WEBVTT

NOTE Machine-generated transcript; not human-reviewed.
NOTE Canonical transcript: https://opentheory.net/transcripts/inner-frontier-latch-hypothesis/

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But it's a curiosity as to where we are, what we are. That existence, the physical universe, is basically playful.

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Welcome to the Curious Humans Podcast. I'm your host, Jonny Miller.

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Hello there, curious humans. Today, I'm super excited to share a conversation that I think

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explores one of the most important scientific questions of our time. I'm speaking with

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the theoretical neuroscientist, Michael Edward Johnson, who after spending seven years researching

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consciousness and writing the book Principia Qualia, has developed a revolutionary theory

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that could change how we understand trauma, meditation, and human flourishing.

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Mike's theory of latches, which we'll be doing a deep dive into,

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may provide a testable and concrete biological mechanism for how trauma gets stored in the body.

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This might sound nerdy and abstract, but I really believe that if his claims can be tested and

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validated, it could revolutionize the medical system and allow the somatic modalities or things

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like MDMA-assisted psychotherapy to be compared and tested side by side for their efficacy.

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Without any further ado from me, I give you this pretty nerdy, in-depth, and utterly fascinating

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conversation with the modern-day polymath, Michael Edward Johnson.

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That's nsmastery.com.

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Welcome to the Curious Humans podcast, Mike. It is a real pleasure to have you here.

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Thanks, Johnny. I'm glad to be here, and it was really great to meet you this summer too.

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How are you feeling?

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I'm feeling in this precise moment in three words.

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A little nervous, centered, and warm.

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Well, the question that I like to start these conversations with is, do you consider yourself

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to have been an exceptionally curious child? And if so, can you recall a story about something that

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you were curious about?

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Ah, interesting. So, the answer is definitely yes. I think that I had this interesting feature

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or drive that I felt that I always had to figure things out by myself to figure out my own way,

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which sometimes was a challenge and sometimes did virtually well.

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Yeah.

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And in terms of just curiosity, I guess I was omnivorous, but I would read literally anything.

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Dictionary is...

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Dictionaries, travel brochures, yeah, just anything.

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That fully tracks with my experience of you today.

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I don't know the backstory here, but how did you find your way into theoretical neuroscience and

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co-founding QualiaResa?

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know the work that you're doing today with open theory what's the what's

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arc of the journey there?

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Yeah, that's an interesting question.

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So I helped my dad out with his algorithmic market trading interest.

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So he's a farmer, he trades the colonies markets.

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I helped a little bit on that.

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So that was right after graduation.

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And then I guess I was just looking around for something that was personally meaningful,

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something that would sort of, I don't know, make everything make sense in a way.

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Or we could also phrase it, I was looking for the biggest dragon to slay.

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So I was looking around.

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And then I found this.

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I got really interested in sort of this question of pain and pleasure, of what makes some things

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feel better than others.

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What is depression?

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What is happiness?

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Etc.

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And I was expecting I could find the right things to read.

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It would take me a few months, and I would sort of understand that.

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And maybe I could contribute a little bit.

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But I really dug into it.

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And the more I read about the topic, the more clear it was to me that everything out there

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was just confused.

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That this was potentially the most important question in the world.

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And people had no clue about even what a proper answer would look like.

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So I was like, okay, I'm going to do this.

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I'm going to figure out how to figure out how to figure out how to figure out how to

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figure out how to figure out how to figure out how to figure out how to figure out how

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to figure out how to figure out how to figure out how to figure out how to figure out how

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to figure out how to figure out how to figure out how to figure out how to figure out how

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to figure out how to figure out how to figure out how to figure out how to figure out

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that if you're really digging into these deep philosophical questions,

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at first, you really need to sort of be a particularly careful philosopher.

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You need to get the metaphysics right.

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You need to sort of understand the role of each kind of word that you're trying to use

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and to understand kind of what kind of question this is or that is and so on

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and what kind of answer you're looking for.

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But I found that the more I dug into it, the less it became philosophy

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and the more it became sort of theoretical neuroscience,

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that if you want to understand these deep questions about the mind,

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eventually you are going to run into questions

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about the mind and the mind is going to run into questions about the mind.

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And of the brain as well.

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So that kind of got into different, I would say, different theories of self-organization

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and sort of the free energy principle and harmonics and whatnot as it applies to the brain.

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Yeah, so I guess that's the super short version.

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But I think when it gets down to it, this has been,

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I think, a very broad and personally exciting quest to understand.

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And if I can help myself, then I can understand, you know,

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what kinds of things humans are in general.

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That's beautiful.

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And that really resonates with, I think, where my curiosity comes from as well.

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And to give some context for this, my desire for this podcast episode

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is to both try and convey just how important I think,

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your research is, and also selfishly better to understand these theories for myself,

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because there's a lot of blind spots in my understanding of your work as well.

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So as a starting point, potentially, when we were in California a few months ago,

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you mentioned fairly offhand that the human nervous system,

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which is something I'm really curious about, is almost like a set of wind chimes.

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Could you share what do you mean by that?

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Right.

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So.

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I think that's a very important thing in, I guess you could say,

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in the system of vessel computation, is that we can sort of

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distinguish stuff that's going on in the nervous system, sort of narrowly defined nerves and neurons, and then things that are happening in the muscular system, and especially the vasomuscular system.

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And both of these sort of have a particular computational role.

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But in terms of the wind chime analogy, I think that essentially, you know, there's just so much data coming in, information coming in, and sort of hitting our nervous system.

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And I think that like a very simple story about the nervous system's role in this is it has a bunch of harmonics.

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It has a bunch of potential ways that it can

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vibrate or resonate or whatnot, and sort of distribute all over the body, but also mostly managed in a way that they're independent.

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Like one pattern won't interfere with another pattern, or if it does, like there's some interesting, useful functional logic to how patterns propagate.

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But so basically, I think of the nervous system itself as this

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very sensitive sort of chimes.

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That as you sort of feel your environment, as information, as data kind of hits, hits

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this system sort of homes in different ways.

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And then based on which residences are present in the system.

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And so I'm sort of imagining sort of a sort of a

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which resonances are absent in the system, you can get a feel for your environment.

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And, you know, I think that we can tell a certain story like this in terms of how the brains,

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like how the visual systems feature detectors work, that light comes in and you have various

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circuits checking for edges and checking for high contrast or checking for like,

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is this a hand and so on. But then also you have kind of, I guess I would say the lower frequency

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harmonics of like, is this a safe situation? Or like, how do I feel right now? And I think that

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this is kind of the same thing, just maybe shifted a few octaves.

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Super interesting. Well, one of the reasons that I'm really excited by your research is that I think,

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at least from my read, it provides a plausible mechanistic theory for how trauma, or I call it

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emotional debt, is stored in the body. Which, as far as I'm aware, is a pretty open question

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in mainstream neuroscience. Like, they haven't really figured this out yet.

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And one of the more famous kind of phrases is the idea of the body keeping the score from

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bandicoot. But no one really understands the mechanism. As a consequence, practitioners like

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myself, it's been very difficult to objectively track progress when it comes to somatic modalities.

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Because they aren't really before and after things besides subjective. Oh, I feel differently,

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or I'm noticing less triggers, et cetera. With that as context, perhaps as a jumping off point,

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could you share the...

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As an overview of the focus of the focus focus focus focus focus focus focus focus focus focus

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of your principles of VASO computation and how you came to even discover it? Where did

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this emerge from in the first place?

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Sure. For any interesting theory, there are so many on-ramps that are possible.

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We can take one on-ramp today and another one tomorrow and so on. But I think that today

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I would tell the story about how we think of the body's intelligence as encoded into our nervous

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system. But actually, I think there are two systems that do global processing like this.

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And the first is the neural system, and the second is the VASO muscular system. So all

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your blood vessels are sort of connected to the nervous system. And so, you can see that

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the nervous system is sort of wrapped in a thin layer of smooth muscle. These are VSMCs,

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vascular smooth muscle cells. And basically, they can contract or relax, or they have a

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smooth muscle has a special third setting that it can latch. And basically, that's glue

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itself into a contracted state. And then you don't have to hold it. It's just that's the default then. And I would say that the role of the vascular system in this sort of computational story is it actively manages the neural system in a way where it steps in and

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micromanages if the neural system is messing up. If the neural default flow dynamics are producing, we can say, prediction errors. And this is a nod to the free energy principle,

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for processing systems

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which is that the neural system is a very complex system. And basically, if your nervous system shows that it cannot be trusted with its full range of freedom, the vasomuscular system will contract, cut off blood flow to different areas of the nervous system, and then basically freeze the pattern in those areas.

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So blood flow varies by a factor of three.

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20 or more in healthy tissue.

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That's wild. I heard you say that before. I had no idea. That's incredible.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this touches on the, it's called the vaso, or it's the

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hemoneural hypothesis by Moore and Kao. That's from 2007 or 2008. And they basically put forth

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this idea that blood flow regulates neural dynamics.

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And basically, the gain of networks, that if some network of neurons, if it has a lot of blood flow, then if it's 20x, it can listen very carefully to what's going on. It can update, it can change. It's very dynamic.

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But then if we dial blood flow down,

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so from 20x to 1x, basically just enough, the trickle that is sufficient to survive, but not sufficient to pay for updating, being very sensitive, etc. Basically, if we starve neurons of blood, they go into safe mode.

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And then they don't update.

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Just whatever pattern that they were using.

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They were holding. They keep holding. Basically, there's sort of a local freeze of pattern there.

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And yeah, basically, whenever the vasomuscular system detects that, okay, there's a problem, the nervous system can't be trusted to have full freedom in this.

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And so, the way that we do it is we'll take the blood flow away.

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We'll freeze the pattern into kind of a known good configuration, a known safe configuration.

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And this engages this special smooth muscle capacity.

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It's called the latch bridge mechanism.

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The myosin and the actin basically get glued together, I think, with phosphate groups.

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And the way that we do it is we'll take the blood flow away.

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But these smooth muscle latches, basically they lock local blood vessels shut.

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And they're also in play in the digestive system and pelvis and bladder and all over.

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But I would be very...

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I think the particularly interesting story here is about latches in the vascular system.

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And so, these latches they can...

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You know, they they may be taken.

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you know a few seconds to minute to to set and a few seconds to minute to dissolve but they can

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last for days weeks months years a whole lifetime so I mean this this idea of or this question of

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how does body keep the score what actually happens I would tell a pretty simple story

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that when when it's seen as needed when you can't or

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have time to address a challenge with high-level strategies when it's sort of life or death or primal or early on in development where we don't have the high-level strategies or so on.

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The nervous system sort of congeals these patches and they can stick with us for a long time.

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Basically, for as long as we have them, then if we want to call them trauma, and I think that's probably fair, the trauma will stay with us.

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One question that's come to mind is, and you've touched on this a little bit, but what do you think is the adaptive reason for these latches locking down?

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Can you just kind of double-click on it?

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Why is it sensible for the body to develop this?

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Is it an evolutionary mechanism?

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Sure, sure.

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So, I think it's an unreasonably effective way to manage the nervous system.

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And we may think very bad thoughts about trauma, that, oh, you know, it's a very bad way of living and being and feeling, and, oh, I wish, you know, you could just open up.

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But from the perspective of evolution, I think it's a very good way to manage the nervous system.

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From the perspective of the body.

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I mean, we're sort of born into sensory chaos, what William James calls looming, buzzing confusion, which is a beautiful phrase.

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And then we have a very strong imperative to make sense of our chaos, to predict our chaos.

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And that's what we're doing.

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And there are so many degrees of freedom in terms of, you know, if you think of all the information that a baby's nervous system is kind of absorbing, you know, there's data from the eyes and data from the ears and data from all the skin sensors and internal data, interoceptive data about what's happening in the stomach and what's happening in the heart and so on.

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It's just a flood of data.

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And, you know, I think it's a very good way to manage that.

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I think that, you know, evolution has needed to sort of take shortcuts and latch the most predictive or safe things that, okay, well, if we sort of remove the ability for this network to dynamically change and we sort of hold it into a pattern, then all the rest of the system gets more predictable.

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And, you know, I think that's a very good way to manage that.

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I think that the more we hold, the more predictable the system gets.

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Now, obviously, we don't want to hold everything and we can't, but it's just a very useful systems intervention to sort of take the variability out of a component.

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Yeah, yeah.

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So that makes complete sense to me.

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And I've recently finished reading Andy Clark's book, The Prediction Machine, which kind of talks about a lot of this as well.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Something that I'm wondering, so now kind of based on what you just shared, I'm wondering

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how do practices such as say breathwork or MGMA assisted psychotherapy, what is the mechanism

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by which they are able to create the conditions for the release of these latches?

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Is it to do with they're almost introducing more chaos into the system such that the current

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way of latching on no longer really makes sense.

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So the body's like, okay, we need any strategy.

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Like we need to do something else.

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Is that roughly what's happening?

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What's your read of how is it that these modalities, particularly let's just use kind of MGMA

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assisted psychotherapy and breathwork for now, how are they able to create the conditions

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for the releasing of these latches?

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Yeah, that's a great question.

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So in terms of the sort of chaos.

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Thesis, we could say.

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I wrote a piece in 2019, Neural Kneeling, where it's sort of a temperature model or

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a thermodynamic model for the brain, for the nervous system, where if you get the sort

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of, we can think of the brain as having a temperature parameter, not a literal temperature

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parameter, but kind of the amount of energy in the system.

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And if that gets above some...

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Certain threshold, we can call that the melting point of brain

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networks. And maybe different networks have different melting points, etc. Then you get sort of entropic disintegration. This is a term used by Robin Carter Harris in his Entropic Brain paper. And then you get reorganization, and then a cooling process, and annealing, which is what happens when you sort of

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cool metal down. You get kind of recrystallization of microstructure.

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This would be one approach to say, okay, well, breathwork increases the temperature parameter. MDMA

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increases the temperature parameter. I'm always interested in exploring new angles. And I would

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get a little bit more specific for psychedelics, such as LSD, maybe MDMA. I'm not sure. I have a

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working-out-of-a-pet hypothesis about MDMA. But basically, I expect them to have

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huge effects on the vascular system. And so for psychedelics specifically,

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basically, these latches, these smooth muscle latches, these glued clenches that sort of are

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restricting blood flow, and then sort of limiting the ability of the network to change. It's

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basically just this hard muscular clench. And it's this question of, well, what releases hard muscular clenches?

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And it's this question of, well, what releases hard muscular clenches?

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And there can be, I think, some dynamics where the most effective

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approach is to cycle. It's like, okay, we have vessel dilators.

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They are chemicals that we know kind of open up blood vessels.

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But I actually think a much more effective way to open these latches is not just slide the system with a

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vessel dilators but also to sort of cycle clench release clench release

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and i think that something like lst may be doing that uh that lst is sort of known as a strong

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vessel constrictor but i think that this is actually just a a slight misnomer because i think

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what to be happening is uh it will produce constriction and then a wave of real action

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and then a wave of constriction wave of real action and you can basically

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randomly pop ledges with this uh with uh very very results we can say

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so a couple of things come to i mean a bunch of things come to mind one is that um

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i noticed in myself like when i

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when i'm in a process i will sometimes start humming and that almost creates more ease and

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i'm aware that humming releases nitric oxide which is also a vasodilator so that kind of

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track like maps into that theory i think one thing that i'm really curious about is

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um it's also very possible without the use of either breath work or any kind of psychedelic

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substance um if there are conditions of sufficient internal and external safety

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and permissioning then these processes and these these like incomplete reflexes that i've studied

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somewhat seem to be able to complete themselves do you have a sense of what might be is there a kind

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of biological correlate to that felt sense of safety which the system is is like the wind

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trine that you mentioned earlier is picking up on and then is allowing this latch to unfold

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what's your sense there yeah that's a that's a good question yeah and

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I understand too I'm sort of

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getting ahead of myself on questions

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you had asked about breath as well

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that's great

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just to touch back briefly

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on breath work

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I think that yeah like humming produces

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NO

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but also breath work

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leads to

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CO2

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build up

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and everyone

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like it's sort of

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health thesis or a common medical thesis that CO2 is bad and that you need a CO2 meter. I actually have a CO2 meter right here, but too much is bad. But I don't know if you're familiar with the work of Ray Peet, a very interesting sort of metabolism-focused biologist.

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He does bioenergetics, I guess I would say, or he recently passed. His thesis is that CO2

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is actually incredibly important for cellular respiration, cellular metabolism, and that

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it can be a problem if we lose too much CO2.

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It increases oxygen uptake via the Bohr effect, if I'm not mistaken. So it actually

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helps the cells to be more oxygenated, counter-intuitively.

289
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Right. And I would say that NO is… I mean, this is a complicated topic, of course,

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but the simple story that I would tell is NO is sort of the emergency release for the

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vascular system, whereas CO2 is the more sustainable release type.

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And so they both have their benefits. But I think that if you suffuse tissue CO2,

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you'll probably just sort of push everything toward relaxation and release. And then if

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you do that, you might sort of pop some arches.

295
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Which explains… I'm remembering in Jamie Weal's recap to the rapture, he has the kind of history of the rapture.

296
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Yeah. So it's like a hedonic engineering protocol where there's breathwork and then

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there's inhaling nitrous oxide or nitric oxide, and it creates this incredible ecstatic,

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deep psychedelic experience. And that's maybe just multiple latches popping.

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So then that brings me to another, I think, really important question, which is that in

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these, let's say, peak states, we can experience what it's like momentarily for these latches

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to be open and for all of this energy to be flowing more naturally. And then when the

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psychedelic or the breathwork wears off, we kind of come back to our normal state. What

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do you think is required for the latch to create a new prediction, I guess, such that

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it is safe to be open permanently? And I guess this connects to the integration phase of

305
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somatic work and things like this.

306
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Sure, sure. So I would say that there can be at least two flavors of

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sort of temporary release, we can say. And the first is where the latch doesn't actually

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open, but a little bit more circulation trickles in. And so, you know, the sort of physical

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latch is still there. The sort of muscle is still gluteshod, but a little bit more blood

310
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gets kind of pushed in.

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Yeah.

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that will sort of give a little bit more activity range back to the network,

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but it will wear off.

314
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This is a very sort of contextual thing.

315
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And then there's the second scenario where you actually pop a latch.

316
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And this is a pretty big deal to pop a latch.

317
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And then maybe everything is more sort of chaotic and vivid and pleasant, but also dangerous.

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And then you sort of reflexively clench.

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You get scared of that sort of freedom slash chaos.

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And you sort of clench back to the pattern that you know.

321
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And maybe that turns into a sustained clench, not a latch.

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Or maybe it just relatches.

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So I do think that sort of, you know, you mentioned this integration processes and so on.

324
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And I think that, yeah, like, it's absolutely essential to sort of be able to ideally give yourself a sense of safety.

325
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Yeah.

326
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Even or especially when things kind of feel good but out of control,

327
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to sort of not sort of

328
00:35:02.240 --> 00:35:27.980
So this is what I'm really keen to explore and talk about with you. What might be some of the implications for these theories? And specifically, if everything that you've said is true and is the case, then you'd think we'd be able to look at, let's say, PTSD trauma survivors, and they would very likely damage their lives.

329
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So, you know, highly restricted blood flow in certain areas compared with control populations or like super advanced meditators. Like, is that something that it seems very testable, right? Can we do that?

330
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Yeah. So it should be extremely testable. And like, I've had discussions about using

331
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something like Doppler ultrasound or fMRI with contrast to sort of track fluid flow around the

332
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find the dark spots, find the black holes, find the places where basically there's only a trickle

333
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of fluid flow. And you can kind of assume, okay, these are the places which sort of are latched.

334
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Blood can't really flow there very easily. So I think that, I mean, making a map like this,

335
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or sort of validating this with neuroimaging, say, okay, you know, this person has PTSD.

336
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We can actually find the places of low circulation. I've heard of sort of body

337
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workers using thermal imaging, higher-res thermal, and basically the places on the outside,

338
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which are cooler and probably getting less circulation. And so I think that would be one

339
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example. So yeah, I think that there are...

340
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There are deep scientific and clinical implications. And there are also implications for sort of...

341
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I'm going to give two threads here. One is mapping personality or mapping agency, rather.

342
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And in terms of like, if your latches are the set of constants in your nervous system,

343
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things that just absolutely...

344
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Yeah.

345
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Will not change until you... And like, I think that probably blood flow and attention

346
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are very coupled. And it would be a lossy summary, but an interesting one to say that

347
00:37:47.460 --> 00:37:51.400
blood flow and attention are kind of the same thing, where there's blood flow, there's tension,

348
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where there's tension, there's blood flow.

349
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That's a big claim. That's...

350
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Yeah.

351
00:37:57.060 --> 00:37:57.680
Yeah. Wow.

352
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Yeah.

353
00:37:59.000 --> 00:38:00.120
Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

354
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If there's not blood flow to an area, you can't put your attention there.

355
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And you just don't have freedom in those networks also. And so if you can sort of

356
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build a full map of someone's body of, okay, here's their nervous system, and here's what

357
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parts of their nervous system are latched.

358
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Yeah.

359
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And you kind of have a map of agency. Here are the things that they can't think about,

360
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they can't feel, they can't change. Here are the places in their body which correspond with

361
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various things in the cognitive and emotional realm where they can't put their attention.

362
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And I think that that would be very valuable to sort of map out a body like that.

363
00:38:59.640 --> 00:39:09.640
And the second topic is kind of poking at this idea of what is classical Buddhist enlightenment.

364
00:39:10.880 --> 00:39:14.760
So I can say a few words there or if you have any questions.

365
00:39:14.880 --> 00:39:18.640
Yeah, well, I mean, I absolutely want to get on both threads. Let's start on the agency

366
00:39:18.640 --> 00:39:23.520
one, because that's something which... Agency was interestingly the common thread that I

367
00:39:23.520 --> 00:39:28.280
came to in my work with Nervous System Mastery. And I have a framework of rise out of reactivity.

368
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we were able to cultivate interoceptive awareness which is certainly correlated with blood flow

369
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um a sense of embodied safety or self-regulation and then emotional fluidity which is another way

370
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of saying how able are you to not clamp down in the midst of some kind of emotional intensity or

371
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wave um and when those pieces are in place like you say there is more there's more freedom between

372
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stimulus and response without the kind of knee-jerk reactive kind of classical reactions

373
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reactions whether it's like emotional reactivity or the classic hyper or hypo arousal which are like the body's protection strategies i guess

374
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So, that to me is fascinating.

375
00:40:13.940 --> 00:40:17.400
If there were some researchers listening to this, and I know that there will be at least

376
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a few, how might you design or suggest that they design an experiment to test this out

377
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and conclusively show that this is the case?

378
00:40:29.220 --> 00:40:31.400
Maybe there's before-after sessions.

379
00:40:32.140 --> 00:40:36.460
You mentioned, I think, before that there might be a distinguishable density signature

380
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associated with these latches.

381
00:40:38.600 --> 00:40:43.360
What would you recommend to some researchers who might want to explore this for themselves?

382
00:40:44.100 --> 00:40:46.100
Yeah, that's a good question.

383
00:40:47.360 --> 00:40:49.180
So just playing up some notes here.

384
00:40:49.180 --> 00:41:01.020
I would say that the four things that one could try to use to sort of map someone's

385
00:41:01.020 --> 00:41:07.220
nervous system, one is Doppler ultrasound, another is fMRI plus contrast.

386
00:41:08.520 --> 00:41:11.160
These are sort of researcher-grade stuff.

387
00:41:12.800 --> 00:41:18.760
Then there's the thermal imaging, which I think is more, you know, hobbyist.

388
00:41:18.780 --> 00:41:19.160
I think it's a good thing.

389
00:41:19.180 --> 00:41:23.900
You can just buy a thermal imager on Amazon or whatever until you're up with it.

390
00:41:25.060 --> 00:41:35.780
And I think if I was a massage therapist, I would sort of try and see if this can predict

391
00:41:36.100 --> 00:41:44.820
the places which are sort of least functional in a person, where they had the least feeling

392
00:41:45.320 --> 00:41:46.200
to or whatever.

393
00:41:46.320 --> 00:41:48.400
And sort of are worth...

394
00:41:49.180 --> 00:41:59.680
I would also say that like a big part of this to...

395
00:41:59.680 --> 00:42:00.260
Okay.

396
00:42:00.320 --> 00:42:09.420
And also if you can sort of do density imaging, probably with ultrasound, of the vasculature,

397
00:42:10.800 --> 00:42:18.920
most probably these smooth muscle latches will have a distinct density signature.

398
00:42:18.920 --> 00:42:19.160
Yeah.

399
00:42:19.180 --> 00:42:21.600
That you should be able to pick up.

400
00:42:24.660 --> 00:42:37.520
I would also say that a lot of this also revolves around not just the latches, sort of crystallized

401
00:42:37.520 --> 00:42:45.440
points of constant pattern in your nervous system, but also your reflexes.

402
00:42:46.420 --> 00:42:49.160
As you were saying, emotional flexes.

403
00:42:49.180 --> 00:42:49.820
Yeah.

404
00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:53.500
And just sort of what is your response reaction?

405
00:42:53.900 --> 00:42:56.980
Can you sort of do this in a better way?

406
00:42:59.840 --> 00:43:06.620
And this actually, I was kind of thinking about, oh, what topics would be fun to discuss

407
00:43:06.620 --> 00:43:07.260
on this podcast?

408
00:43:08.100 --> 00:43:16.920
And there are so many, but one that I've been thinking about a lot recently is...

409
00:43:19.180 --> 00:43:22.980
And I think every tradition is going to have their different terminology here.

410
00:43:24.940 --> 00:43:29.740
I would put it in terms of different forms of virtue.

411
00:43:32.800 --> 00:43:40.000
And I would say that there's a nervous system virtue.

412
00:43:41.740 --> 00:43:46.880
And this is sort of, if you are just in a natural flow state.

413
00:43:47.120 --> 00:43:47.400
Yeah.

414
00:43:50.200 --> 00:43:56.260
and just let the energy go if you just kind of are in the moment.

415
00:43:58.960 --> 00:44:00.580
How trustworthy is that?

416
00:44:01.220 --> 00:44:05.940
Can you trust your nervous system to do that and produce good results?

417
00:44:08.660 --> 00:44:13.620
And your vasomuscular system has a strong opinion on that.

418
00:44:14.080 --> 00:44:18.100
It has a very strong opinion on how virtuous your nervous system is.

419
00:44:18.100 --> 00:44:23.760
And if it has a good opinion, then it'll just kind of hang out.

420
00:44:23.860 --> 00:44:25.580
It'll let you flow.

421
00:44:25.840 --> 00:44:36.000
It'll let you just kind of, you know, energy just kind of naturally manifests

422
00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:38.060
whatever your nervous system wants.

423
00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:46.600
But if it has a bad opinion of this virtue, if it thinks, oh man, like,

424
00:44:48.100 --> 00:44:52.860
I trusted it last year and it caused so much trouble.

425
00:44:53.020 --> 00:44:53.700
Yeah.

426
00:44:54.080 --> 00:44:59.480
And like, or like, you know, I trusted it and then my

427
00:45:00.560 --> 00:45:25.280
fell down and broke his arm and like, no, like we're not gonna sort of trust your natural flow reflexes. We can say we're gonna micromanage. We're gonna make sure we're gonna be a little bit neurotic, but we're gonna make sure that you're safe. And so what I would expect, like I see behavior as kind of this handshake or trade-off between these two systems.

428
00:45:26.500 --> 00:45:55.140
Your nervous system just left to its own devices. It's, it feels very pleasant. It feels very easy. Maybe, maybe it's a little schizo. Maybe it's a little, a little lazy. And maybe sometimes just when, when activity flows through your nervous system, maybe sometimes

429
00:45:56.500 --> 00:46:25.260
bad things happen. Like you get impulsive about this or you, you know, eat a kilo of ice cream or, you know, who knows. And so then when the nerve, when the vessel muscular system kind of has to micromanage this, when it thinks that your nervous system doesn't have, or like lacks some virtue, then you get sort of more controlled feeling, emotion, and so on.

430
00:46:25.280 --> 00:46:54.180
movement, cognition, more neurotic, more anxious, et cetera, but more careful, basically. And so I would expect that the vessel muscular system, like, would be a lot more active in this second scenario, that you're sort of engaging a lot of muscular reflexes that are meant to sort of micromanage neural patterns.

431
00:46:56.080 --> 00:47:15.040
Yeah, I think, to, to a large degree, I think sort of, uh, deep wellbeing comes from turning that system down and also leveling up your nervous system so that you can afford to turn that system down.

432
00:47:16.120 --> 00:47:25.140
Yeah, there's a piece around building capacity, as well as openness. And what, what's come to mind for me is the, the framework of,

433
00:47:25.280 --> 00:47:43.820
um, to me, by me, through me, and as me that are almost like increasing levels of openness or nervous system openness. And I love the idea of like a nervous system virtue as being reflective of to what degree is the vessel muscular system kind of clamping down.

434
00:47:43.880 --> 00:47:54.960
And maybe there's also a kind of a top down, it's like bottom up and top down virtues. And the top down one is more of like, to what degree can you remain in a kind of curious, open,

435
00:47:55.280 --> 00:48:06.460
loving, loving, even courageous awareness of the clamping that may or may not be happening. And it seems like there's, there's this interplay of these two systems happening at the same time.

436
00:48:06.940 --> 00:48:08.800
Yeah, absolutely.

437
00:48:10.240 --> 00:48:15.560
And I also think, I'm sort of very interested in sort of,

438
00:48:17.860 --> 00:48:22.820
If you're aware of the, the clamping,

439
00:48:22.820 --> 00:48:24.280
the lump,

440
00:48:24.360 --> 00:48:24.520
like,

441
00:48:25.280 --> 00:48:34.200
feel latches can you feel them when can you sort of create a menu option of okay some trauma

442
00:48:34.200 --> 00:48:42.280
happened or like some some sort of very painful thing happened and now i feel like oh there's like

443
00:48:42.280 --> 00:48:49.140
there's a pain in my heart and like this sensation that i i sort of connect with

444
00:48:49.140 --> 00:48:56.320
maybe this could be a latch forming and then if i let it form i'll be more closed

445
00:48:57.900 --> 00:49:08.300
uh maybe i can choose to just feel the pain sit with the pain accept the pain not create the latch

446
00:49:08.960 --> 00:49:16.060
so what one two things come to mind one is um i have a very visceral kind of memory of that exact

447
00:49:16.060 --> 00:49:18.640
experience i was kind of

448
00:49:19.140 --> 00:49:24.440
like a year into a grieving process and i remember approaching this memorial bench

449
00:49:24.440 --> 00:49:30.640
and this like these like waves of intensity kind of came through and at a certain point it felt

450
00:49:30.640 --> 00:49:36.640
like something just like imploded internally and this huge amount of energy was released through me

451
00:49:36.640 --> 00:49:45.140
and it didn't even it didn't even feel bad or it was almost more akin to ecstasy and rapture and

452
00:49:45.140 --> 00:49:48.240
joy what do you think is happening there when this

453
00:49:48.240 --> 00:49:49.120
you know

454
00:49:49.140 --> 00:49:55.260
this torrent of energy is being released in the system and and and perhaps an even more challenging

455
00:49:55.260 --> 00:50:00.000
question is like because i still don't have a good answer for this but like what what the heck

456
00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:06.760
that energy? What is that experience that we have when these things happen, to the best of your understanding?

457
00:50:08.240 --> 00:50:26.000
I suspect that if it's a discontinuous experience, that something happened and then this energy came and it was very intense, I would suspect that that would be a latch opening.

458
00:50:28.900 --> 00:50:43.240
Another way to frame that is you gave enough evidence to your vasomuscular system that you could handle it. You could handle freedom in that matter.

459
00:50:43.300 --> 00:50:55.800
That's interesting. It's almost like you have to show to your vasomuscular system that you are trustworthy of being able to have ownership or stewardship of this much capacity or this much energy.

460
00:50:56.180 --> 00:50:56.740
Yes.

461
00:50:56.900 --> 00:50:57.460
Interesting.

462
00:50:58.060 --> 00:51:13.880
One question that Oshan Jaro shared, which I think is relevant to bring up here, is he had this sense that there's probably lots of priors and latches in our system, many of which are likely very useful.

463
00:51:14.740 --> 00:51:24.000
What are the markers that differentiate between unhelpful or maladaptive latches versus those which are actually still serving us? Is there a distinction that you have there?

464
00:51:25.460 --> 00:51:27.560
I would have to say that the…

465
00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:57.160
The logic of the body is sometimes strange. That maybe there'll be some sense of, oh, I have to keep this muscle clenched or else something bad will happen. And then if you investigate, okay, well, what do I feel? What bad thing would happen if I released this? And then if you can successfully ask your body that and get a feeling and response.

466
00:51:57.320 --> 00:51:57.840
Yes.

467
00:51:58.500 --> 00:52:19.080
The answer might be kind of bonkers, might be nuts. And it's like, no, I don't have to worry about that body. But we do have to respect the body's logic too. I think to answer this question, I'm going to transition to this second thread.

468
00:52:19.360 --> 00:52:22.540
Great. I was about to kind of bring us there as well. Let's get that.

469
00:52:22.540 --> 00:52:22.840
Nice.

470
00:52:23.220 --> 00:52:23.740
Yeah, yeah.

471
00:52:24.300 --> 00:52:24.740
Perfect.

472
00:52:25.180 --> 00:52:27.400
So a very simple story about…

473
00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:38.640
um these these latches and we can say radical well-being is once again we're sort of born into

474
00:52:38.640 --> 00:52:48.060
sensory chaos um everything is happening all at once and it's very confusing and we have

475
00:52:48.060 --> 00:53:01.140
tons of predictioners and uh sort of to become functional in this uh the body sometimes kind of

476
00:53:01.700 --> 00:53:12.200
gets a little greedy we can say or like uses the this very simple ancestral approach of uh finding

477
00:53:13.940 --> 00:53:17.120
places to pinch uh it sort of

478
00:53:17.520 --> 00:53:17.960
make

479
00:53:18.060 --> 00:53:23.060
the rest of the system more stable and you know i i would expect

480
00:53:25.380 --> 00:53:31.240
uh you know especially around the age of one and a half and had two years old and i think uh romeo

481
00:53:31.240 --> 00:53:38.040
has talked about this as well but basically you know a lot of latches get get set up and

482
00:53:39.200 --> 00:53:46.180
mostly they're very useful uh and i i think especially like we talk about the self horizon

483
00:53:46.590 --> 00:53:47.140
in this

484
00:53:48.060 --> 00:53:54.100
time frame and uh you know the the thing that the buddhists say so many bad things

485
00:53:54.100 --> 00:54:03.020
about um but it's it's sometimes useful so very very useful generally yeah it's a

486
00:54:04.580 --> 00:54:14.000
it's predictive it's defensible uh if you're sort of in some sort of adversarial social uh

487
00:54:14.620 --> 00:54:18.040
interaction then like yeah you you have to have a certain sort of

488
00:54:18.060 --> 00:54:33.640
you better have a self to be able to sort of maintain as invariant the things that are good for you to have.

489
00:54:39.700 --> 00:54:50.940
But I mean, evolution is like this sort of reflexive clenching, sort of cringing into certainty, we can say.

490
00:54:51.770 --> 00:55:00.000
And a clench and a cringe and a flinch, all kind of the same basic reflex, kind of, you can say, the

491
00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:19.600
The first muscle reflex. It's the base. And it's sort of the reflex that the system is built from. That we find a safe pattern and we grab and we clench it and keep it. Or like we find something useful and we keep it that way.

492
00:55:20.680 --> 00:55:36.340
And then, you know, okay, and we're two and we have a lot of these. We sort of have learned to grab this and we keep it and maybe we hold it tight enough that it latches on. And we grab this and we keep it and it latches on.

493
00:55:37.440 --> 00:55:47.980
And then we grow up. And we use these in many, many circumstances.

494
00:55:49.700 --> 00:55:59.200
And maybe often they're helpful and sometimes they prevent us from, you know, our sort of full freedom. But they help us survive.

495
00:56:00.700 --> 00:56:13.720
Then we can say, and we can phrase this in terms of personal development or just, you know, you hit, you know, 2025 and you get a new toolset.

496
00:56:14.160 --> 00:56:19.580
You get a toolset of high-level moves to the next level.

497
00:56:19.600 --> 00:56:20.340
And then you can start to manage uncertainty.

498
00:56:22.120 --> 00:56:36.180
And these moves are much more nuanced and careful and rich and multidimensional than the sort of plunge or like, you know, flinch into certainty.

499
00:56:38.580 --> 00:56:47.060
And you can start sort of managing ambivalence and uncertainty with these sort of higher-level tools.

500
00:56:47.240 --> 00:56:49.520
And we can talk about, you know, Keegan levels.

501
00:56:49.600 --> 00:56:52.380
And we can Keegan 3, Keegan 4, Keegan 5, whatever.

502
00:56:52.580 --> 00:56:55.540
Yeah. Just like one question there.

503
00:56:55.780 --> 00:57:11.360
Do you think, and I imagine the answer is yes, what is the connection between like these latches and certain beliefs or, you know, people who have a tendency to go into binary thinking or to have a very low tolerance to be with uncertainty?

504
00:57:11.520 --> 00:57:19.120
Do you think that that is almost like a correlatory latch in their system that is related to their inability to be with the uncertainty?

505
00:57:20.020 --> 00:57:20.500
Sure.

506
00:57:21.240 --> 00:57:22.680
It definitely could be.

507
00:57:22.780 --> 00:57:25.160
I mean, it's going to be a little bit different in each circumstance.

508
00:57:25.440 --> 00:57:44.940
But I could see that, yeah, I mean, if you have a latch on some felt sense, on some feeling, on some sort of small network, and then someone is talking about a concept that maybe touches on this pattern.

509
00:57:46.700 --> 00:57:49.320
But it's like it would need.

510
00:57:49.380 --> 00:57:49.580
Yeah.

511
00:57:49.600 --> 00:57:54.620
That network to be holding a different pattern.

512
00:57:55.360 --> 00:58:02.240
It's like you're holding a certain pattern and that maybe is has latched and it's basically a permanent part of your identity.

513
00:58:02.320 --> 00:58:05.560
And you do very physically, physiologically.

514
00:58:06.440 --> 00:58:12.000
You can't change that thought for as long as the latch is there.

515
00:58:12.180 --> 00:58:15.700
It's like maybe you can like to instruct some complex.

516
00:58:16.980 --> 00:58:19.500
A re-inclin of your nervous system.

517
00:58:19.500 --> 00:58:22.600
where you can like uh act as

518
00:58:22.600 --> 00:58:22.680
Yeah.

519
00:58:22.680 --> 00:58:23.240
As if you can.

520
00:58:23.800 --> 00:58:31.380
But it always sorts of collapses and like says, okay, like there's just no freedom there.

521
00:58:31.480 --> 00:58:34.420
There's no it's not negotiable.

522
00:58:35.160 --> 00:58:36.400
It's a physical thing.

523
00:58:39.120 --> 00:58:49.240
And when someone's attention is pointed at something that is latched, that's actually a really unpleasant thing.

524
00:58:51.640 --> 00:58:56.480
Because it's like, no, they like literally can't put their attention there.

525
00:58:58.700 --> 00:58:59.980
It's latched.

526
00:59:00.140 --> 00:59:01.740
The blood won't physically go there.

527
00:59:02.780 --> 00:59:10.620
And so then you get sort of deflection, projection, many of these sort of psychological defense mechanisms.

528
00:59:13.780 --> 00:59:19.220
And, you know, I think it's part of the challenge.

529
00:59:19.240 --> 00:59:22.120
Being a human and living with other humans.

530
00:59:22.380 --> 00:59:29.180
Like some things are just not easily negotiated.

531
00:59:30.140 --> 00:59:36.240
They're more sort of held at a physical level rather than a useful psychological level.

532
00:59:36.540 --> 00:59:37.040
Yeah.

533
00:59:37.520 --> 00:59:46.800
I'm really curious to unpack a little bit more of the idea of attention basically being highly connected with blood flow in the system.

534
00:59:46.800 --> 00:59:52.280
And I'm thinking of my friend Michael who has, he's an Alexander technique kind of practitioner.

535
00:59:52.340 --> 00:59:59.860
And the idea of when we expand our awareness and we become aware of the space behind us, the sides of us, in front of us, there is this sense

536
01:00:00.000 --> 01:00:17.820
of ease and effortlessness and relaxation. Is it really as simple, like is a lot of meditative practice, for example, in the beginning especially, just learning to direct blood flow around the body? Is it that simple?

537
01:00:17.820 --> 01:00:36.320
I would expect that. Actually, this June, I had a conversation with someone who had done a lot of meditation, and he literally had to stop because there was this maybe too much blood flow.

538
01:00:39.160 --> 01:00:45.420
Blood flow is kind of a lens of attention, and the more blood flow there is somewhere, then

539
01:00:45.420 --> 01:00:54.800
the more differentially amplified that region of the brain is. He said he would just get this

540
01:00:54.800 --> 01:01:04.180
sensation of this ball of blood in his head, and he just had to stop because he didn't know what was

541
01:01:04.180 --> 01:01:12.880
going on, and he had to sort of lean into that. I think it's a rare occurrence. I don't think

542
01:01:12.880 --> 01:01:14.420
people would question it. Yeah, yeah.

543
01:01:15.420 --> 01:01:18.460
That brings me to, and maybe this will kind of bring us back towards the

544
01:01:19.320 --> 01:01:24.540
enlightenment track that I'd love to speak to you about, but something that I was thinking

545
01:01:24.540 --> 01:01:29.640
about yesterday as I was anticipating this conversation is, and I've had many people

546
01:01:29.640 --> 01:01:37.960
ask me the question of like, what is qi or prana or energy in the system? From my kind

547
01:01:37.960 --> 01:01:44.760
of lived experience, it almost seems as if there's two vectors. One is arousal energy,

548
01:01:44.880 --> 01:01:45.400
which kind of is the energy that's going to be in the system, and the other is the energy that's going

549
01:01:46.420 --> 01:01:52.020
chi prana which also has corresponding connections to nerve clusters in the central channel generally

550
01:01:52.020 --> 01:01:59.120
for me higher arousal is more kind of head neck chest and heart and then lower arousal more belly

551
01:01:59.120 --> 01:02:04.540
pelvic floor um that that kind of area and that also correlates to some degree with the jhanas

552
01:02:04.540 --> 01:02:12.700
as well which which we haven't touched on yet um so yeah what is energy and and would you say

553
01:02:12.700 --> 01:02:18.740
is the experience of because it seems like there is literal energy like volts of energy going

554
01:02:18.740 --> 01:02:23.360
through the nervous system but then there's also our experience of that which it sounds like you're

555
01:02:23.360 --> 01:02:32.880
saying is increased um blood flow into these areas sure it's a it's a great question uh

556
01:02:32.880 --> 01:02:40.960
i think that uh i mean i'm sort of answering from a position of curiosity here uh

557
01:02:41.600 --> 01:02:42.620
but i would say

558
01:02:42.700 --> 01:02:48.780
that uh first of all i would expect that to understand energy in the body

559
01:02:48.780 --> 01:02:55.920
we should have kind of a short list of the most electrically active cells

560
01:02:57.240 --> 01:03:01.660
and in terms of you know what cells have the biggest polarity from

561
01:03:01.660 --> 01:03:08.840
from inside to outside a negative charge inside and charge outside so and and also sort of

562
01:03:08.840 --> 01:03:12.580
communication um and just kind of have

563
01:03:12.700 --> 01:03:14.380
big of a splash they make in the

564
01:03:14.380 --> 01:03:16.700
EM field when they fire, when they discharge.

565
01:03:17.300 --> 01:03:18.460
And, I mean,

566
01:03:18.500 --> 01:03:20.660
neurons have a very strong EM

567
01:03:20.660 --> 01:03:22.600
signature, but

568
01:03:22.600 --> 01:03:24.200
actually, heart muscle

569
01:03:24.200 --> 01:03:26.520
has a stronger signature.

570
01:03:26.820 --> 01:03:27.620
A much...

571
01:03:27.620 --> 01:03:30.220
37 feet or something, I think the heart

572
01:03:30.220 --> 01:03:31.260
sends out?

573
01:03:31.620 --> 01:03:34.260
It's crazy. Somewhere between

574
01:03:34.260 --> 01:03:35.760
4x to

575
01:03:36.560 --> 01:03:38.460
10x, the magnetic

576
01:03:38.460 --> 01:03:39.220
field of the brain.

577
01:03:40.680 --> 01:03:42.080
Very, very strong.

578
01:03:42.840 --> 01:03:44.640
And I would also say that

579
01:03:45.400 --> 01:03:46.400
fascia and

580
01:03:46.400 --> 01:03:48.480
collagen are

581
01:03:48.480 --> 01:03:50.200
sort of very

582
01:03:51.420 --> 01:03:52.620
electrically relevant

583
01:03:52.620 --> 01:03:54.760
cells, or like

584
01:03:54.760 --> 01:03:55.320
tissue types.

585
01:03:56.740 --> 01:03:57.660
And so,

586
01:04:01.120 --> 01:04:02.700
I'm not going to give

587
01:04:02.700 --> 01:04:04.600
a full answer at this point.

588
01:04:04.960 --> 01:04:06.720
Some things are still in the oven

589
01:04:06.720 --> 01:04:07.820
and cooking, but

590
01:04:08.860 --> 01:04:10.260
I would expect that

591
01:04:10.260 --> 01:04:10.940
sort of

592
01:04:12.080 --> 01:04:12.680
EM

593
01:04:12.700 --> 01:04:14.500
if we understand this as

594
01:04:14.500 --> 01:04:15.040
sort of

595
01:04:16.360 --> 01:04:18.500
the shape of electrical charge

596
01:04:18.500 --> 01:04:18.980
in the body

597
01:04:20.180 --> 01:04:21.900
and the amount,

598
01:04:22.660 --> 01:04:23.920
we might say,

599
01:04:24.480 --> 01:04:25.380
roughly speaking,

600
01:04:26.200 --> 01:04:28.600
if we could measure the voltage

601
01:04:28.600 --> 01:04:30.040
potential, the differential

602
01:04:30.040 --> 01:04:31.280
in charge between

603
01:04:31.280 --> 01:04:33.760
the inside

604
01:04:33.760 --> 01:04:36.520
and the outside of

605
01:04:37.960 --> 01:04:38.780
I'm going to

606
01:04:38.780 --> 01:04:39.880
punt and say the energy body.

607
01:04:40.080 --> 01:04:40.480
Or like,

608
01:04:40.580 --> 01:04:41.920
you know,

609
01:04:42.700 --> 01:04:44.280
measure key parts in the brain,

610
01:04:44.440 --> 01:04:45.380
like the inside of the brain,

611
01:04:45.480 --> 01:04:45.880
the outside.

612
01:04:46.140 --> 01:04:48.200
This came up in discussion with

613
01:04:48.200 --> 01:04:49.060
Max Odeck,

614
01:04:50.020 --> 01:04:51.560
but also, you know,

615
01:04:51.560 --> 01:04:52.800
in the heart as well.

616
01:04:54.220 --> 01:04:54.740
Basically,

617
01:04:56.220 --> 01:04:57.920
the amount of voltage potential

618
01:04:58.540 --> 01:05:00.000
may correspond with the

619
01:05:00.080 --> 01:05:01.300
intensity of the experience.

620
01:05:01.660 --> 01:05:07.860
And so, if you're having a very intense experience, there's probably a higher voltage of potential

621
01:05:08.380 --> 01:05:12.220
between sort of your core and your outside.

622
01:05:12.840 --> 01:05:14.920
And I mean, this would be very testable.

623
01:05:17.480 --> 01:05:24.720
I would anticipate that this would sort of go down over age, with age, go up with some

624
01:05:24.720 --> 01:05:35.580
sort of tense experiences, go up with psychedelics, go up when, I guess, this gets into the enlightenment.

625
01:05:37.180 --> 01:05:39.660
So, yeah, let's go there.

626
01:05:41.460 --> 01:05:47.600
And perhaps, like, where my curiosity, I have many curiosities, but the question's coming

627
01:05:47.600 --> 01:05:54.700
up at the moment is, like, is there a difference between someone who has experienced, like,

628
01:05:54.720 --> 01:05:59.780
an experience, let's say, abiding, kind of classical awakening, like, kind of their

629
01:05:59.780 --> 01:06:08.380
default state is more or less in a non-dual state, versus being relatively free of latches?

630
01:06:08.400 --> 01:06:14.320
Because I've met people who have, you know, have had that experience of being in non-abiding

631
01:06:14.320 --> 01:06:19.620
awakening, but they still have nervous system challenges, let's say, and, like, things,

632
01:06:19.700 --> 01:06:24.460
traumas will arise at the same time, but they're more able to kind of have a much greater

633
01:06:24.720 --> 01:06:26.080
distance from it.

634
01:06:26.240 --> 01:06:33.500
So what's your sense of the connection between the process and the journey of awakening versus

635
01:06:34.300 --> 01:06:34.860
latches?

636
01:06:35.380 --> 01:06:35.940
Sure.

637
01:06:36.140 --> 01:06:37.380
Yeah, that's a good question.

638
01:06:38.040 --> 01:06:44.560
And this should get back to this idea that there are multiple kinds of virtue, that we

639
01:06:44.560 --> 01:06:51.540
can say it's, I don't know if it's a virtue, but it's a good thing, ultimately, all else

640
01:06:51.540 --> 01:06:52.020
being equal.

641
01:06:52.820 --> 01:06:53.380
Yes.

642
01:06:53.460 --> 01:06:53.840
You know.

643
01:06:54.720 --> 01:06:55.240
So, you are latches.

644
01:06:55.240 --> 01:06:56.000
You have a near system.

645
01:06:57.280 --> 01:06:59.180
It lets you feel more alive.

646
01:06:59.680 --> 01:07:06.000
It lets you sort of access more cognitive, emotional freedom, behavioral freedom.

647
01:07:07.420 --> 01:07:09.020
You can be anything.

648
01:07:09.220 --> 01:07:10.520
You feel free.

649
01:07:11.120 --> 01:07:11.760
Everything's on the menu.

650
01:07:12.560 --> 01:07:13.660
Things are more vivid.

651
01:07:14.820 --> 01:07:16.560
Probably time passes slower.

652
01:07:16.900 --> 01:07:20.260
I mean, the benefits go on and on.

653
01:07:22.200 --> 01:07:22.760
But.

654
01:07:24.720 --> 01:07:31.780
You can have, you know, few latches in your system, relatively speaking, but yet be very

655
01:07:31.780 --> 01:07:32.260
reactive.

656
01:07:33.500 --> 01:07:40.560
You can, you can sort of have a nervous system, your vascular system doesn't trust, and you

657
01:07:40.560 --> 01:07:44.180
get these sort of strong reactions and uncontrollable reactions.

658
01:07:45.840 --> 01:07:54.180
And these are not exactly apples and oranges, because, you know, that they're like strong,

659
01:07:54.280 --> 01:07:54.700
like, strong.

660
01:07:54.720 --> 01:08:00.160
And, you know, reflexive, like, reflexive reactions often will lead to latches.

661
01:08:00.660 --> 01:08:03.520
But if you sort of.

662
01:08:05.740 --> 01:08:12.240
Focused your self development on opening latches, but not sort of toning down your reflexes

663
01:08:12.240 --> 01:08:18.960
or not nervous system virtue, then you could kind of take this track of, well, yeah, few

664
01:08:18.960 --> 01:08:19.540
latches.

665
01:08:19.560 --> 01:08:19.840
But.

666
01:08:20.100 --> 01:08:21.400
A lot of sort of.

667
01:08:22.260 --> 01:08:22.820
Strong.

668
01:08:24.140 --> 01:08:24.700
Reflexive.

669
01:08:27.000 --> 01:08:27.320
InScripts.

670
01:08:30.060 --> 01:08:30.780
InScripts.

671
01:08:33.140 --> 01:08:33.860
InScripts.

672
01:08:33.860 --> 01:08:38.100
sort of the, I want to say

673
01:08:38.120 --> 01:08:38.840
InScripts.

674
01:08:41.560 --> 01:08:42.280
InScripts.

675
01:08:42.280 --> 01:08:45.340
idea that when you're

676
01:08:45.340 --> 01:08:46.060
InScripts.

677
01:08:47.820 --> 01:08:48.500
InScripts.

678
01:08:49.560 --> 01:08:50.280
InScripts.

679
01:08:51.900 --> 01:08:52.620
InScripts.

680
01:08:54.260 --> 01:08:54.800
InScripts.

681
01:08:54.800 --> 01:09:00.080
more tools, you can sort of use these high level approaches to

682
01:09:00.080 --> 01:09:06.940
manage situations in ways that can sort of not require these

683
01:09:06.940 --> 01:09:15.560
touches. However, if you've made it to 2025 30, whatever, you

684
01:09:15.560 --> 01:09:20.120
basically just have this sort of foundation of latch networks.

685
01:09:20.120 --> 01:09:29.220
And then sort of the the healing journey, we can say, or the sort of

686
01:09:29.220 --> 01:09:36.760
more classical Buddhist approach as well involves Okay, let's let's open

687
01:09:36.760 --> 01:09:46.780
these up and get my freedom back, basically. And I see this as a, like, I

688
01:09:46.780 --> 01:09:50.100
think the Buddhist way is, is long, but it's not as long as the Buddhist

689
01:09:52.440 --> 01:09:55.040
safe and good.

690
01:09:56.000 --> 01:09:56.880
It's sort of

691
01:09:56.880 --> 01:09:59.220
you trust the body

692
01:09:59.220 --> 01:09:59.900
of

693
01:10:00.000 --> 01:10:27.820
when to open. You're not sort of doing crazy drugs to try these open. I see the process of meditation as, I mean, first of all, okay, you have all these slashes, kind of hard constants in your nervous system, which we can call the self. And then, okay, you go to a very safe environment,

694
01:10:28.700 --> 01:10:57.840
so a nice meditation hall. You have a teacher that you trust, and you kind of do the process. And maybe it takes some years, many retreats. You go on a two-month retreat, and you get symmetry. And basically, I think to dig into the technical process,

695
01:11:00.280 --> 01:11:27.600
I can speak very narrowly and from a place of humility about an inspiration, we can say, in terms of the posthumous insight meditation. So, my teacher is Anthony Markwell. He describes it as you're present, you're not in the future, you're not the past, but you're in the present moment. You're inside.

696
01:11:28.180 --> 01:11:43.540
You're in general. You're not trying to put your attention out there. You're in here. And then you're centered. And by centered, he means not trying to chase good feelings, not trying to run away from bad feelings.

697
01:11:45.180 --> 01:11:56.700
And then, with this foundation, you try to develop a noting practice, where you sort of try to notice each sensation.

698
01:11:56.760 --> 01:11:57.980
Often, you'll have to draw them out.

699
01:11:58.000 --> 01:12:09.000
focusing on the breath and you inhale the rising and falling as well. And so you note

700
01:12:09.000 --> 01:12:14.680
the sensation and then you try to know the sensation, you try to kind of fully feel the

701
01:12:14.680 --> 01:12:25.240
sensation and you let it go and do with the next one. And to put this in a Bayesian frame

702
01:12:25.240 --> 01:12:37.680
here, you're sort of, I mean, first of all, the safe environment says, okay, it's safe to

703
01:12:37.680 --> 01:12:48.600
experiment a little bit here. And then with the noting practice, I mean, you're sort of dialing

704
01:12:48.600 --> 01:12:55.220
down, all this practice dials down your vascular reflexes. You're not trying to

705
01:12:55.240 --> 01:13:04.160
control your sensations. You're just trying to feel them. But then I think if you actually

706
01:13:04.160 --> 01:13:13.340
follow through on this practice, you get really weird sensations, really sort of, you get to a

707
01:13:13.340 --> 01:13:24.200
pretty strange place. And in a Bayesian frame, I think you're basically showing your nervous

708
01:13:24.200 --> 01:13:24.560
system.

709
01:13:24.560 --> 01:13:31.660
wildly out of distribution data. data, that it is absolutely failing to predict.

710
01:13:33.380 --> 01:13:43.080
And then you're saying, okay, nervous system, you didn't see this coming. Like this, this is,

711
01:13:43.120 --> 01:13:50.580
you're totally failing at predicting this, but maybe if you opened a few latches,

712
01:13:51.280 --> 01:13:54.680
you could predict it. It wouldn't be out of distribution.

713
01:13:55.240 --> 01:14:06.900
It would be, uh, sort of predictable and it's not trying to force these latches open, but it is

714
01:14:06.900 --> 01:14:11.740
trying to tease, teasing. Yeah. It's like the, the Huxley's doors of perception, like the aperture

715
01:14:11.740 --> 01:14:17.900
opens a few degrees more to let in even more of the, the, the chaos outside.

716
01:14:18.620 --> 01:14:20.500
Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

717
01:14:20.860 --> 01:14:23.340
And I think that, uh, I mean, in, in result,

718
01:14:26.680 --> 01:14:30.940
you don't suddenly become a perfect person, but

719
01:14:33.740 --> 01:14:37.940
by, by all accounts, it's a significant step change.

720
01:14:39.560 --> 01:14:43.020
Yes. If you can kind of, and I, I think that there's like,

721
01:14:45.380 --> 01:14:52.200
there's a lot of, it's, it's like that. Uh, I think it's toast. I quote, um,

722
01:14:53.640 --> 01:14:55.220
all happy families are alive.

723
01:14:55.240 --> 01:14:58.480
Like all unhappy families are unhappy in their own way.

724
01:15:00.000 --> 01:15:12.220
can kind of adapt it to nervous systems and say, all unhappy nervous systems are unhappy

725
01:15:14.120 --> 01:15:15.640
in their own ways.

726
01:15:16.600 --> 01:15:29.600
And it can take many, many, many years until people can even begin a recognizable meditative

727
01:15:29.600 --> 01:15:29.920
path.

728
01:15:30.520 --> 01:15:40.000
And maybe that's their particular set of latches that they have to work through and their reflexes

729
01:15:40.000 --> 01:15:42.460
and so on.

730
01:15:42.460 --> 01:15:50.500
But then it's this funnel where things become more and more similar as you're sort of digging

731
01:15:50.500 --> 01:15:55.100
into these sort of nigh-universal latches that almost everyone has.

732
01:15:55.420 --> 01:16:00.240
One curiosity I have, internal family systems is becoming increasingly popular,

733
01:16:00.360 --> 01:16:01.880
certainly in the circles that I'm in.

734
01:16:02.140 --> 01:16:09.200
And I'm wondering if what Dick Schwartz labels as the protector parts, like the firefighters,

735
01:16:09.600 --> 01:16:10.120
et cetera.

736
01:16:10.120 --> 01:16:17.360
Is he just describing different types of latches that we're then able to kind of have a dialogue

737
01:16:17.360 --> 01:16:20.800
with and we experience as being like two parts in tension?

738
01:16:21.980 --> 01:16:27.620
I might suggest that he's not necessarily describing different kinds of latches,

739
01:16:27.680 --> 01:16:30.280
but different kinds of reflexes.

740
01:16:30.620 --> 01:16:33.820
Different kinds of vasomuscular reflexes.

741
01:16:35.790 --> 01:16:40.100
There's going to be a pretty wide spectrum of reflexes.

742
01:16:40.120 --> 01:16:44.660
There's going to be a set of strategies to sort of reduce uncertainty.

743
01:16:46.180 --> 01:16:46.840
Respiratory chair.

744
01:16:47.460 --> 01:16:47.900
Yeah.

745
01:16:47.960 --> 01:16:53.120
And those could be things like the developmental reflexes that like the Landau reflex.

746
01:16:53.300 --> 01:16:58.860
We kind of learned these in our breathwork training that sometimes can become, what's

747
01:16:58.860 --> 01:16:59.160
the word?

748
01:17:00.020 --> 01:17:02.960
Basically just like stuck and incomplete.

749
01:17:03.340 --> 01:17:06.620
And then again, through this process, they can be completed.

750
01:17:06.780 --> 01:17:10.100
So it seems like there's both incomplete reflexes and latches.

751
01:17:10.120 --> 01:17:12.780
And those are two separate but related things.

752
01:17:14.220 --> 01:17:14.740
Yeah.

753
01:17:16.160 --> 01:17:23.960
I mean, it's interesting to dig into that and to what degree are they fully separate

754
01:17:24.340 --> 01:17:25.740
or could be overlapping.

755
01:17:26.040 --> 01:17:35.800
So one example is like if I turn a burner on and start cooking something, I'll hold

756
01:17:35.800 --> 01:17:39.920
something in my nervous system until I turn the burner off.

757
01:17:40.020 --> 01:17:40.100
Yeah.

758
01:17:40.120 --> 01:17:41.920
I'll be like, okay, I got to remember this.

759
01:17:42.040 --> 01:17:43.180
Like I have to burn it off.

760
01:17:45.800 --> 01:17:47.820
And it's like very useful to do that.

761
01:17:47.820 --> 01:17:48.980
I've forgotten that many times.

762
01:17:49.060 --> 01:17:52.040
It's in my wife's frustration.

763
01:17:53.100 --> 01:17:53.540
Yeah.

764
01:17:54.780 --> 01:17:55.220
Yeah.

765
01:17:55.320 --> 01:18:00.920
I think that like step one in exploring this is like respecting the body of like, okay,

766
01:18:00.980 --> 01:18:04.240
there's some logic of what it does.

767
01:18:04.360 --> 01:18:07.880
And so, yeah, like I sort of naturally reflexively hold this.

768
01:18:07.880 --> 01:18:10.620
And then I turn the burner off.

769
01:18:10.800 --> 01:18:17.100
I can let go of that thing, whatever that I'm holding, some tension.

770
01:18:17.720 --> 01:18:23.200
And then I can go about the next steps.

771
01:18:24.400 --> 01:18:29.300
But some things I would expect that you never get that release.

772
01:18:30.820 --> 01:18:32.560
And you just kind of hold.

773
01:18:32.920 --> 01:18:34.860
And there's no catharsis.

774
01:18:34.880 --> 01:18:36.120
There's no closure.

775
01:18:37.240 --> 01:18:37.860
There's no

776
01:18:37.880 --> 01:18:41.080
Now just kind of some sort of a held thing.

777
01:18:41.140 --> 01:18:42.160
You're in process.

778
01:18:42.340 --> 01:18:43.280
You're in the middle of something.

779
01:18:43.420 --> 01:18:44.760
You're holding some state.

780
01:18:45.540 --> 01:18:46.760
You're holding some context.

781
01:18:49.680 --> 01:18:54.920
And sometimes that may just be a muscular thing.

782
01:18:55.640 --> 01:19:00.080
And that sort of regenerates when you wake up and so on.

783
01:19:00.340 --> 01:19:06.320
But sometimes that might get physically latched, like with a bad breakup or something.

784
01:19:09.440 --> 01:19:11.860
So yeah, I suspect that there's some of that.

785
01:19:12.860 --> 01:19:19.400
If you can never get closure, then maybe your body just latches it and says, okay, let's

786
01:19:19.400 --> 01:19:19.720
move on.

787
01:19:19.920 --> 01:19:21.260
Just treat it constantly.

788
01:19:21.640 --> 01:19:22.040
Got it.

789
01:19:23.200 --> 01:19:29.020
So slight tangent, but I've heard you mention the role of metabolic health in this as well.

790
01:19:29.280 --> 01:19:34.660
And I've recently been listening to some of Dr. Jack Cruz, who is a very controversial

791
01:19:34.660 --> 01:19:34.940
figure.

792
01:19:35.000 --> 01:19:36.440
But he has some interesting ideas around.

793
01:19:37.460 --> 01:19:37.860
He's a very controversial figure.

794
01:19:37.880 --> 01:19:42.060
He thinks that mitochondrial cells emit low levels of UV light and that sunlight also

795
01:19:42.060 --> 01:19:43.020
plays a crucial role.

796
01:19:43.460 --> 01:19:52.500
In your model, what is the role of metabolic health in the encouragement of latches to

797
01:19:52.500 --> 01:19:52.740
release?

798
01:19:53.500 --> 01:19:54.060
Sure.

799
01:19:54.620 --> 01:19:55.700
Yeah, that's a great question.

800
01:19:58.080 --> 01:20:00.000
Metabolic health I've really been getting

801
01:20:00.060 --> 01:20:25.740
into, and I think it's at the core of so much in health. And if you don't have energy, then you start to fall apart. And if you do have energy, like this is the right beat stuff that he has a very nice quote, as energy flows through tissue, order accumulates. And it's just that this flow of energy allows us to maintain ourselves.

802
01:20:25.740 --> 01:20:36.360
And to accumulate more order. Now, I think that metabolic health and vasocomputation are

803
01:20:37.520 --> 01:20:49.420
intimately linked. Because like the sort of latch solution, then okay, muscle can sort of

804
01:20:51.570 --> 01:20:55.720
be issued sort of freely cycling. And it takes a lot of energy,

805
01:20:55.740 --> 01:21:02.320
to freely cycle takes a lot of fuel. And, and actually, the contracted state is the

806
01:21:02.320 --> 01:21:09.220
metabolically insufficient state. If you like rigor mortis comes from, okay, you ran out of ATP.

807
01:21:10.860 --> 01:21:16.880
So yeah, really kind of a little counterintuitive. But so it actually,

808
01:21:17.020 --> 01:21:23.800
you know, in in one formulation, this and the details are a little complex, but it takes more

809
01:21:23.800 --> 01:21:25.240
energy to relax than that. And so, you know, it's, it's a little bit of a, it's a little bit of a,

810
01:21:25.240 --> 01:21:25.340
you know, it's a little bit of a, you know, it's a little bit of a, you know, it's a little bit of a,

811
01:21:26.400 --> 01:21:29.560
that's interesting. That's really interesting. I mean,

812
01:21:29.600 --> 01:21:34.240
that that applies to a lot of like stressed out type A people who struggle with relaxing.

813
01:21:34.720 --> 01:21:44.200
Totally. And I would also say, yeah, yeah. This, this idea of metabolic health too. Like,

814
01:21:44.960 --> 01:21:53.900
when the body is sort of bumping into metabolic insufficiency. When it's saying, okay, basically,

815
01:21:53.960 --> 01:21:55.720
we have rolling gratis.

816
01:21:55.740 --> 01:22:06.620
here uh in the body that one of the one of the core moves that it can do is it can sort of

817
01:22:06.620 --> 01:22:14.340
go from like this this muscle freely cycling state and it can just latch that muscle it then

818
01:22:14.340 --> 01:22:20.200
it doesn't have to spend energy to to hold things open or hold things shut it can just say okay

819
01:22:20.200 --> 01:22:28.060
let's set this lock now maybe it's not perfect maybe it's not ideal but we'll we'll deal with

820
01:22:28.060 --> 01:22:36.940
that later um it's cheaper because we can just sort of not have to pay the muscle

821
01:22:38.460 --> 01:22:47.200
and so i expect that you know if if you're and then if it's sort of latched pretty tight

822
01:22:47.960 --> 01:22:50.180
it's hard to get blood into the muscle

823
01:22:50.200 --> 01:22:58.900
the tissue and the blood would sort of you'd need the blood to pay for the metabolic cost

824
01:22:58.900 --> 01:23:06.980
of releasing the lat so it's right right right yeah that's such a fascinating insight that it

825
01:23:06.980 --> 01:23:13.980
takes more energy to be tense than it does to relax right that's that's incredible so i mean

826
01:23:13.980 --> 01:23:18.160
if someone is is really into sort of

827
01:23:21.000 --> 01:23:29.700
healing trauma release meditation all these things i think metabolic health is just going

828
01:23:29.700 --> 01:23:38.820
to be very centrally important that i mean you can you can sort of uh to to create the conditions

829
01:23:38.820 --> 01:23:46.500
for release uh it really helps if you're sort of above the waterline in terms of okay you you have

830
01:23:46.500 --> 01:23:50.180
more energy than than you absolutely need you can afford it and you can afford it and you can afford

831
01:23:50.200 --> 01:23:59.380
to uh that the body can kind of feel oh yeah like maybe i need to keep that slouch for this reason

832
01:23:59.380 --> 01:24:05.500
but at least metabolically speaking i can afford to relax and so then then at least you have

833
01:24:06.520 --> 01:24:13.280
the possibility of release whereas i think if if you're metabolically insufficient um

834
01:24:13.860 --> 01:24:19.880
i think basically you know you get a lot of random micro spasms in your vasomuscular system

835
01:24:20.200 --> 01:24:28.580
and you know this is a probably very important yeah it um it speaks to or reminds me of like

836
01:24:28.580 --> 01:24:34.700
the dieta kind of before ceremonies that is traditionally practiced um are there any specific

837
01:24:34.700 --> 01:24:41.060
um supplements or things that you think are supportive for people listening who might be

838
01:24:41.060 --> 01:24:45.140
engaged in in this type of work and might be curious like how do i increase my metabolic

839
01:24:45.140 --> 01:24:50.180
health and how can that also be measured is there some there's some objective way of doing that

840
01:24:50.200 --> 01:24:59.920
or is there some way of measuring that sure yeah the the best measurement um so i mean my my thought

841
01:25:00.000 --> 01:25:04.700
tends to go to the thyroid and markers of thyroid health.

842
01:25:04.960 --> 01:25:13.520
And the sort of mainstream way to do this is measuring TSH and T3, T4, etc.

843
01:25:13.880 --> 01:25:23.220
But the repeat crowd, which I would include myself in that, says that actually measuring

844
01:25:23.220 --> 01:25:28.020
your body temperature when you wake up is actually an even...

845
01:25:28.020 --> 01:25:32.100
It's practiced in Ayurvedic lineages as well.

846
01:25:32.440 --> 01:25:38.640
Nice. Yeah. Nice. And so just kind of tracking that over time would be great.

847
01:25:38.960 --> 01:25:52.820
In terms of metabolic health, I would say that most of the low-paying fruit, so as in everything in life,

848
01:25:53.500 --> 01:25:57.560
most of the low-paying fruit is in the form of stop eating yourself.

849
01:26:00.240 --> 01:26:06.660
And so I think it's mostly about removing things from your diet, from your environment,

850
01:26:07.500 --> 01:26:14.220
things that are... I think that I sort of buy the repeat view that

851
01:26:15.480 --> 01:26:22.220
people used to have much more active metabolisms, and now we've sort of become

852
01:26:25.000 --> 01:26:27.860
like body heat is I think

853
01:26:27.860 --> 01:26:33.320
I think a full degree Fahrenheit lower now than I was in 1870 or something.

854
01:26:34.740 --> 01:26:42.180
And I think that it's sort of the iceberg meme where you have the surface and then the

855
01:26:43.010 --> 01:26:51.280
next level, and you can keep going pretty far down metabolic metabolic health rabbit hole.

856
01:26:52.240 --> 01:26:52.860
Yeah.

857
01:26:54.880 --> 01:26:55.500
Yeah.

858
01:26:57.220 --> 01:26:57.840
Yeah.

859
01:26:57.860 --> 01:27:09.500
oils so it's sort of this idea that um oils that are generally made from seeds um are not

860
01:27:09.500 --> 01:27:17.500
particularly healthy uh they have forms of fat that are very reactive easy to oxidize

861
01:27:18.860 --> 01:27:29.600
and like humans are like for for cows you know whatever they eat uh they have four stomachs

862
01:27:29.600 --> 01:27:35.740
their remnants with with these four stomachs and then the bacteria in the stomach um like turns

863
01:27:35.740 --> 01:27:43.100
whatever fat that they eat into sort of cow fat uh iron such as fat and so on

864
01:27:44.520 --> 01:27:47.420
humans don't have four stomachs

865
01:27:47.500 --> 01:27:55.920
whatever forms of oil we eat we put into ourselves pretty much as is so it's not like

866
01:27:55.920 --> 01:28:02.780
proteins where we we eat something we break it down into amino acid building blocks and then

867
01:28:02.780 --> 01:28:08.920
we build proteins we need it's that we just grab a fat molecule and we use it

868
01:28:10.480 --> 01:28:15.780
and so if these fat molecules are um

869
01:28:15.780 --> 01:28:16.260
um

870
01:28:18.120 --> 01:28:19.560
particularly uh

871
01:28:21.640 --> 01:28:28.960
not ideal we could say uh if they're reactive if they break down in light if they uh

872
01:28:28.960 --> 01:28:37.500
are easily oxidized um if they aren't a good fit for for what we need then slowly

873
01:28:38.560 --> 01:28:46.660
we rebuild ourselves out of these sub substandard fat molecules so fat quality is important in ways

874
01:28:46.660 --> 01:28:47.320
that protein

875
01:28:48.500 --> 01:28:54.220
i mean for protein it's just you know get enough amino acids and uh you know there's

876
01:28:54.220 --> 01:29:00.840
are you that glycine is especially important and so on but for fat it's really

877
01:29:01.420 --> 01:29:11.580
you know you you become what you eat and the seed oil hypothesis is that um unsaturated fat and

878
01:29:11.580 --> 01:29:20.100
and especially polyunsaturated polyunsaturated fat or the the acronym is poof polyunsaturated fatty

879
01:29:20.100 --> 01:29:36.240
acid uh is particularly unhealthy and uh there's a lot of voices like very loud voices on on both

880
01:29:36.240 --> 01:29:41.300
sides that uh you know if you ask the the american heart association they'll say oh

881
01:29:41.300 --> 01:29:41.460
yeah

882
01:29:41.580 --> 01:29:48.600
you know uh unsaturated fat is better than saturated fat and i think that's deeply wrong

883
01:29:49.200 --> 01:29:54.320
and i think that um like if you want to focus on metabolic health

884
01:29:56.020 --> 01:30:00.000
uh a simple thing like replacing canola

885
01:30:00.400 --> 01:30:07.640
oil or corn oil or soybean oil or these sort of mainstream vegetable oils with coconut oil.

886
01:30:07.900 --> 01:30:08.860
That's a great book.

887
01:30:09.560 --> 01:30:15.360
Coconut oil is almost entirely saturated rather than proof.

888
01:30:18.180 --> 01:30:23.220
It's interesting that, almost maybe ironic, that a lot of meditation retreats,

889
01:30:23.220 --> 01:30:25.180
they will serve their food with seed oils.

890
01:30:25.180 --> 01:30:28.400
I've been to many where that's the case.

891
01:30:28.460 --> 01:30:30.700
It seems maybe very counterproductive.

892
01:30:31.140 --> 01:30:31.700
Yeah.

893
01:30:31.880 --> 01:30:34.960
And I think that's going to be surprisingly important.

894
01:30:36.200 --> 01:30:43.900
I think there's a real space to open up for a retreat center that is sort of like pro-med

895
01:30:43.900 --> 01:30:47.020
bald health, like explicitly this is the priority.

896
01:30:49.000 --> 01:30:55.160
If step one is not eating seed oils, there's many, many, many steps.

897
01:30:55.180 --> 01:30:58.020
But you can just go down the list.

898
01:30:58.300 --> 01:30:58.700
Yeah.

899
01:30:58.980 --> 01:30:59.380
Fascinating.

900
01:30:59.640 --> 01:31:05.360
Well, another kind of switching gears slightly topic that we briefly spoke about in California

901
01:31:06.580 --> 01:31:07.560
was polyvagal theory.

902
01:31:07.800 --> 01:31:16.980
And you shared that polyvagal theory is likely useful, practically useful, but kind of wrong

903
01:31:16.980 --> 01:31:18.220
in interesting ways.

904
01:31:18.400 --> 01:31:20.740
But I don't think we have time to kind of unpack what you meant by that.

905
01:31:20.800 --> 01:31:23.360
So I'm curious, in what ways do you think polyvagal...

906
01:31:23.360 --> 01:31:24.680
What does polyvagal theory get right?

907
01:31:24.780 --> 01:31:25.160
And what does it do?

908
01:31:25.180 --> 01:31:27.680
Was it kind of not quite...

909
01:31:27.680 --> 01:31:29.080
Was it Mr. Markham?

910
01:31:29.400 --> 01:31:30.000
Yeah.

911
01:31:30.080 --> 01:31:37.280
So I mean, the vagus nerve, it's kind of the wandering nerve, it's called, and sort of

912
01:31:37.880 --> 01:31:44.620
travels throughout, up through the spine and I think by one ear.

913
01:31:45.000 --> 01:31:45.440
Yep.

914
01:31:45.880 --> 01:31:53.400
And yeah, like vagal tone is, I would expect, centrally important throughout.

915
01:31:53.560 --> 01:31:54.760
I think that really...

916
01:31:55.180 --> 01:31:59.800
And then there's the sort of frame of...

917
01:32:00.700 --> 01:32:01.140
Okay.

918
01:32:02.660 --> 01:32:09.480
There's this very tonal and parasynthetic tone and kind of the side of the body.

919
01:32:09.900 --> 01:32:12.980
The audio has just gone kind of fuzzy and...

920
01:32:12.980 --> 01:32:13.380
Oh okay.

921
01:32:13.540 --> 01:32:14.220
How is this?

922
01:32:14.220 --> 01:32:15.140
That sounds better.

923
01:32:15.240 --> 01:32:15.360
Yeah.

924
01:32:15.760 --> 01:32:16.440
Okay, cool.

925
01:32:17.540 --> 01:32:18.040
That's great.

926
01:32:18.240 --> 01:32:18.800
All right.

927
01:32:20.320 --> 01:32:20.760
All right.

928
01:32:20.900 --> 01:32:25.160
think that um you know there's there's a

929
01:32:25.180 --> 01:32:36.020
lot to like in in this framing but it's not exactly a gears level approach i can't like there's

930
01:32:39.000 --> 01:32:46.400
little actionable physical mechanism involved like you know it's this it's like this meme you know

931
01:32:46.400 --> 01:32:53.300
is this polyvagal tone in the room with us right now i know and well

932
01:32:55.180 --> 01:33:02.640
maybe not uh we can't measure it we can't um like uh we can't directly manipulate it we can

933
01:33:02.640 --> 01:33:10.060
hypothesize that there is such a thing as polyvagal tone so i think i'm i'm most excited about um

934
01:33:10.940 --> 01:33:16.160
approaches that eventually will cash out in something physical something measurable something

935
01:33:16.160 --> 01:33:24.260
yeah me too me too and do you have a sense of um so one frame or concept from polyvagal theory that

936
01:33:24.260 --> 01:33:24.960
i find useful is

937
01:33:25.180 --> 01:33:31.060
this idea of the window of tolerance and also that we have they call it um dorsal shutdown

938
01:33:31.060 --> 01:33:36.320
it's kind of like one reactive mode and then like sympathetic overwhelm is kind of the other

939
01:33:36.320 --> 01:33:40.060
reactive mode when we're we're outside of the window of tolerance do you have a sense of

940
01:33:40.700 --> 01:33:45.460
what might be happening there and and is it connected to latches in in any in any way

941
01:33:46.080 --> 01:33:54.060
short answer is i'm not sure i i need to do my research there yeah okay um it it seems like

942
01:33:55.480 --> 01:34:00.460
the system almost get there's there's almost like too much energy in the system and it could be you

943
01:34:00.460 --> 01:34:06.580
know connected to an emotion um and when when this when the energy reaches what you mentioned earlier

944
01:34:06.580 --> 01:34:12.540
was like a temperature threshold then it tends to have like a protective reactive reaction which

945
01:34:12.540 --> 01:34:16.340
can either be to kind of like withdraw and go numb and collapse and shut down or it's like

946
01:34:16.340 --> 01:34:22.640
be aggressive and and attack but it seems to be connected with the temperature idea that you that

947
01:34:22.640 --> 01:34:24.660
you mentioned earlier yeah and

948
01:34:25.180 --> 01:34:29.940
i mean just in general like there's there's kind of a very odd trade-off in the nervous system where

949
01:34:31.000 --> 01:34:42.360
we will almost like somewhat reliably for pain and failure over uncertainty and ambivalence

950
01:34:42.360 --> 01:34:51.180
and like sometimes this manifests as like oh you sort of act to collapse the uncertainty

951
01:34:51.620 --> 01:34:54.980
and destroy the situation yeah um and

952
01:34:55.180 --> 01:34:59.220
like, why did you do that? That's not optimal, but we,

953
01:35:00.980 --> 01:35:03.120
honestly really hard to tolerate uncertainty.

954
01:35:03.560 --> 01:35:08.420
And is that because we are wired to minimize prediction errors in our system?

955
01:35:08.780 --> 01:35:09.700
I would say so.

956
01:35:11.140 --> 01:35:16.560
Beautiful. Well, I had one other question from, I think this was from Steven from

957
01:35:16.560 --> 01:35:25.560
the Jhanas or Jhana Tech. How has your work and theories been received in kind of the

958
01:35:25.560 --> 01:35:31.680
broader community? Have you had any interesting pushback from smart people also in theoretical

959
01:35:31.680 --> 01:35:32.100
neuroscience?

960
01:35:33.020 --> 01:35:46.840
Yeah. So I think that people seem cautious and very curious. So I was talking with

961
01:35:46.840 --> 01:35:55.100
Michael Levin last year and had a good chat about how maybe this kind of distributed stress

962
01:35:55.560 --> 01:36:05.720
optimization could extend to his work. And I think people kind of want this to be true. And

963
01:36:05.720 --> 01:36:16.760
like, are kind of looking and saying, okay, well, this is a nice, clean story. What's the next step?

964
01:36:16.840 --> 01:36:25.420
And what's the next step after that? And I'm kind of in the position of, well, there's a lot to do.

965
01:36:26.520 --> 01:36:37.900
One of me and I kind of want to to tell them more, like, the more full story first before I sort of

966
01:36:37.900 --> 01:36:38.940
get into anything.

967
01:36:40.780 --> 01:36:42.280
Very, very empirical.

968
01:36:42.420 --> 01:36:54.080
But I'm I guess trying to see if some outside groups will test this sort of density differential

969
01:36:54.080 --> 01:36:55.540
or double orienteering.

970
01:36:55.560 --> 01:36:57.840
ultrasound to find latches and so on.

971
01:36:59.060 --> 01:37:09.360
So I guess the feedback that I've got has actually all been positive, which tells me

972
01:37:09.360 --> 01:37:15.520
that maybe I need to be a little bit more aggressive at finding the feet of star.

973
01:37:15.520 --> 01:37:29.560
And I guess just to give the larger context, so vessel computation parallels the work

974
01:37:29.560 --> 01:37:34.560
of Moore and Cowell.

975
01:37:34.620 --> 01:37:40.600
They have this 2007, 2008 paper, The Hemodural Hypothesis.

976
01:37:40.880 --> 01:37:42.900
They don't talk at all about latches, though.

977
01:37:42.980 --> 01:37:45.320
They just talked about, okay, like blood flows.

978
01:37:45.520 --> 01:37:48.760
It seems to adjust the gain of neurons.

979
01:37:49.380 --> 01:38:01.780
And the latch bridge mechanism specifically seems to be the physiological feature that

980
01:38:01.780 --> 01:38:10.260
neuroscience forgot, that there's really no sort of sense in the neuroscience literature

981
01:38:10.260 --> 01:38:15.500
that this could be a deeply regulatory mechanism.

982
01:38:15.520 --> 01:38:18.040
In a computational sense, like this could regulate computation.

983
01:38:20.560 --> 01:38:29.420
And it's sort of building this no man's land that, okay, look, there's this sort of sense

984
01:38:29.420 --> 01:38:31.960
that blood flow is sort of important.

985
01:38:32.380 --> 01:38:37.080
And like Moore and Cowell show that, or I think they have Moore and Cowell, and then

986
01:38:37.080 --> 01:38:43.800
there's some follow-up papers that say that changes in blood flow actually precede changes

987
01:38:43.800 --> 01:38:44.420
in neural activity.

988
01:38:45.520 --> 01:38:46.220
And it's not that.

989
01:38:46.280 --> 01:38:47.080
That's fascinating.

990
01:38:47.840 --> 01:38:48.360
Yes.

991
01:38:48.920 --> 01:38:54.180
It's not that neurons do stuff and then the blood comes to pay for it.

992
01:38:54.240 --> 01:38:54.700
Yeah.

993
01:38:54.880 --> 01:38:59.300
It's the blood arrives first and then neurons change.

994
01:38:59.780 --> 01:39:07.600
And I mean, I would have imagined that neurons travel faster than blood flow, but I guess

995
01:39:07.600 --> 01:39:11.980
that it's still possible that the blood flow arises and then the neuronal changes happen.

996
01:39:12.580 --> 01:39:13.100
Right.

997
01:39:13.180 --> 01:39:15.260
I mean, that just seems like such a huge.

998
01:39:15.360 --> 01:39:15.500
Yeah.

999
01:39:15.520 --> 01:39:21.100
Insight that you'd think that would be more widely shared or known in like, that was the

1000
01:39:21.100 --> 01:39:22.220
first time I'd heard that.

1001
01:39:22.900 --> 01:39:23.180
Right.

1002
01:39:23.760 --> 01:39:24.320
Yeah.

1003
01:39:24.440 --> 01:39:25.020
That's wild.

1004
01:39:26.000 --> 01:39:26.560
Yeah.

1005
01:39:26.680 --> 01:39:34.360
And the second thing that I'd say about this is like, I'm pretty optimistic and it's sort

1006
01:39:34.360 --> 01:39:40.140
of, so I am learning how deeply political academic science is.

1007
01:39:40.300 --> 01:39:43.120
And I kind of, you know, it's.

1008
01:39:43.180 --> 01:39:43.740
Oh.

1009
01:39:44.440 --> 01:39:45.000
Yeah.

1010
01:39:45.600 --> 01:39:53.940
And I've said about that, but I would say that I'm very optimistic that like this sort

1011
01:39:53.940 --> 01:39:59.940
of free energy principle, active inference, sort of sense

1012
01:40:00.000 --> 01:40:05.360
that, well, we have predictions and minimizing prediction error.

1013
01:40:05.560 --> 01:40:12.020
It's like the nervous system is a prediction machine and minimizing prediction error can

1014
01:40:12.020 --> 01:40:13.920
be done through making better predictions.

1015
01:40:15.440 --> 01:40:22.000
And it can also be done through making predictions and then acting in the world to make them

1016
01:40:22.000 --> 01:40:22.200
true.

1017
01:40:24.280 --> 01:40:38.880
And I'm incredibly optimistic about vasocomputation offering the physical substrate for the predictions.

1018
01:40:39.480 --> 01:40:48.340
The clench and like a clench in some network is a prediction that you're sort of holding

1019
01:40:48.340 --> 01:40:49.080
something constant.

1020
01:40:49.280 --> 01:40:51.380
You will naturally act in the world.

1021
01:40:52.200 --> 01:40:56.420
To make that true, to sort of relieve stress on this.

1022
01:40:59.000 --> 01:41:06.040
And sometimes you latch a prediction and then you might call that something like a strongly

1023
01:41:06.040 --> 01:41:07.880
held prior about the world.

1024
01:41:08.960 --> 01:41:20.240
And I think the free energy principle active inference framework is this absolutely beautiful

1025
01:41:20.240 --> 01:41:21.340
mathematical structure.

1026
01:41:22.560 --> 01:41:26.280
It's, you know, I won't say perfect, but it's magnificent.

1027
01:41:27.340 --> 01:41:30.180
But it doesn't talk about anatomy.

1028
01:41:31.040 --> 01:41:35.560
It's, you know, you can take a look at this and well, can we see the prediction errors

1029
01:41:35.560 --> 01:41:42.020
on EEG on fMRI and like there are some like loose approaches to do that.

1030
01:41:42.100 --> 01:41:48.000
But I'm very optimistic that well actually it's vascular tension.

1031
01:41:49.780 --> 01:41:51.560
Every piece of vascular tension.

1032
01:41:52.200 --> 01:41:57.160
He's implicitly prediction and every prediction we can find in vascular tension.

1033
01:41:57.700 --> 01:42:04.800
And I think that this could potentially take the framework from sort of something that

1034
01:42:04.800 --> 01:42:13.280
really smart neuroscientists talk about to wow, like let's scan someone and find their

1035
01:42:13.280 --> 01:42:19.360
latches and like we can figure out exactly what their nervous system is predicting.

1036
01:42:19.840 --> 01:42:20.580
Totally.

1037
01:42:22.200 --> 01:42:28.620
And one of the thought experiments that I had the other day was like, so I studied innovation

1038
01:42:28.620 --> 01:42:31.680
prizes and economics like a long time ago.

1039
01:42:31.760 --> 01:42:37.400
And I was wondering like, you know, if someone were to put up a half a million dollar prize,

1040
01:42:39.400 --> 01:42:46.420
what do you think the specific, the most useful innovation would be that would enable the

1041
01:42:46.420 --> 01:42:49.940
blood flow tracking in smooth muscle reflex to exist?

1042
01:42:50.280 --> 01:42:52.180
And, you know, it could be called like the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

1043
01:42:52.200 --> 01:42:53.320
the body scorecard prize.

1044
01:42:53.520 --> 01:43:02.460
Like, but I do, I mean, I feel like this would be insanely, insanely useful if yes.

1045
01:43:02.560 --> 01:43:08.160
So, so let's say like reset, like a team of innovators, people came to you, 20 people

1046
01:43:08.160 --> 01:43:10.260
that like, okay, Mike, we're gonna, we're gonna do this thing.

1047
01:43:10.340 --> 01:43:12.340
What, what, what direction would you point them in?

1048
01:43:12.400 --> 01:43:17.360
Like what would be the most useful thing that they could design that would be able to scan

1049
01:43:17.360 --> 01:43:17.820
people?

1050
01:43:18.220 --> 01:43:18.580
Sure.

1051
01:43:18.660 --> 01:43:19.020
Nice.

1052
01:43:19.560 --> 01:43:19.920
Yeah.

1053
01:43:20.040 --> 01:43:20.600
Great question.

1054
01:43:22.200 --> 01:43:29.320
So I would, I would frame this in terms of distinct steps and step one would be create

1055
01:43:29.320 --> 01:43:37.940
a blood flow of a body and and then like step 1.5 would be okay.

1056
01:43:38.000 --> 01:43:49.820
And then like do PTSD sufferers have you know, dropouts on this map and do you know, highly

1057
01:43:49.820 --> 01:43:50.420
accomplished

1058
01:43:50.950 --> 01:43:51.320
Yeah.

1059
01:43:52.620 --> 01:43:59.740
Meditators have light spots on this map that where everyone else has a dark spot, they

1060
01:44:00.180 --> 01:44:02.400
have normal flow.

1061
01:44:03.820 --> 01:44:12.900
And then I think step two would be, well, can you, can you induce like, you know, can

1062
01:44:12.900 --> 01:44:19.820
you take something like ultrasound, which, uh, I'm told, um, like the effects of ultrasound

1063
01:44:19.820 --> 01:44:20.720
on neurons.

1064
01:44:21.140 --> 01:44:22.180
Um, there are.

1065
01:44:22.200 --> 01:44:28.200
There are various stories about how that works and the stories are kind of loose and perfect.

1066
01:44:29.320 --> 01:44:39.600
Um, that yeah, ultrasound has, uh, effects on populations of neurons, but it's not a

1067
01:44:39.600 --> 01:44:49.200
precision thing of changing, uh, neurons in exactly this way or that, but that said ultrasound

1068
01:44:50.000 --> 01:44:51.460
seems even better.

1069
01:44:52.200 --> 01:45:00.000
Uh, or like using muscle cells as, as targets, like the there of how it

1070
01:45:00.220 --> 01:45:20.560
affects muscle cells is more clear. It can be more precise when used to target muscles. And so, you know, there's all this interest in focused ultrasound and its magnificent technology. But I just think that basically everyone is targeting the wrong kind of cell.

1071
01:45:22.480 --> 01:45:50.540
And, you know, I think once we collectively realize that or, you know, certain groups realize that, I think we could be off to the races in terms of okay, well, if we can make a map, can we start popping these latches and then entity the safety protocol for okay, well, sometimes these latches exist for a reason. And like, you know,

1072
01:45:50.560 --> 01:46:00.380
maybe like the buddhist process grows different kinds of virtue where you need to have in place

1073
01:46:00.380 --> 01:46:08.760
before you uplatch so like there's not just the buddhist process but like um yeah just like

1074
01:46:08.760 --> 01:46:15.240
the emotional fluidity stuff and and just kind of nervous system yeah i i mean that that would be

1075
01:46:15.240 --> 01:46:18.880
that would be my dream in that in the same way that you can go to hospital today and

1076
01:46:20.560 --> 01:46:24.660
they'll tell you if you have a broken leg or you can do a scan and you see if you have the early

1077
01:46:24.660 --> 01:46:30.980
signs of a cancer tumor like you could also you know have a scan of your blood flow and see where

1078
01:46:30.980 --> 01:46:35.360
are these like go latch hunting like you said and find out where the latches are and then your

1079
01:46:35.360 --> 01:46:40.820
kind of somatic work could be so much more focused and targeted to that particular area

1080
01:46:41.260 --> 01:46:47.820
obviously with all the caveats of creating safety and ideally having someone to hold space with you

1081
01:46:47.820 --> 01:46:50.540
while you do this exploration but i mean i think that's the thing that i'm trying to do is i'm

1082
01:46:51.560 --> 01:46:58.720
would really put somatic work kind of on the map and have mainstream scientists and people take it

1083
01:46:58.720 --> 01:47:03.540
seriously because right now people seem to say well this thing seems to work but because we

1084
01:47:03.540 --> 01:47:06.620
don't really understand it we're not really going to integrate it into our paradigm so we're just

1085
01:47:06.620 --> 01:47:14.360
going to leave it over here uh yeah it feels incredibly exciting to me nice yeah and then

1086
01:47:14.360 --> 01:47:22.300
yeah it's then it's also like 11 leveling up as researcher as practitioner dealers whatever

1087
01:47:22.300 --> 01:47:29.540
and like it's it's not the case that just kind of popping a latch is always a good thing and

1088
01:47:29.540 --> 01:47:35.980
only good things will happen if we do that um i think you know for example cyclic shows that well

1089
01:47:35.980 --> 01:47:43.200
sometimes good things happen and sometimes people have a have a rough time um but i think it's like

1090
01:47:44.700 --> 01:47:52.960
this is i find a promising way for the field to grow yeah i i feel like the the people that don't

1091
01:47:52.960 --> 01:47:58.140
have a good time so to speak it's more because the latch is like forced open as opposed to a more

1092
01:47:58.620 --> 01:48:06.420
gentle kind of invitational approach yeah yeah yeah beautiful um is there anything else that

1093
01:48:06.420 --> 01:48:11.900
is alive for you that you'd like to share or talk about before we begin to begin to close

1094
01:48:11.900 --> 01:48:13.940
uh i think we covered a lot

1095
01:48:16.580 --> 01:48:16.980
there's

1096
01:48:18.460 --> 01:48:25.400
uh yeah i guess uh nothing that can't wait until part two okay beautiful well i have a few quick

1097
01:48:25.400 --> 01:48:30.340
rapid fire questions and then we'll uh we'll wrap this up the first question is if you were to

1098
01:48:30.340 --> 01:48:36.640
define an emotion in relatively simple terms what might you say i would define an emotion as

1099
01:48:38.440 --> 01:48:42.540
a low frequency resonance in the earth which

1100
01:48:45.480 --> 01:48:54.140
essentially functionally acts as a bayesian prior for all the the higher frequency uh resonances

1101
01:48:54.140 --> 01:49:00.080
in the body what is one idea in neuroscience that you disagree with or you think is given

1102
01:49:00.080 --> 01:49:04.460
too much weight basically every single way we're using neuroimaging

1103
01:49:04.460 --> 01:49:14.000
i could go down the list but but it's all like good good technology but oh well

1104
01:49:14.360 --> 01:49:18.960
sometimes uh but i think that um we need better sort of foundational stories

1105
01:49:20.080 --> 01:49:24.900
what is one book or paper that you've read that disproportionately impacted your thinking

1106
01:49:25.440 --> 01:49:32.380
the free and free principle by firston it was a very brilliant paper what is one question or

1107
01:49:32.380 --> 01:49:41.660
direction that is very alive in your research currently um how to

1108
01:49:42.420 --> 01:49:43.780
how to

1109
01:49:45.340 --> 01:49:54.160
how to heal people and i i think that's kind of uh kind of obvious but um i just think it's

1110
01:49:54.160 --> 01:50:00.000
it's not too obvious to repeat what is your heart's greatest aspiration or

1111
01:50:00.180 --> 01:50:05.360
vision that you have for your research and your work in the world for the years and decades to come?

1112
01:50:05.740 --> 01:50:08.460
So I'm going to give a slightly longer answer to that.

1113
01:50:08.640 --> 01:50:09.100
Please.

1114
01:50:09.780 --> 01:50:18.600
Research tends to be... It's sort of in three families right now. There's the first

1115
01:50:18.600 --> 01:50:26.300
branch, which is my philosophical research. And so I wrote this book, Reciproqualia.

1116
01:50:28.000 --> 01:50:32.040
Probably the big result from the book was the symmetry theory of valence.

1117
01:50:33.740 --> 01:50:38.080
And I think that that's going to be very important for sort of,

1118
01:50:38.660 --> 01:50:46.560
quote unquote, solving consciousness. And I talked about that in a recent paper in the summer.

1119
01:50:47.960 --> 01:50:56.720
It was kind of entitled, A Paradigm for AI Consciousness. So the first branch is very

1120
01:50:57.940 --> 01:51:01.560
metaphysical. What is consciousness? What is pleasure?

1121
01:51:03.040 --> 01:51:12.300
The second branch was more thermodynamic. It's narrow kneeling. It's sort of taking a look at

1122
01:51:12.300 --> 01:51:19.600
music, meditation, psychedelics, has increasing energy parameter, the temp parameter of the

1123
01:51:19.600 --> 01:51:24.340
brain of the nervous system. And then sort of implications thereof.

1124
01:51:26.480 --> 01:51:30.680
And the third big branch now is vasocomputation.

1125
01:51:31.940 --> 01:51:36.420
It's, okay, maybe there's a very simple systems decomposition

1126
01:51:37.580 --> 01:51:39.780
where we take this complex thing

1127
01:51:39.780 --> 01:51:43.800
and it's actually made of two much, much simpler things.

1128
01:51:44.120 --> 01:51:45.420
There's the nervous system

1129
01:51:45.420 --> 01:51:48.640
and then there's the vasomuscular regulation of this.

1130
01:51:50.680 --> 01:51:56.200
And so setting aside the second branch for now,

1131
01:51:56.480 --> 01:52:02.760
I would say that I really want to make sure

1132
01:52:03.500 --> 01:52:06.180
we're sort of headed into a future

1133
01:52:06.180 --> 01:52:09.580
with lots of good consciousness,

1134
01:52:10.200 --> 01:52:11.780
lots of good quality, we could say.

1135
01:52:12.660 --> 01:52:14.080
So for the first branch,

1136
01:52:15.900 --> 01:52:18.680
these are the foundational question of

1137
01:52:18.680 --> 01:52:21.020
what is the domain of value?

1138
01:52:21.160 --> 01:52:23.200
And if consciousness is the domain of value,

1139
01:52:23.320 --> 01:52:24.080
then like,

1140
01:52:24.120 --> 01:52:24.900
okay,

1141
01:52:27.620 --> 01:52:28.660
what is good?

1142
01:52:28.680 --> 01:52:29.440
What is a good feeling?

1143
01:52:29.700 --> 01:52:30.600
What is bad feeling?

1144
01:52:30.700 --> 01:52:31.960
What makes things pleasant?

1145
01:52:32.080 --> 01:52:32.880
What makes things unpleasant?

1146
01:52:34.600 --> 01:52:36.660
I think it's going to be important for the future

1147
01:52:36.660 --> 01:52:39.200
in ways that I haven't really expressed yet,

1148
01:52:39.300 --> 01:52:41.400
but maybe kind of obvious.

1149
01:52:42.680 --> 01:52:46.800
And then for this branch, vasocomputation,

1150
01:52:49.460 --> 01:52:55.580
I think systematizing the healing of trauma

1151
01:52:57.240 --> 01:53:02.480
and sort of not just getting people up to normal,

1152
01:53:02.740 --> 01:53:06.000
but how far can we get them past normal?

1153
01:53:06.280 --> 01:53:09.460
And I think classical Buddhist enlightenment

1154
01:53:09.460 --> 01:53:14.820
is an absolutely beautiful existence proof and a recipe for,

1155
01:53:16.930 --> 01:53:19.460
yeah, like really good states exist.

1156
01:53:20.690 --> 01:53:22.100
And then the question is, well,

1157
01:53:23.820 --> 01:53:26.060
how do we very respectfully,

1158
01:53:26.480 --> 01:53:29.240
and carefully get people there?

1159
01:53:30.140 --> 01:53:31.260
Beautiful, beautiful.

1160
01:53:31.940 --> 01:53:34.000
Mike, this has been such a pleasure.

1161
01:53:34.300 --> 01:53:36.940
I'm so, so grateful that you took the time

1162
01:53:36.940 --> 01:53:38.160
for this conversation.

1163
01:53:38.340 --> 01:53:42.420
And I'm deeply excited for the impact

1164
01:53:42.420 --> 01:53:46.280
and the ripple effects for your curiosity

1165
01:53:46.280 --> 01:53:47.440
and for this work.

1166
01:53:47.720 --> 01:53:50.400
And I hope that there are researchers

1167
01:53:50.400 --> 01:53:52.580
and people with means who listen to this

1168
01:53:52.580 --> 01:53:53.520
and they're like, okay,

1169
01:53:53.560 --> 01:53:55.920
these ideas need to be shared more broadly.

1170
01:53:56.480 --> 01:53:58.740
And I think that we need to apply more resources

1171
01:53:58.740 --> 01:54:01.460
into these directions because to my sense,

1172
01:54:01.740 --> 01:54:06.100
this feels like one of the most important questions

1173
01:54:06.100 --> 01:54:07.960
or problems that we could be tackling.

1174
01:54:09.140 --> 01:54:10.800
So I'm really grateful to you

1175
01:54:10.800 --> 01:54:14.620
for just following your curiosity down so many rabbit holes

1176
01:54:15.460 --> 01:54:18.280
and coming back with some just truly beautiful theories

1177
01:54:18.280 --> 01:54:18.620
and ideas.

1178
01:54:19.080 --> 01:54:20.300
So thank you.

1179
01:54:20.320 --> 01:54:21.300
Thank you so much for your time.

1180
01:54:21.560 --> 01:54:22.780
Yeah, my pleasure.

1181
01:54:22.880 --> 01:54:23.320
Thank you.

1182
01:54:23.880 --> 01:54:26.460
Where can listeners, where can they find you?

1183
01:54:26.480 --> 01:54:29.460
Read, where would be the best place for listeners

1184
01:54:29.460 --> 01:54:30.980
to kind of learn more about your work

1185
01:54:30.980 --> 01:54:32.540
and to kind of read your papers in more depth?

1186
01:54:33.460 --> 01:54:35.680
Everything is available on my website,

1187
01:54:36.340 --> 01:54:37.220
opentheory.net.

1188
01:54:37.400 --> 01:54:40.300
And you can click best of if you want some highlights.

1189
01:54:41.060 --> 01:54:41.500
Perfect.

1190
01:54:41.660 --> 01:54:44.600
So I love to close with a line from Rilke.

1191
01:54:45.260 --> 01:54:48.400
He said, try to love the questions themselves

1192
01:54:49.060 --> 01:54:50.060
and live them now.

1193
01:54:50.640 --> 01:54:53.160
Perhaps you will then gradually without noticing it,

1194
01:54:53.720 --> 01:54:55.160
live your way into the answer.

1195
01:54:56.480 --> 01:54:57.300
And with that in mind,

1196
01:54:57.300 --> 01:54:59.200
what is the question that is most alive

1197
01:54:59.200 --> 01:55:00.000
in your consciousness

1198
01:55:00.000 --> 01:55:03.160
consciousness right now and what question might you leave our listeners with?

1199
01:55:03.800 --> 01:55:12.160
I think the question I have is, and I'm sorry to bring this up and not answer it,

1200
01:55:13.020 --> 01:55:21.140
but I think we build our reality, we build our inner world out of what we learn how to stabilize.

1201
01:55:25.040 --> 01:55:33.380
And how exactly does that stabilization happen in the nervous system? That's my question that I'm

1202
01:55:33.380 --> 01:55:39.460
answering right now. Well, I've opened enough latches to be able to sit with that uncertainty,

1203
01:55:39.600 --> 01:55:47.380
I think. Mike, thank you. Thank you so, so much. Really appreciate you and just

1204
01:55:48.120 --> 01:55:50.960
super grateful for this conversation. Thanks, Sean. It's my honor.

1205
01:55:52.380 --> 01:55:57.040
I hope you enjoyed this conversation. It would mean a lot to me if you could take a few

1206
01:55:57.040 --> 01:56:02.400
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1207
01:56:03.580 --> 01:56:08.040
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1208
01:56:08.040 --> 01:56:13.700
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1209
01:56:13.700 --> 01:56:19.180
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1210
01:56:19.180 --> 01:56:21.120
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1211
01:56:21.140 --> 01:56:24.860
Thanks for listening.