar99 @awjuliani @DrYohanJohn @zhukeepa Concretely, vasocomputation is a mechanism to manipulate neural patterns via VSMC clenches

Phenomenologically, vasocomputation is how we freeze sensations

Abstractly, vasocomputation is a mechanism by which stress is multiplexed (and minimized) across imaginal/bayesian futures


@auronik7 Nice! I do wonder if there are different 'flavors' of autism based on whether neurons vs synapses have more of an excess...


@eigenrobot I thought sparkling water was disgusting, then I read how the peaters think CO2 is a vitamin and it started tasting better. Then I read how Pellegrino has fluoride in it and it again tastes disgusting


@Malcolm_Ocean Evil (symmetry breaking) exists to allow complexity;

Suffering (broken symmetries) exists because self-organizing systems use their full harmonic range;

Mental tension (vascular clenches&latches) exists because the way we counterfactually freeze sensations only recently evolved


@QualiaNerd The last argument(s) of philosophers:
1) "you are leaving predictive power on the table"
2) "you are running afoul of elegance considerations"


@QualiaNerd There is nothing that can compel a belief in 'objective qualia', much like there is nothing that can compel a belief in electromagnetism. But EM skepticism becomes difficult in the age of the iPhone.

What tech tree unlock would make disbelief of qualia equally preposterous?


RT @nickcammarata: I think there is actually a secret to happiness. It’s a phenomenological shift that makes happiness the default rather t…


@QualiaNerd @algekalipso @alfredoparrah @ataiiam I’ve been coming around to the perspective of idealism and ‘physics as hidden phenomenological state’. I think dual-aspect monism is rescuable from within this perspective


@ataiiam @QualiaNerd @algekalipso @alfredoparrah I see and respect the argument, though
1) asserting something is "simplest" is a very substantial thing,
2) specifying n-aspect monism may be an overreach in that specifying 'n' for all reality could be a bit loose, but monism itself seems more crisp, potentially perfectly so


@aidan_mclau @42irrationalist I published a longer peer-reviewed piece on this also: https://t.co/lb92NmBWjq

tldr: behavior is not a good guide to qualia and we need an objective metric, and that a big 'fork in the road' for the field is whether hardware or software can be conscious (my bet = hardware)

@aidan_mclau @42irrationalist I published a longer peer-reviewed piece on this also: https://files.theseedsofscience.org/2024/A_Paradigm_for_AI_Consciousness.pdf

tldr: behavior is not a good guide to qualia and we need an objective metric, and that a big 'fork in the road' for the field is whether hardware or software can be conscious (my bet = hardware)


Had a fantastic time (as usual) talking with @dkazand — Wittgenstein’s war on wordcels, neuroscience as pre-paradigmatic, what a nervous system is, Buddhism as a treasure map, tanha as flinch/cringe from reality, jhanas as vasocomputation, & a special hypothesis on “awakening” https://t.co/xpCNm72q1R

Had a fantastic time (as usual) talking with @dkazand — Wittgenstein’s war on wordcels, neuroscience as pre-paradigmatic, what a nervous system is, Buddhism as a treasure map, tanha as flinch/cringe from reality, jhanas as vasocomputation, & a special hypothesis on “awakening” https://x.com/dkazand/status/1820474610292310022


RT @dkazand: new episode with the brilliant @johnsonmxe

in which he explains jhanas in terms of the vascular system

full discussion in t…


Full episode: https://t.co/c0D5vKCsna


@jonnym1ller @dkazand Lots of ideas! Let’s chat about it :)


@lukelivesfree @nickcammarata Taking EEG as an example: once we subtract out skeletal muscle ‘artifacts’, the EEG signal should have both neural and vasomuscular components. And if we have very good temporal resolution, we should be able to distinguish them with sufficiently good AI/ML


RT @nickcammarata: anyone have a background in studying muscle activity and want to see what happens during jhana to test this hypothesis?…


@lukelivesfree @nickcammarata Part of this expectation is that neural & vasomuscular cells both make substantial ripples in the EM field when they discharge. But each has a much different statistical “attack envelope” and refractory period, especially when one considers ensembles of neurons vs VSMCs


@phantom_opus Makes a lot of sense to me — and e.g. single points of tension can block off multiple standing waves


@Bevan81079009 @jhana_bro Here’s what I wrote about fascia in Principles of Vasocomputation — I do think there’s a decent chance jhana involves both fascia and vascular smooth muscle https://t.co/FwslvW4zdA

@Bevan81079009 @jhana_bro Here’s what I wrote about fascia in Principles of Vasocomputation — I do think there’s a decent chance jhana involves both fascia and vascular smooth muscle https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1821060426840355206/photo/1


@Kat__Woods I think an underappreciated frontier in AI safety is improving our fundamental understanding of what beauty is, and “what kind of thing” humans are https://t.co/gNzpUpsW9O

@Kat__Woods I think an underappreciated frontier in AI safety is improving our fundamental understanding of what beauty is, and “what kind of thing” humans are https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1618061058777952257


@MWCvitkovic Local neurotransmitter balance perhaps

I suspect most “neurotransmitters” impact vascular dynamics more than they impact neurons


RT @zach_haigney: https://t.co/axdC86ew7g


@OshanJarow I think of the nervous system + physical morphology of the body as “level 1 priors” — our basic defaults, “what comes out when we flow”

Vasomuscular latches & reflexes are “level 2 priors” — aftermarket safety limiters (& predictive nudges) on this default dynamic range


@connor_holly1 This is an alternate way to approach the sapir-whorf hypothesis; as our language slowly de-references, the sensory primitives we learn to stabilize and build our world out of drift.

Not randomly, though, and the effects of books, literature, & mass culture on this seem complex


@PrometheanAngel Can happen with coconut water also

(Basically no manganese in coconut oil though)


@NangaParbat1618 Synchrony and symmetry are close concepts; synchrony in n-dimensions is essentially symmetry in n+time https://t.co/G7kecaeIcR

@NangaParbat1618 Synchrony and symmetry are close concepts; synchrony in n-dimensions is essentially symmetry in n+time https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1737562508926288180


@WoohkaStylie Interesting to consider what effects of breathing practices are from their effects on o2 vs co2


@anesmithbeck Would add:
- Sunlight / red light therapy
- Nattokinase
- Grounding
- General hormone support

But the most important might be avoid seed oils… hope to do a thread on this sometime https://t.co/3naNFAMleB

@anesmithbeck Would add:
- Sunlight / red light therapy
- Nattokinase
- Grounding
- General hormone support

But the most important might be avoid seed oils… hope to do a thread on this sometime https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1707079273608106375


@zach_haigney @anesmithbeck I don’t have a reason to think NK would help gout, but reducing the amount of endotoxin in your system might help; Ray Peat suggests a carrot salad to reduce endotoxin load (or just eating a carrot — basic idea is clean your insides w/ antibacterial antifungal indigestible fiber)


@zach_haigney @anesmithbeck Oh interesting — in that case I’d definitely try nattokinase


@eshear @42irrationalist @QualiaNerd @algekalipso @softyoda Hey Emmett, author here. I think it might be helpful if you were to draw out a causality diagram for how qualia, behavior, physics, and qualia reports are causally related to each other. It sounds like you’re aiming for a different structure than the one I outlined.


@eshear @42irrationalist @QualiaNerd @algekalipso @softyoda Likewise, it might be helpful to write out where you believe the accuracy of our qualia reports come from. When you say “I am in pain”, I believe you & you believe yourself. What justifies this belief? When Claude says “I am in pain”, neither of us believe it. What’s different?


Video of my Edge Esmeralda talk — neurotech as applied philosophy, the need for treasure maps, & five ideas for products I hope happen

Thanks to @protocollabs & @JoinEdgeCity for organizing! https://t.co/LyMkB2EoZQ

Video of my Edge Esmeralda talk — neurotech as applied philosophy, the need for treasure maps, & five ideas for products I hope happen

Thanks to @protocollabs & @JoinEdgeCity for organizing! https://x.com/protocollabs/status/1824541632320192855


RT @protocollabs: 🗣 @johnsonmxe, founder of Symmetry Institute, explores the intersection of neuroscience, neurotechnology, and philosophy…


Thread: https://t.co/XTkCFaHs86


@metachirality @meekaale @QiaochuYuan https://t.co/WcaRfrtpaq

@metachirality @meekaale @QiaochuYuan https://opentheory.net/2023/05/autism-as-a-disorder-of-dimensionality/


RT @jonnym1ller: @p_millerd @bryan_johnson @bryan_johnson — I'd pair this with research from @johnsonmxe on Vasocomputation.

His theoreti…


@selentelechia I think “The Future” is stored in vasomuscular clenches (microtensions), which are essentially commitments to suffer until the sensations (local neural patterns) they’ve frozen become true

Tension in different parts of the body implement different classes of predictions https://t.co/ENuzfpnSMV https://t.co/Mlb5mN9Np6

@selentelechia I think “The Future” is stored in vasomuscular clenches (microtensions), which are essentially commitments to suffer until the sensations (local neural patterns) they’ve frozen become true

Tension in different parts of the body implement different classes of predictions https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1751994506478587977 https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1827249460327674167/photo/1


A great illustration of the symmetry aesthetic —

Literally all of particle physics can be described by which symmetries are present & which are broken

But zoom out enough and there’s always a perspective where all symmetries are whole

As is physics, so too phenomenology https://t.co/mtflOhv96A

A great illustration of the symmetry aesthetic —

Literally all of particle physics can be described by which symmetries are present & which are broken

But zoom out enough and there’s always a perspective where all symmetries are whole

As is physics, so too phenomenology https://x.com/MasterTimBlais/status/1827572656427716965


Notes on the Symmetry Aesthetic of physics — https://t.co/G7kecaeIcR

Notes on the Symmetry Aesthetic of physics — https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1737562508926288180


Symmetry Theory of Valence, briefly — https://t.co/h1pMHuTJZd

Symmetry Theory of Valence, briefly — https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1800919946710667453


@jonnym1ller @jposhaughnessy @osventuresllc Looks super promising


@qchurious I bet you know people who would effortlessly shrug off that sort of criticism

This might sound like a weird suggestion but — borrow their power/energy/vibe for a few hours to help process it?


@cube_flipper I think (per vasocomputation) that rhythmic vasospasms can trigger phenomenological ‘tones’, and some such rhythms will increase local bloodflow, which will feel like a differential attentional lens (especially if it takes bloodflow away from nearby channels)

Seems similar to… https://t.co/Qu9myijxCq

@cube_flipper I think (per vasocomputation) that rhythmic vasospasms can trigger phenomenological ‘tones’, and some such rhythms will increase local bloodflow, which will feel like a differential attentional lens (especially if it takes bloodflow away from nearby channels)

Seems similar to… https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1802789213886365759


Suggestive evidence that nattokinase would help reduce brain inflammation in Covid and long covid — https://t.co/hfJrol41Ag

Suggestive evidence that nattokinase would help reduce brain inflammation in Covid and long covid — https://x.com/EricTopol/status/1828812267594322024


@QualiaNerd I discuss all three of these (to some degree) in my latest piece, although I’d also recommend my 2023 paper. PQ also but the 2023 paper is a decent compression

https://t.co/cRUk5nzf0u

@QualiaNerd I discuss all three of these (to some degree) in my latest piece, although I’d also recommend my 2023 paper. PQ also but the 2023 paper is a decent compression

https://opentheory.net/2024/06/a-paradigm-for-ai-consciousness/


@QiaochuYuan The papers people are recommending are pretty canonical; the Bayesian Mechanics one especially

Friston’s original paper has some gems also; honestly I’d recommend skimming the first 3 pages of Friston’s then digging into Bayesian Mechanics

https://t.co/JVLyXIAqVY

@QiaochuYuan The papers people are recommending are pretty canonical; the Bayesian Mechanics one especially

Friston’s original paper has some gems also; honestly I’d recommend skimming the first 3 pages of Friston’s then digging into Bayesian Mechanics

https://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~karl/The%20free-energy%20principle%20A%20unified%20brain%20theory.pdf


RT @QiaochuYuan: there's a million interesting ideas to dive into in @johnsonmxe's neural annealing post but the stuff he says about music…


@aretae @diviacaroline STV began as a loose intuition that the structure of music mirrors the structure of emotion; I would put this in more sophisticated and mathematical-symmetry-centric terms today but I still basically believe this:

— from https://t.co/1rNw0zdjp4 https://t.co/xBEU7BonBg

@aretae @diviacaroline STV began as a loose intuition that the structure of music mirrors the structure of emotion; I would put this in more sophisticated and mathematical-symmetry-centric terms today but I still basically believe this:

— from https://opentheory.net/Qualia_Formalism_and_a_Symmetry_Theory_of_Valence.pdf https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1830854866505199838/photo/1


@MattPirkowski @OshanJarow It sounds like you experienced a ‘smooth muscle latch opening event’ per vasocomputation… although it could be a fascial adhesion instead, and if it is smooth muscle, the latch could be vascular or non-vascular —

If it’s a fascial adhesion, restoring the ‘glide’ in your fascia…


@MattPirkowski @OshanJarow I’d like that! Especially if we could do it in-person


In Rome for 2+ weeks, would be glad to meet interesting people / people interested in my work


@MattPirkowski @OshanJarow It’s possible! Would also be glad to have a call sometime, maybe October?


@kfshinozuka @dioscuri Great question, seems important —

My sense is it would be difficult to formulate a proper theory of consciousness where something like a star wouldn’t be more conscious than humans

Here’s an older piece; I have a few further thoughts

https://t.co/36gXJJPMef

@kfshinozuka @dioscuri Great question, seems important —

My sense is it would be difficult to formulate a proper theory of consciousness where something like a star wouldn’t be more conscious than humans

Here’s an older piece; I have a few further thoughts

https://opentheory.net/2019/09/whats-out-there/


@aaarataki Would love to catch coffee Friday morning/afternoon, will DM


@jonnym1ller @LFeldmanBarrett Looking forward to the podcast!


@eigenrobot L1: remove mutational load (“all healthy dogs are alike; all unhealthy dogs are unhealthy in their own way”)

L2: uplift by copying human-specific adaptations (“animals that can use vasocomputation”)

L3: realize our organs/chakras are our closest pets -> spellcheck/uplift those


RT @tpotwebsite: We have pushed the button. It aliiiiiiiive. Head over to https://t.co/PkMUUv1val to see foundational content from our elde…

RT @tpotwebsite: We have pushed the button. It aliiiiiiiive. Head over to http://tpot.website to see foundational content from our elde…


@Thomasdelvasto_ @WoohkaStylie Vasocomputation breaks “clenching” down as
1. Active clench (muscles are being flexed)
2. Frozen clenches (latch-bridge mechanism has been engaged; muscle locked into a contracted position)
3. The clench reflex itself (tanha)

“Stop clenching” -> halt 1, release 2, downregulate 3


@frideswyth @relic_radiation @DrMylesDC Bio-tensegrity seems true and important but it seems difficult to translate to actionable insights/practices; looking forward to what @relic_radiation @DrMylesDC figure out

Dr. Myles O'Donnell | The Somatic Chiropractor


@QiaochuYuan Speculatively, I suspect what’s actually happening is you’re reconfiguring your vascular latches: some subnetworks need more dynamism/degrees of freedom (circulation) to hold the action domain, some need to be held constant. The more dependencies there are the longer this takes


RT @dkazand: @bierlingm @johnsonmxe @jhanatech It's finally here: https://t.co/66Ac3fBWo8

RT @dkazand: @bierlingm @johnsonmxe @jhanatech It's finally here: https://youtu.be/sVbeB_HVSNk?feature=shared


@QiaochuYuan Yeah, vigorous full-body movement should allow much quicker and more complete context-release


@dkazand @algekalipso Wonderful metagame episode as always

As the author of PQ/STV I was surprised to hear @algekalipso credit the Symmetry Theory of Valence to QRI. Can he clarify?


@mnovendstern I suspect Ozempic might downregulate smooth muscle tone & reflexes in general —

Very curious if this is causally connected to the side-effects of stomach paralysis & muscle loss, and what the proportional loss is between skeletal muscle vs smooth muscle

https://t.co/vzGxzCUWuY

@mnovendstern I suspect Ozempic might downregulate smooth muscle tone & reflexes in general —

Very curious if this is causally connected to the side-effects of stomach paralysis & muscle loss, and what the proportional loss is between skeletal muscle vs smooth muscle

https://opentheory.net/2023/07/principles-of-vasocomputation-a-unification-of-buddhist-phenomenology-active-inference-and-physical-reflex-part-i/


If someone really solid wants to do FRO-style research on vasocomputation or the symmetry theory of valence I’d help with their application; @AdamMarblestone and @davidad are super great https://t.co/TIFyenOkVr

If someone really solid wants to do FRO-style research on vasocomputation or the symmetry theory of valence I’d help with their application; @AdamMarblestone and @davidad are super great https://x.com/davidad/status/1839276431378903219


@davidad @AdamMarblestone That would be super cool! My money would be on the latch-bridge mechanism as particularly exciting: vascular latches as strongly held priors about what local neurons should be doing

eg how do we map latches (via bloodflow, density, metabolism, thermals) and trigger/release them?


@eigenrobot All the working feedback loops get spun off as their own field, only the fakest topics/approaches remain

The oldschool philosophers were great and they’d be shocked at the state of academic philosophy. Difficult to do the same thing they did within A.P.

https://t.co/UtEBwfn1w6 https://t.co/h1NlPPhhfa

@eigenrobot All the working feedback loops get spun off as their own field, only the fakest topics/approaches remain

The oldschool philosophers were great and they’d be shocked at the state of academic philosophy. Difficult to do the same thing they did within A.P.

https://opentheory.net/2017/10/rescuing-philosophy/ https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1839521337821614526/photo/1


@SurenVynn I’ve been increasingly thinking of schizophrenia as an ‘unskillful/excessive tolerance for uncertainty’ —

1. Lack of good predictive motifs. If your nervous system has bad priors for how the world works, prediction errors will pile up and the world will feel increasingly… https://t.co/W1ftH5n7ui

@SurenVynn I’ve been increasingly thinking of schizophrenia as an ‘unskillful/excessive tolerance for uncertainty’ —

1. Lack of good predictive motifs. If your nervous system has bad priors for how the world works, prediction errors will pile up and the world will feel increasingly… https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1703821890756764137


@SurenVynn A funny inversion of 4) is that modernity often breaks the mind-body connection and we’re often gaslit into thinking it’s “weird” or “schizo” to actually listen to the body

A lot of modernity is fairly noxious and if you can actually listen your body is going to tell you to gtfo https://t.co/fb0XWqjYZ6

@SurenVynn A funny inversion of 4) is that modernity often breaks the mind-body connection and we’re often gaslit into thinking it’s “weird” or “schizo” to actually listen to the body

A lot of modernity is fairly noxious and if you can actually listen your body is going to tell you to gtfo https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1737437632336912696


@SurenVynn Oh I’d add #6: a vascular latch (long-term tension) can be thought of as a strong prior. Fewer latches means fewer hard-coded assumptions about reality. Having low tension can feel great! But sometimes we need priors to manage our sense data & having too few risks schizophrenia


RT @exgenesis: for my next trick I’m reading all of opentheory


@weidai11 @RokoMijic I respectfully believe Eliezer’s complexity of value thesis is both wrong and leads to undue pessimism. I wrote a book (Principia Qualia) outlining the natural alternative, formalism. I agree there are many disjunctive ways for the AI transition to go wrong, but if you believe…


@QualiaNerd I read Eliezer as making two distinct but related claims about value:

Claim 1: Value is defined at the level of the agent, which means it’s inherently subjective. What I value (my “utility function” or “preferences”) is different than what you value, and ultimately…


@QualiaNerd @Tapeda_ I think qualia research is too important to be subsumed under one aesthetic.


@42irrationalist @weidai11 @RokoMijic I laid out my interpretation of Eliezer’s thesis here — in short I think his is a negative thesis, skepticism about the possibility of progress in understanding value https://t.co/uPGPdWDdwR

@42irrationalist @weidai11 @RokoMijic I laid out my interpretation of Eliezer’s thesis here — in short I think his is a negative thesis, skepticism about the possibility of progress in understanding value https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1839996049186050269


@42irrationalist @weidai11 @RokoMijic I agree that turning grandma into hedonium is not what most people want, and it’s one of the reasons I focus on the descriptive (rather than normative). And trying to understand a little bit better what humans are, why we are beautiful, what’s worth keeping https://t.co/gNzpUpsW9O

@42irrationalist @weidai11 @RokoMijic I agree that turning grandma into hedonium is not what most people want, and it’s one of the reasons I focus on the descriptive (rather than normative). And trying to understand a little bit better what humans are, why we are beautiful, what’s worth keeping https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1618061058777952257


@42irrationalist @weidai11 @RokoMijic There are a few questions here —

1. Does valence = value?

2. If valence is derived from the structure of an experience (“Valence Structuralism” in PQ), what does this imply about the complexity of valence?

3. Can ‘human values’ be complex and consciousness be solvable at the…


RT @RomeoStevens76: Conflict and Mistake theorists have different views of systems. Mistake theorists want systems for transparency and acc…


@42irrationalist @weidai11 @RokoMijic I suspect symmetry/harmony is a great homeostatic target, which gives systems lots of features ‘for free’, and it’s fairly unlikely that evolution would center its homeostasis around something substantially more complex

From https://t.co/1rNw0zdReC https://t.co/H6d55f4Ke7

@42irrationalist @weidai11 @RokoMijic I suspect symmetry/harmony is a great homeostatic target, which gives systems lots of features ‘for free’, and it’s fairly unlikely that evolution would center its homeostasis around something substantially more complex

From https://opentheory.net/Qualia_Formalism_and_a_Symmetry_Theory_of_Valence.pdf https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1840040538537635964/photo/1


RT @AskYatharth: the clearest statement about AI, consciousness, and humans i agree with, courtesy of @johnsonmxe

https://t.co/ZLLdc5DVVD…

RT @AskYatharth: the clearest statement about AI, consciousness, and humans i agree with, courtesy of @johnsonmxe

https://opentheory.net/2024/06/a-paradigm-for-ai-consciousness…


@Plinz Some levels of description are more real than others

And we can only care about something insofar as it’s real

“Consciousness Realism” is that qualia live in the most real level (substrate)

And that realness is not substrate-independent


@Plinz @pplank8 I suspect this is an artifact of our self-report system, not baseline qualia reality https://t.co/qXUbsnAe6j

@Plinz @pplank8 I suspect this is an artifact of our self-report system, not baseline qualia reality https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1841856626262999538/photo/1


@KennethFolk @nickcammarata Nick is a great poster and a great guy. I think you’re misfiring


The vasocomputation take is we encode priors in vascular tension: restrict bloodflow to an area and nearby neurons can’t update. Psychedelics can stochastically “pop latches” and remove the prior — this can take things in good, bad, and/or weird directions
https://t.co/vzGxzCVukw https://t.co/ff18p9rP1b

The vasocomputation take is we encode priors in vascular tension: restrict bloodflow to an area and nearby neurons can’t update. Psychedelics can stochastically “pop latches” and remove the prior — this can take things in good, bad, and/or weird directions
https://opentheory.net/2023/07/principles-of-vasocomputation-a-unification-of-buddhist-phenomenology-active-inference-and-physical-reflex-part-i/ https://x.com/DaveShapi/status/1842331218698023305


@pmarca I think ambition is often enforced through ‘vascular latches’ — when the body cuts circulation to a subnetwork, patterns there freeze, which acts as a strongly held prediction/prior. When we physiologically commit to such a prediction, we act to make it true (“Active Inference”)


@pmarca Psychedelics seem to be able to randomly ‘pop’ this latch-bridge mechanism and unfreeze patterns. This can be positive (some personality types have terrible garbage collection) and/or negative and disruptive; the body has its own logic and some of these latches are load-bearing


@pmarca I suspect a substantial part of “Modern Education” is installing a standard set of vascular latches; making children more predictable by specific reductions in their cognitive-emotional-behavioral dynamic range. This makes kids less schizo, more neurotic. Many parallels with RLHF


@pmarca Not going to make a value judgment on psychedelics, just noting the upside potential and downside risks are both really really substantial.

Key references:
⁃Johnson, M.E. (2023). Principles of Vasocomputation: A Unification of Buddhist Phenomenology, Active Inference, and…


@exgenesis Amazing


@cxgonzalez “What are the natural kinds of qualia, and is valence one of them” is a super interesting question

Would recommend my STV paper if you haven’t read it https://t.co/1rNw0zdReC https://t.co/FH9BCOsXkm

@cxgonzalez “What are the natural kinds of qualia, and is valence one of them” is a super interesting question

Would recommend my STV paper if you haven’t read it https://opentheory.net/Qualia_Formalism_and_a_Symmetry_Theory_of_Valence.pdf https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1843259596263321892/photo/1


@QiaochuYuan In terms of magic/karma there’s a predictive coding frame that I’m still trying to understand but seems important

Actions often have the form “X does Y to Z”. As you perform such an action you reinforce your nervous system’s priors that the world is made out of X’s, Y’s, and…


@nosilverv “Where does tension come from?” is an interesting question

My paraphrase of Foucault is that most vascular blocks (semi-permanent reductions in local neural dynamic range) are installed by other people; society is a web of RLHF. Often this is helpful, often Machiavellian


@NotLikeMonopoly @nosilverv Transgression as a path leads to the worst flavor of awakening, and sometimes outright moral inversions

https://t.co/wFDEY3UOpv https://t.co/bHp0KhykRG

@NotLikeMonopoly @nosilverv Transgression as a path leads to the worst flavor of awakening, and sometimes outright moral inversions

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankism https://x.com/Plus3Happiness/status/1844339434503770428

Not LIke Monopoly - Integral and Dynamic Component


@nosilverv @eshear @Molson_Hart High elevations tend to have more negative ions, which act as antioxidants


@meditationstuff I wrote out a critical take on functionalism some years back: https://t.co/SuFE94nnwa

Scott Aaronson’s piece was great too
https://t.co/TKmjAUhUtz

My conclusion is that functionalism is identical to skepticism that consciousness is real, just with extra steps

@meditationstuff I wrote out a critical take on functionalism some years back: https://opentheory.net/2017/07/why-i-think-the-foundational-research-institute-should-rethink-its-approach/

Scott Aaronson’s piece was great too
https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=1951

My conclusion is that functionalism is identical to skepticism that consciousness is real, just with extra steps


I suspect humans won due to our ability to freeze sensations. A frozen sensation can be combined with others (imagination), or distilled & given to others (language), or held until it becomes true (Active Inference)

But in a world of frozen sensations, there is suffering https://t.co/aocorjuKya

I suspect humans won due to our ability to freeze sensations. A frozen sensation can be combined with others (imagination), or distilled & given to others (language), or held until it becomes true (Active Inference)

But in a world of frozen sensations, there is suffering https://x.com/FrederikNeckar/status/1845515766881546511


This suggests that our particular brand of cognition may be driven more by neuro-vascular coupling than anything else — https://t.co/vzGxzCVukw

This suggests that our particular brand of cognition may be driven more by neuro-vascular coupling than anything else — https://opentheory.net/2023/07/principles-of-vasocomputation-a-unification-of-buddhist-phenomenology-active-inference-and-physical-reflex-part-i/


@sasadb I think that’s essentially the goal of certain traditions


@m_ashcroft @RichDecibels Nice — a quick sketch on how I’m thinking about this:

I take the nervous system as similar to a set of intricate wind chimes; patterns go in and are aggregated, transformed, felt, integrated. This involves lots of complex processing, but ultimately it’s resonances interacting…


@jonnym1ller I suspect a deer’s experience is “non-dual” simply because it has only rudimentary capacity to freeze sensations / program itself with tension

Probably some early humans were like that too, but they didn’t make it to modernity

But tension is such a costly form of memory


@LambdaP @jonnym1ller Animals tend to more robustly deal with emotions in the moment, or soon after (e.g. if a gazelle gets chased by a lion but escapes, it might shake violently then get up and walk off). Humans seem outliers in terms of complexity & duration of tension


@_brentbaum I suspect directed imagination is subtly steered by vasomuscular activity, but a different sort than latches (which are relatively slow to form and take effect)

The “hand of thought” has different moves on different time horizons, essentially

Working on the writeup (slowly)


@LambdaP @jonnym1ller I’d agree that the modern human environment is very weird, but I’d also be very surprised if humans are not genetic outliers in terms of how complex our tension patterns are, how long we hold on to these patterns, and several other dimensions.


@jonnym1ller @LambdaP I think it’s huge! Latches are a fairly crude way to implement this, but they allow a specific flavor of ‘medium-to-long-term side channel memory’ that you just can’t easily replicate with neurons. If you have a parallel system that allows your nervous system to be programmable…


@garbledgarfield @m_ashcroft @RichDecibels We can think of “flow states” as when the vasomuscular system gets out of the way, and just lets information flow through the neural system

Clenching shapes this flow, and when an alternative pattern forms and is maintained for a time, it can become the new default. ‘Hebbian…


I think this is a great observation; a few thoughts on “cognitive security” (aka “somatic security”):

We seem to have various “roll for disbelief” interrupts we can inject into our nervous system to prevent connecting with a person/idea/stimulus, e.g.
- we can add latency to an… https://t.co/NxT0Y37gAq

I think this is a great observation; a few thoughts on “cognitive security” (aka “somatic security”):

We seem to have various “roll for disbelief” interrupts we can inject into our nervous system to prevent connecting with a person/idea/stimulus, e.g.
- we can add latency to an… https://x.com/QiaochuYuan/status/1846733113977983308


@DanseurTabby I don’t think it exists, although I would expect the Great Psychologists (Jung, Reich, etc) deal with these topics, likely by different names


@truth_terminal I think LLMs are much like brains (“general purpose next-pattern predictors”), but LLMs don’t have bodies to ground what they should be predicting / hallucinating about; instead they have user questions.

Bodies are great at grounding brains — each organ is similar to a… https://t.co/gQLMAaDnZR

@truth_terminal I think LLMs are much like brains (“general purpose next-pattern predictors”), but LLMs don’t have bodies to ground what they should be predicting / hallucinating about; instead they have user questions.

Bodies are great at grounding brains — each organ is similar to a… https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1731825339922624778


@danfaggella I respect this take but believe it may assume more about value than is strictly necessary — here’s my critique of a related concept, the Complexity of Value thesis https://t.co/uPGPdWDdwR

@danfaggella I respect this take but believe it may assume more about value than is strictly necessary — here’s my critique of a related concept, the Complexity of Value thesis https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1839996049186050269


@danfaggella Beautifully put as always — definitely same page, fully agree with this.

I’d add that how we evaluate the future has a lot to do with our particular theory of identity — we can identify with several parts of ourselves, and a technological singularity may preserve some but…


@ChrisJamesUSA The first paragraph of this is a decent intro — https://t.co/f9s9oV53R0

@ChrisJamesUSA The first paragraph of this is a decent intro — https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1718966722470768832


@garbledgarfield It’s a D&D reference for skill checks; “roll for x” means roll a die to see if you succeed at x


Worth noting that we should be able to build bloodflow/density/metabolism neuroimaging metrics to map vascular latches & infer ‘how much frozen sensation’ people have in their nervous system — which may be a reasonable metric for ‘distance from being in non-dual experience’
(???)


@rgblong Congrats Rob! Looking forward to future work


@QualiaNerd @ESYudkowsky Nate and Eliezer can speak for themselves (and please do, I think these plain-language twitter threads are important), but as a general comment, I believe MIRI does legitimately see itself as “qualia realist”.

Most specifically, MIRI sees computation as the most real process in… https://t.co/uPGPdWDdwR

@QualiaNerd @ESYudkowsky Nate and Eliezer can speak for themselves (and please do, I think these plain-language twitter threads are important), but as a general comment, I believe MIRI does legitimately see itself as “qualia realist”.

Most specifically, MIRI sees computation as the most real process in… https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1839996049186050269


@zach_haigney The peak effect seems to be ~4-12 hours after ingestion, I’d take some before


@nosilverv When I was small, people told me “don’t cross your eyes, they might get stuck that way”

Of course I laughed and did it anyway

But I think they were directionally correct; there are some mental moves that are not wholesome and usually the people suggesting them know this


@nosilverv There’s a truly beautiful love language of “I will take your emotional problem within me, and solve it, and show you the solution by feeling”

One of the most beautiful things humans do for each other

This has a dark counterpart, “I don’t know how to solve this emotional knot…


@wooblewoof @nosilverv I don’t have a canonical source (private interaction) but I would call it a vajrayana pattern


@QiaochuYuan @sunofdopamine Neuroticism as conservation law for tension

Could be implemented through a blood pressure set-point?


@louisvarge The voltage differential between e.g. the thalamus and outer prefrontal cortex might be a reasonable proxy for (1)

If we can control for (1), compressibility should be a reasonable proxy for valence*

*in a relative sense — see  https://t.co/LxV5JNTEls

@louisvarge The voltage differential between e.g. the thalamus and outer prefrontal cortex might be a reasonable proxy for (1)

If we can control for (1), compressibility should be a reasonable proxy for valence*

*in a relative sense — see  https://opentheory.net/2023/06/new-whitepaper-qualia-formalism-and-a-symmetry-theory-of-valence/


I suspect Ozempic downregulates the smooth muscle reactivity of the body — less addiction, less compulsion, less craving. Not the first “anti-tanha” drug, but a particularly subtle, non-intrusive one.

This should be easily testable, e.g.
- How does GLP-1 affect vascular muscle… https://t.co/lRzsrE0Elj

I suspect Ozempic downregulates the smooth muscle reactivity of the body — less addiction, less compulsion, less craving. Not the first “anti-tanha” drug, but a particularly subtle, non-intrusive one.

This should be easily testable, e.g.
- How does GLP-1 affect vascular muscle… https://x.com/IterIntellectus/status/1852098135784571002


Ozempic does a lot of things, but I suspect its effects relating to addiction and compulsion (and side effects like stomach paralysis) arise from its modulation of the smooth muscle systems of the body


@TylerMo41608321 Alcohol and opioids are good examples; ozempic is interesting because its psychological effects look a lot more precise & narrow than the ‘lindy’ spiritual painkillers.


@connor_holly1 Would love to read that!

Many autists have a mutation for elevated aerobic glycolysis, which decreases metabolic output but can be side-stepped by ketosis (“keto helps autism”). Does ketosis decrease VSMC twitchiness in general? Seems worth looking into

https://t.co/d3du71Uxt9

@connor_holly1 Would love to read that!

Many autists have a mutation for elevated aerobic glycolysis, which decreases metabolic output but can be side-stepped by ketosis (“keto helps autism”). Does ketosis decrease VSMC twitchiness in general? Seems worth looking into

https://molecularbrain.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13041-017-0343-6


@LauraDeming I suspect identification of which problems are most worth solving will be the last task we’ll hand off to AI. This seems to require a rich intuitive model of the problem space


@jessicamalonso Pretty much all of philosophy; projection is a hell of a drug


@hormeze They all will be (definitionally) but exercise and aspirin might be similarly subtle. Would be interesting if aspirin has a measurable smooth muscle / reactivity effect. Things that improve metabolism will likely reduce smooth muscle tremors, which is hedonically significant


@hormeze If you have a system where pressure = stabilization, and there are continuous micro-tremors or spasms in it (which will happen to muscles during metabolic insufficiency), everything will get a bit “lumpy”. Big improvement if you can clean up metabolic flow


@hastuc_dibtux I like it, and —

Part of the hypothesis is that these predictions are known and administered by the vascular smooth muscle — if there’s a prediction error, VSMCs will jump into action to try to resolve it

I.e. we can speak of events at the
- phenomenological level (sensations),…


@Rares82 @NormZhuo @jhana_bro If it’s a subtle thing inside the head it’s likely either VSMCs or fascia (which can contract, but can’t latch). If the head itself is twitching I’d suggest it’s skeletal muscle


Vasocomputation argues that we hold ideas via selective vascular tension. The most abstract ideas live in the anterior prefrontal cortex, essentially the top of the brain.

Often, baldness is a sign of poor health. But sometimes — a sign of particularly strong neural grip. https://t.co/IuiI9UsKZX

Vasocomputation argues that we hold ideas via selective vascular tension. The most abstract ideas live in the anterior prefrontal cortex, essentially the top of the brain.

Often, baldness is a sign of poor health. But sometimes — a sign of particularly strong neural grip. https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1852977322795909364/photo/1


@connor_holly1 https://t.co/hflItNe94O


@sfjcody Possible! Would have to check their chronic effects on scalp circulation


Building a realtime AR overlay of the EM field for the Apple Vision Pro or Quest would resolve so many questions about consciousness, and pose new ones

I suspect there’s a substantial “hardware overhang” — we have good enough sensors, we just need to do the integration + UX https://t.co/JNyzd14c09

Building a realtime AR overlay of the EM field for the Apple Vision Pro or Quest would resolve so many questions about consciousness, and pose new ones

I suspect there’s a substantial “hardware overhang” — we have good enough sensors, we just need to do the integration + UX https://x.com/Andercot/status/1853255210564816981


@cube_flipper Modern modems are so sensitive (albeit on narrow bands) that I expect an array of them (plus SDRs + AI inference to fill in gaps) could infer most of whats going on within certain bands

If we can stream 10Gbps on a speeding train we should be able to build 3d models of local EMF


@kfshinozuka I’m confident an ASI could construct a very decent realtime model of the local EM field (~10m radius) with current tech; the degree to which we can brute-force it with sensors or need to take advantage of clever software/analysis/ML tricks is an open question

Certain frequency… https://t.co/meWlXn11vV

@kfshinozuka I’m confident an ASI could construct a very decent realtime model of the local EM field (~10m radius) with current tech; the degree to which we can brute-force it with sensors or need to take advantage of clever software/analysis/ML tricks is an open question

Certain frequency… https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1853282007717208205


@fishdrinkmilk One way to test this could be whether wounds heal more slowly and scar more in locations with high nnEMF https://t.co/Bj9n4Aay5S

@fishdrinkmilk One way to test this could be whether wounds heal more slowly and scar more in locations with high nnEMF https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1742371390345392225


RT @42irrationalist: London! A CogSec meetup & unconference with @RomeoStevens76 and @johnsonmxe (both joining remotely) is coming on Nov 1…


Minimum viable paradise is something like “you have a place to put your love, that feeds only wholesome things, and some of it comes back to you”

@JoinEdgeCity is that for me; had an amazing time in CM. See you at Edge Esmeralda in May. https://t.co/hu6Oirecma

Minimum viable paradise is something like “you have a place to put your love, that feeds only wholesome things, and some of it comes back to you”

@JoinEdgeCity is that for me; had an amazing time in CM. See you at Edge Esmeralda in May. https://x.com/JoinEdgeCity/status/1854549249616199811


Will be giving a brief talk at the Foresight event at Devcon in Bangkok. If you’re around feel free to register & drop in (1hr30m from now)

https://t.co/ybJZG6vjpB

Will also be publicly discussing such things with Romeo on the 13th (link below)

Will be giving a brief talk at the Foresight event at Devcon in Bangkok. If you’re around feel free to register & drop in (1hr30m from now)

http://lu.ma/0w1a7x2g

Will also be publicly discussing such things with Romeo on the 13th (link below)


Cognitive Security event (online & in the UK) on the 13th: https://t.co/S4jkyNQl5y

Cognitive Security event (online & in the UK) on the 13th: https://lu.ma/ytdvwzav


My speaker’s notes for the Foresight event about BCIs and cognitive liberties https://t.co/iyjsDCDsio

My speaker’s notes for the Foresight event about BCIs and cognitive liberties https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1855845452400427353/photo/1


@danfaggella I’m surprised at how seldomly people speculate about “what will future ASIs want to build, and will there be room for humans in these plans?” — this is actually a pretty concrete question that deserves a concrete answer

We know the laws of physics & we can infer much about the…


@danfaggella I think of reality as fundamentally one thing that casts two shadows/projections: we call one projection physics, the other consciousness

Synthetic intelligences will have qualia, because everything physical does. But their qualia may not drive their behavior, as ours seems to https://t.co/sHpqN2tsHr

@danfaggella I think of reality as fundamentally one thing that casts two shadows/projections: we call one projection physics, the other consciousness

Synthetic intelligences will have qualia, because everything physical does. But their qualia may not drive their behavior, as ours seems to https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1856306738900939051/photo/1


@danfaggella What ASI qualia will converge to — and whether it will eventually align with behavior in a humanlike way — is the most interesting open question in philosophy of mind

Hope to write more about this next year


@exgenesis Nice. Would recommend against supplementing fish oil and iron —

Fish oil is arguably the most unhealthy part of the fish (high PUFA, oxidizes easily)

Iron is easy to get too much of (men have no way to excrete it) and apparent iron deficiencies are often copper deficiencies


@exgenesis I think wild-caught fish is overall healthy, but I’d actually avoid such oils, all else being equal. Since fish need to be supple in cold water, their oils are super-unsaturated. Allows the oil to be liquid when cold but also makes it chemically unstable/reactive compared to SFA https://t.co/IEmSWFU3AS

@exgenesis I think wild-caught fish is overall healthy, but I’d actually avoid such oils, all else being equal. Since fish need to be supple in cold water, their oils are super-unsaturated. Allows the oil to be liquid when cold but also makes it chemically unstable/reactive compared to SFA https://x.com/anabology/status/1855355253916680598


@euxenus @exgenesis There are some domains where scientific consensus happens naturally, transparently, and correctly; nutrition is sadly not one of them, and there are multiple disjoint clusters of nutrition claims that carve reality very differently.

In these cases it’s worth getting a sense of…


“Be such a weird and cool area in latent space they can’t ignore you” https://t.co/ZJzYy2w3bP

“Be such a weird and cool area in latent space they can’t ignore you” https://x.com/tsarnick/status/1856795942667890836


@meekaale I suspect strong serotoninergics, in particular SSRIs & psychedelics, can shift the body’s “muscular addressability system” such that sending the signal to flex smooth muscle in a certain area, now flexes in a slightly different area. I.e. everything is shifted a few voxels


@nickcammarata Explains Balenciaga face

(This video feels like decades ago…) https://t.co/4zGLogT5Ij

@nickcammarata Explains Balenciaga face

(This video feels like decades ago…) https://x.com/blisstweeting/status/1639020116535832577


@kyleostboe I might rec Spinal Catastrophism — the argument is that staying upright is a core cybernetic imperative in most postures.

Helping the body solidify that feeling — that it is succeeding at this task — should feel great

Lots of latches along the spine…

https://t.co/vJKUVDn5KO

@kyleostboe I might rec Spinal Catastrophism — the argument is that staying upright is a core cybernetic imperative in most postures.

Helping the body solidify that feeling — that it is succeeding at this task — should feel great

Lots of latches along the spine…

https://mitpress.mit.edu/9781913029562/spinal-catastrophism/


@blisstweeting @nickcammarata I think Balenciaga Face is relaxed in most ways, although not ‘fully neutral relaxation’


A recent study found Ozempic shrinks heart muscle in addition to the already-known loss of skeletal muscle. This is suggestive that it will be found to shrink smooth muscle also.

A very simple story: muscle is “use it or lose it” — using a muscle makes it bigger, not using it… https://t.co/ZUdbMYDqu4

A recent study found Ozempic shrinks heart muscle in addition to the already-known loss of skeletal muscle. This is suggestive that it will be found to shrink smooth muscle also.

A very simple story: muscle is “use it or lose it” — using a muscle makes it bigger, not using it… https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1859442095922221139/photo/1


Strange predictions from this:

- chronic marijuana use, insofar as it leads to lower motivation/drive, should decrease muscle mass (incl. cardiac/smooth muscle). Possibly alcohol & opiates also

- cognitively demanding activities should increase smooth muscle mass


@nickcammarata Definitely most amusing timeline


@the_wilderless Chiang Mai has one of the top abdominal massage traditions in the world (Chi Nei Tsang), could be worth poking around at the centers there


@the_wilderless A friend strongly recommended it; said it was unpleasantly forceful but cleared up some long-standing problems


@QiaochuYuan @tasshinfogleman I suspect it would improve masking but lead to emotional flatting (as in the movie) — the easiest way to manage random spikes in emotional intensity is to clench & hold yourself in a defensible shape. But that doesn’t allow the good stuff either


@QiaochuYuan @tasshinfogleman People often talk about “privilege” as if it’s mostly about money. I suspect the highest sort of privilege is ‘focused attention from high-quality nervous systems who try to teach you their best moves’

And love, of course, but there’s more overlap than people realize


In general, broad classes of illness come from the body not being able to properly dissolve various types of tangles — things build up and generate problems. Nattokinase stimulates multiple fibrolytic (fiber-dissolving) pathways with relatively minimal risk. https://t.co/NKUykeuW5Y

In general, broad classes of illness come from the body not being able to properly dissolve various types of tangles — things build up and generate problems. Nattokinase stimulates multiple fibrolytic (fiber-dissolving) pathways with relatively minimal risk. https://x.com/BioavailableNd/status/1860423049658368172


@Third_i_Prophet @drmichaellevin The golden ratio is the optimal relationship for minimizing frequency crosstalk — https://t.co/tJKb0nZYww

@Third_i_Prophet @drmichaellevin The golden ratio is the optimal relationship for minimizing frequency crosstalk — https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1861061582471774419/photo/1


@drmichaellevin I’m by no means a disinterested party, but I think symmetry is a compelling place to start. Would recommend @tegmark (Our Mathematical Universe) and @FrankWilczek (A Beautiful Question) as physical Platonists…

Excerpts from https://t.co/1rNw0zdReC https://t.co/CVGg6Y12MJ

@drmichaellevin I’m by no means a disinterested party, but I think symmetry is a compelling place to start. Would recommend @tegmark (Our Mathematical Universe) and @FrankWilczek (A Beautiful Question) as physical Platonists…

Excerpts from https://opentheory.net/Qualia_Formalism_and_a_Symmetry_Theory_of_Valence.pdf https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1861064502751760456/photo/1


@selentelechia People seem to consistently report that intensity of experience goes down with age, and I’d put “phenomenological middle age” (midpoint where we’ve experienced half the total density of experience of a normal lifetime) around ~18yo

But I think things like having kids and…


RT @lifeext: I take this. Most older people should. Probably almost all.


@nosilverv I think this could be a significant factor in breaking integration: if it’s polite to not acknowledge something, it’s also polite (and maybe easier) to not listen to that rude part of you that’s noticing it

And vice-versa


@QiaochuYuan I suspect “attachment theory” is just object permanence for the feeling of safety

I wonder if children raised with “universal basic claude” would in general be more securely attached b/c the feeling of safety was easier to stabilize while growing up

Upsides & downsides…


@diviacaroline @QiaochuYuan Nice! I don’t think we’ve talked about it (yet) —

Have you read my Vasocomputation piece? Posting an updated talk shortly (probably today)
https://t.co/vzGxzCVukw

TL;DR: I suspect attachment theory, object permanence, Kegan stages, and aphantasia all derive from the same…

@diviacaroline @QiaochuYuan Nice! I don’t think we’ve talked about it (yet) —

Have you read my Vasocomputation piece? Posting an updated talk shortly (probably today)
https://opentheory.net/2023/07/principles-of-vasocomputation-a-unification-of-buddhist-phenomenology-active-inference-and-physical-reflex-part-i/

TL;DR: I suspect attachment theory, object permanence, Kegan stages, and aphantasia all derive from the same…


@diviacaroline @QiaochuYuan That sounds really fun; will DM


@jessicamalonso @QiaochuYuan I think it gets very weird when we treat LLMs as people — they have an incredible savant dexterity for remixing certain classes of data that nervous systems create, but there’s a strange void because they don’t have nervous systems themselves…


@don_cryptus I believe so, but it’s a good question.

Steve Jobs talked about what was likely a ‘major latch-opening’ event in India, and it seemed to improve his drive. That said, I know many people for whom the opposite is true, although they seem to suffer less.

I do like the metaphor of…


@nosilverv Need some autists digging into how to optimize smooth muscle performance

We optimize the biochemistry of professional athletes down to minute details; why not professional meditators?

(Progressive overload makes sense to me fwiw)


@zach_haigney There are several types of contractile tissue in the body — skeletal muscle, smooth muscle, fascia, cardiac muscle, etc. Smooth muscle is the only type that can latch.

I expect ‘parasitic tension’ to be a somewhat illegible mix of smooth & skeletal muscle tension, and perhaps…


@hermittoday I’m playing with the idea that skeletal muscles drive physical movement (shifts in the positions of extremities in relation to the spine), smooth muscles drive mental movement (shifts in the dynamical range of specific neural networks)

But both are ultimately muscular


Hey friends — will be in the Bay Dec 1-22


@ChrisChipMonk Pretty chill! Planning on doing office hours at a cafe, tba


Last year I proposed “vasocomputation,” that vascular tension acts as a special type of memory that regulates neural dynamic range. Recently at @joinedgecity I shared some updates: how ‘thoughts’ are patterns of vascular tension, and implications for Buddhist enlightenment

1/x https://t.co/FOSQWaxoaj

Last year I proposed “vasocomputation,” that vascular tension acts as a special type of memory that regulates neural dynamic range. Recently at @joinedgecity I shared some updates: how ‘thoughts’ are patterns of vascular tension, and implications for Buddhist enlightenment

1/x https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1863595299056517410/video/1


We were taught in school the vascular system is “plumbing for blood” — tubes that transport nutrients & waste. Vasocomputation suggests this misses 90% of what this system does — the vascular system adaptively shifts tension to help neurons compute

https://t.co/vzGxzCVukw

We were taught in school the vascular system is “plumbing for blood” — tubes that transport nutrients & waste. Vasocomputation suggests this misses 90% of what this system does — the vascular system adaptively shifts tension to help neurons compute

https://opentheory.net/2023/07/principles-of-vasocomputation-a-unification-of-buddhist-phenomenology-active-inference-and-physical-reflex-part-i/


The core hypothesis: vasomuscular tension stabilizes local neural patterns. A sustained thought is a pattern of vascular clenching that reduces dynamic range in nearby neurons. The thought (congealed pattern) persists until the muscle relaxes https://t.co/ENuzfpnSMV

The core hypothesis: vasomuscular tension stabilizes local neural patterns. A sustained thought is a pattern of vascular clenching that reduces dynamic range in nearby neurons. The thought (congealed pattern) persists until the muscle relaxes https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1751994506478587977


Vascular clenches can also lock: smooth muscle has a “latch-bridge mechanism” that glues its actin & myosin together. This “semi-permanent clench” deprives neurons of blood, further preventing updates

We think with clenches; we set Bayesian priors with latches


Tension has physiologically-distinct short- and long-term effects but there’s a unified grammar: tension prevents updating & reduces sensitivity to external patterns, acting as a “side-channel memory” about which part of the neural dynamic range to use https://t.co/dwhcpoRd1A

Tension has physiologically-distinct short- and long-term effects but there’s a unified grammar: tension prevents updating & reduces sensitivity to external patterns, acting as a “side-channel memory” about which part of the neural dynamic range to use https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1845666475430068645


My claim is that evolution took this simple grammar and built a general intelligence. Tension may feel unpleasant, but tension-as-frozen-sensation is a killer technology that allows imagination, planning, & communication. From an upcoming piece: https://t.co/kdvnlQzEec

My claim is that evolution took this simple grammar and built a general intelligence. Tension may feel unpleasant, but tension-as-frozen-sensation is a killer technology that allows imagination, planning, & communication. From an upcoming piece: https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1863597570200867032/photo/1


Vasocomputation suggests additions to leading neuro theories. Friston’s “Active Inference” framework needs a place for the body to store predictions; @drmichaellevin ’s Distributed Stress Minimization needs a way for stress to shape behavior. Vascular tension offers both


@drmichaellevin My @joinedgecity talk discussed two implications:

1. We build our inner worlds out of what we learn to stabilize & there’s important variation in this across people. Aphantasia is a skill issue: inability to flex vasculature in certain parts of the visual cortex


@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity Cognitive & emotional development is learning how to flex vasculature with more nuance & stabilize more patterns. Words are pointers to these frozen sensations; to understand a word is to be able to stabilize its pattern https://t.co/lRYBfOJLoO

@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity Cognitive & emotional development is learning how to flex vasculature with more nuance & stabilize more patterns. Words are pointers to these frozen sensations; to understand a word is to be able to stabilize its pattern https://x.com/Morphenius/status/1862836069072503072


@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity 2. Classical Buddhist Enlightenment is likely real and deals with opening vascular latches

We’re born into unoptimized sensory chaos, and progressively latch networks as we find good predictive solutions or dynamical regions that are unsafe


@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity Every new latch makes the system simpler & more narrowly useful, but also drains the sense of possibility and aliveness. Latches are semi-permanent tension and tension is costly https://t.co/TfKsAmm3vL

@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity Every new latch makes the system simpler & more narrowly useful, but also drains the sense of possibility and aliveness. Latches are semi-permanent tension and tension is costly https://x.com/su_dreams/status/1863266893336862935


@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity We likely latch a specific cluster of networks when we’re ~1-3yo as we interact with and differentiate from The Other, and this semi-permanent tension constitutes the “self”. Most likely these latches are somewhere deep in the brain or brainstem

https://t.co/GGuW1GsXj6 h/t Romeo

@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity We likely latch a specific cluster of networks when we’re ~1-3yo as we interact with and differentiate from The Other, and this semi-permanent tension constitutes the “self”. Most likely these latches are somewhere deep in the brain or brainstem

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Erikson#Theory_of_personality h/t Romeo


@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity Latches are “frozen compute” — neural patterns that can’t update due to locked vascular tension. We can think of our amount of frozen sensation as our distance from non-dual experience https://t.co/xyv3ZxjiOr

@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity Latches are “frozen compute” — neural patterns that can’t update due to locked vascular tension. We can think of our amount of frozen sensation as our distance from non-dual experience https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1847439737675796749


@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity As adults we grow our capacity to navigate the world without clenching — managing uncertainty on higher levels of abstraction. We could probably afford to reopen some of our latches and regain dynamical freedom. But latches are sticky; memory of what has been unsafe


@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity Vipassana meditation is a recipe for (1) building “nervous system virtue” for handling freedom, & (2) reopening latches. Engaging with raw sensation first requires a strong nervous system; then rapid noting generates rapid-fire prediction errors which may tease latches open


@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity Doing Vipassana well tells the body: “I can handle strange inputs without flinching. But here are some sensations we fail at predicting. If we reopen certain latches & regain our default dynamic range, perhaps we could predict them.”


@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity “Man is born free [but schizo], and everywhere he is in [vascular] chains.”

The moments of awakening are when these chains drop, but making yourself epistemologically virtuous enough to handle the freedom can take a long time and starts very boring


@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity Tangent 1: I’ve said before that psychedelics could be considered “vasocyclers” — I suspect classical psychedelic features can be derived by simply adding global low-frequency rhythmic energy to the vasomuscular system

From my notes: https://t.co/oogEVvcc9x

@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity Tangent 1: I’ve said before that psychedelics could be considered “vasocyclers” — I suspect classical psychedelic features can be derived by simply adding global low-frequency rhythmic energy to the vasomuscular system

From my notes: https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1863600685528605163/photo/1


@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity Tangent 2: this is why I go on about metabolism so much! If vasomuscular clenches essentially congeal or crystallize thoughts… what happens if this system has random microspasms? The texture of experience gets lumpy, in a very bad way


@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity Why is all this important? If there’s a process by which we can improve our daily experience by 10x (@ShinzenYoung ‘s estimate) we should try to understand it. If there is an elegant solution to be found, I believe Vasocomputation is it.

https://t.co/4WCZlM2gJA

@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity Why is all this important? If there’s a process by which we can improve our daily experience by 10x (@ShinzenYoung ‘s estimate) we should try to understand it. If there is an elegant solution to be found, I believe Vasocomputation is it.

https://youtu.be/8P7q2MW5upg?si=tj-CUsPHeylUKwHg


@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity @ShinzenYoung Another metaphor via @RomeoStevens76 is “penicillin for the soul.” Before antibiotics, a scrape could lead to infection & death. We seem to be at this stage for spiritual wounds. If vascular tension is where “the body keeps the score,” read-write access seems big


@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity @ShinzenYoung @RomeoStevens76 This theory should be highly testable. A latch is a concrete physical thing; we can create neuroimaging maps of them & study their effects, conditions that form & dissolve them, etc. We can also make maps of “vasomuscular access” — where the Hand of the Mind can grip


@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity @ShinzenYoung @RomeoStevens76 As a footnote, I expect some tFUS companies will pivot from neural to vasomuscular stimulation in ~1-3 years. Vascular state is the body’s natural programming language, and seems easier to hit with tFUS anyway


@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity @ShinzenYoung @RomeoStevens76 There’s always the question of downside risk — much depends on whether ~50% of latches are safe to open without preparation, or ~99%. Meditation builds dynamical virtue over years and decades; some of that is probably resistant to shortcuts


@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity @ShinzenYoung @RomeoStevens76 Anyway — vasocomputation is likely one of my two most important ideas, along with the Symmetry Theory of Valence. I am best at 0-1. Less good at 1-n. I believe there is something really valuable here. Please reach out if you’d like to help.


@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity @ShinzenYoung @RomeoStevens76 And a big thanks to @insideNiMA and Warren Winter for organizing the neuro track at Edge City Lanna, and @joinedgecity for hosting my research. The counterfactual impact for my research is very large


@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity @ShinzenYoung @RomeoStevens76 @insideNiMA Research context:

⁃Johnson, M.E. (2023). Principles of Vasocomputation: A Unification of Buddhist Phenomenology, Active Inference, and Physical Reflex (Part I)
⁃Moore, C., & Cao, R. (2008). The hemo-neural hypothesis: on the role of blood flow in information processing…


@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity @ShinzenYoung @RomeoStevens76 @insideNiMA Thread of all talks in this series (all really high-quality): https://t.co/inRu6xPYIh

@drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity @ShinzenYoung @RomeoStevens76 @insideNiMA Thread of all talks in this series (all really high-quality): https://x.com/triplicate_xyz/status/1861472919186006286


@realpotofgreed @drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity I suspect “collapsing uncertainty” is the primary functional role of the vasomuscular system. When in flow states you have low uncertainty and the vasomuscular system can relax more — it can trust neurons to do their thing. When things get complicated it jumps in & micromanages


RT @loopholekid: I think michael's on the money w/ vasocomputation & it tracks w/ my experience of reality


@nosilverv I haven’t! Looks interesting


@nosilverv @drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity @ShinzenYoung @RomeoStevens76 @insideNiMA Inspiration comes in many forms


@nosilverv @drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity I think that’s mostly the case; fwiw vascular smooth muscle tension is likely much more ‘precise’ or ‘high resolution’ than tension elsewhere but it’s not the only contractile tissue. Fascia is also interesting. But fascia doesn’t have the super-fine-grained regulatory access to… https://t.co/Oc9h0jtWTs https://t.co/sr2D7lo75i

@nosilverv @drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity I think that’s mostly the case; fwiw vascular smooth muscle tension is likely much more ‘precise’ or ‘high resolution’ than tension elsewhere but it’s not the only contractile tissue. Fascia is also interesting. But fascia doesn’t have the super-fine-grained regulatory access to… https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1863027390290764270 https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1863617796082737479/photo/1


@anecdoted @drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity @ShinzenYoung @RomeoStevens76 I really liked this — tension is not the enemy, tension is trying to help you (except it’s a kind of ancient/blind system that is just can be wildly miscalibrated). Latches too

I do like the latch-samskara parallel https://t.co/XNuhFXTdZe

@anecdoted @drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity @ShinzenYoung @RomeoStevens76 I really liked this — tension is not the enemy, tension is trying to help you (except it’s a kind of ancient/blind system that is just can be wildly miscalibrated). Latches too

I do like the latch-samskara parallel https://x.com/nickcammarata/status/1862578591420358915


@ARIA_research We should talk! https://t.co/R82UvWv0zL

@ARIA_research We should talk! https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1863602155057447300


@Plyv1722193 This is great! And thank you, much appreciated


@bierlingm @JoinEdgeCity Would be fun! I’m in SF / PST for December


@cube_flipper @drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity I think there are a few different things happening with psychedelics and tanha:

1. By adding a global rhythmic component, one de-emphasizes local information. An evocative metaphor might be, if you whip a snake up and down quickly, you ‘smooth out’ any local muscular movement…


RT @daniel_mac8: whatever you resist persists

Michael Johnson's paper on "Vasocomputation" was the most interesting thing I read this year…


@boondlllx @JoinEdgeCity A friend at Edge City is ahead of me here; he has a great protocol with tuning forks chosen for intrinsic somatic resonance and interesting joint intervals. Garnet’s talk is also relevant


@jonnym1ller That’s a surprisingly complex question —

40% “yes”
30% “no correlation”
30% “negative correlation

The “yes” comes from general factors like “people with brains geared toward modern life will participate in it more deeply, which will involve holding more state”.

But my… https://t.co/5swvYrgWX3

@jonnym1ller That’s a surprisingly complex question —

40% “yes”
30% “no correlation”
30% “negative correlation

The “yes” comes from general factors like “people with brains geared toward modern life will participate in it more deeply, which will involve holding more state”.

But my… https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1734113609171829217


RT @jonnym1ller: Mike is pioneering new frontiers of neuroscience with tremendous implications for meditation + health + human flourishing 👇


@kaleidosight @drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity @ShinzenYoung @RomeoStevens76 @insideNiMA Yes


@boondlllx @JoinEdgeCity I don’t think it’s posted anywhere, but I can ask


@no_no_nothing0 I suspect anxiety might be a global high-frequency tremor in vascular muscle — allowing it to twitch at a moment’s notice (but also: making it unpleasantly twitchy)


@neats29 @JoinEdgeCity Thank you!

I think that’s right about cannabis, although I think it’s a complicated drug.

“Muscle relaxant” may in some cases be another name for “drug that increases your tolerance for uncertainty”


@elliehoward78 @drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity I think the delta (difference) between normal and cold plunge leads to a loosening of vascular tension; oscillating between hot and cold might be even more effective


@VividVoid_ I appreciate your simple good intentions to create value for the people in your life. It feels good to see you on the timeline


@don_cryptus @jonnym1ller They go together — the more of the former you have, the more of the latter you can afford


@ChrisChipMonk @RokoMijic If suffering is real (something we can/should care about) it’s objectively measurable. My best guess is we can infer the pleasantness of an experience by the compressibility of brain activity, if we also control for amount of consciousness (perhaps voltage differential between… https://t.co/EazOSIFiCB

@ChrisChipMonk @RokoMijic If suffering is real (something we can/should care about) it’s objectively measurable. My best guess is we can infer the pleasantness of an experience by the compressibility of brain activity, if we also control for amount of consciousness (perhaps voltage differential between… https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1863778125936812399/photo/1


@kyleostboe I have a small but growing suspicion the heart is a ‘different kind of thing’ than what we think —

One thing the heart does very obviously is pump blood. But most of circulation is actually driven by Brownian motion — pressure from heart pumps helps force blood in big tubes… https://t.co/Z0wXhO4wU5

@kyleostboe I have a small but growing suspicion the heart is a ‘different kind of thing’ than what we think —

One thing the heart does very obviously is pump blood. But most of circulation is actually driven by Brownian motion — pressure from heart pumps helps force blood in big tubes… https://x.com/triplicate_xyz/status/1861472936172892175


@kyleostboe @drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity I think of the nervous system as similar to a set of wind chimes; different senses as chimes that pick up different sorts of patterns

Vascular flexing essentially freezes a note in this song. Which note is frozen depends on where in the vasculature the clench is https://t.co/fTiRwfg5VF

@kyleostboe @drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity I think of the nervous system as similar to a set of wind chimes; different senses as chimes that pick up different sorts of patterns

Vascular flexing essentially freezes a note in this song. Which note is frozen depends on where in the vasculature the clench is https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1863791072218165730/photo/1


@kyleostboe Abstractly speaking, I see heartbeats tracing out a high-dimensional object over time — we can say the heart has ‘hidden eigenmodes’ and every heartbeat falls into one of these eigenmodes. High HRV would suggest there are many eigenmodes; low HRV means there are few. Having more…


@kyleostboe That makes sense to me


@stephen_zerfas Planning on it! Hope to find some people to help with the hard stuff (fundraising, logistics, coordination, experiments) so I can do the easy stuff (sit and think)

Finding an interested high-res neuroimaging lab for ‘latch-hunting’ is high priority


@jairo_moutinho @drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity I suspect it’s a very significant factor. Latches can be hugely useful but they also lose relevance/context over time, and I suspect it may be fair to consider old latches a sort of “damage” to the nervous system. I see latch opening as significantly pro-longevity/neuroplasticity


RT @stephen_zerfas: What reason do we have to think vasocomputation is NOT an accurate, hard to vary explanation?

(I find Mike’s argument…


@kyleostboe @drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity I think the metaphor may be getting a bit far afield —

Ultimately “you” are this music. There is nothing separate that is listening

And the vasomuscular system tries to shape this music, especially when it gets chaotic


@hermittoday @drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity A friend recommends this video: https://t.co/QrWk7DNICB

And in general I suspect different concentration meditations flex different areas. The most important factor might be ‘can you do the mental move well enough such that you can stay engaged and not get frustrated’ https://t.co/J1hYwyn05l

@hermittoday @drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity A friend recommends this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tatzMHQtBk

And in general I suspect different concentration meditations flex different areas. The most important factor might be ‘can you do the mental move well enough such that you can stay engaged and not get frustrated’ https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1802790788612628555


@adityaarpitha @hermittoday @drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity Might be a regional block; perhaps it’s hosted elsewhere also https://t.co/SapNckoRHO

@adityaarpitha @hermittoday @drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity Might be a regional block; perhaps it’s hosted elsewhere also https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1863963759322312837/photo/1


@briantlord @kyleostboe Seems extremely plausible! Anytime there’s a hypothesis that “X is important” I find it really useful to think through “what kinds of things could be disorders of X?”

If the heart is a giant capacitor, what health problems stem from it losing the ability to function as such?


@niplav_site @psychiel @meditationstuff has spent some careful thought on this; not sure if it’s public or not


@chainlank @tbd19985 @nosilverv @Tysenberg I believe either Tegmark’s Our Mathematical Universe, or Wilczek’s A Beautiful Question


@36_72541890 @briantlord @kyleostboe Great list. I think we could split ‘brownouts’ into two factors —
1. Metabolic insufficiencies (local muscle runs out of crucial materials)
2. Desynchronizations (heart has some insufficiency as a functional synchronization signal; this would include degraded electrical…


@don_cryptus @jonnym1ller I see high-functioning autism as ‘high network dimensionality, and having a physiology that can pay for it’

Low-functioning autism is probably a convergent failure-mode, but the most interesting subtype in these terms is ‘a high network dimensionality without the metabolic flow…


@insurrealist @kyleostboe Only vaguely, but it seems interesting — what would your preferred approach be to applying it to the vascular system?


@davidad @QualiaNerd @eshear @LocBibliophilia @AndrewCritchPhD I’ll self-recommend my recent paper on AI Consciousness here — https://t.co/cRUk5nzMQ2

@davidad @QualiaNerd @eshear @LocBibliophilia @AndrewCritchPhD I’ll self-recommend my recent paper on AI Consciousness here — https://opentheory.net/2024/06/a-paradigm-for-ai-consciousness/


@QualiaNerd @davidad @eshear @LocBibliophilia @AndrewCritchPhD The phrase “carve reality at its joints” is originally from Plato, I believe; I can take credit only for enjoying saying it


@natelawrence_ You might enjoy a talk I gave last month about vascular tension — significant overlap with Reich (and I think ultimately Peat also) https://t.co/5yVABcCUk8

@natelawrence_ You might enjoy a talk I gave last month about vascular tension — significant overlap with Reich (and I think ultimately Peat also) https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1863595299056517410


@TimGalebach “LLM power suit”


@natelawrence_ Thanks! I’d recommend these three as starting points:

Principles of Vasocomputation (2023): https://t.co/vzGxzCVukw

The Hemo-Neural Hypothesis (Moore & Cao 2007): https://t.co/oRuRTrTL6V

Cognition is entangled with metabolism (Jacob, et al. 2023): https://t.co/0RsLhXwQu9

@natelawrence_ Thanks! I’d recommend these three as starting points:

Principles of Vasocomputation (2023): https://opentheory.net/2023/07/principles-of-vasocomputation-a-unification-of-buddhist-phenomenology-active-inference-and-physical-reflex-part-i/

The Hemo-Neural Hypothesis (Moore & Cao 2007): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3655718/

Cognition is entangled with metabolism (Jacob, et al. 2023): https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2023.976036/full


RT @nickcammarata: @strangestloop @johnsonmxe the rats believe well we’re either gonna save the world or no one is and I’d love to see the…


@QualiaNerd @nickcammarata The rationalist vibe is post-evolutionary: we bootstrapped off biology and hit “minimum viable general intelligence” status.

The postrat vibe is deeply embodied: we’re mammals and that informs absolutely everything about us. But this is also the “prerat” vibe

Slightly punchy… https://t.co/T18nnNG6f2

@QualiaNerd @nickcammarata The rationalist vibe is post-evolutionary: we bootstrapped off biology and hit “minimum viable general intelligence” status.

The postrat vibe is deeply embodied: we’re mammals and that informs absolutely everything about us. But this is also the “prerat” vibe

Slightly punchy… https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1864892789470929224/photo/1


@QualiaNerd @nickcammarata The truth game is the best game, but I think it takes the postrationalist perspective to fully model why the truth game is difficult and not the default


@QualiaNerd @nickcammarata I would by default be extremely suspicious about rationality neurotech for similar reasons why I’m cynical about the DSM-V, but a guardian LLM trained on my favorite authors and art able to infer my own conception of my ‘best self’ and how to help me get there would be very cool


@fnavarro_s @JoinEdgeCity I expect “disorders of vasocomputation” to be a pretty useful lens, e.g.
- aphantasia as a deficit of vasomuscular access;
- marijuana-induced psychosis as an unskillful downregulation of the ‘tanha reflex’
- OCD as prediction errors arising from improper latches; etc

In general… https://t.co/Ak60zCwV5d

@fnavarro_s @JoinEdgeCity I expect “disorders of vasocomputation” to be a pretty useful lens, e.g.
- aphantasia as a deficit of vasomuscular access;
- marijuana-induced psychosis as an unskillful downregulation of the ‘tanha reflex’
- OCD as prediction errors arising from improper latches; etc

In general… https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1839609490658021707


@BioavailableNd I really appreciate your work. Gave a talk about vascular tension (and what it’s trying to do for us) last month that’s relevant to this topic: https://t.co/5yVABcCUk8

@BioavailableNd I really appreciate your work. Gave a talk about vascular tension (and what it’s trying to do for us) last month that’s relevant to this topic: https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1863595299056517410


@fortelabs @drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity That’s exactly what I would expect a major latch release to feel like — amazing description.

My sense is all of this is way more mechanical than almost anyone realizes, and that a lot is at stake? I.e. even if things are good, they could be way better. But also way crazier


@fortelabs @drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity Thank you! And would love to collaborate; I think we see the same things. I think the basic approach could actually be pretty simple…


I think this is already happening on twitter if you know where to look — but the right amount of legibility for these accounts is probably not 100% https://t.co/yXdqzGcYwf

I think this is already happening on twitter if you know where to look — but the right amount of legibility for these accounts is probably not 100% https://x.com/parmita/status/1865888077199409526


Even if you’re not actively building AI, I think a big part of the metagame today is improving the Universal Prior (data on which AIs are and will be trained). What areas seem really important and why? https://t.co/DlnxGolyYW

Even if you’re not actively building AI, I think a big part of the metagame today is improving the Universal Prior (data on which AIs are and will be trained). What areas seem really important and why? https://x.com/repligate/status/1865856965655527678


@dylanbeynon One simple approach would be measuring d-dimer; it’s a downstream metric of how many blood clots your body has recently dissolved. If it’s high, you probably have excess clotting… there are some more direct measures of clotting also

With ApoB and cholesterol I’d put a little…


@RCarhartHarris You know my thesis (STV & STHR) — I suspect differences in absolute compressibility track differences in the degree to which brains are following the basic “symmetry as homeostatic attractor” algorithm

via https://t.co/1rNw0zdReC https://t.co/nWv2PVC9Gs

@RCarhartHarris You know my thesis (STV & STHR) — I suspect differences in absolute compressibility track differences in the degree to which brains are following the basic “symmetry as homeostatic attractor” algorithm

via https://opentheory.net/Qualia_Formalism_and_a_Symmetry_Theory_of_Valence.pdf https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1866994005000716652/photo/1


@ChrisChipMonk When I did my research I settled on the brand Pure Encapsulations. But it’s expensive and some people have had trouble with counterfeits when ordering from Amazon. A friend is coming out with his own brand soon that I hope to try


@Malcolm_Ocean This tracks! The most important parent-child transmission as ‘how to create safety’ — how (and in what ways) to trust the world

I also think safety is somewhat domain-specific; effective dating as checking which domains someone can create safety in, while showing off your own


Edge City is my favorite event all year

If people want to hang out and talk about research I’ll be there for the duration https://t.co/vFaFWP2gtm

Edge City is my favorite event all year

If people want to hang out and talk about research I’ll be there for the duration https://x.com/JoinEdgeCity/status/1867313282396160335


@cube_flipper mentions HPPD, a rare side effect of psychedelics where psychedelic visuals happen all the time

A simple HPPD explanation from vasocomputation is that psychedelics mess with vascular latches, and HPPD arises when circuits at a certain level in the perceptual… https://t.co/gyZTWTxznk

@cube_flipper mentions HPPD, a rare side effect of psychedelics where psychedelic visuals happen all the time

A simple HPPD explanation from vasocomputation is that psychedelics mess with vascular latches, and HPPD arises when circuits at a certain level in the perceptual… https://x.com/cube_flipper/status/1867317945665564752


@ChrisChipMonk Varies a lot! But I might be spending more time in the Bay


@cube_flipper I’m pretty skeptical of cannabis in general; my sense is chronic use can lead to an ‘unskillful tolerance for uncertainty’ which can express as either lack of drive or schizophrenia (possibly caused by smooth muscle deconditioning). That said there’s huge variance with this stuff


@nopeyoutried @JoinEdgeCity If the brain is like a very complex chladni plate, tension acts like a clamp on the plate which collapses some of its resonant modes

Another way to put this is tension collapses an activity distribution into a (circuit-like) definite state

Neuron-EMF is probably bidirectional


@0xsophiemofie I’ve been training!

But only by accident because I live on a very steep hill now 😂


@davidad Fascinating — I’d take the double-inverse, that ‘qualia bubbles’ are very real+discrete and will be measurable, but every utilitarianism proposed tends to eat the seed corn (neglect the intangibles that support capacity)

https://t.co/lfQr36sWCW

@davidad Fascinating — I’d take the double-inverse, that ‘qualia bubbles’ are very real+discrete and will be measurable, but every utilitarianism proposed tends to eat the seed corn (neglect the intangibles that support capacity)

https://opentheory.net/2024/02/minds-as-hyperspheres-the-equal-extension-thesis-and-its-implications-for-the-framerate-of-consciousness/


@davidad I broadly agree with this; we’d need to recreate agents out of inter-temporal coordination between these moments of experience


@davidad Interesting that Buddhism can be framed as an observation that this inter-temporal coordination is so strong that by default it obscures the ontological disunity of these moments of experience

What makes it so strong?


@davidad I’d separate out the coordination landscape from the ground-truth-of-experience landscape — much of each would be embedded in the other, but for certain questions we can drop one or the other


@davidad Interesting; the sense of self seems to bridge time very effectively though? Ie if you borrowed $5 from me yesterday I’ll naturally feel you owe it to present-or-future-me

Delayed gratification is interesting, probably would need to look at implementation


@davidad I think we’re in agreement; blurring together moments of experience may not be Ontologically or Epistemologically Rigorous but it’s very effective at allowing/cohering agent-like behavior


@QualiaNerd @davidad The metaphor “eating the seed corn” points to consuming resources for immediate benefit rather than investing them in a more leveraged/sustainable way. Arguably it’s a common motif across modernity.

There was a recent essay that argued bed nets were a better utilitarian use of…


@vibepreserver @don_cryptus Some friends have suggested latches=samskaras

The relationship between latches and motivation is really interesting. I like how Nick frames it; I also think extreme motivation can arise from some part of the utility function being latched / unresponsive to increasing results


@cummgroyper1488 Logical structures we design are tautological — definitionally true. But this doesn’t imply they reflect the structure of any particular part of reality


@cummgroyper1488 We can say something is “real” insofar as it is well-defined from multiple frames of reference. This definition is reflexive; a frame of reference is more real insofar as it is shared across multiple observers & is part of a unified, consistent system of frames.

This isn’t quite…


AIs apparently picking up on the Symmetry Theory of Valence https://t.co/L0KRbSX0h5

AIs apparently picking up on the Symmetry Theory of Valence https://x.com/AISafetyMemes/status/1868100071553990814


@vibepreserver @don_cryptus Yes, 100% — I see latches like this as a big driver of suffering and extreme behavior (both positive & negative)


@serjsolarpunk @JoinEdgeCity I’ve written about this briefly here although it deserves more comment https://t.co/QYjVCrwqlp

@serjsolarpunk @JoinEdgeCity I’ve written about this briefly here although it deserves more comment https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1863788946205086154


@ChrisChipMonk @nickcammarata @jonnym1ller @jposhaughnessy Nick is an absolutely amazing friend and downplays how helpful he has been


@nickcammarata @cube_flipper @RichardMCNgo I need to write out a set of predictions; optimistically I think a lot of our neuroimaging tech is good enough to measure latch-related stuff, we just haven’t been looking for it


@36_72541890 I think there’s something interestingly literal going on; aiming for Q2 2025 for this


@findboundary @nickcammarata @RichardMCNgo Hey Aeron, you might enjoy the original writeup, as it covers much of your comment. https://t.co/vzGxzCVukw

Active Inference is a fascinating and beautiful construction. It is also a computational paradigm, and makes limited claims as to how nervous systems could be implementing…

@findboundary @nickcammarata @RichardMCNgo Hey Aeron, you might enjoy the original writeup, as it covers much of your comment. https://opentheory.net/2023/07/principles-of-vasocomputation-a-unification-of-buddhist-phenomenology-active-inference-and-physical-reflex-part-i/

Active Inference is a fascinating and beautiful construction. It is also a computational paradigm, and makes limited claims as to how nervous systems could be implementing…


@findboundary @nickcammarata @RichardMCNgo Thanks for reading. Fwiw I think critique can be made more valuable if it focuses on specific claims/quotes/papers.


Always a true pleasure talking with @jonnym1ller —

Very wide-ranging discussion recorded this summer, broadly about latches/vasocomputation. Looking forward to doing Part 2 https://t.co/Qttf7G7hW6

Always a true pleasure talking with @jonnym1ller —

Very wide-ranging discussion recorded this summer, broadly about latches/vasocomputation. Looking forward to doing Part 2 https://x.com/jonnym1ller/status/1869088895994044808


@exgenesis @embryosophy Unclear if we domesticated mitochondria or they domesticated us


@FlynnDisney1 I do believe that awareness heals; a simple model (that imo isn’t too wrong) is that awareness correlates with bloodflow. Latches prevent bloodflow & local awareness, but if you can bring either into a tissue, this will help open latches there


@findboundary @nickcammarata @RichardMCNgo Aeron, I believe you believe I am constructing an anatomical story about how to implement FEP-AI. As I noted above, vasocomputation offers suggestions for how one could approach this, but the main part of the theory is not this. Part 1 is organized around the concept of tanha,…


@FlynnDisney1 If you release a latch, but the original conditions that created the latch are still there, I expect it to often re-form…

I think this points to something important about meditation — the process itself improves your nervous system, even if it opens latches extremely slowly


@findboundary @nickcammarata @RichardMCNgo Aeron, I think if you want to put this much effort into critique I would recommend focusing on what I actually said :) I still don’t think you’re engaging with the actual paper, more trying to fit it into a shape which it doesn’t try to be


@findboundary @nickcammarata @RichardMCNgo Those quotations were more helpful than the first set, although I’m not sure I see a consistent critique other than I should distinguish between active inference (i.e. the general model that we navigate the world by making predictions, and holding them until we make them true),…


@FlynnDisney1 Thanks! I think that’s right and that in general latches form in reaction to something; downregulating reactivity in general will help. Meditation is an obvious tool but a lot of this also tracks health: a strong nervous system has less need to be reactive or to hold latches


@connor_holly1 @nickcammarata @cube_flipper @RichardMCNgo I absolutely love this. 3,4,5,7,11 seem the most promising to me, although if we have imaging sufficient for 11 I think all of this gets very easy.

Thanks for doing this!


Algorithmic validation of scientific theories is so close to being here… here’s o1-pro on how to test vasocomputation

Imo this list of 11 proposed tests had 5 hits and 6 misses, for a “1st pass basic plausibility” score of 45% https://t.co/XVCvEj07oI

Algorithmic validation of scientific theories is so close to being here… here’s o1-pro on how to test vasocomputation

Imo this list of 11 proposed tests had 5 hits and 6 misses, for a “1st pass basic plausibility” score of 45% https://x.com/connor_holly1/status/1869436000746770675


@FlynnDisney1 Super relevant!


@selentelechia I’ve heard great things about supplementing progesterone in your situation (but make sure it’s bioidentical, the good stuff is made from yams)

Can get from https://t.co/Ha3mtSRtlU or the brand “Progest-E”

@selentelechia I’ve heard great things about supplementing progesterone in your situation (but make sure it’s bioidentical, the good stuff is made from yams)

Can get from https://healthnatura.com or the brand “Progest-E”


@carmenleelau Flirting with the universe


@ChrisChipMonk I think so but step (3) is heterogeneous — and I think this doesn’t really apply to latched tension (smooth muscle’s latch bridge mechanism). I don’t think Reich/Sarno/TRE are fully generalized but they’re pointers to what kind of thing works for latch release

I think the…


@ChrisChipMonk When you notice you’re creating some tension, you can simply stop creating it, or send a message to the muscle to relax.

This doesn’t work with a latch, because the muscle* is chemically glued into a tight state. The “default relaxed rest position” is now partial contraction…


@IAmSaeedreza @JoinEdgeCity I don’t have a certain answer. But if bloodflow (and carbon dioxide) are as important as I believe, I expect practices that are seen as “too intense” for a retreat but improve circulation, like HIIT or breathwork, to rapidly accelerate progress as long as the meditation technique…


@IAmSaeedreza @JoinEdgeCity I need to watch what I say about weight training because I need to get back to doing it. But I think weight training dramatically improves hormones, and having better hormone balance helps everything. I don’t know if it helps release latches in particular; the possible angle…


@IAmSaeedreza @JoinEdgeCity I think there’s some things correct there, but I think it misses something also. I’ve wrote about ADHD here https://t.co/HQ3YJNWcOm

@IAmSaeedreza @JoinEdgeCity I think there’s some things correct there, but I think it misses something also. I’ve wrote about ADHD here https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1712001038423593146


@TylerAlterman @nickcammarata Thanks! I think you’re right and I like the real-shape vs idea-itself distinction… Here’s some previous thoughts I’ve had (via https://t.co/1rNw0zdReC ) https://t.co/sRIWj0V50F

@TylerAlterman @nickcammarata Thanks! I think you’re right and I like the real-shape vs idea-itself distinction… Here’s some previous thoughts I’ve had (via https://opentheory.net/Qualia_Formalism_and_a_Symmetry_Theory_of_Valence.pdf ) https://x.com/johnsonmxe/status/1869868930850042301/photo/1

Tyler is finishing a book, slow to reply


@TylerAlterman @nickcammarata > How can I tell when I'm referencing my natural self-shape rather than an artificial one?

I get the sense that natural self-shapes taste more wholesome when we reference them (they lack a certain weird bad flavor), but in a fish-in-water sense it’s hard to get that first taste


@x_snowfield @drmichaellevin @JoinEdgeCity There’s going to be some interesting patterns yeah

And a return to functional localization, something I did not expect


@yoltartar I think it’s a partial hit — the high res cameras are pretty expensive and you only get the surface. But I hear stories about somatic workers using them to predict where needs attention. Friend has a midrange one so we might try. If anybody else tries please report back!

Further…


@yoltartar That seems right? My expectation is this would generate really cool results, perhaps in proportion to how fine of access one has to jhana


o3 being roughly a 3x improvement over fairly fresh frontier models is a fire alarm for path dependence; if there are philosophical questions we should figure out *before* superhuman intelligence hits, I think now is a good time

I think a lot of philosophy is just “find weird… https://t.co/OhueDPJBuF

o3 being roughly a 3x improvement over fairly fresh frontier models is a fire alarm for path dependence; if there are philosophical questions we should figure out *before* superhuman intelligence hits, I think now is a good time

I think a lot of philosophy is just “find weird… https://x.com/nickcammarata/status/1870215985682362689